She’s gone…

I have a post about the weekend on google docs. I cant figure out how to get it from there to here just using my phone.

Long story short the weekend rocked. Dark Knight is wonderfull. West World was amazing. The Roller Girls were as much fun as always.

But it all seems a million years ago now.

This morning Grandma died.

Like Forrest said “thats all i got to say about that”

Picture Time!

Crossing the bridge from Cinncinatti back into Covington

Su’s are pretty..

I’m a sucker for perspective shots.

See I told you I don’t look anything like my brother.

Ok, ok I’ll stop now.

Third Monday

I think I just wasted two and a half hours.

Google maps doesn’t show county lines. Or at least I haven’t figured out how to make it show the county lines, but AAA’s trip planner does. So I just spent two and a half hours trying to plot a course through all of Tennessee’s counties. Six pages of handwritten notes later (using a Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen, it’s actually quite nice, very light) I figure I’m about two thirds of the way through, maybe a little more. The thing is though, I stared in Johnson county, what did I do that for? It would be a five or six hour trip just to start. Tennessee is a long state. I’m starting to think maybe it would be easier just to drive the Grand Canyon and back or something. Well actually that doesn’t really require any thought at all. I’ve forgetting the whole point. It’s supposed to be a challenge. Something that will take as much time to plan as to execute. I think I need a big map, some pins and thread. Google’s maps drag and drop feature would help if I already kind of had the trip roughly mapped out, but it has a limit on the number of distinct points you can have on a trip.

I didn’t walk today, but I did do another three quarters of a mile yesterday. I don’t think I’ll get a chance Thursday or Friday. I’ll have to try and do something over the weekend. I’ve also downloaded the audio version of some books from Gutenberg.org. If I can remember to bring some earbuds with me I’ll start to listen to some of them when I walk.

I’ve almost finished the Arthurian Chronicles. It’s a much different story than I expected. It’s got some of the fantasy elements, like Merlin’s prophecies and Uther doing his shape shifting thing, but it’s not the Sword in the Stone, search for the Holy Grail, Lady in the Water story, or at least it hasn’t come up yet, on the other hand Arthur has conquered all of Britain, Denmark, France, Norway and is about to march on Rome.

I started the process to cancel my Sprint account, somebody from accounts is supposed to contact me, but I’ve not heard anything. I guess the dimwits are trying to call my datacard. I probably have to break down and call them myself. Arrg, don’t they understand that I’m a social reject and don’t like to dealing with people? Make it easy on yourself and me, just use email, but nooo, everythings got to be done over the phone.

This should be a cool weekend, Dark Knight Friday night, then RollerGirls on Saturday and then the private showing at the Belcourt Midnight Saturday. I think it’s going to be West World but I may be remembering it wrong.

Till next time,

Roadtrips

I was going to go to bed but saw that I needed to run a load of laundry so I’m back. Yesterday there was a post at ar15.com asking how many states have you been to. Of course this kind of poll is probably heavily weighted because people who have no interest in travel probably aren’t even going to look at the post, but over thirty percent of the respondents had visited at least thirty states. One poster claimed to have spent at least three months in every state. Wow. It got me thinking the 48 state trip. I googled it and it appears that there are a couple of routes that are under seven thousand miles. One group that is under way currently is planning on doing it in 5 days on 135 gallons of diesel in a TDI Beetle. That’s fifty two miles to the gallon. I’m not that ambitious yet. For one I don’t think I know anybody crazy enough to try it with me, but I got to thinking about a trip that might be doable in a couple of days, and that I might actually be able to pull off solo. How long would it take me to visit every county in Tennessee. Maybe there’s a doc in there? Maybe a very boring doc. Anyway I guess it’s time to go play with Google maps for awhile. Or at least till the laundry gets done.

Monday, Monday

I feel like I ought to talk about Hell Boy II, but I don’t feel like it. Maybe later. I will say I liked it, quite a bit. I think I enjoyed the first one more, but definitely worth ten bucks. So what do I want to talk about.

How about books? Art Garfunkel has read 1023 books since June 1968. What’s interesting is that he’s kept track. Go back and click his name, all 1023 are listed. He’s probably read more since, the list only goes through 2007. I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least that many, I’m pretty sure that until recently I’ve owned at least that many. I’ve been trying to cull the collection down. 189 down so far. It’s funny when you actually start to quantify something. I originally guesstimated I had around 2K books. When I started to actually box them up I realized that I had probably closer to a thousand.

Anyway I’ve not been reading much lately,so when I read about Art’s 1000 books it got me thinking. How long would it take me to read my next thousand books? So I visited Gutenberg.org and downloaded a few things I have been meaning to read for twenty years and I started. I’m reading the Arthurian Chronicles now. Think I’ll knock down Beowulf for number two, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is on the list along with Nietsche. I don’t know how many times I’ve started Beyond Good and Evil or Thus Spake Zarathustra more often than Ulysses which maybe I’ll be brave enough to try and tackle again after I’ve built some momentum.

Speaking of momentum, I did something extremely  out of character today. I did not want to do it. I kept thinking of a million little reasons and excuses not to to it today. On the way several little pains that I had not noticed all day kept cropping up. It was like my body was in rebellion. Which is weird because I was doing this for it, but it was acting like a two year old throwing a tantrum (notice the disassociation, it’s official I am crazy). Anyway against all my better instincts at fifteen after five I arrived at the Charlie Daniels Park in Mt.Juliet. I managed to walk three quarters of a mile in thirty minutes. Pitiful, but a start.  Let’s see if I can repeat it tomorrow. My sister Amy is training for a marathon, maybe I’ll see if I can do a decimaraton.

On a final note thanks to the1spot on YouTube, for posting the latest episode of Top Gear. If you want to see it better hurry up. The BBC usually has YouTube take the episodes down in a day or so. Wow, it’s the 41st most viewed something or another today.

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

and

I love that stetch of Colorado between the Kansas line and Denver, especially at dusk.

I think I may have shared this one before, oh well look at it again.

With Apologies to Bowie

I’ve got five gigs, that’s all I got

I’ve got five gigs, my brain hurts a lot

Five gigs, no more YouTube

Five gigs, bye bye Hulu

Last night i found out Sprint will be following the likes of AT&T and Verizon and changing the meaning of Unlimited from “being with out limit” to “hmm, somewhere around 5GB give or take, no let’s make it 5GB” meaning that as of July 13 I will be limited to 5GB of data a month on my Sprint EVDO Data card. If I exceed that in two out of three months my service will be terminated and since my contract is not up until July of next year (wow that’s means I’ve been using it for a year already, that doesn’t sound right) I’ll get slapped with a $200 ETF. I checked my usage for the month so far. 11GB, I’m on course to use between 15to 20GB this month and I don’t think that is atypical. TThis, however, is not a bad thing.

In keeping with the theme of mediocrity that is our goal here at Clovis Chitwood Heavy Industries the EVDO service from Sprint has fit right in. But I want more. I want me some bandwidth, and I’m ready to deal with Satan (Comcast[not meaning to single them out all public utilities are evil {except for the Madison Suburban Water District they rock <no, I'm serious>}]). The problem was the contract with Sprint, but now they have made a substatial change to my contract, I can get out without paying the dreaded EFT. I’ve just got to do it by the 13th if I understand correctly.

Today’s the tenth, right?

New Review

http://cinegeek.com/?p=55#more-55

Not one of my greatest…

“but when I wind up in the hay it’s only hay, heh, heh”

Now back to your regulurlary scheduled program.

Podcast

It’s not a Clovis Chitwood podcast so your days of insomnia are not over just yet, but check it out.

http://cinegeek.com/?feed=rss2

It’s the podcast for Cinegeek.com the site I do some movie reviews for. I promise you’ll be entertained or I’ll return your money.

I don’t like conflict.

Which may sound a little funny to those who know me because I often find myself playing devil’s advocate for no good reason. I don’t know why I do that. Just plain orneriness I guess. I don’t like being ornery though, it’s not pleasant and puts me and those around me in a foul mood so I try to check that behavior whenever I notice it. But I don’t like even arguing things I actually believe in, things I am passionate about. I guess it’s because I’m lazy. I can think deep if I need or want to but I’m not the exactly quick on my feet, literally or figuratively. In fact I’d much rather be sitting down.

Since I don’t like to debate or argue I don’t collect the little tidbits and factoids that come in handy during a spirited discussion. It doesn’t help that I am not really a detail person. I like to figure out how something works then I don’t have to worry about where all the little nuts and bolts go, I can figure it out later when I have to. That’s not how you persuade someone though. Like quarrying a chunk of marble you persuade someone by picking at one little point. Eventually you get a hole, then you make a bunch more holes. Then you slip in those little L shaped thingees and drop in your other thingee and pound away. Wedges and shims that’s what they’re called. Eventually you’ve separated the marble from the quarry and can get under it with your pry bar and nudge it on out to market. You can’t just grab hold of the chunk of marble and wrest it from the mountain, but that’s about all my skills at disposition allow me to do and just like someone who tries to tear down mountains with their bare hands I usually end up making an ass out of myself.

So I usually just let things pass, things that get in my craw, things that would make me scream if I were alone. But every now and then a conversation casually ends up heading in a cetain direction, I let my guard down, and before I know it I’m calling people commies and inviting people to kiss my fat ass. Not that I don’t actually believe those people are commies or that you really can kiss my fat ass, but that’s no way to win an argument. II know that but once I’m started down that road I can’t stop until I’ve made myself look like a total asshole.

I guess I can live with that, it beats being a commie.