Greener Pastures

As I am sure you all know both the quality and quantity of this blog have been slacking in recent months. I must be honest and say that my bloggin heart has moved onto a new passion project that takes up most of my blogging time. While I will continue to post occasionally on this site you should check ou the new blog at www.chinchin.wordpress.com. This is a co-blog with my boy Brett which will provide you with a new and sometimes creative reason to "celebrate" each day. So check it out and read the old posts, they explain the theory behind the blog.

Useless thoughts about useless questions

Where will you be in five years? Does anyone else think this is the most useless interview question ever. With AmeriCorps member interviews coming up soon I have been thinking about what interview questions I really hate and what ones are really useless. This question seems to fall into both categories. Does anybody ever have any sort of idea where they will be in five years.

I started thinking about this with the events of this weekend. Saturday I spent all day working on a controlled burn with the Cape Cod National Seashore and local fire department. (more details from this coming soon, I should be getting pictures on monday then I will post). Today I spent my day rock climbing at a gm in New Bedford. Five years ago I was 20 years old and busy drinking my face off in college. The point being that I in no way ever would have predicted the point my life is at now. Furthermore I can take guesses as to where I will be in five years but I am willing to guarantee that whatever I guess will probably not even be remotely close to where I end up. Therefore this is a completely useless question to ask in an interview and I will do my best to rid the world of it.

text messages

So I got the greatest text message ever today from my friend erin, it read something like this: I have food for you come to the office. I came to the office and sure enough she had pizza for me, it was amazing.
This got me to thinking, I think one day my love for free food could eventually lead to my downfall. I mean today I left the beauty of working outside and came to the office for free food. Yesterday I drove two hours to boston for a micc party based on the fact that there was free pizza there. If my arch nemesis ever wanted to take me down they could just send me a text message saying free food come to the abandoned wherehouse on the docks and I would probably go. Alas I have found my kryptonite.

F.Y.I.

My officemate Shane's chair now has exactly zero wheels on it. After somebody (whose name I cannot reveal for protection purposes) removed one wheel from Shanes' chair as a joke he thought he could be tricky and switch the broken chair with mine before I got back into the office. Unfortunately for him I was in on it from the beginning so realizing what he had done the only proper response I could think of was to switch the chairs back and remove all for wheels from his chair. Upon his return I plan on wheeling in circles around him laughing as he is defenseless and immobile.

Recent Events (to the best of my recollection)

Friday April 13th:
-On friday the 13th we had a large fire culminating a weeks worth of invasive species removal. Large fires on such a cursed date might not seem like the best idea but hey, we arent professionals we are volunteers.
as you can see the fire got quite large at times. fortunately we always roll with backup.


Actually the fire department was scheduled to come put out our fire at the end of the day, it never really got out of our control. Here is a pic of the happy crew with there fire smoldering at days end.


After a hard days work a bunch of us decided to head to sundancers, a real classy joint. Unfortunately I dont have any pictures of the rest of the day cause that is when things get interesting. Some highlights:

-Drinking two dollar beers, possibly the cheapest they have ever been on the cape.
-Winning a Red sox hat for knowing that more people die every year playing golf than any other sport, not sure why or how i know this but it worked out.
-Immediately making the best deal of the century trading my hat for a T-shirt so I didnt have to smell like smoke all night.
-Mel winning the drawing for two red sox tickets, unfortunately she is not taking me, bummer.
-After multiple two dollar beers making the decision to catch a ride to bourne to keep the night going rather than taking my scheduled ride home. Keep in mind Bourne is over an hour away from my house and I had no means of getting home, I love spur of the moment decisions.

-Going to the parrot and continuing to drink heavily.
-Making friends with the cover band playing at the bar, by the way they were 17 and I dont think ever had fans before, I wish I had pictures of this.

Saturday April 14th:
-Stayed in a yurt for the first time in my life and let me tell you they are quite a luxurious way to live,


if you look closely you will notice the smoky the bear button on my jacket.

Sunday April 15th
-this day will be omitted for time purposes.

Monday April 16th

Boston Marathon day. You wouldnt think watching 24,000 people run would be all that exciting but the city really gets into it. Deciding that you will drink as long as people are runnning is a great idea for such an event. Drunk people cheering really fast people is pretty entertaining. Amazingly with all the people stumbling back and forth across the race course I didnt see anybody collide with a runner.

Fast Forward to Thursday April 19th.

-This was a big day for me as I finally reached the quarter century mark. How did I celebrate such a monumental event, well I worked all day then spent four hours in a red card class, out of control. Fortunately all day I was lavished with cards and presents from family and friends including a pair of flip flops with a built in flask, this is destined to be a reoccurring item in the blog.

Saturday April 21st

Bonfire on the beach to celebrate the birthday. The sunset, drinks, and fire were enjoyed by all, however as I was exhausted from the eight hours spent hanging out with firefighters, it remained rather uneventful for me.

Sunday April 22nd

The second beautiful cape cod day in a row. Temperatures reaching into the seventies. I celebrated the weather by cleaning my car. This may not sound all that exciting but I have literally been saying I was going to do this for Eight months and Seven days. It is rather nice to now have a clean(er) car.

That pretty much brings things up to date. I am sure there were many more exciting things that happened which have been forgotten by now but what can you do. Update the blog more frequently you say, only time can tell.

C -

I would say my mental capacity at the moment earns me a C -. Drinking on a wednesday night seemed like such a wonderful idea and while it was alot of fun apparently I am getting too old for such things because my productivity today is extremely diminished. On a related topic I am currently wearing sunglasses while in my office. While this might not make sense to some people as it is very overcast today, its helping me out I promise. Oh and they are expecting 48 inches of snow today in Western Mass. What the eff is that about. Seriously its the middle of April and I wanted to go backpacking this weekend, looks like the weather has screwed me out of that one. On the plus side I have a three day weekend this week due to some phenomenon known as Patriots day. If you are not living in New England and have likely never heard of Patriots day I agree with you that if probably does not actually exist but I figure its better not to point this out as it would result in the loss of a three day weekend. One of my housemates Jae was talking to somebody from Virginia yesterday and apparently they celebrate Patriots day there too. In response to learning this Jaes comment was "why do they celebrate Patriots day in the south we won". Priceless. Anyways I think I have now cleared the random hungover thoughts out of my head and can get back to work. If this posting does not make any sense when you are reading it try having a beer or twelve then reading it, that should tie everything together.

Big News in the PIT

Two big happenings of last week;

1. I committed to stay on another year with the AmeriCorps program out here. On the plus side this means an additional summer on the cape, on the downside, an additional winter.

2. I bought a surfboard and should be able to get in the water soon. That speaks for itself.

Every Childs Dream

When you were little did you ever build forts? I always had the coolest ideas for sweet forts but never really had the skills or materials to make them happen. This past week that all changed as I was given the opportunity to work on something that was truly unique. After work several days last week I headed down to the town of Foulmouth to work on construction of a playground. Now this just wasnt a swingset and a slide, no no. It was roughly half a football field in size, and contained among other things a pirate ship and a lighthouse. The playground was designed by a bunch of eighth graders and built entirely by community volunteers. I plan on returning soon to get some pictures of this playground which I will post for everyones enjoyment.

Moving on to more important things I had a sweet opportunity to go camping this weekend and I jumped all over it. One of our service partners at work hooked it up so that we could use this campsite for free out towards the end of sandy neck beach. Anyone who has been out there knows how amazing it is. The ranger at the beach was also nice enough to drive out water and firewood for us which was huge as it was a four mile walk along the beach to get to the site. It was an awesome opportunity and out of the 28 people it was offered to three of us accepted it. This got me thinking about something I read on workingsforsuckers the other day. I find it simply amazing how many people are into traveling and seeing the wonderful things the world has to offer in other places but simply ignore everything in their own backyard. Cape Cod is one of the most unique places in the world and it sometimes seems like people who live out here take it for granted. So here is my advice to everyone, you dont need to travel to see amazing things. Start taking advantage of where you are at instead of dreaming about where you are not. Take a hike, go for a swim, watch a sunset, or better yet a sunrise. It doesnt have to be anything big just go outside and enjoy things. You will probably find it much more rewarding than watching TV and it just might help you relax a little. For more on topics such as this I reccomend reading "The Last Child in the Woods" it is a really interesting look at the topic.

I'm back baby

I know its been quite a while and I will not make excuses for my blog neglect, I will simply say I am back baby. A highlight or two from the last two months

-succesfully completed my first grant, awesome.

-St Patricks day saw an MTA (massachussets transit authority) officer getting ummmm, serviced if you will, in his car which was conveniently parked in the middle of Paul Revere park. Not in a parking lot but on the walking trail.

-Franklin has been lost, if you know anything about this please let me know asap.

-Brett is in Costa Rica and apparently has become an a-hole who is too good to miss his friends, but seriously check out his blog workingsforsuckers.com its pretty cool.

-Why doesnt Brett have a nickname, I need to work on this.

-For the first time in the history of time I picked all four teams that made it to the final four. There were a few other bumps along the way in my bracket but if Georgetown beats Ohio St. I will be living large.

-I tried indoor rock climbing for the first time and enjoyed it, finally an activity where being lanky works out in my favor.

-Just a quick picture of me in Boston for those of you who miss my pretty face.

I think that is all for now. Lets see if I can step it up a little and make my next post before June.

oh the people I work with......

A brief FAQ about Zombies

By Reverend M. Lee Honoré


What is a zombie?

A zombie is a dead human, yet it moves and hungers for human flesh. Terms such as the living dead and the undead, nomenclature like zombers and zedheads, and zombie (derived from a similar voodoo experience) all describe these creatures. Zombies have no memory of being alive, and are unable to develop new memories. The only thing that zombies think about is eating you. Most stories, zombies can only come from humans, but there have been noted stories about zombie animals.

How do I kill a zombie?

The only way to kill a zombie is by causing trauma to the brain. A zombie cannot bleed to death because its blood has been coagulated. A zombie does not feel pain as its nervous system doesn’t work and will not stop until its brain has been smashed. One or two stories about zombies imply that they are afraid of fire, but I wouldn’t put that to the test. The thing to remember is that one zombie is not necessarily scary. Zombies are scary because they come in hordes and are considered unstoppable because of their sheer numbers.

My loved one has been bitten by a zombie, what do I do?

There is no cure. Kill him or her as soon as possible using brain trauma. If you do not, she or he will die, turn into a zombie, and eat you. Depending on where he or she was bitten, you have a certain amount of time to say your last goodbyes. If the wound is near an extremity, you have more time. The closer the wound is to an artery, the faster your loved one will eventually want to eat you. Transmission can be through the bloodstream or any infected bodily fluid that comes into contact with your bodily fluids.

How do zombies move?

Though a zombie preserves no knowledge of its previous life, it still retains basic motor skills. It is able to walk, use its arms, and eat you. Despite what inferior Hollywood movies show you, a zombie cannot run or climb (though they can use stairs), and does not have the capacity to use tools unless it evolves (more on that later). Zombies are also immensely strong, as they will push themselves to the limit of their body's capacity, sometimes breaking tendons or bones, to feast upon your soft human flesh. Zombies will continue to drive their bodies until they completely fall apart.
Can zombies procreate?

No, and stop asking. Zombies are dead. They eat the living, who in turn become zombies assuming their brains weren't eaten or smashed in the process. That’s how zombies make more zombies. It is not self-sustaining, but neither is polluting the earth. Think about it.

How and why do zombies find people?

For some odd reason, zombies rely on their sense of smell more than their living counterparts when it comes to finding living meat. If they still have eyes, they can also see you. Their hearing, if intact, will also guide them to any sound they may hear. If no people are around, zombies generally walk around and decompose. Zombies are going to go after people because they really like the taste of your flesh.

How do zombie invasions start out?

No one is really in agreement here. Ideas include radiation from Venus probes, a virus, biological weapons, meteorites, and aliens. Once it starts, an incursion is almost impossible to stop due to misconceptions about the undead and human feelings such as love.

Why brains?

Once again, depending on what you watch or read, zombies want human brains or they want flesh. If zombies did nothing but eat brains, there would be no more zombies to join their undead ranks though, so most schools of thought believe zombies don't care about brains.

Do zombies evolve?

There has been only one visualization in which zombies evolve into something deeper than the walking dead. Given that George Romero (granddad of zombies) directed it, we can predict that if zombies stick around long enough, they will adapt to their surroundings and maybe feel feelings, which I think is super scary. We may make them fearful, but they can then get angry too. Other than that, zombies are doomed to walk the earth thinking of nothing but eating flesh until they are put out of their misery or completely decompose.

One final thought; it is important to remember when reading about zombies, watching movies of zombies, or looking at your backyard full of zombies that they are analogous to society. Thus we should be ever vigilant for zombies attacking our culture.

Media Blitz Day

I know the week before the superbowl is generally reserved by the media for all things superbowl related but yesterday was what I would call a Media Blitz day for the Pit. I started off my morning listening to the usual morning radio station and the DJ was talking about global warming. I generally dont like to listen to such topics being discussed on a music station but its the cape so I dont have many choices. Anyways the people that were calling in were generally fairly uninformed and showed a bias to a certain administration and the administrations beliefs on Global Warming (notice I didnt not call them idiots, this was very difficult). Anyways I felt that somebody needed to call in and represent the other side of the conversation and as I was stuck in traffic (dont know what that was all about the cape isnt supposed to have traffic during the off-season) I decided to whip out the ole cell phone and give it a shot. Imagine my suprise when the DJ picked up the phone on the second ring and I was on the radio, no call screeners or anything. Anyways I made my points, was thanked by the DJ and hung up the phone.
Later on the same day I had a reporter from the Provincetown Banner come to my home for dinner and a interview. We discussed all sorts of things but I focused the converstation mostly on the service we do on the cape (I am all about free publicity for AmeriCorps). I will see if I can get an electronic copy of the article when it comes out to post on here.
Two Media Sources, One Day, Was this my fifteen minutes of fame?

State of the Union

So I was watching the State of the Union tonight and as is par for the past seven years it failed to instill any sort of confidence in me about the future of this country. However I am not writing this post to rant about such matters. I am writing to point out the extreme ridiculousness that Dikembe Mutombo was acknowledged in the state of the union. Seriously take a minute for that to sink in because I myself still find it hard to believe. I dont even want to discuss this I just want to point it out for those of you who may have missed it. All I can really say about this is that it had better appear in Bill Simmons next column because I am sure the jokes he can come up with are way better than anything I have thought of yet. That is all

Seattle finally recognized for the shittyness of their sports teams, interesting article

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/adam_hofstetter/01/23/uncommon.sense/index.html

Too sweet not to share

So I was sitting in my office today, and just like any other day I had taken to annoying my office mate Shane because I hate him. Todays brand of annoyingness was overwhelming him with phone calls asking him to turn the speakers for my computer on. The barrage started with his office phone and quickly moved to his cell phone. When he stopped answering his cell phone I was struck with a moment of brilliance, I called his office phone and left him a voicemail telling him that I hated him. I waited patiently for the little red light on his phone to blink telling him he had a voicemail. I knew once this happened he would not be able to resist calling his voicemail to delete the message, the pressure was on, my timing had to be perfect. As Shane made the move towards his phone I quickly picked up my reciever and hit redial, perfection. As shane puts the reciever to his ear expecting to hear the voicemail system he instead hears me telling him to turn my speakers on. There must be a way I can get rich off of this talent, there must be. For now I will just bask in the glory of my victory and worry about getting rich later.

These guys are awesome

I especially like the exercise ball surfing
http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001

Instant classic

If you didnt watch the Boise St Oklahoma game last night then turn on ESPN classic immediately for one of the greatest finishes ever to a football game. Seriously we are talking the band is on the field status. There were 22 points scored in the last 86 seconds of regulation including a 2 point conversion to tie the game that took three tries due to penalties, an interception returned for a touchdown on the following play looking like it would give Oklahoma the victory, and a hook and lateral for fifty yards and a touchdown with seven seconds left to send the game into overtime. All overtime had in store was a one play touchdown drive by oklahoma followed by a Boise St touchdown on fourth and 2 with a play that shifted the quarterback into a reciever slot and snapped the ball directly to a reciever who then threw for the touchdown, finished off with Boise St going for two and winning the game using the statue of liberty play to perfection making Oklahomas defense look ridiculous. If this still isnt enough for you Boise's star running back proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend after the game on national TV. Dont even bother making a movie out of this hollywood, just release the game film in theatres and it will be the best sports movie ever written. On the down side it kept me up watching until one in the morning and now I am tired and unproductive at work, what a way to start the new year.

Police Blotter Power Rannkings

Found this article from espn.com amusing. The most amazing part of it is that Stephen Jackson did not take home the number one spot after kicking a cripple, firing his gun into the air, and getting hit by a car, who are these people?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/061228&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab3pos2

This Just in

This just in apparently my little bro, timmmay won the 2006 harkins family holiday MVP. This is a huge turn of events as he is the first relative under the age of 21 to take home such an award. I must say that even though I have been gone for most of the events this year I know that it was a hard fought and closely contested battle. One can only assume that the drunken breakdancing at MR and MRS gadgets wedding was enough to carry him through the entire competition, really nobody can disagree with such a decision.
Congratulations to timbo as I am sure this signifies the start of an amazing career, and should probably be included on college applications

BNS

As I am sure you are all painfully aware of a painful pandemic of BNS (blog neglect syndrome) has been going around. I think I have finally recovered from the virus so I will do my best to provide a brief update of the last three weeks or so. Lets see....
-at one point we had a holiday party where I got nice and drunk, went to bed at a reasonable hour then was awoken due to a first aid emergency at 3:30 in the morning, once the house stopped spinning around me it was ok.
-the day after the holiday party gave an AmeriCorps presentation at a universal unitarian church, turns out the presentation was actually there sunday service, I am not even going to try and explain this.
-Spent christmas in Boston, mad props to the Richmond family for welcoming me into their home for the holidays
-I am now certified by the red cross to train people in first aid and cpr, seriously how is this a good idea?
-Missing the Gonzaga Duke game because Oklahoma State Pitt went into double overtime and ESPN2 refused to switch over, effing east coast
-Did a scavenger hunt with a puppet named franklin (you may know him from arrested development) pics may or may not come later
-Being the only AmeriCorps staff in the office today, not good or bad just worth mentioning
-Oh yeah at one point I did about five hours of karaoke while dressed up like an elf, Im not even going to try and explain this one.
-Eighteen year old scotch is delicious
-last but certainly not least making the meal from elf )spaghetti noodles with chocolate sauce, m&ms, snow caps, and pop tarts crunched on top of it, and seriously eating it for dinner, yes it is every six year olds dream and I pulled it off with help from a few friends

I am sure plenty more has happened in the last three weeks and much of it was probably blogworthy but I am tired so I am calling it quits there. Happy Holidays to all.

Welcome to a New England Winter

Today temperatures in the 20s with snow fall and still got to go out and do some chainsawing. New England winter, go figure. Im not in Kansas anymore (or Washington for that matter).

Random Pic

Attack of the little people

Several comments;
1. the sheer ridiculousness of trying to take pictures that makes people look miniature pretty much sums up my house.
2. Look at Katie in the bottom picture(she is front middle) the scowl on the face mostly sums up her life, mostly
3. We built those sweet ass stairs out of fallen trees, booyah

Turkey Day

Wednesday
7:15-Wake up before the alarm clock goes off. This is a bad sign as I could have slept in and gone in to work a little later, oh well

9:00 after hanging around the house and discovering the youtube clip of nate robinson swatting yao, I leisurely make it into work. As I am the only americorps person staff or member in the office I dont expect to get much done.

11:00 I am now amazed at the amount of work I have gotten done. Its amazing my level of productivity when nothing is around to distract. I return phone calls and reply to emails. I make appointments and schedule sight visits. Basically I got a weeks worth of work done in two hours because there were no distractions. Seems like I should be able to take advantage of this knowledge.

11:45 About to leave work I refresh the email one more time and recieve an email that requires drastic rescheduling on my part before I can leave the office.

11:52 Phone rings, why do people always wait until Im about to leave before they call, I swear its a conspiracy.

11:59 emails are finished and Im off the phone (this required serious multi tasking but again its amazing what Im capable of while by myself). I start shutting down my computer so I can go home. Windows chooses this as a good time to install updates. I wait for this to happen just knowing the phone will ring while I wait. Its eerie how much this moment resembles a scene from office space.

12:07 I have left the office and am stopping at the bank before heading to Boston. My cell phone rings, shit I knew this was too good to be true.

12:15 hang up the cell phone, group projejct details all ironed out

*** the next several hours involved me traveling by car and train to get into boston. I will spare the details as nothing all that exciting happened. I did eat some delicious bourbon chicken though.

4:30 The needle shoots through my eyebrow like a hot knife through butter. I expected it too hurt much more, sweet break for me.

7:00 after some more train riding sit down for a delicious dinner with mels and her parents, the timing was strategically planned so that we could al make it home in time for the Gonzaga North Carolina game.

9:00 (approx) Gonzaga UNC game starts, keep in mind I am with two UNC grads and the daughter of two UNC grads, there is no way this can go well.

9:15 (approx) This is not good at all, Gonzaga has yet to score and they are down 12-0. Those crazy UNC fans sure are enjoying this.

10:?? Halftime and Gonzaga is going in with the lead. I am exhausted and decide to quite with the game while I am ahead. I got an early race to run Turkey Day morning.

Thursday

7:03 Alarm clock goes off, first thought, screw the race I want to go back to sleep.
7:05 I payed $23 to run this race and its non refundable, I better get out of bed

7:30 Leave for race

7:45 Arrive at race location and sign in. Apparently I registered like 23 people to late and dont get a T-shirt, tough break.

8:00 its freaking cold, I wish I got that free T-shirt

8:25 find open building to stretch in where it is nice and warm, sweet

8:52 join 2000 other people lined up in the street for the start of the race, by the way it has decided to start raining.

9:00 Why isnt the race starting, I dont feel like standing around in the rain

9:05 still waiting WTF

9:07 Race starts here we go.

9:35 cross the finish line, not a great time for 4 miles, but not bad.

9:40 into the bar for some free Guinness with my fellow racers

10:03 Find out that Gonzaga won the previous night against UNC, the gloating will begin soon

10:30 With a pace almost as fast as my running I have finished my sixth Guinness and am now drunk, boo-yah

Rest of the day: Booz, Turkey, Booz, Booz, Sleep.

That is all