making owls cool since 1986

Puttin' on the Boots

2009-09-18T15:47:00.001-07:00

Puttin' on the Boots, originally uploaded by Thee E. Aldriches.

We found this old Polaroid at an antique store it Tucson. It's rad. This dude should be named Joe Arizona.

The Year in Review

2009-08-02T22:29:00.004-07:00

I just checked the blog today and realized that we haven't posted anything for nearly a year! That's crazy! It's been a busy year. Maybe this will be the frequency with which we will post from now on. Here's what happened:

1. We moved to Tucson.

2. I presented a paper on Charles Brockden Brown at the PAMLA conference in California.

3. Our friend Jim came and stayed with us for a month or so.

4. We went home for Christmas.
5. Our landlady got pregnant and needed her house back so we had to move to a new house.
6. I did a shitload of hiking around AZ.

7. I went to Boston and presented a paper at the American Literature Association conference.
8. Erin's family came to visit and we went to the Grand Canyon. We took a helicopter ride over the GC and it was amazing.

9. We went to India and hung out with Ari and his family.

10. I made this blog post.
11. We made a bunch of new friends.

All in all, it was a pretty good year.

Next time: Legit post on our trip to Calcutta.

Erin = unemployed = watches too much TV = brain dead = this blog

2008-08-21T23:00:00.005-07:00

Erin here. I'm actually contributing to this blog!

Having quit my job a month ago to start grad school on Monday, I've had too much free time on my hands. Now I'm not complaining AT ALL, so don't get it twisted.

Anyways, since it's too hot to really do anything outside and Eric and I are trying to conserve money because we are now both poor grad students, I've been watching a lot of TV. Why spend time reading books when I've got 3 years of reading books ahead of me?? So TV it is.

As Eric mentioned in a previous post, I've been watching the Olympics. Gymnastics is pretty cool but I fast forward through most everything else. (Thank goodness for DVR.) As Eric said, the commentators can be pretty rotten and repetitive at best.

On to my next favorite show of the summer. Well actually it's a tie between two: The Gong Show and Reality Bites Back. The Gong Show is pretty funny. I like Dave Attell as the host. The show follows the basic same format as the original show. Like this. (Paul Reubens is Pee Wee Herman if you didn't know.)

So that brings me to Reality Bites Back. It's hosted by Michael Ian Black in the format of any and every typical current reality show. Each episode parodies one or more reality shows. The cast is made up of comedians who compete against each other like in a reality show. If you watch any reality shows this show is funny because they (hilariously) point out how all those shows have the same formatting, dramatic effects, etc. I find all of the comedians really funny which is strange because in general I don't think comedians are actually funny. Maybe it's a change in the type of stand up comedy people are doing, maybe it's just me finally coming around.

Ok, back on track. There is a comedian on Reality Bites Back named Theo Von. He is one of the funniest ones and I recognized him from being on Road Rules a while back. So I looked him up online to see which season he was on and that started this whole thing where I wikipediaed Road Rules and Real World cast members. Now I have not watched these shows in years but in my above-mentioned free time, I thought it might be interesting to see what these people do/did with their lives after these shows.

This is when I came across Jamie Murray. His Wikipedia article is a perfect example of why Wikipedia is not always a reliable source. A very (wicked) funny example as well. Now I use Wikipedia daily and even used it for links in this blog so I'm definitely all for it. Especially when I find something like I did in Jamie Murray's entry. Since Wikipedia articles can be changed at any time I'm posting excerpts from it as it stands today:

"Murray is currently selling a type of beer tap called the Ubertap [1] and working as a clerk at the Chicago Board of Trade. His favorite food is all burritos and he is currently a level 35 Halo player. In 1994 he obtained the rank of Eagle Scout while being a member of troop 3 in Willmette, Illinois.

Jamie was also a counselor at summer camp called Horseshoe, he was a cabin counselor for Ranger A considered the greatest cabin in camp, which included campers, Scottie Berman, Daniel Cohen, Jake Padorr, Chris Harms, Daniel Cohen, Wyatt Spector, Josh Kohn, Corey Kohn, Adam Biscuits Paull, Jordan Fox and Zach Kalter. Jamie was a great counselor who always cared about others before himself, unlike Craig. Jamie was a camp counselor for 8 weeks" (emphasis added).

Screw Craig! haha. Yeah, there's not even a period after the word weeks.

Am I delirious? Maybe. Do you think this is as funny and Eric and I do? Probably not. But one thing I do know is this: working is for SUCKERS!!!

Go U of A Wildcats!

Thunderstorms and Olympic Monotony

2008-08-16T10:14:00.004-07:00

The other night Tucson was hit by a huge thunderstorm. It rained, it hailed, and the wind was strong enough to take the metal lid off the grill. Pretty serious stuff. Thousands of people lost power for over a day. It was a weird storm. The lightning was going off close to our house for a long while before the rain started. This gave me time to get plenty of pictures.

Lightning pictures are impressive and fairly easy to take. Actually, they're pretty difficult to take during the day. I tried that at Tumacacori National Monument (an old mission) last week and I couldn't get a single bolt. However, at night all you need to do is turn the ISO way down, the aperture way up, put the shutter speed on bulb, and wait. I choose the low ISO and high aperture so I can leave the shutter open for a long time. This increases the chance that lightning will go off while it's open.

There are more lightning shots on Flickr, as well as pictures from two recent hikes I took: Mount Humphrey and Four Peaks. I'll be posting our pictures from our trip to Tumacacori soon.

On a completely different topic, I have been watching the Olympics. This is mostly because Erin watches them. I am not entirely enjoying the Olympics because I can't stand the commentators. The competition is fun to watch. It's fun to cheer on the United States. It's fun to watch Micheal Phelps set records and break records. However, it is NOT fun to listen to the asinine, repetitive dialogue of the commentators that NEVER STOPS! This is what I have learned from listening to hours of Olympic commentary:

1. Michael Phelps is God.
2. His mother is there.
3. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte are friends, which is apparently surprising because they compete against one another.
4. Ryan Lochte is laid back.
5. The Olympics are in Beijing.
6. Dara Torres is 41.
7. Dara Torres is 41.
8. Nastia Luikin was born in Moscow.
9. Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson are friends, which is apparently surprising because they compete against one another.
10. Nastia Luikin's father won a gold medal for the Soviet Union.
11. Dara Torres is 41.

That's it. Over hours of coverage. If you tried to take a shot every time they mention that Dara Torres is 41, you would die faster than she could finish a race. Yes, it's impressive that she's 41, but have you seen her? She's in incredible shape! If she was 80 and winning races, that would be surprising. If she was a big, fat slob and winning races, that would also be surprising. If she had some sort of mental or physical handicap and was winning races - surprise! An incredibly fit, athletic woman in her early forties should be commended for staying competitive, but I'm sure there's a lot more to Dara Torres and her story than just her age.

Can you tell that I hate the Olympic commentators? They are ruining the Olympics for me. I'm pretty sure dolphins and horses have more communicative vocal variation than these people. Shut up and let us watch.

The interviewers are idiots as well. When poor Alicia Sacramone made a mistake in woman's team gymnastics, they couldn't rub it in fast enough. The Chinese team's difficulty scores would have prohibited the U.S. team from getting gold anyway, so Sacramone's mistakes did exactly nothing - U.S. still took silver just like they would have if she hadn't made any mistakes. Still, the reporters couldn't rub her nose in her failure fast enough and torture her by asking other teammates how they felt when Sacramone fell right in front of her. Her teammates gave classy answers, but someone should have told the reporter to shove it.

Did anyone notice how the commentators kept insinuating that the Chinese women gymnasts weren't 15-years-old? They have no proof or evidence other than the fact that they don't look 15-years-old. Shawn Johnson doesn't look 16. Maybe Chinese audiences don't believe that she's 16. They're not used to looking at 15-year-old American female gymnasts, just like we're not used to looking at 15-year-old Chinese gymnasts. Stupid.

I wonder what they'll find to repeat over and over and over during track and field.

Did you know that Dara Torres is 41. She is. She's older than dirt. Paleontologists have discovered new Dara Torres fossils in Montana. Carbon dating has confirmed that she's been in the Olympics 5 times, one of which was the original Grecian Olympics in 776. B.C.E. God actually created Dara Torres on the second day.

I think I'm ready to be a commentator in London in 2012. By then Dara Torres will be 45. I can't wait.

Erin's Photo on Schmap

2008-08-14T12:31:00.002-07:00

A little while back someone from the online map website Schmap contacted us on Flickr and asked if we would submit this picture for inclusion in their guide of Phoenix.

Erin took this picture in the butterfly garden at the Phoenix Botanical Gardens.

Schmap decided to use it and here it is! It's actually our second photo publication. We have another one on a website fora SCUBA diving company that operates in Placencia, Belize. Here' the link to that site. That's Erin's photo as well.

We had to buy a new computer this week becuase our other one called it quits. I'll post some photos of our house soon.

What is a Juggalo?

2008-07-29T09:15:00.002-07:00

I don't even know what to say about this article. It's from the Tucson Citizen. Nerds have never felt so legit.

This is the title and a link to the article:

Some Phoenix fans of Insane Clown Posse tagged as gangs

Gang connection alleged for Tucson Juggalos

Updates Galore

2008-07-01T15:03:00.008-07:00

We've had a lot going on lately!

Here are a few highlights with corresponding pictures.

1. We went to California for Veau's 31st birthday. It was a great time. Emily and her brothers threw him a surprise party. We surprised him too, as he didn't know we were coming. Of course, he was in the shower when we got there. The theme of the party was to wear the craziest thing you could. Erin wore entirely sequins. Here I am wearing a Erin's sequiny coat and Veau's in his tutu.

2. I went hiking with Chris again and this time we headed up to the Mogollon Rim. We camped out next to this great old cabin. It was one of the most idyllic places I have ever seen. Fantastic.

3. I was supposed to teach ENG 241, which is American Lit. up to the Civil War, but it got canceled for low enrollment. Bummer.

4. Katie and Jacob came to visit from California. We went to Tucson, Bisbee, and Tombstone. Tombstone is kind of neat. We also went back to the San Xavier Mission. I also went to a Diamondbacks game with them. That was my first major league baseball game ever. This is us outside the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee. It doesn't look like we're having much fun. We went to St. Elmo's bar. They have one of those claw game things where you try to grab stuffed animals, except it has porn in it. Hilarious.

5. Erin and I went camping on the Mogollon Rim and we went fossil hunting and hunting for geodes. We took the truck off road. We found some fossils, mostly shells, and some neat geodes and nodules.

6. We went to the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix and went food shopping. We bought this fake chicken. It's made from Nazi mushrooms.

7. Ishmael's been acting crazy lately. We got a new brush that is the most amazing cat brush in the world. It gets tons of cat hair out. Here he is in the sink.

8. I've been trying to publish a book review for Catherine O'Donnell Kaplan's new book, "Men of Letters in the Early Republic." It's an interesting piece of intellectual history about bellistristic societies and other intellectual forums in the post-Revolutionary America. I'm learning the ropes of publishing and it's kind of fun, though I haven't found a journal to publish it yet.

9. I'm reading Bryan Waterman's book, "Republic of Intellect." Topically, it is similar to Kaplan's book, but it focuses solely on the New York Friendly Society, whereas Kaplan's work includes Joseph Dennie and the Boston Atheneaum.

10. I've been revising a paper I wrote on Charles Brockden Brown that I will be reading at the PAMLA conference in Pomona, CA this September. One of the scholars I reference in my paper is Beverly Voloshin from San Fransisco State. She just happens to be presenting her paper right after mine. It's a little intimidating, but I'm feeling pretty good about my work.

That's it for now. Of course, there are many more pictures and other interesting things on our Flickr page.

Motivational Posters

2008-06-08T22:36:00.003-07:00

So, I was going to post the second part of our memorial day weekend on here - all about when we went to Frank Lloyd Wright's camp in Scottsdale (TaliesIn West) - but the tour wasn't that exciting. In fact, they allowed so many people in our tour group that it ended up being an overcrowded rip off.

Then I found the Flickr Toys on Big Huge Labs. There is a motivational poster generator. I couldn't resist making a few. Here is the fruit (albeit, rotten fruit) of my labors. Enjoy!

Of course, I have a few more on my Flickr page and you can expect frequent new creations. Also, all these look way cooler if you click on them and make the larger. I have to shrink them a bit to fit the blog layout.

Memorial Day Weekend Part 1 - Sedona

2008-05-29T10:02:00.005-07:00

Erin's friend Tori came out from New York to visit for Memorial Day weekend. That makes her visitor #2 (Kevin being the first), but the first person who came exclusively to see us! With only 3 days to work with, we wanted to show her the most cool stuff in the shortest amount of time. Considering that a lot of cool stuff in Arizona is really far from Phoenix, we figured Sedona would be our best bet. We planned on heading up Saturday, camping overnight, and coming back Sunday. On Sunday we would see whatever parts of Sedona we missed on Saturday, plus go to Jerome.

Unfortunately, it rained all day Saturday. It never rains here and the one time it rained was when we actually had a visitor. We spent a lot of time on Saturday driving around Sedona trying to decide what to do. Camping was quickly ruled out; it was far too cold and wet. Instead we tried to find a hotel, but most were booked up. It was Memorial Day weekend, after all.

We finally found the Slide Rock Lodge. It was up Route 89A going toward Slide Rock (duh...). It was cheap and comfortable. It had a rustic, log cabin feel. The heat didn't work, but we had our sleeping bags, so we were ok. There was also a space heater that eventually warmed the room up.

A couple years ago Erin and I visited Gettysburg, PA and we bought an audio tour. It was pretty cool. You just throw the CD in and drive yourself around while a narrator explains thing to you. We thought it might be a good idea to try it again, so we bought an audio tour at the visitor's center. It was narrated by a dude named Blake. It worked out really well. I am a total believer in audio tours.

We did some of the tour on Saturday, but on account of the rain, we did most of it on Sunday. Here are some of our pictures from Sedona with descriptions. Check our more on Flickr.

Of course, we have many pictures of the famous red rocks.

I took this picture on Saturday. It rained off an on while we were at this elevation. I think it was around 6000 feet. There were also little remnants of snow in the shade. I love the pictures we took from that overlook because they remind me of Thomas Cole paintings. This on is my favorite. Erin pointed out how the clouds are parted over the valley.

We visited the Palatki Ruins, a Native American cliff dwelling site. There were many petroglyphs and theses remnants of a structure on the side of the cliff. This older gentleman was the Park Service interpreter who explained the site. He was very interesting to talk to and gave us tons of information. Getting there was a chore, though. Our car is not great on dirt roads and you have to drive down mile of dirt roads to reach the ruins. We saw lots of cows.

On Sunday we stopped briefly in Jerome and then headed back to Phoenix. The clouds from Saturdays rain made the pictures we took on Sunday have the coolest skies. It turned out to be a great trip even in spite of the rain and the remarkably poor service at Sedona's vegan restaurant, D'lish. In all fairness, we went there twice and the first time it was alright. The food was good both times, but on our second visit they ran out of what Erin ordered and didn't tell her until they brought Tori and I our food. Then Erin had to go and wait in line to order again. When she told the girl working the register what happened and asked to have her order expedited, the girl was really rude and unaccommodating. Erin ended up just getting her money back and eating half my sandwich. I don't mind mistakes, but come on...being polite is easy.

Kolob Canyon

2008-05-22T22:35:00.004-07:00

Last week I set out for Utah with my hiking buddy Chris. We headed up to Kolob Canyon in Zion National Park. We planned for either 2 or three nights. Not surprisingly, it was amazing.

The ride there was a little long. For some reason it took almost 10 hours to get there and only about 7.5 to get home. Weird. We had a lot of great scenery along the way, which made the long rides more bearable. Here are some examples of stuff we saw on the way there.

Imposing cliffs, mesa, canyons, buttes, and mountains dominate the northern Arizona landscape. It was pretty impressive.

Much of the ride is through the Navajo Reservation. That part's a bit depressing. Coming from the east, it's a little weird to come face to face with the results of the historical oppression of Native Americans. That's not to say that all Navajos are pitiful and seeing their homes are shameful or anything, it's mostly the craft booths on the side of Route 89 that advertise "Nice Indians" or "Friendly Indians" combined with the inhospitable land they live on.

We drove over Lake Powell, a man-made lake on the AZ/UT border. It' s pretty large.

Here's a cool butte.

Once we arrived in Utah, we had to stop and get lunch. We stopped in a town called Kanab. What a place. I ordered a sandwich at a Subway and the woman working at the counter didn't say a single word the whole time. Completely rude and weird. I know she could talk because I overheard her bitching someone out on the phone.

We also witnessed a near car wreck. Man, Utah is weird. We were on a two-lane road. Behind us was a tractor trailer truck. Some weird woman in a Rav4 was trying to pass the truck, even though we were going about 70 on a two lane road (the speed limit was 65, FYI). When another car was coming in the other direction, that dumbass trying to pass the truck totally didn't move in behind the truck. We watched in the rear view as a the driver going in the opposite direction had to swerve off the road at over 60 mph to avoid that terrible woman. Guess what she did next. Passed us.

When we finally got to Zion, it was pretty impressive. You have to drive through Zion Canyon and through a tiny tunnel that was designed only to accommodate Model T's. RV's and some trucks can only make it through if traffic is stopped and they can drive down the middle of the road.

We got there kind of late and Utah is an hour ahead of Arizona at this time of year, so we were afraid that we wouldn't get our backcountry permit. However, we did make it in time and everything was A-ok.

Kolob Canyon is still part of Zion National Park, but it's about 45 minutes north of Zion Canyon. As we drove from Zion Canyon to the Lee Pass Trailhead in Kolob Canyon the weather was looking pretty rough. We knew there was a chance of rain and it looked like we were really in for it. When we finally arrived at the trailhead and got out of the car, it was freezing. Us Phoenicians weren't ready for this. We were prepared with warm clothing and gear, but it was so cold. At that elevation there was still some snow on top of the mountains. Once we got down into the canyon it warmed up, but it was still a chilly first night.

The next day we got up and hiked to Kolob Arch. Kolob arch is the biggest natural arch in the world. It's not free-standing like the ones at Arches Park, so it's not quite as impressive, but it's still pretty cool to see. That day of hiking was great. As I was used to hiking in the desert, hiking along a stream was a rare treat. The trail follows La Verkin Creek pretty much the whole time. We have water filters, so we could drink as much as we wanted, make a bunch of tea and food and never worry about where our water would come from. Beats carrying 2 reservoirs like I do in the desert. That night, we camped at site 15. This dude here hung out at our campsite with us.

The next morning we got up an hiked 8 miles out. That was pretty brutal, particularly the last stretch out of the canyon to the trailhead. However, it was another impressive ride home in terms of views. My camera died, so I don't have any pictures from the last day, but I do have a lot more pictures on our Flickr page, so please check them out!

Oh, by the way, Kolob come from the Mormon Book of Abraham. I think that's an apocryphal book, so I don't think it's part of mainstream LDS theology. In that book, Kolob is the planet closest to where God resides. Interesting.

Did I mention that we drove through Colorado City, AZ? That's the town with a high concentration of polygamists, including the infamous Warren Jeffs. It was a strange place. Lot's of half-built houses.

Owl Video

2008-05-18T10:35:00.003-07:00

We certainly haven't posted for a long while, huh? Finals and finishing up with school had me pretty well occupied.

I promise to post something this week about my trip to Zion National Park, but for now, check out this video I found on Youtube about owls. A 5th grade teacher makes these videos for his students and I think they're pretty clever. www.notebookbabies.com

Buying a Used Truck Part 4 - Right Toyota Sucks - Total Victory

2008-04-10T10:01:00.006-07:00

Last Thursday (a week ago today), Erin called me from work and said that she had been calling around to car dealerships in Scottsdale and asking if they had any trucks in our price range. After hearing our price range, most did not call back.

When Erin called Right Toyota in Scottsdale the person she spoke with told her that we would not get a bank to approve us for a loan amount of $8000 because it was too low. This, of course, is a load of shit, as we have subsequently obtained a loan for much less than that, but this is what the dude told Erin and they amicably ended the phone call. Erin had stress how we were not interested in negotiating or haggling, so presumably this person didn't want to waste his time on us.

Not long after, a manager from Right Toyota named John called Erin back and said that they had "several vehicles" including "Tacomas" and "Nissans" and that they were in our price range. Erin re-emphasized what she had told the first salesman. We were not interested in haggling - our budget was set and that if we came up there and they did not have a vehicle in our price range it would be waste of their time and our time. John again reassured Erin that he understood and that they could help us, so we agreed to go to Right Toyota after work.

When Erin arrived home, we first went to Desert School Credit Union and obtained our own financing. This is a fantastic idea. We got a great interest rate and they were very nice and helpful. It's also a great bargaining tool. Furthermore, auto dealerships have deals with Desert Schools (and, presumably other credit unions) that allow the dealerships to handle everything for you so you don't have to run back and forth to the credit union. Also, many dealerships have special representatives, usually the fleet sales or Internet sales people, who are your V.I.P. sales correspondent. They understand the banks terms and they can help you more efficiently.

After getting pre-approved, we drove all the way to North Scottsdale (over 1/2 hour from Tempe) to Right Toyota. At this point Erin has already driven to and from North Phoenix that day, an around-trip journey of over 1 hour and she has not eaten any dinner. So when we arrived at Right Toyota we expected to be shown the trucks on our range, make a decision, and be out of there.

When we got there the person we had an appointment with was gone. Strike 1. We waited around for several minutes until we were paired up with a salesman named Corey. Corey seemed nice at first, but he was turned out to be a condescending, arrogant jerk. Strike 2. One of the first things Corey brought up to us was that he knew our price limit. He then lead us to the used truck section. Things quickly began looking bleak. There were 3 used Tacomas, the oldest of which was a 2004 and $19,999 - only $11,000 above our budget! Strike 3. The other trucks were a Frontier ($13,999) and a Mazda ($12,999). We were immediately skeptical. After looking at the used trucks out front, Corey took us on a ride around the lot to see what else they had. They didn't have anything else.

We all returned inside while Corey went to ask the illusive John, the manager Erin had spoken to, what he was referring to. We never did see John (coward). After this wasted time, we returned to the trucks out front.

The Frontier was not automatic, so that quickly disqualified it. The Mazda seemed nice, but was way out of our price range. Corey then began trying to sell us on the Mazda. He said he knew our price range and that we could work with the price. We again voiced our skepticism that a truck for $12,999 would go for $8000, but he reassured us that deal could be met and so we agreed to test drive it.

We test drove the truck amidst Corey's snide remarks. I think he resented being put in a situation where he was sure not to make a sale and I think he could sense that we were skeptical, and, if things didn't go our way, we could get disgruntled. The best way to avoid making a sale, of course, is to make snide comments. Great work, Corey.

The truck drove well, so we returned inside talk about buying it. We sat down at a desk. We had been in such situations a lot recently, so our patience was gone quickly. Of course, Corey took longer to come back with numbers than any other dealership had. When, after a ridiculously long time, he did come back, the sheet had the price of the truck at $12,999. We instantly saw red. What the hell?!?! Corey tried to talk to us about prices, but we weren't having it. We repeated that we had been very clear that we were not interested in haggling. We would not pay more that $140/month. He tried to make us think that was impossible, but we weren't having that either. He asked us what we would be willing to go up to. We said $140. He said we needed to be flexible. We said we did not need to be flexible. We had been very clear that we never intended to be flexible. He then went back into their stupid office.

He returned from the stupid office and tried to pass us off onto a manager. I don't remember the dude's name. He started in on some sort of spiel about how there was no way they could sell that truck at our price. We had seen all this negotiation crap before, but we had been extremely clear throughout this process that we were not interested in negotiating. We wouldn't have come if there were not trucks for us. Other dealerships had been honest.

While I was sitting here looking at this guy, all the frustration of the day and the truck buying experience came upon me at once. We had been totally lied to. I know it sounds silly to get upset that a car salesman lied to us to get us in there, but, honestly, we dealt with many dealerships before and after Right Toyota and they were all mostly honest. The most infuriating thing was that one person had (correctly) discouraged us from coming to Right Toyota, then Shitty John the Cowardly Manager called back and told us to come!

We kind of let this dude have it. I told him how we were not interesting negotiating. I told him how they had lied to us and how John had told us there was something for us and there was nothing. I told him how clear we had been the entire time about our budget. I told him how it was bullshit that Erin had driven all the way from North Phoenix and to Tempe and how they had dragged us all the way from Tempe to Scottsdale. He looked pretty taken back. I don't feel too bad about getting mad at him, because I made it clear that we understood it wasn't his fault, and I said that I would greatly prefer to have this conversation with John. This guy told us that John had gone home, but he said he would be happy to have me talk to John if he was there. It was incredibly shitty of Shitty John to pawn us off on his coworkers. He said, sheepishly he could give us the truck for no less than $11,999. He said I was "upset" so nothing he would say would make me happy. This was the last straw. I got up and said I we were going to dinner before I really lost my cool. We then left Right Toyota.

Right Toyota sucks. Check out their rather lengthy bio at Ripoffreport.com. Compare that to no real entries for Tempe Toyota and only a couple entries for Tempe Honda on which the issues have been reconciled.

After leaving Wrong Toyota, we hit up some other dealerships in the area and talked to some more weirdos. For the most part, even though the people were odd, they tried to be helpful and didn't try to lie to us to get us to buy any particular vehicle.

It's amazing how painlessly the whole saga ends. The next day we did some looking on cars.com and Erin found an 2002 Nissan Frontier Desert Runner at LeSueur Auto in Tempe. This place sells late model, used VW's, Audi's and Mini's. They had no real interest in keeping the Frontier, which they got on a trade in, so they sold it to us for Kelly Blue Book wholesale. We paid significantly less than $8000 for it. The funny thing is that Tempe Toyota had the same exact truck, same miles and everything for $11,000. That's actually pretty close to the KBB retail value of the truck. The dude at LeSeuer was named Dave. He was about our age. He was really laid back. He didn't seem like a used car salesman at all. We test drove the truck, they cleaned it up and we bought it. It drives better than the Tacomas we test drove at Tempe Honda - even the gold one! We're going to have it check out and get a tune up at Salem Boys. Even if we need to fix something on it, it will still be way cheaper than any of the other trucks, which weren't in any better shape anyways!

We totally win! Here's a picture of the truck! WOOOHOOO!!!

Where are they now?

Eric and Erin went on to drive the nice truck they got for cheap. They rule.

Marv called to say he had a beat up old Jeep. He's still a nice dude who's probably still driving his ambitious managers crazy.

The Gold Toyota Tacoma is, as of April 10th and according to their website, still at Tempe Honda. Go buy it from Marv. Tell him Eric and Erin sent you.

Robert, the manager from Tempe Honda, is still in denial about what "no-pressure means."

Sonny Stubbs from Big Two's used lot is still way cooler than you'll ever be.

Corey from Right Toyota wishes he was as funny as he thinks he is.

Shitty John the Cowardly Manager from Right Toyota still sucks. A lot.

Dave from LeSeuer is taking it easy.

Buying a Used Truck Part Three - The Silver Tacoma

2008-04-04T00:48:00.003-07:00

Marv called me while I was at school and left a message saying that they had a 2002 Toyota Tacoma with only 90,000 miles on it with the "good rubber on it that you (I) like." That's his way of saying that the tires aren't bald. It was priced at $9500. Later that day, Erin and I went to check out this Tacoma.

When we arrived at Tempe Honda Marv wasn't around. He was off somewhere smoking a cigarette. We saw Robert and Marv was paged. As Marv approached, one of his crazy coworkers said, "Here he comes. You can tell it's him. He's the bald guy with the gut." I felt sorry for Marv.

After Marv arrived, we hopped on the golf cart and headed over to the shop where the Tacoma allegedly was being "gone over." It was not there when we arrived, so we stood around outside and had a very nice talk with Marv about his RV and the vacations he and his wife take with it. Erin and I have always wanted an RV, so we enjoyed this conversation.

When the truck returned it looked mint. It wasn't extended cab or TRD, but it was still really nice looking. Marv went over and talked to the mechanic driving the truck. Erin and I got the impression that he looked unconvinced. We went inside and Marv talked to the mechanic for a minute before we took the truck out for a ride.

This part was sketchy as we were unsure whether or not the truck had been check out by a mechanic yet. It seemed to us that the mechanic was taking a preliminary test drive when we got there and his demeanor suggested all had not gone well. We decided to try it anyways.

We had to test drive it separately, as it was only a single cab and Marv had to go along. I decided to go first. I pulled the truck out and it felt OK until I tried to accelerate to about 40mph, at which point it really started shaking. When I got on Route 10 and tried to go above 60mph, it really shook like crazy. Something was clearly very wrong with the truck. Marv said he thought it was a U-joint, which is part of the drive train.

Upon returning to the shop, it was determined that the truck was messed up and there was no need for Erin to drive it. I suggested to Marv that they give us the gold Tacoma, which was still there, for the price of the silver Tacoma and throw in the silver Tacoma's nice wheels. He asked Robert, but Robert said no. They tried to pressure us into buying something, as it was the end of the month and it would boost their numbers, but we said no.

We decided it was time to leave. We were kind of pissed of that they made us drive all the way down there without checking out the truck first. Marv apologized for the inconvenience. As we were trying to pull out of the parking spot, Robert was gesticulating emphatically around the wheel of the silver truck. I rolled down the window and he told me that he had seen a wheel weight fall off and that it was no big deal and probably the cause of the shaking. They said that they would call us about the wheel weight.

Later that evening, Marv called and said it had not been the wheel weight and it was, not surprisingly, something more serious with the drive train. He then told me that, because it was the end of the month, Robert had agreed to come down on the price of the gold Tacoma and set a "rock bottom" price of $9999. I was at school at the time, so I thanked Marv and said I would speak to Erin. Of course, the price drop from $10,250 to $9999 is only $256. I was a bit insulted that they thought I would fall for that silly trick. I later called Marv and informed him that the negligible drop in price was not enough to change out minds. Our monthly payment would still be over $175. I tried to get the price down one more time by citing the fact that they had never adequately addressed the issue of the body damage. As property damage adjuster know, something that looks like a small dent (not that the dent was that small...) can be a costly repair. Marv asked, but to no avail. He said he'd keep looking for a vehicle for us.

You'll notice how frequently I use some incarnation of the word "ridiculous." You haven't heard anything yet. Wait until next time when I write about Right Toyota in Scottsdale!

Buying a Used Truck Part Two - The Man Called Sonny Stubbs - The Saga of the Gold Tacoma

2008-04-03T23:11:00.008-07:00

Last time I mentioned how Marv had called us back with a truck. Before I get to that, let me tell you about the Big Two lot in Mesa. After leaving Tempe Honda without the Jeep, we headed to a couple other dealership in the Tempe Autoplex. A nice man at the Hyundai place told us we should check out a used lot in Mesa run by a friend of his. He even tried calling ahead. We did check that lot out, but there was nothing there of interest for us that day.

Across the street from that dealership was the Big Two used lot. Big Two is the name of several big dealerships in the East Valley (all this is taking place around Phoenix, AZ, F.Y.I.). This used lot was ridiculous. There were a bunch of overpriced cars and nothing we wanted. However, we did meet Sonny Stubbs, car salesman extraordinaire. This dude was dressed like cowboy, only he was an African American dude, and he told me that I looked like Mack Truck driver. Obviously, he was kidding, but it was kind of weird. He then tried to sell us on a 1998 Ford Ranger with 120,000 miles for $13,000. We pretty much knew it was over at that point. However, we went inside with Mr. Stubbs anyways because he was so damn amusing.

First he told us that if we want a cheap car we should look in the obituaries. At first I thought he meant Craigslist, but he meant the real obituaries. Again, I'm pretty sure he was kidding, but the concept of check the obits, he explained, is that widows don't know how much their dead husbands' cars are worth so you can get them cheap. Moments later he said he knew where we lived and that he was coming over. Creepy. He does not know where we live. I made a joke that he should bring the beer. I laughed at this considerably.

Throughout our conversation, Sonny kept saying, "Hey, I have just the truck for you" or "I know what truck you'd like," every time he was referring to the overpriced Ford Ranger. He must have done that 5 or 6 times. He was a real character. We both kind of liked him because he was funny and didn't take his job too seriously.

Well, over the phone Marv told me that he had a "nice little truck" for me. We set an appointment for noon on Saturday.

That Saturday Marv called early and encouraged us to go down before our noontime appointment as other people were interested in the truck. We hit horrible traffic on the highway, so even though we left early, we still arrived there at noon. Not surprisingly, the truck was still there.

The truck was pretty nice. It was gold. It was a Toyota Tacoma TRD Prerunner extended cab. It had 91,000 miles and no price sticker. Marv greeted us in his usual laid back manner and we test drove the truck.

The truck drove pretty well, but there was some sort of weird rattling sound coming from the dashboard. Additionally, there was some damage to the driver's side rear quarter panel that extended onto the gate and the tires were bald.

Since our last visit to Tempe Honda, we had read this great article on Edmunds.com called "Confessions of Car Salesman" Our friend Damien recommended that article to us. The article is about a writer who goes undercover as a cars salesman and learns the tricks of the trade. Very illuminating.

Armed with the information from the Edmunds article and years of experience in the insurance industry handling negotiations (mostly Erin's experience), we sat down with Marv to negotiate on the gold Tacoma.

The first price Marv gave us was $13,999. We had previously told him we wanted monthly payments of $130, which is a loan of roughly $6500 at 7% interest. We agreed that we would say that we were willing to put $1000 down. Like any used cars salesman, Marv's manager had given him the numbers. He put the paper down in front of us. I just gave him a ridiculous smile and without us saying anything Marv got up, went to the manager's desk and came back with $12,999, a monthly payment of $249.

I guess I understand that there are some people who don't want to pay a lot for a vehicle, but when faced with a vehicle they want they are willing to pay over $100 more than what they originally intended. We are not those people. Not to condemn anyone, but you'd have to be an idiot to get suckered into that. I hate haggling over prices, but sometimes you have to try.

We began taking apart the price of the vehicle. First off, the price sheet had no interest rate on it. Marv told us he thought it was 10%. This was ridiculous, because there was a sign on the table that said that people with 700+ credit scores would be approved to 8.49. As our credit is in that excellent range, that was the interest rate we expected. We also gently reminded Marv that we were totally unwilling to pay more than $130/month so anything above that was wasting everyone's time.

Marv returned with his manager, Robert. Marv clearly hated haggling even more than us. Marv likes to talk about his family, tell anecdotes about him and his wife, talk about his RV, stuff like that, but not haggle about money. Robert assured us that they were "no-pressure" in a very high-pressure way. Erin says that the "No Pressure" tactic is very passive aggressive. You're intended to interpret their pressure as your own fear of pressure that's not really there. Unfortunately for them, we were not falling for that. Pressure is pressure, even when you call that pressure "no pressure."

Very quickly we had our 8.49 interest rate. Robert sucked up to us and praised our great credit. He pretended to intimate things about the cars sales business to us that we already knew, like how they can jack up the interest rate above what the bank approves you for.

Side note: If you're buying a vehicle and they run your credit and the bank approves your for, say, 8% interest, the car dealership financing can charge you 10% interest and keep the difference. It's totally legal, but really shitty.

Back to Marv and Robert. While Marv looked out the window, Robert came down another $1000. We remained stalwartly unwilling to budge, but we talked sympathetically and played along with the haggling game. Now, with our new interest rate, the vehicle at $230.00. Still ridiculous. Marv got us a Carfax report, which was useless because nothing had been reported in two years and 30,000 miles. That meant the 1/3 of the life of the truck was unaccounted for.

We continued to haggle. Robert told us that the suggested retail value of the truck was $13,295 according to Kelly Blue Book. We countered that we knew NADA to be lower, but Robert said that the West Coast uses Kelly Blue Book and the East Coast uses NADA. I have since fact checked this and found out that he was telling the truth. Still, this truck was a 2001 (7-8 years old) with nearly 100,000 miles, body damage, and bad tires. Not to mention that you shouldn't show people who want to spend $130/month something that costs $230/month because that's not what they want.

Citing the ridiculousness of getting us all the way down there to the dealership for something we can't afford and the damage to the truck we worked the price down to $10,750 and then down to $10,250. We also learned that in certain circumstances the dealership can opt to finance you through a credit union or other bank for a lower interest rate. Our interest rate was now at 7.49%. Robert said that was the best we could do anywhere. We have since disproved that, but I don't think he was intentionally lying. In the course of about 1 hour, we had talked the truck down nearly $4000 and 2.5% interest. Not bad, but the price was still $204/month. Unacceptable. In a last ditch effort to show good faith, we asked to have it calculated if we put $1000 more down, $2000 total, which took us to $185/month. While this is still not doable in our budget, it was more reasonable. Unfortunately, we wasted about 1 hour of our life trying to get to something reasonable. I understand that's how buying a used car works, but I resent having my time wasted all the same.

When it became evident that we weren't going to get the truck, Robert tried to sell us some sort of Ford Explorer thing. Marv gave us a ride over and chatted. I think Marv was glad to be away from the nasty money table. The Explorer was still being cleaned up. It was not what we wanted. We got out and looked at it. Marv looked too and understood it was not what we wanted. Marv is really no pressure. He gave us a ride back to our car so we could go eat lunch. As he was telling us to have a nice lunch, Robert came out and tried to convince us that we were crazy for not buying the truck. He tried to say that we could make sacrifices, like skip Starbucks, to account for the $50 difference between the prices. It reminded me of the scheister at Courtesy Chevrolet who tried to sell us a giant, junky truck.

We shook our heads too, and we were off to get some lunch.

A few days later, Marv called about a Silver Tacoma. Our experiences surrounding that Toyota will constitute the next chapter of our story.

Buying a Used Truck Part One - The Road to Tempe Honda - Introducing Marv

2008-04-03T22:35:00.009-07:00

The time has come. Erin and I can no longer exist with only one vehicle. For nearly a year now I have been relying on my bicycle to get me around, but circumstances have changed and now we need more wheels. While we have not actually purchased a truck yet, our attempts to purchase the truck have become so ridiculous that I thought it might be fun to share our experience as we go along, hence this series of blog entries.

When we lived in Massachusetts we would never have considered buying a truck, but now that we live in Arizona, we have found that there are some benefits to owning a more durable vehicle. Since our move, we've really taken up hiking and camping as serious hobbies and there are lots of great hiking/camping areas that can only be accessed with a higher clearance vehicle.

We don't want an SUV. We're looking for something more practical. Our car, a Toyota Matrix, is a great hatchback, so an SUV might offer more room, but not considerably more room. We decided on a smaller size truck. Our favorite is the Toyota Tacoma. Our ideal vehicle is a 2002-2004 Toyota Tacoma TRD Prerunner extended cab. They have great clearance, decent gas mileage for a truck, they hold their value well, and they look rad. The one pictured above obviously has a serious lift, but even the regular Tacoma Prerunners have good clearance.

We have become quite savvy shoppers. However, let me take you back a couple of weeks and catch you up to speed.

One Saturday a couple weeks back, Erin heard an add on the radio that a Nissan place on Camelback Road was selling repo-ed vehicles. We went over and the inventory was pretty picked over, so we headed across the street to Courtesy Chevrolet. We told the salesman who was "helping" us what we were looking for. This man took our request very seriously. We said we didn't want to spend a lot of money, so he lead us to a lot about 1/4 of a mile away to a lot that looked like a junkyard. He then tried to sell us sundry jalopies, including but not exclusive to a busted Land Rover, some sort of a V8 Superduty, and an employee's Tacoma TRD. This was our first introduction with the Prerunner TRD. Love at first sight...

Needless to say, we did not buy a truck at Courtesy Chevrolet, even in spite of the salesman's assurance that we were making a big mistake in not paying $12,000 for a giant, junky truck that was probably intended for the auction.

Erin and I then headed over to Tempe Toyota, which is where we bought the Matrix. They were nice enough when we bought the Matrix, so we thought we'd try them again. They were still very helpful, but they didn't have anything in our price range that day.

Next we headed next door from Tempe Toyota to Tempe Honda. Upon arriving we were greeted by a friendly older gentleman named Marv. Marv has become an important and ubiquitous figure in our lives since then, so let me begin my drawing a character sketch of our friend Marv.

Marv is retired. He retired from a very successful business career, moved to Arizona, got itchy in retirement, and so now he sells used cars at Tempe Honda...for fun. Marv is the best used cars salesman from the buyer's perspective because Marv doesn't HAVE to sell you the car. If you don't buy anything, no skin of his back. He's just happy to chat, which is cool because he's fun to talk to. He does try, only he's honest, so his trying is actually helpful. However, we have noticed that Marv's honesty and nonchalant demeanor exasperates his sales manager. This is also a good sign. Erin and I are tough customers (literally) and instead of getting frustrated and giving up on us, Marv says he admires us and he tries quite hard to get us what we want! Marv's the best.

However, our first ride with Marv was ill fated. We found a 1999 Jeep Wrangler on the lot of Tempe Honda and it was reasonably priced, so I decided to try it out. Only problem was that it was a manual transmission. Erin doesn't drive manual. I haven't driven manual in probably 8 years and I was never any good at it in the first place. Nevertheless, I hopped in the driver's seat, Erin climbed in the back, and with Marv riding shotgun I lurched and jerked my way around around the block. It was not a comfortable ride, but I only stalled it once and the clutch survived. We did not purchase the Jeep. Marv was very reassuring during the ride, but when we arrived back at the lot he did not seem to hold the same hope for the improvement of my shifting skills he displayed during the ride. Perhaps his confidence was a survival mechanism more than a sales technique...

After we parked the Jeep, no one could figure out how to remove the key from the ignition. They put the thing in all the different gears, messed with the emergency brake and the clutch, turned it off, turned it on, pushed in on the key. At one point there were 4 people trying to get the key out including me. Finally, I noticed that there was a button behind the ignition that you had to push in and we removed the key. It was ridiculous.

Marv took our info and it wasn't long before he called back to tell us that he had Toyota Tacoma TRD Prerunner extended cab. However, I will leave the saga of the Tacoma for my next blog entry.

San Xavier del Bac

2008-03-23T08:39:00.003-07:00

Last weekend we took a trip to Tucson and went to the San Xavier del Bac Mission. This mission is a Spanish Colonial style mission and was built between 1783-1797. It was way cooler than we expected. We have, admittedly, missed the sense of history we left behind in New England. Phoenix has a great climate and great hiking, but the whole place looks like it was built last week. Seeing the mission was a welcome respite from the all the strip malls.

Actually, Tucson looks a little more like home. We ate at a vegan restaurant and there were trees, roads that bend, slight hills...

Anyhow, back to the mission. San Xavier is unlike any church I have ever seen. The art is so intricate, but it still has a folk-art feel. It reminds me a little of the cathedral in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but there was definitely a more rustic feel to San Xavier.

Check out many more pictures of our mission trip on our Flickr page.

Happy Birthday, Ishmael!

2008-03-20T20:12:00.003-07:00

Today is Ishmael's birthday!!!!! He's 3-years-old today!!!! Happy birthday, Ishmael!!

For his birthday he received extra cat treats and extra playtime.
He's super-excited about all the extra attention, but he has not idea why he's getting it.

Oh, our little boy is getting so big!

Desert Botanical Gardens

2008-03-12T12:14:00.003-07:00

Dueling Butterflies
Originally uploaded by Thee E. Aldriches

On Sunday, Erin and I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. They were pretty crowded, but they're nice. We didn't do the trails because we went to see the butterfly garden. This too was crowded and a bit chaotic. It seemed like whenever you were ready to take a photo of a butterfly or flower, someone would stand right in your light. For that matter, it was fairly difficult to even look at the butterflies. No one was rude or anything, it was just a popular exhibit.

In spite of the chaos, it was still fairly enjoyable. Erin was afraid that she wasn't getting any good pictures of the butterflies, but when we got home and loaded them on the computer, we were pleasantly surprised.

Check out the rest of our butterfly pictures here on our Flickr page.

Actually, we use Flicker a lot. I update the pictures on our Flickr page more readily than the blogs. We still enjoy the blogs because you can write a lot more and do more with formatting, but Flickr is fun and convenient. So, remember that our Flickr address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/erinanderic/.

Enjoy!

One Year Ago...

2008-03-02T21:35:00.004-07:00

Tikal
Originally uploaded by Thee E. Aldriches

It was a year ago last month Erin and I were on our honeymoon in Belize. This picture was actually taken in Tikal, Guatemala. We were a little crazy that day. For one thing, we carried way to much camera gear. Secondly, we hiked up and down stone steps at 70 degree angles wearing flip-flops because our shoes were wet from river tubing in a cave the day before.

It does feel pretty odd that it has been a year since that trip. I remember talking to our Canadian friends that we made there (Dennis and Joan) about how we didn't even know where we were going to live in one year. Well, we know now! Arizona!

It's been a busy couple of years and it shows no signs of slowing down.

I learned that I can post blogs from our Flickr page. I use Flickr a lot; therefore, there will probably be an increase in blog postings now that I can do them from Flickr.

We have over 100 pictures of our honeymoon on our Flickr page. Check them out here.

Surrending to the Digital Image

2008-02-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

After years of shunning Photoshop, I have finally broken down and I'm beginning to learn to use it. We recently updated our Flickr account to "Pro" which is not really any sort of recognition of professional status, merely an expenditure of $25 for more space. I've been using Flickr a lot more ever since Sean started posting prolifically. I love seeing his pictures from home and reading the commentary. While looking around on Flickr I have seen some folks doing some great stuff with Photoshop. For instance, sometimes Sarah and Damien use Photoshop and I always really dig their pictures. I also know the Kev is a Photoshopper. So I threw my reticence to the wind and I have begun attempting to use Photoshop.

Erin took these 2 pictures on Nantucket. I think one reason I've been Photoshopping lately is that it gives me a reason to go back and really look at some of our pictures. I like revisiting all the places we've been.

The picture above was taken in Brattleboro, Vermont. I think the windmill was taken in Oklahoma or Texas. I antiqued the Brattleboro shot and tried to make a faux lomo with the windmill.

I like making fake antique pictures. The one above was in Douglas, MA and the one below is from Jerome, AZ.

This Volkswagen bug gathering takes place at the Sonic near our house. The following three pictures are from Bisbee, Arizona.

In other news, Erin got an unexpected raise at work and I joined the Society of Early Americanists and The Charles Brockden Brown Society. I recently read "The Culture Industry" which is an essay in The Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Its premise has been largely refuted by postmodernists, but the basic idea is that Capitalist consumerism proliferates bad art, which chokes out real art and redefines the culture in terms of artificial aesthetic needs. The negative effect of the Culture Industry corrupts all the way down to the personal level. The Culture Industry would include for-profit film, music, photography, etc - any art created for a Capitalistically functional purpose. I think I have made this sound much more jargony than it is in my attempt to paraphrase. If you've ever been frustrated by bands that "sell out" or the millions of bad movies out there, reading "The Culture Industry" may be very enlightening (pun intended).

Mothdrawn to the Monolith

2008-02-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

I returned to the Superstitions last weekend and camped out on the other side of Weaver's Needle. I love photographing Weaver's Needle. Actually, photography in the Superstitions is super-easy. Every angle has merit and everything you see if beautiful. I took most of my photos here either at sunset, sunrise, or by moonlight.

I went with Chris, who is the same dude I went hiking with on my last excursion. We camped under that pine tree in the left side of the photo.
I went in this cave. Erin did not approve, but it's actually pretty big, well lit, and in an area with lots of foot traffic, so big nasties probably wouldn't call it home.

The red sky on the left side of the picture is light pollution from Phoenix et al.

When the moon came up I got fantastic light. Enlarge the pictures for the best effect.

Chris tells me that the Grand Canyon experience is like this times a million. I can't wait.
I put this picture on Flickr and it got a lot of nice comments. I can honestly say I'm pretty happy with it. I was sleeping and Chris woke me up because the sun looked good and he knew I'd want to take advantage. Totally worth getting up for.
I like these clouds. I'm sure this is not the last Weaver's Needle blog.

In news not relating to hiking, Erin and I have been approved for ASU family housing. That means we get a house with a washer and dryer and cable, internet and water paid for for almost $150 less than we're paying now. The only down side is that the house is in Mesa, so it will be further away from campus. However, I know other people who have taken advantage of the family housing and they really like it. That means that come this summer our sojourn with the dogshit and cockroaches will end. The people downstairs have recently acquired a dog that they neither need nor have room for nor know how to control. It barks all the time. It amazes me how ridiculously stupid people can be in regard to animal ownership.

Ishmael had his teeth cleaned Friday. The poor little fellow was so doped up on anesthesia when he came home. He was not happy. He was growling and hissing at the vet's office. He recovered quickly and now his teeth are nice and clean.

Erin went back to Claims University in Connecticut this week. She comes home today. I'm jealous that she got to see folks back home, but Ishmael and I have had a real bonding experience this week, even in spite of his run-in with dentistry.

Fountainless Hills

2008-01-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

The other day, Erin and I went out to take some pictures. We go hiking a lot and we go on trips, but not exclusively to take pictures. Our travels lead us north of Tempe to Mt. Mcdowell. There wasn't too much to photograph there and it was getting late, so we backtracked to Fountain Hills.
Above is picture of Mt. McDowell at twilight.
Fountain Hills is known for having a gigantic fountain that is many stories high. When we got to the park the fountain was really going. It was huge. It was pretty dark out, so I set the camera on the tripod and adjusted the camera and just as I was going to take the picture, the stupid fountain shut off. We decided to wait to see if it would come back on. We waiting for 45 minutes, in which time we took these pictures.
Fountain Hills at night.
We don't know these people. The dude said, "Take our picture! We're good looking!" So I said, "Ok." I am a man of my word.
Messing with the flash and long exposures.

I bought this hat at a rest stop. It's sweet.
Yert! After 45 minutes we figured the fountain wasn't coming back on so we left. When I got home I read that it came on for the first 15 minutes of every hour. We barely missed seeing it come back on. We'll go get a picture of the damn thing soon.

Check back soon for more pictures from my second camping trip to Weaver's Needle.

Our First Visitor!

2008-01-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

We had our first visitor from back home! The winner is....... Kevin! Kev was out here on business. He's a V.I.P. In fact, he's such a V.I.P. that they put him up in a smoking room at the Comfort Inn on 27th Ave in Phoenix (ghetto!).

We didn't have long to hang out, but it was really cool seeing him. It was almost surreal to hang out with someone from Massachusetts here in Tempe. It's the first time our worlds have crossed.

We went to Casey Moore's and had food. Yum.

If you are unfamiliar with Kevin and the missus, Jen, check out their blog. Kev and Jen are both talent artists. You can check out Kev's work at encourageothers.com. He even has a sweet picture of yours truly on there.

So the moral of this story is that we like it when people come to visit. Come to visit.

A New Year's Plea

2008-01-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

Billy Mays, you have made it unbearable for me to watch TV for years. Your "high energy" sales pitches only make me scurry to the remote control to hit the mute button. The clever contraptions that you push are so amazing they can practically just sell themselves. So please, Billy, in this new year do us all a favor: be a nice, gentle, salesman with a great beard. We know you have it in you.

On behalf of all TV Watchers in America,

Thanks.

Who's that man in a black sedan...

2008-01-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

...with two cheap hookers and a Mexican?

It's Mickey Avalon - Mr. Right!

Those are some lines from the new earworm that Veau infected me with, "Mr. Right" by Mickey Avalon. Don't listen to it or you'll never get it our of your head.

(This is the links issue of the blog. Have fun.)

We spent last weekend with Veau and Emily in Anaheim, California. Of course, we hung out with Katie too. It was a much less eventful trip than our prior excursion and I mean that in a very good way. The Matrix held up there and back. Except for one little bit of highway confusion around Riverside, the ride was smooth both ways. I even bought a sweet hat at a rest stop!

We didn't really take any pictures this time around. We just hung out and enjoyed ourselves. Veau and Emily took some pictures at the Rio, so those are forthcoming.

Did you think we would go to California without going to the Rio? Of course not!

Our trips to California do contain several similar elements:

1. We go to the Rio. The Rio is a karaoke bar in Anaheim. It might be the best people watching location in the world. Not least of the spectacular specimens is the DJ, Smitty, who you may remember from our previous California blog entry.

2. We get lost and confused by the multitudinous freeways and confusing signs and make myriad comparisons between California's lack of easy navigation and how wonderful it is to get around Phoenix and the Valley.

3. We go to the Lab a.k.a. the Anti-Mall and go clothes shopping. It's overpriced and trendy, yet we invariably get someone to take us there. This time we drove, but Katie navigated. She missed our exit because she was busy telling us about an old man who went to an emergency room with a banana stuck up his butt. It was worth missing the exit to hear about that. I did end up finding a Rogues Gallery T-Shirt, which is my favorite brand of shirt.

So we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and ate at some good restaurants - Sidney's in Fullerton and Rutabegorz in Orange.

Hooray for links!

Kickin' 'round the Valley

2008-01-03T23:24:00.000-07:00

The other night Erin and I took our cameras and headed to the lookout point on South Mountain. We were trying out Erin's new Diana + camera and my new Holga from Holgamods. We got one another plastic toy cameras for Christmas. Those pictures will be ready to pick up at Tempe Camera on Monday. We hope the results will be good. All these photos are from out trusty Nikon D50.
This Diana+ is in the background, the Holga's up front. I have the Holgaroid Polaroid attachment on it.
The sun setting behind South Mountain.
The sunsets out here are awesome and it doesn't hurt that we can just drive up our local mountain to see them.

On New Years Day, we got up and tried to recover from our crazy New Years Eve (we watched Mr. Bean's Holiday and didn't realize it was 2008 until 12:07) by heading out to the White Tank Mountains in Goodyear, AZ.
Our hiking book suggested a trail called the Waterfall Trail and said it had great petroglyphs. It had a lot of petroglyphs, but it also had about a billion other people. Real annoying people who walked side-by-side at unfathomably slow velocities. It was like being at the Grafton Flea Market. The petroglyphs were alright, but there are way better petroglyphs on the Hieroglyphics Trail in the Superstitions (see previous blog entry).
However, we did see a man wearing these boots! I tried to take a discrete picture and this is best I could do. He had a mustache. He looked weird, but way to normal to be wearing such haggard boots.

At the end of the Waterfall Trail was this pool of water. The way people were crowding around looking at it you would think we were in a scene from Dune. Kids were throwing rocks in. It sucks when people show up and leave a negative imprint on a natural place. If you don't appreciate what you're looking at, just go somewhere else. This, as Sean Flanagan could certainly tell you, is giant water bug (a.k.a a toe-biter) and he was in the pool. It was definitely over 2 inches long. It looked like it was dying.
Here's where that water runs down to fill the pool, hence the name Waterfall Trail.
After our hike I went into the bathroom and overheard the following conversation in the large handicapped stall between a man and a very young boy who I assume was his son:
Little boy: I whispered the bad thing again.
Man(somewhat disinterested): Oh ya.
Little boy: I said the bad thing again.
Man (in a flat tone): You mean "gonads"?
Little boy: I don't want to pee by myself.
Then the little boy commenced singing the theme to "George of the Jungle" incorrectly.After our disappointing experience at the White Tank Mountains, we decided to head to Papago Park and climb the buttes. It was really windy! The buttes are a fun, quick hike and you get a pretty good view from the top.
Erin taking a picture with her new camera.
Papago Park is actually right in the middle of the city. I think it's actually in Phoenix, but on the Tempe line. You would never know it from the pictures, though. Look how mint the sky looks. (It looks a lot cooler if you click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Let me explain these blurry pictures. I used an old body cap, some tin foil, electrical tape and a lens filter to make a pinhole "lens" for the Nikon. Basically, these pictures were taken with a tiny hole in a piece of tin foil. Pinhole photography is a really old form of photography. This is a real old meets new kind of deal - digital pinhole. The plans to make your own are here.
Phoenix from South Mountain.

Pinhole self-portrait. For an interesting photographic experience, check out this dude's take on pinhole photography. His name is Wayne Martin Belger.

This is why Erin and I are vegetarians.

2008-01-02T00:20:00.001-07:00

This could be you...

the New Year

2008-01-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm usually not a huge fan of quotes. But, we have had this quote on our fridge for a few years now. I got it from my aunt who I believe had cut it out of a magazine.

the New Year

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities no
doubt crept in: forget them as soon
as you can. Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely and with
too high a spirit to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.
This day is all that is good and fair.
It is too dear, with its hopes and in-
vitations, to waste a moment on the
yesterdays.

Emerson

Christmas Vacation Part One

2007-12-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

So we just got back last night from our Christmas vacation back home to Mass. We were there for a week but it felt like two days, if that. I'm writing this as I "work from home" and Eric watches nature shows from our long DVR list.

Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures. I don't really know why, but I'm guessing it was because we were just too busy. It was weird being in MA because it felt like we had just been on vacation to AZ and were coming home to MA, but when it was time to leave to go back to AZ, it felt like we were going home! Follow?

I won't give a detailed blah blah blah of our itinerary, just the highlights as I remember it and I'm sure Eric will fill in the rest later.

Wednesday Sean, Caitlin, Eric and I went to Quan Yin vegetarian restaurant in Worcester. This was a place we used to frequent when we lived in the Woo and we were so excited to be back. Everything on the menu is vegan. YUM. While we were waiting for our food a local "gangsta" came in and asked if it was a restaurant. We told him yes. Then he asked if it was all vegetarian and we told him yes. He was confused and make a comment about how skinny he was already and while holding his stomach said something like "I need some meat" and left. Ahh Worcester, we then started to remember why we love that city so much.

After Quan Yin we obviously went to Wholly Cannoli to get Dynamite Sticks. YUM. They have a new store next to where their old one was. It seems like the Phantom Gourmet's taking to the Dynamite Sticks may have helped out this once tiny Worcester pastry shop.

We left Wholly Cannoli to go to the Living Earth to pick up some food for the week. It felt like we never left Worcester.

Now the action picks up, Woo-billy style. As we were driving away from the Living Earth, a big pick up truck with blazing Red Sox stickers comes barreling down the already tiny-without-huge-snowpiles-on-either-side street. In the opposite direction on the street, because the sidewalks weren't plowed, was a man in a wheelchair wearing all orange and a woman walking next to him in all orange. The truck didn't slow down and nearly missed them. It was frightening, but not entirely surprising.

Next we were driving down May St. to get home. A bus had just let off a bunch of kids from school. I was looking out the window when all of a sudden I saw a weird dog hightailing it up the street. I yelled, "Look at that weird dog!" and Eric says, "That's not a dog, it's a coyote!" And it was running toward the kids. We kept driving.

Finally we were waiting to take a left turn onto Southbridge St. The light turned green and the car in front of us started to turn when all of a sudden they slammed on their brakes because a Jeep had just run the red light from our left. We proceeded with the turn and only to see a cop turn on it's lights and pull over the Jeep! Classic.

And that was just the first day.

Weaver's Needle

2007-12-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

I can't get enough of the Superstition Mountains. Maybe it's the name, or maybe it's how utterly quiet it is there, or maybe it's the unbelievable landscapes, but I'm completely hooked and I'm not even looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine! Friday afternoon I headed out to the Superstitions for the night with my friend Chris, who is also an ASU grad. student. Chris is a much more experienced hiker/camper than myself. I bought new backpack for the occasion and a Camelbak hydration system. I finally got to try out my bivy tent for the first time. Chris knew a good spot where he had camped before and where you could get a great view of Weaver's Needle. I was not disappointed.
Weaver's Needle is a volcanic plug. It's the imposing rock formation in the far background of the is picture. I had seen pictures of it before, but it's much bigger in real life. This picture was taken probably between 2 and 3 miles away.
I took these two pictures at night. They're long exposures. They look dark at this small size, but if you click on them you'll see that they're detailed pictures. Those lines aren't shooting stars, they're regular stars moving across the sky. I left the camera shutter open so long that it tracked their movement. There are some planes that sneaked in there too, probably on their way to Sky Harbor.
Though shooting stars are too quick to be picked up by my camera at 200 ISO, we did see some. I never saw so many shooting stars in my life until I moved to Arizona.
It's rained a lot here recently. The desert was green and intersected with many streams. Usually those washes are dry, but they were all flowing when we were out. It was really cool. You can see how the canyons and rock formations are made when you watch the water flowing through it's ancient paths through the desert mountains. There was evidence that a few days earlier water levels had been much higher.

This is how Weaver's needle looked from our campsite.
Here is an example of the kind of rock formations you find in the Superstition Mountains. I'm assuming they're natural. These rocks were right next to our campsite. They look like children's blocks stacked up.

This path, which I think was the Black Mesa Trail, lead from our camp toward Weaver's Needle. Chris and I went to bed really early Friday night because it was cold and what little wood there was around was too wet to start a campfire. It got cold. Real cold. Water condensed on the inside and the outside of my tent and when I woke up around sunrise, it had frozen into sheets of ice. My sleeping bag is insulated to be warm down to 15 degrees, so I just closed up the top and I was alright, but I was astounded by how cold it got. I left the tent intending to get some pictures of Weaver's Needle during the sunrise, but it was so cold that I just rushed back into my sleeping bag! When we finally got up, around 8:00 AM, we scrambled up this path, chasing the sunlight that was shining on the rocks higher up in the canyon. We climbed up on the rocks and sunned ourselves like cold blooded desert denizens. So much for being homeothermic!
Here's our camp. Chris's tent was behind the acacia tree. I walked into the prickly pear in the foreground a couple times.
Above, another picture of Weaver's needle while the sun is waning. Below are some photos I took of desert textures, particularly of different cacti.
This is dead prickly pear.
This is an up-close shot of our desert nemesis, the jumping, or teddy bear, cholla. They drop nasty cholla pears that are covered in the sharpest, barbed spines. I've avoided them so far...
I have not, however, avoided prickly pear. This is a close up shot of a prickly pear.
Here is an abandoned dove's nest in an ocotillo.
A dead tree seems at home in the desert landscape. It's interesting how the cacti huddle beneath it's corpse an gather a little bit of shade.

As usual, my feet were the bane of my hike - I walked pretty much all the skin of the small toe of my right foot, but it was totally worth it. Next time I'll know to protect that area with moleskin or something. That Saturday afternoon we hiked out, gave some folks some directions, hung out on overlooks, marched up switchbacks, and checked the view. Chris is a good guy and encouraged my tyro's distracted fascination. I've always loved New England's ghosts - not literal specters, but the feelings and presences of the place. I think I've found Sonoran ghosts in the Superstitions...and I'm hooked.

The Gold King Mine Museum and Ghost Town

2007-12-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

While in Jerome, Erin and I visited the Gold King Mine Museum and Ghost Town. As it was Thanksgiving day, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It is definitely a tourist trap. It's kind of like paying $6 to walk around a quasi-organized junkyard. That doesn't sound too cool, but it ended up being a pretty rad trip.

Ok, we didn't take this picture of this dude(I ended up finding it online), but we met him and he's awesome. He was working the saw mill when we were there. He asked where we were from, and when we said "Tempe" he said, "Is that part of that rat race down there in the Valley?" He asked what we were doing there and I told him I was studying at ASU. The next day we ran into him in the center of Jerome. He was driving an antique car with a California Highway Patrol car door fastened to the front of it and the biggest shotgun I have ever seen hanging out the passenger side door. He was just getting to the car as we passed. He stood on the door frame of the driver's side door and addressed me with, "Hey, you a professor yet?" Then he directed our attention the CHIPS door and said, "I ran into someone on my way back from California." He called the car his "going to town car" and when I said "That's a big gun!" he just said, "Yep."

As if that dude wasn't awesome enough, while we were at the Ghost Town, he introduced us to a mammoth donkey (Pictures are forthcoming...we took pictures of the donkey with a Holga camera, but forgot to get some digital pictures). The donkey's name was Pedro Gonzales Gonzales Gonzales. The dude had a dirty "Vote for Pedro" patch on his hat. Anyways, we were looking at these goats and hanging out with Pedro Gonzales Gonzales Gonzales when the awesome dude came along and started feeding the donkey and the goats donuts. It was hilarious.
The donkey didn't like the cream inside, so the awesome dude fed the goats the cream part and the donkey the pastry part.

We saw this bus on the way into the ghost town. I want it really bad. It's a cabin bus.
I think this dirty mannequin is supposed to be a hooker, but I don't know why.

When I was young, I went to my Uncle Burt and Aunt Mary's trailer in the woods in Douglas. Uncle Burt had a huge collection of broken down cars, trucks, and RV's. If only they had known that such a collection could qualify as a ghost town, perhaps they could have capitalized on all those wrecks!
"If Clinton's the answer, it must be a real stupid question."

This sign is paid for by JFPO, or Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, Inc.

I have read some reviews online of The Gold King Mine Ghost Town, and some were rather disparaging. Sure, there are a lot of busted buildings and wrecked cars, but fun is what you make it. This place is really quirky and the people there are friendly and interesting. Also, for six bucks, it's a pretty cheap way to spend an hour or so just poking around in neat old stuff and watching hoofstock eat donuts.

The Verde Canyon Railroad

2007-11-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

I have decided to divide my recounting of our Thanksgiving/Anniversary trip to Jerome into three parts: The Verde Canyon Railroad Ride, Jerome, and the weird Ghost Town. I thought I would start with our ride on the Verde Canyon Railroad. This was a trip that took us through Arizona's second largest canyon by rail. The trip includes three dominant themes: breathtaking vistas, musak , and senior citizens. It was a four hour trip and was quite comfortable. We rode first class, which meant we were entitled to about 50 cc's of champagne and a muffin from BJ's. There was some narration too, which was pretty informative. There were open-air viewing cars available too, which were nice to take pictures from. Overall, it was a pretty cool ride. It was really relaxing.

This is the engine that pulled the train. Though not visible in the picture, it has a big eagle painted on it. This is because Verde Canyon is home to a pair of nesting bald eagles and seasonal home to migrating bald and golden eagles. We got to see a bald eagle circling above the canyon. Soon thereafter, the radio played "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood. That's the "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free..." song.

This is what I think of that song. (see above photo.)
This is a really expensive, isolated house in the canyon. Some college professors from California bought it for $650K. I think that's a good deal. The place looks awesome.

The Verde River.
This is the train snaking along ahead of us.
Into the tunnel.
Here are some views from along our trip.

The line ends in a place called Perkinsville. It think maybe one dude lives there with a shitload of cats.
There were so many cats on that freezer thing. We wanted to pet them.
This little fella wanted to get in.
This is the old train depot. From here we turned around and went back. We actually saw the cows humping on the way home. It was a good trip.

Siphon Draw

2007-11-25T23:21:00.001-07:00

November 18th was Erin and I's one year anniversary. It has been a busy year indeed! Phew! It's certainly not slowing down any for us either...but it is cooling down. That's a great thing because, as you can probably tell from the blog, we like to go hiking. Last weekend we bought new hiking boots and headed back to the Superstition Mountains, this time to the Lost Dutchman State park, and started breaking the boots in.

The mountains always seem so close...until you try to walk up to them!

Erin captured this picture of the moon on our way back down the trail from the canyon. It looks like a shot from another planet.
The Superstitions...

Here's what Ishmael was doing while we were hiking. He does this ALOT! and it stinks so badly. He likes the new litter box with the rim because it gives him leverage.

For Thanksgiving, we went to Jerome, AZ and took a train ride through the Verde Canyon. That will be the subject of our next blog entry.

This is a glamorized picture of our new car that I copied off the Internet. I will get a real picture soon, I swear.

The Superstition Wilderness

2007-11-11T21:50:00.001-07:00

You know a place has to be awesome with a name like the Superstition Wilderness. The Superstition Wilderness is part of Tonto National Forest and is made up of a section of the Superstition Mountains. If you have heard of the Superstitions, it probably because they are thought to be the home of the Lost Dutchman Mine, one of America's most enduring hidden treasure legends.

After spending out previous two hiking trips at South Mountain in Phoenix, Erin and I decided to go somewhere new, so we went to REI and bought a book of day hikes by a dude named Cosmic Ray. It's a rad little book. We were originally going to head up to the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest again, but we were pressed for time and the book suggested a trail called the hieroglyphic trail in the Superstitions, so we decided to check it out.

The trail head was in Apache Junction, which is on the other side of Mesa (which is where Jimmy Eat World is from... Mesa, I mean - FYI). It's pretty cool out there. There are lots of new houses, but not the boring, square subdivision boxes we've seen pretty much everywhere else in the valley.

The name of the trail - the hieroglyphic trail, is really a misnomer. Hieroglyphics were Egyptian, and these drawings, called petroglyphs, were done by Hohokam Native Americans. We had seen petroglyphs at South Mountain and Hayden's Butte, but these were the most impressive by far. We hiked to the end of the trail, where there was a stagnant pool of water. The petroglyphs were on the walls surrounding the pool.
This pool was pretty nasty. There were tons of bees around it, but it supported a lot of greenery, flowers and butterflies.

At the end of the trail and in sight of the petroglyphs, Erin and I decided to sit down in the shade and have a snack. Little did we know that our Clif Bars and apples would smell so appealing to a bunch of really bold antelope squirrels! These little fellas came from all around the area to spy on us, chase each other around, and hope for a dropped peanut. They're really cute and funny to watch.
This little dude thought he was such a clever spy...

From the spot where we made squirrel friends, we could see this balanced rock off in the distance. We're going to have to go up there and check it out some day.

This type of cactus is called a teddy bear cholla, I think.

This is a close up of a young saguaro cactus.
This is what they look like when they've been growing for a while!

Changing the subject, I don't think I've mentioned that we got a new car. It's a 2007 Toyota Matrix M Theory. It's rad. It feels so good to have a nice new car with a nice new warranty. I'll provide pictures of it here soon!

Adios!

South Mountain Part Deuce

2007-11-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

We went to South Mountain again, only this time we went hiking. It was about 4 miles roundtrip, but I thought it seemed longer than that. We had fun exploring the desert mountain along a trail and got to see more up close than when we took our last bike ride. Lots of cactuses (I refuse to call them cacti), dirt, rocks, lizards and mountain bike riders. And of course, the always awesome view of the whole Phoenix area, which I don't think will ever get old. We also saw some Native American petroglyphs which was awesome. It brought me back to my days of wanting to be an archaeologist.

VW Night at Sonic

2007-10-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, Erin and I figured out that our 50mm lens for my Nikon N70 fit our Nikon D50 digital. Luckily for us, the night we made that discovery happened to coincide with the monthly gathering of Volkswagen enthusiast at the Sonic next to our apartment. We took most of these pictures with the 50mm lens.

Hope you enjoyed these! So long.

Comments on Our Blog

2007-10-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have changed the settings so you no longer need to have a Blogger account to comment on our blog. We would really appreciate it if you leave us comments because then we know people are reading our blog. Even if you just write something like "Hi Guys!" in the comment, just so we know someone is reading. I'm going to try to update more often. As you see, I've changed the layout and stuff.
In other new, I posted this picture because it's awesome. It says "Beware of Undead. Be Careful." I think it appears in an older post, but I thought it was worthy of a revisitation. Also, "Blood and Bong Rips" is kind of funny.

Lastly, the new High On Fire album is awesome, as is the new Beirut album. Two very different bands, but both pretty awesome albums.

Also, can someone please tell me why I am starting to really like Sunn-O)))? I'm confused about that one.

In other news, I have created a companion blog to "Owls" called "Tremenda." That blog will include music conversation, pop culture, political discourse, and social commentary. It will be less kid/grandmother friendly - F.Y.I. The result is that "Owls" will stay more kid/grandmother friendly. Check it out when you get the chance. Leave comments there too!

Sky Harbor via Hayden Butte

2007-10-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

Erin carved this pumpkin the other night. I roasted the seeds and I used a lot of cayenne pepper. They came out really strong, but I ate them anyhow.
We lit the jack-o-lantern outside on the porch. Rasputina inspected it with a critical eye. She seemed to approve.

Saturday night we hiked up Hayden's Butte (if Veau reads this, he will laugh and say we hiked up a guy's butt...) Hayden's Butte is called "A" Mountain here because of the big, yellow "A" blazon on the side of it. The cool thing about being on top is that planes landing at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix fly really low right over the top of the butte. Erin got some really cool pictures of them. Here they are...

This is Scorpion Gulch

2007-10-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from a trip we took to South Mountain last weekend. First we took a nine mill bike ride and then we drove to the top to an overlook. It's awesome. You get a spectacular view of Phoenix.

I won't belabor you with a lengthy narrative like I usually do. Just enjoy the pictures.

P.S. - We went to see Weird Al Yankovic the other night at the Arizona State Fair. It was hilarious.

This is Scorpion Gulch. Don't worry - we plan to back and explore these abandoned building!
The Valley of the Sun
This is the overlook point. There was some sort of a family function going on. We also saw 4 biplanes buzz overhead.
Another shot of Phoenix et. al.
I look fierce.

Alpacas Galore - WARNING! ONLY FOR THE VERY BORED

2007-10-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

I first heard about raising alpacas a few years ago, but thought it was an isolated case. Apparently, I was wrong...or the Alpaca Owners of America want me to believe differently.

It all started again when I saw a commercial for Alpaca Farm Day (which was actually over the course of a weekend). Eric and I thought, "huh, that's weird" and had a chuckle. Well, now there's this one: I love alpacas.

The curiosity went further so I did some "research" on you tube and this is what I found.

Mating

...yeah that was uneventful.

Mmmbop
*you have to make it at least to 2 minutes on this one, to the end is better.

You only have to watch about 20 seconds of this one. Wild.

Wait for it...
Puppies and alpacas

NOT AN ALPACA. Trust me, if you were born in the 80s or had kids in the 80s you gotta see this.

Bisbee

2007-10-01T21:05:00.001-07:00

Seeing Bisbee, Arizona for the first time is a pretty rad experience. You head south out of Phoenix and through Tucson. You leave the freeway and travel down a two-lane road, through legendary Tombstone, and up into the Mule Mountains. The mountains are green instead of the usual desert brown. You continue south toward Mexico, you pass through a tunnel, drive around a long curve, crest a hill, and Bisbee comes into sight. It feels like you have driven into a postcard from 1900. The town is nestled in a valley and houses scale the sides of the mountains. Erin and I were a bit overcome with the sight. After months of seeing almost nothing but stucco, scrub brush and desert, seeing a mountain town felt like we drove through a tunnel in Arizona and came out in Vermont. We pulled over and snapped these pictures and a few others.

In order to drive down to the center of town, you must drive up the road a bit further and turn around. Still riding high on the initial sighting of Bisbee, we encountered this giant strip mine on our right. Of course, we pulled over and took some pictures there too. This mine was once one the most prolific copper mines in the country and that copper was the reason for Bisbee's existence. When American scouts in the war against Mexico came through the valley, they discovered large quantities of copper ore in the hills and people started staking claims. Bisbee has a really interesting and colorful history, which you can read about by clicking here.

I can say that a place has never had the initial impact for me that Bisbee had. It was literally love at first sight. Erin and I had no idea what sort of place Bisbee would be. We were invited to go to a blues festival there by Erin's friend from work, Jaime, but we didn't really look into it.

After arriving we though that perhaps our overly romanticized first impression would give way to a more realistic understanding of the town, but it just kept getting better and better. We drove down through the narrow, one lane streets and eventually found parking (free parking!). We walked down the road, still overwhelmed with the coolness, and arrived at our hotel. Our hotel was called Hotel La More, or the Bisbee Inn. Again, we were transported
back to the mining days of the town. The lobby featured an old fashion phone and beautiful wooden walls. While Erin checked in, I noticed a newspaper article about how the inn was allegedly haunted. Neither I nor Erin believe in such things, but it adds an undeniable dash of atmosphere.
Predictably, our room was adorable and offered a great view of the city. Everything appeared to be an antique of some sort or another. There were many old
pictures of Bisbee in it's heyday all along the hall .

We didn't stay in our room long, because people were waiting for us across the street at a bar called St. Elmos. Many of you from back home now how much I love Vincent's and Ralph's. St. Elmo's is a bar cast in the same mold as our favorite Worcester haunts, only with a distinct western character that added to its charm. While we were approaching there was a fleet of motorcycles and we had that familiar "what are we getting ourselves into" feeling, but once inside we felt right at home among the taxidermy and kitsch art. Jaime and his wife and some other friends of his met us inside. We hung out there for a little bit, then we headed down the road to a saloon in a hotel called The Copper Queen.

Erin and I aren't big drinkers, so after talking some of the Travelers Insurance Crew in the saloon for a little bit, we headed off to find the bathroom and look around a bit. On the way back from the bathroom, I noticed this picture in a case in the hall:
We spoke to a very helpful woman working at the front desk who told us the story. This unfortunate individual was John Heath. Heath was hanged in Tombstone for his connection to a violent bank robbery later dubbed The Bisbee Massacre.

It's been hard to be away from the history and sense of place back in New England, but this, our first encounter with the infamous west and it's history, produced the same feeling. To add to the situation, the same women told us how the Copper Queen is legendary for being haunted and showed us their registry of guests' ghostly experiences. It was even featured on Ghost Hunters on the Sci-fi channel, which is a guilty pleasure of mine. Then she told us we were welcome to explore the hotel. This, of course, was an offer we could not turn down. We checked out the hotel and it was pretty rad. Perhaps we'll stay there next time.

At this point we were pretty much sold on how awesome Bisbee it, but, believe it or not, it kept getting cooler. We ended up going into an art gallery and buying a really awesome art piece for the apartment. While we were paying for it, we started picking the brain of the woman working there. She told us about some really cool things to do in Bisbee, one of which was to go see an African drummer at a club called Kilimanjaro.

After returning to our hotel and almost calling it a night, we decided that staying would probably mean missing out on something, so we sucked it up and headed to Club Kilimanjaro. We were not disappointed. The African drummer was Amadou Kienou.

This dude was an awesome performer. I'll admit that I expected it to be a bit of a low key evening, the virtue of which would lie in my own increased appreciation for African culture. When we arrived, Kienou was playing a stringed instrument, which I think was called a kora. It was a beautiful song and Erin and I sat down to relax. This atmosphere did not continue for long. At the closure of that song, Kienou pulled a drum in front of him and commanded the crowd: "Men! Women! Get up and dance right now!" Instantly Kienou burst into beat on his drum and the room exploded. People hopped up and started dancing, each in his or her own style and it was then that we realized that we were in colorful company. Hippies and free spirits and men and women of all types dancing and letting the music dictate their movements. After that song, Kienou played another in which he actually called various dancers from the crowd to take the center of the floor and dance for a moment, then fade back into the myriad other dancers and relinquish the primary spot to another.

And through it all, we two Yankees sat on their wooden chairs, mouths open, a little overcome. Not that we didn't enjoy the performance, but our enjoyment lies in a more reserved state - we listened and observed until finally Kienou played one encore and we went back out into the night and to a well deserved bed.

The next day we got up and took some pictures of the colorful sights that spoke of the citizenship of Bisbee -

After a little driving tour, we headed over to take a trip through the Queen Mine. They offer guided tours several times a day. After buying a magnet and a pin (a tradition of ours) we waited a short while, got outfitted for our adventure and we were off into the mine.

It was chilly in the mine and we learned all sorts of neat stuff about the history of mining.

The trip lasted about an hour. Our tour guide was an older gentleman who had worked the mine for 25 years before it closed in the 1970's. His first hand experience made him one of the best tour guides we have had. Also, it helped that there weren't any weird women on the tour constantly singing the praises of Mammoth Caves!

So, friends back home (and it California!), be forewarned! If you ever come and visit Erin and I, you will be visiting Bisbee, AZ!

Sedona

2007-09-30T21:24:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Erin and I joined a bunch of friends from ASU on a camping trip to Sedona. What a beautiful place! It was great to get out of the city and hang out at a campsite. We had a campfire and roasted some vegetables. I got stung by a bee, which was a bit stressful considering that when I was younger I had allergic reaction to bee stings, but I ended up being fine. The picture above follows the Sadie Hawkins picture tradition begun by Veau and Emily several years ago in Las Vegas.

Actually, everyone split really early after we woke up and packed up the campsite except Erin and I and our friend Brian. Brian had recently visited Sedona with his family and taken a guided tour. He has a pretty awesome memory, so he drove us around and recreated the tour. He remembered pretty much everything.

We can never pass up the opportunity to take a picture of a pun.

This is my friend Brian. He's in the MFA program at ASU. He's a fiction writer. I heard him read last Wednesday and I wasn't disappointed. He's really good. He's also a hell of tour guide if you ever go to Sedona.

This formation is called Bell Rock. It's pretty impressive, but somehow in Sedona it get amalgamated into the spectacle that is the overall landscape. It wasn't until I started looking at the pictures that I realized how amazing some of the rocks there really are. There's a certain sublimity about it when you're there.

Brian took us up to a famous Catholic chapel that is built on the side of one of the mountains. For some reason, we failed to take a picture. However, this pricey bit of real estate sits at the bottom of that mountain. It has an observatory. We saw the owners outside when we drove by. They had a shitload of little, white dogs.

The rocks are red because of a high concentration of iron. The iron is oxidized, so basically, the famous red color is the result of the iron in the rocks rusting. There are other sediment layers of softer material, like sandstone, which accounts for the stripes.

One of the great things about Arizona is the proliferation of authentic Native American art. This gem was in a gift shop. Notice the busty cactus cowgirl sneaking into the picture on the right.

There was so much to see, but I don't feel like inundating the blog with a million picture of red rocks that don't do justice to the actual experience. I can't wait to go back to Sedona.

California Über Alles

2007-09-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

Over Labor Day weekend, Erin and I went to California to hang out with Veau, Emily, and Katie. Of course we were stoked that we got to hang out with Em's brothers too. So we headed out Friday night and drove the 6 or so hours from Tempe to Anaheim.

It seemed like a pretty easy ride until we made it to around Riverside, CA and the car started making funny noises and then Erin felt the steering go haywire (not something cool on a 5+ lane freeway) and we had to pull off and get AAA to tow the car. Luckily, we were only about 20 minutes or so from Veau and Emily's, so they came and got us. That was the 1st time that weekend we felt lucky that we didn't break down in the middle of the desert.

We ended up getting the car towed to a dealership, and, in spite of getting ripped off with labor charges, we felt fairly lucky that we got the car back on Saturday. It ended up being the rear bearings.

Once that was all squared away we could relax. It felt so damn good to see Veau. He looks like a California native these days. The apartment that he and Emily have is in a historic building in Anaheim. It's awesome. It has all sorts of built in bookcases and cabinets and wood. It didn't have air conditioning and it was a hot weekend for LA, around 100 degrees. Erin and I didn't feel too bad; I guess we're getting to be real Phoenicians!

AC or no, we were super jealous and they're apartment made us miss our old apartment in Worcester. Veau has a great set up out there and the Finches are super-fun, so we suggest that our East Coast friends go see Veau as soon as you get the chance. Or you could come see us. Either way, it's really exciting to know that Veau and I are only a few hours drive apart nowadays.

Saturday morning was shot by the time our car troubles were finally resolved, but we still made a valiant effort to go to LA and see a movie that they show in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Unfortunately, there was no parking, so instead we headed over to Chris-O's for a spell and then we were off the legendary RIO for karaoke to celebrate Katie's birthday.

Some of you may remember our stories or pictures from the Rio on our last trip to California. We have a picturefrin that trip of Nick Finch and I in the women's bathroom posing jubilantly next to toilet overflowing with shit and blood. While this visit did not turn out as perfectly as that one, Smitty was in all is perverted glory and there were enough haggard, sorrowful drunks there to keep us amused. Oh how we love the RIO!

Black and White saves you from
seeing what we saw... ME and Smitty - BFF 4 Eva!

Sunday afternoon we went to the street fair in Orange. It was a cool time. It has a multinational theme that is mainly expressed through myriad cuisines. It made for good people watching. This is where we took the most pictures, so allow me to give you a picture tour.

Lederhosen makes the ladies go wild. These dudes were near the German food section.

Veau and Emily!

This dude was super pumped to have his picture taken. We don't know him. If you enlarge the picture, you'll see that the fan says I'm a fan of Cool Democrats of Orange County.

These bitches were having a fight. One was talking shit behind the other one's back! Can you believe that? She's such a backstabbing whore!

Veau, Emily, Marissa, and Nicole watching the argument from the curb. The nerve of them! They should mind their own business...or...covertly take pictures of the fight like Erin was doing.

The dude on the left looks like a Karate Kid villain from Bavaria. He is so rad.

Later that night, we went to a pub in Fullerton called Heroes. It was a lot of fun. We hung out with Katie and her boyfriend, Jacob, as well as all the street fair crew. They serve beers in pint glasses that have to weigh a ton.

Our ride home was not so fun. After driving for almost 3 hours through the desert, we stopped in a town called Blythe, California to get gas. It is actually the last town in CA before you get into Arizona. It's also about 10 degrees hotter than Phoenix on average. So....that's where our car decides it's going to stall. We were pretty freaked out. We tried driving it for another 20 miles or so before we pulled into rest stop and decided it was unsafe to drive any further. We couldn't break down in the desert. So, we called AAA, even though we didn't know if there was anyone willing to tow a car from CA to Phoenix. Luckily, a company from Blythe does tow that far, but it was $5 a mile for 170 miles. We were pretty bummed, but what could we do? Then to make matters worse, AAA called back and told us it was actually going to be $8 per mile. Well, Erin wasn't having any of that and set them straight pretty quickly - they misquoted us, so they had to tow us for $5. It ended up working out.

From the rest stop, we actually had to be towed back to Blythe, and then wait there for an hour. Did I mention that we already waited 2 hours at the rest stop. Finally, a truck came that would take us home. The truck had a front and back seat and was pretty comfortable. The driver was this dude named Anthony who was about our age and really cool. That made the ride a lot better.

Oh...1 more story. On the way back we had to stop and jump a truck with a dead battery. It was pretty scary. The people were off the highway and down some sort of a creepy dirt road with a weird dirt patch at the end of it. They were pretty obviously drunk or messed up on something. They were dumping shit from a U-haul trailer out onto the ground. Anthony didn't seemed nervous, but the dude looked like a murderer if I ever saw one and we were pretty isolated. Then, their AAA card was no good, so they had to pay and the murderer kept asking Anthony "Why don't I just bend over so you can fuck me in the ass?" Very scary. We were glad to get out of there intact.

So, our time in California was great, but getting there and back was a haggard ordeal. Well, tomorrow we're heading to Sedona. Check back soon for more on that trip.

Mike Vick should have to fight a pitbull

2007-08-22T22:24:00.001-07:00

MORON

Mike Vick pleaded guilty to involvement in an illegal dogfigthing ring. That's cool. At least he owns up to what a low life he is. This is kind of funny. I googled Mike Vick to get a picture. In the list of hits, I saw his official website. This is what it looks like:

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.37 Server at www.mikevick.com Port 80

Looks like so many supportive fans have flocked to his website that it just couldn't handle all those hits! Oh well.

I was thinking about this whole situation and I would feel really bad if Mike ended up in jail. First, think of all the other criminals that are in jail for offenses like drugs and rape and murder. There's nothing to do with them except for keep them in jail. But Mike Vick doesn't need to go to jail. His only crime was to inhumanely disregard animals by torturing them and forcing them into violent, deadly fights.

I have a better solution.

First, Mike should have his ears cropped. Cropping a dog's ears is an unnecessary, painful surgery for cosmetic purposes...or to prevent the dogs from getting their ears from being ripped off in a fight. I'm not unfeeling, so I think we should do at least as much for Mike as he did for his dogs. We don't want him getting his ears ripped off, plus once they're cropped he will look like a Keebler elf.

Once Mike's ears heal, I think we should inject him with steroids and use harsh conditioning techniques on him. He's a football player, so he's got to be pretty tough. Ok, so he's just a quarterback, but even quarterbacks are tougher than your average dude. However, it couldn't hurt to hurt him a little more, make him a little angrier at the same time.

Did I mention that Mike will be staying in a little wire cage most of the time.

Once Mike's all ready it will be time for his big day!

We'll lead Mike into a dark and unfamiliar garage and into a 14 square foot enclosure. Then, we'll place bets.

Then we will unleash a real, fight-trained pitbull on that douchebag and see if he likes being tortured as much as his dogs did.

Here are some interesting dog fighting links. They's don't include pictures or video - any decent person should be able to deduce that dog fighting is bullshit without the added shock value.

Animal Law

Humane Society of the United States

Going for the Throat - from Newsweek

Bessie Got Back

2007-08-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

We saw this unique sign for an adult cabaret on our way through Payson, Arizona. Draw your own conclusions.

Utter implants? Stripper tipping? No, there is no logical amalgamation of cattle and strip clubs.

There is an Arab proverb that says, "Sunshine all the time makes a desert." Apparently the Arab who thought up this axiomatic gem was an observant fellow. Unlike the Middle East, the East Valley happens to be conveniently situated in an area of great geographic diversity. Therefore, when we have had too much of a good thing (the desert, for instance) we can head off to the mountains to spend sometime in a very different environment.

Last weekend Erin and I did just that. On the spur of the moment, we headed north up route 87 and did some camping and hiking in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. After a bit of a fiasco involving finding a campsite and a bit of a fiasco involving forgetting about mosquitos and driving 20+ miles back to Payson to acquire insect repellent, Erin and I were in good shape.

We picked up some insect repellent for the women at the contiguous campsite and were rewarded with smores. It was about 10 to 20 degrees colder in the mountains than in Tempe, so it was a nice break from the heat. The trees consisted primarily of ponderosa pines with some aspen and the occasional oak. The park is part of Tonto National Park, which quite large. The mountains we hiked in were along what is known as the Mongollon Rim, an area northwest of the White Mountains and Southeast of the Grand Canyon. We only camped for one night.

The most memorable part of the camping experience was the coyote alarm clock. Just as the sun was coming up, a coyote that sounded very close to our tent went off, prompting replies from dozens of his comrades throughout the area. It was very loud and occurred three times. It was pleasant to find that these Arizonan coyotes sound much more like dogs than their brethren in the northeast. Back home the coyotes sounded like dying babies. Creepy. We didn't catch sight of any coyotes, but the next day during our hike, evidence of their presence surrounded every puddle along the path.

Elk frequent the same puddles as the coyotes. Other notable animals that live in Apache-Sitgreaves are bears and mountain lions, though I hear mountain lion sightings are exceedingly rare.

We started our day by heading the Mogollon Rim visitor center where a very nice lady from Maine took our picture.
We decided to hike in an area near Willow Springs Lake. It was a nice hike, but, as usual, I had trouble with my feet and needed readjust my shoes frequently. The scars on the backs of my heels from club feet surgery as a baby are unyielding and always end up as blisters. Here I am trying some sort of McGyver technique with bandaids that ultimately failed.

The entire hike was just under 8 miles, a bit ambitious at an elevation of 7700 feet. For the first hour or so we both yawned constantly until we adjusted. The first half of the hike, about up to the lake, was great, but the second bit followed some boring powerlines in a very straight, hot, unshaded path that paralleled the road. By the time we were done, we were beat. After a stop at Del Taco, we headed back to Tempe.

Here are some other pictures we took along the trail.

To the right is Willow Spring Lake.

Sean Flanagan could tell you that this is a swallowtail butterfly (a tiger swallowtail, I think).

This fellow (to the right) is a tree lizard (Urosaurus ornatus). I looked that one up. The little guys below looks like a short horned lizard.

I looked that up too.

So there is our first Arizona hiking trip! It felt great to get out of the city and see trees and mountains. In other news, Erin is currently in Connecticut at training seminar for her new job. I am alone with the cats. We are misbehaving. We are staying up late, eating extra catfood, and playing spin the bottle.

Also, Sarah and Damien are engaged, as are Jaimee and Greg! Congratulations! I just happened to be reading a bridal magazine the other day and I learned that the #1 wedding destination in the United States is (insert sound clip of crowd simultaneously drawing in breath with anticipation)... Tempe, AZ! What a coincidence that it just happens to be where we live, not where you guys live! Yeah...and...uh...they said that there's a huge waiting list to get married on Hayden Butte...

Ah, Hayden Butte, every bride dreams of the day when her father can walk her up a rocky pile of dirt in the scorching sun to start her new life with the man she loves in teh shadow of a telecommunications tower.

Think about, you'll come around...

This is why I'm hot...

2007-08-15T17:03:00.001-07:00

I suppose I'll get it over with and begin with an obligatory cacti picture...
This is our first post in awhile. As you can tell from Erin's last post in January, blogging can get you down when you feel there is nothing to write about. However, at the provocation of Kevin and others, we have decided to return to the blog as a way to fill everyone in on our happenings in our new home, Tempe, AZ. We arrived here a little over a month ago. We stayed with our friends Jane and Andy in a little town called Sun Lakes, which is a bit south of Phoenix. From there we found an apartment in Tempe and moved in.

One of the first things we learned is that Tempe is not pronounced as good American English would suggest. Instead of the accent falling on the first syllable (tém- pe), it is pronounced in a more spritely manner (tem - pé). I routinely mispronounce the name, which I suppose is cosmic payback for the all the times I scoffed at the folks who called Worcester "Worchester".

People in Arizona like to talk about the heat. They also like to comment on the humidity. The heat is invariably high, the humidity is always low in comparison to other parts of the country. The idea of dry heat is something that is kicked around, but doesn't matter when you are riding your bike and it's 114 degrees. You think that they would get tired of talking about the heat, but they don't.

No one here is from Arizona. In over a month I have only met 2 people who are native to the state. I think Erin works with a few people who are actually from Arizona. Everyone here is from somewhere else, which is cool. It's definitely a melting pot, pun intended.

Which brings me to what we're up to overall. Erin works for Traveler's in Phoenix. She no longer handles bodily injury for auto claims - she now handles general liability, such as slip and fall accidents, food poisoning, faulty equipment and so on. She is contemplating law school at ASU.

I am finishing up a teaching associate preparation seminar at ASU and I begin work on my Ph.D in literature August 20th. I have met several really cool people so far and I'm really excited to get started on my degree. Oh ya. I also ride a bike everywhere. I don't own a car, so I bought a mint Trek and that's how I get around. It's great when it's not super hot out.

Here's a story. I got my wallet stolen when we were moving into the apartment. I freaked out because it had my driver's license, credit cards, and some money in it, but I could not remember if my Social Security card was in there or not. I didn't think I was enough of a dumbass to carry my SS card in my wallet, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so I had to prepare for the worst. I canceled my bank account and credit card accounts, got a new SS card and license and filed a fraud alert with the credit bureaus. Luckily, I later found my SS card in a box.

Here's the cool thing about having an Arizona license - it's good until you're 65. My license expires in 2044.

Another disappointment occurred when we unpacked the truck. There was a hole in the roof and some of our stuff got wet and other stuff got ruined. It really sucked. We thought the computer was a casualty of this mishap, but it has somehow miraculously recovered and I am using it right now. Here is a picture of the hole in the roof of the truck.

Ok, so I know that you are all probably saying to yourselves, " Enough about you and Erin already! What we want to know about is how the cats are doing!" Well, I am happy to report that Ishmael and Rasputina are adapting very well to their new home. They had kind of a tough trip since they left Worcester. First, they had to live in Erin's room in Douglas, so they were cramped up. They didn't get along with Belle and Sammy. Then they had four days in the car and in hotels as we drove out here. Razzle was a good girl in the car, but Ishmael kept crying and his shitty cat food breath made us sick. Then they had to live in Andy and Jane's laundry room for a week, a situation they were none to pleased with. Finally they arrived here and are happy to be right at home.

Here are some picture from our cross country trip.

Me driving in Texas. Note the cool windmill behind me. They had literally hundreds of these in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

This cross was also in Texas. There was a sign that said it's the biggest cross in the western hemisphere and that seeing it would be a truly spiritual experience. We passed the same cross in Illinois.

Razzle in the crate.

Ishmael riding on the passenger seat floor.

Some flat lands outside a rest stop in Texas.

This, of course, is the Leaning Water Tower of Britten. It's one of America's most iconic landmarks, after the biggest cross in Texas and the humbler cross of the same size in Illinois. If you're not familiar with this water tower, you're a communist pig.

Well, I'm going to end this blog here. Last weekend Erin and I went camping and hiking in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, an excursion that which will occupy the focus of our next installment.

Here's the another obligatory cacti picture...

The Communist Cappuchino - a social commentary on the state of Dunkin Donuts

2006-12-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen the new Dunkin Donuts commercial yet, here it is.
I'm probably more mad at this commercial than I should be, but I'm trying to get back into regular blogging so here goes.

This commercial sucks for many reasons beyond the fact it's annoying. It is indicative of our nationalistic, ignorant, dumbed-down, glazed-over, mouth-breathing, deer-in-the-headlights attitude in this country. Whatever happened to appreciating and romanticizing other languages and cultures? An American in Paris? Ha! Us Americans wouldn't be caught dead near those yellow bastards. They should have kept them called Freedom Fries.

Oh and if you didn't notice, the ad is for a latte. Can I order my Italian drink in English please?

"Ugh and then the people that work there don't even speak English," say the masses. It is nearly impossible to get a good cup of burnt sweetness these days.

We are certainly never going to see a second Enlightenment in our lifetime. Especially with these zombie video game kids as the future of our society.

Signed,
Your Crotchetyness

I dreamed my hall filled with wild swine...

2006-12-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

...and my true love a-swimming in blood. An interesting line from a Jean Ritchie song called "Sweet William and Lady Margaret". The line reminded Eric of our exploration of an old pig farm in Northbridge at the end of October. It's at the end of Castle Hill Road and was very photogenic with the sun and sky while we were exploring and taking pictures. I meant to write this blog a long time ago but we have pretty pretty busy, with getting married and all. So I just wanted to share some of these pictures. Now that it's getting cold and all wintery, these pictures let us hold on to the brief period of time that we call autumn.

Some of the structures at Castle Hill reminded us of a Spanish Mission that we have only seen on tv. I've always wanted to see the sparrows of Capistrano, thanks to Looney Tunes.

Dilapidated barn with Eric and Sean in a field of ticks. Man I hate ticks. Actually we didn't get any ticks here. If we were only so lucky all the time.

It's strange that two strings of barbed wire rusted while the other two didn't.

I was really working the in focus foreground and out of focus background on this day. I like how one of the weed things almost makes up the collapsed part of the barn.

Eric close-up with the Minolta. Lookin all gruff and lumberjacky.

Eric far away, allergies in the foreground.

You know you're in a good place when there is graffiti around. This says "blood and bong rips" and "beware of undead be careful". Thank you, Stoned Sir, I will be careful of the Undead.

At the time, Eric didn't know he was going to die by standing in that doorway. Luckily he's still with us today because I stopped him. The same can't be said for the many little piggies that surely didn't make it when this place was up and running. RIP Oink and Oink Oink Small. Friends and family may have eaten you at that porketta when I was a little girl, but you will always be my pets.

View from inside (not the building that looked like it was going to fall over). Ahh fall foliage, you might soon be a thing of the past.

Oh my God! An apparition! Call TAPS!!!

A view into what looks like the watering area for the pigs. This was on the second floor.

The way the bacon went to get a drink.

View of the courtyard.

This place was pretty neat. I'm sad it's getting colder and we're losing time to get outside and poke around without feeling the pangs of windchill in our bones.

Political Tropes

2006-11-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

Metaphor for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld -

You're on your way home and you've been driving for ten minutes when suddenly a rumbling in your lower abdomen alerts you that a shit is on the way. This will be not ordinary shit; nay, this will be a painful one, possibly diarrhea, a horrid gastric catastophe brewing like Krakatoa in you lower GI tract. You feel a sense of panic - you still have sixty more minutes of driving to go before you reach your house. After a while you try to stop at a convenient store and use the bathroom, but you just can't do it. The turd remains. This invidious feeling, this one life function among many is turning the entire body against you. You sweat, your mind races, your stiff legs make it difficult to drive.

Finally, just as your are certain you will shit your pants, you turn arrive home, run up the stairs and purge yourself of that horrible peice of shit that has been plaguing you. The feeling it euphoric - It's gone! It's gone! Even though you know there is still some serious wiping yet to be done, being rid of the shit is still a massive improvement of circumstance.

An anology on George W. Bush -

If Donald Rumsfeld is a haggard diarrhea shit, then George W. Bush is a jagged kidney stone.

Borat Movie is just O.K.

2006-11-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

Jagshemash!!!! I like you.

These are the words with which Sacha Baron Cohen begins virtually all of his skits when playing Borat, the Kazakh news reporter. The movie, Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan begins with the same four words. We saw the movie last night with Sarah and Damien. It was OK. I plan to talk about it in some detail in the following entry here, so if you have not seen the movie, be forewarned that it contains some spoilers.

Erin and I first saw Borat on Da Ali G Show when we were staying in San Fransisco. We had free HBO. In the skit we saw, Borat was attempted to learn karate and asks the instructor "What is a move to stop a Jew?" and "What is a move to silence a woman?" At first we were baffled, but once we figured out Cohen's variety of humor, we were hooked.

I maintain that I think Sacha Baron Cohen might be the funniest person alive. I also think that, in comparison to other movies, the Borat movie is extremely funny and definitely worth watching.

That being said, the movie definitely lacks something that makes the character on the show so funny. Take, for instance, the scene where Borat is dining with some upper-class Southerners. Those viewers who are seeing Borat for the first time should know that the scenes in the movie are often adaptations of skits Borat has done on the show. The scene in the movie is funny, especially when Borat excuses himself to the bathroom and returns with a plastic bag full of shit. There is also the element that he is simultaneously, in another situation with shots of the two scenes being intercut, learning manners from an etiquette coach.

This exact format was done on Da Ali G Show, only it was much funnier. The Borat in the movie lacks some key elements of the Borat on the show, namely subtlety, believability, and confusion. On the show, Borat talks about having sex at the table and seems confused that the topic is unacceptable. In the movie, Borat orders a prostitute that shows up at the house. On the show, he merely tells people that he is glad his wife is dead and points out that he smells shit. In the movie, he shows up with a bag of shit. It's just not believable and Borat's follies seem less based on cultural stupidity than a rush for a prank. Also, the scenes in the movie seem staged. I don't know if they all were or not.

The movie also focuses more on the storyline, which is Borat trying to get to Pamela Anderson, and less on Borat's interaction with people. Another element of Borat that fails to translate into the movie is Cohen's use of antisemitism as the butt of jokes. Borat, being Kazakh, is antisemetic - Cohen is Jewish and the pith of the humor is how stupid he makes antisemitic people look. In the movie, antisemitism plays a prominent role in the humor, but it lacks the poignancy of a country music hall full of people singing "Throw the Jew down the well." Instead, antisemitism is parodied in more outlandish and ridiculous ways that just never approaches at the genius of the show.

Chances are that you will think the movie is funny. I do think it's funny, but it just never quite arrived at the level of humor Borat attains on Da Ali G Show. He's just not confused enough. It seems that maybe when making the movie, Cohen and others didn't trust that a large movie audience would have the same patience and attentiveness that the show presumes and replaced subtlety with slapstick. Oh well.

The Lair of the Axeman

2006-11-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

My mother grew up on Wixtead Court in Douglas, MA. As a girl, she and her friends often played in a field behind her house. They played sports and engaged in all sorts of fanciful imaginations, even producing plays with neighborhood casts in an old chicken coop. However, their games transpired alongside a fear of a named evil who lurked in the woods surrounding the little dead-end road. The name was the Axeman. Ok, so maybe the Axeman might seem a bit archaic to we denizens of the information age, but kids in the sixties didn't have the luxury of Sony's pixelated SOMA and therefore needed to rely on the adrenaline produced by a good, wholesome scare.

Recently, Erin and I were looking at a map and we noticed that there were allegedly caves in Douglas. These caves, called Castle Caves, were situated near the border of Douglas and Sutton. Astounded, we began asking people if they had ever seen the caves. Almost everyone had heard of the caves, yet no one had actually seen them.

When I brought up the caves to my mother, she told me that, while she never saw the caves herself, she knew of their existence. In fact, those very caves were rumored to be the lair of the dreaded Axeman! She had told me about the Axeman and the idea of finding a connection to some aspect of my mother's childhood really drew me in. Erin, Sean (my brother) and I decided that we would find the caves.

Our attempts were initially thwarted. The two road that lead to the woods where the caves, Brown Street and Caswell Court, were both dead ends with houses and "No "Trespassing" signs blocking our way. Cleverly, Erin thought of going into Sutton and down Whitins Road. A little way into Sutton we found a path, parked the car and headed off the find the caves.

Our trip began with a most promising stroke of luck. Across from the path was a house and there was an older gentleman sitting in the garage. As it looked obvious that he owned the land were planned on trespassing on, we decided to talk to him. He was very friendly and gave us permission to go ahead and he even gave us some directions to the caves! Were were off in grand style.

The hike was somewhat longer than expected. Also, were realized very quickly that we were not really certain of what to look for. The image I had in my head was of a rock with a door shaped hole in it resembling the paradigm of an old caveman cave from the movies. As we walked along we encountered many more paths, turns, junctions, and obsticles. We did find this neat balloon though. It seems that whenever Erin and I go out into the woods, we run into fugitive balloons.

The sun was already setting when we encountered a huge rock face. For those of you familiar with Purgatory Chasm, it was about the equivolent of one side of the chasm. I immediately knew this was our place, yet the actually caves themselves did not stand out and the cliff was really, really big.

We began traversing the face of the cliff, searching for any signs of caves. I went pretty quickly and, as I turned a corner, I spotted something about half way up the face of the cliff. There were spray painted words that read "The Who." Any good explorer knows the vandalism marks the spot. I went back and retrieved Erin and Sean. We abandoned some of our heavy bags and camera gear at the foot of the cliff and started on up. The dry leaves and pine needles made the climb rather treacherous, but up we went. Finally, we arrived at one of the caves.

It wasn't huge but it was pretty deep. I crawled in a little bit and took some pictures, but they didn't come out. By that time it was getting pretty dark out and we didn't want to linger too long on the side of a cliff anyhow, so we decided to set off for home and be out of the woods before dark.

Then something stupid happened. Erin and Sean climbed up to the top of the cliff because that was actually easier than going back down on account of the leaves and pine needles. I went back down a bit to get a camera case and, feeling that at that point I was already committed to descent over ascent, I agreed to meet Sean and Erin on the trail. We had left the balloon on the trail, but within the time it took us to explore the caves, someone on an ATV came by and they must have picked it up or moved it inadvertently. After I picked up the camera case and my backpack, I walked down the rest of the way to what I thought was the trail. The balloon was gone and I had actually stumbled upon another trail. When Erin and Sean didn't show up for a long time I set off to find them, only the trail wound around behind the cliff and I didn't know that. I was calling them and they were calling me and we were all kind of freaking out because it was definitely getting darker when we finally found each other. We hadn't heard the calling because the cliff had separated us. After we calmed down for a second, we booked it out of the woods and made it home before dark.
Well, I'm not sure we can absolutely dispel the myth of the Axeman. Perhaps he just wasn't home or we found a different cave. Either way, Castle Caves proved to be a lot of exercise and a interesting look at something few people have seen.

the faces of failure

2006-10-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

Failures

I remember when I graduated from college and I could see in my parents' eyes how truly proud of me they were.

This is not the feeling I feel towards my cats. They are failures.

As you may have read in our previous blog, we attempted to teach the cats to use the toilet via a contraption called the Kitty Whiz. The idea as the that you filled the Kitty Whiz with cat litter and the cats would start using the toilet. Eventually, you ween them off of the Kitty Whiz and the clever kitties are supposed to use the toilet, ending dirty litter boxes forever.

This is what happened when we tried to teach Ishmael and Rasputina to use the toilet:

Dry-docking

Above is one of their more successful attempts at potty training. At least this one wasn't on the floor in front of the sink or in the tub. Idiots.

We were forced to reinstate the litterboxes.

I am deeply hurt and disappointed that Ishmael and Rasputina turned out to be such a pair of haggard failures. I will keep feeding them, but, in my heart, they are no longer my cats...

a holy addendum

2006-10-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

If you are familiar with Dogtown or Dudleytown, then you know something about New England ghost towns. The area on Sylvester Street that Erin and I explored was something like what I understand those places to be - a serious of logically positioned foundations with other signs of habitation, such as chimneys, stone walls, wells, and the remains of woodpiles within a general vicinity. The main difference with the Sylvester Street foundations is that they were most likely part of Leicester, not an abandoned colony or town.

The Catholic home across the street from Sylvester Street used to be the Nazareth Home for Boys, a sort of orphanage. Now it is the Mcauley/Nazareth House and a school for mentally handicapped 3rd- 8th graders. Over the summer I work at the Mercy Center in Worcester and Nazareth lets our summer program students go there and swim in their pool on Wednesdays.

In spite of having visited Nazareth several times I had never really investigated the Mary alter and I had never even noticed the nun cemetery on the right side of the main property. Erin has always said that she wanted to see gravestones with R.I.P. written on them and I never thought they actually existed, until we stumbled upon this little graveyard of small, white crosses. All the interned here are nuns, all named Sister Mary, and all the vast majority of the graves are small, white crosses that say R.I.P. It's pretty creepy, actually.

One last fun fact, I read that the small stream that runs perpendicular to Sylvester Street is called Lynde Brook. At some point, a 16-year-old from Nazareth (when it was still primarily a boys home, not in its current incarnation) beat a 6-year-old to death and ditched him in the Brook off Sylvester Street. Perhaps that gave rise to some of the Spider's Gates legends...

full of grace!

2006-10-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Eric and I make like Hansel and Gretel and hoof it in the woods looking for neat stuff. We did that on Sunday. First we tried to find a cemetery and orchard that I had heard about in Charlton. I lost the directions so we ended up checking out Southbridge instead. We hadn't heard anything good about Southbridge so we thought maybe we could find a good abandoned house there to explore. When I read electric meters back in the summer of '00, I remember being pretty freaked out in some of the areas. That's probably because I had to go into dark, cob-webby basements with pelts hanging from the ceiling. Ok, that only happened once, but while we didn't find anything abandoned, we did discover Southbridge has great potential to be a cute town. It's too bad about Southbridge.

A little discouraged, we returned to home base to try a new approach. Eric did a little research while I ate a cannoli and found some potential places to check out in Leicester. Our mission to find things in the woods brought us first to Spider Gates. We have been to Spider Gates before and let me tell you, there is NOTHING scary about it. In fact, it's a pretty well-kept cemetery with the least scary headstones from that time period that I've seen. The Quakers aren't too up on showy stuff and the most interesting headstone there is a woman who had 2 husbands.

We showed up to Spider Gates to find a few goth kids at the cemetary, which was funny of course. Especially since Spider Gates is as far away from Gothic as the It's a Small World ride at Disney World. After walking around in the woods near the airport, we left for a different trail/road called Sylvester Street where there is supposed to be an old root cellar which you can walk around in. While we didn't find the root cellar, there were a bunch of old foundations that were overgrown and the houses were long gone. It was interesting to wonder why no one inhabited this part of Leicester anymore.

This was the most interesting plot we found. The front stairs were still pretty much in tact, there were some old metal appliances "in" the house, and there were 2 left foot shoe soles - one from a man and one from a woman - placed next to each other on the foundation. You can tell they're old because they were held together by nails.

Another strange occurrence on our woodland journey was that we found the handle to a gardening shovel in a fresh shallow hole - someone had been there not long before us! That's the scariest part about being in the woods. It's not the ghosts, gouls, wizards, witches, hobbitts, spirits, demons and monsters there; it's the potential people and dogs.

The best part of the day was the end. Where we parked our car is an old, but still functional, Catholic home for boys. Outside along the sidewalk are the stations of the cross. Across the street, is a large shrine to Mary. The statues had flowers and Rosary Beads adorned on them. I wanted to be like Mary.

And one cat picture for good measure. Razzle is so cute!

alone with the owls howling pain, pain, pain

2006-10-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

I try not to talk about music too much on the "Owls" blog, but I can't stop myself anymore. Erin and I have been finding lots of amazing new music lately and I have to write about it.

First, I just bought both the new Magnolia Electric Co. CD, Fading Trails and the new solo LP from Magnolia's frontman, Jason Molina, entitled Let me go, Let me go, Let me go.

While the Magnolia Electric Co. is good, it's Molina's new album that I'm really pumped about. Since he stopped doing Songs:Ohia, which was a solo project with occasional players assisting, and started the Magnolia Electric Co., a full band, Molina's music has been increasingly heading toward something...well...good, but safe. The first Magnolia Electric Co. CD was amazing and one of my favorite albums of all times (check out Farewell Trasmission, the first song on the first Magnolia Electric Co CD here), but with each following Magnolia Electric Co. release the music has become a little less remarkable.

Until now. Let me go, Let me go, Let me go follows in the tradition of Songs:Ohia and Molina's earlier solo albums, Protection Spells and Pyramid Electric Co. While I love both those albums, Let me go, Let me go, Let me go is even more accessible. Molina's voice, while often compared to Neil Young, is incredibly haunting and more complex than his classic-rock forerunner and on the new CD it goes right through me. I love this CD. While Alone with the Owls is my favorite song on the CD (the title of this post is a line from that song) Get out Get out Get out is the only free MP3 Secretly Canadian (the label) put online.

Erin's persistance spurred our next big recent musical discovery. Erin listens to the Worcester station on the radio and she kept hearing this song she liked a lot, but they never gave the name. She remembered a line and we searched the Internet until we found it and I am really glad we did.

The song was called Let the Sun Shine Down on Me by Jean Ritchie. Ritchie has been throughout her life instrumental in folk music, performing in the early 60's with Doc Watson and making a name for herself as one of the premier dulcimer players in the country. We were eventually able to get our hands on the CD with that song on it. It was a limited edition release that was discontinued. The entire disc is amazing.

Like Jason Molina, Jean Ritchie has a voice that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Unlike Molina, it doesn't take any getting used to - it's beautiful. Her songs are traditional American folksongs. Ritchie was born and grew up in Kentucky Cumberland region and the songs reflect this somewhat, but they are much more American and universal than esoteric.

Oddly enough, right after we discovered Jean Ritchie, we saw a documentary on Alan Lomax who did field recordings of folk songs for the Smithsonian Institute and she was featured in it.

Closer to home, Erin and I went to Shelburne Falls in western Mass to see Sarah & Dig's brother John's art opening and listen to him play his songs at Mocha Maya's. John is a killer artist and very nice photographer, which we knew, but I was also really impressed by his songs and what a great voice he has. The two things that stood out the most to me about John's set was, A) he's a terrific storyteller and that really adds a lot to the music and B) he included booklets with the set list and lyrics so you could follow along. That was an awesome idea. John is working on a CD and when it is available we will post how to get it.

In other news, we're still really excited about getting married. What adds to the excitement is that Veau and Emily and Katie are coming! Yaya! Also, Kev and Jen will be home in December, just in time for my birthday! Yay!

I'll leave you with some picture I took in around around the Blackstone Canal park and Stanley Woolen Mill in Uxbridge. I guess place almost collapsed or something the day after I was there.

So long.

Worcester: The City That Weeds...

2006-10-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

Ever been kicking back in your low-income subsidized apartment and look over at your homeboy and say, "Shit, I wish some city planner would give us somethin' to joke about while we's was blazin' dis blunt!"

Well wish no more, Homes! You're prayers have been answered! Introducing, Weed & Seed!

Looks like the city of Worcester has finally just given in and accepted the fact that the only economic growth on the end of Pleasant Street closest to down town comes from the sale of marijuana. Not only have they accepted the fact that pot provides all that neighborhood's revenue, they embrace it with a new series of signs up and down that end of Pleasant Street that read, "Weed & Seed - Making Our Neighborhoods Better."

Not only does pot bring money into the neighborhood, it allegedly even makes it better! Here's another one of those signs -

Obviously, this is not reefering..er..referring to pot, but I wonder who was responsible for the blazing oversight of calling a community program intended for the less-than-upscale portions of the city and decided to call it Weed and Seed. Of course, it's comparing the city to a garden and weeding and seeding makes a garden grow, but take a look at these dudes and tell me how much they care for metaphors and tropes.

Normally, I am not amused by pot or pot jokes, but this is way beyond just Cheech and Chong. Perhaps the originator of these ingenius plan was high when he/she concocted it. If not, then shame on them.

Eat your heart out, Edgar Lee Masters...

2006-10-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

As Damien noted in he and Sarah's blog, he and I went and took some night photos in a local cemetery. They came out looking pretty neat.
We felt a little nervous because, by law, you're not really supposed to be in a cemetery after dark. There were some headstones in tough shape and we wouldn't want to get blamed for that. Also, I was using a pretty big spotlight, so being clandestine was out of the question.

Apparently, getting her paw stuck under the stove was the last straw...

Is that a ghost??!!?! Nope - way hotter. It's me popping up in my own long exposure.

Damien.

Damien and Sarah found this neat old house. Future blog?

I'll try to post more of our photography adventures on here whenever I can.

So long.
- Eric

P.S. - After seeing Ishmael's turd in that last post, how could we call him anything but HOT CARL!?!?!

potty training.

2006-09-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Eric and I are training our cats to use the potty.

We were sick and tired of scooping cat shit and piss so we ordered this thing off the information superhighway called Kitty Whiz. It is a cat toilet training aide. Basically, it's a shoddy piece of plastic that you put over your toilet.

Then you put some cat litter and special herbs on it.

We locked our cats in the bathroom for 2 nights and did not allow them access to their old litterboxes. This forced them to use the toilet. It was pretty messy, but all of the pee and most of the poop made it into the toilet.

Then, the other morning I was taking a shower before work and smelled something terrible. It wasn't the usual terrible smell that permeates our bathroom from the downstairs aparment. So I finished up and turned off the shower to hear a cat scratching at the bathroom door! I forgot to leave it open to allow the cats to use their new toilet! It was too late. Ishmael had crapped right outside the door. I think he had been holding it a while too. Poor little guy. It sure was a doosey! Before cleaning it up, I threw up in my mouth a little bit and then took a picture.

Things have been going alot better lately.

We're almost onto the next stage where we cut out holes in the middle of the Kitty Whiz. We'll be sure to keep you all updated on our little ones' progress.

And by the way, don't listen to Eric if he tries to say Ishmael's new nickname is Hot Carl.

smalldrich, out!

News for Katie

2006-09-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

Our friend Katie sent me an e-mail that stated that our blog is not substantive enough - meaning it doesn't really tell anyone what is going on with us, it only makes fun of stuff.

Well, she's right, of course, so here is a run down of what is new with Erin and I.

1. Wedding invitations are in from the printers. Damien really outdid himself with the design and they should be coming to a mailbox near you very soon.

2. I am currently waiting on getting recommendations from my professors at Assumption as the next step in my grad school application process. I am also figuring out what the different schools need for a teaching fellowship. The final list of graduate schools are:

A. University of California in Santa Barbara
B. University of Oregon
C. University of Colorado in Boulder
D. University of Washington in Seattle
E. University of Arizona in Tempe
D. University of Arizona in Tucson

3. We recently attended a Small family reunion and learned that Erin's younger brother, Travis, is the only person that can carry on the Small family name in their particular line. Then a lot of old people encouraged him to have sex.

4. We found a DJ for our wedding. His name is Dana and this is his website: www.thisisdana.com.

5. I have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people I have been meaning to get in touch with for awhile and it feels good.

6. We all had a great time at Jacki and Jarrod's wedding...except for poor Jeff.

When Jeff left the wedding, he was trailed home by the wait staff from all the Worcester area restaurants and, upon stepping from his car into his dark, gravel driveway, they spring upon him and "repaid him for his kindness..."

7. We are training Ishmael and Rasputina to use the toilet. We bought a thing called the Kitty Whiz and it trains them to go in the real shitter, instead of that pitiful old box-o-dirt they insist on shitting in.

That's it for now. So long.

don't see The Black Dahlia

2006-09-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

crap. We haven't posted in a long time. Been wicked busy dude. We saw The Black Dahlia the other day. Boy did that stink to high heaven. This is how it went: teeth get knocked out during a boxing match, a cop shoots some people, a girl is found brutally murdered, a couple lesbian scenes, a couple hetero scenes, a head gets split open on a fountain, a person commits suicide. There, you got it.

So you want to know why this all happened? Well, that's just expecting too much from a movie now, isn't it! Honesty, I don't know what really happened in this movie. They waited until the last few minutes (after a lot of minutes) to "unravel" the plot and just threw it out there in the dialogue. It just didn't make sense. Now don't get me wrong, I had to watch Donnie Darko, for example, a couple times before I got it. But that movie was good. You are able to make connections throughout the whole movie. In Black Dahlia, they just throw a pile of turd at you at the end and call it "mystery solved".

the end

Welcome to Worcester!

2006-09-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

$1.25 please!

Here is a collection of just some of the wonderful pictures Erin and I have accumulated here in the Woo along with some descriptions to help you better understand the culture and sense of place oozing from every pore of the city.

Captain Casio here is not only one of Worcester's finest (..er..only..) street performers, he is also a convenient metaphor for the music scene in the city; it's there, but one wouldn't exactly call it alive and well. Main Street is entertained!!!!

Moving just around the corner to Front Street, we find our next denizen of the Town Hall area. This man sells flowers on the side walk. It's just him out there - him and a dirty, nasty baby doll!!!!! Why buy flowers from a doll-less vendor? The service here is two-fold 1. You can be romantic and get that special lady in your life flowers and 2. You get a bonus exhortation to use protection and not get that special lady friend pregnant, as looking at this dirty, nasty baby doll makes you terrified of all of infantdom.

Moving along, less than 1/4 mile from Dirty Babydoll Flower Guy, we have this gem of scupture. For centuries, sculptors have sought to portray the wonderful union of young boys and sea turtles, but rarely does one encounter such a striking depiction of terrapin-rape as in Worcester's own Turtleboy. Whether you're not shopping at the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets across the road, throwing together shoddy news stories for the Telegram and Gazette (located in the background) or you're just trying to gain an unnatural erection, like Slothrop here, Turtleboy is the nexus of the town common.

Imagine a magical place where dirty needles litter the ground! That's not fantasy, my friends, nor is it a Walgreens commercial. No, for your El Dorado, look no further than Worcester, Massachusetts, land of the generous dopefiends. We also found a crackpipe in institute park while metal detecting one day. It's sort of like the Big Rock Candy mountain, only the rocks are crackrocks.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this virtual journey through the city we call home. For more information click on one of the link below. Come and visit!

City Data on Worcester

Journalism for "The City that Reads"

my boss is a Jewish carpenter

2006-08-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

Driving down the Mass Pike today I saw this:

This is information overload! You mean to tell me, Alex, that you will paint/clean my home/work AND you are God's Gift AND Jesus is coming back soon!? Will Jesus appear as an apparition on my swirly ceiling? Admittedly, I'm ignorant of what God's Gift really is so I Wikipediaed it. I wasn't happy of those results so I Googled it. Now I got it.

In other news, Eric and Rasputina had a photo shoot. They were able to emit a variety of emotions to the camera and really connected with the photographer.

Those fresh faces are going somewhere! Cat Fancy magazine, here they come!

Tomorrow is September 1. Anyone remember that commercial on Nickelodeon that said the first of the month was "rabbit rabbit day"? You will have good luck for the whole month if the first thing you say is "rabbit rabbit" when you wake up on the first of the month. Was that a dream? It sounds stupid enough to be.

it's blog! it's blog!

2006-08-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

it's better than bad, it's good - or so I hope. I can't believe I started my first post with that stupid Ren and Stimpy song. I'd love to have a word with the person who thought it would be entertaining to have a cartoon dog shave its own tongue. But anyway... I think I'll give this thing a shot. I've been very bad with keeping in touch with people. As with many other things, I like to blame it on my job. I am on a computer 9+ hrs a day and on the phone about half of that. Yeah, why don't I cry about it, I know, but that is why I am going to type what I want you to know on this blogger! It's great! I'm so high-tech that before you know it, I'll be downloading snazzy fonts (no offense to people who do, dorks.)

So Eric and I are getting married! Yay! We've decided to combine our last names and so we will be Erin and Eric Smalldrich - or even better, combine our first and last names to be Erinc Smalldrich, yay! Oh and our cats Ishmael and Rasputina are getting married too. This is Massachusetts after all.

Wow, it's really easy to say a whole lotta nothin really fast. So how about a picture?

This is on the campus of the now-defunct Belchertown State School. It was a beatiful day for walking around and going in and out of the buildings. I believe Katie was getting the grand tour of New England that day.

Good night!

Making Owls Cool Since 1986

2006-08-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

I suppose that the name of the blog needs some explanation.

Yesterday, me and Erin drove by the Owl Shop smoke shop and Erin said that owls are starting to be trendy. There's a lot of owl stuff at Urban Outfitters and Caitlyn (Erin's sister) bought her an owl belt.

I stated that I have been "making owls cool since 1986."

I love owls. Owls and foxes are my two favorite animals. Of course, I am referring to species, as Ishmael and Rasputina are my two favorite individual animals. I became a strigidaphile when I was six or seven (1986) when my mom read me a book by Farley Mowat entitled "Owls in the Family."

The book, published in 1961, is a creative nonfiction work about two owls that the author rescued as a child and kept as pets. The owls, Wol and Weeps, are great horned owls and they have all sorts of owl related capers in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It's really a good book, and not just for kids. It's a good book to read when you don't want anything too heavy.

So, anyhow, that's how my owl obsession began and why the blog is titled "making owls cool since 1986."

Of course, our title is a misnomer, because owls have always been cool.

Blog = Hassle

2006-08-26T05:22:00.000-07:00

...and I don't mean hoff. I had a bad time making this blog. I don't know if it's because I'm using Mozilla or what, but I have to erase my cache everytime I publish and my stupid test publish I made to check on my whimsical background (nice whimsical background I got, huh?) kept showing up.

But it looks like I figured it out, so good for me.

The purpose for Erin and I (Eric) have in making this blog is two-fold:

A. We hate Myspace

B. Kev and Jen made one and we want to be just like them.

Actually, I did get the idea from Kev and Jen's blog on Livejournal. It's pretty neat to check up on what they're up to without having to pay Verizon Wireless a shitload of money. So, they live in Hawaii and Veau and Emily and Katie live in California, so it seemed like a alright idea to make a blog.

This will be our profile picture. Sarah or Damien took it at Belchertown State School.

I think I might go back to bed.