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.