It's Head of the Charles, are you ready?

I am. Let's go.

It's cool, I checked

Howdy. Gotta pass on some updates. Not sure how impressive it all is, but there’s some decent behind-the-scenes action. Um, so yeah, everything’s good. It’s getting cold outside. My apt is old and has old windows and gets cold pretty easy. the giant largely uninsulated attic doesn’t help either. I feel like I need to blow on my fingers now!

Gotta get some of that window rope caulk and put plastic over some windows. Soon enough.

Oh yeah I’m not gonna row in head of the charles this year. But it’s cool. Next year I’m hopefully gonna row in an alumni eight, which would be awesome. I look at it as kind of an every other year thing. What it means is that I get to be committed to cheering on three dartmouth alumni/masters eights on Saturday, including one that has my old coach, Scott Armstrong. That’s gonna be awesome. So, the good with the bad.

My injury is a trunk/rib injury. I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but I’ll have to if it doesn’t completely go away. From what I can remember about rowing injuries (I should probably do some more googling), it has to do with the interstital muscles. We used to do core strength exercises every week, and I just hadn’t done them for five years. Hence, the injury. Or at least I’m pretty sure that that’s what happened. I was just doing a lot of training and it caught up with me. Not exactly overtraining, just not adequately compensating for stress/strength differences. Gah! Hopefully I’ll fully recover soon.

Aright I gotta get goin soon, gotta take my car to the shop for a little bit. Ooh I should get a carwash first. aright folks, I’m ultra busy with stuff but will be in touch. Bye

-D

blogger repositioning

i need a little break, hold on

oh, yup, you guessed right -- that's 20,000 north korean soldiers

i've also quasi-injured my back from rowing too much and not doing enough core strength exercises. currently my head of the charles quest is in doubt. i did a lot of exercises tonight and i'm going to take the next two days off and continue to work on core strength. i'm hoping that i'm recovered by this wknd. i'll keep you updated

blogger sore

Wow I’m tired. I rowed in the textile river regatta today. Aka head of the textile, or just “lowell.” “lowell” has made me very sore. I rowed the 3.7 mile course in a masters double with my dad. It was a lot of fun. I talked to some guys from my high school on the water, and reconnected with an old dartmouth alum from the 92 boat. Good stuff.

We had a good row. It was a long way to the finish line, and there were about 8 million junior girls eights on the water too. Lowell is actually a huge regatta, 3300 participants or something. There was chop for the last mile or so, which was tough, but we slogged through it. Beautiful day for rowing, and I’m glad I trained for it and did it.

But now I am very tired. I can’t even recount what I’ve been up to over the last couple weeks. I know that at one point this past week I went to see mount kimbie at wonder bar. The speakers weren’t great, but mount kimbie is awesome. The best part is that I didn’t even know about the show until about 4 hours beforehand. I randomly went on dubstepforum.com and voila! There it was. If I had missed that show I would have been devastated. Thankfully, the internet saved the day.

Incidentally, I met a guy who had found out about the show in the exact same way! So bizarre. A guy who grew up around the corner from me said hi too. I also bumped into a couple acquaintances.

I met the two guys in mount kimbie afterwards. Or at least I went up to them and shook their hands and thanked them for their music and for coming to boston. It was their first time in the states, and we gave them a proper welcome. Gotta appreciate that. The crowd was amped, and they said it was good to see that they had so many fans. Rep yo citi Boston!

But I am just so, so busy. I’m trying to deal with a lot right now, and I'm doing a decent job of not getting too stressed out, but I’m taking on a lot of challenges right now. It’s ok, and this blog is a good way to feel more grounded. I’m not being insanely aggressive, and I’m keeping myself in order by selectively blowing off certain things (didn’t go to a couple parties this weekend). This week is crammed – pats game tmrw night, M.I.A. show Tuesday night (free tickets thanks to jefe), then I think there’s a young alum thing Thursday night that I should go to.

So yeah, time’s flyin by. It’s getting cold too. I almost turned on the heat here, then I manned up and just put on some more warm clothes.

Ok yall I’m glad I got to do some writing I’ll talk to you soon and post some impressive things.

Peace

blogger busy

lemme update you in a bit, too busy

The greatest Boston Globe article of all time?

Ladies and gentlemen – seems like my recent style is to blog up a storm on Wednesdays. As my brother would say, no shame in that. Oh yeah, today is technically the last day of summer. And it’s like 80 degrees outside, can you believe it? this summer rocked. Best summer ever(?). possibly. It was very fun, plenty of hanging out and partying. I’d do it all over again.

I had a massive scare last night when my brand-new tv wouldn’t turn on. Panic! Or, as the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy reminds us, “DON’T PANIC.” So I didn’t. but I wasn’t happy about it. we got on the horn with customer service. Eventually the tv actually did turn back on, but we’re still gonna have a guy come over and reset it or something (apparently the problem's not isolated to us). Fingers crossed over here…

Well, what’s been going on? Hmm let’s see. In eight days it will be illegal to text while driving in Massachusetts. You ready for the change? Don’t sleep on that one. Detint your windows and stuff your phone in the trunk from now on would be my advice.

Saturday I went to the union sq farmers market (only a handful of them left, sad). I then went into Boston with a friend where we stumbled upon a gathering (ask me if you want details). We then went to “Serb Fest” aka the Serbian Festival in Cambridge. My friend from the former Yugoslavia invited us. Turns out that her mom was the lead singer of the band. We showed up a little early and ordered up some lamb on a spit, delicious. Ate some adjvar too (not pronounced the way we thought of course). There was a ton of music and dancing, it was really cool! The people sitting at the table with us threw a plastic knife at me to get my attention so that I would take a photo of them. It took four tries, but I think I got a good one, I hope they like it!

Ok, well now on to the real reason for this post. Folks – I think the Boston Globe peaked today in terms of breakthrough journalism and excellent writing. That’s right – I have uncovered the single greatest news article in New England journalism history. Don’t believe me because it sounds too good to be true? I wouldn’t joke about this kind of thing.

Best quote – “I never get anything more than a numinous tickle from the Cheez-Its display. It’s not magical, but rather obliquely legendary.”

Where shopping becomes a roller derby - Somerville - Your Town - Boston.com

I lived in Somerville til I was four years old or so, so of course I can relate.

Cheers everyone, and happy end of summer (that just does not sound right for some reason).

The TV, or Borderline

I finally got my own HDTV. The past year I was lucky to have a roommate who had a nice LCD. But he peaced, and el Jefe no tiene a nice TV. So I managed to avoid driving outside of state or shopping at the evil store by shopping online. I ended up going with an LG. The one I got I didn’t even think was gonna be that big, but it’s huge! It’s borderline too big for my room. I nearly had to rearrange everything.

But it’s up, and lookin good. I’m feelin it. 1080 LCD. Initially I thought that I would just go with 720 plasma, but got convinced otherwise.

Q: What recent TV episode has Dave recently watched three times, including twice showing other friends?

A: “Beyond Survival with Les Stroud”, episde – “Sea Gypsies of Malaysia”.

I might have to devote a whole post to the sea gypsies. I'm still blown away by the episode and the people. More on that soon.

-Dave

I don’t think so, do you?

I thought that you had heard, that’s why I asked. Do I still need to look elsewhere? The connection from eye contact overwhelms the wary. Glance averted, crisis diverted.

Instructions for not getting ahead of yourself, as scrawled on a pillowcase – realize that you cannot predict the future. If that doesn’t work, think about the incredible things that have happened to you and ask yourself if you predicted those events.

Ride It

Hey folks. What’s up, it’s been too long. Hmmm one post a week isn’t that good. But whatever, I’ve been busy, and better late than never.

Well, it was a good weekend. Birthday party Friday night (hit up bluefin and tavern in porter), then Saturday I went to the bc weber st football game. Great game! What a beautiful day. I forgot to bring my crazy creek chairs to sit on during the game (the metal benches aren’t very comfortable), but it was still a blast. We stayed for the whole game, and even got there on time. Success.

Then I went to buddy’s backyard pong fest for a bit. I won a game, then was about to win another game when it started raining. Then I went to another get-together in the burbs, hung out on the porch outside and joked around in the kitchen. Sunday I got good mexican food with some amigos, played some hacky-sack, and hung out. Monday I was pretty worthless, should have been doing stuff outdoors, but was instead worthless indoors for most of the day. Weak play outta me.

I’m really bad at starcraft. I can’t seem to win a game, even the practice games. I’m probably getting beat by 7 year olds. It’s so frustrating! Oh well.

Ooooh I got a link for ya. Not sure if you saw or not, but yesterday google had an interesting little gimmicky HTML 5 thing on their homepage. It was pretty cool. What they’re showing is that html 5 can do a bunch of cool stuff. At first you’re like “oh wait that’s just flash”, then you realize that it isn’t flash. Dope! Anyway here’s a page with a bunch of cool examples, drawing programs and games and such. Check it out!
www.phpguru.org: HTML5 examples

also, here’s an article about one of my favorite restaurants around Boston. This is possibly because I am friends with the sous chef. But it’s also in one of my fav neighborhoods, the interior is lovely, and the food is fantastic. Nytimes called it “solidly excellent” I think. Haha. Well, the owner got written up, and they talk about the restaurant too. Side note – I don’t think I could live on a houseboat. Maybe for a night or two!
A Cambridge, Mass., Chef in His Getaway Galley - NYTimes.com

college football started this past weekend. I watched a bunch of it. nfl starts this wknd, I’ll watch a bunch of that too. Team usa is dominating in the world basketball championships, I hope they win the whole thing.

Ok folks, I’ll talk to you soon. Peace.

Jokers Wild

RA: Clubbing in Boston

Resident Advisor article presumably about the dance music scene in Boston. I’ve been to a bunch of the places and a bunch of the nights. There’s always a bunch of stuff going on, which is really cool, and certainly a good variety.

I was actually at enormous room (see above) last night for the monthly installment of SSLLOOOWW. Or whatever it’s called. We had to leave a little earlier than I would have liked, but the slowed down music was awesome. They were totally playing all of my jams! Good times. I went home with a free bottle of “DRANK” too. Sweeeet.

I’m still watching the world basketball championships, which are a lot of fun. Oy I’m definitely horribly busy, with nary a moment to breathe. I guess I like it this way, but I wish that I had less things to do, and that someone would do stupid little things for me. I need a clone, or I gotta stop complaining and do it myself.

It has been so, so, so hot. mid 90s for multiple days in a row. Tomorrow’s gonna be the same. We’re supposed to get touched by the hurricane on Friday. Going to the football game on Saturday should be sunny and beautiful, just might be windy.

Oh yeah the revs lost their super liga game. I have not been on the revs bandwagon this year, thankfully. Oh yeah, and sox aren’t gonna make the playoffs. Remind anyone of the matt cassel-led patriots not making the playoffs a couple years ago? Exactly.

Oh yeah I upgraded to snow leopard. Snow leopard rules! Recommended, three thumbs up. It saves your computer like 10 gigs and makes it faster and fixes stuff. It doesn’t get any better! Sheesh I should have upgraded earlier.

Wow I just read an article about pirates in somalia. When you become an avid nytimes reader you become a reader of the subjects that the nytimes writes about a lot. Some things that I feel like I have read a lot about on nytimes – iraq, afghanistan, somalia, pakistan, facebook, autism, internet privacy, and health. I mean, I guess these are covered in most newspapers, but the kind of international coverage that the nytimes gets usually seems unparalleled to me. Level of 1-10 – how biased am I?

One last thing – if you need to buy an hdmi cable, save yourself a lot of money and buy it on firefold.com -- HDMI to HDMI Cables

Ok, peace.

cutting it short, and inspiration

recent massively depressing and heart-breaking book that i've read -- "A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery". oh man. this one was tough. haiti, miami, sudan, romania, india were some of the places i read about. this is not an issue that's discussed in the media much, although an aspect of it has been highlighted in recent years. i'll leave it at that. may modern-day slavery be abolished immediately.

well, it's a bummer to say it, but i cut my vacation short. i had 5 blissful days not thinking about important things, but then all of a sudden everything came crashing down and i realized that i wanted to be productive. there are a lot of things i've been putting off for a long time, and i thought it'd be a good idea to at least get the ball rolling on some of these things, and cross them off my list.

i'm not making this up. i was on the cape for 4 full days, and it rained every day. yeah, it's pretty weak. last year it was the best weather of the summer all week, but not so this year. so, part of me wanted to stay and hit the beach today, but i decided to pack it in and just deal with my life.

but hey that's not such a bad thing. i've already crossed 6 things off my list, and it's not even 1pm. nice Job dave, keep up the good work.

so yeah, i wanna keep my momentum, and just deal. of course on top of all this is cleaning my room, cleaning my apt, rearranging things, and looking to maybe do some new decorations. i figure i've been here a year, my brother Jeff is moving in and my old much-loved roommate is moving out, so it's time for some change. i'm not doin a bad job of it.

there's a preseason pats game tonight and a new episode of jersey shore (the only mtv show i watch, i couldn't even name any other mtv shows to you, i guess the real world never stopped playing right?). not sure what else i'll get up to today, i really wanna exercise, but that takes major motivation.

oh yeah, the best part of the news? we took out the recycling. in my town they only pick it up every two weeks, and two weeks ago they showed up earlier than normal and we weren't prepared and missed it. what a relief!

also, thanks for the kind words Rebecca. you got me fired up.

later

in the rain

heyyyy yall whats up. well, it's day 5 here on the cape, and it's day 5 of lousy weather. which i guess isn't that big a deal, but it's not great.

so far i've been reading and watching movies. i've seen "the kids are all right", which i liked, and "inception", which i didn't really like. but i'm glad i got to see some movies.

i'm thinking about cancelling my netflix account. i don't really rent movies from them anymore, and the only person that was using the instant account was my roommate, watching instant movies on the ps3 with the included disk. should i do this? i've had netflix since 2006. as a movie fanatic, it would be a massive decision, but i think i might just cancel it.

oh yeah and the wireless here is lousy. i'm hard wired right now, with an ethernet cable that i think i may have actually brought down here last year.

been eating some good local food. local pears, peaches, tomatoes, parsley, lettuce, fish. all very yum.

ok well i'm gonna get goin. i'm reading this book called "Sailing Alone Around the World" by Joshua Slocum. it's a 100+ year old account of this crazy guy who really enjoyed leaving his family on martha's vineyard and going on epic solo expeditions in a rickety boat. good stuff.

ok be well, Dave

these are images from a recent boston.com big shots gallery of some rowing race that involves carrying the boat on land. hah! good photos.

wellfleet for the week

i'm on wellfleet. it rained a little today. weather isn't as good as last year.

i watched solitary man with michael douglas. good movie. better actor. get well Michael!

cape cod is cool. i went on an adventure today to orleans to get an audio cable so that we can plug in ipod/computer to the speakers. saw a bad accident on rt 6 on the way home.

the traffic out here is crazy during the summer. tons of ct and ny license plates. gets dangerous on the roads too. gotta be careful.

ok time to sleep, peace

Thinking before sharing

"In the meantime, as all of us stumble over the challenges of living in a world without forgetting, we need to learn new forms of empathy, new ways of defining ourselves without reference to what others say about us and new ways of forgiving one another for the digital trails that will follow us forever."

-Professor Jeffrey Rosen

The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

Jeff's thesis is better, but Rosen drops MANY genius bombs in this essay. A good read. I hadn't even heard of some of the websites he listed. I won't ruin it for you.

Scary stuff though! Enjoy.

the sky might fall

but i'm not worried at all, at all, at alllllll

hi out there in blog world. what's the word? everything's good over here. sorry for the lack of caps right now, but oh well.

ummmm it's getting toward the end of august. blast! time's goin too fast.

uhhh not sure what to talk about. i could give you the recap of my wknd, but...eh.

oooh how about this?! -- i'm planning on rowing in head of the charles with my dad in the father/son doubles race. it's technically the "parent/child" race. what this means is that i've gotta train for the next two months and get myself in shape. i'm in ok shape now, but i gotta erg more.

so yeah, that's exciting. head of the charles is awesome. i've only raced in 8s before. the father/son race is pretty mellow, but i still wanna have a good piece.

Whether that’s right or not, I won’t ever know -- Drake lyrics. Too many Drake mixtapes. Nattymari is my new favorite chopped and screwed producer. Name of his latest mixtape? – “Orange Mocha Frappucino.” Sheer genius.

peace

World record!

The Virgin GB Row 2010 team celebrates completing their rowing challenge around Great Britain - becoming the first female crew to complete the feat - on the River Thames in London July 23. (AP Photo/Gareth Fuller-pa)

BBC News - All-female crew first women to row round Britain

"During their journey, the women have been swamped by huge waves, survived storms, almost sunk and navigated some of the most treacherous tides on the planet.

At one point, Ms Madsen broke her finger when she was setting off a flare to warn off a ship that was on a collision course with Go Commando.

She carried on rowing by strapping her hand to her oar."

Hit the road Shaq

Song that I’m currently obsessed with – “You Neva Know” by Husalah

Good stuff. So whatup yall. Summer’s winding down. Omg did I just say that? What a horrible thought.

But whatever it’s been a great summer. Great weather, plenty of cookouts, plenty of parties. A lot of hanging out, a lot of productivity. Many fruits and vegetables, many sports games. All good things.

So yeah. Shaquille O’Neal is going to be a Celtic next year! Ridiculous! Should be fun. Green Diesel, biofuel style.

Hmmmm. So what other stuff is going on. Did I tell you about the new glasses that I’m looking at? I wanna get the drill-mounted kind that don’t have any rims. Then it’ll look less like I’m wearing glasses, which is what I’m going for. I like the ones by Silhouette. Anyway, new glasses are a big deal cause I wear them everyday (albeit very begrudgingly).

In two weeks I think I’m gonna be on cape cod, lovin life. Wellfleet=joy. So many nice beaches and the water on the bay side is so warm.

Don Wyper is running a marathon and raising money to beat cancer. It’s a Wype Out Cancer campaign! He’s gonna try to do it under 3 hours. Keep in mind that Don is 6’ 4” and 200 pounds and is a natural rower and swimmer, so going out and trying to do something like this is very impressive. Read about his journey and donate at his blog -- "Wype" Out Cancer

The first patriots preseason game is tomorrow night, very exciting.

Last night I went to a friends place in Lincoln and we made homemade pesto with basil from their garden. Yummm. Side note – I got peaches and blueberries from the farmers market this weekend that were outrageously good.

Ok, take it easy, Dave

jolly green

just had my second dartmouth reunion of the summer. incredibly fun. this summer is flying by! i cant believe it.

have i not mentioned that august is my favorite month? is it because eight is my favorite number? unclear.

naw i like august cause it's summer (my favorite month), and it's nice and lazy. it's before school starts, before football starts, so it feels like there's not a whole lot going on. it's just a time to relax and take things easy.

the only problem is that i'm pretty bad at taking anything easy. i do everything way too fast sometimes. last night i wrote a letter and i actually had to rewrite it because i realized that my handwriting is so horrible because i write so fast. of course i'm typing really fast right now too, but i can't really control that.

t y p i n g s l o w i s n o t f e a s i b l e i n t h i s d a y a n d a g e

also, regardless of how fast i type, my handwriting online is always impeccable :) though my capitalizing and punctuation leaves something to be desired

happy august everyone, i'll be in touch

peace, Dave

freestyle blogging

folks, what's happenin. i'm feelin the bloggin in my fingertips. i want to feel prolific and boundless. looking upward i see the top of the hill and there is likely another hill beyond.

recently i've been guiding cupcake franchises into new growth spurts. i tell them -- look, if you charge 3 dollars for a cupcake and it's not that big, well then it better be really, really good. do they listen to me? whether they do not, they'll soon find out if it was worth it.

listening to rinse 11 by oneman right now.

i focus a lot on sports and music. but do it too much? is there an answer? is there a right and wrong answer?

ps i really need new glasses. i've been driving around with a new prescription in my car for months. DAVE GO TO THE GLASSES STORE TMRW AT LUNCH.

hit up two farmers markets this weekend. yesterday i went to the winchester farmers market. i bought cilanto and pok choi (i didnt realize it could be spelled with a p) from the dude at the hmong farmstand. their farm is in lancaster. i've gotten pok choi from them before in union sq and i asked the guy why they were always so clean and he said that he didnt know but his mom cleaned him

i made guacamole with local cilantro and local tomato and it was delicious. everyone loved it at the bbq that i spent the day at. success. i ate garlic cilantro scrambled eggs today which were good, got the recipe from allrecipes.com

today i went to the charles sq farmers market in harvard sq. got green peppers, hot peppers, potatoes, onions, apples, peaches, heirloom tomatoes. now i just gotta eat em all! i think i should just chop up the potatoes and onions and peppers real small and just try to cook em with some oil in a skillet. i dono tho we'll see i'll make some consultations.

football at fenway and die antwoord

i went to see football at fenway wednesday night, sporting vs celtic. unreal. once in a lifetime experience.

last night i saw die antwoord (and sleigh bells, who also rocked) at the royale. also unreal. also once in a lifetime experience.

i'll try to rally and write up some more detailed recaps

summer is my favorite season, and i'm just trying to enjoy myself, but i miss blogging

peace

-Dave

i am still here

i promise

considering coming back from sabbatical

twas a good world cup, viva espana

a title that does not have a negative word in it

i can't stand negativity, even a blog post that has a negative word in it

it's summer, let's celebrate with keggy the keg

sending you positive vibrations...

-splatman

disgraceful

that goal that england scored not being a goal. _____ you fifa. get it together. i feel bad for english fans. give germany credit.

scary stuff. i might have to give up fancy sushi tuna permanently:

Tuna’s End - NYTimes.com

"On the high seas, the bluefin is being hunted into extinction. Will we ever be able to think about seafood the same way?"

blogger on quasi sabbatical

until further notice. usa won today tho.

blogger at reunion

i'm at reunion for the weekend. let's go celtics, let's go usa

check this out, nuts! -- Sailor artist Reid Stowe completes record 1,152-day voyage | Sport | The Guardian

usa tied england

on to the next one

blogger paused

tbd, watching soccer

congratulations

congratulations on being 8th in the country 2010 dartmouth mens heavyweight crew! a great accomplishment

some of the nicknames i can remember having

DISLAIMER -- you will not be able to make sense of the rest of this post. it is comprised of edits and reedits from multiple posts made in multiple platforms.

yo, unbelievable. so i'm using mars edit now, which is a blogging program. and i think that when it's uploading my photos it's not uploading them to blogger so it's not conforming to my template, so it's just a whole mess.

wow. hmm i might remove my "the internet" links and "Ray Kurzweil expects you to live forever" links. or is that wack? unclear i'm bout to do this again tho, check it, i just have to drag and drop images

some of the nicknames i can remember havingin various friendships and groups

Cheese

Tree

Bear

Hurricane

Chief

DH

DS

Stein

Shmurn

noway! it blows up my photos

yo, unbelievable. so i'm using mars edit now, which is a blogging program. and i think that when it's uploading my photos it's not uploading them to blogger so it's not confirming to my template, so it's just a whole mess.

wow. hmm i might remove my "the internet" links and "Ray Kurzweil expects you to live forever" links. or is that wack? unclear i'm bout to do this again tho, check it, i just have to drag and drop images

the limitations of mars edit, and muir woods

so if i upload like a high res photo in mars edit, it just blows it up. i think maybe i have to put html tags in there or something? i dono. but here are 5 photos of muir woods in the meantime. and here's the link for muir woods. go there sometime. the forest, i mean --

Muir Woods National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

dave testing mars edit

does mars edit really work? and will i start using it? is it better to just spend time using microsoft word? time will tell

_______ and ____

What up folks. Yo I’m bloggin up a storm. Lemme get some love here. I’m crushing it. not posting enough photos or links, not recapping enough weekends, but hey, better never than late. Oh wait, I mean…ahh forget it.

Quick hitters – celtics Thursday, world cup starts in 9 days. There’s a rugby event called the sevens that’s going on this weekend, and dartmouth is in it. dartmouth baseball plays miami in the ncaa tournament on Friday. Dartmouth heavyweight crew is ranked 7th (seventh!) in the ira regatta, and will be racing Friday morning in heat 3.

Ok I got a killer link for you. Somebody please try this. somebody with a surplus of printer ink. The site is so that you can upload a high res image, then it gives you a pdf that you can print out, then you attach them all together to create a poster. Amaaaaaazing. (thanks YV)

The Sect of Homokaasu - The Rasterbator

Here are some photos of boston. I hope it’s not too annoying that I really like putting up cool photos of boston and massachusetts, but whatever. Ok here’s the story behind these photos:

Wildfires in Quebec cast their pall into New England - The Boston Globe

Yeah, so there were some forest fires in canada, and all the smoke made its way down through new england. It was super weird on Monday – everything was really hazy. I kept on thinking that my glasses were smudged or that there was something in my eye. It was odd. In some communities people were calling the police and complaining that it smelled like burnt rubber. It wasn’t that bad, and not really a nuisance, but I swear everywhere you looked you saw this weird haze.

Gria

Hey folks how’s it going? I’m writing this post in microsoft word. I will then post it from microsoft word into blogger.com. I want to make this a new thing, because I think it makes the text more legible (or speakable!), and this is very important. I’ve gotten away for a long time without paying much attention to capitalization, punctuation, or appreciation for the wonders of the English language well-written. Perhaps this is a sign of change.

I’m now writing more formally. Or am I? there, I just capitalized that i. but oh no! that t and that I didn’t capitalize either. Hmmm.

Well, this post is called gria cause I drank a bunch of gria tonight. Oh, right, I mean SANgria. Not saint gria, just sangria. A friend called with an urgent request -- she had made a lot of sangria a couple days ago, and tonight would probably be the last night that it would be good to drink. i answered the call. I think the kind I drank tonight was just merlot, triple sec, brandy, and fruit. Maybe some other stuff. It was great!

Oh yeah, I got a gria recipe from a friend. Here it is (I think I remembered it right [also, I don’t know how much of each you’re supposed to put in there. I’ll try to find out tomorrow])

Sangria that makes you drunk:
Raspberry Stoli
Bacardi Limon
Shiraz
Peach Schnapps
Sprite
Sour Mix

Isn’t that ridiculous? I gotta confirm it, but I think that might have been the right recipe.

Ok this boozy post is gonna come to an end and I’m gonna go watch an episode of deadliest catch.

Have a good view from the boat. Good night, and good luck, Dave

on to the next one

hey what's up. i'm standing in my laundry room right now with the laptop on a lapdesk, perched on top of the washing machine. i want to go sit on the back porch and get some sun, but last time i brought the laptop in the sun it was clearly overheating, so i'm not going to do that again.

also, my computer needs a new motherboard. i know, so wack! i think it's from the couple times ive spilled water on it, i fried something or other. but that would require me leaving my comp at the apple store for a couple days, and the guys there failed to convince me that it was a life or death situation, so ive just put it off.

well, the celtics are back in the nba finals. unbelievable. last night was awesome, i was focused on the game, watched with Kane instead of Jeff. nate robinson exploded for 13 points in the second quarter. i saved some photos last night that i'll put up.

well, it's memorial day weekend. im not in new hampshire, im not in maine, im just in good ol massachusetts. i expect a lot of grilling to occur over the next couple of days.

wow, 87 degrees tomorrow! unbelievable. well, i gotta take advantage of the cooler weather while i can. ok i'm gonna go sit outside. ttys.

never empty

hey whats up. i went to the celtics game last night, except they lost. but it was a lot of fun, one of the most fun games ive ever had the pleasure to watch. went with matt, we sat in row 14 in the balcony, but it was still a blast. oh and i dapped up donny marshall in the street before the game, which was tight. oh and i gave a pound to aztec gino. keep up the good work there aztec gino.

yo i gotta get some momentum here on the blogging front. im impressed that im posting now, gotta keep things going. im doing a bad, bad job of putting links up. lemme dig some up.

but things are good. its really hot out. im wearing shorts. i love this pair of shorts. its the best pair in history. mostly because they fit me.

but i need a haircut. my hair is too long and makes my head too hot and makes me sweat. so i gotta do something about that. ive been sleeping with the air conditioner on the past couple nights cause it gets stuffy in my room. ac is amazing.

i had a good weekend. i watched the book of eli and the imaginarium of doctor parnassus. both were ok. imaginarium had incredible special effects, but made zero sense. book of eli was ok, good post apocalyptic depiction.

saturday i watched soccer and played pong at luke's bbq. i think i won like 4 games in a row. so im good again! i think i got my competetive killer instinct back, so watch out yall! you dont wanna be playing me in any games such as pong, pool, or bball. i'm bringin it now.

sunday i suntanned then played pickup bball with some guys from around town. there are two dope courts near my crib which is awesome. i was actually pretty good, and in good shape too. exciting!

some photos from mt st helens. i think it was the anniversary last week. i wanna go there and see that volanic pool (or is that at mt rainier? i think it might be mt rainier, but i dont feel like looking it up right now. you know, that huge lake in the middle of the volcano)

lest we forget

i was gonna put up some bummer of a quote, but i'll pass. it's friday yall!

oh yeah, i never wrote about going to eastern sprints on sunday. it was awesome. dartmouth heavyweights and lightweights made the grand final. so everyone wearing green was very happy all day. i saw some old friends, old coaches, guys from high school and college. it was very nice, the best weather in memory, and dad and i just sat on the beach for a lot of it, hanging out. a beautiful time. i've got some photos that i'm gonna put up.


here's a photo of my favorite carnival ride ever, the zipper (thanks m).

it's more than just an option

hey hey hey

the alternative title for this post was going to be "The Essex River Race, or When Dave Nearly Ends Up In the Drink In Ipswich Bay"

well, i survived this weekend. dad and i somehow finished the essex river race, against all odds, under the legal finishing time of 2 hours. oy, what a day.

so my dad and i blew it and didnt row the boat before saturday. instead i just trained on the erg for two weeks. big, big mistake. you could say that we learned our lesson the hard way. about 3 strokes into the race we realized that were was something majorly wrong with the rigging. the boat had shown up late to the course, so we didnt have the time to fix anything. even if it had gotten there on time we probably wouldn't have had the tools or know-how to fix it. it would have taken a boatman or rigger to make the changes.

basically, the "pitch" was way off. my theory is that the boat hadn't been rowed since the fall. so, massive disaster. on the recovery and drive our blades were at least 20 degrees off. what that meant was that our blades were either crabbing during the recovery or diving during the drive. what a mess. we had never had to row a boat like that, and it wasnt much fun.

a couple minutes after starting my dad was just saying "i think we gotta row it in. we can't row like this". but i, having been in a race 3 years ago where we did not legally finish, said "dad, we're not gonna have nearly as fun a day if we don't finish." whether or not this was the right call is debatable.

it was a very, very windy day, with serious gusts. the race is a 6 miler out around an island in essex bay and ipswich bay. the boat we were in was a 29 foot alden double, which is a good open water boat. but still, it was very windy, and dad and i are more comfortable rowing on lakes and rivers than the open water.

my dad was really freaking out, and i feel kinda bad for him, cause i pretty much put him through hell and back. he's tipped in a boat before (i haven't), so he was understandably scared. thankfully, we're both very experienced, and managed to stay upright. the coast guard told us on the water that 4 boats had capsized.

so we finished, but it was very, very hard. the wind and current were so strong at one point that we were literally being pushed back. dad and i are strong, but due to the pitch and rigging being so messed up, we were barely able to exert any force on the drive and gain leverage. but we stuck with it, and after two hours in the sun, bailing the boat out, and cursing, we finished. dad had some vertigo afterward and was exhausted from exposure, but we eventually recoved.

we hung out at periwinkles and tom sheas with jeff and friends, drove around essex, and hit up the essex shipbuilding museum. check it out sometime if you get the chance! it was really old new england.

Essex Shipbuilding Museum

i'm not really putting up many photos of the face, cause honestly i'm still like blocking it out of my memory. it was that, i hate to say it, miserable. i'm glad we finished the race and had a good rest of the day drinking beers, eating chowder from as many places as possible, watching the preakness, and joking around, but we sure earned it.

ok that's my story and i'm sticking to it. i'll be in touch.

look -- it's cudi spazzin!

living proof

i'm rowing in the essex river race tomorrow with my dad. we're rowing in a 29 foot alden double. check out the site if you wanna take a look. i'll have another post with maps and photos and such.

Essex River Race

i've been training for it for the past two weeks. just 20 minute ergs, but i've got myself in decent shape. i guess i've been kinda busy, so the blogging front has been kinda quiet.

but at least now i am hopefully going to be able to finish the race. it's going to take 40-55 minutes. i hope that we finish under 50. granted, we're two pretty big guys, and the conditions are going to be windy, but i'm optimistic. we're tough cookies, and i hope that we row fast.

i really love rowing and being on the water. i think i'm part fish. or no, maybe part duck, because ducks mostly hang out above the water. i don't think that i'm part water buffalo. i don't wanna be part insect either, so i'll stick with duck. or maybe swan.

sunday is eastern sprints in worcester, the rowing championships for eastern colleges. i'll be going to that with my family too, should be fun. ok i gtg, ttys. peace

celtics won last night. they play again sunday. i'm more amped than you can tell. (thanks for the photo jeff)

the real deal

hi everyone how are you. i've just been posting random quotes for a couple days, so i thought maybe i could actually write something for once.

well, i had a cool weekend. friday night i watched bruins at my place with friends (god it's awesome when people come over to your place). bruins lost. instead of watching the whole celtics game i just watched the first quarter then pretty much assumed that the celtics would lose, which they did.

we went out, went to the model cafe, played a lot of buck hunter, galaga, and ms pacman. drank beers, danced, had a good time. went to sleep at 2am, naturally.

got up at 7am saturday morning and went to community rowing boathouse. with the help of my dad, i arranged us to borrow a boat to go rowing with some older dartmouth guys, including ted murphy, who went to belmont hill and dartmouth, won a gold medal at sprints, and is an olympic silver medalist.

i got to row in a 4 behind him for 6 miles, then switched out. the guys rowed 15 miles, from cri to museum of science and back. oh yeah and it was pouring for a lot of the way. and thunder and lighting towards the end. and we had to stop at cambridge boat club because we were worried about running out of gas.

so, pretty epic row. quite an adventure. everyone's hands got messed up pretty bad and people had blisters due to the plastic handles and rain, but everyone was in good spirits (including us soaked in the launch), and i made some people happy, so that felt good.

saturday i thought i might take a nap, but instead i drank a diet coke and stayed up all day while miserably tired. however, i did manage to watch some movies. i watched fantastic mr fox and defendor. defendor was ok (woody harrelson is obvi really good, and i'd rather watch that then some of these superhero movies), but fantastic mr fox was incrrrrrrrrrredible.

i really liked it. meryl streep, george clooney, bill murray, jason schwartzman doing voices. so cool! my favorite character was kylie, the little opossum dude. he was so cute! anyway i thought that movie was awesome, wes anderson is a legend, animation was terrific. good times.

i started watching terminator salvation last night too.

ok i gtg, i'll try to get some links up. am i doing a decent job blogging? i hope so.

peace

i need to stop pulling random photos from facebook. i'll work on it.