cutting it short, and inspiration

recent massively depressing and heart-breaking book that i've read -- "A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery". oh man. this one was tough. haiti, miami, sudan, romania, india were some of the places i read about. this is not an issue that's discussed in the media much, although an aspect of it has been highlighted in recent years. i'll leave it at that. may modern-day slavery be abolished immediately.

well, it's a bummer to say it, but i cut my vacation short. i had 5 blissful days not thinking about important things, but then all of a sudden everything came crashing down and i realized that i wanted to be productive. there are a lot of things i've been putting off for a long time, and i thought it'd be a good idea to at least get the ball rolling on some of these things, and cross them off my list.

i'm not making this up. i was on the cape for 4 full days, and it rained every day. yeah, it's pretty weak. last year it was the best weather of the summer all week, but not so this year. so, part of me wanted to stay and hit the beach today, but i decided to pack it in and just deal with my life.

but hey that's not such a bad thing. i've already crossed 6 things off my list, and it's not even 1pm. nice Job dave, keep up the good work.

so yeah, i wanna keep my momentum, and just deal. of course on top of all this is cleaning my room, cleaning my apt, rearranging things, and looking to maybe do some new decorations. i figure i've been here a year, my brother Jeff is moving in and my old much-loved roommate is moving out, so it's time for some change. i'm not doin a bad job of it.

there's a preseason pats game tonight and a new episode of jersey shore (the only mtv show i watch, i couldn't even name any other mtv shows to you, i guess the real world never stopped playing right?). not sure what else i'll get up to today, i really wanna exercise, but that takes major motivation.

oh yeah, the best part of the news? we took out the recycling. in my town they only pick it up every two weeks, and two weeks ago they showed up earlier than normal and we weren't prepared and missed it. what a relief!

also, thanks for the kind words Rebecca. you got me fired up.

later

in the rain

heyyyy yall whats up. well, it's day 5 here on the cape, and it's day 5 of lousy weather. which i guess isn't that big a deal, but it's not great.

so far i've been reading and watching movies. i've seen "the kids are all right", which i liked, and "inception", which i didn't really like. but i'm glad i got to see some movies.

i'm thinking about cancelling my netflix account. i don't really rent movies from them anymore, and the only person that was using the instant account was my roommate, watching instant movies on the ps3 with the included disk. should i do this? i've had netflix since 2006. as a movie fanatic, it would be a massive decision, but i think i might just cancel it.

oh yeah and the wireless here is lousy. i'm hard wired right now, with an ethernet cable that i think i may have actually brought down here last year.

been eating some good local food. local pears, peaches, tomatoes, parsley, lettuce, fish. all very yum.

ok well i'm gonna get goin. i'm reading this book called "Sailing Alone Around the World" by Joshua Slocum. it's a 100+ year old account of this crazy guy who really enjoyed leaving his family on martha's vineyard and going on epic solo expeditions in a rickety boat. good stuff.

ok be well, Dave

these are images from a recent boston.com big shots gallery of some rowing race that involves carrying the boat on land. hah! good photos.

wellfleet for the week

i'm on wellfleet. it rained a little today. weather isn't as good as last year.

i watched solitary man with michael douglas. good movie. better actor. get well Michael!

cape cod is cool. i went on an adventure today to orleans to get an audio cable so that we can plug in ipod/computer to the speakers. saw a bad accident on rt 6 on the way home.

the traffic out here is crazy during the summer. tons of ct and ny license plates. gets dangerous on the roads too. gotta be careful.

ok time to sleep, peace

Thinking before sharing

"In the meantime, as all of us stumble over the challenges of living in a world without forgetting, we need to learn new forms of empathy, new ways of defining ourselves without reference to what others say about us and new ways of forgiving one another for the digital trails that will follow us forever."

-Professor Jeffrey Rosen

The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

Jeff's thesis is better, but Rosen drops MANY genius bombs in this essay. A good read. I hadn't even heard of some of the websites he listed. I won't ruin it for you.

Scary stuff though! Enjoy.

the sky might fall

but i'm not worried at all, at all, at alllllll

hi out there in blog world. what's the word? everything's good over here. sorry for the lack of caps right now, but oh well.

ummmm it's getting toward the end of august. blast! time's goin too fast.

uhhh not sure what to talk about. i could give you the recap of my wknd, but...eh.

oooh how about this?! -- i'm planning on rowing in head of the charles with my dad in the father/son doubles race. it's technically the "parent/child" race. what this means is that i've gotta train for the next two months and get myself in shape. i'm in ok shape now, but i gotta erg more.

so yeah, that's exciting. head of the charles is awesome. i've only raced in 8s before. the father/son race is pretty mellow, but i still wanna have a good piece.

Whether that’s right or not, I won’t ever know -- Drake lyrics. Too many Drake mixtapes. Nattymari is my new favorite chopped and screwed producer. Name of his latest mixtape? – “Orange Mocha Frappucino.” Sheer genius.

peace

World record!

The Virgin GB Row 2010 team celebrates completing their rowing challenge around Great Britain - becoming the first female crew to complete the feat - on the River Thames in London July 23. (AP Photo/Gareth Fuller-pa)

BBC News - All-female crew first women to row round Britain

"During their journey, the women have been swamped by huge waves, survived storms, almost sunk and navigated some of the most treacherous tides on the planet.

At one point, Ms Madsen broke her finger when she was setting off a flare to warn off a ship that was on a collision course with Go Commando.

She carried on rowing by strapping her hand to her oar."

Hit the road Shaq

Song that I’m currently obsessed with – “You Neva Know” by Husalah

Good stuff. So whatup yall. Summer’s winding down. Omg did I just say that? What a horrible thought.

But whatever it’s been a great summer. Great weather, plenty of cookouts, plenty of parties. A lot of hanging out, a lot of productivity. Many fruits and vegetables, many sports games. All good things.

So yeah. Shaquille O’Neal is going to be a Celtic next year! Ridiculous! Should be fun. Green Diesel, biofuel style.

Hmmmm. So what other stuff is going on. Did I tell you about the new glasses that I’m looking at? I wanna get the drill-mounted kind that don’t have any rims. Then it’ll look less like I’m wearing glasses, which is what I’m going for. I like the ones by Silhouette. Anyway, new glasses are a big deal cause I wear them everyday (albeit very begrudgingly).

In two weeks I think I’m gonna be on cape cod, lovin life. Wellfleet=joy. So many nice beaches and the water on the bay side is so warm.

Don Wyper is running a marathon and raising money to beat cancer. It’s a Wype Out Cancer campaign! He’s gonna try to do it under 3 hours. Keep in mind that Don is 6’ 4” and 200 pounds and is a natural rower and swimmer, so going out and trying to do something like this is very impressive. Read about his journey and donate at his blog -- "Wype" Out Cancer

The first patriots preseason game is tomorrow night, very exciting.

Last night I went to a friends place in Lincoln and we made homemade pesto with basil from their garden. Yummm. Side note – I got peaches and blueberries from the farmers market this weekend that were outrageously good.

Ok, take it easy, Dave

jolly green

just had my second dartmouth reunion of the summer. incredibly fun. this summer is flying by! i cant believe it.

have i not mentioned that august is my favorite month? is it because eight is my favorite number? unclear.

naw i like august cause it's summer (my favorite month), and it's nice and lazy. it's before school starts, before football starts, so it feels like there's not a whole lot going on. it's just a time to relax and take things easy.

the only problem is that i'm pretty bad at taking anything easy. i do everything way too fast sometimes. last night i wrote a letter and i actually had to rewrite it because i realized that my handwriting is so horrible because i write so fast. of course i'm typing really fast right now too, but i can't really control that.

t y p i n g s l o w i s n o t f e a s i b l e i n t h i s d a y a n d a g e

also, regardless of how fast i type, my handwriting online is always impeccable :) though my capitalizing and punctuation leaves something to be desired

happy august everyone, i'll be in touch

peace, Dave