I can't stand those pictures so I'm blogging again

Its late and the end of a long week, I can't sleep, feeling drained, and tired, content, but muddled. I found these pictures, and I don't think I've posted them yet. Long day, and long week but only 14 weeks of school left. Only 14 more weeks, seems so close, so near, like standing with your nose on the glass of a window that goes all the way to the floor. Your 30 stories up and only an inch away from the edge, and while you are not afraid, you are . . . . tense, alert, and more aware. I fear that I've started to ramble now, it's to warm in here. I'm in a sort of film noir mood, it should be drizzling, a cool wet breeze flowing outside my window. I need a desk with a lamp, a phone and a calender. I need a hat to wear off kilter, and a chair to lean back in with my feet up. Where is Gutman? Where is Sam Spade when you need him? Atmosphere so thick you could get lost in it. It's a sort of slow night, warm and close, I want out of it, out of here, to drive and listen to Holly Cole long into the cool night, driving fast, listening to the sound of the bass, wanting to sleep, longing to dream, waiting for the morrow, with it's promise of a fresh day.

Get plenty of sleep and eat well when you can.

Back in the saddle. . . . .

It's been way too long, so much has happened, and I've so out of practice. Forgive me if I'm a little rusty - its been a while. Blogging is so different from other forms of communication, these long monologues where I just sit at the computer and "curse a bit". I could tell you about camp, where I got to spend three weeks with 14 teenagers, cleaning dishes, mopping floors, and more importantly trying to teach them how to live their faith. I could regale you with tales of bathroom cleaning horrors, stories involving fire, icy hot, or early morning conversations with insomnia sufferers. Sunrises over the lake, long drives on my day's off. Watching the tides roll in and out. I could tell you about the college ministry I've become a part of, or of the woman who is foremost on my mind these days. . . .

. . . .but that would be telling

Instead I'm going to be boring, I'll tell you about my day. Ha - there's nothing you can do about it - this is a monologue remember! Well I would but, honestly it was so boring that I barely paid attention. Just the highlights then, if you're good I might tell you how one of my TCL'ers burnt his nipple (it was my day off).

I'm sleeping on the porch these days, if you've ever slept outside in a real bed then you don't have to ask why. This porch is almost perfect too, no fierce wind, just a nice breeze, no rain, no bugs, just the sounds of country life, and fresh air. Almost perfect - and a few weeks ago it was perfect, but the sun has shifted such that the rosy fingered dawn that child of the morning, can now shine fully on my up turned face. Rousing our hero at day's first light. He is able after much effort, to tilt his head the 15 degrees or so that is needed to become again the gentle sleeper of moments before, but still the daily ritual is one that wars against his soul.

But wait my story gets better, I could not find a tie this morning, or at least I could not find one that went with a dress shirt that was not wrinkled. I had to settle on a man-orange shirt, and no tie - and I had to abort my attempt to grow a soul patch. I have a certain aversion to seeing myself clean shaven, it unnerves me. That great expanse of white, the second edition my chin out where the world can see and revel in it. I feel that all my credibility is gone, that no one could possibility take me seriously. Give me scruff and I feel, scrappy, strong, and decisive. A beard and I become a wise older brother, soul patch and I am not sure, but you are not sure as well and while you are caught off guard by the sight of it I swoop in and accomplish what I've a mind to. I don't do goatees - nuf said. But this morning I was clean shaven, and after struggling to button that top collar button this morning, I felt like a naked man wearing a belt two sizes to small.

"But Neil" some of you are crying out, (hecklers - you know who you are, and whats - more I do to!), "But Neil why button the top button, you were unable to find a tie!" I though I had escaped, but classmates seeing a man, who was free and unfettered, sought to remedy this by loaning me one of the offending objects. Chuck took our pictures, mine were so good that he felt upon examing them that he needed to reshoot. I guess in the same way some stores don't want to hire unphotogenic people, photographers don't want to take pictures of unphotogenic people, and the sight of me in a tight collar, clean shaven, is enough to frustrate the best of photographers. The first sitting results reminded me of Dwight from the Office, and I can see Dwight faintly in the second sitting as well.

This was the fifth and final attempt

I jetted home to get into real clothes and to work some photoshop magic on my portrait, if I was a better man I would say "warts and all", after tweaking the light levels a bit, and adjusting the color levels, I was a bit happier. The rest of my day was uneventful, just playing around in the lab working on deriving the equations that govern the fluid dynamics of turbines - ughhhh (don't let me fool you - it's easier than it sounds)

After Photoshop

Once done with lab I jumped in the car and drove to Moscow, hit the Co-op and bought an overpriced something that I ate on the way to Bucers. For those of you who don't know Bucer's is only the most amazing Coffeehouse-Pub-Bookstore in the world. Once there I discovered a new and wonderful thing to do. Take the flowers that you have picked for someone special, flowers that she will never see being to far away and place them on page 50, of a book near at hand. That way the next time you wander in there and write her a letter you will have dried pressed flowers at hand. Flowers that you can send all winter, flowers that conveniently fit in a envelope, and if someone happens to find your flowers, flowers you have secretly pressed inside a book on speeches of Abraham Lincoln, or Wiffle on Care of the Pig, well than you have made their day. Do things like this, surprise those around you. Show up at a friends house and make them French Toast, bring donuts into the office, smile at people, leave flirty messages on your gal's phone - because it's fun and it's true, and she's amazing and special. Do those things that make you happy. But I digress. I walked around Moscow, thinking, smiling, listing to Feist - Feist is amazing by the way, great reflective music, if you need to think, find the remix of Lonely Lonely, I've never listed to the original but the remix is just what you need. Again I'm all over the place tonight.

My room is a mess, I'm running out of clothes, I still need to unpack from camp.


It's good to be back.


A note on pictures - it will probably be October before I have enough to get what I want, and I'll probably wait till after school to buy it - I already have delightful distractions, I don't need any more.


Talk at you soon - NJ

Sitting in the Dark

Every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 it seems that court is adjourned. This fact would mean little to me expect that the courtroom is now in my office. They have stored my coworker Evan and I down in the far end of the building. We are now housed in the old youth center, which we shared with the senior citizens on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s mornings. The youth center is a 2,000 square foot room with an accordion wall separating our side (the old computer lab) from those areas frequented by the rest of the world. We have been down here since January, out of sight and out of mind. Not much happens out here in the antipodes. That is except for Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, it used to be that at 9 o’clock a bevy of old ladies would descend outside our office and exercise ~ sort of.

This “exercise” would consist of talking, listening to Dean Martin, Tommy Dorsey, sometimes the Righteous Brothers, while walking in circles twirling your hands, after an exhausting hour of this, all would become quite, except for broken, labored breathing. Stepping beyond the veil, past the accordion wall, one would be greeted one of the funniest sights to be seen in City Hall. This group of grandmothers, valiantly trying to do wall sits. I don’t know if you are familiar with this particular form of self abuse dear reader. I’m sure that your mind, being pure as the driven snow, would never – could never, conceive such an activity. The wall sit is where the victim is made to place his or her back flat against a wall or other broad vertical surface, sliding down said surface until his or her thighs run parallel to the floor, then they are forced to maintain this naturally untenable position for as long as they possible can. Cruel, I know. Yet the sight of 7 old ladies just utterly exhausted, totally spent, desperately trying to hold themselves up against the wall, is so . . . . so . . . . . . . absolutely funny, that it takes all my strength not to laugh I pass by.

But I’m getting sidetracked, this entry is about sitting in the dark not about geriatric exercise routines. But to tell you why I’m sitting in the dark I need to tell you about a leaky parking garage. The parking garage beneath city hall leaks, dripping mineral deposits on cars, all while weakening the substructure. To fix this problem a waterproof membrane is being place down over the parking garage, and pavers are being installed over this. All in all a noisy process, so noisy that court which usually meets downstairs on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s had to be moved to the Youth Center. We were not consulted in this, the idea of walking thru court to get to ones office is . . . . . well . . . . . you try it for a month and tell me. You might think that having court in your office would be entertaining, that you could sit in the back and hold up signs, giving your verdict. It’s not. It is boring. I show up for work at 8, and all ready there are people there. At 8:30 the lawyers show up to defend anyone that needs a lawyer. Some are cool some are slimy. Then at 9 the judge comes in, here is where you think that the fun would start – no. Its just boring, the judge mumbles, the defendants mumble, the lawyers mumble. Me and my coworker whisper. We all keep this up for a few hours – the whispering and mumbling till court is adjourned. The defendants leave, the judge leaves, the clerk tides up and on the way out - at four - without fail, turns off the lights, plunging Evan and myself into Egyptian-like darkness.

Well that was quick. . . . .

Not even a week!

This is way too much fun to stop now.

I've got way to much to say to keep my mouth shut till I've gotten a new camera.

I've got to much going on to blog this weekend however, a date with a wonderful women, driving back across the state, getting ready for being a TCL counselor up at Lakeside for three weeks, my taxes!!!!! (I filled an extension), helping replace a timing belt, all while trying to keep my head above water.

Back in a few days
NJ

Signing off for a few months. . . . .

My camera died.

I am sort of sad.

But I got good pictures, and now can get a better camera . . .

. . . . . . . . . someday

A few days ago I found an amazing deal on a Canon G9, 283 dollars. I bought it only to find out that it was a scam, only when they called me asking to verify my shipping address, and started trying to sell me a battery, a charger, and a version of the camera that had English and not Japanese menu's did I realize that I did not want to be doing business with these people. I buy stuff online all the time, and the sight did not set off any real radar. I did some digging after canceling my order and found out that they have a great history of this sort of bait and switch. I canceled the order with them, which was surprisingly easy. This ease worried me, so I called the bank putting a stop on the charge if it should still come thru, canceled the card, and ordered identity protection. All in all it cost me 50 bucks to not buy this camera.

So I'm waiting till the two new Canon DSLR's announced earlier this month to hit the market. Hopefully their presence will drop other older DSLR's into my price range. So it will probably be mid to late September before any pictures show up after today's post. Which makes me sad, this blog has been so much fun, in a few months it's gone from a small blog that I only I look to something bigger than I thought it could ever be. How big? Let me tell you how much you people visit.

I installed Google Analytics's internet traffic analyzing software a few months ago and it lets me see the number of visits, their duration, the number of page views, the countries and city's people visit from. No names, nothing personal, just interesting numbers.

For instance:
24% of visitors click on a Facebook link to get to here.
The 11 pm is when most of you visit.
But the people who visit at 2 in the morning stay the longest, three times longer than the average.
In the last three months over 1,200 of you from 29 countries, and 168 city's have logged 2,890 page views. Generating a view time of 8,814 minutes, stop trying to do the math - it works out to a little more than 6 days of face time!

!You people are great!

Seattle accounts for 24% of the sites, which is not odd as I grew up in the Seattle area, no what is odd is that Hayden makes up 12.8% of site traffic, and is the third most visiting city! Apparently I've got a friendly stalker in Hayden (at least I hope you are friendly) I say stalker because I don't even visit the blog 12 times a day, like you did on . . . . . let me check . . . . June 17th.

You've visited a lot Hayden stalker - and yet you never write - you make me sad.
Just kidding! I'm glad that somebody likes this stuff.

What other weird trends do your fellow viewers exhibit?
Well I can tell you are an awesome, savvy, and smart crowd, 68% of you use Firefox - give yourselves a big hand. 1% are using Safari, and sadly a little over 30% of you are still stuck with IE. There is even the lone Opera user! 96% of you are on a windows based systems, 4% are on Mac's and there are three of you Linux users.

Google has translated the blog into over 17 languages, which I don't pretend to understand how that works, or how it even looks.

The busiest day was May 1st with 112 visits, the slowest was May 10th with 3 visits. On May 24th you averaged 14 minuets per visit. Most of you have visited between 9 and 14 times, 29 of you have visited over 50 times. Hayden stalker - you are at 150 :)

You dear reader have visited some posts more than others, "What is Love" appears to be your favorite, followed by "Morning on Moscow Mountain" and "Another Walk Home"

Because of you, people who type "hike moscow mountain" into Google looking, not for pictures of my nostrils, but rather a more wholesome form of entertainment are being sent to this blog, and when I last checked it was the 9th hit from the top.

Seeing all this growth I took the time to register the site with Alexa, registration is free - if you have a blog do it - its lots of fun to see the numbers. Alexa is the company that ranks websites globally, you dear readers have driven this blog up from a global ranking of 10,658,965th to - at the time of writing 1,525,039th!!!

I need to thank those of you who have taken the time to comment on the blog -

THANK YOU

Unless you have a blog you have no idea, just how encouraging commenting can be, my favorite posters in no particular order are:

James - Thank for all the encouragement, you were the first to write and that means a lot!
Lance - I love you man! I have much more to say and will have to come and visit.
Caleb - You crack me up, I really enjoy your blog, keep at it
Shane - You were not afraid to leave a real comment, I poured myself into that post, and really appreciated your response
Lorna - Sister - you are fresh breeze in my life, thank you so much!
Sarah - Your comments tend to inspire, I hope you realize that.

~ Thank You