there are no words to describe this

At least her baby will be well behaved enough that she only needs a total of 4 pacifiers...

disturbing sight

I was driving to meet some friends from work for drinks tonight, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the poor remains of a small animal. Or so I thought. Morbid curiosity abound in me, after looking for other traffic I took a closer look as I went by. It turned out not to be a small animal, but someone's weave, left knottty and abandoned on the median of a right turn lane, laying there like a hubcap no one cared about going back to pick up. I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed by the fact that people actually wear those things, or that eventually some bird will make the base of it's nest out of the discarded piece laying on the side of the road.

Just an update

Lots of exciting things for me in this post, not so much anything profound though.

Jess and I found an apartment downtown together, and will be moving in at the end of August. Now I just need to pack some things and get rid of some others.

My passport came. HOORAY!!! I was hoping I wouldn't have to be freaking out with the trip to Greece coming up in about 7 weeks. It's here, and I did a little dance to celebrate its arrival.

This weekend might bring about two great parts of summer: small town festivals, and movies. Possible happenings for Friday are going to Riverfest in Watertown to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which would be quite a bit of fun/nostalgia. Saturday could include going to the drive in theatre in Jefferson to see the double feature of The Simpsons Movie and the new Die Hard flick.

I'll also probably do some packing and disc golfing while I'm at it. In the meantime, I'm just waiting for laundry to get done while watching some baseball.

music music omg music

So I finally remembered to get on to emusic before my month ran out this time.
New music =
camper van beethoven, (self titled)
the twilight singers, "blackberry belle"
radio 4, "gotham!"
my robot friend, "dial 0"
someone still loves you boris yeltzin. "broom"

In addition to that, I got on isohunt and picked up battles "mirrored", and black rebel motorcycle club "baby 81". So I'll be busy listening to new things for a while. And it might take a long while, because I can't stop listening to the Battles album. They're amazing. And I know I picked up this record after it's been out a while, I've just been lazy about grabbing music the last few months.

In other news - seeing as it's been a while since my last pst - jess and I are looking for apartments together. Pretty sure we'll head in the downtown region, but there are a few other possibilities. While I'm slightly irked being as far away from work as we might be, I'd much rather be able to do things downtown without always looking for parking. And I think it'll get me on the bike a lot more. I ride it a fair amount now, but all the trails meet downtown, which is a huge spur to get out and go.

Work has been going well, and soon I'll no longer be the new kid on the block in project management. One of the other guys is moving over to marketing, so we're pulling in someone to replace him, plus another PM position was approved, so there'll be two new people coming in the next month or so. We're also going to be regionalizing. Actual regionalization, unlike the pseudo-regionalization we have right now for some of the PM's who've been there a while. Last I heard I'll probably be one of two in the northeast. things should be more set in stone tomorrow after our meeting.

wheels and wishes

It's been a bit too long since I threw something up for the masses to read about my life.

Well, I bought a new bike a couple weeks back. Done a few long rides so far, todays was about 13 miles. I'm planning on starting to ride to work at least a few days a week, and I want to start tomorrow, but I think that's going to depend on how bad the weather looks, as there's a possibility of rain. But with gas steadily climbing, and wanting to get into a bit better shape, a 12 mile one way ride to work sound like a pretty good way to do both.

I can't understand why Wii's still can't be kept on the shelves. I've been trying for 6 weeks to try and get one to no avail. Why six months after console release they can't produce them is completely beyond me. I'm glad its popular, but get with it Nintendo.

In much more fun news, Jess and I are going to Greece! After we stock up on some vacation time over the summer we're heading out for 2 weeks of ancient civilization goodness. Anyone with thoughts on where to go visit, I'm all ears.

And this weekend was great. Friday night Jess and I went up to Baraboo to hang out with Val and the long lost and now found Nate Anderson, who had secured a campsite up there for a few days. Had some drinks, played some guitar, sang loudly and somewhat off key, and then played Scattergories before heading home. Saturday morning spent some time at the farmers market downtown, then met up with Chris and Tori to enact an ingenious plan: they bought salsa at the market, we went to Frida's, sat outside (while some very loud mexican musicians played to the outdoor seating) ate the free chips with the great salsa and split a couple pitchers of margaritas. Nothing like being buzzed before noon on a Saturday.

golf and pics

The baskets went up at Heistand Park this weekend, and I've been out twice already. I really want to make a point of going out a lot this summer, maybe even get into a league. Also, now that it's warmed up, I thought I'd post a link to those icy pictures of Tenney Park from a couple weeks back. Enjoy.

searching

I'm aware this may come off badly, but I'm not in the least bit shocked by what happened at Virginia Tech earlier this week. Saddened, yes, but not shocked. I've seen this too many times already to be surprised when it happens.

What I feel is awe, puzzlement, questions. Why does this continue to happen, and in what seems to be an increasing trend? I'm relieved that for once tv/movies/music/video games haven't been the first things out of the collective publics mouth. While some people may base what they do from these pop culture stimuli, if they were the real cause of this kind of violence, would it not happen much more often? Of course, even having something like this happen once it one time too many.

But so I want to know: why? Why would someone have that kind of disregard for the life of another individual? Why do lay their blame on certain groups of people? At Columbine, the shooters cursed the jocks and preps for the miserable high school experience. In this case I saw many times that the wealthy were mentioned in reasons for Cho Seung-Hui's state of distress. Perhaps the package sent to NBC will shed some light on that, but likely not much.

And why never talk to anyone? Did he feel alone? Was it depression? Anxiety? A language barrier? Or was he really just so angry with the world that he couldn't communicate pleasantries? And what was the breaking point? People said in interviews that when they heard the news they immediately had a thought of who it might be. If someone appears this way to people but manages to keep in in check for so long (the suicide counseling occurred in late 2005), what suddenly causes the rampage?

I can't imagine what people at Virginia Tech are going through and feeling right now. I work with someone who has a relative attending VT, and seeing the concern wash over her when the news of the shootings broke was an odd feeling, the concern that is absorbed by people surrounding those dealing with a tragedy. I will probably never meet this other person's relative, but I'm sitting there hoping that they're alright.

But I feel that with the frequency of this kind of violence that rather than looking where to place the blame, we should concentrate more on preventing these tragedies in the future.

So it goes...

Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut

pictures up soon?

I have to play around with my camera to get some pictures from it onto the computer, but I got some really cool shots of frozen trees on the shore of lake mendota on sunday. I also got a wet foot from slipping off a rock I was standing on and into the lake up to mid-calf. Better than all of me in the lake, but still unpleasant considering it was about 30 degrees outside. Anyway, I'll try to put something up once I get the transfer taken care of.

New job is going well, reaching the end of the major training, and will start picking up my own projects probably by the end of this week. I'm excited and nervous about it, but I'm sure the nervousness will pass pretty quickly once I start doing this stuff everyday.

Now for some food...

video

While not the actual music video for the song, this sure makes a strong case for itself.

Lateralus video

A slight delay...

I just realized that I haven't posted to this in a while, and that I had news worth posting a while ago, so I better get to it. To anyone who reads this that I don't regularly talk to, I had applied within ETC for an opening at project manager back in late January. After a few weeks and two interviews, they offered me the position, which I'll begin my training for next Monday. I'm quite happy about it, as what I was doing before wasn't all that mentally stimulating. With the amount of time I had during the automated part of the test sequence, it was easy to find me doing puzzles from the morning paper while still maintaining the same output as if I weren't. So yay for more challenging ventures!

On another note, I've decided my car is committing suicide. With all the things that keep falling apart/breaking, and people trying to hit me on the road, I believe there is a universal calling for my car to come home to pasture. So I'm hoping to have some new wheels by fall, once I get some cash stashed away.

Also, for anyone in the Madison area - or those that would like to come to the madison area - J Davis Trio is playing here Friday night (the 16th of March) at the Union. They're amazing, and I'll be there, which should be the only reasons anyone needs to come out.

as mom would say, "NO"

So if anyone's been listening to the news at all in the last few months, the USA has been requesting that Iran suspend uranium enrichment studies in order to begin talking about their nuclear program, and Iran's request is that the US also put it's nuclear program on hold, to put the discussions on even ground. Why, then, do I feel that this is not the best way to move toward those discussions? Almost looks as if we'r preparing for them not to suspsend their actions.

ah, winter in the midwest

As the snow melted with temperatures in the mid 40's throughout the week, it was a nice feeling to head to work in the morning with the temperature above zero. And then just like that, we could be getting up to a possible 20 inches or so of snow by the end of the weekend. Driving around Friday night in the weather, I'm thankful I was stuck drving in that horrible blizzard that crippled Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, etc. a couple years back, becuase this is nothing compared to that. And this is the second thundersnow of the season, as I did see lightning and hear thunder behind the snow earlier tonight. I thnk Wisconsin is about to be destroyed. Just ask Lewis Black...

automobile security

geeks rejoice. i wonder if this will ever be commercially available....

new nin

Just checked up on the progress for the new nin record: should be out in april. ROCK. with teeth played out quickly for me, but the new singles from year zero, "my violent heart" and "survivalism" kick my ass. They're both here.