Mars Life

8.31.2005

Pettus mention again

Thanks Jason! Ought to see the numbers spike again. Always makes a lonely blogger feel justified.

In any event, I just got a call from Dad saying mom's new liver is in and working fine.

Huzzah!

In other news, I wish the same good fortune on anyone with any personal connection to NOLA (Jen, pass that along to Bird, will ya?)

Motivator

Oh, hi... I didn't see you there. Have you been there long? I really didn't mean to ignore you. Oh, no, there's lots going on, glad you ask. Well, true, it is only when there's big news... yes, you're right, there is a certain value to small talk... OK, OK, you're right, I should really keep the lines of communication more open. I'll try a little harder... I promise. In the meantime, I've got great news!

Saints be praised, a liver has been found for my mother. Yup. I'm sorry to the family out there (if there is one), and thankful to the individual for his (that much I know is true) beliefs on organ donation.

I got the call from my dad last night, and it was very odd... I had called him earlier, and reiterated the same old decree that had been less and less frequent as things were getting more and more comfortable, namely that if it would make my mom happier at any time, I would drop everything and head out to be by her side. Gotta love my parents, though, in their infinite authority, never want me to lift a finger or disrupt my life for their benefit. It's been that way forever. I've always wondered if it has more to do with the situation of me being an only child, or if it has more to do with their particular parenting style. Nevertheless, suffice it to say that they don't ever want to inconvenience me.

That's all well and good, but here we are smack dab in the middle of the situation we've been waiting for, disrupting all that comfort that was organically created through lack of change. So, about 12 hours ago I got the call that there's a liver in NY. Now, my father's in a hospital down there (actually, over there, from where I sit now), taking a nap as he waits for the operation to be completed. The latest word was that she was doing great after prep, and that the procedure could take from 6 to 13 hours. More waiting.

So now the question is, when do I go home? I have to be there for this, and the more I ask my parents, the more they say "don't come now," maybe in a couple days," "she'll be disoriented after the procedure for a few days anyway," and "we'll see". Sigh, I know they don't want to be any trouble, so that's sweet of them. The funniest part of all this is that this is actually the most inconvenient time to be in this situation. I've got two classes going on that I've got significant work to be completed in, that requires my attention consistently, and it's labor day, when airfare and gas prices magically increase, I'll be starting school full time in October, so I need to work as much as I can before then, and I've got two surgeries scheduled for myself over the next two weeks. Regardless, I'm just waiting for my parents to tell me when to show up, and I'll be on my way.

So, yeah, I'll talk to you soon. We should have coffee or something.

More to come.

8.22.2005

A Picture Share!

Allison likes the Picture Shares! Allison's leaving tomorrow for Indiana. Allison, a picture share for you!

8.19.2005

A Picture Share!

A Picture Share!

Yeeeehawj

A Picture Share!

Kerri's road supplies.

A Picture Share!

About halfway... Not much to take pics of...but saw this close to Flint MI!!

A Picture Share!

If you can't see that, our first gas of the trip was 2.69/gal. Sigh, and that's cheap.

A Picture Share!

Our first stop on our way to Toronto. About 50 miles in, kerri is seen here thrilled over Splenda.

8.18.2005

Tear into Toronto


So I'm heading up to Toronto for the Toronto Improv Fest, where my IO team Traffic and Weather will be performing on the mainstage Saturday night. God Damn! My first improv festival! I'm very excited. I hope to blog some pics on the drive up, which should be no problem, and maybe in Toronto if possible... we'll see how that goes. I just wanted to drop a line to let mofos know that, and also to keep up on my promise from a few days ago...

BAM! Stew being "seductive" as he can. He's such a tool.

8.16.2005

Summer fiction fiasco 2k5!!!!

Well, here we are about heading out of the summer, rather than in, and it’s time I finally talk a bit about my reading habits this summer. Summer seems to be the time when everyone goes crashing into borders or clogging up the bandwidth of Amazon.com to grab a title they can read on hot lazy days.

Personally, I got into reading this summer because a class I took earlier this year had a big Chuck Palahniuk fan in it. This kid was a cool kid, an animation major named Bill Cogland or something like that, he switched majors, and it’s a shame, because he had a good sense of humor, and was fun to talk to, but I’m really digressing here. Anyway, I’d heard a lot of people rave about Palahniuk’s work many a time before, so I decided to pick some up. Just to get an intro, I decided to read the actual novel Fight Club, because it had been one of my favorite movies for quite some time. God I love that story.

So we had this animation class once a week, and one Saturday, I go in and tell him I finally ordered a Palahniuk book. The next Saturday I told him I’d finished it. Seriously, I read Fight Club in like two days. In order to see if it was a strike of lightning, I quickly ordered Choke. I loved it, and also finished it in two or three days.

From there, I knew I’d be reading the entire collection of Chuck’s works eventually. I moved on to Lullaby, another quick and thoroughly entertaining read. All this time, though, I felt the need to get back to my fiction roots of Tom Robbins, as the style of Palahniuk always involves some romance of crazy larger than life circumstances which seemed to relate back to the memories I had of his stories, as well as the twists in plot bringing everything full circle. So I picked up Villa Incognito strictly because Borders didn’t have any copies of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates.

An analysis of the two authors, from yours truly, is that they do share similar story structures at times, and divide their works up into easily manageable chapters, but Chuck is a minimalist where Tom is a poet. That’s about the most I could possibly boil it down. They’ve got there own styles, and I love both of them. In the month since I finished Villa Incognito, I’ve finished two more Palahniuk works (Survivor and Diary), reluctantly finished The DaVinci Code, and have made 100 pages of progress into the aforementioned Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. I obviously am not going to comment on all of these, but I’m happy to be dabbling in fiction again.

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In other notes, Seward Street posted up a bunch of new photos over on their flickr page. There are great pics of the old masters in their element, and some rough sketches as well as old cels. I love Seward Street.

More to come! Namely… sketches?

8.15.2005

Always fed

Always Fed

Today we speak of accomplishment. Of getting things done that you've always dreamed of. Of this past weekend.

First off, let me say that I and Kerri have now been nicotine free for two weeks. Good for us. With that demon being slowly and continuously slain, it's time to move on to bettering ourselves in other ways. I've started doing pushups, laughable as that paltry attempt at fitness may be, we're beginning to change over our possessions to reflect the bitchin' registry gifts we received, and I'm trying to save money in every way possible as I slowly inch my way back into full-time student-hood.

Packing a lunch has always been known to be a money-saving practice. Hell, it's even healthier for you. I've always tried to do it as much as possible. But aren't there more extensions to this method of planning ahead and not indulging in the convenience of commerce when it's time to consume? Ever since I graduated college, I've had this grand plan in the back of my head that I've always thought would save money and time, but I've never had the chance to test it out. Namely, the "plan" is cooking about a months worth of dinners ahead of time, freezing them all, then having dinner ready for you whenever you need it. No cooking, no ordering, just reheating in one of many ever-present microwave ovens. Swanson's does it, Lean Cuisine does it, Hell, Seattle Suttons does it. Why not do it myself?

So this weekend, the plan was set in action. As I type, my homemade breakfast protein bar has digested in my stomach, my lunch is almost ready to be eaten, and my salmon cakes with broccoli are chilling in the fridge waiting for later. I'm giving the whole program (which in 'project form' in my GTD documentation I'm referring to as 'Always Fed') a two week test run through the end of August and then implementing monthly in September. I sound like a freaking project manager.

It was a great feeling to just make meal after meal yesterday, though there are still some that need to be made. The way I planned it out was to corral seven recipes, then buy ingredients for 4 servings of each. This way, there's a meal for each night of the week for me and for Kerri. Our menu consists of soy ginger chicken, black bean cakes, salmon cakes, Spanish rice with beef, stuffed pork chops, turkey chili, and chicken Parmesan. The soy ginger chicken is marinating to be grilled tomorrow, when I'll probably also make the black bean cakes and Spanish rice. Kerri is making the turkey chili tomorrow as well. At that point, all that will need to be made is the chicken parm, which may be a Thursday night activity, before heading out to Toronto (oh yeah, I'm off to Toronto this weekend!).

So far, the process will have small tweaks organizationally, namely finding recipes ahead of time, and buying ingredients and cooking on different days. As for cooking, I'll know more when I try the dishes in their reheated form. The pork chops were incredible last night, though. I'm excited to eat faster, healthier, and tastier.

I'll speak to Toronto this week, hopefully. Until then, more to come...

8.10.2005

Stew-topia?


So I figured I'd post up a shot of the character I'm currently working on for my acting for animation class. I'm actually thinking about starting up a little sketchbook blog while I'm working on creating my portfolio site. That would definitely dramatically decrease the already-scant posts over here.

Anyway, in the meantime... This is Stew. See Stew stew. Stew, Stew, stew. Poor, poor Stew.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to tell you about the "fiction obsession of summer 2005" and my brief unplanned respite from work. Until then, more to come.

8.06.2005

A Picture Share!

Everyone should try Superdawg at 6363 Milwaukee. Great summer drive in hot dog joint.

8.02.2005

Deja vu... have we met before?

Hey folks. I'm married. There's phone calls to be made to my wonderful friends, there's pictures to email to people as they trickle in, there’s thank you cards to be mailed, there’s another wedding ring to buy (yup. It’s gone. Jamaican beach. Grrr.), the wedding, as I said all throughout, was a living, breathing thing. It was a lot of fun, and I hope the pics I posted here were fun for those who checked them out. For a couple more quick ones, check out www.angeleyesphotography.com, where Kerri and flower girl Anastasia made it onto the front page, and me and my boys made it into the “weddings” portion of our photographer’s site. Big ups to Hilda, too she’s a great photographer, was transparent as far as I could tell (then again, I was quite busy), captured some sweet moments, and is getting more and more popular. Wedding couples, book her for 2006 now!

Now that the wedding is over, there’s really no reason for me not to be venturing down a road I’ve traveled before, namely, the nicotine withdrawal road. As of yesterday morning, (specifically, like 1AM or so, when K-San and myself were sitting in the kitchen drowning leftover cigarettes in water) I haven’t had a single cigarette. 24 hours may not seem like a lot to my non-smoking oral surgeon (who stated “Why not now” at my appointment last week, only for me to answer “have you ever smoked, Dr Spector?”), but it is a miracle to me.

I of course am not counting any eggs these days, relapses of the tobacco addiction are highly commonplace. However, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with another day of being smoke free is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. I look back and miss the cigarettes, and I’m always thinking to myself, “Hmmm, I could have a smoke right now” but then I realize, alas, no I can’t. But when the day is over, and I’m ready to go to bed, I say to myself, “Wow, you really did that. Good job.”


 
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