My mom took this photo last year at my grandmom’s birthday party:

The photo set never made it onto her site, but I saw a print of this photo on her desk this weekend, and thought it was awesome.

Is it just us or is it the time of year that critters emerge at numerous times each night, especially when you get home after dark and turn a light on coming into a room?  There they are, lurking in a corner near the ceiling or hanging in the crease along the walls. They have 1,000,000,000,000 legs and are at LEAST four ’ long. And they are MUCH too big to squash with a tissue or even your shoe so you have to get out the sweeper with the L  O  N  G attachment hoses to suck it up and then run outside with the sweeper and throw it on the porch and run back in and slam the door closed before the thing can escape from the machine and attack you on your way back into the house!!!  I guess it’s just us :(
Why MEEEEEEE ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ?

Oh my gosh!  I can’t believe someone else is ranting about not being able to find Icy Mint Striped toothpaste!  It’s our all time favorite--It’s getting harder and harder to find.  I found some on MediShop Express online.  Hmm.  Maybe that’s how I’ll have to get it.  I even emailed Crest to see if they were discontinuing it!  Thank goodness--no but still.  So many other stupid flavors--not the one I want!  :)  In crest we brush.

Barb

I just got back from an awesome little vacation with Kim and her parents in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  If there were such a thing as heaven on Earth, I think it’d probably be in Colorado.  There are rivers and mountains everywhere, and the civilization (mostly farms) is sprinkled so sparsely across the landscape.

The little town of Steamboat Springs is wonderfully quaint and cozy.  There is a walking/biking path that runs along the Yampa river right on the edge of downtown, and it takes you past bridges and mountains and restaurants and stinky bubbly sulfur springs.  From literally everywhere in the town, and for that matter everywhere we drove in Colorado, you can see huge snow-capped mountains either right next to you, or off in the distance.

The only downside is that the sun is more intense there (seemingly a LOT more intense) due to the high altitude, and we got some sunburn pretty early-on in the trip.  The only time I ever wear sunblock is at the beach, so I didn’t really think about it for the mountains.  But on the upside, I wore a baseball hat for the first time in probably 10 years, to keep the sun off my head and face and ears, and I rather enjoyed it.  I think I’m going to look for a hat to wear more regularly now.

Between myself, Kim, and her dad, we took over 2.5 gigs of photos and movie clips.  I’ll be posting some of them here soon.

That’s right, Pgh.

After ranting the other day about not being able to find Crest’s Icy Mint Striped flavor of toothpaste anywhere for a month, I found it at a Shop ’n Save the very next day.  That’s still the only place I’ve seen it in, including two other Shop ’n Save locations, in the past month.

There are two snacks that I really want that I can’t find anywhere though: one is Golden Krackle, which is a Greek/Mediterranean flour-based chip, and is sold at Giant (not to be confused with Giant Eagle) and Wegmans back east.  I love the Garlic and the Cheese & Oregano flavors.  They’re sold in thin white cardboard boxes that are about one foot square and 1.5 inches deep, and they can be hard to find even in stores that do carry them; they’re usually not with normal chips/snacks, but rather by the deli or produce areas.  The second snack is Utz Pub Mix, which I’ve ranted about before, and can’t seem to find anywhere anymore :(

But on a happier note, Kim and I bought an old-fashioned push lawn mower, the kind with no motor, that instead has a set of curved blades that spin when you push the thing.  It’s really fun to use, though probably not as much fun if you have a big yard.  The only drawback is that it doesn’t mulch the clippings, but if you go over the lawn a second time, mowing over the trails of clippings, that mulches them pretty well.

SBC is now offering high-speed DSL internet service for just $15 per month.  That’s merely a third (or a half in some cases) of the cost of most broadband internet service, and less than most dial-up internet service for that matter.  Unfortunately it looks like it isn’t yet available in PA, but hopefully this drastic move by SBC will force the hand of other ISPs and cause similar price cuts.

I’m now living without the Fox News Channel, which means I can’t watch the O’Reilly Factor.  But one of the best parts of the show is the Talking Points Memo, and it turns out that you can watch that segment (and only that one) online for free.  Just visit this page, click any episode, and on the resulting page you’ll see a "video" link under the T-Points section.

Is it me, or has Crest discontinued the Icy Mint Striped flavor of their toothpaste?  It’s still listed on their website but I haven’t been able to find it in 5 different stores for the past month.  Fearing the worst, I’ve tried some other flavors -- Cool Peppermint, Fresh Mint, and Minty Fresh Striped -- but they all might as well be called SuckyMint compared to Icy Mint Striped.

In more better news, I saw one of these guys the other week:

It’s a Hitachi EX1800 Large Excavator.  I think it’s the biggest construction vehicle I’ve ever seen.  The photo doesn’t even come close to conveying the gigantic size of this machine.  Here’s one with a man in it for scale:

That’s a little better but still doesn’t really let you appreciate how huge it is.  But the brochure for the current version of that model gives some numbers: it’s nearly three stories tall (not counting the arm); the bottom of the thing is over six and a half feet tall, i.e. you could walk upright underneath it no problem; and the scoop holds between 300 and 400 cubic feet of material, depending on whether it’s the backhoe or the loading-shovel version.

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Sorry for the lull around here lately.  I’ve moved to Pittsburgh and am quite busy with unpacking and getting appliances and job-hunting and myriad other such goodies.

I could say a lot about how cool it is here, and I probably will as time goes on.  For now though, I’ll just say that it’s a very un-citylike city.  It’s nothing at all like Philadelphia, for instance.  I suppose the main reason is that it’s tiny by comparison; it has only one-fifth the population and certainly looks very small and non-intimidating compared to Philly.

Pittsburgh does have a real-city skyline though, and so far that’s one of my favorite features.  It’s really cool to be on the south side of the Liberty Tunnel (oh yeah, the tunnels, another cool thing), where it’s very rural/suburban, and then drive through the tunnel to see the beautiful skyline towering directly in front of you.  And that’s doubly cool at night.  I hope to get some good photos of the city from up on Mount Washington soon.  (Mount Washington is a small town within Pittsburgh that has quite a bit of elevation, and it sits pretty much directly above center city with some great overlooks.)

In closing, let me just say that the abbreviation for Pittsburgh is "Pgh."  I think we can all agree that as far as abbreviations go, that’s about as unstoppable as it gets.

Anthony and I took some portraits and some photos of our soon-to-be home this weekend. It was really cool, because the couple renting the house was super helpful. They even told us what roads get really icy in the winter! We’re really excited, so I wanted to share the pictures. Anthony was going to post these photos on his own site, but I beat him to the punch. wahahahaha. I win. : )

Kim and I got engaged this weekend  ( :

Check out Kim’s post, my photos, and Kim’s photos (some photos overlap, but not all).

I am on Canadian soil as I post this message!

Kim and I are on a little road trip to visit Niagara Falls, and it is amazing.  And I’ve never been outside the USA before so this is extra cool for me.  I know, I know... the Canadian side of Niagara is about as close as you can get to the USA without actually being in the USA (er no, wait, that’s California...) but still, I am on foreign soil for the first time in my life.

I took about 200 photos today, so they’ll show up here soon, along with a more full report of the coolness of this adventure.

Not to be gross or anything, but...

I rarely get pimples, and I also haven’t used shaving cream in about a year.  (I shave in the shower using just water.)  On Sunday I shaved with shaving cream for the first time in about a year, and the next day I had 3 identical-looking pimples within the shaved area of my face.

Is it a conspiracy by the soap/shaving companies to sell anti-acne face wash??

Family++  •  Love++  •  Mom has photos  •  ( :

For those of you who can tear yourselves away from the ever exciting google searches...

I am going to be induced on Monday night, hopefully we will have a baby sometime on Tuesday :)  Dan will be calling with the news...  Wish us luck :)

Over the Christmas / New Year’s holiday, I spent 10 days in close proximity to a bunch of people in various stages of sickness, and I didn’t get a thing from it.  That seems to be the way with me; sometimes I feel like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable.  I’m telling you, those One-a-Day multi-vitamins are key.

These are my top-ten lists for 2004... except that none of them have ten items.

Marcona almonds: these are big spanish almonds.  I get them at Wegmans, they come in a little plastic container with a little bit of canola oil and sea salt.  I guess they’re just nuts, but they are delicious.

UTZ Pub Mix: "A Savory Blend of Crunchy Snacks."  Also known as "Phat Mix" in some quarters.  I didn’t used to like this when my brother Brian would get it by the pound from snack vendor stands at malls etc, but this UTZ version is really good.  Anyway, from the bottom label, it consists of: Honey Mustard & Cheddar Cheese Twistix, Worcestershire Rye Chips, Honey Roasted Sesame Chips, Oriental Rice Crackers, Pretzel Stix, Nacho Bagel Chips.

Wegmans "Famous Chocolate Chip Mini Cookies."  Just what it says -- little chocolate chip cookies that are so good they are (or should be) famous.  They are soft.  (This is actually from 2002 but I didn’t do a best-of list then, so shut it.)

Wegmans Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips.  Sorta soft.  These might be my favorite cookies of all time.  Also a 2002-debuting item.

Moose Munch: carmel popcorn, some of which is chocolate-covered, and also including nuts (cashews and walnuts depending on where you get it).  Quite possibly the overall best sweet snack of all time.

Albums: an asterisk (*) indicates an album that wasn’t actually released in 2004, but I didn’t find out about it or get it till 2004.  These are in no particular order.

Taking Back Sunday / "Where You Want To Be" / indie|screamo

Emery / "The Weak’s End" / hard rock|indie|screamo

Jimmy Eat World / "Futures" / modern rock|indie

Straylight Run / "Straylight Run" / indie|dual-vocals-male+female

Pigeon John / "Pigeon John is Dating Your Sister" * / rap|hip-hop|not gangsta|not evil

The Alpha Conspiracy / "Aura" / ambient|techno|IDM, maybe somewhat dance

Telefon Tel Aviv / "Map of What is Effortless" / ambient|techno|IDM, but not dance

Freemartin / "An Escape Seems Appropriate" / fast pop-punk|indie

My American Heart / "My American Heart" / modern rock|indie|screamo

Rainer Maria / "Long Knives Drawn" * / indie|rock|female vocals

Beth Orton / "Daybreaker" * / semi-folksy pop|female vocals

The Early November / "The Room’s Too Cold" * / indie|pop-punk|acoustic

The Starting Line / "Say it Like You Mean it" * / pop-punk|indie

...is Kim, of course  ( :

Cool things are happening.

I got a Nextel cell phone a few weeks ago (the i95cl), at a super discount because my company has a contract with Nextel.  The phone is awesome.  But the coolest thing is the direct-connect feature (aka "walkie-talkie").  This always seemed cool to me, but I never fully comprehended the power of its awesomeness until I actually used it.  It’s easily the most fun thing of all time.  It’s like their advertisements say... life is better when you’ve got the phone with a built-in walkie-talkie.  So if you don’t have a cell phone, or if you do have a cell phone, you should get a Nextel phone ASAP.

Cool thing #2: people are sending me photos.  Photos of themselves, which is awesome... it’s nice to actually be able to see the people you correspond with online.  And photos of helicopters that they work on at crazy army-base Avionics labs.  That is unstoppable.  So, if you ever have the inclination to contact me, and I reply and say "hey, thanks for writing, what’s up?", feel free to send a photo, of yourself or something else that’s neato.

I am in love with The Postal Service.  You will be too, once you listen to them.  It was really hard to pick a song of the week from the album "Give Up" which I just bought, because there isn’t a sub-fantastic song on it.  But I settled on "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight."  So go listen to it.

Which brings me to cool thing #more: one of my neighbors/friends just opened a record store below my brother’s skate shop in my town.  How these kids are able to just open their own businesses like this is quite mind-boggling to me.  I am so impressed.  But anyway, that’s where I got "Give Up," just last night, on their first day of business.

And finally cool thing #awesome: a friend sent me a link last night to a webpage about state mottos, and it’s hilarious.  Here are a few:

Alabama
It Is: We Dare Defend Our Rights
It Should Be: At Least We’re Not Mississippi

Colorado
It Is: Nothing Without Providence
It Should Be: Too Wimpy to Cross the Mountains So We Stopped Here

Illinois
It Is: State Sovereignty, National Union
It Should Be: Please Don’t Pronounce the "S"

Kentucky
It Is: United We stand, Divided We Fall
It Should Be: Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names

Maine
It Is: I Direct
It Should Be: We’re Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster

Mississippi
It Is: By Valor and Arms
It Should Be: Come and Feel Better About Your Own State

South Dakota
It Is: Under God the People Rule
It Should Be: Closer Than North Dakota

Go see ’em all here.

Read some crazy stuff around the blogosphere today.  Stuff that turned out to be entirely fabricated, though.  I’m glad that I’m a hermit so that I basically stayed inside all day (well, and because I had an 8pm exam to study for), and therefore wasn’t the target of any of this April Fool’s nonsense.

The other week I learned that my friend Ben has isolated sleep paralysis.  That was really exciting; I’d never met anyone else besides me who has this... condition, or whatever it is.  When people go to sleep, certain stages of sleep (REM stages, iirc) tend to be violent, so the brain paralyzes the body to prevent you from hurting yourself.  You’d never know this, because you’re asleep while it happens.  But people who have this ISP condition are conscious while this happens.  Not all the time, though; for me, sometimes it happens 5 times in a week, and other times I’ll go 6 months without a single occurence of it.

It is impossible to convey this experience in words, but it is simultaneously mysterious, intriguing and terrifying.  It always happens right around the time when I’m falling asleep or waking up.  I try to move, and I realize that I can’t, so I know it’s happening again.  There is almost always an echoing sound that starts quiet and gets very loud, and it’s repetitive, almost like a record skipping but faster.  As I struggle to move I feel my heart start to beat really fast.

At the time, I believe that my eyes are open.  I believe I am seeing the room around me.  But from some things I’ve read, I’ve come to doubt whether they actually are open.  It may be that I only think they are open, and my brain is actually seeing an image of the room from before I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

There is always the distinct feeling of something evil around me.  But that’s something which by its very nature is impossible to quantify.  And it could be that simply being paralyzed causes me to be very afraid; that’s certainly logical.  The article I linked above talks about this, and how it could be the body/brain’s survival mechanisms reacting to what it perceives as the presence of a threat.

The thing is, it’s terrifying, but as soon as I break free from it, I want it to happen again.  I want to understand it.  I want to somehow experience it but without being terrified by the dark presence and that thrashing sound growing louder.  I never even knew that other people experienced this until I found that article one day, and that was after about 2 years of it.

So anyway, it was exciting to actually talk to another person who’s gone through it.