epic epicness

A few weeks ago I filled in for a friend's softball team. Softball is fun enough, I suppose, but not necessarily something I seek out. Anyway, amid the boringness that is a softball league with no strikes or balls (for real), I saw the most epic epicness EVER.

Standing in center outfield, pondering my dinner, the grass, World Cup viewing schedules, waiting for the hitter to hit, I heard a din back and to my right. Focusing, the noise turned out to be crows. A lot of them. I looked in the direction of the noise and saw nothing but trees and houses placed neatly up the hill. Nothing, but oh! the hitter hit and it went over by first base with nothing for me to do but cheer and stand and contemplate grass and the movie Looking for Eric and shoes and .... I heard it again. The crows. They really were going batshit crazy.

I looked again, the noise too much to ignore. Out of the trees burst a bald eagle, lazily flying about 150 feet off the ground. Holy Crap! One doesn't see a bald eagle flying that low in the city. Holy Crap! One doesn't see a MURDER OF CROWS chasing said eagle flying low in the city EVER. I didn't even bother to pretend to pay attention to the game. In fact, I distracted my fellow outfielders by pointing out the epic epicness unfolding above our heads. Those crows chased that eagle who knows where. It was the most metal thing I've seen in years. Those crows deserved to be on some album cover art.

Epic Epicness is a murder of crows chasing a bald eagle.

a celebration of sorts, I guess, and actual celebrations

Huzzah! It's my 500th post! Or so the Bogger Dashboard, in its infinite wisdom, tells me. I'm feeling, at the mo, like I don't deserve the 500th post celebration because my blog has been nothing but weak sauce lately. An explanation: I've been hunkered down for the past month in the morning and at lunch time watching soccer, all standard times of blogging for me. We're finally down to the final match this Sunday and I have my mornings back. Please don't view that as a complaint. It's an entertaining way to start your day, particularly when your friends show up at 6:45AM to watch the match with you. Luckily this event only rolls around every four years.

Also of note, the red head graduated, skated, defended, rodeo(ed), and visited the Yak (in that order) this month. So, between soccer and fun, I didn't sit in front of the computer much when not at work. I've got some things filed away in my brain, but for now I'll leave you with this lovely bathroom picture from last weekend. It reminded me of that fantastic fake commercial from SNL in the 90s, the "love toilet," except this was just the Women's restroom. So, I'm calling it the "Hers and Hers".

Blues and Whites

Alas, four years passed since we last had a proxy world war, where the tiniest nations have a chance to upset the world powerhouses. It's all very neat and clean with rules of law if not etiquette. Think what the world would be like if that's how wars were fought. Imagine, if you will, one of those charming announcers with British or Scottish accents they bring in to call soccer games in America to give them a particular gravitas* (unattainable by American announcers): Oh! There's a whistle on the American Colonial side. I have to tell you, he was just blatantly shooting the British player from the safety of the trees and I expect to see a... ah yes, here comes the referee to talk to him. As I was saying, I wouldn't be surprised with a red card for that little trick. And there it is! Red card for the Americans. They're going to really regret later on. They need every man on the field to even have a chance and that will certainly cost them a great deal. If that's how things went down, we'd all be British. Ah yes. So, the World Cup starts at the end of the week with the US taking the pitch in their first game on Saturday against England. Believe it or not, the Americans have a chance to move onto the next round at the top of their group. Don't call during the match please as I'll be too busy watching and fielding my Mom's phone calls about particular plays or calls. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.

As a small soccer fashion side-note, I stumbled across the Girl's Soccer image the other and found yet another reason to thank my lucky stars that I was born when I was. Who wants to wear some Victorian bordella boot type thingy to run around in? Though I must admit, the bloomers on the girls to the left would probably be comfortable after a match.

One final bit, the above images came from the Library of Congress Flickr site. Go there. Explore. It's fun.

* Invariably the Scottish announcers, though not so much the British, are the equivalent of good ol' boys. It's like saying NASCAR announcers have gravitas.

treadmill carpet bomb

I've been to many gyms in my life, from fancy to not-so-fancy. My objective and goals have changed over the years, but the lessons I learned early in life are still there: people don't clean their equipment thus you clean before and after, free weights inexplicably allow grunts and yells a la Monica Seles, and sometimes people just stink (a lot). The character of a particular gym, of course, depends upon it's denizens (the ones who don't clean, yell, and stink), but ultimately the people a gym attracts is tied to its equipment, classes, and locker rooms.

I've been rather happy with the tiny low-rent gym I've been going to over the last 6 or 7 month. There are no classes, no fancy locker rooms, and the free weights mingles with the machines. You avoid much of the BS of fancier places, though you still see the guy still stuck in 1989 climbing out of his Camaro to lift weights and grunt (hair gloriously flowing down over his face) as well as some women who should really be going to the pizza place next door for a slice or two (and a new relationship with food and exercise). Anyway, I can move about doing as I please for the most part. Yesterday, however, reminded me of something I hadn't seen in awhile. The sweat carpet bomber, individuals who make profusely sweaty people seem like amateurs. Now, I'm not trying to say I don't sweat, but yesterday my only treadmill option was right next to a sweat carpet bomber. Dude had at least a 3 foot radius of sweat. I'm being conservative in my estimate. I'm usually not so squeamish about such things, but I was clearly in the path of destruction. I was mentally unprepared. Maybe those Cave Men running around NYC have the right idea after all. They would have just thrown a rather large stone at the carpet bomber.

creativity, I curse thee

Classes in the craft center are not something I've indulged in lately. The choice of the word "indulged" is a perfect example of the issue at hand. Let me explain, I am in a creative funk. A creative funk I am in. In a creative funk am I. See?

I have a theory as to the whys and hows. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And utter bullshit, I'm sure. But it's mine. Perhaps I should start with my fear rather than my theory. My fear is that, quite simply, the normal 9 to 5 working-world I live in will make me dumb. The struggle to sound reasonably intelligent on a consistent basis is pretty small. This is not because the people I work with are idiots, quite the contrary generally speaking, but rather the work environment prizes brevity and (what can only be described as) arena rock fist-pumping. Keeping with the arena rock metaphor, the salesmen all purchased front row tickets, upper management sit a tasteful distance from the stage to keep an eye on which way the wind is blowing, and all entry-level people fill in the space behind. I'm lucky, my work group firmly plants itself in the back row, unwilling to drink the kool-aid.* So at least I have that going for me. What's the point, you ask, dear reader? The point is, this isn't my last gig where I struggled to keep up intellectually. The struggle is good. It makes us better. I'm not trying to posit that I'm smarter than everyone I work with, merely that everyone I used to work with on a daily basis were WAY smarter than me. Way. Circling back around to the fear bit, I fear I am now dumber than I was because I no longer have the daily struggle.

My theory is that intense, sustained intellectual concentration and resultant (ahem, required) production of papers to explain your Buddha-like sitting position act as balm to one's creative thoughts. At least it did for me. You tell a story, give it suspense, evidence (!!), tease out the meaning, and hopefully don't put the reader to sleep. The part I loved about writing academic papers was making them not sound terribly academic.** Perhaps it's just the intellectual exhaustion I miss. What I'm getting at is that I had a creative outlet within my work. No such outlet exists for me now so I must go in search of it elsewhere.

For a while, this blog served as a creative outlet. I've built a kick-ass butcher block table which is functional and quite beautiful. I learned bike maintenance and various other things. But alas, I find myself in another creative funk. Creativity, I curse thee.*** Have no fear, I know what I need to do. Creativity is not something to "indulge" or pander to. It is something to chase after. This is just a rather long explanation of why my blog sucks. And my thoughts over the past couple months.

Sincerely,
AKN


* I am in a creative funk, I'm more than allowed to mix my metaphors.
** Perhaps this is a good indicator of why I ventured out into the working world rather than continuing in higher education.
*** Not really. You know what I mean anyway.

you are not going to heaven

Ummm, had an odd dream. Basically, in the course of an odd dream marathon that involved the combined summer and winter Olympics and me meeting Florence from Florence & the Machine, I ended up looking for something (not religious in nature) in a Morman Temple. Weaving through the stray, scratching dudes who were too pleased with themselves, I burst into the women's chapel on accident where services were being held. A woman walked up to me, put her hand on my head and said, "you are not going to heaven." I really paid her no mind though, because she said that through the giant rat puppet she had on her hand. And when I looked around, there were other giant rat puppet touting women basically keeping people in line all over the room and up and down the aisles.

Avoid people who only speak through rat puppets on their hands. That is the lesson of the day.

so much going on!

Okay, not really. And with that confident statement, I present a list!

1. My knees and ankles survived my alumni game. And we won! Amazing things do happen.
2. This weekend we cobbled enough sunshine together to give me a slight sun burn. Bear in mind the amount of sun it takes for me to burn if you really want to know how consistently "sunny" it was.
3. I love coffee. I know this is nothing new, but it pretty much always deserves an entry.
4. The word "synergy" featured heavily in a training I was involved in last Friday. I threw up a little in my mouth every time they said it. Actually, that training deserves a post of its own.
5. Kickball starts tomorrow people. Theoretically it will not rain. Keep your fingers crossed.
6. As a non-thieving music fan, I endorse Amazon.com for all digital music desires. They give you the mp3 and have smokin' deals on tons of stuff.
   
7. Last night I ate momos until I had to undo the top button of my pants. For real. It was like Thanksgiving, but with delicious Tibetan dumplings. Also tried butter tea. Apparently it is traditionally made with Yak butter, so I don't know what butter portion of the butter tea I consumed. But believe you me, it tasted exactly like drinking hot butter. You could have dipped bread or dunked some crab in there and been fine. Wikipedia tells me this beverage is great for living at high elevations AND chapped lips. So there ya go.

One purchase you should consider is The Bird & The Bee, Interpreting the Masters, Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall & John Oates