Ramblings

to kind of lighten up the mood of the blog for a change; i came across this motivational poster while i was being bored on the internet today. it pertains in two ways: a. you're doing it wrong b. i like chickens it made me giggle, thoughts?

I finally decided that i am gaining too much weight and needed to do something about it. i have joined a gym and it is nice to have a place to workout and destroy co-workers in racquetball but sometimes i just want to be outside. i have also found, over the years, that i despise running because i find it one of the most boring things to do ever. I have some friends in college station and here, in houston, who mountain bike on a regular basis and after riding with them a few times i decided to go ahead and buy one (see pic) i rode it a few times up and down the bayou behind my house but didn't get into any intense riding until this weekend. while riding i came upon 2 very important discoveries. 1. know which way your shifters shift. when you get up to a big hill you don't want to go into a higher gear, stall out, and stumble half way down...in front of other people. this sounds simple but you would be amazed what actually happens when you get into this situation. 2. look at where you want to go and not where you don't want to. this, too, sounds simple but have you ever seen those video shows where the guy driving down the highway crashes into the police car sitting on the side of the road? same concept when applied to trees and stumps while riding a bike. anyway, i would recommend this source of exercise to anyone. it's a great way to get out and get some fresh air, while getting a full body work out without getting bored.

This was in a construction tunnel for the condo tower "the austonian" on Congress ave. I liked it. I thought it was neat that someone would spray paint a rocket ship.

I have long wanted to document street art that I happen upon. I finally got a camera phone so now I can start doing it. There are some street artists (that I have known) that have a strict code. They are artists using the outdoors as a gallery. They only put their art on public spots, like electic boxes and light polls. never on a building or private propert. many are wheat-pasters, they use a flour based adhesive so their pictures will dissolve after a month. i don't always condone street art. but some of it is really good. i won't post every scibble i happen on, but anything that obviously took some thought and effort i will add here. So here is my first contribution. This was taken on Barton Springs Road in Austin, it is a stencil sprayed on a bridge pillar on the missouri pacific (mopac) railroad bridge. enjoy.

Happy New Year y'all. 2008 was quite a year it had big ups and downs but the ups were truly great and the downs manageable. 2009 will be guaranteed to be awesome as I get married this year. The fiancee and I enjoyed drinks and fireworks for new year's eve. We had noodles for dinner tonight as a tip of the hat to chinese new year, long new noodles long life. I took a swim in Barton Springs pool to start the new year and it was glorious. I skipped (slept through) the morning dunk most swimmers take and went after dark. There were only a couple people there, the water was crystal clear even in the darkness. I could see some large-ish fish swimming and all the plants on the bottom. There were stars out (almost as much as the east austin sky), the zilker tree was still up, and the towers were glowing across the river. I put on a pot of black-eyed peas and ate a small bowl of them when I got home. I don't know the origin of that new years tradition but as long as I remember I have had them every new years. Should be a lucky and prosperous year amiright?

I learned two things recently. The first is that blu-ray is totally worth it and that if you are making a documentary you either need to have someone who speaks English with an accent or you need James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman. There are no other Americans who can narrate for a damn. I got a blu-ray player for Christmas and the planet earth bbc discs. The difference is amazing. I did not think the vhs to dvd jump was a big deal, the picture is comparable. Watching a wolf take down a caribou in hd is amazing. I like nature films and this is the best non-Jacques Cousteau series I have seen. Cousteau may lack hd but the weird places he went and the drama he brings more than makes up for it. Now if they could do his movies on blu-ray I would probably sell a testicle to see them. This tangents to my other point. David Attenborough narrates planet earth. I watched a (regular def) documentary by Jean-Michel Cousteau (son of Jacques) and it was good. But it was narrated by just regular American dude. Why the hell didn’t Jean-Michel narrate? He is franco-american he was born to narrate. Documentaries either need the authenticity and exotic quality of accented English or the gravity of james earl jones, otherwise it just footage of outside with dudes chattering.

In Texas once the weather gets below 55ºF for two consecutive days you know that it is indeed winter, another way to tell is to visit the Texas A&M campus and enter a building. If you start sweating due to the sweltering heat then it is officially winter. I don’t know how it is done up north, but during both[1] of the seasons in Texas you will either be freezing or sweating depending on whether you are indoors or out. Now, I can’t speak for everybody, but I most definitely prefer the cold[2]—I look forward to winter during the other 10 months of the year. When it finally rolls around I will frequently leave my windows open and try to acclimate to the cold so I won’t require a heavy jacket[3], I’ll usually get away with a long sleeve undershirt (of late I am quite taken with Smartwool). However, campus always messes up my rotation because the buildings (and busses) are all at least 80ºF and removing an undershirt is not a particularly graceful affair. I could wear a hoodie[4], but removing a hoodie is only slightly less awkward than losing an undershirt, and what are you supposed to do with hoodie when you aren’t wearing it? Tie it around your waist? I think not. This wouldn’t be a big deal I only spent time in one building, but the transient nature of being a student makes the removal and replacement dance a pain in the ass. This campus needs to either get its temperature gradients under control or develop some coat-checking system. As I mentioned the problem is reversed in the summer, too cold indoors and too hot outdoors. Your body never gets a chance to get used to the climate and you end up being miserable indoors and out. The human body is more than capable of handling the intense Texan summer heat, but not with air conditioning messing up the process. #### Notes: 1. I hear tales of Spring and Fall, but I won’t buy the patent medicine. 1. Realize that I am referring to “Texan cold”, not crazy-ass yankee cold. 1. Being a robust gentleman helps with this. 1. It would also be possible for me to wear a nicer coat type thing [like what Sam was looking for](http://thismatters.net/ramblings/comment.php?post_id=226) but let’s not kid ourselves, that won’t happen.

Well it's Thursday September 18th and I just got out of my poultry nutrition test (the online class). I think I did pretty decent considering my level of preparedness. Shooting for a low B. Oh shit it's Thursday... I have an organic chemistry test tomorrow. I decided to just wing it. I'll post my grade at a later date and we shall see how that went. I really couldn't bring myself to care about it. Even remotely. I wonder if something else was on my mind. Hmm... It's now 7pm and I have a chem review starting in 30 minutes. Where am I? I hope you guessed the hall. I had a blast as always, and am looking forward to tomorrow with a stupidly high level of excitement. Jenny and I are going to camp out tonight in front of g. rolly to get group 1 ring tickets.

It's now approximately 7:00am on Saturday September 20th, and I am sitting in the middle of a field holding a shotgun with my uncles. We are waiting for the dove to start flying. We got an incredibly good lease this year. There was approximately 2500 acres of land we were hunting that was full of goat weed with a few centralized and easily accessible ponds. (this is where we were, let's not get stupid and think we actually walked around this place). After the sun finished rising, the dove started flying, and let me tell you they were big, they were fast, and they were numerous. We slaughtered them, both in the morning and in the evening. On that note, any time you slaughter something there is going to be blood, fact of life. My aggie ring got a pretty damn good christening I think. Whoop.

It's around 6:00pm now, still Friday September 20th, and I had 2 movements at this particular moment. A vocal movement of many loud profanities and a finger movement that happened to be resting on the trigger of my shotgun. Talk about stuff that gives you the heebie-jeebies. I had been crashing and rummaging around in the damn bushes all morning and all afternoon not paying near as much attention as I should have been apparently, and all that time this 6 foot rattle snake was creeping around!? Oh hell no... All I have to say is thank you evolution for slappin' rattlers on those mean sons-a-bitches. It does appear though that between the battle of big sharp pointy teeth and a holy 12-gauge shotgun, the shotgun is the suits trump. The snake had (and I repeat had) 16 rattlers on it, one for each time it sheds. btw, rattlesnakes shed once a year... Wow.