Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Been a couple of messed up busy weeks since I got back from my vacation. Lets start with how I actually got back for Chicago.
So after the 1130 flight was over booked and they had to kick 4 people off of that flight. I realized that I would not get on a flight that Sunday at all. I asked the United Service Desk person when they could guarantee me a flight back. All the could guarantee was sometime Wednesday afternoon. All United Express flights and American Airlines Express (American Eagle??) flight where booked. I did think about cabbing it to Midway airport to see if I could catch a Southwest flight but I knew they are almost always full and the next one didn't not leave till 630PM or so. I ended up asking for a refund on that last leg of the trip at that point, walked over to Avis Car Rental and they had one car available, a Pontiac Vibe, which I rented and drove back to 9 and a half hours to Nashville.The trip is not near that long but I was very sleep deprived and with coffees stops and naps it took that long.
When I returned the car to the Nashville airport that next day I went to get my luggage that caught the next flight to Nashville. I kind of felt sorry for the poor Baggage Check out lady cause it seemed of the 30 or 40 of us that where trying to get back, we where the first to make it.
All in all it was a good trip and I will post what I did during that week very soon. In the mean time take a look at my pictures.
The day after I got back my sinus' kicked in and I have been dealing whit those the last week.
I will post again very soon.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
It 635 CST and I am dead tired for a 3.5 hour flight from Portland to Chicago. Once we got here we saw that our flight was in another concourse so we ran all the way over there (another terminal and you know that O'hare is a big ass airport). Once we got there we heard that the flight was cancelled. Bastard ass regional flights. So I'm waiting, on stand by with no guarantee of a flight, to try and catch the 1115AM flight out of here. But if my memory serves me correctly, most regional flights over book. So I have no idea when I will get home. Not to mention my luggage. I don't expect to see that till sometime next week. I should rent a car and drive it. Could almost get home soon then United Can
Anyway I will be here uploading pictures most of the morning and I may drop a post about my trip since I was unable to during my trip.
Additional note: The regular United flights where ok, My problem has been with the Express flights. Our initial flight out to Denver was delayed like 2 hours making us run our asses of to catch out ON TIME flight. Ok .... Enough ranting. Need Sleep.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Buzznet.com has this nifty Shockwave version of a picture gallery that can be placed anywhere. So the Gallery that all my Portland pictures will go to is the reason for this post. It will put them all in to one place. I will be posting pictures in my blog posts but not all of them. This is the place where they all will go. So mark this link if you would like to see them. Keep in mind that they will be updated as I take them or very closely there after.
direct link to the Gallery
This is am email post in order to check and see if i can send post via my T-Mobile MDA with out the use of wireless.
Ok well I'm all packed and basically sitting here waiting for my ride to the airport. I haven't flown anywhere since I went to Las Vegas a couple of years ago.
My first leg is about 2 hours long from here to Denver. CO. Should be getting there about 7:00ish CST. Then the second leg get me to Portland, OR getting me there at 1058 CST.
I will try to update my in between my flights but I'm not sure I will be able to.
Ok see ya on the road... woo hoo
Friday, July 07, 2006
Ahh..the great city of Portland, Oregon. That is where I will be all next week. I have a few friends that live out there and since I have never been to Oregon or Washington I figure it is time to go; I have a free place to stay.
Not only is it the Liberal capitol of the US but it also the Microbrew capitol and there will be much beer drinking. The Portland International Beer Festival will be happening while I'm there. I may also drop in on the Willamette Vally for some wine sampling. Hear there is some good Pinot Noir out that way.
Portland is almost at the base of Mt. Hood and not but an hour away from Mt. St. Helens. Hopefully it won't blow while I'm there. But wouldn't that be interesting if it did. The US Forest Service has closed it to climbing due to volcanic activity so who knows.
So I leave tomorrow at 5:15pm to fly to Denver, Colorado and then after a 2 hour layover I believe then I'm off to Portland. Getting there at about 1am CST.
I will be posting pictures and posting as much as I can about my trip so come back and see what kind of shit I can get myself into. I will have my MDA , a digital camera and a laptop with me so I should have a plethora of info to put up here. Ok back to packing.
PhotoBlog link for all my pictures
Last year I got to see a movie on IFC called Waking Life directed by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and School of Rock). A wonderfully thought provoking and mind bending film that was done in what they call Rotoscope. It's an animation technique where they animate over live action frame by frame. Some examples of this are the Ah-ha video for Take on Me or the Dire Straits video for Money For Nothing.
So Linklater used this in a full length feature about a guy who enters a "dream world" and has these conversations and interactions with people. Very trippy. Here is the Trailer:
Anyway I highly recommend seeing this film but be ready. This movie is extremely heavy and full of phylosophical stuff. (a Youtube.com link to a few clips)
So Linklater's newest attempt at this technique is with the Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly. He Wrote the stories that became Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Total Recall (We can Remember it for you Wholesale) and Minority Report.
I have not read the book so I dont really know the story yet. But by using the rotoscope animation technique I feel that Linklater may be able to bring us in to dark world of the drug addicted, duel personalit main character (played by Keanu Reeves) of A Scanner Darkly like he did with dream/awake world of the character in Waking Life. If this is accomplished then this film may be as good as or a very close having the impact that Waking Life did.
This movies starts at the Green Hills Theater on July 14th. Here is the trailer:
If you decide to go see it let me know what you think.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
'How true... how very true.
From the Rome News Tribune and the Nashville City Paper by Mike Lester
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Do some of this not sound familiar
A history at Wikipedia
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Elwood Blues: [addressing the rest if the band] You may go if you wish. But remember this: walk away now and you walk away from your crafts, your skills, your vocations; leaving the next generation with nothing but recycled, digitally-sampled techno-grooves, quasi-synth rhythms, pseudo-songs of violence-laden gangsta-rap, acid pop, and simpering, saccharine, soulless slush. Depart now and you forever separate yourselves from the vital American legacies of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, Blind Boy Fuller, Louie Jordon, Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonnyboy Williamson I and II, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Elvis Presley, Lieber and Stoller, and Robert K. Weiss.
Donald "Duck" Dunn: Who is Robert K. Weiss?
[the rest of the band shrug]
Elwood Blues: Turn your backs now and you snuff out the fragile candles of Blues, R&B and Soul, and when those flames flicker and expire, the light of the world is extinguished because the music which has moved mankind through seven decades leading to the millennium will whither and die on the vine of abandonment and neglect.
[he walks off, followed by Buster, Mack and then the rest of the band]
From Blues Brothers 2000. Elwood Blues is Dan Aykroyd and Donald Dunn is himself.
And yes, the Original is much much better. It is just not the same with out John Belushi
The Belcourt Theater showed the Wizard of OZ with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon this weekend. I went to the Friday evening showing. I was surprised at how packed the theater was.
I had seen this before and thought it was nifty but coincidence but a pure coincidence. If you sat around listening to cd's and watching movies all day eventually you would be able to see other such links (with a little mind-altering help)
If you missed it, here are a few clips and some info about this "phenomenon":
a website with the list of coincidences
a website called Synchronicity Arkive. It is a site dedicated to other coincidences. Such as:
These people have way too much time on there hands.
