mprmike

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/qcePtmOu2WM/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-05/

THERE IS ONLY ONE TRULY PATRIOTIC WAY TO CELEBRATE THIS HOLIDAY, AND THAT IS BY REPEATED, JOYFUL VIEWINGS OF ONE OF THE GREATEST MOVIE-MUSICALS OF ALL-TIME, 1776. ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS A DIRTY COMMUNIST.

HERE, ALLOW ME TO HELP YOU:







( MORE; CUT BECAUSE I AM KIND TO YOUR FRIENDS-LIST )

New least favorite thing: Intense, vivid, terrifying dreams involving a storyline similar to the film Poltergeist, but with new bits added on by my brain; like the portal to the Other Side turning one guy into a giant snake, which then chased me into the kitchen where I had to chop off its head and throw it onto the stove to assure its demise before turning around to deal with the enormous bird that had just emerged and was pecking people's eyes out in front of me.

YAY THE BRAIN.

There has been so much going on lately, and I want to write about all of it because otherwise it's lost forever, but there is NO FREAKIN' TIME. I'm spending today in SF with my family and Til's friend Dan from Tahoe and his family. We're seeing Beach Blanket Babylon (we're a little bummed because my friend from high school, Shawna, will be out on vacation; though I think Ben - our Jimmy from Millie last year - might still be in it. I can't remember if I've actually ever met Caitlin, of if it's just that a bunch of my friends know her), and after that we're headed to The Stinking Rose for dinner. Being a garlic aficionado myself, I'm pretty stoked. If the Lecter-phile in me has her way, I'll invariably end up with the "Silence of the Lamb Shank", served with fava beans and a glass of Chianti.

Man, speaking of food, can we talk about how impatient a person I am? Seriously. It's a problem. I mean, here's the thing: For the past two weeks, I have been eating...well, beautifully. Tons of fruits and veggies, as little processed food as possible, light li'l portions, no red meat, only drinking water, no food after 7:00 PM; you get the idea. That's coupled with the fact that I'm dancing a little over two hours a day four days a week, spending the rest of my time moving around in bizarre acting classes and going to rehearsal on nights and weekends. These are all good things. But I've now hit the point where I'm getting irked about there not yet being any observable change in my physical being. I'm like, "'kay, so it's been two weeks, and I'm exhausted and really just want to go to McDonald's. Am I skinny yet? No? Well am I at least a bit skinnier? NO?? GOD DAMMIT, YOU GUYS, THIS IS HARD." I'd like to fast-forward to the end of, like, Full Monty this autumn; to the time where I've miraculously kept this up for three or four months and made a good hunk of myself disappear (and hopefully not all from my boobs, like in that terrifying SlimQuick commercial that makes me despise all men).

Anyway. Happy Independence Day, my fellow rebellious Yanks. I am both delighted by my freedom, and appalled that the actions of our forefathers precluded my ability to be always surrounded by British men.

my roommates are gone.

a couple of my friends are out of town.

this is the first weekend in years where i don't have a guaranteed person to hang out with at least at some point.

i won't say i feel alone, because i don't. even though i am, technically.

i feel. ok. it's ok.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/65hOp5o-480/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-04/

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/Dxpum6vurmU/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-03/

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/0RB1IJt1kQs/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-02/

The Quartet, Old-School style.

they're making a "grease" video game. for the nintendo wii and the ds.

what do you think the premise is? will it be a bunch of mini games?

"pierce sandy's ear in the bathroom at the sleepover before your character, frenchie, drinks too much wine and is unable to do it."

"can danny fix greased lightning before the big race using only the oil that's in his hair?"

"try to reach the high note at the end of 'summer nights' without falling off the bleachers."

sounds like a blast. can't wait for it to come out.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/dEmrF1j7bHk/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-07-01/

Despite what The Da Vinci Code might have you believe, the biggest lie ever perpetuated in the history of mankind is actually Febreeze.

Just so we're clear.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/J4pcLCNWyOQ/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-06-30/

• 14:05 Couple of days rest now. Recovering from 65+ insect bites that I got in Derbyshire. Venues have all been gorgeous though and met nice people
• 14:07 Hoping to see "The Winslow Boy" in Malvern tonight and Benjamin Britten's opera version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" tomorrow.

LoudTwittered from http://twitter.com/ptxv

i hate when places won't let you embed. anyway, go here.

anyway, it's not particularly amazing. but we theater-loving nerds people need to pay it forward when it comes to funny-ish theater-referencing... stuff. right? well, at least post it on our blogs. anyway.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/OZ-Y3Kl_l_8/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-06-29/

Those Red Hills of Home sure be old..

Theatre: Shafrika, the White Girl Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre.

Theatre-related concert: Knickerbocker Holiday Off-Broadway at the York Theatre at St. Peter's

The first leg of my summer vacation was spent in Chaco Canyon doing service work with the Sierra Club.  It was a larger group than I'm used to--17 including the leaders--but since we were divided up into smaller groups on the daily jobs, it was manageable.  Once again I was the youngest participant, but the people were really great for the most part, and I enjoyed getting to know them and working with them.



I arrived at Chaco on Saturday the 13th (and immediately developed a mad crush on a blue-eyed park ranger... but more on that later).  The group had dinner together that night, the standard orientation, and started meeting each other.  The next day I was on a crew that was clearing overgrowth from an area around a fence in the maintenance yard.  Not bad work--just a lot of scratches.  The maintenance yard was right by our campground, so we went back over there for lunch, which is when a strange thing happened.

As we were eating at the picnic tables, a helicopter flew in from the south and made a wide circle around Fajada Butte.  Fajada is the location of the famous sun dagger and other archaeological sites, and it's off limits to visitors.  Even park personnel rarely climb it because of its fragility and significance to native peoples; it's considered sacred by many.  Airspace above the park is restricted, so we were all a little perplexed as to what was happening.  Then the pilot made tighter, lower circle around the butte.  A park ranger stopped his Jeep in the middle of the road and got out to watch what was happening.  Someone said, "He wouldn't dare land on Fajada...."  But land he did.  And he stayed for about four minutes before taking off.  Here's a photo of his departure:



It turned out he was a contractor hired by the BLM, and before he started his job he needed to do certain things, among them a "pinnacle landing."  Too bad he picked Fajada and broke a handful of laws.  There are many people who want his hide, but I'll be interested to see if he suffers anything other than a not-hefty-enough fine.

On Monday and Tuesday I worked with a large group to finish the new trail at Hungo Pavi.  We had to mix the aggregate and water manually because no cement mixers were allowed up by the archaeological site.  This involved mixing the aggregate and stabilizer in the parking area, shoveling it into wheelbarrows, wheeling it up the hill and dumping it, adding water, and mixing it with shovels and McCloud tools. 



It was a lot of work, so we took full advantage of lunch to find some shade and relax.


(that's me on the right)

On Wednesday a group of us drove a half hour out of the park to load rocks into a trailer.  These rocks will eventually be used to make a welcome sign at the south entrance similar to the one at the north entrance (see first photo), so we had to fetch the rocks then unload them at the south entrance gate.  Oddly enough, the superintendent of the park was our driver that day.  It was nice to get to talk to her a bit and see her get her hands as dirty as the rest of us.  During lunch she showed us her favorite place right outside the park, an unexcavated site with tons of potsherds.  Here's a nice rim piece that I found (with Fajada in the background):



The plan for Thursday was to do rocks in the morning and then meet back at camp so the volunteers could go on a special hike with some rangers.  Five of us drove out in Karl's rented SUV to the ranch where the rocks were.  When we arrived, one of his tires was going flat.  We worked on rocks while he put the spare on (a donut).  On our way back to the south entrance, the spare went flat.  At this point we were about a mile outside the park but could see the Visitor Center from where we were stranded on the road.  The maintenance crew who was driving behind us with the trailer of rocks stopped and said they'd go into the VC and tell them what was going on, and they left.  The five of us walked just off the road to a large mound which I had only recently come to identify as great house or small house sites that are completely buried under a millennium of sand and fill.  We found many potsherds.

Eventually I decided it was probably going to be a while before anyone could drive out and help us, and since the VC wasn't very far away and it was a nice day, I would walk.  I told Karl I was taking off on foot and that I would be near the road looking at mounds and potsherds on the way to the park boundary.  Peggy asked me to wait so she could go with me, so I did for a few minutes, but I was eager to get going and, frankly, craving some time by myself, so when I saw that Gene was also setting out on foot, I let them walk together and I went off on my own.  They took the road, I took a path near the road.

I had a wonderful time on my walkabout; it was the first downtime I'd had to explore, and it was nice to be alone.  I really enjoyed looking at the terrain, the wildflowers, and the dozens of potsherds I saw along the way.  I could see that Peggy and Gene were far ahead of me on the road, but I wasn't making any effort to keep up with them.  When I got to the park boundary, I took the road toward the campground.  When I got close, a park volunteer named Joe who I had gotten to know pretty well during the week stopped his car near me and said, "When's the last time you got an ass whoopin'?"  "Why?"  I asked.  "Because you're about to get one."  I was perplexed for a moment, then realized that someone was probably freaking out because I had the wild audacity to walk by myself.  This really dismayed me.

As I headed toward the campground, the leader of our group walked toward me so she could talk to me one-on-one.  She was very nice about it, but she made it clear that she had been worried and that I should not have done what I did.  I defended myself politely by reminding her of the precautions I took (supplies in pack, experience, staying near road), but also apologized for causing any trouble.  When I got back to the campground, I could see that Ranger Jed was there--apparently they had blown the whole thing out of proportion and gotten the Park Service involved.

When I realized how much hubbub there had been about my journey back to camp, I could be nothing but annoyed.  I was annoyed at the Sierra Club leadership for their reaction, I was annoyed at Peggy and Gene for whatever they had said to spark such alarm, and I was annoyed that I was being treated as if I were a child in the woods.  I was so annoyed that I signed out and walked over to Una Vida to have my lunch because I didn't feel like being around anyone.

Try as I might, I was still in a foul mood when about ten of us set out with two rangers, GB and Jed, to a backcountry ruin called Shabik'eshchee.  Shabik'eshchee is a Basketmaker III-era ruin that very few people get to visit.  Luckily as we started hiking the site, my mood improved as I was able to chat with Jed, ask questions, find potsherds...  Peggy even found a couple of turquoise beads--very cool!



By the time the guided hike was over, I was recovered from the day's earlier events.  That night was the annual southwestern feast and tasteless tee-shirt contest, so I donned the shirt that my LJ friends helped me pick (thanks guys).  It was a big hit and the unofficial winner of the contest:



The margaritas flowed freely that night, and we all had a good time spending our last evening together.  The week went by FAST!  The next morning we spent several hours breaking camp and cleaning the campground and kitchen.  Everybody headed out... except for me.

The next entry will be all about how I managed to spend another full week in the canyon doing yet more work and finally getting some days to explore.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/LHkrwPGhJlM/

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-06-28/

Theatre: Dov and Ali Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Studio