"The Future"

I saw "The Future" (2011) last night.

Hi everyone how’s it going. It’s been summer and I’ve been slacking on blogging. I’ve been up to a lot this summer so it would be hard to recap. I’ve done a lot of kayaking. Sea kayaking is my new favorite thing. It’s awesome because you’re more buoyant than on fresh water due to the salt content. Know what I mean? Like how it’s easy to float on your back in the ocean. Same deal when you’re in a boat.

So you can go a lot faster. Pretty cool. I like going fast. I’ve kayaked a lot around Chatham on Cape Cod. Great times. Pleasant bay and north monomoy island have been a couple places that I’ve frequented.

Ok so back to the first sentence of this post. I saw the new miranda july movie last night at kendall sq cinema. Quick side note – the door at the end of the hallway on the other side of the fire exit door was closed. I called theater personnel to tell them. I literally had to bang on the door to get back into the theater. Near disaster.

Ok back to the future. Lol. I mean back to discussing “the future”, the movie that is. It was fun and I liked it and it was funny but I didn’t really get it. It had been hyped up a lot and it didn’t really do it for me. I didn’t understand why it was so visionary. Didn’t make a lot of sense. But I’m glad I saw it.

Oh and I saw another couple movies recently. I saw “wendy and lucy” as well as “meek’s cutoff”, which are both by the same director. They are super slow and kinda boring. But, again, I’m glad I saw them.

Aright that’s a good lil post for now I’ll be in touch peace

Post that

If there was something. Cow

Microsoft is the only. Nothing else. The

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lines.

i get it

i get it

img.davesplat.com

Placeholder post for now. Gotta rally. Startin the countdown.

Lots of stuff going on, lots to report. Lemme man up.

In the meantime, let's think about rowing. Hmmmmm rowing. Good times.

I'm rowing the Prouty this weekend with Dad. I'll tell you about it.

Stay cool.

Trip to the Great North Woods -- Second College Land Grant

The point of this trip was to go to the Dartmouth College Second Land Grant in extreme northwestern new hamphire in Coos County on the maine border and stay in merrill brook cabin for two nights. an amazing experience

first of a couple recaps below, sent in a gmail to the general public.

_________________________________________


just sent this to a friend and realized that i could send it around to capture some of the magnificence of the past three days.

trip was incredible. we saw moose! on the drive up actually. there was one along the road (rt 16 up in the great north woods i think), that we pulled up alongside. i've got the photo on my phone, i just gotta upload it. then we saw one moose up ahead literally run in front of a minivan. it was actually kind of scary.

other than that we didnt see a ton of wildlife. some turkey, some grouse, a woodchuck, and maybe a beaver. still, the trip was unbelievably epic.

saturday Kane and i paddled upstream on the dead diamond, which was challenging, but at that point we only had one car. it was so peaceful and beautiful and untouched. the mosquitos really got to me, and i actually got a bunch of bites on my head of all places because i was wearing a visor.

Alex showed up that night and then the next day we left a car downriver and kayaked the entirety of the dead diamond river. took about five and a half hours with a stop for pb&js. so incredible. my favorite part was 'slewgundy', this series of deep pools. i'll never forget it.

the cabin was awesome as well, and it was tough leaving, but i was ready to get away from the mosquitoes by that time. i wrote in the logbook too, some funny entries. yesterday we paddled the magalloway out to lake umbagog which was giant and gorgeous. we paddled across the entire thing (if you look at a map you'll see that it actually stretches across to the maine border). went for a swim and made it home, exhausted and sore.

stopped for dinner at tilt'n diner in tilton, nh. made it back late last night. took a shower and a benadryl so that bug bites would ease down cause i'm so allegic.

i wanna go back there. it's a special place.

OK -- back to business

Yikes. Back to business? I was gonna say back to life, as in I feel like I am finally recovering from the kayak trip, but then I just randomly said back to business. Is my life business? Is my life, forbid, transactional (I manually inserted the HTML tags in microsoft word to get that word to be italicizied)?

Ugh, what a horrible word. Transactional. If money is the root of all evil, is a transactional existence all we have? What a horrible thought. We must detach ourselves from transactional thinking. Transactional thinking is inherently separating and demarcating. A different kind of thinking approaches the union of two entities as a symbiosis and power generating force rather than a one way connection.

Existing in a transactional state of mind and acting daily as a consumer reiterates common behavior associated with modern capitalism. By seeking to unify, unite, and join separate beings and associated actions, we can better connect with each other. We must recognize the second currency other than money/material goods: time, a new form of highly valuable currency in today’s rapid fire maelstom of electronically-mediated living.

I prefer unitive thinking. Unitive thinking draws each of closer to one another, recognizing that a lonely existence is bereft of greater human accomplishments such as compromise, teamwork, and love.

Only connect, only connect, only connect. Only unify, only unify, only unify.

Back from kayaking trip

So tired. Need to blog more. I will.

America's Cup Catamaran Capsizes

This is a good place to show you my beautiful kayak. I have not capsized it yet, and I don't plan to. I really, really wanna paddle really, really soon. Isn't she gorgeous? This is the color scheme I have too, looks just like that. It's LONG. Seventeen feet is a lot of feet.

Or at least I think this is the catamaran that will be entered into the America's Cup.

This movie is kind of terrifying, but undeniably impressive. If you’ve ever capsized in a boat before (I’ve only capsized small sailboats, and most of the time deliberately) then you’ve got an idea of how scary it can be.

One of the crew members got hurt. I’m putting this up because I love sailing and I love catamarans, and it’s also got some serious shock value. Couldn’t resist.

Virus shmirus

Here are some photos of the Mavericks celebrating in Miami after they won the NBA Finals. It was a good finals. So funny seeing Lil Wayne there too. What a nut.

What’s up folks. Wow, forgot I had a blog there for a moment. Weak sauce.

So I’ve been witness to a couple viruses recently. First my folks got one. I think it might have been because I disabled virus settings on their comp when they got it. My bad! I was able to fix it by watching a walkthrough on a different computer. All I had to do was show hidden files, then rename some hidden file in safe mode. I was happy with myself cause I’m not a windows guy, but also kind of ashamed. Lol, oh well. We move on.

I had a good weekend. Went down to Chatham, MA. stayed at the mill pond cottages. I’m gonna post this link up here because it’s recommended. We stayed in the windmill. A freakin windmill! Was awesome. Pretty cool waking up in a really old windmill with some rad views. It rained some, but we were still able to do outdoorsy stuff. Went out on the boat with K and Chris and Amy and D. we were out there for a long time. there were mostly just fishermen out there, guys in boats and guys in waders by the shore. Got up to like 30mph at one point, which was really fast. I’m just glad we didn’t beach the boat or otherwise run into any difficulty.

The Windmill Cottage at Mill Pond Cottages

Also went for a walk along lighthouse beach. Lighthouse beach is one of the best beaches in america. Don’t believe me? Ask dr beach, or whatever his name is. It’s huge and beautiful. There are a ton of seals that congregate at low tide. Like, hundreds of them on this one little sandbar. Some of them would come close to the shore, fishing, and it was awesome seeing them up close. They’re so sleek and big and fast and beautiful. Fun.

I just got some kayak booties. I’m excited about this. I’ll tell yall more soon, peace

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Catch the tiger by the toe

If it hollers let him go

Gooooood morning everyone. It’s a beautiful day outside. Gonna be hot out. I’m wearing shorts. I watered the plants this morning. I got a couple tomato plants on the back porch and some parsley too. Parsley tastes pretty good.

It’s gonna be pretty hard to be patient enough to wait for the tomatoes. I used to not even really like tomatoes, but last summer I grew to love eating farmer’s market tomatoes with basil, mozzarella, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Hmmmmm yum I can’t wait to eat that again

Speaking of, I haven’t been to a farmers market yet this year! I guess I’ll go to one this wknd. Gotta do it. Or I could try to find one to go to during the week. We’ll see.

Last night was cool. Matt F showed up out of nowhere. Texted me and before I knew it we were hanging out. Saw Ben and D and went to middlesex for a couple drinks. Good times, good to have you (briefly) back Matt. I really hope I see you again soon brother.

The photo posted here is of the lightning storm from last week. Craziness.

Hmmmmm lemme think of some other stuff to write, ttys.

The time has come

To go to Charles River Canoe and Kayak. I am excited.

I can’t stop reading the Dartmouth Outing Guide, reading about the second college grant etc.

More dartmouth blabbering – congratulations to the men’s varsity lightweight eight, who won a bronze medal at the IRA today. A great accomplishment.

Also – must see tv tomorrow – the college rugby sevens tournament. Dartmouth hasn’t lost yet! They play penn state. I’m gonna try to watch it.

Went to riverfest today in cambridge, which was fun, but last year’s was way better. Got jerk chicken which was fun.

Went to rack attack in framingham today and got a kayak carrier for my car. Booyah.

Gotta go to sleep, talk soon. -D

Survived the storm

Here's a photo of Coos County, New Hampshire. Northern New Hampshire. I want to stay at the Dartmouth Second College Land Grant cabins. A ton of them are reserved though.

Made it through the storm ok. Saw crazy lightning which was awesome.

Bruins lost, pretty weak.

Really getting into kayaking, I'm interested in a Chatham 17.

Rowed this weekend too.

Sleepy.

Filling space.

Night.

Papoose

Do you know what a papoose is?

Cool map here. I like it. Weather's really hot. I'm lovin it. Gotta go kayaking and canoeing this wknd. Feelin it.

Everything's been pretty good with me. Went out and partied last night and only got five hours of sleep so I'm a little tired.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I watched Dartmouth women race this morning but they didn't make it to the semis from the heats. Gotta watch the reps now.

I'm excited for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Should be good.

I gotta watch this week's episodes of south park and modern family and such. I'm way behind on 30 Rock too. Gotta finish playing Dragon Age this weekend too. Lookin forward to it. :)

Have good long weekends everyone!

Have a heart

I like six seat's smile in the women's boat :)

Have a heart, Dave

Where oh where/Heartbreak

Listening to "Baby's Arms" by Kurt Vile. Really good. That combined with the rain outside is making me sad.

Check out the photo of the space shuttle or whatever going up to space.

Everything’s pretty good with me. I hate this weather. Hate it. I really think it affects me emotionally. I don’t really get seasonal affective disorder, but days upon days of overcast/rainy weather really starts to drive me nuts. Ugh! I guess I’ll hafta wait til this wknd for some sunshine.

I watched “Last Train Home” (2010) last night (if I were really a film student I would be underlining the name of the movie. Oh well). It was so sad. It was all about chinese migrant workers and how they go home ONCE a year for chinese new year. That’s still hard for me to believe. ONCE a year? It focused on this one family and how the parents really never even raised their kids because they were just working the whole time.

Was such a bummer. All about the life of chinese peasants and migrant workers and such. Sheesh. Made me grateful for what I have/do. I mean, I guess we all get up and go to work in the morning, but they are in like work dorms, and they probably can barely like leave the building. Sad. Jeff told me it was typical for me to watch a bumout kind of documentary like that, but I’m still glad I watched it. Was difficult to watch when the daughter and father got in a fight, but I’m gonna keep on trying to watch movies.

I’m trying to get on the blu ray kick. I’ve got “Public Enemies” and “The Next Three Days” on blu ray sitting at home. Right now I’m looking forward to getting home tonight and putting one of those on. Yes, yes I know I should read books, but on a rainy day a movie really helps.

Ok fine I’ll post the lyrics to the song that I’m obsessively listening to in their entirety. You can thank WZBC for consistently playing the best indie tunes out there. I’ll talk to yall soon, stay up. -Splatman




There has been but one true love
In my baby's arms, in my baby's arms
And I got the hands to hold onto them

I get sick of just about everyone
And I hide in my baby's arms
I hide in my baby's arms
Cause except for her, you know, as I've implied

I will never ever ever be alone
Cause it's all in my baby's hands
Shiny, shiny secret stones
In my baby's hands
In my baby's hands

I get sick of just about everyone
And I hide in my baby's arms
Shrink myself just like a tom thumb
And I hide in my baby's hands
I hide in my baby's hands

Cause except for her
There just ain't nothin' to latch onto

There has been but one true love
In my baby's arms
In my baby's arms
In my baby's arms
In my baby's arms

Donde esta la zapateria

Where is the shoestore?

Pretty cool photo eh? That’s at playa jaboncillo in Guanica. Want a map? Aright I can dig one up at some point.

So that’s a panorama that my camera took. Functionality is pretty good eh? I wish I had taken a couple more of those. We went back before heading to the airport and it was sunny but I didn’t bother taking my photo out of my backpack. Oops.

So yeah the trip was good. I’m back now and everything’s good. Celtics lost the worst game ever last night, but other than that all’s well.

Hmmmmmm have I told yall about my phone? Yeah I guess a lil. Htc thunderbolt. Battery’s not great, but it’s a lot of fun. The screen is so big that it drains the battery. Oh well. I’m enjoying it. Right now I’m having a great time playing paradise island (kinda like sim city) and also I’m totally addicted to angry birds rio. Lol good times.

Ok folks I’ll talk to you soon, peace

Comin home

Adios Guanica. You were pretty awesome. We had a great time. Bosque seco, playa jaboncillo, playa tamarindo, cana gorda, it was all fantastic. And everyone, if youre going to a certain all inclusive resort in guanica, get the all inclusive package, for the love of god. I swear we were the only people I saw with the purple wristbands. The deal was a steal, so just do it.

Everything was great, both at the resort and the area. The resort was great – good food, awesome servicice. They upgraded our room, we had a huge room with an ocean view. The food was awesome. I had spiny lobster for the first time (I still prefer maine lobster). We had a good cinco de mayo yesterday with margaritas and coronas. Fun fun fun.

The grounds here are beautiful. We saw some wildlife at some of the other beaches – some huge iguanas and a cute blue crab. D even sailed the hobie cat, she’s a natural.

Here's a photo of playa jaboncillo. We drove down a rocky dirt road to get to it (luckily we happened to be driving a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder which they gave me even though I registered for a full size, turned out to be a huge windfall). It was gorgeous, and felt like our own private beach.

It’s 80 something degrees here and sunny, but it’s back to boston. I’ll catch up with you soon. Gtg pack and so forth.

Salud, and hasta luego!

Vamos a Guanica

Hey everyone how’s it going. So I’m about to get on a plane to san juan, puerto rico. It’s been a while since I was there. I guess I was there once when I was like 14 or second. All that I remember is that the weather didn’t change at all every day (strange for a New England boy), and that there were Ricky Martin posters everywhere. I’m looking forward to more of the same!

We’re going to Guanica, which is on the southwestern coast. There’s an accent on the first A, but I’m still not sure I’m pronouncing it right. We’re going to a nice spot, and I’m very excited. It’s going to be very hot, and I may melt, but I guess that’s what pools are for.

So they got bin laden. Can you believe it? They said on the news last night that we would all remember where we were when we heard. I was in my apt, I had just gotten home, and Jeff told me. But will I remember it forever? Unclear. It was certainly momentous, and we watched Obama’s presser, but I dono if it has the same gravity as 9/11. I just don’t think that 5/1 is going to have the same staying power.

Still, pretty…awesome? I dono. I dono how to feel about it. Is this the end of the war on terror? (no) is it mission accomplished? (maybe, ehh no it isn’t) too many lives have been lost, we fought a war in Iraq for no reason, etc etc. I’ll stop there. Just give thanks for the troops, their families, and all involved.

Ok enough seriousness. Celtics lost yesterday. Boooo. I may be able to see game 2 in puerto rico if she lets me, we’ll see.

Wknd was good. Went for a bike ride on minuteman trail with Chris on Saturday. Went for a row yesterday, but we were in a double with a toe rudder, which was hard to control.

D is reading this post right now, and I feel like it’s somewhat dull. I talked her into getting coffee cause that seemed like a better alternative than trying to fall asleep on the plane or in the car.

Back to puerto rico – we’re going to drive across the country in a rental car. I’m pretty excited for this. Supposed to be a scenic drive – but I gotta keep my eyes on the road! I will take photos and try to post here. I might do a separate post with maps and professional photos of the area, cause I like doing that sometimes.

Ok yall, I’m on free wifi at logan, flight’s boarding soon, and I got a sweetheart next to me who’s saying that my writing’s not dull. I gotta go give her a big hug. Talk to yall soon, and come visit me in Guanica if you’re in the area.

-Dave

Damus

Way too busy to be posting right now.

But I got the blogger app on my thunderbolt. But I don’t think I’m gonna be bloggin from that baby. I’m so slow at typing on the touchscreen. I like hope that I don’t get text messages now so that I don’t have to respond to them lol.

Here’s a photo of this show that I went to with D and Ben. Great show. I should post a couple links too about the mask. Hold on

i guess he goes by "subtract" as well. our maybe subtrakt.

in this interview he talks about the mask, which i guess somebody made for him.

he says that he has "roots globally". i have no idea where he's from.

http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2010/05/pitchfork-may-sbtrkt.html

here's a video with the mask, pretty cool, i think these are the folks that made it -- http://stepinshadows.blogspot.com/

so yeah, that show was fun, and if you can find the flickr photostream you might even see some photos of me in it. :) good luck tho, I can’t help ya out there

sun is shining outside, weather is sweet.

Placeholder

While I come up with a real post.

Here's the Haitian national soccer team playing Dartmouth.

They say spring is here, but it's still kinda cold.

Big Celtics game tonight.

Bruins won last night, but I didn't see it.

I saw Femi Kuti at Paradise last night, it was awesome. I think my ears are still ringing (I forgot my earplugs in the car).

Peace

“Instead of continuing with the conversation, we all take out our phones and check them in earnest,” he said. “For a few minutes everybody is typing

away. A silence falls over the group and we all engage in a mass thumb-wrestling competition between man and little machine. Then the moment passes, the BlackBerrys and iPhones are reholstered, and we return to being humans again after a brief trance.”

And to think that I might be getting an HTC Thunderbolt this week...

That's a quote from an article about how it's fashionable to fool around on your phone and ignore people. That's an article about friends going out to dinner and then one person checks their phone and then everyone does at the same time. Classic.

Nother good line -- "The metrics of followers and retweets beget a kind of always-on day trading in the unstable currency of the self."

Gah and kind of a bummer one regarding conformity -- "When someone you are trying to talk to ends up getting busy on a phone, the most natural response is not to scold, but to emulate. It’s mutually assured distraction"

Are you the ocean?

You might be in the right place.

Listenin to that Nattymari slurred and blurred mix of Lil B's 6 kiss album. Good times.

Lookin forward to tonight. Glad I'm not going to the Red Sox game.

Rumor is that the Bruins playoffs and the Celtics playoff games start this week.

It was warm outside yesterday.

Happy Birthday D!

“I’ll be on Facebook and see a status update of song lyrics, and I’ll Google them and find the band name, that I will subsequently Wikipedia and

discover that the lead singer is interesting and briefly look at his Twitter and try his music on Grooveshark while looking at pictures of him on Tumblr that will lead me to a meme I’ve never heard of that I’ll explore until I find hilarious photos I will subsequently share with friends of mine on Facebook.”

Internet addiction. It's a hell of a drug. Should we breaking our neighbor's cigarettes in half or their keyboards instead?

Internet addiction also leads you to produce long run on sentences when the new york times wants to understand what the heck you do with yourself all day.

Dub in the Roots Tradition

Lazy river yall.

Happy Friday.

Grilling and tubbing.

Strikes and gutters.

Dogs and Cows

And cows and dogs. And cowdogs. All sorts of cowdogs.

Dogs and cows and cows and dogs and cowdogs.

What’s up folks. Howwwwww are ya.

We won our men’s league basketball playoff game on Monday night. Can you believe it?! I can’t. this bball season has been so intense and emotional, I’m not sure I can ever play in a men’s league again! It’s been such a rollercoaster. I think I need to work on being a little less moody and passionate.

Less passionate, less moody. That sounds hard for me. I need to be a yogi and learn how to chill out. That could be the next big thing for me.

So our next game is tonight. I’ve got my contacts in. one of them feels funny. Hold on lemme wash it out. Ahh that’s better. Why is it that when you put in contacts you always have to take them out and then put them back in and then they’re ok? Lame.

It’s like, hey, contacts – get yourself together. You’re super annoying. Always getting dry.

Hmmmmmmm contact lenses. I want lasik. That would be sweet. Any of yall ever get lasik?

It’s spring, weather’s warmin up. I smell a little grillin this wknd.

Ok yall ill be in touch, peace

PR

Figuring out what to do for vacation

This is hard to do. There are a lot of places I want to go. Looking at flights and hotels and packages and deals.

Had a nice weekend. Ate indian food Friday night, went to worcester to see rowing on Saturday, watched toy story 3, had good vegetarian dinner with friends tonight, watched some celtics. All good stuff.

The Belly Button of the Universe

I think that you think that I think that he thinks that I think that she thinks that we think that it’s not gonna happen. But I know that if you knew that she had known what would happen that things would have been different.

And I feel that you feel that having felt all of these emotions, things could have turned out better. And being that here we are, and being that there she is, and being that we are what we are, well, I guess, it is what it is.

Seeing that we can’t see into the future, but that we have a clear view of yesterday, let’s put on our x-ray goggles and look into the belly button of the universe.

Therein we will catch a glimpse of all tomorrow’s elevator rides, hushed silences, and muffled sneezes. If we don’t cover our mouth with our hands we might infect the stars. Turning and turning, the big dipper scoops out dirt from the backyard for its own vegetable garden in the sky.

Why, big dipper? Why did you do that? We need our dirt, here on irth. There is only so much dirt on irth. The dirt is what makes the irth. The animals and the plants and the trees and the fish and the humans and the amoebas huff the oxygen molecules and cough the carbon dioxide. Big dipper, please stick to the moonrock, even though it is less accessible and harder to extract.

Rational people

Under tremendous pressure

photo information -- An Indian vendor arranges the arsenal for celebrants of Holi -- colored powder -- at his shop in Hyderabad, India, on March 18. (Mahesh Kumar A/Associated Press)

Progress (Part Two)

Folks – how you doin. Seems like I’m starting my blog posts off with the word ‘folks’ recently. Whatever I like it. Soooo, ladies and gentlemen…

Ellipses are funny. Online they’re funnier. Like, it’s hard to describe what an ellipsis conveys. It’s kind of like a fill in the blank isn’t it? Or is it subtlety? I dono. Just funny. We don’t use ellipses a lot, and that’s probably for a good reason.

So I had some hot sauce today. Like, the 100% pain, habanero infused, spicy madness hot sauce. The kind where you take a tiny drop and it hurts your throat and your lips. Then you get a stomache ache. Then you feel kinda drunk. Yeah, that happened to me today. Pretty sure I still feel messed up.

Intense hot sauce is a doozy. There are so many different kinds – how do people make money off this stuff? There’s like 8 million ways to combine peppers and salt. Sheesh. Well, I guess people love the stuff. I was totally addicted to Tabasco in high school, so I can understand.

Well, I was grumpy this morning. Probably because I hadn’t exercised in a week. Thursday through Sunday I just watched basketball and hung out with people. Got out of the house and such, but didn’t go to the gym. I was gonna go to the gym last night but I went grocery shopping instead. Not a bad play out of me, but today I feel like I’m atrophying. My legs hurt – not because they’re sore from working out, but because I haven’t been working out. It’s the worst feeling in the world for me, reminds me of the month after rowing season ended.

Thank goodness I have a men’s league basketball game tonight. That’ll help me out. We’ll see how winded I am. I wanna get in shape and have some fun rowing this spring/summer/fall.

I chatted with my friend Shane today who’s out in Kabul, Afghanistan until April 10th. Shane, please come back home soon safe and sound. Still thinking of you brother.

Seems like the nuclear reactors in japan are doing better. Sounds like there’s not gonna be a full scale meltdown, thank god. Still there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced. So many people living in temporary shelters. Repair costs in the hundreds of billions. Thousands dead and missing. Such insanity. I can’t even imagine.

And now there’s this stuff going on Libya. Boy. Ok I should probably move on from talking about international events, I’m not the expert, but they’re hard to ignore.

So I still have a dumbphone. No, not a smartphone. A dumbphone. I love it, and it does a great job at making phone calls and text messaging, but it’s not gonna be my long term solution for the next couple years. So, I need a smartphone. The time has come. The iPhone is not for me – it’s too small, I feel awkward and clumsy when I use it. I have massive hands, and I guess big thumbs too, because I struggle on that thing.

Thankfully, a solution is here. The HTC Thunderbolt. I’m going to hopefully get this phone in the next couple weeks (no rush), and I’ll let you know how it goes. I had the chance to play with one and it’s pretty awesome – big screen and super fast.

Ok yall, be well.

-Dave

Snow Row

This isn't a photo from this past weekend's Snow Row. It's just some DJ photo. But I was in the Snow Row on Saturday at the Hull Lifesaving Museum, and I won the event that I was entered in with my Dad.

It was pretty awesome. It was kind of funny – the start process involved five different 'waves', all groupings of different classes of boats, and the start was a cannon blast. The bigger whale boats had ‘le mans’ style starts where all the oarsmen and women carried the boats in the water and then hopped in as soon as the starting gun went off. very entertaining to watch.

It was very windy, challenging conditions. I did not have the right gear – I should have been wearing booties. Like, the surfing kind. Instead the boat swamped with water and my socks got soaked and I was frigid and shivering after the race.

It was a great race tho. We were in a brand new 30 foot alden double. Beautiful boat. We were heavy, which helped, because the wind and chop was really bad. However, this time we actually put the oars in right, so it went well. We passed a lot of boats, but had to make a bunch of steering changes. We stopped to bail once (don’t even bother). My port oar fell out of the oarlock at one point, but I was able to get it back in after a short break.

This time I was more scared than my dad – a role reversal after our first ocean race.

So I’m very happy to have won a race. I think it’s been since 2005 since I actually won a race. I mean, it was just our event, and I don’t have a medal to prove it, and there wasn’t an official starting line, but I’m still gonna count it. It wasn’t too cold and the sun was out, so it was a beautiful day. I was super tired and sore and cold after it, but it was totally worth it. Now I’m looking forward to essex river race in may.

I freaking love racing and rowing. Kayaking and canoeing and rowing and sailing. I don’t do it enough. I’m going to try to do more this year, maybe it involves getting up early on a Saturday or Sunday every week and just getting out there and doing something every wknd.

Being on the water is a little scary though. There were a lot of boats that flipped on Saturday. In my event, seven boats started, and only four officially finished. There were a bunch of ambulances and fire trucks at the race course afterwards, just probably there to support the soaking wet people coming in.

So, good times. I’m finally amped about competing again. However, I’m not gonna do what I did last year and erg and train for these things. I’m just going to keep in shape by playing basketball and getting on the bike at the gym. I’m going to do core strength so that I don’t get injured. It’s more fun this way, and look at the results!

Ok peace

This just in

Folks – what’s up. I blew it on the self compassion post. There was a post on nytimes about how self compassion leads to happiness, then a link to this woman’s site who’s the expert on it. There was a quiz, which I took, and, not surprisingly, I did not score well. I’m working to change that though! Definitely going to be more self compassionate going forward

We had a men’s league bball game last night, didn’t win, oh well. Hopefully we’ll win another game. Just glad that I’m getting some exercise and getting a sweat up. Went over to B’s, but he was passing out. 5HTP and valerian root will do that.

There was a three day span several years ago where I thought that valerian root would relax me during the day. So, I would take it in the morning, and then be falling asleep by 10am. By the third day I realized “wait, this is for when you want to sleep, not just to relax.” So yeah, that didn’t last long. Haha, ridiculous story tho.

So I went to the new balance factory store on Saturday and I got this pair of true balances. Huge mistake on my part. They were awful. Made me feel awful, emotionally and physically. Just no support. There’s a lawsuit out now too. Yikes. So I’m gonna return em tmrw. Looking forward to that. Just glad that I have the receipt.

Oh man I started reading the human rights watch world report yesterday. God it was awful stuff. Really makes me glad that I live where I live and that I don’t have to see those things every day. Made me want to join an NGO. Made me want to get involved. The thing is – there are human rights violations in dozens of countries. Hard to know where to start. Stuff is so awful. It’s really hard to read about women being oppressed, gays and lesbians being oppressed, and political dissidents being jailed. It’s just awful story after awful story.

On a more cheerful note, the snow has melted. Parking ban has been lifted in my town. Thank gosh. Easier to deal with now. There was so much snow it was covering the roadways. Just glad that I don’t live in Camberville and hafta deal with all that nonsense.

Aright, talk to yall soon.

PS -- spring starts March 20

Truffles

Folks – what’s happenin. I’m mad tired. Can’t get myself to go to sleep on time. I’m working on it, gimme a chance.

I think it has to do with caffeine. Even if I have a diet coke at 10am it still affects me late at night. Lame. Especially lame after I read an article about how a third of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep a night. I’ve been right around 7 a night this week I think. I could learn something from my brother – he goes to sleep on time.

Well let’s see. It’s march. Thank goodness. February is my least favorite month, therefore march is better.

Had a couple basketball games this week. We didn’t win but they were fun. I weighed in this morning at 193.4 lbs – lean and mean. Just hangin out right now, doin my thing.

Ummmmmm what else. There’s plenty going on. Went to w hotel bar briefly last night to see D and her friend. Hmmmmm. Oh yeah I got that video game dragon age. It’s like a nutty role playing game. I haven’t gotten a video game in a year or so. This one’s pretty fun, even though I just started. It’s hard, and I’m not that good at it. I need the dragon age wiki walkthrough to help me out.

I’ve got some cool photos here from the Koch center at mit. They’re photos of like cells and neurons and stuff.

I’ve been following what’s going on in Libya. Ugh it’s so awful. Seems like a civil war is brewing. So sad. I hope it passes soon. Crazy that all this stuff is going on in the middle east and africa at the same time.

Recent music digs – magnetic man (skream, benga, artwork), lil b (controversial hyphied up wack job out of Berkeley, part of The Pack), ceo (I was introduced by D), Robyn (also introduced by D), and Poppin Bottles by Drake. Good jam.

Ok yall ttys.

-Dave


New post to come soon regarding self compassion…

Just woke up

Just woke up. But not in this bed that you see pictured here. Where the hell did I get this photo? Hrm

I’m doing my morning routine breathing exercises and such. I’ve kind of given up on meditating (I know, super lame).

Soooo I wrote that two hours ago, and then immediately realized I was gonna be late for an appointment. Haha whoops!

Some outstanding posts that I haven’t written – ny trip recap, skiing trip recap, individual albums of the year recap (though I might let that one go).

I’m just sitting in bed right now. I can hear sportscenter in the other room. Reading online news and such, dealing with e-mail etc. gotta figure out something for lunch. Ugh leftover mediocre pizza? Hmmm maybe.

I really want upper crust. Am I just gonna hafta suck it up and get upper crust? It’s a distinct possibility. I’ve sworn off upper crust for a couple years right now, but I haven’t had a good slice of pizza in forever. I wanted to get pizza in ny, but all I really had the opportunity for were those $1 a slice places, which I passed up. I had a pizza at Fiorella’s in Waltham a couple months ago that was good, but it had a ton of ricotta on it. Like, huge mounds of ricotta. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll be getting it again.

Hmmm I miss blogging and writing. Gotta rally and do it more. I think if I get some momentum that I can keep on doing it. Gotta be meta. Meta meta meta.

It’s raining outside. Flood watch is in effect. Floods are super annoying. More annoying than snowstorms in some ways.

I’ve been watching a ton of movies. I just watched “The Next Three Days” with Russell Crowe. I liked it. Russell Crowe looks fat. It was a prison break movie, which I’m a sucker for, so I had to watch it.

Let’s see, what else. Almost too many to list. I watched “A Single Man” with Colin Firth. Also good. During the ski trip we watched “Chloe” and “Unstoppable”. Good times! I wished I could remember some of the other flicks I’ve watched recently. Gah I can’t remember. I’ll just have to fill you in as we go along.

Banff mountain film festival was Wednesday night. I missed it for the second or third year in a row. Massive bummer, but I was able to give my tickets to jeff, so he went with pat, and it’s all good. Banff mountain film festival is so dope, check it out some time.

Ok here’s my last impressive thing for this post. It’s called https everywhere. What it does is it forces sites to use the encrypted version of their site, which starts with https instead of http. A bunch of sites, including google, have https, but unless you type it in it will just default to http. So there’s this awesome firefox plugin. Use it, and be more secure. Later, Dave

HTTPS Everywhere -- electronic frontier foundation

Back in Boston need to blog more

Got home tonight. Skied Bretton Woods today. I skied glades for the first time. Didn't break myself (though came close). Feelin good. Need to write a recap about it.

Glad to be home and bloggin again.

Out skiing in Vermont

Hey everyone, what’s up? I’m in vermont, skiing. Or, I’m going skiing tomorrow.

Today we just kinda took it easy. Slept in (somewhat), cooked breakfast, that sort of thing. Then went home cross county skiing, checked out this reservoir. I’m in Ludlow, VT, by Okemo. Pretty awesome! I love it up here. It’s been cold, sunny, windy. Tomorrow it’s gonna snow some. I’ve got enough gear, just gotta make sure that I wear the right stuff.

So I’m very happy to go on a little trip and get out of town a little. I miss everyone back home, but I needed a break. I’ve got this whole room to myself, and while it seems a little lonely, it’s worth it. Downhill tomorrow, and then we’ll see what pans out the rest of the week.

I missed the dunk contest. Will have to see it when I get back.

Ok night.

-D

Dichotomy

Folks – what’s happenin. You been listening to the new M.I.A. mixtape? I guess it’s a couple months old. Relatively new.

It’s called “VICKI LEEKX”. Get it? Wikileaks, Vicki leekx. Clever huh?

So I was reading one of the like eight recent boston college sports blogs that have popped up recently and I read the quote below. It started off with talking to scott van pelt from espn who gave these guys advice on how to do a good blog. He pretty much told them not to be negative. I then read the below which I really liked:

“Bloggers in general have very little concept of how much time and effort many sports figures put into training, coaching, and developing game strategies. Athletes and coaches put in countless hours during the week and many bloggers think they have the ability to ruthlessly critique them after watching a game for five minutes on the couch.”

So, I’m obsessed with sports and sports blogs. But at heart, I’m an athlete. Fans are very, very quick to criticize. In terms of college athletics (which are amateur endeavors, not professional ones, which we all seem to forget half the time), I feel justified in commenting on the athlete/fan dichotomy (ugh I hate that word).

People that haven’t been a college athlete don’t understand what it takes. I rowed crew, which I still think is the most demanding sport in existence, so I feel extra qualified to talk about how hard it is to be a student athlete. Here are some challenges that come to mind:

1. Travelling. You have to go to competitions around the country. This means that you’ll miss an exam and have to retake it, you’ll miss the big party weekend of the term and only hear stories from your friends, and you’ll leave your girlfriend for a week because you have to go to California (pretty sure that all these things happened to me, some of them multiple times).

2. Exhaustion. Imagine that your class is on the third floor and it’s 9:55 AM. You had practice at 7:15 AM. You start walking up the stairs and your legs hurt. They hurt the whole way up and the whole way down. Not only that, but you’re so tired in the evenings that you might not go out, you might not have enough energy to do all your reading, and you will probably have to go to sleep early because you must get 8-9 hours of sleep, otherwise you’ll be a wreck at practice the next day.

3. Isolation. You spend hours a day with your teammates. You practice together, eat together, compete together, go to spring training together, go to winter training together. Some guys live with each other, some guys only hang out with each other. If you’re too busy with your sport and classes, then you might not have much time to meet other people in the school, which stinks. You might also not have enough time for other extracurriculars that you’re interested in.

Anyway, I had to vent a little. Being a college athlete was really, really hard, and I sometimes get the impression that these sports bloggers and fans and commenters were not college athletes, so they are a little unclear on what it even takes to graduate in four years while being a varsity athlete the whole time.

Aright the rant’s over. Spring’s comin everyone, I can smell it.

-Dave

Goin to ny for the wknd

Folks -- I'm going to ny for the weekend. catch me there. i'm behind schedule at this point, so i gotta scoot.

ps i got really good news yesterday. get in touch with me to here.

pps i'm happy for egypt and i hope that everything works out.

gahhhh i need capitalization. must...open...microsoft...word

too late. adios

Get on board with Google Art Project

Art Project, powered by Google
Pretty cool eh? Google art project. Google is nuuuuuuts. Wow they do a lot of stuff. Gonna hafta spend some time checking it out. I might have been drawn in because the lead in new york times article had a botticelli painting. Good stuff!


oh yeah and here’s a link to this cool looking exhibit at tufts. I gotta go! I still haven’t been to museum of fine arts to see art of the americas. I gotta go to that so bad! Sheesh.

Tufts exhibit showcases women of the Pop movement - The Boston Globe

Well everything’s good here. Weather is nasty. Rain snow slush, rain snow slush, cold wind sun, you get the idea. Kinda nasty outside.

I read an article this morning about plow drivers and snow companies. It was about how a winter with a lot of snow doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of money for snow removal companies. Apparently the reason why is that some of the contracts that these companies have are fixed rates for a whole season. I read that and I was like “huh?”. They’re pretty much gambling every winter – if it doesn’t snow that much they make money, if it snows way too much (like this winter), they might end up losing money.

I guess they have contracts that are per snowstorm, but boy they should change it up and get rid of these fixed rate contracts. I feel for these guys and the drivers, workin 80 hour weeks and insane stuff like that.

Going to new york this wknd! I’ll let yall know about that soon. Peace

Egypt

No joke.

So I've been steadily reading about Egypt. It's absolutely crazy. Tough to say what will happen next. Just hoping for the best.

Here's how Egypt shut the internet down. I've been reading the stories and it sounds like for a lot of people living in Egypt it was profoundly isolating to be shuttered up inside with no internet access.

How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet

The photos and stories coming out of Egypt have been crazy. One link that I am not going to post is the link to all of the stuff broken and destroyed in the Egyptian Museum. That stuff was horrible. I mean, I read that the experts said that it could have been a lot worse, and that stuff could be restored, but it's still horrible.

But then I was reminded of what happened in the Iraq War, with the National Museum or whatever being completely ransacked and destroyed. That was so, so much worse. And for a war that never should have happened in the first place, a war where the American people were fooled into believing something that never came true -- that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But that's another story for another day.

Did you see the broken artifacts in Egypt? Some of the things and objects were so beautiful it was so upsetting to see them messed up.

How to deal with the Snowpocalypse

If you don't have an ark (or a giant snowmobile, or whatever the winterized version of the ark is), then you're gonna have to rely on these techniques:

How to Stay Productive During the Snowpocalypse

Jeff says we should go to the gym tonight. I should def rally and do that. He can drive. It will be good to get out of the house. Hopefully there's no ice.

Hmmmmmmmmm. I've got the humidifer on full blast here in the dining room. Need it so bad. I think it's working. I gotta bleach that bad boy. Freaking bleach. What the hell do I know about bleach...

Gotta go to the grocery store or CVS or something and buy some new air refreshener thingies. Those things are critical. Prob some other things too. Oh, and bananas too. I'm out of bananas. Code YELLOW.

Blogging a storm

Blogging up a storm. Or, blogging a storm, depending on how you look at it.

Hold on I need to do a little more breathing exercises, just a second. Ugh I feel so wired right now. Like, not caffeine wired, but technology wired.

Just think if the electricity went off! I would just be stranded in this 68 degree (read: warm) apartment with only books! Well, if I had some serious lanterns or candle light I would totally read books. I got no fireplace, and no hot cocoa, but maybe I’d fish up some apple cider.

Weird storm right now. It’s changed to like rain, at least here. Only question right now is whether or not it’s going to turn into freezing rain. I wanna drive my car cause it doesn’t look that bad, but I should probably hold off. Omg I need to eat breakfast, that’s my problem right now. I gotta put some toast in.

Reminds me of one of the best comics of all time, I gotta go dig up the name of the comic. But it’s the one with the little girl talking to her dad as she’s making toast – “Daddy, the toast comes out, but where does the bread go?!” haha, still like that one.

Wow for the first time I’m looking at the number of posts I’ve had the last couple of years. It’s not that high. Disappointing. I think I should start thinking about this blog more. Or no, not thinking about it, acting on it, and writing more.

I got some good inspiration last night from a close one, so that’s awesome and invigorating. I wanna hit you with some links and such, but for now all that’s really on my mind is the raindrops I’m looking at collect on the one window that isn’t blanketed by an insulating/light blocking curtain. Many raindrops. Freezing rain is the threat. Jeff’s out driving right now but I dono if I’m gonna make it out. I hate, hate, hate skidding, and that was happening yesterday. Even though my car is four wheel drive it still skids in these bad conditions.

I’m listening to the new DJ E-V mixtape. This is the guy that’s from Cleveland and reps Cleveland real hard. I’m digging it. good mixtape.

So there’s so much snow everywhere. Like, on porches and roofs it’s really added up. I actually preemptively shoveled part of our front porch a couple weeks ago because it just seemed like so much weight. Roofs have been threatening collapse, it can happen, just glad ours is sloped.

Aright well I’m probably gonna be pretty busy today, but I’ll be in touch.

-Dave

Heem

Lil B is real weird. "post Lil-Wayne deconstructionist"? maybe. sure why not

trying to sneak in a post here before i go to bed. shoot i'm not using word hold on.

Ok phew that’s better. I can’t deal with the straight blogger.com text. No punctuation or capitalization. Looks like it was done a typewriter. Blech.

So yeah, lil b is super weird. I’m listening to “Blue Flame”. I think one of the globe sportswriters recommended it?

It’s late and I’m trying to sneak a post in before going to bed. But “Im Heem” is a good song, “Cold War” is a good song, and I like “Im Burnin” too.

Got our second basketball game tmrw. It’s supposed to snow. I really hope the game doesn’t get snowed out. I’m optimistic that it won’t. this snow has been relentless. I think that’s the word that menino used. Relentless. It’s fitting.

There’s no place to put the snow. It’s everywhere. They’ve been taking it to “snow farms.” Something like thousands of tons of snow were took out of boston this past weekend to seven area snow farms. Snow farms. That’s the funniest term ever.

Come out to my snow farm where I grow snow. I only grow sustainably raised, organically fed, free range, hormone free snow. Visit Dave’s snow farm, go home with a handful of snow.

But seriously, the roads are ridiculous. I am so, so glad that I don’t live in Somerville or Cambridge with a car. It’s a zoo out there! Like, even if I go to pick up a friend or park at a friends house in Camberville I have to jockey for a spot and it gets kind of intense. But that might be cause I’m not used to living in crowded cities any more.

Ok I gotta get some rest for this game tmrw, wish me luck. I’m way less nervous than I was for the last one, but I still wanna have a good game so I gotta get focused and get in the zone and play well.

Night!

article of the day -- How Meditation May Change the Brain - NYTimes.com -- i totally buy this stuff. meditation totally changes you.

Humming and Singing

Matt & Kim

I am humming Matt & Kim

But I am listening to The Blow

Lyrics to "Why Don't You"

Why don't you come over here into my world
I've got a place for you
You can see that I've moved my bed across the room
I would open my sheets
And open my arms
I would make you a food or two
I would run right into you
Oh the ocean is wide
The ocean is wide

"It's Kind of a Funny Story"

Is the name of a movie that I want to see soon. Recently I saw “The King’s Speech”, which I really liked. I just saw “127 Hours” too, which I also really enjoyed. Bunch of other movies here and there. Yaaaaaaaay movies. They are way too good at keeping me indoors.

Well I’ve had a good week. Kept busy. There were a couple snowy days here and there. Just mad storms left and right. Dumping lots of snow. I just went and checked outside and my sidewalk and driveway are shoveled, which I had nothing to do with. Hey, I’ll take it!

So I’m considering getting up early tmrw morning and going to the gym. Why? Because the basketball leage starts back up Thursday night. I havent been to the gym in a couple weeks. I gotta go to the gym a handful of times before Thursday night so that I can be somewhat confident in my fitness. We’ll see. If I wanna get up at 8am tmrw morning I’ve gotta go to bed relatively soon. Hmmm.

Oh yeah pats lost. It was awful. Not even thinking about football right now. Celtics are crushing the jazz, which I’ll take.

So I got some new speakers. They had been sitting in my attic. I didn’t think that they worked. Turns out that some of the inputs are just a lil busted, but with some finagling, I now have a really nice ipod dock system and tv stereo system. It’s all hooked up. Huge subwoofer too. A friend gave it to me because the inputs were always wonky for him and he just was sick of it.

So I’m bumping loud now. Neighbor’s probably gonna hate me soon. I guess I’ll use my backup mini speakers to prevent that.

Ok I’ll talk to you soon, D