What a day

Man...

Sometimes, you manage to find yourself in the middle of one hell of a day. One hell of a great day, mind you. Today I woke up around 10:30, and made sure that the first thing I did was open all the windows. High of 65 today. Finally, spring has arrived, kinda. I say kinda, because my little weather gadget thing is telling me that it was a really smart thing to get out today, because in two days it'll be 30 again. If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes...

Anyway. I made today my bitch. I picked it up off the corner of 49th and Ashland and took it down to Rush street and made serious green. After getting my first taste of warm air since, oh, I dunno, six months ago or so, I chatted with the roomies, asked Dave if he had packed my missing cast iron pan by mistake ("Haha, no, man, I'd remember doing something like that") and fixed breakfast. The usual - and critically-acclaimed - cottage cheese, fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt, and 6 TBSP of granola. All Trader Joes organic, of course. There's something not quite right about the Jewel cottage cheese.

So here I am, eating breakfast. The night before, I had watched all of my Sci Fi Friday (thank God for DVR), save for the last 45 minutes of Galactica. So I decided to pair blueberry yogurt with Commanders Adama. Jesus, was that a ride. The show was fantastic, but I felt kinda jilted when they pulled the whole "One Year Later..." thing. Oh well.

Breakfast finished, I get my act together and shower, suit up, and head out with my bike out into the great mostly cloudy, 65 degree weather. To find that my tires are flat. Lucky for me, there's a bike shop a block away. Something about those guys makes me feel a little put-off... For example, when I first bought my bike from Rapid Transit over on North Ave, those guys were great, and really made me feel like I wasn't an idiot. These new guys, however, at the local shop, seemed like they'd rather be downing prairie oyster shooters than helping some numnut who couldn't figure out how to get the bike pump to work. Look, assholes, we all have our dumb days.

Finally, out the door, and on the bike. Man. I loaded up a new mix on my iPod and boy did it do the trick. I couldn't help smiling while I biked my way down Chicago, over to Orleans, then down Oak to State, which I took north till I hit the southern edge of Lincoln Park. PERFECT day. One hell of a headwind though. I blaze through the north-bound leg of my ride (sooo many hot chicks out) and make my clif bar break at my turnaround at Loyola. Helped some random chick with a really low-cut shirt carry her suitcase up two flights of outdoors stairs. No, I wasn't expecting anything, I just figured I'd be nice. Anyway, on the route back, I definately took 1.5x the outbound leg's time, all thanks to that damn headwind. Finally, I get home from what I estimate was 15 miles, and approximately 2 hours ride time. Remember, I had the headwind.

I walk through the door and realize I could really go for some hotdogs and Old Style. Dave agrees, so I trek down to Osco and grab said items. Get back, watch Pros vs Joes (hillarious), and then, after seeing that there's nothing good on TV tonight, go back to my room to listen to The News Quiz on BBC 4. Of course, I'm nice and sleepy from the ride, so I pass out shortly after the program finishes. Wake up, and it's thunderstorming out. Man, I love the weather today.

And now here I am, digging the great evening thunderstorm and listening to John Mayer and being reminded of Freshman year of college. This is probably one of the best days I've had in a while, and I really needed the recharge. Tomorrow, I gotta log around 16 hours in order to get the 40 billable for the week that Mike (boss, not roommate) wants us to log.

But man, what a great day. I feel alive.

Updates

Not much. Busy with work. May be relocating bloggy goodness to Trellon.org when that gets up and running. More later.

Beer

Yes, I'm still alive. But I wanted to say, to all of my adoring fans out there, that Goose Island India Pale Ale really takes the cake. And I'm really looking forward to trying this Sam Adams Lite to see if it's as good as the commercials make you believe (hah).

Might as well...

Well hey, looks like I might be able to be slightly consistent here. Maybe. Who knows, again. But I sure do like this new design I put up here; much more relaxed than the neon green crap. So, a few places I'd like to go with this blog -

• Politics


• Personal Goings-on


• Personal observations


• And whatever else I feel like

So, in keeping with that, here's a bit o' policy stuff.

Looks like ol' Jimmy-Jeff Gannonuckert had himself a fun time on TV yesterday morning. Via Crooks and Liars, we have the story, but even better, we have a highlight reel! I'm reviewing the video right now, at the 10:15 mark. I almost feel sorry for this guy. But I'm pretty sure C-Span has never been so entertaining. It's almost like Jerry Springer, except with suits and ties and no large men standing around.
Personally, I've always thought the guy was a bit of a nutjob. But this takes the cake. I'm puzzled as to how someone can actually think that it's a good thing that he was taking RNC and WH press releases and posting them, almost verbatim, on his site. He claims that there's this filter that the media applies to stories, and Julie Davis, I think it was, said something to the effect of, "Yes, that's called reporting." Journalism has always, at least in relatively free countries, been about adding a sense of individuality to the news. Nobody is going to get anything out of a press release - they're designed to spin a certain message or event in as good a light as possible for those who release them.
Now this is good. Around 12:05, Wayne Matheson asks the question which begs to be answered:

Matheson: Are you concerned that your advertising and participating in a business that's illegal in D.C. and neighboring jurisdictions might result in criminal investigation or prosecution, and if you're not concerned, why are you not concerned?

JeffyJames? Say it ain't so, JeffyJames! Say it ain't so!

Gannon: Well, first of all, you're speaking to things that have been alleged, and you know I'm not commenting on those things because none of it has anything to do with my reporting, and I didn't come here to discuss those things, I came here to talk about journalists and what constitutes journalism. So thanks for the question, but I can't go into that any further.

Well maybe he wasn't whoring himself out, but he was doing some interesting things on the side.

But it gets much better. Go watch.

I return? Maybe?

Yeah. I don't know. I found out that running on of these things takes a lot of time, if you want to do it right. But I'm going to give it one more shot. But first I'm going to get rid of the god-awful green design.

Updates.

Uhm. I'm legal for everything except renting a car now. Hurray. Been through quite a lot in the last months. Almost-evictions, addictions, run-ins with the legal system, no money, et cetera. If nothing else, it's helped me to garner a real enjoyment of life, and to really try to savor all of the good moments. I think it's turned me Scottish Calvinist. There's a book out, which I need to buy/borrow/whatever, called The Wee Book of Calvin: Air-Kissing in the North East by Bill Duncan. It looks promising, and I think it would be neat to read something that details, possibly from a new perspective, my outlook on life. If you're not familiar with the Scottish version of Calvinism, basically it says that life has some really really shitty moments, but you should relish those moments, endure the suffering, because 1. it makes you a stronger person and 2. it's just another part of life, and -all- life experiences should be enjoyed and fully experienced.

It looks like, due to my happy fun times mentioned above, that I'm going to be here (LUC) for a fifth year. I really really want to go to LSE and get an MS in IR, but I've got to get my GPA up to at least a 3.5 in the next two years. It's something like 2.8, probably going down to 2.6, but I think I can do it. 18 hour semesters, busting my ass to get a 4.0 in each class, I think I can do it. I've got to do it. I'd like to think that I've taken the first few steps by distancing myself from people who might have been negative influences in my life. I could go into that, but I really don't want this blog to 'name names,' as it were. Part of getting out of this funk is being able to forgive, and I would consider listing the names and actions of anyone who has ever trespassed against me to be a bit overzealous and vengeful. So no more of that, it's behind me, and I'm going to keep it there.

So I've got this killer new job, in addition to my already killer old job (consulting). I'm a Segway tour guide! If you don't know what a segway is, go here and take a look. So much fun!

That's quite a bit of reading for one post, so I'm going to cut it off here, but will hopefully be posting more tonight/tomorrow/sometime. Maybe even some pictures!

Once more into the breech

Or something like that. I've been out of the blogging world lately, had a bunch going on, but I figured this would be a nice way to do some real commentary on issues that I find important, and also just generally complain about things about which I want to complain. So that'll be here from now on. More later.

Hey! A NEW POST!

Yeah. New post. Hurrah. Just FYI, things with the girl mentioned below have gone foo. Oh well... 'Wasn't ready for a relationship.' And apparently, according to her, neither was I. Maybe she's right. Maybe not. But I still have quite the thing for her smile, whether she wants to believe it or not. Longer posting on the whole drama later this week. But basically I just wanted to let my reader (Clare!) know that I'm still alive, and will actually post more later. Also, Pictures!