Tag Archives: Wordy

General, Uncategorized

Resolving

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As recently mentioned in other Internet quarters around the globe, making “resolutions” for activities or behaviors that one wishes to undertake around January 1 is completely arbitrary.  If you decide that you should be doing something different with your life, you should probably just do it.

I think the spirit of the “New Year’s Resolution,” though, is that if you HAVEN’T been taking stock of your various states of affairs throughout the year, maybe the turn of another year will make you pause and reflect.  And while reflecting on your past year, maybe it will dawn on you that some things need to change.

A friend and I have been talking over the last couple days about the litany of tasks that we have been procrastinating on for various lengths of time, all of them too long.  We’re going to make a concerted effort to hold each other accountable to completing these things over the course of these coming months.

One of the things that didn’t make my list was returning to my blog; I figure that you, O Internet, can hold me accountable for that.  I really fell off the wagon when I was working up in Oshkosh again, and I never made the time to get back to it when I started working in Madison.

So anyway, why not a new start in a new year?  Like all of the things that I’m going to be writing in 2011, please don’t expect consistent quality.  Just expect consistent content, which, in and of itself, is likely to breed higher quality over time.

Hollywood, Uncategorized

Show Wordy Some Love (or Hate)

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Wanted to pass along the word here, and figured the easiest way was a copy-paste of an email I got earlier today from Wordell:

Just wanted everyone to know that INST MSGS, a webseries I’m working on for Revision3.com launches TODAY.

See it here: www.inst-msgs.com
The creator of the show, Justin Simien, corralled a lot of really talented folks helped put it together (Producer Ann Le, and Co-Developer Mathieu Young as well as writers Russ Tamishiro, Angel Lopez and myself), and we’re already getting some really positive reviews and coverage (http://news.tubefilter.tv/2009/11/11/inst-msgs-brings-internet-blabber-alive-in-revision3s-latest/) Show some love, check out the show, leave comments, tweet about it and pass it around!
Show Info:
INST MSGS is a web variety show that dramatizes social media. Based on everything from submitted instant message conversations to found Craigslists ads, INST MSGS shines a satirical light on modern (mis) communication.


Thanks everyone and enjoy!

General, Uncategorized

Dispatches From Colorado Springs

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We have sort of a long layover in Colorado Springs, so I thought I would get caught up on the rest of our vacation adventure–

Wordy & Jessica’s wedding was great.  The location was beautiful, the food was phenomenal, and we had a great visit with all of the guests.  Their ceremony was exactly what I would have expected; it was colorful, and had their collective personality.  We were both very happy to have been able to attend, and we’re looking forward to visitng again as soon as we can.

Earlier in the day on Friday, we took a ride to Zuma Beach with the Poquettes and Lorch.  It was a really nice spot, but the water was COLD.  I guess it is the ocean.  I didn’t swim much, but preferred to stay on the beach soaking up the sun or throwing the football.  Michelle renting a boogie board and boogied hard for a couple hours.  I don’t ever remember seeing her more delighted for such a sustained length of time.  She had so much fun, she barely noticed that her skin was getting red from the cold water…

We finally hooked up with Devin after the beach, when we went out for lunch at a place called Islands.  It was a sit-down burger joint.  I had a ‘Bleunami’ and it was pretty tasty.

Saturday, we slept in, seeing as we’d been up until all hours the night before.  When we finally got up, we decided we wanted to take a ride to a beach further south, like Santa Monica, so we could check out some different sights in L.A.  Michelle wanted to do a little more souvenir shopping in Hollywood before leaving town, so that was on the docket as well.   Lorch wanted to go with us and catch lunch at In N Out, so he rode along.

Leaving the hotel at about 11:45am, we followed the Garmin to the In N Out it instructed us to drive to, about 8 miles north on the 101.  That seemed like a long way to go for a burger, but we were all hungry.  When we arrived, some 25 minutes later, the restaurant was not there, and we bought some gas instead.  We decided to proceed south, avoiding the freeway, which was PACKED.  We thought we could just eat lunch some where along the way…

The drive down the 1 to Santa Monica took us nearly 2 hours.  And this was about a 25-mile trip.  We did make a short pit stop at Topanga Beach, but we quickly discovered that one was for surfing and not swimming (what with the rocks and lack of sand).  We finally pulled into a parking garage off the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica at 2:39pm.  We hadn’t eaten or done much with our day other than ride in the car up to that point.  We were all a little annoyed at how our Saturday was turning out, but we tried to make the best of it.  We had Mexican for lunch, strolled around the Promenade a little, then walked down to the Santa Monica Pier and the beach.

It was amazing how much warmer the water felt, less than 30 miles south along the shore.  Michelle and I went in, but Lorch hung out on the beach, wanted to avoid exposing his severely sunburned back and chest for a 2nd consecutive day.  It was a lot of fun “swimming” around as much as we could.  There were SO MANY people at the beach, it was hard to do much other than sort of float or tread water and ride the waves as they rolled in.  Still had a great time.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time left for other things with all the traffic that day.  After the beach, we headed back to the hotel, on the freeway this time, and we arrived back at about 6:30 or so.  Lorch left for the airport within an hour (his flight was at 11:30pm, but the south-bound traffic looked awful), and Michelle and I ended up having a quick dinner at California Pizza Kitchen just minutes before they closed at 10.

We were up bright and early on Sunday (about 4:30), and left the hotel shortly after 5.  Our flight left at 8, and we were both surprised that (A) there was not a lick of traffic that time of day, so we got all the way to the airport (about 35 miles) in just over a half hour, and (B) checking in and going through security at LAX took a grand total of 20 minutes.  It wasn’t even 6:30 by the time we arrived at our gate.  We were able to have a relaxing breakfast before getting on the plane…

Once again, keep an eye out for pictures!  I haven’t had time in the last day and a half to sift through all the shots I took, but I’m planning to do so this evening.  It was another great vacation.  Michelle and I always have a wonderful time on our trips, seeing new things and visiting with old friends.  We’re looking forward to doing it again soon.

General, Uncategorized

Key Your Eyes Peeled

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Just dropping a note while we’re in Colorado Springs that the new photo gallery “A Very Wordy Wedding” is up and online.  More to come soon from our trip, so check back frequently in the next several days if you’re interested.

More detailed posts to come to sum up the duration of our vacation.  We had a great time and will be home soon!

General, Hollywood, Sports, Uncategorized

Long Shots

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I looked at my sad little list of tweets on the front page today and it made me feel kind of bad.  Really just haven’t had a lot of blogocity flowing of late.

Anyway, later on this evening I will be taking in a second screening of Star Trek with some of the geek men from MKE.  We caught Watchmen as a group, too.  I’m going to turn in a little earlier than I usually would on a Friday, because I have to head over to the Wordell house in the Falls tomorrow to work on a computer; want to get said work done in the AM hours, so I’ll need some good sleep…

Went out and took some pictures last night after the sun went down.  Been meaning to do some night photography with my new camera, but this was my first chance.  Picked up a couple tips from Wordy on how to make some of them look better (I only uploaded a few of the decent ones).  Tip #1: remember that when you’re doing a 5-15 second exposure of a building and you’re zoomed in @ 300mm, you’re asking for blurring.  It’s just gonna happen.  Good point there.

What’s with the Brewers lately, eh?  They started slow, but things are looking up after a 5-1 homestand that came on the heels of a 3-1 road trip.  Brewers have won 6 series in a row, and they go to St. Louis this weekend playing for first place in the Central.  Yeah, it’s still early, but I see signs that the team is more relaxed and grown up than people were counting on.  I hope they don’t lose it, and they remember what is working during this good stretch.  Oh, and having Trevor Hoffman to handle the 9th doesn’t hurt, either.

I’ve got 2 weeks to go @ UWM before heading back to Osh Vegas for work once again!  How bout them apples??

What’s new with you?

General, Uncategorized

Added Benefits

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In the process of working on some thesis-related paperwork, I had occasion to review a story that I wrote about three years ago for a fiction class.  I enjoyed most of it, and I did feel like I was able to give it a solid, honest critical assessment, having not even looked at it in such a long time.  I was saying to Wordy that I could probably clean up the ending a bit and try to send it out for publication.

Then just this afternoon, I was having a conversation with Ron Rindo, my thesis director, about a very similar thing: what a fabulous idea it is to finish a piece, set it aside, and don’t even think about it for a couple months so you can look at it with a fresh perspective.  That not something that I’ve always taken the time to do in my academic career, but where this thesis is concerned, I think it’s absolutely necessary.  It’s a shift of thinking to go away from a standard, stone-set academic calendar to the notion that this is MY project, that I get to do at MY pace.  Quality has to be most important thing, and I’m going to try to be mindful of that from here on out.

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

Holy Monkey-Loving Crap

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The reports of Petters’s demise have apparently been overstated. Welcome back, Nicholas. They’re calling it ‘web 2.0’ now, whatever the hell that means.

As Petters is quick to point out, there are plenty of other people just as far behind the times, but let’s be honest– we need those people so we can feel better about ourselves.

Sort of like daytime courtroom shows.