Archive for November, 2007

Good Grief!

Call me old fashioned but I cannot accept Christmas/Holiday-themed tv commercials until after Thanksgiving. Perhaps I’ve not been paying much attention or perhaps yesterday I happened to watch more real-time tv than I have recently but I just couldn’t seem to escape them. Today is November 4th people, let’s celebrate Thanksgiving and the go hog-wild for the next month with Christmas/Channukah/Kwanza/Whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-celebratah. That is all.

Camping With The Stars, Or At Least Beneath Them
I realize that no one will believe this but my drive down to Providence Canyon was one of the most boring back-road drives I have ever taken. There were one, maybe two photo-worthy opportunities, but by and large I drove down roads which divided forests.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was traveling through Plains, Georgia. Cartography aficionados will quickly point out that Plains is nowhere near the route that I should have taken, and they’d be right. Since I stopped so few times I was down south plenty early so I took a detour or two.

Perhaps the lowlight of the trip was circling Americus, Georgia looking for either the Ace Hardware or True Value Hardware stores that both Jill (the GPS) and my phone told me existed. I had addresses, but neither of the buildings with the provided addresses looked like a hardware store. The strip-store / fast-food portion of Americus was additionally frustrating since it consists of two large one way roads, so if you miss something it’s a challenge to get back to where you need to be. After fifteen or so minutes of circling I gave up, ate lunch at Zaxby’s, and then left town. I eventually found a hardware store and purchased a really crappy $12 hatchet that cut wood as well as a butter knife would.

Even with all these side trips I still managed to be the first one in camp.

What happens at a hash camp-out stays at a hash camp-out. You could have been there and then you would have seen that I slept alone the entire weekend (oops, I guess I should have given you a spoiler warning.) The only details that I will provide is that when you give a handful of obsessive-compulsive people the task to provide food you will have way more than you need, and when you challenge fourteen (?) hashers to drink a keg of Sweetwater 420 they can step up to the plate.

ITP Flickr Pick
No trip to Providence Canyon would be complete without a photo of the man-instigated devastation.

Providence Canyon

It is pretty though.

This Race Could Be Amazing
I think that I will enjoy this season of Amazing Race if for no other reason than to watch the dating couples bicker at one another. It’s not the I am that petty, okay perhaps I am, but I just can’t comprehend why two people who can’t manage to get along in the best of situations attempt to do so under the worst.

fwiw - My early prediction is that the winners will be Lorena and Jason.

And Then There Were Two Next Iron Chefs
I think that Food Network and the judges have gotten this competition right. Even with all of the comparisons between The Next Iron Chef and the last season of Top Chef there is a marked difference in talent.

The final two contestants, Michael Symon and John Besh, belong there and will be fighting head-to-head next week in an Iron Chef competition to determine the champion. I like it and cannot wait to watch!

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - fair
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Sebadoh — “Ocean”
Website Of The Day - Soul of Athens is a really cool art project that you should check out.
Exercise (b)Log - hiking, ~10 miles
Monthly Mileage - 14.5 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car

November Goals
1) Run no fewer than 25 miles
2) Not worry about running the Atlanta Half-Marathon
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Back To Taking The Backroads

I am headed to Providence Canyon State Park today for a weekend of rest and relaxation. Most people would take the obvious route of I85 South down to Columbus and then head south from there. Me, I have to be different… I’ve packed Jill (the GPS) and will be taking the back roads down to the park. Hopefully I will be finding a lot of great rural photo-ops and will have plenty of shots to post. Shit, I might even go crazy this weekend and take photos of people…

When Music Magazines Mimic Musicians
The other day I heard that our locally-written national music magazine Paste is taking a cue from Radiohead. If you go to their website and sign up for a year’s subscription (eleven issues) you get to choose the price you pay. I used to be a subscriber, and really enjoyed being one. However, I never found the time to read the majority of the issues that I received. I would consider resubscribing for the CD distributed with each issue though.

ITP Flickr Pic
I started the week with a picture of Betsy’s dog Reese and I’ll end the week the same way.

Another Shot Of Reese

What can I say? I like symmetry.

Best. Survivor. Episode. Ever!
Oh did I ever laugh my ass off last night watching Survivor: China. I won’t spoil any of the show, but if you are a fan of the series I implore you to find a way to watch last night’s episode.

So That You Don’t Have An “Aw Shit” Moment
Remember that this is the week that we actually leave Daylight Savings Time and turn back our clocks one hour. If you fail to do so you will be an hour late to whatever function you are planning on attending this Sunday. You. Have. Been. Warned!

Have Nothing Going On Sunday? Now You Do
The Amazing Race (#12) starts this Sunday night. Yippee!

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - 70% good, 30% meh; I am using my final paid day off today so I am hoping that this weekend provides me with much pleasure
Current Music - none
Website Of The Day - Were you a fan of MST3K? Then you should immediately surf over to Cinematic Titanic.
Exercise (b)Log - nothing
Monthly Mileage - 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work - N/A

Failure Is No Longer An Option

“Failure is no longer an option” is the thought that occurred to me as I writhed in pain after I turned my ankle running for the umpteenth time in the past few years and then slammed my water bottle to the ground in disgust. I completed the run with some walking, which most likely would have occurred even if I hadn’t injured myself.

Pain may be my constant companion (hey, at least I won’t be alone) but I can no longer give in to it.

ITP Flickr Pic
Because I didn’t have anything new to post I started exploring my creative side last night. It was incredibly difficult to leave George’s while my favorite drinkers were still consuming, but look what can be accomplished when not constantly holding a beer. ;)

Life As An Old Postcard

It’s actually quite a simple trick, which I’ve stolen from a guy named Matt Koslowski, to pull off in Lightroom (and I suppose in Photoshop) .

Reading A 1000-Page Book…
…Five pages at a time. This will take a while, but it has become one of my longish-term goals.

“The book”, you ask? 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. Okay, I lied. The book is only 960 pages — so sue me!

Amazon Almost Makes Music Buying Too Easy
I do it for you. Really, I do.

Last week I purchased my first DRM-free digital album from the iTunes store. (It was the Band Of Horses disc for those with short memories). The process was completely painless because, well, it’s all done through iTunes. I’d be satisfied with having iTunes be my sole provider of digital discs if all of their music was DRM free; but it’s not…

This morning I tried the Amazon music store. As opposed to iTunes, all music sold on Amazon is DRM-free. The one “gotcha” for Amazon’s process was that I had to install software (available free for Mac and Windows) which downloads the music and then auto-magically imports it into your iTunes library. [note to self: see where the mp3 files are actually stored for backup purposes]. Other than that, the process was almost too easy.

  1. Find disc to purchase (today it was the latest from Okkervil River)
  2. Press the purchase button
  3. Wait for download to complete

Tonight I will give the disc a listen to make sure the quality is up to my standards (the technology and not the musical content).

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - ankle is sore, the rest of me is fine
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The new Pornographers — “Mutiny, I Promise You”
Website Of The Day - How do you mashup “Hot of Not” with “Digg”? You create Dig A Silicon Valley Girl of course.
Exercise (b)Log - running with some walking, ~4.5 miles
Monthly Mileage - 0 miles (because today starts a new month)
Mode Of Transportation To Work - My car

November Goals
1) Run no fewer than 25 miles
2) Not worry about running the Atlanta Half-Marathon
3) Read at least one book

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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