earth_sucks

pretty sure i saw some dude huffing spray paint in his garage on my drive home today.
i circled around to double check but he was just sitting on his porch when i came by again.

had to renew my license again, this time just had to take a vision test. passed it. the old lady next to me who just kept saying "ummmmmm" when they asked her if she saw the blinking lights also passed. the old man in front of me who had to be lead up to the counter by his son (?) because he couldn't find where he was supposed to go also got his license renewed... i think it was because the guy behind the counter liked his bow tie.

i want a pressure washer and a leaf blower.

tj loaned me his pressure washer and i want crazy with it. i cleaned all the cement around our house and sprayed down the siding, all of our outside furniture, the grill, the wheels on my car, the recycling bin, and a bunch of other random stuff. i also sprayed it straight up into the air and soaked my neighbors house, it probably looked like he was in the middle of a monsoon from inside.

it went through 4 tanks of gas in two days.

the other day i "swept" the house with sarah's hair dryer on an extension cord. i just walked room to room blowing all the dog hair and dirt into the next until i made it into the kitchen and vacuumed it all up. it actually worked amazingly well and the only complaint i had was the cord, so i figure a leaf blower which is cordless and more powerful would be even better. i could also use it to dry my car off after washing it and maybe doing some yard work too. plus there are those plans to build hovercrafts with leaf blowers and i actually think i can do a better job than when they made them on mythbusters.

we bought a bunch of mulch for the backyard garden from lowes yesterday, and the whole neighborhood is suffering the consequences.

IT SMELLS AWFUL

we've used tons of this same brand mulch before, but holy crap we must have gotten a bad batch or something. i couldn't even eat my favorite ice cream last night (mint chocolate chip, green only) because i kept smelling the mulch and it made the ice cream taste sour.

this morning i woke up to the neighborhood kids riding their bikes past our house and going "ughghghghhgggghhhhh what is that?". two of them got into an argument over whether it smelled like cow poo or horse poo.

it's perfect timing too because now it's super windy and cooler out so everyone is opening their windows. you can seriously smell it all the way down the street so the whole neighborhood is in for a treat.

at least our backyard looks awesome and the garden is doing really well!

I have this stuff for sale,

Marshall JCM2000 DSL150 Head
Marshall 1960ax Slant Cab

Marcus Miller Fender Jazz Bass w/SKB Hardshell Case

Kustom (brand) Red Vinyl Bass Head
Hartke 2x10 Bass Cab
hartke 1x15 Bass Cab

It's all in good condition, and I'll probably give you a good deal.

what the hell...

i just watched amy freeze call a snow drizzle mix "snizzle", then follow it up with "it'll stack up quick, and make the roads real slick"

IN REAL WEATHER PERSON NEWS...

rick dimaio totally has his own website and it totally looks like it was made in 1993
http://www.dimaioweather.com

i am seriously considering emailing him and offering to build him a new site for free.

i spent multiple hours yesterday pushing water down the driveway with a broom.

the garage and driveway were both flooded when i woke up, covered in up to 3 or 4 inches of water at the deepest points. the driveway is lined with a 2 foot pile of snow on either side and has a high spot in the middle so the water didn't have anywhere to go and it sat there and formed a mini lake.

manned with a push broom i tried to sweep the water over the high spot and down the driveway into the street. every time i thought i was making progress i'd turn around to see it filled back up again. normally i would have been happy to have a near 50 degree day in february but the unseasonably high temp + frozen ground + tons of melting snow + rain = me soaking wet and pissed off sweeping water all day.

every few hours i went out to get rid of as much water as i could to make sure i wouldn't have 3 inches of ice in the driveway and garage when the temperature fell overnight. the broom actually worked well and i was pretty successful overall. by the time the melting slowed down i had a pretty good handle on things. today the garage is pretty much dry and there are only a few small puddles on the driveway. of course everything is frozen since it's crazy cold again but it's nowhere near as bad as i thought it was going to end up being.

because of this little disaster i missed out on the auto show and whirlyball.

then this morning i went outside in my pajamas to close the gate so i could let the dogs out and fell on the ice. i cut my hand up and ran back inside hoping none of the neighbors saw me. totally embarrassing.

our backyard is the worst when it rains, there are soo many low spots and everything turns into a giant mud pit. it's the worst having to give the dogs a bath after every time they go outside. first thing this spring i'm hiring a landscaper to come and level it off and find a decent place to have the water drain. we're also going to put in a ton of bushes along the fence and build a deck off the back bedroom where we'll install some french doors. it'll be an awesome office once we're roommate free again and i can move my stuff back into the bigger room.

then i want to take the middle smaller bedroom i'm using as an office now, and put a fake bookcase in place of the door and turn the room into a pretty sweet hidden hangout room. i've actually drawn up plans to create the bookcase hidden door thing and i'm 78% positive it'll work.

OH HEY GUYS, EVER WAKE UP IN A WET MYSTERY PEE BED? I HAVE!!!

corbin goes crazy when it snows and doesn't stop eating it, like he thinks if he doesn't eat it all someone else will get it. sometimes he doesn't even make it half way out the door before he starts eating all the snow off the step and i have to shove him outside so i can close the door. he eats soooo much that it makes him wet the bed. at first we were really worried that he had some kidney problem or something so sarah took him to work and did blood tests and all that but he's completely normal... physically. he just eats so much that it's too much for him to take and he can't control his bladder.

for the record, he has his own bed and that's where he usually pees... this morning we woke up with both dogs on our bed for some reason though.

aside from not letting him out by himself after like 4pm and making sure he just does his business and comes back in there isn't much else we can do. it's sad though because him and layla normally hangout and play outside for hours and now i have to keep him inside.

also, when i move into a bigger house i'm getting a pug and naming him "astronaut jones".

i find myself thinking about tj and chuck a lot, and thinking that no matter what band i'm in or musical project i start nothing will ever be the same or hold the same importance it did to me playing with those guys. it's almost like i believed me + drew + a minich brother = some sort of magical combination that just made everything feel "right" and without the complete equation why bother. it didn't matter if we never left the basement or nobody cared about the music we made, i still wouldn't rather have been playing with anyone else.

last night was a great wake up call for me though, playing music with drew again really felt great it and from the way things went it was almost like joe and neeraj and been playing with us for years. i literally hadn't played bass in months and felt almost ashamed being there at first, but it went well and i really feel like there's great potential here. i see this as a great opportunity to play some sweet music and hang out with some great people again... while i may never feel the same connection as i did standing in drew's basement with him and chuck, it doesn't mean i can't build another one equally as important and it certainly doesn't mean i have to stop playing music.

eric and i also have plans to start a new electronic project which i'm equally excited about as i haven't done anything like that in almost 2 years.

YESTERDAY
Sunrise: 7:21 AM
Sunset: 4:36 PM

TODAY
Sunrise: 7:20 AM
Sunset: 4:37 PM

did you enjoy the two extra minutes of sunshine? i didn't because it was cloudy, MAYBE ANOTHER DAY

i'm just hanging out wishing i had some doritos

my dreams of shooting basketballs and playing hoops.. shattered, literally.
i found a key to a former part of my life that i want back, literally.

i'm staring at a dirty rug in a room that used to be much dirtier

i am really disappointed in the lack of winter activities taking place this year.. i haven't gone sledding at all and have only gone out driving once and that was just for a little bit by myself.

i know a lot of people hate living here because of the weather, but i love the snow. i've never been skiing or anything like that, it just puts me in a good mood. it's like living in a whole different town or being transported to an alternate dimension when it snows. warm consistent climates are good for vacations but are too monotonous for me to ever live in. i actually feel like it's a privilege to have such variety in the weather, and hopefully i start taking advantage of it more often.

at least my dogs like to play in the snow.

christmas was great, and now i am going to go smoke a cigar.

the pizza delivery guy just asked me if corbin was a wolf.

I rented a dumpster to clean out my garage... it was filled with trash from all the projects we've been doing and it was way too much to leave at the curb. Since I moved in the garage has been a disaster from storing other people's stuff and all my crap, I pretty much never have been able to fit two cars in there or fix it up like I wanted to.

It's super deep and wide, has a huge gas heater, and is fully insulated so it could be pretty sweet.. like an awesome summer time hangout room with a tv or a mad scientist laboratory for doing incredible experiments. Or I could just park two cars on there and for once not have to keep them on the driveway.

The dumpster is something like 15x5x4 and I am allowed to put 1.5 tons worth of trash in there. I pretty much filled it up in a few hours, and was disgusted. I still have other people's furniture and piles of boxes that don't belong to me in there which makes trying to get organized especially frustrating though. As long as I can attempt to get the heater working before winter and possibly seal the floor I'll be happy.

They dropped the dumpster off Friday at like 7am and I was so out of it I forgot to move my car out of the driveway and was subsequently blocked in until they come to pick it up on Monday.



The dumpster smells really bad, and so did the guy who dropped it off.

- tj got stung by bees
- cigars
- peed in the lake a few times
- taco night

probably forgot something...

on the way home tj and i both got pulled over at the same time in wisconsin.. the cop comes up to my car and says he's going to issue me a citation for speeding, and that he needs my license and a credit card to pay the fine on the spot since i'm from out of state. i give him both and he walks back to his car without saying anything else.

during the half hour he spent in his car doing who knows what tj and i texted back and forth both growing more suspicious that he's not a cop and just stole our credit card info. seriously, shouldn't he have written me a ticket first or at least told me how much the fine was, maybe showing me your badge would have been nice too friend.

when he finally comes back to the car he hands me a mini clip board with a generic credit card receipt to sign that doesn't say anything about the police department or wisconsin or whatever on it... i stared at it for a second and then asked him if i'm going to get a "real" ticket or if this is it and he goes "oh you'll be getting your ticket". so i scribbled on it and he gives me my ticket, and a warning for having no front plate that i have to have signed by a local cop saying my plate is on so i can mail it back to them and not get another citation. tj who also doesn't have a plate got a citation for having the wrong colored turn signals and the same $261 speeding ticket.

what the f... i'm sure there were plenty of drunk rednecks flying past us considering it was labor day in the middle of nowhere wisconsin. i guess busting us and making sure i have my front plate on is more of a priority. i want to write to the police department and explain how freaked out we were that a fake cop just pulled us over because this guy was such a dick and didn't even tell us how much our fine was let alone show us his badge. given where we got pulled over had he not been a real cop he could have easily shot us in the heads and stole everything we owned or even dragged us back to his house in the woods for "dinner".

last night i couldn't find my phone anywhere, and i continued to search for it this morning with no luck. i asked tj to call it and the ringing led me outside where i found my phone sitting on top of my grill. i must have left it out there while i was playing some hoops and shooting some b-balls.

i came up with a solution for all of life's problems.. "make it remote control"
so far i haven't found a situation where a few servos and a controller can't make everything better.
of course this is all in my head but i imagine things working out quite well every time.

i bought a new camping hat.

ebay has brought me all sorts of new goodies recently,

- camping hat (already told you about that)
- inflatable mountain dew can
- new camera (will post pictures)
- 100oz insulated mug for soda

i ride an exercise bike for 30 minutes a day, which is down from the hour and a half i was doing when i first got it. eventually i would like to get back up to that level but it's just too boring. i am going to end this post now to think of ways to make my exercise biking experience more enjoyable.

peace. i'm outta here.

well...

the actual wedding was a lot of fun, meehan and i shredded 'fade to black' while ryan walked down the aisle and tim's speech was one of the best things i've ever heard.

a brutal headache/dizziness prevented me from going to the reception though, i almost never get headaches and have never had one of such great magnitude so i was severely disappointed. i'm sure i missed out on many great times so try not to rub it in, please.