I've lived in New England for almost all of my life, so I've had my fair share of weird weather and was prepared for anything upstate New York could throw at me. But 4+ inches of snow in late April is a little extreme even by my standards.
I guess Mother Nature is trying to make up for the lack of snow here all winter, considering that this is the most accumulation we've seen and may be more snow than all winter combined, but April? Late April? I mean, here I was roasting my ass off in my room on Friday because it was in the 70s (and I had my windows shut because of all the potheads celebrating 4/20), plus it was nice last Monday and a few other times between Spring Break and now. And now here I am talking about how I went outside in my rain boots and bathrobe to see how deep the snow was this morning. (Such a class act, I know.)
Generally the groundskeeping crew is really good about keeping the paths clear, I just hope they can keep it up. I'm already sore from the sword team seminar on Saturday (6 hours of stuff), I don't need to add falling to the list of injuries.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Adventure 37 - Banned
(Before I start, this new Blogger posting interface is hideous. Not that you readers have to deal with it, but I don't like it.)
But for the actual content, I was thinking today and came up with the post idea of the reasons why I am not allowed to be brought to a restaurant or bar with TVs. I really only came up with one: if sports are on, I'm going to end up watching them and not paying a lot of attention to whoever I'm eating with. Even if it's something I'm not a huge fan of, like basketball or hockey, I'll watch because I'm curious, especially if it's a crazy play or something newsworthy. And if it's baseball, especially games with any of my teams or players, forget it, I'll be eating my dinner with my head turned toward the TV all night.
Two examples of this came up today. My grandparents came up for the weekend and we went out to dinner to a restaurant that had a bar and a TV with the Sox/Yankees game on. I had been receiving occasional updates from a friend who had been watching the game while helping install his friend's TV, and the score was 9-1, Sox, when we got there.
Then FOX switched to the White Sox/Mariners game because the White Sox's pitcher was pitching a perfect game. Forgetting I'm not at home, I start pissing and moaning because even though it's an honor to the pitcher to do this, they totally jinxed the game by doing it. Every good baseball fan knows it's a cardinal sin to talk about a no-hitter or perfect game before it's finished because you'll jinx it. I'm not sure if the announcers actually said anything about it, but they put a little box on the screen saying "Hey, he's pitching a perfect game right now," which is just bad. Turns out it didn't do anything bad 'cause he finished the perfect game, but still. They should know better than that.
We get seated, eat dinner, and as we're leaving, I check the score again. 15-9, Yankees. I fully admit to a very dramatic whine, but I feel it was justified. I know it's only the first month but they have really been sucking lately, and giving up 15 runs is bad enough, let alone 15 unanswered runs. I'd be a horrible fan for deciding not to watch them at all, but one of my guys is injured, another got booted out of the starting position and with this kind of quality, I don't have much to look forward too.
Come on, guys. Shape up.
But for the actual content, I was thinking today and came up with the post idea of the reasons why I am not allowed to be brought to a restaurant or bar with TVs. I really only came up with one: if sports are on, I'm going to end up watching them and not paying a lot of attention to whoever I'm eating with. Even if it's something I'm not a huge fan of, like basketball or hockey, I'll watch because I'm curious, especially if it's a crazy play or something newsworthy. And if it's baseball, especially games with any of my teams or players, forget it, I'll be eating my dinner with my head turned toward the TV all night.
Two examples of this came up today. My grandparents came up for the weekend and we went out to dinner to a restaurant that had a bar and a TV with the Sox/Yankees game on. I had been receiving occasional updates from a friend who had been watching the game while helping install his friend's TV, and the score was 9-1, Sox, when we got there.
Then FOX switched to the White Sox/Mariners game because the White Sox's pitcher was pitching a perfect game. Forgetting I'm not at home, I start pissing and moaning because even though it's an honor to the pitcher to do this, they totally jinxed the game by doing it. Every good baseball fan knows it's a cardinal sin to talk about a no-hitter or perfect game before it's finished because you'll jinx it. I'm not sure if the announcers actually said anything about it, but they put a little box on the screen saying "Hey, he's pitching a perfect game right now," which is just bad. Turns out it didn't do anything bad 'cause he finished the perfect game, but still. They should know better than that.
We get seated, eat dinner, and as we're leaving, I check the score again. 15-9, Yankees. I fully admit to a very dramatic whine, but I feel it was justified. I know it's only the first month but they have really been sucking lately, and giving up 15 runs is bad enough, let alone 15 unanswered runs. I'd be a horrible fan for deciding not to watch them at all, but one of my guys is injured, another got booted out of the starting position and with this kind of quality, I don't have much to look forward too.
Come on, guys. Shape up.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Adventure 36 - Inspiration
Which should be driving me to write the 3 papers I need to get done this weekend.
At any rate, one of my friends, who sits next to me in bio and is in the ROTC program on campus, invited me to a presentation at the university across the city. It was a little awkward at first, between us getting there a teeny bit late and me being the only civilian in attendance, but the presentation itself was definitely worth going to. I don't remember most of the exact details, but the lady who presented was a professor at West Point who served quite a few years in the Army and did a lot of cool stuff, including research on gender and power, which is what her presentation was about.
It was cool because even though there was obviously a lot of military influence, what she talked about had a lot of applications in the civilian job world and as a person in general, like knowing your strengths, knowing your boundaries, building a support network, etc. What really spoke to me, though, was her emphasis on not apologizing. I am a compulsive apologizer (the friend who brought me actually gets really pissy when I apologize for anything, so when this got brought up, he looked right at me). I always feel like I'm hassling people. But apologizing makes it sound like you don't think you matter and in turn makes you look bad, plus you shouldn't have to apologize for being you.
Of course, I could come from that lecture thinking that I can now pull all sorts of crazy stunts and not have to apologize for them. Instead, I think I'll take it as a chance for me to revamp myself and maybe *le gasp!* grow some self confidence, because I shouldn't have to apologize.
At any rate, one of my friends, who sits next to me in bio and is in the ROTC program on campus, invited me to a presentation at the university across the city. It was a little awkward at first, between us getting there a teeny bit late and me being the only civilian in attendance, but the presentation itself was definitely worth going to. I don't remember most of the exact details, but the lady who presented was a professor at West Point who served quite a few years in the Army and did a lot of cool stuff, including research on gender and power, which is what her presentation was about.
It was cool because even though there was obviously a lot of military influence, what she talked about had a lot of applications in the civilian job world and as a person in general, like knowing your strengths, knowing your boundaries, building a support network, etc. What really spoke to me, though, was her emphasis on not apologizing. I am a compulsive apologizer (the friend who brought me actually gets really pissy when I apologize for anything, so when this got brought up, he looked right at me). I always feel like I'm hassling people. But apologizing makes it sound like you don't think you matter and in turn makes you look bad, plus you shouldn't have to apologize for being you.
Of course, I could come from that lecture thinking that I can now pull all sorts of crazy stunts and not have to apologize for them. Instead, I think I'll take it as a chance for me to revamp myself and maybe *le gasp!* grow some self confidence, because I shouldn't have to apologize.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Adventure 35 - Waiting
One would think that Opening Day is pretty well defined. But since this year included half of the teams opening today, two opening yesterday and two opening sometime last week in Japan, I would beg to differ.
At any rate, I'm glad the 2012 season is here. 2011 sucked ass for the Red Sox, and even though this season isn't off to a stellar start considering the injuries and loss of veteran players, I think that they can come back from the suckage of last year. I hope so, anyway. And I won't be able to watch much from school (upstate New York is kinda not New England, so we don't get NESN), but I'll be able to watch from home. Plus now that I got rejected from the RA position, I'll be home for my birthday, which conveniently enough is when the Sox play the Royals at Fenway.
Oh, right, that was the other thing I was waiting on. Getting rejected from the position kinda sucks because the stipend was basically my only way to pay for an internship in Ireland next summer, but I kinda bombed the interview and presentation, the odds were way against me and I get to room between two of my friends.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Adventure 34.5 - Continued Overdosing
Because going to 3 concerts in 11 days wasn't enough, my aunt introduced me to the Irish pub rock station on Pandora when she came over for St. Patrick's Day, and I have my own Celtic rock awesomeness playlist on iTunes. Plus, I'm hoping to do a song for ASL club (i.e. signing it), and I wanted to do "The One" by Gaelic Storm because it's silly.
And if that wasn't enough, when I was listening to the song, I came up with the idea for this:
Which I'm sure isn't original, but I couldn't find one someone else made so I made it myself. It's gotten 478 +1s on Google, which is awesome except for the fact that I don't remember posting it as public...
And if that wasn't enough, when I was listening to the song, I came up with the idea for this:
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Adventure 34 - Overdose
But it's Celtic fusion, so it's a good kind of overdose. In the span of 11 days, I went to three concerts of groups of some sort of Celtic influence and it was awesome.
I'll start with March 10, which was the Dropkick Murphys concert back home. This was the birthday present for my now ex, so we went to an Irish pub nearby and had some killer food; I had boxty with melt-in-your-mouth steak, and he had reuben mac & cheese which was surprisingly good, probably because I didn't get any sauerkraut in the bites I took. I bought a shirt of course, though I had a hard time choosing because I definitely wanted a tour shirt but they had another one that had "putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional' since 1996 (I think that was the year)" on the back which I also wanted, but I stuck with the tour shirt.
The two opening bands were Ramshackle Army (from Australia) and Frank Turner and the Sleepless Souls. I liked both: Ramshackle Army had a great fiddle player that was super animated and really fun to watch, and Frank Turner was really engaged with the audience and even let a lady from the moshpit play the harmonica solo in one of his songs.
Obviously the Dropkick Murphys were awesome. They were awesome last year when we went, and this year I actually knew most of the words (which may or may not have been a good thing considering I can't sing to save my life, but then again it was probably too loud for anyone to hear me anyway). They also did a cover of ACDC's "Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)", which was done very well, and they also did an acoustic set, complete with what Ken Casey referred to as the "goddamn barstools," because every acoustic set needs to be done on barstools. They also did the same thing they did last year with "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced," where Ken Casey went out into the moshpit and sang with the crowd. Of course, he told everyone to wait until the chorus to charge him, but at this point everyone was indeed shitfaced so they kinda smushed him right from the start and he's like "You guys do not follow directions well!"
What was also cool (and kinda not at the same time) was in the middle of "Going Out in Style," some guy in the front of the moshpit was having heart trouble, so they stopped the song to make sure he was ok. Supposedly the guy was ok later, and obviously having heart issues is not a good thing, but I thought it was really classy of them to stop and personally make sure the guy was ok.
March 15 was Enter the Haggis, which was awesome aside from the ending (which I already explained). We had to drive an hour to get there, and it was at this bar/restauranty type place so it was a quaint little venue. The only issue there was the fact that supposedly it was a 21+ event without parents even though the site said all ages but the manager let us slide because we had already bought tickets, so he just gave us green wristbands in case we tried to buy alcohol or something.
I kinda ran into the same problem with this concert that I did with the Dropkick Murphys last year in the sense that I knew some of the songs but not generally the ones they played, so I got to sing along with a few and stand there awkwardly for the rest. The venue had us in a little huddle-type thing, and when the band took a drink break, they walked through us and talked to people, which was cool. (At one point, I had the opportunity to grab the bassist's ass but I didn't because I am a reasonable person. Most of the time, anyway.) Overall it was really cool and I'd definitely see them again.
Finally, Wednesday was Gaelic Storm back here, not at school but in town. I had never been in the venue, but supposedly they had recently renovated the theater and it looked really nice. I went with my honors big (she also took me to the place with the pizza elevator), and it was a blast. I had only listened to one of their albums in full but I knew other songs from video-binging on YouTube over break. The band was also super interactive with the crowd; we had to dance and clap and sing, and one guy threw his hat on stage not once but twice and the lead singer picked it up both times, wore it for a few songs and gave it back. They were all really animated (especially the drummer on the ukelele, good god I thought he was going to break it), and it was a fantastic concert.
The pièce de résistance, however, was the band coming out into the lobby after for autographs and pictures. I was actually pretty surprised how quickly the line went, but I didn't have anything for them to sign so I was a badass and got my arm signed because I am just that cool.
It was all sorts of awesome, and I left it there until Saturday morning. I only scrubbed it off because it was starting to fade out (except for Peter's, maybe he just had a really good Sharpie or something).
So basically it was all sorts of Celtic awesomeness and a lot of fun. I would so do it again. Minus the dumping.
I'll start with March 10, which was the Dropkick Murphys concert back home. This was the birthday present for my now ex, so we went to an Irish pub nearby and had some killer food; I had boxty with melt-in-your-mouth steak, and he had reuben mac & cheese which was surprisingly good, probably because I didn't get any sauerkraut in the bites I took. I bought a shirt of course, though I had a hard time choosing because I definitely wanted a tour shirt but they had another one that had "putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional' since 1996 (I think that was the year)" on the back which I also wanted, but I stuck with the tour shirt.
The two opening bands were Ramshackle Army (from Australia) and Frank Turner and the Sleepless Souls. I liked both: Ramshackle Army had a great fiddle player that was super animated and really fun to watch, and Frank Turner was really engaged with the audience and even let a lady from the moshpit play the harmonica solo in one of his songs.
Obviously the Dropkick Murphys were awesome. They were awesome last year when we went, and this year I actually knew most of the words (which may or may not have been a good thing considering I can't sing to save my life, but then again it was probably too loud for anyone to hear me anyway). They also did a cover of ACDC's "Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)", which was done very well, and they also did an acoustic set, complete with what Ken Casey referred to as the "goddamn barstools," because every acoustic set needs to be done on barstools. They also did the same thing they did last year with "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced," where Ken Casey went out into the moshpit and sang with the crowd. Of course, he told everyone to wait until the chorus to charge him, but at this point everyone was indeed shitfaced so they kinda smushed him right from the start and he's like "You guys do not follow directions well!"
What was also cool (and kinda not at the same time) was in the middle of "Going Out in Style," some guy in the front of the moshpit was having heart trouble, so they stopped the song to make sure he was ok. Supposedly the guy was ok later, and obviously having heart issues is not a good thing, but I thought it was really classy of them to stop and personally make sure the guy was ok.
March 15 was Enter the Haggis, which was awesome aside from the ending (which I already explained). We had to drive an hour to get there, and it was at this bar/restauranty type place so it was a quaint little venue. The only issue there was the fact that supposedly it was a 21+ event without parents even though the site said all ages but the manager let us slide because we had already bought tickets, so he just gave us green wristbands in case we tried to buy alcohol or something.
I kinda ran into the same problem with this concert that I did with the Dropkick Murphys last year in the sense that I knew some of the songs but not generally the ones they played, so I got to sing along with a few and stand there awkwardly for the rest. The venue had us in a little huddle-type thing, and when the band took a drink break, they walked through us and talked to people, which was cool. (At one point, I had the opportunity to grab the bassist's ass but I didn't because I am a reasonable person. Most of the time, anyway.) Overall it was really cool and I'd definitely see them again.
Finally, Wednesday was Gaelic Storm back here, not at school but in town. I had never been in the venue, but supposedly they had recently renovated the theater and it looked really nice. I went with my honors big (she also took me to the place with the pizza elevator), and it was a blast. I had only listened to one of their albums in full but I knew other songs from video-binging on YouTube over break. The band was also super interactive with the crowd; we had to dance and clap and sing, and one guy threw his hat on stage not once but twice and the lead singer picked it up both times, wore it for a few songs and gave it back. They were all really animated (especially the drummer on the ukelele, good god I thought he was going to break it), and it was a fantastic concert.
The pièce de résistance, however, was the band coming out into the lobby after for autographs and pictures. I was actually pretty surprised how quickly the line went, but I didn't have anything for them to sign so I was a badass and got my arm signed because I am just that cool.
 |
| From left to right: Peter Purvis (pipes), Ryan Lacey (drums), Patrick Murphy (accordion and vocals), Jessie Burns (fiddle) and Steve Twigger (guitar and vocals). |
It was all sorts of awesome, and I left it there until Saturday morning. I only scrubbed it off because it was starting to fade out (except for Peter's, maybe he just had a really good Sharpie or something).
So basically it was all sorts of Celtic awesomeness and a lot of fun. I would so do it again. Minus the dumping.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Adventure 33 - Out and About
It's been freakishly nice the past few days. I'm talking mid 70s, sunny, great breeze, so definitely not standard March fare. But due to my uncanny ability to sunburn at the drop of a hat, I've stayed in quarantine for most of it. Today, however, I decided that homework could wait and that I wanted to go for a walk, so I grabbed a friend from the floor above me and we walked around campus to enjoy the weather. It was around 4 so most danger of me getting fried was gone, so we walked from one end of the academic buildings to the other (they're in a line for the most part), around the back and back towards the center, sat in front of the science building and BSed for a while, walked to the chapel pond and discovered that there were fish in it.
I kinda figured there were fish in it, but the only time I've gone to the pond was back in October, so I was really excited. I grabbed a stick from a nearby tree and tried to see how deep the water was (the stick wasn't long enough), and then we just decided to pester the fish. It was extremely immature but it was fun to just lay on the dock and BS and poke fish.
I kinda figured there were fish in it, but the only time I've gone to the pond was back in October, so I was really excited. I grabbed a stick from a nearby tree and tried to see how deep the water was (the stick wasn't long enough), and then we just decided to pester the fish. It was extremely immature but it was fun to just lay on the dock and BS and poke fish.
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