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

Truffles

Folks – what’s happenin. I’m mad tired. Can’t get myself to go to sleep on time. I’m working on it, gimme a chance.

I think it has to do with caffeine. Even if I have a diet coke at 10am it still affects me late at night. Lame. Especially lame after I read an article about how a third of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep a night. I’ve been right around 7 a night this week I think. I could learn something from my brother – he goes to sleep on time.

Well let’s see. It’s march. Thank goodness. February is my least favorite month, therefore march is better.

Had a couple basketball games this week. We didn’t win but they were fun. I weighed in this morning at 193.4 lbs – lean and mean. Just hangin out right now, doin my thing.

Ummmmmm what else. There’s plenty going on. Went to w hotel bar briefly last night to see D and her friend. Hmmmmm. Oh yeah I got that video game dragon age. It’s like a nutty role playing game. I haven’t gotten a video game in a year or so. This one’s pretty fun, even though I just started. It’s hard, and I’m not that good at it. I need the dragon age wiki walkthrough to help me out.

I’ve got some cool photos here from the Koch center at mit. They’re photos of like cells and neurons and stuff.

I’ve been following what’s going on in Libya. Ugh it’s so awful. Seems like a civil war is brewing. So sad. I hope it passes soon. Crazy that all this stuff is going on in the middle east and africa at the same time.

Recent music digs – magnetic man (skream, benga, artwork), lil b (controversial hyphied up wack job out of Berkeley, part of The Pack), ceo (I was introduced by D), Robyn (also introduced by D), and Poppin Bottles by Drake. Good jam.

Ok yall ttys.

-Dave


New post to come soon regarding self compassion…

Just woke up

Just woke up. But not in this bed that you see pictured here. Where the hell did I get this photo? Hrm

I’m doing my morning routine breathing exercises and such. I’ve kind of given up on meditating (I know, super lame).

Soooo I wrote that two hours ago, and then immediately realized I was gonna be late for an appointment. Haha whoops!

Some outstanding posts that I haven’t written – ny trip recap, skiing trip recap, individual albums of the year recap (though I might let that one go).

I’m just sitting in bed right now. I can hear sportscenter in the other room. Reading online news and such, dealing with e-mail etc. gotta figure out something for lunch. Ugh leftover mediocre pizza? Hmmm maybe.

I really want upper crust. Am I just gonna hafta suck it up and get upper crust? It’s a distinct possibility. I’ve sworn off upper crust for a couple years right now, but I haven’t had a good slice of pizza in forever. I wanted to get pizza in ny, but all I really had the opportunity for were those $1 a slice places, which I passed up. I had a pizza at Fiorella’s in Waltham a couple months ago that was good, but it had a ton of ricotta on it. Like, huge mounds of ricotta. It was good, but I don’t think I’ll be getting it again.

Hmmm I miss blogging and writing. Gotta rally and do it more. I think if I get some momentum that I can keep on doing it. Gotta be meta. Meta meta meta.

It’s raining outside. Flood watch is in effect. Floods are super annoying. More annoying than snowstorms in some ways.

I’ve been watching a ton of movies. I just watched “The Next Three Days” with Russell Crowe. I liked it. Russell Crowe looks fat. It was a prison break movie, which I’m a sucker for, so I had to watch it.

Let’s see, what else. Almost too many to list. I watched “A Single Man” with Colin Firth. Also good. During the ski trip we watched “Chloe” and “Unstoppable”. Good times! I wished I could remember some of the other flicks I’ve watched recently. Gah I can’t remember. I’ll just have to fill you in as we go along.

Banff mountain film festival was Wednesday night. I missed it for the second or third year in a row. Massive bummer, but I was able to give my tickets to jeff, so he went with pat, and it’s all good. Banff mountain film festival is so dope, check it out some time.

Ok here’s my last impressive thing for this post. It’s called https everywhere. What it does is it forces sites to use the encrypted version of their site, which starts with https instead of http. A bunch of sites, including google, have https, but unless you type it in it will just default to http. So there’s this awesome firefox plugin. Use it, and be more secure. Later, Dave

HTTPS Everywhere -- electronic frontier foundation

Back in Boston need to blog more

Got home tonight. Skied Bretton Woods today. I skied glades for the first time. Didn't break myself (though came close). Feelin good. Need to write a recap about it.

Glad to be home and bloggin again.

Out skiing in Vermont

Hey everyone, what’s up? I’m in vermont, skiing. Or, I’m going skiing tomorrow.

Today we just kinda took it easy. Slept in (somewhat), cooked breakfast, that sort of thing. Then went home cross county skiing, checked out this reservoir. I’m in Ludlow, VT, by Okemo. Pretty awesome! I love it up here. It’s been cold, sunny, windy. Tomorrow it’s gonna snow some. I’ve got enough gear, just gotta make sure that I wear the right stuff.

So I’m very happy to go on a little trip and get out of town a little. I miss everyone back home, but I needed a break. I’ve got this whole room to myself, and while it seems a little lonely, it’s worth it. Downhill tomorrow, and then we’ll see what pans out the rest of the week.

I missed the dunk contest. Will have to see it when I get back.

Ok night.

-D

Dichotomy

Folks – what’s happenin. You been listening to the new M.I.A. mixtape? I guess it’s a couple months old. Relatively new.

It’s called “VICKI LEEKX”. Get it? Wikileaks, Vicki leekx. Clever huh?

So I was reading one of the like eight recent boston college sports blogs that have popped up recently and I read the quote below. It started off with talking to scott van pelt from espn who gave these guys advice on how to do a good blog. He pretty much told them not to be negative. I then read the below which I really liked:

“Bloggers in general have very little concept of how much time and effort many sports figures put into training, coaching, and developing game strategies. Athletes and coaches put in countless hours during the week and many bloggers think they have the ability to ruthlessly critique them after watching a game for five minutes on the couch.”

So, I’m obsessed with sports and sports blogs. But at heart, I’m an athlete. Fans are very, very quick to criticize. In terms of college athletics (which are amateur endeavors, not professional ones, which we all seem to forget half the time), I feel justified in commenting on the athlete/fan dichotomy (ugh I hate that word).

People that haven’t been a college athlete don’t understand what it takes. I rowed crew, which I still think is the most demanding sport in existence, so I feel extra qualified to talk about how hard it is to be a student athlete. Here are some challenges that come to mind:

1. Travelling. You have to go to competitions around the country. This means that you’ll miss an exam and have to retake it, you’ll miss the big party weekend of the term and only hear stories from your friends, and you’ll leave your girlfriend for a week because you have to go to California (pretty sure that all these things happened to me, some of them multiple times).

2. Exhaustion. Imagine that your class is on the third floor and it’s 9:55 AM. You had practice at 7:15 AM. You start walking up the stairs and your legs hurt. They hurt the whole way up and the whole way down. Not only that, but you’re so tired in the evenings that you might not go out, you might not have enough energy to do all your reading, and you will probably have to go to sleep early because you must get 8-9 hours of sleep, otherwise you’ll be a wreck at practice the next day.

3. Isolation. You spend hours a day with your teammates. You practice together, eat together, compete together, go to spring training together, go to winter training together. Some guys live with each other, some guys only hang out with each other. If you’re too busy with your sport and classes, then you might not have much time to meet other people in the school, which stinks. You might also not have enough time for other extracurriculars that you’re interested in.

Anyway, I had to vent a little. Being a college athlete was really, really hard, and I sometimes get the impression that these sports bloggers and fans and commenters were not college athletes, so they are a little unclear on what it even takes to graduate in four years while being a varsity athlete the whole time.

Aright the rant’s over. Spring’s comin everyone, I can smell it.

-Dave

Goin to ny for the wknd

Folks -- I'm going to ny for the weekend. catch me there. i'm behind schedule at this point, so i gotta scoot.

ps i got really good news yesterday. get in touch with me to here.

pps i'm happy for egypt and i hope that everything works out.

gahhhh i need capitalization. must...open...microsoft...word

too late. adios