Drivel, as promised

My mother is in charge of a literary club that meets once a month and discusses a book chosen apparently at random. This past month the selection was The Call of the Wild by Jack London. This book is short, interesting, and action packed. The ten or so kids who are in the club had a whole month to read a sixty page book. I think one of them finished the whole thing. I read it cover to cover the afternoon of the day they met. I got a little pink sitting in the sun for two straight hours, but I soldiered on. Some may take offense at the use of the word soldier in that context. Anyway, the book is pretty good. Dog fights, feats of strength, lots of snow and ice, the enticing points are practically never ending! However, there is one point made in the book that I found particularly interesting. Buck, the main character, hunts his own food and lives off the land. He is on an all meat diet and it says he is in the best shape of his life. This is basically my exact out look on eating. Lots of meat, no vegetables.

Speaking of food...

I eat all kinds of food. Generally when I am out with people and someone does not like something, I am there to pick it up. With that being said, there are three things that stand above all others. These three items go with just about anything. Sometimes they can be combined, other times they each act on their own. The one constant is that they are always delicious. They are sour cream, hot sauce, and ranch dressing. I would go into detail about what I put each on, but its getting late and this already long enough.

Cedar Point Friday and Bonfire Friday night!

Actually Shameless

Not much has transpired in the last few days that's made me think "I should blog about that." Yet, as usual, here I am blogging with little actual material. Perhaps a brief recap of the past 24-36 hours? Ok.

My sister graduated yesterday from high school. Guess she didn't have to take driving classes for school credit, since when she was backing out of her parking space afterwards, she forgot to put it in reverse and freaked out when the engine revved and nothing happened. Now the "check engine" light is on. Coincidence? I hope not, for her sake.

I saw Mike and Ben today! They're on their way back from ~2000 graduations at Cornell this past weekend. I met them at their hotel and ordered in pizza with their parents since it was a) raining outside and b) they were sick of being in the car. It was good to see them. I mean, it's only been three weeks since we graduated and left Oxford, but it seems like a lot longer. Oh well, I'll see them soon enough (as well as Matt Forrest and Eric and the gang) at my sister's grad party. Or else.

Speaking of Eric et al, I'm heading out to his house this Friday for Bonfire! I think we'll be spending much of Friday at Cedar Point (America's Roller Coast), which should be baller. I think I'll buy a season pass this year and meet Eric out there a lot. (Thoughts, Eric?) Back to Bonfire!, I'm planning on camping in Eric's yard since space inside is limited, and I've had a hankerin' for some backpacking since oh, probably early May. Stay tuned to see how that goes.

More exciting news tonight: I'm a finalist for a photograph contest held every week at msnbc.com, featuring travel photos people have taken. I submitted a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was featured in a previous blog post, and has been picked to be voted on by viewers (i.e., as many of my peers as possible). So in an act of complete shamelessness, please go here and vote! My photo is in the bottom left, and is currently ranked third! For all the times I've taken last-minute marketing surveys (you know I'm right), voted for cutest vegetarians, student body elections, arbor day campuses (Loyola I'm looking at you), and more, so please just humor me and help me legitimize my hobby! Thanks.

That's about it for now, I'll keep you posted on anything mundane or extraordinary that may pop up. And voting is until June 3rd, so tell your friend to tell a friend.

Cornell Has 2000 Graduations

Hey all,

I'm still in NY attending various graduations. Apparently getting a Ph.D is a big deal. Apparently graduating from Cornell is a big deal. Therefore, by the transitive property getting a Ph.D from Cornell must be a big deal. As a result, I don't really have time to make a major post, so I'll just give you a link to watch that takes us back a couple of years. I'm sure if Matt Smola and I had been friends with Matt Forrest, and been regularly hanging out with Eric, they would have participated too. If only we had made a 212 apartment one of these.

Enjoy.
Credits: All Camerawork and Editing done by Matt Smola
All Sex appeal handled by yours truly
Wardrobe decided by my brother Ben
Stuffed Animal and Lyrics from Scotty Lippert and his printer
All air guitar playing with real guitar courtesy Patrick Murray

Hint: Watch Matt's hands at the end.
Look for Curious George

ENJOY:

Video

I've given you a lot of links to click on!

Matt, when you start a post with the phrase "Some entertaining stuff has transpired in the past couple days" I would be led to believe that several intersting things have occured just not one story about a glovebox. Whatever, I wont give any promises for any excitement in my post, my last two days have been rather boring so I am sorry. Friday was spent once again shockingly searching for jobs and getting my life in order (yes that means cleaning out my e-mail inbox, thrilling I know. Eric will make fun of me, I don't care) I also began a quest to find some "nice" paper to print my resume on, on Friday it ended sadly without any paper. Did make some homemade pizza which brought back some good memories from last summer...see Facebook album Summer 2009: Never a Dull moment. If you are not friends with Smola than I am sorry, you will not see any pictures.
Watched some TV...went to bed, slept until noon (which is a good start to my morning).
Today was actually really productive in a very boring way. Went to the bank and continued my quest to find nice paper. Avid blog reader and frequent character in our posts, Molly Dull (if you don't know who she is by now you are way behind on the blog), suggested a place for me to go and so I walked a few blocks to Clark St in Andersonville (really cool neighborhood by the way) and walked into the Paper Trail  where I actually found some sweet stuff and most importantly nice paper to print my resume on, so now I'm set. Came back, plotted with Molly Dull for our world take over for awhile and then decided I should start running (though I'd prefer to bike...but, as Eric pointed out, having a bike would make it difficult to run). Stretched out and went for a run for about 30 minutes, I know it's not a lot but I am just starting out after being out of this for a good 2 years (as Matt and Eric will tell you as I constanly sat out on thier runs last summer). I'll keep that up as a daily thing, I think.
Did laundry, watched The Break Up (I give it bad reviews-the ending sucked), checked out the Blackhawks game, updated my Linked In Profile (trying to maybe use that as a useful tool in my job search-probably won't work) and then finally Ed came home (I've been alone all day if I didn't mention that) so went to get food because I forgot to eat and now I am debating watching John Adams which is a MUST SEE!

As a more inspiring read from my last post grad post, Adam Harris sent Molly Dull and I this commencement speech, a must read for some inspiration (Eric will think it's too long)

Currently listening to: Alejandro by Lady Gaga
Motivational song to get you pumped up to look for jobs: John Adams Opening Titles by so and so.

Peace out!

Broke the Glovebox, Sorry We're Late

I feel compelled to blog. Some entertaining stuff has transpired in the past couple days. Went on an early-morning run with my sister on Friday; that was fun and really frickin' early. Most of the day was uneventful until around 10pm or so when Mdull came to meet me and we drove into downtown Cleveland (gasp!) to satiate my desires. For pictures, duh.

I'm not usually a nervous driver. I think most of the people riding in the car coming home from SB2010 understand. Calm, cool, collected. Driving into Cleveland after my parents both warned me about goonies and weirdos and doom had a bit more paranoia than I'd planned. Thanks guys! Nevertheless, we make it to our destination. Molly debates putting her wallet in the glove box, then shoves it in and goes to shut it. Or not. Ok, jiggle the wallet around and try again. No. So I lean over and lend a hand, and the glove box falls out of the car. Great. In an epic combination of square-thinker logic and circle-thinker "whatever," we proceeded to get no where with the glove box fix. Eventually we got it straightened out.

Picture-taking proceeded well:

Today was fairly uneventful. The weekends leading up to my sister's grad party will be a little tense. There's a ton of stuff to get done and I'm not sure when I'll be needed or not, so I can't really relax until the sun is down. But today I helped get some of the trimming done around the house; I think it looks nice.

I had more things to blog about in my head today, but I can't really remember any of them. Oh, went to lunch with an old high school teacher and some friends. That was really fun. My neighbors had a bonfire today that was a little reminiscent of Mt. Vesuvius. Oh, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at Eric's house later this week!

My sister graduates tomorrow, so congratulations Jenn! I hope no one passes out...

Greetings From New York! (Central NY)

Good evening everyone. I just got to my hotel in Ithaca for my brother-in-law's graduation, so obviously the first thing I had to do was get back on the blog and see what the other 3 212ers had been up to.

I've been on a two day road adventure as we're 12-13 hours from home. The first day was mostly filled with sleep because I have been running around at home and trying to find a job, so I chose to sleep when there was nothing else to do. But today was notable for many reasons. Mostly, because I found a lot of humor on the road.

As we drove through NY state I noticed a billboard trailer (yes, this was a trailer with a billboard on it) that asked "Are you on the road to God?" Now this would normally just make me laugh as most religious road signs do. However behind this trailer was a porn store. As a result those on the road to God were also on the way to find discount XXX videos. Apparently God is in Adult Dens on the side of the highway.

This was just the start of the religious humor. We noticed along the way that there was an exit for Arkport. Apparently this must be where Noah left port during the Great Flood. Later on the drive the was a marker for an Evacuation Route. I don't know what they are trying to run from in central NY, so my only guess is that the Evacuation Route was for the animals to get to Arkport to save their species. The dinosaurs apparently didn't make it. Maybe they went to the Porn Store.

We decided to detour and go to Watkins Glen. My dad has always been a big car racing fan (NOT NASCAR, "real racing" as he calls it) so we headed up that way. There was a giant billboard of a person with his hands burning in flames with a tagline that stated Repent or Perish. The joke of course is that in order to not perish they must go to a parish and repent. However, I'm Jewish so I won't be repenting in a parish which doesn't matter because those people probably assume I'll perish anyway. Still with me? Eric probably stopped reading at Arkport.

In Watkins Glen there was a truck. Most truck cabs say Werner or Roadway or Penske. This one said, "Jesus Christ is Lord, not a Swear Word. Didn't really know what to make of that one...
We got out and walked around Watkins Glen. Great area. It is on Seneca Lake, so we walked out to the pier and also ate at a restaurant on the lake. I had a NY stripsteak just so I can now say I had an NY stripsteak in NY. We also went to this racing museum for my dad. He and Eric would be friends.

This area is known for it's scenery. I didn't go chasing waterfalls unfortunately. Instead I stuck to the rivers and lakes I was used to. Got to see a lot of cool things though. Tomorrow and Sunday are full of graduation events, so this is extra long in case I don't get a chance to talk to all of you until next week, I'll probably try and sneak a quick post in there in the next couple of days.

Deepness

Well said Matt, you seem to have your blogging head in the right place. You can decide if I meant blogging as an adjective or just made up my own new favorite insult. (Hint: Its both)

Did I tell you all how I shot a skunk? That was pretty nasty. The smell is still lingering a little out in the back of our property. Hope that clears up by next Friday, lol. Literally the only reason I mentioned that is because I looked out my window and saw my backyard. If I could come up with something good to write about soybean fields and silos I would. Wait! This was a topic of conversation in my house not too long ago. We were sitting around the dinner table and milk came up. There was a carton that we were feeding to the cat cause it was not properly sealed. I said that soy milk lasts a lot longer. My sister Katelyn then proceeds to say that she does not know how anyone can have the patience to make soy milk. The udders must be tiny.

Yesterday was a mildly historic day for me. It marked the first time since the teens of December last year that I made money. I know, I can't believe I have any left either. It helps my peace of mind to know that I am looking for a job that will be paying around eleven hundred dollars a week. Anyway, I babysat for my four little cousins. They are all sisters. The three older ones were just darling. They played together, didn't argue too much, and even helped with the little one. Faith, on the other hand, spent the entire day being mad that I was not her mother. This occupation wore her out considerably. She passed out in her chair at noon, which completely threw off the schedule that clearly stated nap time as being between one and two. Oh well. We made it.

Here's hoping the Tigers don't blow another one today. They could have been leading the central right now.

Currently listening to: Speedway at Nazareth, Mark Knopfler