Archive for February, 2006

Ubu, Mighty Hunter

Monday, February 27th, 2006

Ubu’s had glimpses of the outdoors before, enough to meow at the door occasionally. I don’t want to make him an outdoor cat, but I figured it couldn’t hurt a few times in the winter, when he’d be too cold to stay out long. So he’s been out two days in a row now. Today, as I went to get him and bring him back in, I found Ubu on the porch with…. a head.

Now, I’m not sure if he killed it or not, but he hasn’t been able to provide an alibi. And he was pretty excited, rubbing against me, eating, and batting around the bird head.

All doudts as to Ubu’s killer instinct have been erased. As for evidence, like feathers or little bird feet, we haven’t found any. But Ubu’s not meowing for his dinner, either.

Why I didn’t go Snowmobiling

Monday, February 27th, 2006

Last winter Mom and I went snowmobiling for the first time while up visiting jayne, and it was a really fun time! But his year we steered clear from the ice. Everytime ice was mentioned mom seemed to say “is it safe”? This is largely due to snowmobiling accidents that have happened lately, mainly our friend Stevie Buchannan who had an accident with his sled on Jaynes lake (his fam has a place up there too)! This weeks Bolton Common had an article about the whole ordeal. Left me watery because I felt so thankful for how it turned out and proud of everyone involded, down to my bro-in-law, Mark, who was referred to in the article. Pretty scary story that could have had an aweful ending! I think Stevie’s Mom was right in saying that he “had a guardian angel watching over him that afternoon.” :)

Blog

Sunday, February 26th, 2006

I’m finally getting around to embedding the blog page in the main site. It might be kinda messy while I’m finding links and working on the CSS. The basic functionality should still be there!

Where did Vacation go?

Friday, February 24th, 2006

whew! what a week! I did have a great trip up to Mayne to see Jayne…or Maine to see Jaine. My mom and I are very good travel companions, and this has become our tradition to go up together during feb vacay. Keeping in tradition…we went to goodwill, lunch at olive garden, and shopping at Joanne’s. The three of us have a lot of fun together. We rented Cinderella man, which we all enjoyed, and played some scrabble. Usually, a game i stink for life at, but “mix” and “que” brought me good luck and i won!! woot! So, Maine was great. Got to visit with Ubu’s brother, newman, and met the only cat i know who snores! whaddyaknow.
And with the rest of the week i have kept busy. Went to see curious George with Matt, Nate, Faith, Jen, and Pop. Fun movie, great for kids, and love that Jack johnson soundtrack! Ben and I also went ice skating across the street. Fun, but i tire quickly :( Ben is very good on his feet though. good date :) And then today was a trip into Boston to usher for Blue Man group. So fun, so free! I would go again in a heartbeat for anyone who is interested!! shew. so, for tonight i think i will climb into bed and fall asleep to this weeks broadcast of cartalk. nite nite!

Jill’s in ME

Tuesday, February 21st, 2006

For just a couple of days, but I have been so lazy yesterday and today. Monday we hung out at Jeff’s house in the morning for brunch and Star Wars. Then Jill left for Maine to visit her sister for 2 days. I’m not sure what Ben would be like if he was a bachelor, but if today is any indication… remember Golum from the Lord of the Rings? Kind of bug-eyed from living in dark places, talking to himself, living off of whatever he could scrounge? Yeah, that’s me. Cereal, mixed nuts, and bread has been my only food.

I could have gone out Monday (Young Life went to Boston and needed another driver) or tonight (friend invited me over) but I didn’t want to go either night. I’ve been playing games and practicing guitar a lot, and just feeling lazy.

Also, I begin to realize how hard my single friends have it. I would be really hard-pressed with the whole bachelor thing as far as girls go. Maybe that’s why God gave me Jill so early, becuase he knew I’d mess things up for myself otherwise. I really admire my single friends because of how hard they work to remain pure even though their hormones are telling them to go out and make babies all over.

Friends and Sushi

Sunday, February 19th, 2006

mmmmmmmmm. Dinner at our favorite place, with friends, and the best waitress available! :) Last night we went out to Shiro in Berlin for some sushi, joined by Shannon & Tony, Jeff, Ryan, Greg & Marie, and Verity as our waitress! Really fun time….and fun to be in a big group b/c everyone ordered different things and we got to try some new things we hadn’t before. Great group and a great time!

Sushi

Snow

Sunday, February 12th, 2006

We had “near-blizzard” conditions today – about 15 inches of snow in one day. Here’s the hourly forecast for today:

Forecast for Feburary 12th

Most of today was spent fighting with SQL, which seemed to break on me for no reason. And RsyncX, a backup utility program for OS X, was crashing my computer (maybe something about 55,000+ files). My friend Brandon is reporting very slow speeds on FTP uploading too.

Interview

Friday, February 10th, 2006

I had a job interview today in Watertown for a tutoring company. They specialize in SAT prep. I took a mock verbal and math SAT exam. I was thinking I’d do well on math and poorly on the verbal section. I surprised myself; I did great on the verbal part and I was clueless about much of the math! I don’t know how that happened.

The drive was an hour there and about two hours back. Watertown is horrible to drive in – it took me nearly an hour to go 2 miles coming home due to lights and traffic. I really don’t like cities. They’re disgusting. It seems like civilization keeps piling on top of itself due to lack of space, until even the ground below is filled with parking garages and subways. There are barely any plants around. Just the buildings make me feel claustrophobic. Houses are |—| this close together.

You don’t have to look too far to see human accomplishment that has rotted and decayed into delapidated buildings, bankrupt buisness, and weedy lots. It kind of makes me depressed. I think about death and dying in cities.

Advertisements make me mad. Everywhere you look it’s a brand name, sign, or bilboard. Look up, and there’s a huge sign on the side of a building. Look down, and you see car companies plastered in front of you. Look right, and there’s a gas station with smoking and lottery ads. I’m sensitive to this kind of thing because I notice it everywhere, especially in cities. I read once that the average person sees 1,000 or so ads per day. I can believe it. Even sitting here at my desk, without moving I can count 13 company names or logos. And my desk is not cluttered.

Finally, cities contain large amounts of people. I’m not very good at seeing the best in people. I see people everywhere who are stressed out, hurrying, frowning, and being rude. In cities, no one cares about their neighbor because there are just too many people everywhere. There’s a social experiment someone did where a person pretended to be in severe pain on the ground in the city. There were lots of people around, but no one stopped to help. I’m not sure why, but bad qualities seem to come out when people are together in large numbers.

12) In the last paragraph, the author is most likely expressing his…

A. Scornful attitude of humanity
B. Desire to assist people in pain
C. Frustration about rude passer-bys
D. Proposition to eliminate high population density
E. Need to stop blogging and get something to eat