I’m posting late tonight cause I’m still at the office burning CD’s. The time change has kind of messed with me and it feels later than it is.

I had my last kickball game on Friday. Our team came in 4th place of four teams in the league. The only team to not win a single game. Although our team may have had the worst record we definitely had the most fun. After the game we headed over to Rome’s for the season finale party. At the party I received the booby award for the most dropped fly balls. The award was a bag of Butterfinger bars. Many on my team said “I didn’t deserve the award” but the league director said “it was a unanimous decision”. I wasn’t sure whether to take any of that as a compliment or not. The league was tons of fun and I’m looking forward to playing next spring. Hopefully it won’t be on Fridays.

On Saturday I cleaned house for a while and then did some grocery shopping. Afterwards I went to and got a new stereo for my car. The stereo is sweet, detachable face, plays .mp3’s, etc. Problem is, those fucko’s at Best Buy said it would be installed by 7:30. It ended up taking till 10:00 and the still haven’t got it totally installed correctly and I have to take it in later during the week. I did get a free pair of speakers and free installation out of the deal though.

On Sunday I went over to my brothers for breakfast. He fixed us all shit-on-a-shingle. It was delish. Then I went to the new super target. That place is so excessive yet so cheap. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning up my apartment.

Tomorrow I have a special visitor coming into town. Chances are I won’t type anything here for the rest of the week. Have a happy Halloween everyone!

The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) here in Boulder, Colorado has issued an alert. The alert states that recently there have been large solar explosions (coronal mass ejections is what the scientisits call them) on the sun. These flares are creating large x-ray bursts. The SEC (Space Environment Center) issues alerts at the M5 (5×10E-5 Watts/m2) and X1 (1×10E-4 Watts/m2) levels. As you can see here, this has happened three times in the past two days. Below is a photo of one of todays flares. Here is a great video (mpeg), constantly updated, of the suns activity.

There have been over 18 alerts given by the SEC during the last two days for large x-ray and radiowave bursts. Strong solar radio bursts (those M5 and greater) may cause major disruptions in satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems (thus knocking out electric power), high frequency communications, and navigation systems. High altitude aircraft crews and passengers on polar routs are also susceptible to radiation hazards during similar events. However, there is one cool bonus effect of coronal mass ejections…

I got my haircut last night. It’s been a while. My head feels nice and cool now though. The stylist was smokin’, I was too intmidated to carry a conversation.

My microwave brokedown on me last night. Right in middle of warming up some left over pizza for dinner. I ended up having to use the stove. This took a little longer but made it so the crust wasn’t all rubbery.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a couple dollar bills in my wallet with the web address www.wheresgeorge.com on it. At this website you register the serial number of that particular bill in order to track it weher ever it may go. An email alert lets you know if anyone has found the bill and entered it into their database. Two days later, 58 miles away in Colorado Springs, sombody came across one of the three bills I started and entered it.

In other sad news: Apparently Elliot Smith has died. It totally doesn’t surprise me that he stabbed himself in the chest.

Because I was out of clean boxers yesterday, I wore tighty whiteys to work. This is the last time that will happen. If I’m ever caught in the same situation again, I’m going comando or just wearing dirty boxers.

plop

I left work early Friday to go argue with the phone people. The telecom and cable companies are the worst customer service industries I have run into. Please do not use AT&T (And SoundTrack sucks too. Please do not use them either).

We lost at kickball again Friday. We are now the worst team in history, having not won a single game all season. We have one last chance to redeem ourselves next the weekend, a fight for third and fourth place. I left my camera at the bar. Thankfully someone found it cause it has some important pictures on it. After Romes I went to uptown to celebrate a friend/acquaintance’s birthday. Most of the time I was the only guy at the table. I though Leber would be there but the wasn’t. The conversation was interesting and consisted of a lot of porn talk.

Saturday I slept in, cleaned very little, laid on the couch very lot. In the evening I went over to my brothers for a sushi rolling party. We made way too much but it was really good. Everyone got to make several rolls using whatever ingredients they wanted to. Lots of hot sake and budweiser. Towards the end of the night we watched the new Janes Addiction dvd then went to The Lounge. The Lounge is relatively new and really cool. It’s all separated into separate rooms that are filled with couches and cushy chairs and low light. One of the rooms has a fireplace. It also has a great patio. We got a little rambunctious and started tipping chairs over toward the end of the night so it was no surprise when my brother was carried out of the bar by his collar and thrown out the door (he landed on his feet though) for heal-kicking a tired and agitated bouncer. Everyone in the bar was totally just laughing at the bouncer, including my brother, for completely overreacting to such a stupid thing. One group thought it was so funny they invited us over for an after-hours party. We decided against it.

On Sunday we went over to the Trout family’s and watch football, drank grolsches, and ate chicken wings and port wine cheese and chili. Afterwards I went back to my brothers. We sat around and drank red wine and listened to Bright Eyes while crawfish stuffed bell peppers were being cooked on the stove. Then we finished watching the remainder of the janes addiction dvd. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it all.

fizz

I remember the carpet in my elementary school. It was that short kind of carpet: cut low to the floor. You know, that commercial/industrial strength carpet, you probably have it your office. I do. I’m sure some chemical or textile company had developed it particularly to withstand the 1000’s of muddied, sneakered, stomping feet.

Of course we were made to scrape the mud off our feet before we were allowed to the drinking fountains after recess. But it often did little good. Sometimes, while sitting in a group in front of the teacher as she read Where The Red Fern Grows or The Bridge To Terabithia or some such nonsense, I would try and peel large chunks of dried mud from the tread in my sneakers. Trying to keep the chunks as large as I could without breaking them, so they would end up being a cast of the shape, design, and pattern of the tread of my cool new kicks. After examining my cast and then breaking it into little pieces and pebbles and dust, I’d simply leave the dirt there on the carpet.

The carpet was glued, it seemed, straight onto the concrete pad, almost as if it were a part of the cinderblock building’s foundation. It seemed as unyielding as the cement it was bonded to. This carpet had the ability to give you the worst rug burns ever. It had no give and could peel away the first layers of skin faster than sandpaper. I remember we would rub a pencil eraser, or the round butt end of a bic pen, as fast as we could on the carpet. The friction heated up the eraser/pen to such a degree that it had the ability to burn you and leave a bright red mark. This was a great trick for unsuspecting foes and a strange rite of passage given to close friends.

Occasionally, actually, quite often, some poor child would be brought to school ill, or would have a stomach problem, or anxiety, or bad food, and would throw up on the carpet. Everyone would gross out while the poor child’s teacher, or an aid, would come to console them and take them down to the clinic. The janitor would then come out of his closet to clean it up the best he could. After some hosing and mopping, he would then sprinkle some sort powder that smelt like mint bubble gum on the carpet, I presume to absorb both the acid fluids and the odor. Later on he would come and clean the carpet with a vacuum and you would never know that some unfortunate seven year old lost his insides there.

Sometimes there would be pieces of the carpet that had been damaged. Little pieces of it, about the size of quarters. The chunks would be smooth and black like glass. I think they were either caused by melting, or possibly chewing gum that has been ground into its tiny fibers for years.

The carpet was mostly orange but had a little brown in it. It covered the entire floor of the school: classrooms, library, offices, and even during my early elementary years, the gymnasium. This was unfortunate because the gymnasium was also the cafeteria. I have no clue as to how many cartons of milk, bowls of peaches, cups of cottage cheese or blobs of ketchup were dropped and left to sit (please don’t tell the aid that I spilt my juice again, she always yells at me) on that carpet. But if the stench that it held was any indication, it was a LOT. A putrid smell of leaked, trickled, dropped and dumped slop having sat stagnant and unable to be completely, or even partially, cleaned. Rancid in the carpet for who knows how long. I bet I could still instantly recognize the peculiar sour bouquet of lunch-carpet. We played basketball, dodgeball, and danced on that gymnasium/cafeteria floor. But when we did tumbling and gymnastics our gym teacher put mats down. By the time I was in 6th grade they replaced the gym with regular wood, basketball-court-style floors.

“…I am, in all things, an underachiever, bound by nature to wrestle with the dull unanswerable and then give up, to the benefit of no one…”

A plain white cover with simply the Authors name, Benjamin Anastas, and the words An Underachiever’s Diary on it were so appealing, I bought the book without knowing anything about it. Benjamin Anastas’ novella is not an awe-inspiring work of fictional literature, but it is an (deceptively) light, short, enjoyable read – particularly after having just read this behemoth. In fact there are times when the writing is excellent and the story bounces along hitting off of other literary works and social commentaries made by those such as Freud, Dostoevsky (particularly Notes From The Underground), and Thoreau. Anastas’ ability to put both humor and humanity into most the sullen of characters can be attributed to his sound writing ability.

William, a self-proclaimed underachiever, gives the first person narration. William’s tales starts at his birth, which is significant because he was born seven minutes before his twin brother Clive, the last time he will ever be first at anything. Clive, is William’s antagonist and opposite. Clive is successful, charming, social skilled and an overachiever. The story continues through William’s childhood where he is slow to learn how to walk, talk, and get potty trained. Through his adolescence he is constantly in poor health with a long series of illnesses and injuries. His Jr. high years bring social awkwardness and the trials of sexual discovery both of which he is a miserable failure, but at this point in his life his begins to accept his calling as an underachiever. He puts himself into boarding school and soon finds himself at a “third rate” college in the Northeast. He spends five years lost in keg beer and failed relationships but he develops a philosophy along with a pride in being an underachiever. He soon relishes his ability to be unsuccessful and actually put himself in situations in order to fail. Eventually William comes to terms with his station in life and learns to cull faith and understanding from his flaws, a characteristic his “perfect” brother was never able to do. He acquires an ability to appreciate the broken and defective nature of humankind. The remainder of the novella that involves his adult life (failing at numerous jobs and eventually joining a cult) I found rather dull and a bit contrived. In addition the book ends somewhat flatly.

Anastas does a great job of describing Williams feelings. So much so that even the most successful will relate to him in some way. And as a thirty-year old myself (Williams age in the novella), I can help but look back on my life on occasion and wonder if I have achieved my potential. Anastas seems to be asking us to evaluate, or reevaluate what it means to be successful in life. All of us have a little under achiever in us somewhere. And I find myself a lot closer to William than Clive these days. Which is better, paltry happiness or sublime suffering?

After I got off of work yesterday I went over to Govorners Park. I’m not a huge fan of this place cause it seems to have such a yuppyish afterwork type crowd (so…what kind of car do you drive?) but I don’t mind it, it can be fun sometimes and the beers are huge. I met a few friends there and watched the cubbies lose. I had a few drinks and and a plate full of cocnut shrimp (mmmm come here my little shrimpy and let me eat you) with coleslaw that was turbo good (you know who you are) but damn expensive. Fortunately my beer was pretty much paid for cause Leber was trying to get his wife to stop drinking and so he gave me her beer everytime she ordered a 2-for-1. That worked out great. Of course it sucked when I had to wake up early this morning for a meeting out by the airport. Mel offered me the key to her condo up in Grandby for when Jami is out here. Her and Leber were really intent (=drunk) on me taking her up there while shes in town which was really nice of them. We’ll see if we have the time or inclanation when she gets here.

Some of girls at the bar told me it’s nearly impossible to find a man that is worth keeping around. I wasn’t surpised to hear this.

Yesterday I got all excited because my landlord called me at work to tell me I had a FedEx package that had been sitting in her office for the last week. All day I was dreaming about what might have been in it and who may have sent it to me. When I opened it up, it turned out that is was just a letter from Fidelity Investments telling me I better put money into my leveraged brokerage account or they were going to liquidate some of my securities. That was a bit of a let down.

Our kickball team lost again on Friday. We haven’t won a game yet. And the regular season is now over. We went the entire season without winning a game. But we all had so much fun and everybody is finally starting to catch on. The team is starting to gel. It’s actually kind of fun being co-captain of the worst team in the league because every buys beer for you cause they feel sorry for you. We still have two weeks worth of playoffs so there is a slim chance we may win one of those games (very slim). In addition several people in the league had tossed around the idea of a dodgeball league for wintertime. I hope it ends up being a go. I really hope we can find an elementary or jr. high school gym that will let us use their facilities. I had a late night at Romes with the league after the game.

On Saturday I spent much of the morning lazing around. I took a long lunch at Wahoos and read my new book. Then I came home and spent a couple hours on the couch talking on the phone. After a short nap my brother called to see if I wanted to come over for drinks for Bran’s birthday. First, about six of us went out to Tommy’s Thai. While waiting for a table we went next door to the PS Lounge and great wood paneled, smoky, vinyl seated, dive bar that gives out free plastic roses to the ladies and free Alabama Slammers to everyone! We then had a wonderfully obnoxious dinner complete with spilt beer, hot mustard coming out of the nose, and a drunk combsy that couldn’t tell when you were making fun of him or if the entire restaurant could hear him. We then decided to skip the gallery opening and went straight over to our friends for the B-day party. After everyone had been at the party for a bit, it was decided we should go out to the bar. We all went to the Streets Of London Pub, a weird, lime-green, strip-mall bar that attracts the tatooed, vespa riding crowd with the cateye glasses (read Daves review of it here if you got the time). From here the usual happened: bargaining cigarettes for mardigras masks, singing Lynard Skynard and Journey into bottles of budwieser, being told by tiny women that if I wanted to play pool I’d have to fight her and then her running over to me to tell me they were joking when a fight in the bar actually did break out, hanging out with artists my brother knew that were in town for this gallery opening and other Saturday night stuff that seems to happen around this crowd. The evening end with me crashing into a crowded futon at my brothers house.

Sunday was a long day. Mostly because I was exhausted and had slept in my contacts. After sleeping late in late me and my brother and his girlfriend went over to my dads to watch the Denver Donkeys on the TV, shoot the shit, and eat buffalo wings. I fell asleep on the soft carpet (a luxury when you live with hardwood floors). Dad and his lady fixed us a great dinner and we then we went home. I was asleep before 10:00, again.

I fell asleep at 9:00 PM last night and forgot to set my alarm. I didn’t wake up till 8:00 AM this morning. Man that felt good. I think I’m pretty caught up on the sleep debt now.

I also have absolutely no plans for the weekend. Well I guess kickball tonight. Maybe I’ll go watch some football and eat dinner at my Dad’s on Sunday. But other than that.

Leaving work before 5:00 for the first time this week. Thats’s always nice. I’ve really been searching for words lately. Sometimes I thinks it’s better just not to say anything than the drivel I put down here. Who am I kidding.

I’m a bit of a slow reader to begin with. When I read I take my time and try to engage every page and every word. I don’t skim and will reread sections when I feel like I didn’t understand them. This led to trouble while reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Damn this book took me a long time to finish. First it is fairly lengthy at 500 plus pages. And then there is Rushdie’s writing style. His method of writing doesn’t lend to casual reading. He uses a combination of Indian and English termed “Babu English” that takes a fair amount concentration. Not mention his atypical use of grammar and often distended and laborious sentences. This book is complex. Make no mistake about it. It is a sturdy tangle of thick, and often, obscure words.

Despite its density, the novel was pretty good. It was well written, it was original, interesting and unpredictable and I enjoyed reading it. The setting and characters were exciting well developed and interesting. The multilayered novel consists mostly of the life story Saleem Sinai. A boy born during the first hour of India’s independence, along with 1,001 other children of India, all of whom were blessed with magical abilities. The trial and tribulations of Saleem closely follow with the actual history of India, from Nehru’s India toward Indira’s India, as well as that of Pakistan and Bangladesh (some of the novel takes place pre-partition). The politcal reality of the book would be much more rewarding if you have a interest in, or knowledge of, Middle Eastern history and religion.

Rushdie’s story telling ability is definitely notable and his telling tales-within-tales is very enjoyable but also very much like García Márquez, whom in my opinion is more a pleasurable and worthwhile read. The magical realism allows for a surreal and distorted sense of the novel’s people and places. Much of the novel is larger than life and many of the events seem more important than they really are or should be. Adding to Rushdie’s literary complexity are many twists and turns regarding the relationships between the characters. In addition, there are name changes, sub-plots, nick-names, false-starts, tons of symbolism (much of it I didn’t even pick up on) u-turns, and plot twists.

I paid the price of patience with this novel but felt I wasn’t truly rewarded and that’s always a bit of a bummer. The novel just didn’t do it for me. It is by no means a life-changing novel or even near my top 10 best books I’ve ever read. And although a second read would undoubtedly open this story up, that probably won’t be happening for me.

Been working really hard this week and things are finally starting to come to a close I think. I hope. I wonder. I’m slowing starting to get nothing done. Heh heh. I’m getting some things done. It’s just that it never ends. Which I kinda guess is a good thing. I’m not sure if I want to see what’s at the end. Not yet anyway. So I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing, and doing it as well as I can. Or at least as well as others think I should. For now. I think. Bye bye birdy…

On Saturday I took care of a few errands in the morning and headed out to Jimbo a’nd Oats wedding. It was really nice, really short, really traditional and very large. But it was really fun and I was thrilled to see them both so happy. Afterwards, I went to the reception at a local country club.

I was home by 9:30 and then went straight out to the Climax Lounge for the I Am The World Trade Center and Mates Of State show. Trade Center had a great show with the highlight being the encore cover of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”. But of course, I really came to see Mates Of State. I have been a long time listener of these guys and they have never disappointed. They had a great set and included all my favorites including the cover of Jackson Brown’s “These Days” (which I tried to record on Jamis answering machine but it turned out to be just a garbled mess) and an encore of “Everybody Needs An Editor” which was a big plus. They played a great combination of old and new, the crowd was small, and the sound was decent.

After the show I talked with Jason and asked if he’d be willing to get a few snapshots to make her jealous. Then I helped Kori load up the van and told her all about my contest and that there CD was the prize. Kori thought it was a great story and was asking me about it. They were both really cool and super friendly. I ended up pretty much just making a fool of myself by babbling and talking in patented hubs half-speak, but and it only goes to prove my celebrity crush is actually real.

The weekend was great, again. And busy. It started right out of the gates after work on Friday. It met SE across the street in the lobby of the Brown Palace. I can’t believe she got to stay there. We recognized each other immediately. She invited me along with her to a bunch events that she had planned that evening for the conference she was attending.

We headed off almost straight away to the Tattered Cover Book Store for a gathering of students and professor in her field. I totally crashed it and drank their free beer and tried to act like I knew what I was doing. I talk to a few of the students their about random stuff but mostly just monopolized SE. It was funny cause we were standing around talking in this real open room and it was like a ballroom dance. I’d be talking to somebody facing the window and five minutes later, just from the shifting of our feet and other people joining in or leaving the conversation (and maybe my bad breath), I would be facing the complete opposite direction towards the book shelf. Then five minutes later facing back at the window. And everyone was doing this but I don’t think anyone noticed.

After this SE and I joined a walking tour of the LoDo area with an Architect professor and a bunch of design students. It was nice cause I felt like could contribute a little bit to the tidbits the professor was pointing out. The best part was the sound grates on Champa St. I can’t believe I had never noticed those before.

The we went and crashed another reception at the Wynkoop but things quickly got confusing there and we left after about five minutes. Then we went to the auction held in the box seats at Coors Field. At first I felt totally under dressed but by the end of the evening all kinds of people had arrived. They were auctioning of a lot of cool things like trips and wine, and nobody was bidding on anything. It was kinda sad cause you wanted the cause to do better. But on the other hand, it was cool that everybody that bid got really good deals. SE’s boss was going haywire.

Afterwards SE and I went back to the Wynkoop so she could say hi to a few friends. Then we just sat around bullshitting. The whole night was tons of fun and really interesting. SE was an absolute sweetheart and really tolerant of my lack of social skills. We ended up shutting down the bar and basically got kicked out and I then stumbled home. Thanks for the tickets SE and the free beer and the food and everything. Hope you had a good time. I did.

Last night, after getting off a phone call that totally boosted my mood from were it was yesterday after noon, I went out to the uptown for a beer and some din din. After I ordered a quesadilla I got a phone call from a friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time wondering if I wanted to go grab a beer. He ended up meeting me at the uptown. I was glad to hear from him. He’s in the same boat as me: single, no single friends. So it’s nice to have a new (read: lone) person to go grab drinks or do single kinda stuff with.

He spent a couple of years in Japan teaching english. When he went there he knew very little Japanese. Among the few words he knew were “drink” and “watermelon”. He told me that Japanese for drink is nomu (no-moo). I can’t remember what he said Japanese for watermelon was but it was something like suika. After he had been in Japan for only a couple of weeks he invited a fellow coworker over to his apartment for drinks. His fellow coworker knew very little english as well. My friend explained that they had communicated all night by means of exaggerated hand motions, laughing, dancing, games, and excessive drinking. He said the alcohol had allowed them to loosen up and speak to each other in a unique and unlikely ways. He later learned that the Japanese actually had a word, a combination of english and Japanese, for this type of communication. They called it nomunication. I though that was rather clever and have since added it to my vocabulary.

He also told me that 7-11 convenience stores have signs that read seben ereben.

So I guess this is about all I do with this little thing I got here. This thing you’re reading. I tell you how I whooped it up on the weekend and then I spout off about my feelings. It’s getting tiresome. It’s ok, I know it is.

I’ve been… I don’t know, frustrated I guess. Work, relationships, friends, myself. Nothing I can’t deal with. It’s nothing big, I don’t think. Actually, that may be part of the problem, you know, that I’m not sure what the problem is. I’ve been slow, saturnine and glum. Not sad, or despondent or even close to depressed. Just sullen. She might have said it best when she said introspective. Or did I stuff that big word in her mouth. I’m not sure. It’s just a phase I’m sure. Something I’ll grow out of in the next few days. Probably by the weekend. I could use a long walk and a cigarette and a pile of leaves to kick.

Eh. I’ll take my leave now.