Yesterday an astrologer told me that my domains include scholarly pursuits and foreign countries.
Today a half-burned mouse ran out of a bonfire I'd lit as part of a controlled burn. It squeaked terribly and I think his eyes were burned shut. He laid there panting in the snow, moving slowly, and when I moved a branch near him he ran blindly back into it. I ran into the fire after him to grab him and pull him out. I felt awful.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Ned mixes weak Jack & Cokes. I'm used to Jim's.
Saturday we worked on Scott Harrison's carousel. Sort of. The roofing panels needed moving from the community center to the carousel site across town. About sixty panels, 18' by 6' by 1' and about 400 or 500 pounds apiece-- a big block of foam sandwiched between two pieces of particle board.
Mr. Harrison was out of town for his grandmother's memorial service, but his son Max came from Denver to supervise. Max is 26 and pretty cool. He dresses in that kind of UFC style with the baseball cap and sagging pants and tribal-tattoo shirt. Speaking of, he's been a firefighter and an EMT and he's got each crest tattooed on either arm, surrounded by some sweeping tribal curves. They look neater than they sound, but then, the Rod of Asclepius wins me over pretty easily.
Max pulled up in his dad's beat-up pickup with a low-riding and shoddy-looking car trailer dragging behind it. We loaded these panels seven high and then hopped in the back of the truck while Max drove us to the carousel building, bottoming out the trailer on nearly every hill and turn. When the load was empty he tore through the town and around the roundabout and gave us an awesome ride back. Laying back and staring up at moving clouds, or staring out at mountains while Liam and Ned stared off into the distance.
Ned, Lauren and I were the only ones who'd went at first, and we were two-manning these big panels until Liam showed up a half-hour later, back from a morning hiking excursion. We worked for five hours. On one ride back he pulled into the gas station and said, "What color Gatorade do you like?" He came out with an armful and a case of beer. Lauren was in the front seat and he had her mixing liquor into a bottle of club soda or ginger ale or something for him. After a few hours he insisted we take a break and have a beer. "Come on, it's one beer, it's not going to get you drunk," he laughed. And then he gave us another just before we started the last load, too.
When we'd completed it he gave us double the hours we'd worked, justifying it by saying it was really hard work-- which, to be honest, it was-- And taking us to the smokehouse for dinner. His girlfriend met us there and she bartends in Breckenridge, a ski town about an hour and a half away, and she needed a ride. Max is well-known in this town and got us a table on the patio even though they were closing it, and ordered us wings and a pitcher of beer. He told us in May he throws a huge party and calls a bunch of bands he knows and gets them to play. "I've got about ten lined up for this next one. You guys are definitely all invited, I'll get you all VIP passes," he said.
"We've got to go really soon," he insisted, "So order whatever you guys like and enjoy your dinner. We're going to scarf down as many of these wings as we can in the next ten minutes and then take off."
He filled out our ISP form and left a long and appreciative note and to top it off, his dad sent me an appreciative email the next day saying how amazed he was that we'd gotten the work done in one day with only five people.
We came home and the rest of the team had bought beer and relaxed on the porch, played horseshoes, and then came in and set up Monopoly on the table. "Monopoly ruins friendships," Nate said, sitting down at the table nonetheless. Coby and I set up Risk next to them but didn't remember all the rules, having only an FAQ sheet but no actual rulebook available to us, so we winged it on the ones we were unsure of. As the night went on the Monopolists grew more belligerently drunk and Nate yelled, "OKAY. We're done! I told you! This game ruins friendships!" He started disassembling the board. I didn't catch the details, but the overall impression was a vastly amusing spectacle. Coby and I played a far-calmer game of Risk, very straightforward, that I ended up winning. I've just downloaded the rules so we can play for real next time.
I spent the rest of the night, all the way through to Sunday evening, playing Bioshock nonstop. I got pretty far and realized that the game has a ton of Ayn Rand references I'd missed for an embarassingly long time. The bad guy's an angry capitalist named "Andrew Ryan," anagramesque of Ayn Rand. The guy who leads you around by radio is named Atlas. The game's neat; it has this retro-steampunk vibe, and you give yourself injections that give you new superpowers. I'd called Grosse Ile Kat just before bed to see how her thesis paper was going, only to discover it had been completed on Wednesday. She told me she'd write me a letter and that I needed to write her a comic book script for her to paint, since I'd bought her bristol boards for it ages ago. A little sixteen-page number is in the works as we speak.
I've been kind of exhausted lately even though realistically work hasn't been that busy. We tried an experimental technique to prevent pine trees from being killed by beetles today: Kill the perfectly healthy trees and sell them as firewood before the beetles can kill them. I fail to see the logic.
Mr. Harrison was out of town for his grandmother's memorial service, but his son Max came from Denver to supervise. Max is 26 and pretty cool. He dresses in that kind of UFC style with the baseball cap and sagging pants and tribal-tattoo shirt. Speaking of, he's been a firefighter and an EMT and he's got each crest tattooed on either arm, surrounded by some sweeping tribal curves. They look neater than they sound, but then, the Rod of Asclepius wins me over pretty easily.
Max pulled up in his dad's beat-up pickup with a low-riding and shoddy-looking car trailer dragging behind it. We loaded these panels seven high and then hopped in the back of the truck while Max drove us to the carousel building, bottoming out the trailer on nearly every hill and turn. When the load was empty he tore through the town and around the roundabout and gave us an awesome ride back. Laying back and staring up at moving clouds, or staring out at mountains while Liam and Ned stared off into the distance.
Ned, Lauren and I were the only ones who'd went at first, and we were two-manning these big panels until Liam showed up a half-hour later, back from a morning hiking excursion. We worked for five hours. On one ride back he pulled into the gas station and said, "What color Gatorade do you like?" He came out with an armful and a case of beer. Lauren was in the front seat and he had her mixing liquor into a bottle of club soda or ginger ale or something for him. After a few hours he insisted we take a break and have a beer. "Come on, it's one beer, it's not going to get you drunk," he laughed. And then he gave us another just before we started the last load, too.
When we'd completed it he gave us double the hours we'd worked, justifying it by saying it was really hard work-- which, to be honest, it was-- And taking us to the smokehouse for dinner. His girlfriend met us there and she bartends in Breckenridge, a ski town about an hour and a half away, and she needed a ride. Max is well-known in this town and got us a table on the patio even though they were closing it, and ordered us wings and a pitcher of beer. He told us in May he throws a huge party and calls a bunch of bands he knows and gets them to play. "I've got about ten lined up for this next one. You guys are definitely all invited, I'll get you all VIP passes," he said.
"We've got to go really soon," he insisted, "So order whatever you guys like and enjoy your dinner. We're going to scarf down as many of these wings as we can in the next ten minutes and then take off."
He filled out our ISP form and left a long and appreciative note and to top it off, his dad sent me an appreciative email the next day saying how amazed he was that we'd gotten the work done in one day with only five people.
We came home and the rest of the team had bought beer and relaxed on the porch, played horseshoes, and then came in and set up Monopoly on the table. "Monopoly ruins friendships," Nate said, sitting down at the table nonetheless. Coby and I set up Risk next to them but didn't remember all the rules, having only an FAQ sheet but no actual rulebook available to us, so we winged it on the ones we were unsure of. As the night went on the Monopolists grew more belligerently drunk and Nate yelled, "OKAY. We're done! I told you! This game ruins friendships!" He started disassembling the board. I didn't catch the details, but the overall impression was a vastly amusing spectacle. Coby and I played a far-calmer game of Risk, very straightforward, that I ended up winning. I've just downloaded the rules so we can play for real next time.
I spent the rest of the night, all the way through to Sunday evening, playing Bioshock nonstop. I got pretty far and realized that the game has a ton of Ayn Rand references I'd missed for an embarassingly long time. The bad guy's an angry capitalist named "Andrew Ryan," anagramesque of Ayn Rand. The guy who leads you around by radio is named Atlas. The game's neat; it has this retro-steampunk vibe, and you give yourself injections that give you new superpowers. I'd called Grosse Ile Kat just before bed to see how her thesis paper was going, only to discover it had been completed on Wednesday. She told me she'd write me a letter and that I needed to write her a comic book script for her to paint, since I'd bought her bristol boards for it ages ago. A little sixteen-page number is in the works as we speak.
I've been kind of exhausted lately even though realistically work hasn't been that busy. We tried an experimental technique to prevent pine trees from being killed by beetles today: Kill the perfectly healthy trees and sell them as firewood before the beetles can kill them. I fail to see the logic.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Dull update.
So one of Carmella's team members, Glenn, got the boot from wildfire for being ineffectual, while another, Beth, resigned from Americorps. They replaced them with Will and Aaron, who had been on Carmella's team in the first place but had gotten kicked off for drinking. They accepted, and then Aaron changed his mind and quit the program. The other alternate So they're taking fun-loving light-hearted Cristian off of our team and putting him there instead. Carmella's team is at eight, ours is at nine, and I think Tristan's team is at nine as well. My roommate Dave, also wildfire, wanted to join a regular Americorps team. The unit leader told him the only way off wildfire is to quit the program. That's not what they has said to us in the beginning of the year when we'd decided to join wildfire in the first place. I do believe our class has set a record for most resignations.
This all came to us whilst staying in Denver. In more joyful news, it's been an otherwise delightful transition week, a practical vacation since we've finished all our paperwork obligations prior to our return. To top it off, Dave and some others discreetly shuffled rooms so that they can stay with their girlfriends; I've somehow ended up roommate-less and blissful. We've had some "life after Americorps" seminars, including an informative bit on planning a financial future and a fairly useless alcohol awareness discussion done privately in small randomly-assigned groups. We also had a list of choices of facilities to tour and I went to the National Renewable Energy Lab.
They had some neat displays and a knowledgable elderly tour guide who used an amusing voice whose tones are typically levelled at elementary school students. The real star of the show, though, was an enormous globe in the first room, perhaps ten feet in diameter. Four projectors mounted in the corners of the room synchronously played high-resolution videos upon the surface of the globe, so that when we first saw it it showed a flashing, moving, rotating sun. As he went through a discussion it switched to a globe of Earth, showing sunlight exposure throughout the year, wind exposure, energy production, energy consumption, oil production, population density, and even that gorgeous picture of Earth from space at night, indistinct continents alight with electricity. I'd seen it panoramically before but never as a moving image projected upon a globe, and I'm sure that the installation would be a stoner's dream.
I've completed my eighty hours of independent service but I love doing it so I'm going to keep at it; my private self-imposed goal is 200 hours. I'm volunteering a few hours every Friday at the movie theatre, and hopefully I can rally the team on Saturdays to help with the carousel. In April we're to help with a 24-hour race and we've got a few other events coming up as well. I'm going to volunteer eight hours each this Saturday and Sunday at the Children's Museum again, and Sunday night I'm going to play trampoline dodgeball with the local guys-- Nick, Dan, and Paul-- again too. All work and no play makes Robbie a dull boy. I just want to play somewhere besides the bar; I'm getting sick of spending thirty bucks a month on a few drinks.
This all came to us whilst staying in Denver. In more joyful news, it's been an otherwise delightful transition week, a practical vacation since we've finished all our paperwork obligations prior to our return. To top it off, Dave and some others discreetly shuffled rooms so that they can stay with their girlfriends; I've somehow ended up roommate-less and blissful. We've had some "life after Americorps" seminars, including an informative bit on planning a financial future and a fairly useless alcohol awareness discussion done privately in small randomly-assigned groups. We also had a list of choices of facilities to tour and I went to the National Renewable Energy Lab.
They had some neat displays and a knowledgable elderly tour guide who used an amusing voice whose tones are typically levelled at elementary school students. The real star of the show, though, was an enormous globe in the first room, perhaps ten feet in diameter. Four projectors mounted in the corners of the room synchronously played high-resolution videos upon the surface of the globe, so that when we first saw it it showed a flashing, moving, rotating sun. As he went through a discussion it switched to a globe of Earth, showing sunlight exposure throughout the year, wind exposure, energy production, energy consumption, oil production, population density, and even that gorgeous picture of Earth from space at night, indistinct continents alight with electricity. I'd seen it panoramically before but never as a moving image projected upon a globe, and I'm sure that the installation would be a stoner's dream.
I've completed my eighty hours of independent service but I love doing it so I'm going to keep at it; my private self-imposed goal is 200 hours. I'm volunteering a few hours every Friday at the movie theatre, and hopefully I can rally the team on Saturdays to help with the carousel. In April we're to help with a 24-hour race and we've got a few other events coming up as well. I'm going to volunteer eight hours each this Saturday and Sunday at the Children's Museum again, and Sunday night I'm going to play trampoline dodgeball with the local guys-- Nick, Dan, and Paul-- again too. All work and no play makes Robbie a dull boy. I just want to play somewhere besides the bar; I'm getting sick of spending thirty bucks a month on a few drinks.
Friday, March 06, 2009
We spent a few days in Fort Collins for a class on pumps and hoses, including a day of running hose up a hill to see how far we could pump water. We hadn't brought enough food and had to eat out a few times. Big City Burrito in Fort Collins is really tasty and looks very hole-in-the-wall. Cheba Hut's a small chain with pot-themed subs and treats.
I was depressed all weekend, collapsing into bed immediately after work to stare at my telephone. The only people I talk to with regularity anymore are my mother and my brother. Desperate to talk to old friends and familiar people. I'm hitting that point again where I've no idea what I'm going to do with my life; Americorps is going to end and I'm going to be back where I started, no idea of where I want to go, what I want to do, or how I'm going to pay for it. As it stands now the options are University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and firefighting.
At least we're back in Denver this upcoming week. Transition week with an emphasis on careers and life after Americorps. A job fair, among other things. Everyone else thinks it's a joke and I'm absolutely rabid about the opportunity to figure my life out.
I want to be a professional languisher, book-reader, sleeper.
I was depressed all weekend, collapsing into bed immediately after work to stare at my telephone. The only people I talk to with regularity anymore are my mother and my brother. Desperate to talk to old friends and familiar people. I'm hitting that point again where I've no idea what I'm going to do with my life; Americorps is going to end and I'm going to be back where I started, no idea of where I want to go, what I want to do, or how I'm going to pay for it. As it stands now the options are University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and firefighting.
At least we're back in Denver this upcoming week. Transition week with an emphasis on careers and life after Americorps. A job fair, among other things. Everyone else thinks it's a joke and I'm absolutely rabid about the opportunity to figure my life out.
I want to be a professional languisher, book-reader, sleeper.
Lakeside, Wisconsin
After last weekend walking about exploring, I've kind of fallen in love with Nederland a little.
I woke up and went for a 4.5 mile run and stopped at the community center and talked to Dawn, the chick who runs it. She gave me a half-dozen volunteer opportunities around town: trail-building, the skate park, summerizing the ice rink into tennis courts, painting the movie theatre, oiling and rearranging the weight machines... And one that really stood out.
Scott Harrison is a Vietnam vet who ran Amnesty International's urgent action network and has spent 20 years hand-carving and hand-painting animals for a carousel. It sounds like a fantastic project, the Carousel of Happiness, and I'm trying to get the team excited about it.
I had lunch at Kathmandu, the Nepalese restaurant in town that'd I'd heard of, and heard of even more from Kayla, who we volunteered with at the movie theatre. They have an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet every day for ten dollars that changes every day-- a creamed spinach paste, stewed sweet potatoes, a kind of potato dumpling, and two chicken dishes. Faaantastic. I got a cookie at the New Moon Bakery-- an enormous oatmeal orange-coconut-pecan cookie for $1.50.
I walked into the gemstones, fossils and geodes store and saw this article framed on the wall, and as I read it the lady behind the counter called out "Scott?" to the man watering plants. "Yeah?" he replied. I walked up. "Scott Harrison?" Small world; he was, and I told him about what we are and what we do and how we'd like to help him with the carousel on weekends. He wants us to help him put in roof panels for the building the carousel's going to be put in. It's thrilling to think we're going to help this man finish his 20-year-old dream. One of the animals is an anthropomorphic moose created by George, cartoonist for Nederland's paper. "If you see George," one of the store clerks told me, "Wish him happy birthday. Everyone does it every day."
I found a farming co-op-- a little supermarket, three aisles, where the local farmers sell their fresh organic vegetables. Membership is $24 a year and if you volunteer there four hours a week then you get 20% off all your groceries. I talked to the stoneresque manager, a late-20s girl, who was pretty interested in our program and very flexible about letting us buy our groceries there and rotating clerk duties.
At night I went to see Revolutionary Road (really depressing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio movie, about the stagnancy of a couple living in the suburbs) for free at the movie theatre and told Kayla about our wanting to help her paint. She gave me coupons for a dollar off anything at the previously-mentioned bakery. An elder man walked into the theatre and from across it a younger girl yelled "Happy birthday George!" "Hey, thanks!" The elderly man yelled back.
Nederland seems almost too nice, and I was waiting for the dark secret: the murderer they're hiding, or whatever. About as close as it comes is this festival... This weekend is a festival honoring a Norwegian who brought his Grandfather's body overseas to Nederland work on cryogenics and then was deported. They left behind the Grandpa and started a festival devoted to him.
Frozen Dead Guy Days
I woke up and went for a 4.5 mile run and stopped at the community center and talked to Dawn, the chick who runs it. She gave me a half-dozen volunteer opportunities around town: trail-building, the skate park, summerizing the ice rink into tennis courts, painting the movie theatre, oiling and rearranging the weight machines... And one that really stood out.
Scott Harrison is a Vietnam vet who ran Amnesty International's urgent action network and has spent 20 years hand-carving and hand-painting animals for a carousel. It sounds like a fantastic project, the Carousel of Happiness, and I'm trying to get the team excited about it.
I had lunch at Kathmandu, the Nepalese restaurant in town that'd I'd heard of, and heard of even more from Kayla, who we volunteered with at the movie theatre. They have an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet every day for ten dollars that changes every day-- a creamed spinach paste, stewed sweet potatoes, a kind of potato dumpling, and two chicken dishes. Faaantastic. I got a cookie at the New Moon Bakery-- an enormous oatmeal orange-coconut-pecan cookie for $1.50.
I walked into the gemstones, fossils and geodes store and saw this article framed on the wall, and as I read it the lady behind the counter called out "Scott?" to the man watering plants. "Yeah?" he replied. I walked up. "Scott Harrison?" Small world; he was, and I told him about what we are and what we do and how we'd like to help him with the carousel on weekends. He wants us to help him put in roof panels for the building the carousel's going to be put in. It's thrilling to think we're going to help this man finish his 20-year-old dream. One of the animals is an anthropomorphic moose created by George, cartoonist for Nederland's paper. "If you see George," one of the store clerks told me, "Wish him happy birthday. Everyone does it every day."
I found a farming co-op-- a little supermarket, three aisles, where the local farmers sell their fresh organic vegetables. Membership is $24 a year and if you volunteer there four hours a week then you get 20% off all your groceries. I talked to the stoneresque manager, a late-20s girl, who was pretty interested in our program and very flexible about letting us buy our groceries there and rotating clerk duties.
At night I went to see Revolutionary Road (really depressing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio movie, about the stagnancy of a couple living in the suburbs) for free at the movie theatre and told Kayla about our wanting to help her paint. She gave me coupons for a dollar off anything at the previously-mentioned bakery. An elder man walked into the theatre and from across it a younger girl yelled "Happy birthday George!" "Hey, thanks!" The elderly man yelled back.
Nederland seems almost too nice, and I was waiting for the dark secret: the murderer they're hiding, or whatever. About as close as it comes is this festival... This weekend is a festival honoring a Norwegian who brought his Grandfather's body overseas to Nederland work on cryogenics and then was deported. They left behind the Grandpa and started a festival devoted to him.
Frozen Dead Guy Days
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