_______ 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.

Mambo

"What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier, it’s priceless. As I’m taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It’s her father’s business; she’s Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning the cops come, and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada – I don’t trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later, I get a postcard: I have a son, and he’s the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting. I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris, by the Trocadéro. She’s been waiting for me all these years, she’s never taken another lover. I don’t care. I don’t show up. I go to Berlin. That’s where I stashed the chandelier."

from the ladies in green series

Steam locomotive

Closing Words (Margaret Williams Braxton)

Once upon a time I was
Now I am
Some day I will become

Once there was
And now there is
Soon there will be
And some day there surely shall be

Once upon a time we were
Now we are
And some day (Hallelujah!) we shall surely become

Amen
Amen

it's 11:11, make a wish

hi folks. how are ya. do you make wishes when you see that the clock reads 11:11? i think i started doing it in middle school. not sure i ever stopped.

i'm trying to stay prolific here, and keep on posting, even if they aren't epic posts. i'm not doing a good job of posting links, but i'll try to be better.

another absolutely gorgeous day here, but looks like it's gonna cool down next week.

this weekend was mayfair in cambridge, which was fun. i went with ben and chris. we listened to djs and bands, and played a lot of hacky sack. i gave away bens hack to a kid like an idiot, but then we went and bought two more hacks and taught kids how to play. spreading the gospel!

it was really nice out, really hot. we got some street food. indian food, and then ribs from Big Moe's M & M Ribs of Boston. really good ribs too. i love street food. i only really get it during festivals in cambridge, but i'll take it.

i'm currently training for the essex river race on may 15th. gotta get myself in shape. i'll write more about it and blog about it soon. later

photo of some hills. scenery. nice. except for the power lines.

untreated pond water

not to gross you out or anything, but there was a gigantic water main break (10 foot pipe) that busted out in weston, ma on saturday. one official said that the emergency water supplies that had to be activated more or less contained some "untreated pond water". thanks guy. keep that quote to yourself next time.

so yeah, as of saturday us here in greater boston (minus cambridge and burlington), have been having to boil our water to drink and brush our teeth. this water comes from the quabbin reservoir, and it's delicious all the time, but now it is not!

i got more to write about but i'll leave it at that for now, later.

oh yeah apparently at one point some dude wanted boston to secede from massachusetts and become the 49th state. it didn't happen. but here's a photo of how it would look.

oh oh oh oh oh

folks, what's happenin. man pretty wack that i posted on monday and then took the week off. what the heck was i doing with myself all week? moving on.

celtics are in the second round of the playoffs, bruins are in the second round of the playoffs. kentucky derby is tmrw. dartmouth is racing wisconsin and mit tmrw morning. it's going to be a long, long day of watching sports. i'm amped.

beautiful day outside today, just gorgeous. i can't wait to do some hiking or camping or kayaking this summer. i don't think i'm gonna get a new boat, which is a shame, but it's alright.

i've got some links for ya, but i'll hold off for now. i just wanted to get my blogging momentum up again. i'll be in touch.

-splat

here are some photos of boston. sunsets are good.

ps i had to turn on the security feature for posting comments, so you have to write those stupid little messed up words before you comment. i had to do this because i was sick of getting spam comments. cool.

slicka picka uppa

hey folks how's it going. not a bad day out eh? let's hope the rain holds off.

i just had a very fun and satisfying weekend. i realize i havent posted since thursday, but i swear ive been busy since then and just cramming a lot in.

it's going to sound like kind of a march if i just go over everything, but i'll try to throw some images and links in there. ok here we go:

friday -- watched celtics with jeff and chris b. the celtics won at the buzzer on a paul pierce shot. i swear, chris b and jeff are good luck for watching celtics games with. that's the 2nd memorable buzzer beater ive seen with chris b. so that was a lot of fun. chris b crashed at my place, and i went to bed at a decent time. jeff brought me over one of those relaxation drinks which totally made me pass out. so that finally kinda fixed the jetlag.

saturday -- said bye to chris, went to arams in cushing sq with kane. it's this cool little armenian breakfast place. my previous two times there i had been there with someone who was armenian, but not this time. food was still good tho. i got eggs benedict. we walked there and back. pretty fun.

i then went and saw pelada with jeff and people. here's the imdb link, it was a good movie, a documentary about pickup soccer being played internationally. recommended.

Pelada (2010)



sweet! one of the directors was there and answered questions afterwards. my favorite part in the movie was when they went inside the san pedro prison in bolivia. its kind of an infamous prison where inmates live with their families, and the inmates kind of rule the place instead of the guards.

after that, we went to orleans in davis sq for lunch. these movies were part of the boston indie film festival. here's the link with the actual correct name:

Independent Film Festival Boston 2010 : April 21 - 28

hey, it's still going on! some good movies tonight and tmrw. ok well there ya go.

so after lunch we walked over to kickass cupcakes (was it a good idea naming it that? do parents not bring their kids there because of the name? i wonder).

at kickass cupcakes, we were in for a surprise. inside the tiny bakery was a full film crew filming for an upcoming food network show called "kid in a candy store" hosted by adam gertler. we met him, he was super nice, and he asked us if we wanted to be interviewed on camera because we were from boston. i let my brother do the interviewing and i did the cupcake eating.

it was so cool! we signed release forms. the show will air this summer. apparently that was their only stop in boston, so it was massively fortuitous. i hope that that's a sufficient explanation of the story.

oh yeah then on the way back to the car i bumped into a friend. i had also bumped into someone in line for the movie, then bumped into someone in the checkout line of a store later. that added to the awesome weekend, i love bumping into people.

i then went home and three groups of people came over in succession, which was cool. i then had to go back out to see a movie with rob. we saw life during wartime. imdb link here -- Life During Wartime (2009).

it was a weird todd solondz movie. he's one of my fav directors. it was a good movie. it was like a sequel to Happiness (1998), which i wasn't super familiar with, but i still enjoyed the flick.

but here's the best part -- he was actually there! not only that, he introduced the film (i cheered my head off. he was flattered by the warm reception and remarked that the festival was 'so hip'). todd then did a q&a session after the movie. he was terrific and did a great job answering questions, and people asked some really good questions.

i even got to ask him a question! i asked him "how is florida different from new jersey?". this was in reference to the setting of his films. he gave me a great answer, explaining that felt that florida was a clean, fresh place where you could start anew.

here's a photo of todd at some festival in the middle, and here's the movie poster.




so that was awesome. i had zero idea he was going to be there, and it was a total surprise.

then i ate homemade onion rings at robs, went home, and called it a night.

sunday -- slept in, watched the celtics lose with kane. lame.

went grocery shopping at three grocery stores and took care of a couple other things, then made fish/shrimp tacos and guacamole with a couple friends. here's the recipe for the tacos.

Fish Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Crema Recipe - MyRecipes.com

and here's the recipe for the guac -- Perfect Guacamole Recipe : Food Network Kitchens : Food Network

deeeelicious. and that's mostly it. phew what a post. i'll talk to you soon. many hugs, Dave

here's a screenshot of an ad i saw on nytimes.com today. something about investing in kazakhstan. very nice! great success! borat borat borat.

but seriously, kazakhstan is a huge country, maybe it is a good place to invest in.

you care about this

pretty cool! look at all these folk waterskiing in tasmania! they got 114 people on at the same time.

my favorite line from the video -- "hang on you buggers!"

i liked this video because everyone was so pumped and smiling afterwards

also, i'm kind of conflicted -- i don't like blogs with a ton of youtubes on them. i've been trying to selectively post video. is that cool?

ok i'll keep on writing, having a good time over here, decent weather out.

i've gotta keep on making new paragraphs so that the video doesn't break my silly ray kurzweil feed.

break.

break.

k that's better.

later yall

Water ski record is smashed | The Sun |News

the land of fire and ice

check out this incredible video of the volcanic explosion in iceland

Close Encounter with the Iceland Volcano

That boy has a funny way of looking

i am so obsessed with the blow. or BLOW. or whatever the band is called. how about just "The Blow". she's so amazing. sometimes depressing, but so catchy and smart and good.

and by she i mean Khaela Maricich. i'm actually just now listening to her first album under the name of "Get the Hell Out of the Way of the Volcano" and her album "Look for It in the Sky It Will Always Be There", which i'm digging!

ok here's a weird article -- 10 Weirdest Urban Ecosystems On Earth. some of them are pretty gross, but theyre pretty wild. not sure i'd wanna visit them all, but they're at least cool to imagine.

i'm still kinda jetlagged and a little loopy so i may not be making total sense and i may be a little space cadety and all over the place than normally, but that goes with the territory.

ok i've been feelin bloggin so you'll be seeing more, later.

gardening?

Boston-born

Rest in Peace Guru from Gangstarr -- Keith Elam (July 17, 1966 – April 19, 2010)

Guru, RIP: Our four favorite songs | EW.com

all of these emotions are pouring out of me

to quote kid cudi...

i was able to watch the boston marathon today, albeit online. that guy from kenya ran the fastest marathon ever! pretty incredible. also the 3rd closest finish for the women in history! wow what a great marathon.

i watched this movie called burma vj this weekend, actually on the flight home. it was intense. burma is such a bummer. my goodness. i'm going to avoid talking about anything political here, but if you're familiar with the situation, you know how much of a bummer it is.

there's a really good book called "finding george orwell in burma" that i may have mentioned on here. i want to revisit it now after seeing that movie.

here's a photo. i could link to the article that i found it from, it's a time.com one, but i'm gonna let you find it yourself. there have been some recent goings on in burma that you can read about it if you really feel like.

but be careful, big brother is watching.

good night, extended

hey, buenas noches. i'm adjusting back to the east coast schedule. i'm somewhere under 3 hours behind right now, getting there.

had a good day, went to an armenian market and pemberton market where i got a couple plants, just houseplants, i potted those and watered them and theyre in windowsills.

only watched a little bball cause i watched a bunch of bball yesterday. i did watch the movie bronson tho. pretty crazy! kind of a nutty story. guy's still alive too.

side note -- boston independent film festival is this weekend. i'll have more on that as the day approaches.

yesterday i got up at like 7 30 to go watch rowing. it was cold and windy and rainy. just so nasty out. we watched one race from the bank and then two from the car, driving alongside on memorial drive, watching the whole 2000 meters. except during the princeton harvard race, princeton lost their rudder and collided with harvards stern, losing part of their bow in the progress.

i actually saw the whole thing from the car -- princeton stopped rowing, and then i saw the coxswain hold up a big white piece of fiberglass. tough break.

then we went to victors diner in watertown (watertown is a great place for diners in case you didnt know). i ate a huge veggie omelette and a bunch of home fries, then i went home and went back to sleep til 2am. still getting over the messed up sleep schedule.

need to sign off, but just wanted to show you some tule elk. here ya go. see those little guys? click on the photo and then zoom in. here are some other point reyes photos too. i'll post some more.