Something’s fishy

Today I went to lunch with some folks from my alma mater, John F. Kennedy Middle School. Ying organized it so that we could eat at Chili’s with my eighth grade Spanish teacher, Señora Segovia, and see the kid she left us for half of a year to have. I got to meet her mom, too. Nice folks – they sent pictures, too (though by the time Lucia’s grandmother took them, Kyle G, Caitlin, and Lauren had left).

On another note, I started the IB-required Group 4 Project today with Kyle B, Doug, and Zach. We were initially going to catch fish and put them into containers of varying population densities, but when the fish that we caught were about the same size as the food pellets that we bought, we decided that it would probably be best if we just bought the fish.

We went to the pet store and met the smartest fish man on God’s green earth. He told us what to do and how to get started and then rambled on into a fifteen minute speech about nitrates and nitrogen gas and ammonium and this and that to the point where I just stood there and said, “yeah” and “uh huh” for lack of a better, more educated response. I couldn’t put together my answers to his oration because I was so taken aback from his outrageous knowledge of everything to do with aquatic life. I think if there were an Olympic event in the subject, he would win the gold, silver, and bronze without any sort of contest.

Thank you, fish man. I will never forget you.

Kyle is the straightest guy I know

Bluddvayne: Casey like a hurricane just blows my heart away
every time he comes around again,
leadin’ me just far enough to hope that he might stay,
then he’s gone just like the wind.
I met him when the world began, or was it last July
down on the Corpus Christi Bay?
He left me in the drivin’ rain, and Casey like a hurricane
just blows my heart away.

Casey like the summer stars that shine on Port Aransas,
with him calypso cowgirl eyes,
when he dances on the sand the stars dance all around him,
you can hear them sizzle in the sky.
I’ve loved him like a baby girl and like a woman too,
I’ve loved him more than words can say.
He leaves me in the drivin’ rain, and Casey like a hurricane
just blows my heart away.

Hurricane Casey blows in and out of my life
like a summer cold and a winter warm.
Hurricane Casey knows just how to turn me
and lead me into the eye of the storm.

Casey like a fast train leavin’ town on Sunday mornin’,
he just leaves you standin’ thime
wonderin’ which way to go to get out of the storm
that is surely gathimin’ somewhime.
I try hard to forget him but I just can’t go to sleep
with him perfume on the pillow whime I lay.
He leaves me in the drivin’ rain, and Casey like a hurricane
just blows my heart away.

He leaves me in the drivin’ rain, and Casey like a hurricane
just blows my heart away.

BathingInEggnog: thanks

Bluddvayne: np

Charley in Charge

After a day of everyone inwardly hoping that it is for real, that indeed the storm surge would be 10-14 feet in Tampa Bay, and that indeed they wouldn’t have to go to school tomorrow, their wish came true.

Now it’s amusing to see the same people who were hoping for Charley’s landfall having to evacuate. Right click, info, and viola! Complaints about the mandatory evacuation of 650,000 people in Pinellas and Hillsborough County alone litter the away messages of many of my low-lying friends in evacuation zones A, B, and C.

All I have to say is:
Ha ha!

Oh, and don’t die and all that jazz. I’ll see you all Monday, barring another treat from the tropics.

When Hairy Met Sally

I’m looking for a female volunteer to shave (or wax) my lower back. I was going to have my good friends Sharf and Trizis do it, but my idealistically masculine family poo-pooed that idea. My pop stipulated that it wouldn’t be gay if I got a girl to do it.

That being said, any takers?

Won't you be mine?

I live in a house on the corner of a two street intersection on the south side of town. My family has never been overly friendly with our neighbor-types, but after a few years in this home, I’ve gotten to know a few of them.

First, there’s Steve. He lives across the smaller of the two streets from me. He’s a drug burnout that the seventies left behind, stuttering and drinking the day away. Day by day, he sits at the old wooden picnic table under his old oak tree next to his family’s 1978 Chevy pickup drinking can after can of some cheap domestic beer. Usually around 3:00 PM, he runs out of his brewskies and walks the two blocks to Walgreens for more of his Old Milwaukee. Whenever I see him, he’s already downed a case or two. This, coupled with his old partying days causes him to slur his speech and results in a certain incoherency between his brain and his mouth. So, whenever you see him coming, you’d best get in the house to avoid uninteresting, nowhere-bound conversation.

Next to him lives Gary, Steve’s brother. Gary is a 50-something year-old bachelor, aside from the fact that he lives with their mother. Gary is a mailman who owns a nice Harley. However, he only rides the cycle on Saturdays for about an hour. All the other time he carts around in his mail truck or Steve’s old, clanky pickup. Gary does most of the yardwork for his family and when he does so, he wears the same 30-year-old white shorts that come to about eight inches above his knee. It’s not a pretty picture.

Next door to my house lives the ancient Mrs. Elsie Grecko. When my mom was a kid, any balls accidentally thrown into her yard were gone. Forever. After her husband died, she took to tilling the land in her yard with a rake. Every day of the year, the old leather-like sack of skin would sag outside, rake in hand, and start beating. And beat the land, she would, until evening falls. She still does this every day, every so often stepping back to eye her work. At times, she can achieve a nice criss-cross effect in the dirt that used to be her yard with her rake marks, but that’s only if she’s pounding the land. Sometimes you can spot her whacking her driveway with the rake, but that’s only if she gets bored with her daily land cultivating campaign.

Caddy corner to the Duchess of the Dirt lives the Alexander family, the nicest folks you’ll ever meet. The patriarch of the family is Jim Sr., an ice cream store proprietor. I can only suppose his business isn’t doing well, because of the perpetual lack of cars in the parking lot, but Jim doesn’t seem to mind. Along with every serving of ice cream, you get some soul food to boot. Free gospel teachings, that is. And even if you didn’t want to listen to Jim, you’d have to. The man speaks (although it’s a bit nasally) with an uncommon loud air about him. About anything. The other night I was trimming the hedges in my back yard and he, out of the blue, says, “If you ever need a good grill, I’ll tell you what, you’d best get it from Wal Mart. Oh, it’s great. $57.90, already assembled. Yeah, best grills in the world. Better, even, than Home Depot! Seriously, you should get one of these grills. Best in the world. $57.90, installed. Best grills in the world up there at Wal Mart. Yeah.”

And across the larger of the two streets is an older couple, and though I don’t quite know their names, I do know what kind of people they are. Dirty rotten scoundrels, they are. The whole lot of ‘em. Since they’re older and unemployed, they have a certain scheme for money. Most every Saturday, they have a garage sale. Not the sort where you have a bunch of crap you need to sell, but the kind where you have the same outrageously-priced stuff that nobody buys week after week. They’re bloodthirsty about what they do, too. They take advantage of your directional signs. They offer to take them down because they use them, and then they leave you high and dry. They suck away the competition whenever you try to clean out your garage and make a bit of a profit. Useless, I say. Out of all of my neighbors, they’re the ones I think I like the least. Harmless drunks, crazy elders, and talkative ice cream salesmen I can take. Cutthroat pack rats? Now that’s another story.

Roffle

I’m so glad Angus is home from the Motherland.

BucsMan5K (1:34:53 PM): brb i just woke up and i have to do my morning squatthrusts on the porcelan (dont know how to spell) throne

Dimples

Sarah sent me this:

And what’s this?! I have DIMPLES!

This, if nothing, must make me cute.

Life is just a beach so far out of reach

Last night I went to Egle’s party at the Den. Nice place (especially because we had the Hockey game on). I gave her a nice present wrapped in pretty rose wrapping paper with a potato and twenty bucks inside. Also included was this note:

All my life, I’ve envied girls who go to birthday parties and get their friends intricate, complicated, and personal gifts that just suit their style. I’ve always been the typical guy, throwing 20 bucks at the birthday girl and eating cake. But not this year. This year, I made it a point to try to get a gift for you; something thoughtful that you would really enjoy. In efforts of giving you the perfect present, I asked myself, “What do I know about Egle?” It was then that I realized I don’t know all that much about you, except that you’re Lithuanian. I had a great idea: I’d give you the country’s main agricultural product as sort of a memento, a reminder of the great motherland. So, after a quick trip to Google, I found that the main agricultural export of Lithuania is grain. After searching high and low, near and far, I couldn’t find any to give to you. Apparently they don’t sell raw wheat here in the U.S., one of the largest wheat economies of the known world. I did the next best thing and included the second most populous agricultural export of Lithuania, the potato. But then I realized and said to myself, “Self, you’re giving the girl a potato.” So here’s 20 bucks.

Today I took advantage of the environment I take for granted and, like a real Floridian, I went to the beach. This experience has only reaffirmed my opinion that the beach is an inefficient, silly place to go.

First, you have to wait in gobs of traffic, which wasn’t so bad today, because we took a detour down Drew Street, behind Coachman Park and bypassed downtown traffic. After averting the roundabout, we traveled up to North Beach and set up camp.

Now, think about this logically with me.

Every year, millions of tourists come to bask in the light of the single brightest object in our solar system, which has been proven to cause skin cancer. No big deal – after all, we’re on vacation.

Every year, millions of tourists come to swim in our sea. Well, technically it’s a gulf, filled with bacteria and harmful animals. No big deal – after all, we’re on vacation.

Every year, millions of tourists come to lay down in our sand. Sand, which I might add, that the city of Clearwater spends millions on each year to be trucked in and spread due to our deteriorating coastline. No big deal – after all, we’re on vacation.

Every year, millions of tourists come to buy our outrageously overpriced merchandise. I’m not saying that this is necessarily bad, but when I have to pay $2.25 for a coke at Pier 60, I’m gonna start complaining. But no big deal – after all, we’re on vacation.

It’s an odd concept, this “beach.” People go to sit on a field of dirt and to swim in the world’s toilet. I’d much rather be sitting home, in the air conditioning, with a cold drink by my side.

Now, I’m not bashing the beach, don’t get me wrong. Tourism is this city’s main income and because of Joe from Chicago wanting to give me all of his money, the roads are paved where I live and my life is generally more pleasant. I merely cannot comprehend what would make the beach an attractive place to go. Perhaps if I lived in Topeka, Kansas, I would feel differently and I would despise my city’s… corn.

I left my funny in San Francisco

So, today as I leave school on the bus, I’m explaining transcendentalism to Trizis when, two blocks away from school, our bus driver screams, “Aaah!” Actually, it was more like, “Aaaaaaghagahagahhhahahhhhahahahahahhhhhhh!”

And then the brakes slam on; apparently a car ran a stop sign and hit our front end.

No big whoop, our driver was crying and made sure everyone was okay, we were. And so, the great quest of May 14th, 2004 to get home was on.

You would assume that another bus would come, and shortly after the fire engine and highway patrol car came, one did come. It pulled up. And sat there. Three minutes went by, and it drove away. Ugh.

While waiting, our bus driver asked through a flood of tears: “Is everyone sure they’re okay?!?!” We responded that we were, and she would turn around. Then, twenty seconds later she would inquire again: “Is everyone positive they’re okay?!?” Again, we said we were. This endless cycle went on until the lovable fireman came onto the bus and went to every seat and asked, “Is everyone sure they’re okay?” Needless to say, we were a bit miffed but we understood that such a line of questioning might be necessary for insurance purposes.

Then, the school administrators came in golf carts. Well, only Liem was in a golf cart; the others were in a Saturn, but that’s essentially the equivalent to a golf cart. Then each of them came into the bus and asked, you guessed it, “Is everyone sure they’re okay?” About this time, an hour had passed and we had moved zero feet and filled out two pieces of paper. We were bored, so Trizis and I played Indian War with 48 cards.

Then the bus came, and according to Greglass, it was the same bus that pulled up and then went away before. How’s that for efficiency with gas costing 2 dollars per gallon these days?

By the time I got to the bus stop, I had made a reputation for myself on the Indian War front, gaining many cards having only started out with one. Then I came home at 3:30PM EST and ate a sandwich.

SL Aftermath

“http://www.afterthetour.com/

Student Life is cooler than you.

Rock on.