AKA Abraham Bacoln

It’s May. Have you checked your credit report yet? It’s been four months since I reminded you that you get three free credit checks per year. Go do it. It’s healthier than bran muffins.

I had been thinking that maybe I’d been slacking a little in the photography department. You know, slowing down some. I just checked and I took 1,420 exposures during the month of April. So yeah, there’s that. I guess I’m not slowing down so much after all.

EDIT: I just checked and I uploaded 49 pictures to Flickr during April. I’m gonna let you do the math on that.

Going on to talk more about pictures, yes I am. Ms. Sparkles Thomas has been in possession of Brother Thomas’s camera for a while now and coming out with some remarkable results. A few of them have caught my eye – specifically, this one (because of the tonal range) and this one (because of the color of the sky). That’s not to say that her other pictures don’t have merit – no no, apparently all members of Clan Thomas are impressively artistically inclined. It’s just those two really kept calling me back and finally it really sunk in that part of what was special about those pictures was that they’re film. You know, real film. Once I realized this I told Trey that I was going to steal his old Canon film Rebel from Henry (since my lenses will fit it hooray) and maybe run a couple of rolls through it. You know, just to see. See if I can make things as pretty as Sarah Sparkles does.

Apparently all this photography-think has affected my studies ’cause there’s gonna be a B in the grades this semester. Qué lástima.

EDIT NUMBER TWO: I forgot to mention that my cat’s new hobbies are eating bugs and sleeping on top of the kitchen cabinets.

OKAY SO HEY GET THIS this is FASCINATING (you may stop reading now if you haven’t already) the other day I was pulling on my sock and apparently the edge of my pinkie toenail is sharp and I totally cut my thumb. Can you believe it? Isn’t that fascinating? I somehow managed to hurt myself with myself. Impressive!

Oh yeah and I’m going to Spain this summer OKAY BYE

The gas station convenience stores are calling me. I have the desire to go out and find the strangest old-school drink that I can. None of this Red Bull / Rockstar energy drink crap. I’m gonna go find something like Jolt Cola or Peach Nehi or Faygo Redpop or something else equally wonderfully nasty. When I find it, I’m gonna drink it, and when I drink it it’s gonna be good.

Edit: found it. Well, not it exactly, but something relatively esoteric.

I realize that you’re dying to know if I’ve gotten enough funds together to buy that new lens I was talking about. Well, after getting rid of a few superfluous possessions, raiding my massive change box (thanks, blackjack), and analyzing my finances the answer is yes. I’m very pleased. The lens is on order and I can’t wait. I’m so happy.

You know what else makes me happy? My good friend Liz Kassera. We are Super Best Gemini Friends Forever because we share the same birthday – to the year, even, not just the day of the month. Our birthday is coming up in just a month and a half. I can’t believe it. I’m just glad that now I have someone who knows exactly how old I feel.

Speaking of feeling, I feel a little bad. I just spent a lot of money on that lens. I may not be able to buy Liz anything nice for our birthday. However, there’s an upside to this. The only physical possession in the world that I want right now is that lens, and … well, I just bought it. What I’m saying is that there’s nothing I need. There’s nothing I even really want.

So I ask of you, my bestest friends and relatives and friends’ relatives and relatively friendly people, please don’t get me anything for my birthday. Instead, I want to ask you to get it for Liz instead. Send my birthday presents to Liz! Thing is, Liz is a good person too, and she spends her time thinking about others more than she does thinking about herself. That’s why she’s doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day – a 60-mile walk to show her dedication to helping make someone else’s life better. That’s more than I’m doing. That’s more than most of us are doing.

I’m being serious here. For my birthday I want nothing more than for you to donate to Liz’s walk. It’ll make me a lot happier than a birthday cake and some books and DVDs and whatever else. It’ll make me happy. It’ll make Liz happy. Best of all, it’ll help change someone’s life.

This is one of the best web sites I have seen in … ever, basically.

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

It is a promo site for a new book. I’m going to quote what someone else wrote, because it is both better worded than what I would come up with, and also I am lazy. Thank you for the words, eddo.

“The really intriguing thing about the site is that it breaks pretty much every rule that contemporary web designers have for effective site design. The site is a linear progression of images, essentially 30 splash pages one right after another. It doesn’t have any navigation except for forward/back buttons; you can’t just jump to whatever page you want. [She] barely mentions anything about the book and only then near the end of the 30 pages. There’s no text…it’s all images, which means that the site will be all but invisible to search engines. No web designer worth her salt would ever recommend building a site like this to a client.

Yet it works because the story pulls you along so well; July’s using the site’s narrative to sell a book that is, presumably, chock full of the same sort of narrative. If you think the site sucks and quickly click away, chances are you’re not going to like the book either…it’s the perfect self-selection mechanism. The No One Belongs Here More Than You site is a lesson for web designers: the point is not to make sites that follow all the rules but to make sites that will best accomplish the primary objectives of the site.”

If eating breakfast at 8:00 PM is wrong …

Originally uploaded by Kevin O’Mara.

So this it. My transformation to snobbery is apparently complete. Wait, no, it’s not snobbery because I don’t care how anyone else does it, just how I do it. That makes me … um … what’s that word? A connoisseur? Afficionado? Those words both sound too snobby. Maybe I am a snob.

Wait, no, I still don’t care how you drink your coffee.

AAAANYWAY so yeah I broke my French press the other day. It was the one that Henry and Heather gave me for Christmas and that totally ruined me on coffee. I thought for sure I could never find time in the mornings to boil water and grind and steep and then drink but after Day One I was hooked. Then I had to go and break the glass and deprive myself of delicious rich hot coffee, so I dug out my old four-cup coffee maker.

Deprive myself I did, because now I finally understand what Henry has been going on about regarding cheap coffee makers and how they don’t get the water nearly hot enough. I got out Mr. Coffee. I put in the normal amount of grounds and got back tea. I was incensed to say the least. How dare you decide not to make acceptible brew anymore, Mr. Coffee? What’s up with that? The next morning I put in some extra grounds, maybe one-and-a-half times what I thought I should, and still got tea. Darker tea, but tea nonetheless. I think I might have cried a little bit.

While discussing this over beans last night I was informed by Stacie that over at Find-A-Bear where she works they sell French presses. I left campus on break today and went over to save myself from the tiny kitchen dictator that is Mr. Coffee and ran straight into the arms of a sleek metal and glass beauty.

Tonight I found myself fantasizing about just how good my coffee was going to be in the morning and decided I couldn’t wait. OH YES that’s why I posted a picture of the food, it’s because it didn’t feel right to drink coffee with normal dinner so I had to make some breakfast.

It didn’t really occur to me to write about this until after the picture was taken and the food devoured so you’re left with an image wherein you can’t even really see my new French press. But you know what? That doesn’t matter, you know what they look like anyway.

The point is that I am a changed man. I drank some Folgered-up swill from a commercial Bunn maker in New Orleans, and then I gradually progressed to buying and grinding beans while in Portland, and came back here to witness the sad end of Gridges, graduated to a press (THANKS HENRY FOR RUINING ME) and now tried to take a step back and it was painful. I guess this is it. I’m really a coffee snob now.

All you local folk’ll remember dear old Hidden Hollow. You do remember Hidden Hollow, right? Created by renowned madman Arda Lee it has entertained and creeped out children for many years now. Well, when old Arda died it went to his kids, and they’re getting a bit long in the tooth theyselves, or so I hear, and now the entire property, all 55 acres or so, is up for auction.

So who wants to go with me? Mark it on your calendars – Saturday, May 5th at 10:00 AM. It may be your last chance to say goodbye to an old friend. You know, the kind of old friend that would show up sometimes waaay too late in the evening and sit around your living room and eat pieces of candy all covered in lint and talk unintelligibly so that you weren’t sure if they were drunk and just where in God’s name did they get that candy anyway? Was that from their pocket or something? but they’re a good friend anyway, they’ve been there for you since … forever.

But they won’t be around much longer.

And besides, going to an auction for something you don’t intend to buy isn’t that strange, is it? That’s how I got this picture – how else would I have gained entrance to such a run-down old building? Legally?

Come with me to the auction.

ONE: When I’m carrying both my backpack full of books and my camera bag the camera bag has the place of prominence on my back by virtue of its cross-body strap design, whereas the backpack is just hanging off of one shoulder. It’s like they are, through their design or utility, expressing what my brain feels. I may be going to study in the library but I’d rather be taking pictures.

TWO: Last night while driving to the library with my windows down I passed a lawn that smelled of fresh-cut grass. I guess that means that Spring is upon us. Also, I can tell that Spring is upon us because the dogwoods are blooming. It is rather disconcerting because the dogwoods near my apartment do not smell very good this year – in fact, they smell quite a bit like some automotive product that I can not identify. Brake fluid? Transmission fluid? Something like which a pretty tree should not smell, that’s for sure.

THREE: I was touched by Todd Alcott’s discussion with his five-year-old son Sam, though maybe ‘touched’ isn’t the right word, maybe it should say something about laughter and amazement.

FOUR: My brain is shot, I think. I keep seeing people in my mind’s eye, familiar faces, and I have no idea where they’re from. New Orleans? Portland? Cookeville? Philly Nashville Boston Seattle I DON’T KNOW. They just keep appearing. I see someone in real life and think, “Oh, that girl reminds me of … that … one face … and I can’t remember who it is or how I know her … even though I can see her clear as day.” Or replace girl with guy, whatever, I’ve got quite a few of them up there. DAMN YOU NAMELESS PEOPLE! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

AND FIVE: This morning as I left for work a new-model Volkswagen Beetle painted just like the General Lee drove by. I just looked at it and thought, “… okay, why?”

Every time I see or wear my What Would Tom Waits Do t-shirt I am impressed by the fact that I have never yet been in a situation where I knew the answer to that question. Say there’s a jerk in the left lane who won’t let anyone pass – just what would Tom do? Pull off the interstate and drive the back roads until he came to a barbecue shack run by a one-armed ex-shoe-salesman and his blind wife, Beulah? Or would he pull out a shotgun and blow a hole in the hood of that yellow Corvette? Hang his arm out the window and let the wind smoke his cigarette for him as he daydreams about the girl he left behind in Illinois?

I don’t think there will ever be a right answer to that question.

I do have a question, though, for which there is a right answer. Regarding the one posed in my last blog entry – the song that made me cry was “Widow’s Grove” by Tom Waits. I don’t know why. Thankfully none of you knew that answer. I’d hate to have to ask you to get out of my head.

WERE IN UR CAR

Originally uploaded by Kevin O’Mara.

I took a couple days of my Spring Break to go visit the Trey and the Megan (and the Jason and the Angela). If you’re hip you already knew that, but if you’re not, then consider yourself informed. What does it feel like to be hip?

I filled up my gas tank the instant before I left. On the way out I stopped only twice, and each time was concerned only with the meat part of the car/driver combo: once to output and once to input.

It used to be that I was not a hardcore driver. I drove several times from Cookeville to New Orleans, sure, but that was always with a driving companion. So were the trips to and from Boston or North Carolina – but on the way out to the Great Northwet I got an idea what a true road trip was like as we spent 13 days on the road. Then I proved my mettle by doing the trip from Portland, OR back to Cookeville in four days by myself. I am now officially hardcore when it comes to driving. Before that trip I thought about four hours was my max before I needed to rest or switch out. No, no, no, that’s not true at all. Next time we meet up why don’t you buy me a drink and let me tell you how awesome I am when it comes to driving.

So yes, where was I? OH the trip to Richmond. I did it in ten minutes shy of eight hours, only two stops, and didn’t have to refuel my car at ALL though the next day when I got in it the low fuel danger bus light came on instantly, so I apparently had cut it very very close. OH AND HEY I AM NOT CRAZY and I don’t drive 90 miles an hour or anything, so don’t think this is me bragging on speeding. Speeding is for suckers and people with fast cars and those two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

On the way out I listened to four artists on six CDs. I won’t bore you with the details. None of us are musicologists here. However, I will give someone … let’s see what I have in my wallet here … I will give someone TWENTY WHOLE DOLLARS if they can, in one try, name the song that made me cry while I was driving. Go!

ENOUGH ABOUT ME, more about Those People. I was totally mystified by Megan and Trey’s apartment because the Hallway Designer (that’s a specific title and if you work hard and go through the four year program you too can be Firstname Lastname, HD) apparently forgot how right angles work. It was a bit confusing at first, but now I’m very comfortable with the fact that it only has two dimensions. Their place is cute, of course, because they have some of the best Stuff that there is, which I hear is in great part thanks to the MeganMom but that is currently an unsubstantiated rumor and requires further research.

Shortly after my arrival we walked (! hooray!) to a nice restaurant called Bacchus. I looked at the menu and informed Treygan that we were going to eat there because everything sounded awesome. I got a spinach salad with a green apple vinaigrette plus goat cheese and pine nuts and that alone was enough to make me swoon. Maig and Traig got a julienned green apple and endive salad with … oh, poop, I can’t remember the cheese that was involved. Doesn’t matter, it was delicious. I’ll stop here with the food talk so that those of you who are like me and stuck in Cookeville don’t go crazy hearing about the pasta selection or the Kobe beef or the mushrooms or the cheeses or the wine or any of it. Okay sounds good! Done!

On Sunday we … what’d we do? Dang. OH YES we went all up and down Cary St. just shopping and being outside and walking. Hooray for big cities where there are actually shopping districts where the idea is not to drive your car from one Big Box Store parking lot to the next. We were all good and didn’t buy much other than wine and port and cheese and books. We also later drove all over downtown and saw the sights but there was so much that I can’t include it all here other than to mention that I love the exterior of the train station and there was also a joke about cobblestones OH and I used my cameraphone to take the picture that graces this entry.

Dinner on Sunday was DELIGHTFUL. I mentioned that I’d love to have some Vietnamese since none of the restaurants in Portland really did it for me. Jason and Angela met up with us and we drove out to Mékong somewhere in the suburbs. I got my pho and it was fantastic and the closest thing to the pho served by my favorite restaurant of all time, Pho Tau Bay in New Orleans and I really can’t begin to express how much it pleased me. OH and their nuoc cham was … I don’t know if it was correct but it tasted like I want it to, like I’m used to getting from PTB. Five stars, double thumbs up. Trey got pho as well and was impressed, and everyone came away full and happy and fat and sassy.

After that we tried to improve our fattitude and sassyness by eating a bunch of ice cream, and I think it worked. THEN we went back to Treygan’s and the manly men drank port and ate cheese while the women didn’t.

On Monday the Trey had to work, which sucked. I got up nice and early and relaxed while the Megan got ready, and then we went and visited some shops that weren’t open on Sunday (like the CAMERA SHOP and the KITCHEN GADGETS STORE and can you tell whose idea it was to visit those?) and then we drove out to more suburbs to meet Trey at his workplace and take him out for lunch. In the afternoon Maig and I went to explore the train station (excuse me, The Clock Tower if you’re a Richmonder) and just walked all over downtown taking pictures and goofing off. Then we headed back to their neighborhood, checked out two art galleries with WONDERFUL installations and I’ll have to get Megan to tell you who the artists were because I forgot to grab brochures but when you get rich by guessing the special song you go take your money to those galleries and buy some pieces, okay? Then give them to me and we’ll be even.

Trey returned, having worked a full day at making webs, and we headed down to a great sushi joint called Sticky Rice and proceeded to have the best sushi experience ever. We sat at the bar and our main sushi chef guy, Justin, was interesting and didn’t mind me bugging him and taking pictures but the best part is that he gave us a few plates of wonderful things just for fun, and that’s the kind of experience that makes you ask the waitress for some of those Sticky Rice stickers you’ve seen all over town so you can promote this wonderful restaurant.

After that? More port, more cheese.

After that? I drove home today. This time the trip took me exactly eight hours. I made only one stop, though, to empty and fill up and also to put gas in the car. I am a rock. I am a driving machine.

Actually, no, Ryan Denning is a driving machine. New York City to Cookeville in one day, one driver. Ben Schtune is the driving king, New Orleans to Philly in one day, one driver. I’m a mere apprentice to those men. But I am hardcore, and I have a bladder of iron.

I listened to one CD. Once. Then I sat in relative silence for the next seven hours. Music influences my emotions more than the silence, so this was a more peaceful and less introspective drive than the one on the way out. Also it was only relative silence because occasionally I will talk to or sing to myself. I can’t help it. Most of the time I was just announcing upcoming towns and exits using the voice of the guy who conducts the T in Boston (Chaahles MGH. Next stop Pahk St. Next stop Downtown Craahsing – switch here for th’ Orange Line).

Now I’m home. Now my cat is stuck to me, and now I’m already regretting my decision not to abandon my entire life in Cookeville and just stay in Richmond. Oh well. As long as I’m back I might as well continue my job and school and all that though I’d much rather go work in a wine shop.

And because I can not stick to just one topic and have not yet had a chance today to say “apropos of nothing” – to someone other than myself, that is – apparently the hip thing for 2007 is to drink unfiltered water. I searched three or four shops here in town for a Brita or Pur pitcher and … maybe I just have a bad case of the dumb, but I could not find a single one. Nada. Nuffink. Did I miss something or what?