My camera has been quiet for a while, but now I have a bunch of new pics from this past week and long weekend on my Flickr site, including birthday festivities, photo call from the show that my lady friend worked on, and a trip to the zoo on Saturday. There was a lot more animal activity than usual, perhaps owing to the cooler weather? Highlights included a raccoon that managed to work the lids off of two peanut butter jars to get at the treats inside, a visit with Victor the echidna, the Malayan tapirs doing lots of frolicking in their pool, and 4 highly entertaining young swamp monkeys.

Is everyone else looking forward to Thanksgiving as much as I am?

eh

So 35 is here. Like 30, I figured that it would be an anxiety-producing one, but so far...not so much. I've used it as an occasion to take stock of things, as I'm sure most people do, and maybe a little more so this year, but there's no real sense of panic, dread or anxiety. Maybe I got all that out of the way the past couple of months. I am using the occasion to bid farewell to the nicotine habit again, however, and though I may miss having a cigarette once in a while, it's definitely time to be done with that.

Right now I'm just looking forward to tomorrow night's gathering with friends and beer, which is really all I can ask for out of a birthday.

"We are not issuing a squirrel alert, but everyone is aware of the incident."

Mean Squirrel Attacks PA Letter Carrier

Where to start??

First of all, it is worth noting that Oil City is only about 30 miles from my beloved Canadohta Lake.

The article mentions that the squirrel was killed with a BB gun. By who? And how was this squirrel tracked after the attack? Did the postal carrier just happen to have a BB gun on her and then whip it out and shoot the offending squirrel after throwing it off of her person? Or is there some Oil City local with a BB gun always at the ready in case a potentially rabid animal needs to be shot? We need details.

And no thought is given to why the squirrel would have acted in this manner other than to say it would be tested for rabies, that tried and true excuse for any erratic animal behavior. Perhaps the squirrel was defending a nearby nest? This AP writer has clearly ignored the "Why?" part of the story, instead choosing to create a sensationalistic animal attack piece.

Perhaps this writer was channeling the recent episode of National Geographic Channel's "Animal Extractors," another sensationalistic (if highly entertaining) program which is basically an excuse to show a raccoon chasing people around a yard, and a man yelling "Get out of here, bear! You're a bad bear!" as part of his plan to make bears averse to human contact (along with shooting the bears with rubber bullets and sending dogs after them).

In any case, we have a new squirrel attack to add to our files. We're keeping a close eye on these things...

clam = energy

Which is worse: That there is an energy drink called Cocaine?


Or that Clamato has their own entry into the energy drink market (and yes, that is a clam on the label next to the tomato)?

I forgot I needed it

There's nothing quite like the feeling of coming upon a new album that grabs you by the collar, slaps you around a little, and then won't let you put it down. The new Thermals CD The Body, the Blood, the Machine is doing that to me right now. I'd heard a song of theirs on WOXY and I remember seeing Pitchfork wet themselves over it a few weeks back, but didn't peg it as my thing. Julie picked up the CD the other day and I didn't give it much thought, but after hearing the song on the radio a little more, I thought it would be worth checking out. And boy is it ever. I think 2 things about it really grab me. First is the vocals - the singer has a really unique voice/style, almost like he's talking instead of singing, but just talking really loud and really insistently. The other is the energy - the album is suffused with a kind of joie de vivre and and has this crackling electricity about it. A kind of Ramones-ish, buzzsaw, push-you-along kind of energy that doesn't let you sit still and makes you want to sing along at the top of your lungs. So I'm excited about it. I'm not so good with the descriptive, flowery reviews, but you can check out the nice things that Pitchfork and Cokemachineglow have to say about it. Other CDs that I've been digging on lately are The Lemonheads new s/t album, and Mastodon's Blood Mountain.

Also, on the way home from work last night, traffic came to a sudden halt because there was a homeless man in the middle of the street lighting a cigarette, who then proceeded to unzip his fly and start peeing. Right in the middle of the street. In broad daylight. Awesome.

Screaming for Vengeance

I got word this morning that I was going to be getting new office furniture (again) tomorrow, so I had to start frantically cleaning up my desk and packing things up. My current desk area has these cubicle-esque walls that I can tack things on, while the new desk would have no such feature. This means that I would have no place to put things like my giant catfish photo collection and the Judas Priest poster above. Thankfully, it turns out that the new furniture isn't coming after all, so Rob, KK, Glenn, Ian and whoever the drummer is will still be there to help me get through the work day. If you could use a little help from the Priest as well, you can download one of those bad boys here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Nearest Book Meme

I'm not much on these memes, but I haven't posted in a bit and this one seemed like more fun than the normal Q&A ones...

From Critters and Spectacles:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

Possibly the two had been "indiscreet," although he did not think Gertrude capable of so drastic a moral lapse. The more he pressed her for an explanation, the more troubled and adamant she became. She wished she had never come to Chicago. It was a blighted, hellish place full of noise and dust and smoke and inhuman towers that blocked the sun, and she hated it - hated especially this gloomy building and the ceaseless clamor of construction.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson, which is about the planning of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and also a serial killer that was using the occasion to do his business. Not a book that I would have normally picked up, but I needed a new book to read and the lady friend lent this to me. I'm actually on page 110 of this book right now, so I'm glad that this didn't really give away anything drastic...

Egretta thula

As I was walking over to the mail room today around noon, I was greeted by the sight of a snowy egret rounding a corner and slowly waltzing towards me from the other end of the sidewalk. The egret was soon followed by short man on a cell phone who proceeded to yell "Don't scare him!!" in my general direction. This was a little jarring not only because I was getting yelled at by a man on a cell phone, but because egrets are usually near water (which there is none of anywhere near the medical center) and not casually walking around by the mail room. As the bird got nearer, it was evident that it was injured because its left wing was hanging so low as to drag on the ground. The scruffy gentleman on the cell phone and a friend of his were obviously trying to round up the bird and were trying to call someone who could help, so I explained that I volunteered with PW and that I was going to get a box and towel to catch the bird from my car and would be right back. Miraculously, the bird stayed in the same area and was still there when I got back with the supplies, and with some help from the two dudes, we managed to corner the bird, toss a towel over it, and get it into the carrier. The two guys were so excited that we accomplished this and began loudly exclaiming to each other that they'd done a good deed for the day. They proceeded to introduce themselves to me and then said that they'd love to be able to do more things like this and wanted information about volunteering and how they could help, because they were "looking to turn their lives around."

Now I don't give people a whole lot of credit, especially when it comes to dealing with animals (and given my experiences at PW with people like the guy who tried to feed steak to a cowbird, can you blame me?), but it was really heartening to see how much these guys cared about getting help for the bird and making sure that it got taken care of. A lot of times people see an injured animal and are like "Oh look - how sad." But here are two guys that are clearly down on their luck who did everything they could in this case, including calling PW to get help and find out what they should do, making absolutely sure that the bird didn't go anywhere before we could catch it, and then helping me wrangle the bird once we got all the necessary supplies. They were very insistent about wanting to help out and getting information on volunteering, but I didn't have any of the PW pamphlets with me, so I told them that they could get information on the Web site or that someone from the help line could probably take their address down and then send them some info.

It definitely adds a little spring to my step on days when I get to help out with a transport or can take an animal that needs help up to the care center, but it felt especially good seeing how excited those guys were and how important it was to them that they helped out the bird. It's nice to think that maybe, in a way, the bird helped them out, too.

Trial and errors

I had a thought the other night, and the recent flurry of dating posts has inspired me to actually verbalize it. Many of you (you all know who you are and I can't thank you enough) have had to listen to me bitch and moan - a lot - about my relationship trials and tribulations, and all the anxiety that accompanies them for me. But last night I was thinking that, all things considered, I've been pretty lucky in dating and relationships since I've moved out to San Diego. Granted, none of them have been entirely successful and I'd much rather be in a long-term relationship by now and not continuously doing the whole dating thing, but still. I've managed to have 2 1/2 relatively intense relationships, where, although they didn't all last as long as I might have liked (keep your fingers crossed for the current relationship, people), I really got to know the girls, had a really strong emotional connection with them, and got to experience all of the highs and the lows that come with real relationships. And for all my griping, I realize that things like these don't come around that often, and that I've really been lucky to have had these experiences in such a relatively short period of time.

When I first met H last spring and things really started clicking, I was just knocked off my feet. I had feelings of an intensity that I hadn't experienced for a LONG time. It was really like I was falling head over heels. And although it flamed out a lot quicker than I would have liked, just knowing that I could feel that way again and that someone could have that kind of effect on me was a real revelation. I had honestly gotten to the point where I felt as though I was never going to have those intense feelings again. It had been so long that I just assumed that once you got older and had been through things a few times, those really powerful feelings that you felt when you met someone fantastic would never be quite the same, and while I certainly hoped to find someone who I really dug and was fantastic, I didn't expect the knock-your-socks-off kinds of feelings to come around again. And now to have had several relationships in a row with that similar intensity of feeling again? It's almost too much to ask for.

So I realize now how lucky I've been, although I know I haven't always fully appreciated it, mostly because I was too busy picking things apart or just being wracked with insane amounts of anxiety. Now I just need to work on keeping this mind set, and enjoying what I've got. My best friend in the world (and others as well) gave me some very sage advice that I've tried to follow, with varying amounts of success: "Be as fair to yourself as you want to be with her. Enjoy it. We spend too much time trying to get something that we forget to enjoy it when it is there." Sounds simple, but it doesn't necessarily come that easily for me. But I'm gonna keep working on it, and hopefully one day I'm going to make one of these relationships stick.

The Pearl

Ok, which is more awesome: the fact that Baltimore has an ABA team called the Pearls, which has a basketball/clam logo, or that they misspell "BASKETBALL" in giant letters on their Web site?

Black widow

Sitting out on the patio two nights ago, I spied this lovely lady lurking in the shadows nearby. I was thrown off by the coloration a little bit, but some Web research (no pun intended) quickly revealed that they don't become fully black until they're completely mature.

It's always pleased/comforted me to know that there are quasi-dangerous animals around that we have the possibility of running into on a daily basis. People in general want things to be safe and homogenized, and don't want to worry about things like having an alligator eat their poodle when they're out for a walk. They want nature out of their lives except when it's convenient. Now by no means do I want to get mauled by a puma when I'm out hiking, but at the same time, I like knowing that all the different facets of a given ecosystem are there and working, even the ones that could potentially have an adverse effect on our existence. But any animals that fall into that category - be it a spider, rattlesnake, coyote, puma, or whatever - would much rather be left alone and in most circumstances would only bite/sting/attack out of a last resort, hunger, or to protect their offspring. And I know that people don't always like to have common sense enter the equation, but hey - keep your cats inside and coyotes won't eat them.

So anyway, thanks for hanging out, spider. It's good to have you around.

Edit: Thanks to alert reader Mysterydater, it was pointed out that this is most likely a brown widow (who knew?), a species that's actually been in Southern California for a while, despite some hubbub on Yahoo! about it being a new threat.

Squirrels gone wild

Squirrel Attacks Plague Mtn. View Park

Jennifer Packard's 4-year-old son was their latest victim. As she unwrapped a muffin during a picnic last week, a brown tree squirrel pounced on her son, Andrew, biting and scratching as he ran screaming through the park, then hanging on as he rolled desperately in the grass.

``It was such a horror,'' Packard recalled of the attack, which left her boy with a trail of red claw marks, a bite on his upper arm -- and a regimen of painful rabies shots. ``To hear your child screaming the way you've never heard before . . . it was just bone chilling.''
_____________________________________________________

In non-squirrel related news, yesterday was a pretty good day. When I finally got home I was amped up and raring to go thanks to a hearty workout and repeated listenings of "Over the Mountain" by Ozzy Osbourne (if you have even an ounce of metal in your body, you have to hear this song - an old Randy Rhoads classic off of "Diary of a Madman." It's good and crunchy!!!). It was the first time since I'd been back that both Julie and I were home together for more than 5 minutes, so we headed over to the newly-opened Hamilton's Tavern (formerly Sparky's) with our roommate, and were eventually joined by the Mystery Dater and one of our former roommates. Hanging out with friends and having some drinks would be wonderful enough, but having our neighbood bar back made the evening priceless. They've retained a good bit of the Sparky's flavor, but have made it slightly more upscale with fancy wines and lots of microbrews. I miss the PBR pitchers, art phone (though we will have Reese back!), and dirty couches, but I guess I'll need to accept and move on.

It's been an up-and-down week being back and getting settled in, with lots of backlog at work and more than a little emotional roller-coastering (thanks for helping me get through it, JJ!), but I'm looking forward to the weekend. B-day festivities for J* promise to be exciting, and I'm looking forward to some of the gang getting to meet MLH, and vice versa. The two of us have road trip plans tomorrow (maybe to The Living Desert), and I'm ready to get the keys and go...

If you fall in, you will die

So I'm on vacation, minding my own business for the most part, trying to figure things out, quiet the various demons in my mind, and all that good stuff, right? Then tonight I get a phone call that I never expected to get, which goes and upsets the whole apple cart. I don't know if this puts me back at square one or just expands my options, but right now I'm smart enough to know that it's 3:20 am and I've had more than a few Yuenglings so I'm not going to put too much thought to it or try and make any decisions.

But still, this has really knocked me for a loop and changed the way I'm looking at things, and that in and of itself is probably a very big signal. With my current turbulent state of mental affairs, who knows what's going to happen? I just know that if I'm actually going to test these waters, I have to be absolutely clear about how I feel, what I want, and what I need (not to mention what went wrong) before I go diving in. So if you see a man drowning, make sure to throw him a life preserver.

Excellent water quality, enough food and rest

Some of you may be aware of my fondness for catfish, who've always had a special place in my heart. Thanks to a giant catfish news-intensive summer last year, I somehow ended up with a cubicle wall full of giant catfish pictures (which gets a lot of attention from the residents when they come into the office). I was browsing Ananova the other day and found this beauty, although it's not clear if the catfish in the picture is, in fact, "Big Mama."

Just substitute "water quality" with "Yuengling supply" and that pretty much sums up what I'm looking forward to next week on my vacation back home. Besides seeing all my friends and drinking Yuengling, what I'm looking forward to the most right now is going to the Black Cat on Tuesday night to see Magnolia Electric Co., drinking a few beers, and smoking a cigarette or two (just a couple!) indoors. Ahh, the good old days...

Dream log - 9/9 and 9/10

More random dreams from over the weekend that I'm just putting down here so I'll remember them.

Saturday night (9/9):

What I remember is being out on/in a lake, which also seemed like a fish tank. I was throwing frogs across/into the lake to save them - perhaps they were frozen - but I also ended up stepping on some tadpoles(?) but at the same time I was talking to Kevin Hare, and he or I was saying that those kinds of sacrifices were necessary.

I was then going somewhere and heard some R.E.M. song (Finest Worksong or Electrolite) and said that it was the 3rd time today that I'd heard that song. I then met up with Michael Stipe who was sitting at a table with 2 or 3 other people, and was wearing gray shoes. We were talking about something and I said it was funny that he didn't even consider me a friend, because I felt like he was one of my 3 or 4 best friends.

Sunday night (9/10):

Back at Intensity Skates yet again. This one had a slightly more ominous feel/tone about it - I was coming back/found out about it but wasn't necessarily welcomed back? At some point I was on top of some shelves and Mike Agnew was telling a story about a guard dog they'd had and the dog appeared and was jumping across the shelves at me. Vaguely recall taking a phone order, looking in the warehouse to see if a shoe (a red or white shoe) was in stock that we thought was not, and mentioning that skateboard shoes were so lame these days as I looked through all the different styles.

Then went out the back door of the warehouse, which was at the edge of a canyon. There were really crazy rock formations down in the canyon, and my friends Natalie and Dave ran past me and down into the canyon where they hopped around the rocks. I followed them down and then there were ruins that were submerged underwater. I mentioned that I had gone down into the ruins and explored around a little bit, but not when they were submerged and Josh (not sure where he came from), Dave and I compared notes about what was down there. I vaguely recall that there were cult-ish/demonic overtones to the ruins. Still in the canyon and a very small plane was flying around doing all kinds of loops and tricks, and Dave and I were discussing the proximity of an airport nearby. I then went on to tell Dave about a time when I was at the U of M (although it was a combination of U of M and UCSD) and this squadron of fighter planes came and flew low across the mall/common area and then sideways through a circle of palm trees that had since been cut down. As I was telling the story, I was back at the U of M and ran into someone I knew who asked me what was up with the 9:30 Club. I told them that I hadn't lived there in two years so I didn't know what they meant, and they asked me about some kind of anniversary thing? It turns out this person was Talib Kweli, and I introduced him to my friend Matt, who was with me at the time.

Just get your shit together and get ready to go

The ending of my most recent relationship has prompted (predictably) a lot of soul-searching and a lot of thinking about the big picture, where I am, where I'm going and what I'm looking for. Lord knows I spend enough time brooding about things and being anxious, but somehow I always manage to gloss over/ignore/or avoid (beer helps with this) a lot of the bigger issues and actually taking a look at my life and asking myself what I'm really doing.

I've come to realize that, while still being a quasi-normal, responsible person, I've been avoiding what I guess I'll refer to as "growing up" and facing up to what it actually means to be an adult for a long time. For a plethora of reasons, I've been afraid for the most part to take any risks, set any goals, think in the long-term, and really decide what I want to do with my life. I've known for a good while that I've been a little hazy about the career goals and where I'm going in general, but I think for the first time I'm realizing that I've been taking the easy way out for too long in that I find it a lot easier to stay in a comfort zone and not really take any risks or face up to any big challenges. Comfort is nice and safe and all that, but it can also be really unfulfilling after a point. You can only fill up your time with drinking beer, listening to music, and watching the X-Files for so long before the bigger picture that's been looming in the corner of your eye turns into the 600 pound gorilla in the middle of the room. If that makes any sense.

So what's next? Seeing if I'm grown-up enough to stick with this, to start facing up to some of the harder choices that come along with life and being an adult, instead of just opening another beer and pretending that the 600 pound gorilla isn't really there.

Farewell, My Lovely

I finally got around to watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night, and in addition to it being completely fucking hilarious and having lots of great Raymond Chandler references, it had a really fantastic quote in it that spoke to something that I've been feeling/thinking about lately.

Given the events of the past month, I've been reflecting a lot about people and relationships, and specifically what it is about this area, and why there are so many people my age in this same situation, even though we're all ostensibly looking and trying to find relationships and make them work. Someone asked me the other day what I thought the differences were between people here and people back east, and when I'd been asked that question in the past, I didn't have a concrete answer, other than people in general seeming a little more superficial and image-oriented out here. But in thinking about it recently, I just wonder if the fact that a lot of people born and raised in Southern California - with the perfect weather and everything being sunshine and happiness - just are missing a level or sadness, for lack of a better word. Not meaning being depressed, but just the sadness or at least understanding that you get with like having to go through a cold, dark winter every year - or any changes in season for that matter. It just seems like things are a little bit...less out here, and I think that maybe there's just an experience or experiences that are missing that kind of shape how people are out here. I know that I'm not very eloquent when I try and relate this type of thing, and I know that there are a lot of people out here that have been through and are going through really hard times and struggle a lot on a day to day basis.

Anyway, back to KKBB - there's a point when Robert Downey Jr. is at a party, and after an encounter with a random woman, he says "I swear to God, it's like somebody took America by the East Coast, and shook it, and all the normal girls managed to hang on."

Maybe his theory makes more sense.

Coming soon...