David's Tangled Thoughts

Last night at the book club meeting, I was thinking about asking E about volunteer opportunities that may be available on the weekends. I need something that has some kind of human resources element because it would help me get into a grad program. Grand Valley has one in Grand Rapids and MSU has one in Troy (but, who knows, if I'm good maybe I could get into the one in East Lansing). Before I got around to asking him, he asked something of us. He works for an organization that deals with AIDS care in the area. What they do is provide testing, counseling, housing, and more. Their funding has been cut back substantially forcing staff cutbacks and there's a real threat of having to close their doors. E told us of a walk that is being planned to raise money. He asked us if we would solicit donations. I've never been comfortable raising money. When I went through a grant writing section of a college course that I took, I wanted to gouge out my gut. While I think that

Fruit Inc. didn't renew their contract with the company that I work for so practically everyone is losing their positions. There's a slow down normally around this year so most of us that work on that project have been farmed out to other projects for other companies. For the past few weeks I've been working in an adjacent building complex. Mostly I've been packing, making boxes, stacking stuff, and gluing pamphlets. A few days ago, M* came over to the building we were at and pulled all the Fruit project project together. She broke the news that we all were being pulled off the project and that they will try to find positions elsewhere giving priority to the hired in staff and then to the temps. (Two, including myself are hired employees. The rest, five of them, are not.) I was a little irritated. I know that one the pick pack supervisors had submitted a list of names to the manager for that project to keep on. I was on it. Was I going to be stuck in a buildin

For almost two weeks now, I have been working in a different part of the complex on a different project for a different company. I make boxes mostly. Yeah. A BA under my belt and I'm making boxes. Swell. Given the monotonous nature of what others and I are doing, we've been permitted to have music as long as it is through speakers rather than headphones. A coworker brought in his iPod and some portable speakers and we have been listening to his library all this time. He has an iPod nano. It is probably only filled to half capacity. That doesn't last very long. I swear if I have to listen to Michael Jackson's Thriller or more of Evanescence/Fuel/Nickelback for one more day, I'm gonna cut someone. I like his music selection just fine but after day two, there needs to be "fresh" music. I'm going to bring in my stuff but I don't think they will appreciate my eclectic tastes. Going from Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzg

Ralph Nader announced that he is running for President again . And all across the country little utterances of “yes” escaped thousands of Republican mouths. A few days ago, I ran across an interview of Dan Savage on YouTube. Up until this past month, I had never read anything by Dan Savage although I had heard of him. I read his book “ The Commitment ” and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I watched whatever came up on a YouTube search of him. This one clip of an interview slightly unsettled me. Not because of the substance of what he said but how he said it. So as you saw, the clip was largely about the 2006 Senate election for Pennsylvania . In that race, incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum (R) unsuccessfully tried to defend his seat from Bob Casey, Jr. (D). What Mr. Savage was responding to was the possibility of a third party candidate and what affect it would have on the election. Carl Romanelli from the Green Party was eventually removed from the ballot, but his presence on t

Laura still hasn't gotten back to me about a group movie night. The movie that I had shipped, " Outing Riley ," came in the other day and I couldn't wait any longer. It wasn't that I was eager to see the movie, but I'm one of those people that can't buy something and then sit it down without watching, listening, or otherwise fiddle around with it. The movie came to my attention when it was posted on over at Guy From Chicago . Justin, the author, was involved with the movie and after reading what he wrote and viewing the movie clips on YouTube, I thought that it would be a movie I'd be interested in. I wasn't expecting a cinematic masterpiece but considering the conditions (mostly funding) that this movie was made under, I thought it was great. Although the "boo bees " kind of threw me off. What kinda movie am I watching again? I may post more on it after the group viewing. I can tell the lesbians, with absolute certainty, that th

Last night's plan see the lunar eclipse was a bust. The skies seemed to be clearing up when I got off of work but the clouds rolled in just before the event started. The best that I could hope for were brief views in between breaks in the clouds as you can see from this snap shot. It wasn't as if I could travel to escape the cloud cover. In my junior year of college, there was supposed to be a superb viewing of some meteor shower. I want to say it was the Leonids but I can't be sure. Anyways, the skies were overcast in East Lansing but they weren't in western Illinois. Trying to be spontaneous, I convinced my friend Kacey, who is also interested in astronomy, to drive us out to Illinois just so we could see them. It was supposed to be an exciting road trip. So we're traveling down I-94 and going through our home county of Berrien which is in the most southwestern part of the state. Just as we crossed the St. Joseph River. BANG! A f'ing deer hits us. A

I've been pretty miserable the past couple of days. I seem to have caught a cold although, it isn't as bad as the ones my parents got. They've completely crashed. Mom's in her bedroom. Dad is in my sister's. I've been pretty lucky. I still can go to work where I have to watch out for my new--but temporary--supervisor so I can pop in some cough drops. I think the worst of it is over. I've got a movie being shipped. It should arrive tomorrow. My former co-worker, Laura from the candy shop, is going to try and put together a group so that we can watch it. Ah, it'll feel just like college all over again. More on that when or if that happens. Holly is back from Toledo, Ohio with her new Masters degree. Sadly it did not come with a job offer. Seriously, we need some economic help here in the Midwest. We're going to have try and set up a time so that we can meet up. But what can we do around here? I need to get on the ball and talk to Dusty a

When the Spice Girls announced that they were touring the U.S. I don't recall their schedule going anywhere near here. And just today, I heard that they were at The Palace of Auburn Hills. WTF? ...not that I would actually go.

From this week's Postsecret update.

Here are pictures from my trip to St. Joseph. As always, click to enlarge. Enjoy.

There's a joke that you know you've married a Filipino or you are a Flipino when... you can't resist buying items on sale even if you don't need them. So I get up to Benton Harbor and I stop by Steve & Barry's intending to buy two t-shirts to replace a few old tattered ones that I recently threw away. (Yeah, I'm one of those guys that will wear clothes until they are hanging on by a thread.) I get in there and it turns out that everything in the store is being sold for $8.98*. At first I couldn't believe it. There were coats up in the front that would go for $60-$100 a piece and they were ten bucks? They called it their winter liquidation and boy did I come at the right time. My original plan was go go in, purchase two shirts and get out. Twenty minutes tops. Instead, I spent almost two hours going through things. I ended up coming out with: A MSU hoodie A grey rugby shirt Some kind of pullover 2 MSU shirts 2 Logo shirts (G.I. Joe and Air Force)

After running some errands in Niles, I decided to do my weekly shopping up north in Benton Harbor rather than in Mishawaka which is south. I also chose to take Old 31 up there just like I did when I was young. When I first moved to the area, I lived with my grandparents. Their permanent home was in Niles but the family farm was up in Benton Harbor. During the summer we would live up in Benton Harbor coming back to Niles every Thursday to collect the mail, pay the bills, etc. This was back before the bypass was built so we mostly used US-31 . Old US-31 Back in the 70’s or even further back than that, a proposal was made to make a highway bypass from South Bend, Indiana to Benton Harbor, Michigan. This would “bypass” a segment of US-31 which was an old two-lane road that went through multiple communities. US-31 was heavily traveled with plenty of semi-trucks. With a built bypass, trucks would be able to use a highway all the way to Interstate 94 and the rest of US-31 that was buil

Back towards the last years of the Clinton administration (I remember because I was in high school), one of commentators on some political show said that America would have a black president before a woman president. At the time I was doubtful. If the UK had Thatcher and the Philippines had Aquino, I would have thought that a white woman would make it to the Presidency before a black man would. I laugh at it now, but back then I did not think that Hillary Clinton would President of the United States--because she already was. My thought was, "wouldn't it be cool if Colin Powell was President." With Obama's lead in the delegate count, it seems that he may get the party's nomination. Given the current state of the Republican Party, Barak Obama could be fulfilling that commentator's prophecy. Am I bit upset that Obama may be the next president? When it comes to political philosophy, yes--absolutely. On everything else, I'm actually a little relived. I

You #%)-damned !&@cK!^# writers! Now the new Star Trek movie is being pushed to May 2009. It's like Battlestar Galactica all over again. [storms off]

Here are two songs that I like while finding their videos... "interesting." They are Damien Rice's "9 Crimes" and Guggenheim Grotto's "Philosophia."

I cheated. For a long time, I have been a regular customer of this Chinese takeaway place in the next town over. The food is good and the price is just right (cheap). However, Tasty Chen's doesn't make Moo Shu Pork and I had a craving for some. So I make my way to China One which is in Niles. I've been there once before with Erin and that was, gosh, almost two years ago? I feel so guilty--I have not been faithful. It wasn't the Moo Shu Pork (no, that was good) but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I don't like to draw attention to the fact that I, on occasion, monitor my stats. But I like to know how some people find my sight. I tell you, people google some of the weirdest stuff. Well some person got to my site through QuakerJono. Apparently whoever it was did not find what he or she was look for because they did a search within my blog for "gay." I gave it a try myself and there were only three posts that came up. I suppose I should say that no one is going to find much on that topic here. It's not that I'm not willing to talk about it. Rather, I talk about it at the other blog which was created when I was in the closet to everyone except two people. I have given some thought about closing that one down and posting everything on this one, but I like things they way there are for right now.

Things are spinning out of control here in America. I grew up thinking that the boundaries of the states were set and assumed that the fifty states would remain unchanged for my lifetime. I may have thought wrong. Recently, the severe drought in Georgia has caused the state legislature to bring up an old boundary dispute with Tennessee. Georgia wishes to move the state line north by 1.1 miles thereby giving them water rights to the Tennessee River—liquid gold to Atlanta residents. In 1796 Congress set the southern border of Tennessee at the 35th Parallel. Inaccurate surveying at the time period put the border 1.1 miles further south than it should have been. Should the border be moved, Not only would Georgia have access to the Tennessee River, they would get a sizable chunk of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Likewise, some residents of Memphis may find themselves in Mississippi. Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen reacted to news of the Georgia land grab with disbelief calling Georgia’s lan

Earlier in the week there were commercials for Mike Birbiglia's "What I Should Have Said Was Nothing" stand up comedy special on Comedy Central . I made sure to jot that down on my calendar because I wasn't going to miss it. I first became aware of Birbiglia when I was in college. He was on one of the late night snows-- Leno , I think. I found him to be hilarious. I'm not very good at describing kinds of humor, but I would say that he is dry, sarcastic, and deadpan. A lot of it deals with awkward situations which I relate to. Like he talks about, I seem to make awkward situations even worse. Unfortunately, following him though the years has been unsatisfying. As you may know, comedians tend to use the same material over and over. If I managed to see a "new" clip of Mike, he was usually delivering jokes that I've heard before. So when I heard of this special, I was excited because I was sure that he would have new material. And he did, but

Petsitting is over and done with. It was an interesting experience. Some of it I liked. Some of it I didn't. I find that I'm not so anxious to have pets now. I like 'em just fine when they are someone else's responsibility but having thoughts of whether I can make a run to Meijer after work without the dog busting his bladder while he's trapped at home were a bit unsettling. I still want a dog but maybe I can hold off on that and feel completely okay with it. Just so you know: This is Linus. He's my favorite. Not only is he a snuggler but he is up for games and watching me shower. I like the attention. He's got a story behind that name. Linus was found as an abandoned kitten. Erin saw that some of his coat was dull like it was dirty in spots. She wanted to name him after that character in the Peanuts comic strip that was constantly dirty but she couldn't remember the name of Pig Pen so she wound up calling him Linus . Layla is Erin's

A couple days ago I was at BK getting a snack when I saw this car parked up ahead in the drive thru lane. I didn't think too much about it. They were probably waiting for their order. I was at the end of a fairly long line and it was going pretty slow. I was getting mad because it was taking so long. So as I was waiting I was thinking that if this poor guy was waiting this long for his order, the place must've gone to hell. I finally get up to the window and I realize that this joker has had the food all along. (I also realized by then that it was a woman and her daughter.) They were eating right there in the lane! I was torn whether I should be irritated or amused. I was leaning towards amused because Zac had blogged about this a few days earlier and when I read his post, I thought to myself that people could not be that retarded. I certainly had never had that happened to me. Yet, a few days later, it was happening to me. I whipped out my camera phone and snappe

Hey, I'm just in for a few. I'll be heading back. That was one of the Superbowl games I had ever seen. Well the last two quarters of it (especially the fourth). I watched Bridget Jones the first half. Apparently it was all good timing. Suck it Brian! My petsitting is going okay. The allergies are not as bad as I thought they were going to be. One cat is so adorable, I want to take him home with me. The other one is a stuck up bitch. The dog is such a retard. Seriously. I take this dog outside to go potty when I leave for work, when I come back, at 6 and then right before I go to bed. And still, it insists on taking a dump in the living room at two in the morning. The commute from Niles is awesome. Half the time and with more sane drivers. Catch you later this week.

What's today? Depending on who you ask it could be Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), Paczki Day, or Super Tuesday. Today is Fat Tuesday but around these parts, we don't celebrate it like New Orleans or much of the rest of the country. Thanks to the large Polish population, today, locally, is Paczki Day . It's cool that we've got our own local thing going on, but Paczkis are over hyped in my opinion. To me, it's a stale, filled donut that you can buy only once a year and must eat before Ash Wednesday. Please. You can ask the donut shops around to save their filled donuts for a couple days and you can get the same thing any time of the year. I'm not saying they're completely bad, but I don't see what the big deal is. Of course, I don't see the big deal is with a lot of things like Dyngus Day which is also popular. It's is also Super Tuesday where we've got I think twenty something states holding their primaries. Tonight could make or break

I'll be off for about a week as I will not have internet access.

Take a look at that picture. Do you think it's obscene? Apparently Virginia City thinks so. According to this news article , the police there confiscated two advertisements from an Abercrombie & Fitch store. One of the pictures seized was apparently this one. How the hell is it obscene? The girl is not rubbing her hoo-hoos against the guy in front of her. The guy with the butt crack isn't taking a dump. It's not obscene. Now, I'm by no means an A&F defender. In fact, I have railed against them in the past for its snooty business model. I make fun of their catalogs that seem to be more interested in showing off the body than the product. That's actually the intent--to sell a lifestyle, an image, a sense of coolness, to a bunch of model wannabes with cash. Is it fair to say that the ads are lacking in good taste? Yes. But is it obscene? No. It's not depicting sexual acts or excretory functions. I can't even say that it's anywhere ne

It's Superbowl Sunday! Yaaa...er... oh, that's right, I don't watch pro football. Superbowl XLII puts the New England Patriots against the New York Giants . I pay scant attention to the Patriots but only because they are "giants" in in the world of football. The come into the Superbowl undefeated which I hear hasn't occured since the 70's by the Miami Dolphins. As for the New York Giants, they only come on my radar because of Eli Manning . I don't really have any interest in either the Patriots or the Giants. And until last night, I wasn't going to root for either one of them. Superbowl Sunday would just be an excuse to overeat and laugh at commercials. However, last night I had a dream: Eli and I know each other. Not in the buddy-buddy, always hanging out way but in a distant confidant way. We are old buddies that now live in different parts of the country but we keep in contact. I got a letter from him and in it he detailed some of t

I have been quietly hoping that my computer would break so that I would have an excuse to buy a new one. Perhaps an iMac or a PC that's times more powerful. The wrong thing broke. My digital camera died so I had to decide if I wanted to get a new one. The camera that broke is a Sony Cybershot P-52 . It was a gift from me by my father before I left for the Philippines in 2003. It was the first digital camera in the family. At the time, I was really impressed with it. It was small, high tech, and best of all, I never had to have someone develop film. To get the camera plus the 256MB memory card cost just over $300 if I remember correctly. The new camera that I got is an Olympus FE-340 . It was $199 at Best Buy and I got it as an impulse buy. Well it wasn't really an impulse buy as I did check out other models before I got it but I never planned on going into the store and actually making a purchase. But, it was right on the nose on what I was planning to spend and it

I have very few friends. But what is a friend? Well, I mean it in a very broad sense. There are dozens of people that I would call a “friend” but there are very few that I would say are in my closest inner circle. The reason is because I keep people at a distance. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s because spending all that time in the closet has retarded my social skills or if my personality is akin to sulfuric acid or if I really am picky over whom I attach myself to. I suspect that it’s probably one part each. If there is one thing that though that I do not tolerate at all levels of my relationships is the lack of reciprocity. When I get the feeling that I’m doing most of the work trying to make a friendship continue, I will eventually drop the other person. A good friend of mine has virtually stopped all communication with me and after years (and that should indicate how close she was to me) of me trying to get her to participate, I’ve quit. Done. Now I’m not saying that I’ve

One of the best things about having a blog is being able to express your thoughts freely. Unlike real life friends, you are supposed to be able to vent without having to worry about what your readership thinks or how they react. The personal stake isn’t so great. I admit it, with my friends, I don’t let them know every little thing I think of. I’d rather avoid the drama. It’s happened before on this blog where I started to clam up. There seems to be a cycle with me where I close up and then open up. I’ve once again started to worry about what readers think. This blog isn’t meant for you. It’s meant for me. If you enjoy the ride, I’m glad to have you along but if not, oh well. This is my wake up call to go back to the reason I started blogging in the first place. So stand back.