I write this blog from my friend Ben Leubner’s room in Boston, MA. It’s spring break time once again, and this year I’ve taken a short trip to New England to visit my friend whom I hadn’t seen since I returned to Waukesha from Montana, and to (hopefully) take some photos.

Yesterday wasn’t a very photoriffic day, but more on that to come.

I arrived about half an hour late, but it was a nice flight on the ol’ Midwest Signature service. The two seats across were nice. Of course, the plane was not nearly full, so I’m sure three seats across wouldn’t have been that bad. The plane was a Boeing 717.

Let’s rewind just a little further back to Thursday night — I met Jen & Joe and Raul & Kelly and Steve W out in Waukesha the night before, since my plane was leaving from Mitchell early on Friday morning.

I proceeded to get completely drunk Thursday night, to the point where, when Jen woke me from the couch on Friday morning, 70 minutes before my plane was due to take off, I didn’t even care that I would ruin my trip with beer. I wanted to sleep.

Wound up just rolling out of couch, pulling on clothes from the night before, and speeding across town to meet the plane. I got to the gate as it was finishing boarding, but at least I made it.

I felt like hell in the morning, and I threw up a little bit on the plane before it even took off. I think that that grossed out the woman sitting next to me enough that she didn’t speak to or look at me the rest of the flight.

Anyway, I got into town, Ben met me at baggage claim, and we rode the train back to his place. Dropped my stuff at his apartment, then we had lunch at a restaurant where one of the pieces of art on the wall was a painting someone had done of a family outside a Wal-Mart?.

We walked up to the North End, to a small Italian cafe where Ben enjoys the cappuccino. It was tasty. The walk was also nice — we saw a little bit of the tourist-y stuff in town, and some that wasn’t so tourist-y.

After that, we got on the train again, and went to walk around Harvard. We got there and made fun of the extremely wealthy smart kids. We thought of looking around for the English department, and I realized at that moment, looking for the English department at a university while I’m on spring break makes me simultaneously old and a big geek.

Harvard’s bookstore (The Coop) is basically a Harvard-branded Barnes & Noble. Where most university bookstores have a lot of merchandise with the school’s name enmblazened on it, this one did not. I wanted to get a “Harvard alumni” coffee mug, because I thought that would be funny. We discussed the lack of merchandise a little, and decided that they might only print up enough Harvard alumni mugs for each graduating class, or there is a secret code that we were, of course, too stupid to know, that would allow one access to the merchandising section of the Harvard bookstore.

We went out to a bar called Cornwall’s later on, where we met up with Ben’s romantic interest, Stephanie, and a couple other friends of theirs from class, Jason and Jim. They all seem like good people, and the sort of dorkiness that you would expect from graduate students in English.

Ben is proving to be quite accomodating in terms of lodging. He has worked tirelessly to assure that Wordy and I have a place to stay every night, even if it means that Ben himself is put out of his home. For example: last night I slept in Ben’s bed, while he stayed with Stephanie.

We’re due to pick up Wordell @ the airport in about three hours, so that means I’m going to take a little walk around the neighborhood, have some coffee and a bit o’ breakie perhaps, before Ben returns for the morning.

More on everything as it happens, although, if previous vacations are any indication, I will get to the day that I’m too tired or busy to write something in the blog, so be prepared.

First, thanks to everybody who sent some positive feedback about what I had to say about Ben over the weekend. It’s definitely still weighing heavy on my mind, and if I have more to say in the future, I appreciate you listening to it.

On a lighter note, here is what I see as laundry’s leading problem: people wear it. You have clean clothes, then you have to go and wear them, secrete all your juices all over em, they get dirty, you gotta wash em again… it’s a vicious, never-ending cycle.

I just did a ton of wash last week, and here I am, 4 more loads seven days later. Is that a lot for a single man? 4 loads is about average for my week. Does that sound excessive? The funny thing is, if I let it go two weeks, I usually only end up with two extra… eh, whatever.

The rest of my time in Vegas for the week will be spent cleaning, packing, and otherwise preparing for my abbreviated vacation to Boston. Thursday night after work, I drive down to Waukesha to stay with Jen and Joe, then Jen is driving me to the airport early on Friday morning. I’ll be in Boston by 10:30 EST.

Wordy is getting in about 25 hours later.

We’re staying at Ben Leubner’s place, and let me tell you what a helluva guy this guy is: not only did he drive all the way to WI with me from Montana only to drive back, when we get there he’s letting us crash at his place, guiding the tour, and shuttling us about where we need to be. Quite a good friend to have made, I hope someday I can reciprocate some of his kindness…

Either Sunday or Monday we’ll take a train into New York, I don’t think Wordy’s ever been there.
Wordy you been there?
Right, been a couple times, not lately. Got it.

So that’s my week in a nutshell. Gotta run, time to change the f*n laundry…

On Wednesday, March 1, an old childhood friend of mine passed away. Ben Wartgow was diagnosed with brain cancer late in 2003. I visited him and his dad, Jeff, at their home in Eagle River in late January for the first time in years. I was very glad to have seen them again, and I was honored to be asked to be a pallbearer at Ben’s funeral. This short essay/reflection is the first of a few different topics I wanted to write something about as I consider the meaning of these current events and the importance of all the memories.

I sat down in the church next to my friend Clint, who I hadn’t talked to for more than a few minutes since graduation, and at once I realized that I sat in virtually the same place twelve years ago when Ginger died. It was and eerie sort of feeling, because at that moment, these two days didn’t seem nearly far enough apart.

I listened as Jeff read two of Ben’s favorite poets. I remembered Ben as a person who was at least as skilled with language as me (probably more so) and as one who loved books. But I had not known him to read poetry.

As the pastor spoke about Ben’s accomplishments and adventures as a student at UW-Madison, then later as an American professional in Japan, I thought of how all these things were news to me. At once I felt like a fraud, a stranger in friend’s clothing who had been disconnected so long that I was in a way unfit to be here, since there was so much living that had happened in the more recent years of Ben’s life.

I remember Ben’s preparation to leave the States for his first trip to Japan, when we were sophomores in high school. Those were the last days that I was very close with my friend. As I try hard to remember, I have some recollection of an afternoon in late summer – it must have been no more than a day or two before he would leave, and I said good-bye, fully expecting to return to this relationship in a year, and hearing all the stories of Ben’s adventures overseas. What a pivotal year that one turned out to be.

I can remember or imagine all sorts of reasons why we weren’t as close after that, and in some time and place it may be worthwhile to consider those things more deeply, but when I think back on the last seven years of my life, there are not a lot of things that I would change. I doubt that Ben would have a lot of regrets either. What makes me more sad than to realize how I missed out on the those years of friendship with Ben is thinking about how now—as grown, formed, adult men—we probably could have been very close again.

I sat with Clint in the basement of the church eating lunch, chatting about the days growing up. I missed out on those same years with Clint, for similarly unimportant reasons. I made sure that before we parted, I got his phone number, email, and promised to keep in better touch. I hope that it’s not an empty promise; I certainly don’t intend it to be, but who can tell on a day like this one?

Clint and I agreed that time keeps moving faster and faster, and as we continue to get older, people get more and more involved with their own lives, their own families, etc. That’s why I can sit here quite calmly, wishing that I would’ve known these old friends better in more recent days, but refusing to regret the way things have unfolded. I try to keep the faith that the Universe continues to evolve as it should. It is a comforting thought, and relieves anxiety.

In these last seven years, I’ve had three of my grandparents pass away. I loved them all very much, and, as I’ve learned in my Christian upbringing, I look forward to seeing them again on another plane of existence. But I must honestly admit: until today, as I helped to lift Ben’s casket into the hearse, I have never longed more deeply for the day when I might join all of them, when I will look up my old friend Ben, and get to know the man he had become.

Here’s just a random opening comment: I don’t know if it’s legal, but it’s definitely funny how there are some regular weekdays that the mailman just doesn’t show up at my building. I know what you’re saying: how do I know for sure he wasn’t here? I guess I don’t, but I take the fact that the outgoing mail that was here at 7:50 AM is still on the ledge combined with no mail for me today as a pretty clear sign.

I forgot where I parked again today. This is a growing problem for me. Usually, I park in the lot across Elmwood from the library, but sometimes if there’s no spots there, I have to go to the one on the south side of Kolf. Today marked the sixth work day in a row I walked to the wrong lot after work. I even had a reminder set up on my PDA (WHERE DID YOU PARK? just like that, in all caps) and that didn’t work at all. I suppose I’ll just have to live with the problem.

I was in lovely (and cold, and somewhat dreary) Bloomington, MN this weekend to visit my old comrade Josh Schneider. Josh lives in a townhouse with his girlfriend Terry and their two cats, which, thanks to some of Terry’s allergy meds, didn’t bother me at all. We hung out a bit like in Bruce Springsteen songs, also made a shopping voyage to IKEA and a couple other spots in the Twin Cities metro area.

On Saturday night, Josh and I met up with Greg Willis for dinner and then went back to his place to play Scene-It?. I also drank a bunch of bourbon and got pretty annoyed at Josh’s mad Scene-It? Skillz. Sunday morning, we met Tom Elko and his girlfriend Stephanie for breakfast @ Keys in Minneapolis.

Sunday afternoon, I arrived at Christy’s apartment in Menomonie, where I discovered that she had a number of unsecured wireless access points nearby, but also that her computer hadn’t worked since Christmas, so I have to work on that. She made dinner for us and her friend Janet, and we just sorta watched a movie while doing homework and stuff. I finally got back to Oshkosh after a full and entertaining weekend on Monday afternoon.

After lunch at work today, I was at the front desk and short on front desk-type work, so I decided to take a look at IMDB to see what movies I’m going to want to see in the next couple months. I took it a couple steps further and found 16 movies that I’m interested in seeing between this Friday and October 7. I’m sure there will be additions and subtractions to this list.

Be Cool – March 4
Sin City – April 1
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – April 29
Crash – April 29
Kingdom of Heaven – May 6
Revenge of the Sith – May 19
Mr. and Mrs. Smith – June 10
Batman Begins – June 17
War of the Worlds – July 1
Fantastic Four – July 8
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – July 15
Happy Endings – July 15
Elizabethtown – July 29
The Brothers Grimm – July 29
The Pink Panther – September 23
The Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit – October 7

That’s all I’ve got for now, need to get some homework done.

I was validated on a couple different levels in the past 24 hours.

My Mom send out a request last evening for participation in the wildly popular “bebo.com” address book website. I do not, by any means, intend any of the comments in this blog as a slight against the bebo.com people, their clients/users, or anyone who has used bebo.com in the past, or anyone who is likely to use it in the future.

But frankly, I am far too paranoid about Internet security to ever place a series of vital information about myself into an online database. It just sounds far too risky for me. What happens when that server is compromised? You’re confident in the words of some limey in a Braves cap who lives in San Francisco? That’s fine, and maybe I should be envious of less paranoid people, but there’s just no way I will ever do it.

Validation #1 was when Dave Schrubbe sent me an article from MSNBC:
Database giant gives access to fake firms

Now, assuming here that you’ve read at least part of that article, my next question makes loads of sense: if the biggest information gathering company IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA can be broken into, trust me: bebo.com can totally be broken into.

I forgot now what vaildation number two was, but personally, I think the first one is enough anyway.

If you ask me, there are far too many methods of information gathering for people with malicious intentions to NOT be extremely cautious about everything. Honestly, there are times that I wonder if too much has been divulged on this website, and there’s practically no sensitive information (except maybe a name and email address, possibly a phone number somewhere) in here.

Point is, I’m going to keep being paranoid, and if you could please not print this blog entry out, pass it around, or even talk to others about the fact that you’ve read it (or even that you’ve met me and know where I live) that would be AWESOME.

One of the things that I “got done,” (hehe) yesterday was to watch every trailer for every movie that I haven’t seen yet on apple.com/trailers (which, in case you’re ever looking for movie previews, is the best place to go on the web).

I think that that activity contributed, at least in part (along with a ’24’ mini-marathon to get myself caught up to this week), to a strange dream I had this morning:

I was visiting L.A, and the truck I rented broke down somewhere on the 405. I WALKED to the next exit, somehow through the speeding traffic I guess, and once I was off the highway, I decided I would get a haircut. I went into a salon that was right off the freeway. Vin Diesel worked there, and he did my hair for me, y’know, since I knew him and stuff.

Well so then we’re all done and Vin talks me into buying some product for my hair, I didn’t ask him what it cost or anything, and I’m going to sign the slip and this bottle of whatever he gave me was ONE HUNDRED SIXTY DOLLARS out of a total bill around $210. I was like, “Vin, man, look — I really can’t afford to get this stuff for 160 bucks, I’m gonna have to make due with what I’ve got at home.”

And he’s all offended, like I just didn’t want to buy it from him or something. Whatever, Vin Diesel! Christ, since we’re friends, why don’t you shell out the 160 bones, it’s not like you didn’t make enough on your latest Hollywood-blow-everything-up-crap-a-thon.

Damn.

So I was really pissed at him, but me and Jen found the EXACT same product at Target for about 20 bucks.

The release of Microsoft’s next version of Windows is on the horizon, and facts are this: there are a lot of people out there that have, at one time or another, used a less-than-fully legitimate/legal copy of a Windows product. In anticipation of not being able to afford a license for the new Windows, I’m trying to get more familiar with Linux (again).

I’m understanding the file structure and the “way Linux works” better than ever, but there are still some pain-in-the-ass type things that bug me about different distributions or packages or systems. The thing I’m glad about is that installing a slackware system only takes about 20-30 minutes. Beats the hell out of Windows’s hour, but when Windows is done I know how everything works, so I guess that’s the diff.

The weather is very wintery again in the Fox Valley. I guess this current storm is expected to drop something like 8 inches of snow before it’s all over. We’ll see if that happens; it definitely has been snowing since around midnight, but never really fast. I will admit that I haven’t been outdoors since 6 on Saturday evening.

Dave Slotten was over at the house for a few minutes today to (finally) pick up his Christmas gifts and take a call from the governor. We’ll probably try to get together again at the earliest time possible.

Did I tell you I booked a flight to Boston for spring break? I’m going to meet Wordy and Ben Leubner (who lives there) on Friday, 3/11, and stay until the 15th. After that, I might go up north or else stay at home and work. Probably smarter to do the latter, as I could always go up for the following weekend…

I should get out and take some pictures, eh?

This whole exercise has, as I’ve mentioned before, become so trendy and commonplace now, it’s seeping into the cultural consciousness as deeply as email, cable TV, and SUVs.

I read this story from the Washington Post this morning via Yahoo.

Take a look at it if you like, the summary is that it’s about the risks of blogging at work, and on another level, I think it just signals this thing called “blogging” as the latest web-trend to be absorbed into popular (as opposed to Internet) culture.

But man, here’s the facts about blogging that some of the people metioned in the article must’ve forgotten:
1. Your blog appears in a public place (the Internet). With access to the web so widespread now, things you say in a blog are just as likely to be seen as if you rained 10,000 flyers on your community from a cargo plane. Everybody’s on the Internet, so don’t say things in public that you wish to keep private.
2. In relation to #1 — you wouldn’t stop every person you see on the street or in the mall or whatever to explain to them how much your job sucks. Why not? Well, first because you’d be crazy, but second, BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO KNOWS WHO OR WHO IS WATCHING WHEN. It’s tact. You need to have some tact in the blog, or you run the risk of getting people mad at you, being reprimanded at work, or worse fired, or worse yet, prosecuted.

I guess those two items mostly sum the case up, but I’d like to forward this opinion: those who get fired for flaming their workplace in a blog probably wanted to quit or get canned anyway.

Still working on the metablog…. have a nice weekend.

I wanted to get something in here today, and frankly, I just don’t have much to report.

Today is Jen’s birthday, she is 28.

That got me to thinking about how when office cards get passed around for birthdays, I typically consult a website to find something interesting that happened that day, or find out if someone interesting was born or died that day.

This is a relatively simple process in this digital age, and yet the card recipients are, invariably, impressed with this seemingly thoughtful sentiment.

It’s really not that difficult, I just choose not to put the same boring pap as everybody else in the card.

If you want to do something similar around your office, the address is:
http://www.scopesys.com/anyday/

Oh, and don’t forget that it’s Lent now, in case you’re Catholic.

I won another 5 bucks from Knitt today when the Eagles covered a 10-point spread in the Super Bowl. I told people it would be a pretty good game, and for the most part, it was. Only thing was that by the time the whole business ended, it seemed that it should still be pretty early in the evening, and consequently, I don’t feel like sleeping at all.

Yesterday Joe & I made some beer. He picked up a turkey fryer at Farm & Fleet for 30 bones, which worked just marvelously for boiling the brew pot. Its effectiveness was 2-fold: didn’t have to cover the pot just to keep enough heat in there to stay boiling, and being as we were out in the garage, no mess to clean up in the kitchen afterwards.

Later on we went to Ambassador, and when we got home I watched a Charmed DVD while Joe fell asleep.

Before the game today, we went to Starbucks to get some coffee and do some homework. I wound up needing a couple more books, so there was also a trip to Barnes & Noble, and I picked up Best American Short Stories 2004 on an impulse.

Be back in Vegas on 2/7.