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.

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?

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.

Back Again

If i was any good at this I would back up and tell you how wonderful the last couple of weeks have been. They literally have just seemed to slip through my fingers. Of course if I’m being honest the bad weeks seem to go by at a pretty good clip as well. Hypericon was a blast and the weekend before it was as well, though the details are a little fuzzy, but for different reasons than Sunday morning at Hypericon. So I’ll just leave it at that except to say a late happy birthday to Stephen Zimmer and Roblyn.

This last weekend was pretty good as well. More time with family would have been nice but that was my own fault. Saw Mongol and the Animation Show on Saturday. Mongol was beautiful but flat, the Animation Show was as great as it always is. When we left the Belcourt people were lined up down to 21st waiting to see the midnight showing of Rocky Horror. I was glad to see it was going to be packed. I would have liked to see it but I was going over to Billy’s on Sunday to help him assemble some ARs.

The Belcourt finally announced what the16mm outdoor film for July was going to be. Which is good because I think it’s this weekend. I hope it is, because if it’s the weekend after next is RollerGirls. Anyway it’s Stagecoach the movie that made John Wayne a star. Okay that’s probably overstating it but it’s a wonderful John Ford movie. A Western in the old fashioned Western style. I really want to see it and watching it outside stitting in a lawn chair should be a blast, even if I’m by my self. I doubt I’ll get anybody else interested in going to see it with me, but ‘m going to try.

Anyway that’s all the catching up I’m going to do. I’ll see you later.

Roadtrip?

States I have not been to:

Oregon
Montana
Idaho
Nevada
North Dakota
South Dakota
Iowa
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Alaska
Hawaii

Possible trips:

Ontario Oregon, 28 hours would also knock Idaho off the list
Malad City, Idaho 24 hours
Busby, Montana 22 hours would also knock South Dakota off the list
Elko, Nevada, 26 hours
Hankinson, North Dakota, 16 hours would also knock South Dakota off the list
Sioux City South Dakota, 13hours
Kennebunk, Maine 20 hours
Warwick, Rhode Island, 17 hours
Bennington, Vermont, 17 hours
Winchester, New Hampshire, 17 hours

Google maps couldn’t come up with any thing to get me from Nashville to Alaska or Hawaii

That’s all well and good but I’m leaning more to one of these:

Here’s a route that would allow me to knock Oregon, Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota off the list, but it would take around forty hours going out there.

View Larger Map

Then I could do this to cross Nevada off the list coming back.

View Larger Map
Total driving time around 73 hours.

Something a bit more feasible would be this.

View Larger Map

It would be super easy to just swing down and hit Rhode Island on a little bit more direct route home. Total driving time would be around forty hours.

Something to think about on slow day.

Okay so that’s a bummer the maps don’t show the routes unless you click on the link.

Oh well what do I expect for free.

The Weekend

Well Friday was a nice relaxing night with friends. I like those nights. Which is good because I did the same thing on Saturday, except we broke it up with two movies. Up the Yangtze and Repo Man.

Up the Yangtze is a doc about the Three Gorges Dam project in China, watching the subtitles I realized I have been spelling dam, damn, for about the last month. More specifically it is about a young girl from an imporverished family going to work abroad one of the cruise ships that ply the river. It’s also about a young man from a more affluent family, there income is revealed to be around 3000 Yuan a month if I remember right, but how that relates to other families in China I have no idea. It’s also about the disappearance of old China, which is literally being torn down and flooded. To me it could have benefited from either tightening the focus or stepping back. Still well worth watching though.

Early Sunday morning around 2:05 Repo Man was invested into the Pantheon of “THE GREATEST MOVIES EVER according to Clovis Citwood.” It now resides in the same rarified atmosphere as Two Lane Blacktop, White Lightning, Thunder Road, and the sublime masterpiece Smokey and the Bandit III: Smokey is the Bandit. By the way not only motor movies are enshrined those are just the first three or four that popped into my skull. We went to the Midnight Screening at the Belcourt. I feel bad because I’ve missed half of them (uh, now that I’m thinking about it it’s probably more than half). I love what they’re doing but if people don’t show up why bother doing it. So I feel like I ought to be there for every one. It helps that they have all been movies I would like to see again. Back to Repo Man I sow this back in the early nineties. I don’t remember where or how, it may have been on TBS or something because I didn’t remember half of what was going on in the movie. I pretty much just remembered a weird movie with Emilo Estavez and Harry Dean Stanton, bout a bunch of down and out repo men, and there was some there weird stuff going on. I primarily remembered Harry and Emilo in that big green Impala blasting down the LA river. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if I remembered more or not, but I was blown away by what I saw Sunday morning.

Needless to say, I didn’t get into anything Sunday night. I barely got out of the house to make a quick run to Krystal’s, hmm chili cheese pups. Oh wait I did watch The Fellowship of the Ring for some reason I’m not quite sure of. I should have been watching the Comedy Central thing the I need to get reviewed. C’est la vie, okay that still looks super silly written out. Does it sound that pretentious when I say it?

HeHe

I just noticed my shirt was on inside out.

Just thought you would want to know.

How ’bout another photo?

Taken below the damn at Standing Stone State Park in Overton County. In September I think.

This Week and End

Every week I have great intentions of posting a little something everyday. Of course that never happens. So here I am again on Friday summing up the week. Well last weekend was pretty nice. Let’s see what did I do Monday, besides work. Oh yeah I worked. My sister was having problems with her email so I went to take a look at it. Of course it started working by the time I got there. C’est la vie. Okay I can pull that phrase off in conversation but it just looks pretentions sitting there on the screen. Other highpoints of the week include doing the second CineGeek podcast and finishing my The Air That I Breathe review. I’ve turned in some less than stellar reviews. Not that I’m expecting perfection, but even I have some standards. So I’m trying to make a point of putting more effort into these. I’m really proud of the last two, this one and the one for Red Violin. Of course there is always the possibilty that it may be completely unjustified and misplaced pride.

There are two gun shows this weekend and I’m going to miss them both. Don’t have anything budgeted for guns right now so there’s not much sense in going. It’s fun to look around and drool though. I’ve still got to get my AR to the range. That’s going to be interesting, pulling the trigger the first time on something I put together for the most part. Of course the part that actually matters the most, the installation of the barrel extention on the barrel, was done by a professional so there’s probably less risk involved than the first time I fired the Nagant, the Makarov or the CZ-52.

What am I doing this weekend? Well I’m not sure about tonight, Maybe, Get Smart, maybe Love Guru maybe nothing. I’m not even sure if we are going to Opry Mills or Green Hills. I guess i should ask more questions. Tommorow is a little more nailed down.  Up the Yangtze and the midnight showing of Repo Man at the Belcourt. I am interested in anything about the Three Gorges Damn project. I’m awed, horrified, intrigued, dumbfounded about the whole thing. I’m not any kind of enviromentalist but that thing even scares me a little bit but you listen to the engineers who are working on it and they have such an optimism about the whole project and what it will mean for China that you start to kind of turn your thining around, but then you hear about the archelogists who have been working non-stop the last several years trying to recover and document what they can. The sheer unprecedented human scale of the thing awsome, in the traditional sense of the word, as well.

That should be enough for an interesting weekend.