As per usual, a lot has happened since my last blog entry. I figure it’s about time I update my blog before I forget or lose what little ability I once had to write.

The events were as follows: (In no particular order, and certainly not in chronological order)

1. I saw NIN in Atlanta. I was mostly happy with the concert. It was too short (Trent only played for a little over an hour), most of the songs I wanted to hear were played, and a few I didn’t expect but was pleased to hear (Burn, for example).
Songs I wished he played: Right where it belongs & The perfect drug (though this song can’t be done live).

Also, Wish was one of the first songs he played.. I think this was the wrong order.. Wish should have been saved till he got the energy level of the crowd up.. People would have gone nuts if he worked up to that song..

2. My car died. After 140,000 miles it finally has gone away… and not in a good way.. Barbara was driving it at the corner of West End and Blakemore when the transmission stopped working totally. It’s particularly annoying because the engine still runs perfectly, but there’s no way to transfer the power to the rules. I somehow managed to get the car parked in front of my former apartment (see bullet 3)

3. I got kicked out of my apartment… They are going to knock it down to build fancy new apartments.. I do not like this. That place had style and character. Now it will be sterile and upscale. As an added bonus, my car died during the week I was moving. That made the move extra fun. Try it some time.

4. I’m now living with Jeff and McCall. Things have been great here. It feels much more like living in a home.. I actually like staying in and don’t feel compelled to run out all the time. Thus far I’ve been able to get much more work done than usual, which is a great feeling. Thank you Jeff&McCall for letting the homeless guy move in for some time.

5. Last week, with no car, I was trapped out here in Antioch, but I got a great deal of work done. This week, Dan has graciously lent me his car (while he has chosen to ride a bike to work) so that I can actually go into work. That guy rules. So does actually being able to get to school when I need to.

6. Dan will be moving to Japan in a month. I will be taking care of his car while he is gone. This is the reason I can’t just go buy a new car right now. Instead I have to rely on the graciousness of people to get my ass from here to school and back sometimes.

7. Barbara is in China right now. She is currently in Xi’An going to see the (terracotta warriors)[http://www.terracottawarriors.co.uk/]. If you havent heard of them, its an army of over 6000 life-size clay statues of warriors. The interseting thing is that each stature has a unique face. According to the link above, the guy made over 70,000 people build his tomb and warriors, and his 3000 wives went to the grave with him. Think about that for a second, 3000 wives. That means that he had so many wives that he could sleep with a different one every day of the year for almost 10 years without repeating once. That’s totally incomprehensible to me.

8. I installed Tiger on my laptop yesterday. It’s working great and I’m impressed. The only thing I’ve found is that my NVIDIA video card won’t do coreimage which includes that cool water ripple effect that is supposed to happen when you set widgets down. Oh well.

That’s pretty much it for now. I’m in antioch and I have no car most of the time. Oh and my cell phone only sometimes works here, so if I don’t answer it’s probably not because I’m ignoring you.

I wrote the following at 3:07 am on Saturday, 14th of May, 2005:

It’s 3:07 am here in Chicago and I’m about to go to sleep after another great time.

-Went to a improve comedy post show celebration at The globe where there were free drinks from 9 to 10.
-drank a bit
-Talked with Dan, Chris, Natalie, Mike, and Mike’s friends.
-Met a snowboarder girl named shelby who was pretty cool, talked about how we came to snowboarding..

-Took a cab to the hookah bar.
-Hung out, had a great time..
-Talked with Elysia our half white half ecquadorian server
-She was an english major, wants to teach kids english.
-Talked about:

>-Bad customers… convinced her to swear at us to get her agression out..
-Convinced her to sit down talked about other random stuff and smoked a mango-peach hookah..
-She taught dan and I how to make smoke rings..
-I could only do it by saying “oh”

-Crashed at like 4 am Saturday
-Woke up had a huge plate of food at Ann Sathers which included:
>-Two cinamon rolls that were the size of my head
-A huge omlet with spinach, feta, and egg whites.

-Walked around downtown Chicago and drove home.

The end.

Another weekend away from Nashville complete. Traveled to Atlanta once again to visit Ryan and Marcy while they are in town. As usual, it was great to see the 404 crew, but this round did have its share of bumps in the road.

The party began around 6 P.M. on Saturday with Kerry, being the chef that he is, flying around the kitchen tossing ingredients into a bowl of meat that would become far too many burgers to count on two hands. A certain party guest noticed that he was adding soy sauce to the mixture and commented on it by pulling his eyelids to the side ala 6th grade and saying something about it in a forced attempt at impersonating an asian person’s linguistic style. I was immediately offended by his lack of taste, but decided for the sake of the party and all members involved to pretend that it didn’t happen and give him the benefit of the doubt.

It wasn’t long till this person started up again, making repeated derogatory statements until I could no longer handle it. Still not wanting to ruin the party, I quietly commented on his attitude and excused myself from the party till he left.

I don’t consider myself too touchy a person. Among the right people, insults can be a source of amusement and diversion. This guy, who has studied and taught a particular wholly Japanese martial art for many, many years offended me greatly though his outrageous disrespect for the culture that brought him something that he purportedly holds very close to his heart. The fact that he probably knows more about Japanese tradition, culture and history only served to amplify my anger and disgust towards him as he repeatedly slandered my ethnic background. If he was totally ignorant of what he was saying, being taught only from movies and TV, it would have been much easier to forgive and forget.

From the way I watched him interact with the people at the party, I could tell that he is far more socially inept than I claim to be. From the few conversations with other people I overheard, his remarks were so forced it was slightly embarrassing for all parties involved. I suppose that it was this insecurity, and not a true ill-will towards “japs” that drove him to talk in the way that he did.

The weekend was not all conflict and road bumps. Ryan and Marcy are as cool as ever. The usual suspects went to the mini-golf course and had a blast. Everyone was in high spirits, talking, laughing, running around and getting generally rowdy. While leaving the place, a spontaneous game of Capoeria erupted between Dan and I, as has been known to happen from time to time. I was pleased when some passerby’s momentarily stopped waking and started singing Capoeira songs.

The next day, while everyone else was at the Atlanta car show, Dan and I started walking around Kerry’s neighborhood. At some point I decided that we should walk towards the huge buildings off on the horizon. To my amazement (and amusement), two and a half hours and a bottle of sobe later, we end up downtown. I let Kerry know that we were totally lost and that after the show, he should pick us up so we don’t have to walk the (supposedly) eight miles back to the car. We played more Capoeira and generally fooled around with backflips and such till the downtown extraction was made an hour or so later.

The drive back took longer than any Atlanta->Nashville drive ever should. It included, stopping at a Japanese grocery store, getting lost for 20 minutes or so, taking the worst possible route (think 20-40 miles of nothing but strip malls) back to the highway, stopping at the most sketchy gas station/truck stop ever, getting approached by a guy who immediately lifted his shirt and asked me for money, stopping again for medicine to stop my killer headache, being told by a rather cool gas station attendant that stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to drive or play the lotto, being told by that same attendant that if I buy a lotto ticket, she would kill me, and other details (mainly about the first gas station/truck stop) that are either too grotesque or too weird to recount.

Like I said, a great weekend with a few bumps in the road.

#1
I feel great. With all of the major decisions and changes going on in my life as of late, I haven’t been taking time to exercise or stretch like I had been doing. Today was different. Why you ask? For no apparent reason I say.

After taking care of pending busywork, I managed to build up the energy and go for a run. I guess I’m in pretty good shape because I turned up my iPod (BT - Emotional Technology), tuned out the world (including the 1,000,000 things I feel like I have to accomplish soon), and ran for a good 2.5 miles without stopping. At the end, I took the time to stretch and enjoy being outside before running back home and taking a shower. It felt great, and I’m still glowing from it nearly five hours later.

That leads me to the question of they day. Why does exercising take so much activation energy? I almost always feel great after working out, but it’s hard to get myself to go sometimes. I don’t believe that I’m the only one that experiences this, but it still seems strange to me. If I know I’ll feel good when I’m done, why wouldn’t I want to go do it?

#2
I feel great. My tree-hugging hippie stats leveled up today! (/me pumps fist) When I went to the grocery store, I took a shoulder bag along with me to put the groceries in. It made me feel good to take the extra step and save a few plastic bags from ending up in the land fill. As an added bonus, it was easier to carry too. Level up!

#3
I feel bad. [dan](http://bastardface.blogspot.com) sent me [this link](http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/12/china.japan/index.html) today. Japan and China are at odds over a Japanese text book that apparently glosses over the atrocities done in China by Japanese soldiers during WWII. Personally I don’t quite get it. What does Japan have to lose by admitting to things that are already well documented? We should all just get along.. Don’t be “that guy”, Japan… No one likes a liar.. It’s not very honorable, now is it?

According to the article, Japan has publically appologized at least 17 times for WWII. I don’t know exactly what to believe on this front. Is Japan trying to play down what they did? Probably… We don’t like to get into too much detail about slaughtering the native americans, do we? On the other hand, I also find it hilarious in its pure ridiculousness that a representative of the Chinese government would say:

>”Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for past history and wins over the trust of the people in Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibility in the international community,”

*blink*
Excuse me?!

“Sars, what Sars?”
(pause)
“Sars, oh yeah, we have sars.. it’s contained, nothing to worry about”
(short pause)
“Sars? What sars? Oh that guy was lying”
(longer pause)
“Yeah, there’s sars. We wan’t to be part of the international community. That guy who said there wasn’t any sars, he’s ‘fired’. You won’t be hearing from him again.”

And let us not forget the communists which still (technically) control
the country. Let us not forget about their efforts to [destroy china’s
culture](http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-12-20/25087.html).

I guess I don’t know what to believe. I should just focus on exercise and work. Thinking about world issues is futile.

I got back from New Orleans Sunday night. Had a good time.

Walked everywhere. Had blueberry sauce over grouper at the culinary institute of New Orleands. Ate too much. Took a tour of the kitchen. Talked for a half hour with the student chefs. Rode the streetcar back downtown. Went to an upscale bar called “Whisky Blue” and had a few drinks with friends. Took the elevator up to a rotating club on top of the world trade center called 360. Partied, danced, and drank up there. Looked down on the city below. Felt like I was on top of the world. Left the club. Went to Cafe Du Monde. Ate beignets. Got home late.

Slept in. Woke Barbara up. Walked down Frenchman street. Found a nice little Mediterranean restaurant. Ate hummus, tabouli, falafel, eggplant, salad, pita, and mango. Loved life. Walked to the garden district. Took a walking tour. Saw a few haunted houses. Saw Anne Rice’s house. Saw Trent Reznor’s house. Had a daiquiri. Went home. Went for a quick run as the sun set. Slept. Woke up and got dressed to go out. Went to the club to see DJ Sammy. Got there too early. Headed over to Bourbon street. Walked around. Went back to the club. Danced for a little while. Decided DJ Sammy wasn’t very good. Left. Got back at 4:30 am. Realized it was 5:30 because of daylight savings time. Collapsed on the bed.

Woke up in the morning. Drove to Houston. Got on the plane. Flew in to Nashville. Saw Jeff and McCall. Was happy. Got home. Realized the weekend was over. Realized Barbara was hundreds of miles away. Realized that I don’t know where my life is taking me. Was sad. Went to sleep.

Woke up. Went to school. Here I am now.

On my way to school this morning I met three people I haven’t met before. The first two were bus drivers that were really relaxed and open people. They just chatted with me like I was a good friend of theirs even though we had just met. I took it all in stride and was really happy to talk with them, but somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered how they did it. How do people like that feel so comfortable with people they don’t know? Needless to say, I feel jealous.

I get off the bus and start walking over to my office when I pass Arthur, this tall black guy who has huge dreads that he always keeps wrapped up in a cool oversized knit hat that changes colors daily. Arthur is one of the guys whom should get all the credit for Vandy looking as good as it does. He takes care of the lawns and mows the grass. I nodded at him in my typical “I want to acknowledge your presence but I’m scared to say anything way” as I walked by. Thinking about the other two guys I talked to, I turned back to talk to him. I remembered seeing him at a lecture about Taco Bell’s abuses to Mexican immigrants and figured I’d tell him that Taco Bell gave into their demands recently according to Dan.

Just like the other two, I could immediately tell that this guy was totally happy with life and comfortable with people. He told me that he loves his job, even though the rate of pay is so low, he loves meeting all the diverse and interesting students. He reiterated how much he loved his job a few times, and without the slightest hint of sarcasm. This guy was genuine. He loves being outside, meeting interesting people, and just living life. As we talked, he would interrupt to say hello to people as they walked by. Sometimes the people would say hello back, and others would keep walking as if they didn’t hear him. This did not even phase him. We chatted for only a few minutes, but I was still impressed by his general persona.

These three brief encounters, are now going to force me to once again do some self inspection. Why am I not content like they are? What is it about me that makes my typical operating state to be generally distrustful and/or afraid of people I don’t know? While I am happy with the things that I’ve done in life, I still don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like the level of contentness that was obviously oozing from Arthur.

I think there is a lesson to be learned here. I need to learn to be more content with life. I don’t think that ambition needs to interfere with this goal, I think they can easily co-exist. I also need to learn to be more open and less afraid. Why can’t I just say hello to someone walking down the street who I don’t know without feeling scared/embarrassed/ashamed? Why can’t I talk very naturally and candidly about my life with people I have just met? Why must I keep to very superficial things? I should learn to trust more. I think it would make me a better person.

Man, I sure do have issues, don’t I?

Internet has been sparse down here in Harlingen, but I’m tough.. I’m surviving… Barbara found out that she has been accepted into a residency program somewhere, but the question is *which* program. It works like this:

The NRMP ( National Resident Matching Program ) controls who gets into a residency program and who does not. To get in, you interview at a bunch of schools and then rank them in your order of preference. At the same time, the school ranks you on the basis of how much they want you. This info all gets tossed into a computer that decides your fate for the next 4 years or so. Pretty sweet right? It gets better. After the computer does it’s thing, they email everyone simultaneously telling them if they have been matched to a program or if they did not match. (This is where we are at now as we know barbara got in *somewhere*) If you didn’t match, then you have to “scramble” which entails calling schools all over the nation trying to find one that didn’t fill all its spots. You could end up anywhere in the US, and its most likely you will end up somewhere you don’t want to be.

Tomorrow we find out if Barbara gets into Vanderbilt, or if Claire will have to write nasty things about them in the paper. I like my school, so I hope that we don’t have to resort to public defamation. I’m not above it though. So one more request for good juju.

Woah, it happened. I’m engaged. I tricked a girl into agreeing to put up with me permanently. Who would have thought?

A little more than two weeks ago, Dan sent me an email mentioning that he was planning on taking a trip to Chicago to see a show and hang out with a college friend. As it turns out, I had already been thinking about taking a trip to Chicago to visit the Georg Jensen store, so this was just good luck. We took a trip up there and I got to visit Natalie F., a good friend of mine from High School. Natalie and I walked all up and down Michigan Ave. looking at rings in all the designer stores, but none of them had as much style as the ring I came to look at:

The image only shows the parts that I have given her so far. It’s 18K white gold with eight diamonds on each half. Her wedding band will be an 18K yellow gold center piece that fits between the two white gold halves she already has making a single interlocked ring.

So that’s it for now. She made it back from [Capetown, South Africa](http://www.baudburn.com/mt-admin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=130) in one piece and then we got engaged. Now we get to wait till March 17 when we find out if she gets into Vanderbilt for her residency. Send some good juju our way for that.

I created a small (3 mb) video of Barbara learning to snowboard while we were in Breckenridge. The quality of the video is very poor because all of the clips were taken using my digital camera. The maximum clip length is something like 15 seconds, and the quality is horrible. It is set to an excellent song by Juno Reactor, so I have to thank them for making great music.

Find it [here](http://www.baudburn.com/blog/archives/SnowboardSchool-Small.mov). I should also reiterate one more time that I couldn’t believe how quickly both Barbara and McCall learned to snowboard. All of the footage taken was shot over the span of three days, of which they only were out on the slopes about four hours each day. Needless to say, I was impressed.

You can also find pictures of the whole trip and a few more videos (such as a snowboard simulation video: (Shot from first person while snowboarding from the top of the 4 O’Clock run to the bottom) in the [gallery](http://baudburn.com/gallery). Here is the [link](http://baudburn.com/gallery/Breckenridge2005)

if you read this, even if i don’t speak to you often, you must post a memory of me.
It can be anything you want, it can be good or bad, just so long as it happened.

Then post this to your journal. See what people remember about you….