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