there are so many good

in

there are so many good shows coming to the burgh in the next few weeks i'm about to pewp myself.luna next week, as well as kristin hersh. next month, j. mascis and bob mould.

in our office, we have a pepsi machine, which sucks because i like diet coke a lot better. anyway, pepsi has had this sort of contest running for awhile now... a look-under-the-cap sort of thing. anyway, i now have 6 winning caps piled up on my desk (all 1-out-of-10 odds or better), which means i can either save $30 on a $150 purchase at foot locker, or i can walk down to my local provisionary and get 6 20oz pepsis for the price of 3.

fun flight

in

so, made it back just fine wednesday night, although my flight back was interesting for several reasons: 1. there was a guy on the flight who looked exactly like bilbo baggins from lotr. he had really tight curly brown hair, was amazingly short, and had all these amazing lines/wrinkles in his face. he was wearing loafers sans socks, very miami vice. i almost asked him to take his shoes off to see how hairy his feet were. 2. i had a window seat right over the wing (row 13, as a matter of fact), and i don't think i ever noticed before just how much the wings have a tendancy to flex when you ride through turbulance. 3. there was some sort of high-pitched whine in the cabin that led to all sorts of psychoacoustics for me. i kept imagining i was hearing things; my phone ringing (mozart's sonata #11 (rondo alla turka)), "swanee river", and all your favorite hits.

ft. lauderdale = prefab hell

in

so, i'm down here in florida, in hollendale. we're all done with work for the day, but because we have discount flight tickets, we can't get on an earlier flight without a penalty.... so, stuck until 7. flying in last night wasn't as bad as a thought. there were about 50 security people at the pgh airport checkpoint, but i breezed right through. guess all my planning to pack light paid off. flight was uneventful; i even managed to sleep for about an hour, which is pretty unheard of. i'm not a nervous flier, but i just find the seats so uncomfortable that it's hard for me to drop off. ft. lauderdale/hollendale is a weird area. it's very industrial; lots of low-slung concrete buildings, pawnshops, check-cashing places... in general i think it's a pretty depressed area. i don't know why anyone would want to come here for a vacation. everything is bleached by the sun, and looks very old, even if it's not (this includes the local populace).

i'm almost done with cryptonomicon, which i have enjoyed immensely.... i'm sad to see it end, but apparently it's the first of 3 books in a series, although the other two aren't written yet. i should definitely be able to finish that off tonight at the airport, and maybe get most of the way through this bike messenger book i picked up (link coming later), before i start neil stephenson's show crash.

new video card

in

finally gave in and ordered myself a fancy new video card last week. i had an old TNT2 that i just never got around to replacing, but the last straw finally came last week, when i couldn't play the new NOLF2 demo on my machine with anything close to acceptable framerates, and the battlefield 1942 demo won't run at all (needs geforce2 and above cards). so, just to tide me over until the radeon 9700 gets cheaper, and doom3 comes out, i should be fragging with reckless abandon with my new card, at least as soon as it gets here.

gimme shoes!

in

went to the post office over lunch to mail back my shoes to the manufacturer, hoping to get a free pair. Dear Five.Ten,

I have enclosed my pair of Zlippers, size 9 ½ US, which I have owned for about 4 months. You will notice that the stitching has begun to rip in a non-abrasion area on both shoes, so I’m assuming this is a manufacturing defect. I own several other pairs of your shoes, including 2 pairs of Moccasyms, a pair of Anasazi velcros (great shoes but little smelly!), and a pair of your new V-10s (also a great shoe, but much more “aggressively” sized than the Moccasyms).

The Zlippers are by far my favorite all around shoe, so I was quite dismayed when they began to fall apart, well before I think they should have. I have friends that own the same shoes (they recommended them to me), that they have owned for longer, climbed in more often, and have not displayed the same disintegration.

I just wanted to bring this to your attention.

Yours truly,

Matthew C.

i tried to strike the right balance between indignant and sucking up... i think it worked out ok, and brian tells me that five.ten is pretty good about replacing shoes. hopefully i'll have them back in time for the comp.

while at the post office, the girl in line in front of me was mailing a package (i'm assuming it was a pair of shoes, based on the size of the box, and the fact that it came out of a ninewest bag) to hong kong. the total (w/out insurance) came to about $68! that's quite a few bucks... i hope they're really special shoes.

i have to leave tonight for a work trip down to miami to visit one of our clients, and then fly back tomorrow night. i just saw on headline news that they've raised a nationwide alert of that stupid "terror color" scheme to orange, which is one step below "duck." i don't mind flying on the anniversary of 9/11, but i already know that airport security is going to be a major hassle. i'm considering leaving my palm, my phone, and anything else that might even seem like it could be dangerous at home.

this weekend, i went climbing

in

this weekend, i went climbing outside saturday, and inside sunday. on saturday i did the hardest boulder problem, ratings-wise, that i've done... indoors or out. it didn't _feel_ like the hardest one, but there you have it. it was still immensely satisfying. i have to get strong, quickly, because i'm going to a comp in about a month, and i really would like to make a decent showing, but i won't worry about it too much. the comp is in an area that's only open 1 day a year, so it will be nice/fun/cool/exciting to climb on all that rock that is so rarely touched. took a new route in this morning on the bike; it's street the whole way, as opposed to the 3 miles of trail i was taking the other way. this way was much more thrilling; lots more traffic, but on streets wide enough that i didn't crap my pants. there's a very looooong downhill section that was great on the way in, but i think will be hell on the way back, so i might take the trail route, which is longer, but more moderate. means i'll probably get home in about the same amount of time as if i was struggling with that hillclimb, anyway.

very excited about tonight; the Special Lady Friend is going to be making dinner. she's got a grill of some sort, and she's going to be grilling up a bunch of vegetables. she's quite the cook.

mmmm... tomatoes....

in

mmmm... one of my coworkers brought in a big thing of fresh cherry tomatoes today. i don't know if they're home-grown or from a farmer's market or what, but they are tasty! i opened up a free account on brinkster yesterday. they let you do .NET stuff, so i'll be hacking around with that, trying to do some fun stuff. i put together the counter that you see over on the right using that... it's a web page that's generating a graphic on the fly.

The Legion of Incredibly Strange Superheroes

in

went last night with the Special Lady Friend and saw what may have been the greatest band in the world; The Legion of Incredibly Strange Superheroes. they were having a cd release party thing, and playing a couple of sets. we walk in, and the singer, Captain Moodring (a.k.a. zombo, a local radio fixture) was wrapped up in that flexible cable christmas-style lights. the best part is that he was plugged into a surge protector because of said lights, so he couldn't move very far. their songs were campy and fun; very much like cartoon hero theme music. they also did this fun thing were anytime anyone in the audience yelled out "The Flam!", the band had to sing The Flam's theme song, which was a short little ditty that sounded like the batman theme: (descending tone) "nah-nah-nah-nah-nahn-nah-nah-nah-nah.... THE FLAM!"

the other really fun part of the night was for their last song (besides an a capella rendition of "The Flam" since they had unplugged their guitars), when they grabbed someone out of the audience, had him don a wrestling/gimp-style mask, and play on the band's theramin, and dubbed this individual "The Thera-man". they did a whole song with this guy wailing away on the theramin... it was good stuff. i'll have to check them out again in the near future.

what a weekend!

in

what a weekend! don't even know where to start. ok, so on saturday i went out and got shoes for my new pedals.

went shopping at the giant eagle in squirrel hill, and my checkout "girl" was actually a transgendered individual. good for (s)him.

saturday afternoon was a wedding for two climbing friends... the whole this was so beautiful and grandiose. it was held at this fantastic cathedral, and the service was gorgeous. harp player, the whole thing. the reception was at the pennsylvanian, which was just beautiful. cocktail hour was outside on the rotunda, and the reception proper was held inside this gorgeous, high-ceilinged hall. the only problem was that with all the marble, it was hard to hear anyone talking on the p.a. the best man was turkish, and had a bit of an accent, so that combined with the echo i think i caught maybe one word in twenty. everyone at our table watched him very intently tho, and when he laughed, we all laughed. when we left, the groom (also turkish) was dancing, doing this this which i can only describe as the turkish equivalant of "russian squat-dancing". it was supremely cool.

sunday a.m. drove down to w.v. to do some bouldering. good day on sunday, and stayed that night with a very lovely couple who are 3 weeks from having a baby. i've never seen a more active 33-week pregnant woman before! she was running around like a maniac! went climbing again at the same place monday morning, but it got so stinkin hot that we went to this little cave a bit down the road from where the couple we stayed with lives. some fun cave problems there, and much, much cooler than hawk's nest.

i would have rode in with my fancy new pedals and shoes this morning, but we're supposed to get thunderstorms with hail and everything right around the time i'd be riding home. no thanks... i'll wait for tomorrow when the weather is going to be cooler and drier.

delicious moment of panic

in

woke up this morning around 6:50, and padded downstairs to the computer to check the weather for today, since i wanted to ride in. that's funny.. why does my computer's clock say 7:54? oh, crap.

seems as though my alarm clock was set to the wrong hour. luckily, the bus i wound up catching was the extra special one that not only uses the bus-only roadway to get downtown, but drops me in front of my building.

tracing back, the Special Lady Friend stayed over night before last, and i got up and left before she had to. she probably hit the hour button reaching for the snooze when the alarm went off (which goes forward), and then in trying to get it back around chose the wrong hour.

my co-worker theorized that she's actually trying to ruin my life, and she's starting in subtle ways.

went out for dinner last

in

went out for dinner last night with the Special Lady Friend. on a whim we went to a very nice japanese fusion/sushi place. they have such fantastic stuff there, although chaya is still my favorite place for straight-up sushi. in other news, my best friend had his baby yesterday morning. spencer was 7 lbs, 22 oz.

finally, i was digging through the temp folder on my work machine, and dug up some really cute pictures of my friend aimee and me from christmas time. here's one: Me and Aimee

so very close now.

in

so very close now. all the nasty, cummy mattresses scavanged from curbs in oakland are wrapped in heavy-duty plastic.

finished putting up all the framing last night, even got one of the 3 plywood sheets with all the t-nuts hung. tomorrow night we're all meeting to collect "monies" (startup contributions, first month's rent, etc.), hang the last two sheets of plywood, maybe set one route, and then go out and have some beers to celebrate.

of course, there's "mandatory drinking" with co-workers after work tomorrow night. i might be in trouble by the end of the night.

i figured out yesterday that

in

i figured out yesterday that i am definitely not cut out to be a carpenter. a group of about 15 climbers from our gym have decided to build a climbing co-op. we're tired of everything; the routes, the lack of air conditioning or even a fan, crap music on the radio, and bad attitude. so, we got together and decided to make our own wall.

so, this weekend was a lot of construction. i missed saturday, because i was helping friends move (more on that later). yesterday i rode down around 11, and worked until about 6 or so. pounded maybe 200 t-nuts, and more nails than i could count. almost all the framing is done, and probably just one more night of work to finish putting the framing together, mounting it on the wall, and hanging the plywood sheets that the holds will actually be screwed into. we have a buttload of holds coming from pusher, plus others that people already had or "borrowed". we could be climbing on it by this weekend, if we're lucky.

but, in the course of pounding all the nails and t-nuts yesterday, i managed to rip my palm open with the claw of a hammer, get a nice big splinter under the nail of my index finger, and today my right hand is so sore i can't even close it all the way. don't know how people actually do that for a living.

rode my bike downtown today!

in

rode my bike downtown today! it felt quite good to be doing something so healthy, although it felt not quite as good to be getting up a half hour earlier. i took a more lengthy route down, because i'm still getting used to the idea that i can ride on the road without getting hit by every car that passes me. took maybe an hour, but only because i was riding very slowly so i didn't turn into a puddle by the time i got here. i might have to find out where the more direct routes are to go home, scary as that will be. and in other exciting news, i got a check from the insurance folks yesterday!!! the woman who cut me off was trying to claim that she saw me the whole way; that i sped up when i saw her getting over, etc. the claim rep i talked to a day or two after sounded like he didn't buy it, and i guess they didn't. got my car back on saturday, so now all is right with the world.

at my new scary bus

in

at my new scary bus stop, there's some graffiti on the station. my favorite is some words that are spray-painted into the steps coming down from the platform. they're all in the same handwriting and in the same color, so i'm assuming it was the same person. on the first landing it says "reefer" on the next it says "crack cocaine" and on a step right by the bottom it says "go bowling"

is the implication that these drugs are taking over our inner city, and the solution is to go bowling? or that bowling itself is more addictive than crack?