A Young 24
In the course of the week, I have gained a lot of experience in the ways of standard family gatherings. I am 24 years old and before last weekend I had only been to a single wedding in my lifetime. And although I have been to two memorial services for people who died, I have never been to a real funeral before today. This week I got to go to my first real funeral.
My step-grandfather died on Tuesday night and his ashes were buried in a graveside service today. For many reasons, I hadn’t really thought much about the whole death/funeral thing until this morning and I didn’t think for a second that I wasn’t prepared for the service. I have never claimed to be a real tough guy even though sometimes I come off like a guy with a really thick skin.
It was just something about watching my almost blind grandmother placing flowers over fresh dirt after being presented with a military flag that had me tearing up slightly. Sadly, it wasn’t necessarily my step-grandfather’s death that made me emotional, but the thoughts started creeping in on me. My overactive brain started rushing and I started thinking that some of my grandmother’s pain was representative of the fact that this is the second time in her life that she has had to bury her husband.
That travels to a place where I regret never having a chance to meet my real grandfather, who died before I was born. I have always heard about what a magical personality he had and how he would actually be the life of the party when he walked into a room. He was a cool customer with a quick wit that people were happy to see. I know it seems a little selfish, but I started thinking if my life would have been any different had I grown up knowing this man. Would he have influenced me? Would I have been any different?
Anyway, I think these are all normal thoughts; it is just amazing that I haven’t had to deal with any of these thoughts before the age of 24.
Friday Five (5-30-2003)
1. What do you most want to be remembered for?
I don’t really have one big accomplishment that I would want to be known for. So, I would hope that even though I can be a pain that people would remember me for being reasonably intelligent, with a pretty wicked sense of humor.
2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?
I don’t know. I don’t have a quote, I don’t think. I have lots of quotes from movies and things that I love, but I never really allow quotes, poems, lyrics or anything to define me, if that makes any sense.
This is a long-winded version of “I Don’t Know”
3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?
The biggest achievement in the last year was writing Disparate Lives
4. What about the past ten years?
Graduating from Boston University
5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?
Mr. T says, Don’t be a fool, Stay in School.
Really, my advice would be to develop your logic and try not to overreact to anything.
The Postal Service
Anyone who has talked to me in the past year knows that I have been more than mildly fascinated by Death Cab for Cutie. For those of you who don’t know, this is an indie rock band from Seattle and they are kind of the darlings of the scene. Soon enough, I am sure it will not be cool to be one of their fans because that is how the whole system works. But I love this band. I think the music is great, it has dynamic and the lyrics by Ben Gibbard are some of the best. He is an amazing lyricist because he almost always writes in complete sentences, and somehow still manages to leave a lot to the imagination.
Death Cab for Cutie does not have a new album out right now, but the band’s front man Ben Gibbard has been working on an album with an electronic musician. The band is called The Postal Service because they wrote their EP and full length CD’s by trading tapes and recording back and forth through the mail. This is so cool.
(Now with ProTools (recording software for computers) and things like that, I should be able to collaborate with any number of musicians on the internet. So, I am looking for someone to do this with. If anyone out there has ProTools and wants to play with this I am all for it) But back to The Postal Service.
I have never been a fan of electronic music of any kind, and I certainly hated synthesizers of the mid to late 80’s. Used in this setting with an honest, clean voice and typical Gibbard lyrics, I am viewing electronic music in a whole new way. The songs are beautiful intricate and very melodic. Check it out. Download some tracks, buy the EP, but make sure you get to hear this music.
Slow Day
As some of you might have noticed, my page was acting very slowly today. I am still not sure what caused all this, but as a result, I redesigned. If you have any viewing problems please let me know so I can (try) and fix them.
Anyway, the customer service for ICDSoft (my host) is very good. It is online and it is message board style, but the response time is amazing. So they were trying to help me figure out what was going on and they did some testing. They are pretty sure that something was corrupted or wrong in my index file and that my Server Side Include (SSI) was not working right. Anyway, I also got this response from the tech support person.
Tech Support Person
We tested loading the rest of your web pages, and they were opening very quickly, including some of your mp3 files. As a side note, do you own the copyrights for these files? We recommend that you read our terms of use (http://icdsoft.com/terms.php) again, as we do not allow hosting of mp3 files, unless of course you have the ownership on them, or you have been given this right by the owner.
Best Regards,
Support
The Filtered One
I wrote and recorded every song/MP3 listed on my site, but thanks for the concern. I would never post that on my site.
Thanks Again.
Craig
Tech Support Person
You are welcome!
Your mp3 files sound very professional, hence our concerns. Congratulations for your work!
Best Regards,
Support
END TRANSMISSION
I like compliments as much as the next person, and I refuse to fish for them especially from my own readers, but does anyone who has listened to my songs on this site, (NOT INCLUDING MY FAMILY) think my MP3’s sound that professional? I am assuming this person was blowing smoke up my ass, and I know you guys wouldn’t lie to me.
Hopefully there won’t be anymore speed issues for a while on this site. Thanks for bearing with me!
International Samaritans
For immediate release to the public:
Nike would like to announce the contract that we recently signed with 13-year-old soccer prospect Freddy Adu. The contract will be for a total of $1,000,000, and represents our confidence in Freddy’s skills, abilities and ultimate potential as an individual and a player. By choosing us, Freddy has also given us a vote of confidence as a representative company for athletes all over the world.
Johnson Swetshopian, executive VP of foreign relations, was elated with the signing on Tuesday. “We are so proud to be working with Freddy. We have a longstanding working relationship with many children of all ages throughout the world. The only regret we have is that we were not able to include a clause in the contract limiting the number of bathroom breaks Freddy is allowed to take during a workday. The ironic thing is that we will have third-world children much younger than he is stitching the shoes that he is going to wear.”
It’s another big victory for the marketing machine that is Nike. Also, we are in discussions with a two year old who is purportedly the next Babe Ruth with a wiffle-ball bat.
The New Sign
The new sign I put in the upper left hand corner of the page is actually funny on more than one level. I originally took the picture because the word “devises” is used instead of “devices,” and I am a word dork. Then, in order to try and calm my sister down before her wedding, I was showing her pictures on the little screen of my camera and she quickly dismissed it by saying, “I get it. Using a digital camera is an electronic device.”
I said “yeah, right.” but I hadn’t even thought about it like that. Anyway, just trying to keep it fresh on my site.
Self Awareness
I got to talk to someone this weekend about self-awareness. I think that this is one of my best qualities. Sure, it will sometimes cause me to torture myself with extreme over-analysis of situations and my own actions, but at least I am not ignorant to the ramifications of my own actions. After some reflection on my self-awareness, I figured I would share the results.
I act older than I am most of the time. My friend Mister Crunchy once told me that I was the oldest 21 year old he had ever met (I am now 24) when he asked me what I wanted to do after college and I told him that I wanted to get a job, and probably buy a house. What followed was an incredulous dissertation on seeing the world and taking advantage of youth.
I get embarrassed by situations and do what I can to make them different. If I see someone pissing someone else off and one person doesn’t realize it and the other is about to explode, I will try and defuse the situation when I think most people would enjoy the fireworks display. I just don’t want the discomfort of an embarrassing situation like that.
I overthink everything. We could have a 4-5-word conversation and I will be thinking about the implications and subtext even when there probably weren’t any.
I don’t know everything, but when I think I know something in particular, I get way too overzealous trying to win the argument/bet/point. I have even compiled statistics. My friends and family will certainly validate this one. My friends and I once argued for weeks about whether the Miami Hurricanes championship college football team could beat the Cincinnati Bengals in a football game. My old college roommate who loved arguments like this fostered this habit. We had a 3-year argument/discussion as to whether 1998’s Navy College Basketball team could beat North Carolina, if Navy had the services of David Robinson. This is the same roommate who argued with me about the definition of the word genius and whether it should apply to Eminem. Oh, and if a golfer hits a good shot with an unconventional swing, is it still a bad swing or does the positive end result make it a good swing?
When I am unhappy I tend to spend money. I bought a ridiculous amount of musical equipment this year, when really all I needed was a single guitar and amplifier.
I put on a very good front that I can be very mean, but really when it comes to confrontation, I am not so good. In a few situations I have felt comfortable getting into arguments and things, but generally if I really don’t stand to gain anything, I will back down. You won’t catch me going nuts because of “the principal” of the matter unless it is very important.
That is all I have for now.
This was the weekend
This was the weekend that my sister got married. Everything went well and even with massive amounts of stress for my mother, I think we all had an amazing time. This is the only picture that I had on my camera of our entire family because, well… I was usually taking my own pictures. As a result, I am using a picture in which my mom and I look pretty loopy, but the rest of the family looks good.
Lebron James Friday Five
1. Lebron James Lebron James Lebron James?
Lebron James
2. Lebron James Lebron James Lebron James?
Lebron James
3. Lebron James Lebron James Lebron James?
Lebron James
4. Lebron James Lebron James Lebron James?
Lebron James
5. Lebron James Lebron James Lebron James?
Lebron James
Minus the Bear
I have a new CD by the band Minus the Bear and they have the COOLEST song titles. I am not sure if they have anything to do with the meanings of the songs, but they are funny.
Actual Track Titles for the album, “Highly Refined Pirates”
1. Thanks for the Killer Game of Crisco Twister
2. Monkey!!! Knife!!! Fight!!!
3. Absinthe the Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse
4. Hey, Wanna Throw Up?
5. Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo
6. We are not a Football Team
7. You Kill Bugs Good, Man
8. Spritz!!! Spritz!!!
9. Women We Haven’t Met Yet
10. Damn Bugs Whacked Him, Johnny
11. I Lost All My Money at the Cockfights
12. Andy Wolff
13. Let’s Play Guitar in a Five Guitar Band
14. Booyah Achieved
For the record, I think the funniest one is “Booyah Achieved”
