decision '06

well, it's decided.

i am no longer going to be an expatriate.

on july 27th, 2006, i will be packing a 17' u-haul with all the shit in my tiny apartment, and driving it down to good ol' new jersey. i'll be living back at home with my parents for at least a few months, while i work at my job at McManus Design Group, and look for a brewing job.

sadly, the decision had to be made on one factor: my knee. Windee (who has had two ACL procedures) told me the details of the surgery, and it really shocked me. i thought this was a standard "tie the broken ends together" procedure. nope. this is a "remove an ACL from a corpse and bone graft it to my knee" procedure. and, upon further inspection of the selection of doctors up here, i found that there are two (yes, that's right...two) orthopedic surgeons that are members of the canadian association of orthopedic surgeons in this province. and neither are knee specialists. so, not only would i have to wait around 6-9 months to get the procedure done, it wouldn't be done by a specialist. i plan on snowboarding again in my life, and there is no way in hell that i'm just gonna let anyone poke around in there. if i go home, i can get a knee specialist to do it within a month. that's a lot more pleasant.

there are some upsides though: i can save a ton of money while i'm home, see my parents and friends from home regularly, go to the great american beer festival in september (which is essentially going to be the coolest job fair in the world), get a car (finally!), and once again have a fantastic beer selection. on top of that, after breaking the news to my thesis advisor that i couldn't take the really comfortable job he had offered me here in montreal, he said that we can work something out to allow me to consult part-time. i'm really excited about this. it's basically the best of both worlds...i can live at home and save money, but still come up to montreal on a semi-regular basis and hold down these two jobs. i always wanted to continue my research (and my advisor seems to be very excited that i can do this as well), and now i can while everything else works out at the same time. as an added bonus, if i can continue the consulting after i find a job brewing, i'll be able to pay the bills even though the brewing job will only pay slightly over minimum wage.

so, i'm happy. i'd be happier if i had more of my thesis experimentation done, since i have to finish it within the month, but at least the decision is no longer weighing on my mind.

what does this mean to my modest, but dedicated blog audience?

montreal friends: you all have been awesome. and that's one hell of an understatement. dry your eyes...this is not the end. i will be back, even more frequently than i expected, considering the consulting position i'm going to have. the nighttrain is gonna run out of montreal, but it will return in full force at times in the future. i also expect some trips for you all down to the states, as well. most of you have partied with my parents, and know that they'd be very happy to have you come stay at my house for some fun in nj/ny/pa.

nj/pa/va friends: brace yourselves. i will once again own an object of vehicular transportation. that means i'm visiting everyone. media folks - you're first...we're gonna tear wheelz' new house to splinters. nugz and bk - if you two can pick up so many weird women in dirty fredericksburg bars, i'm gonna be a damn casanova...expect the nighttrain to make a stop there in the near future for some rocket sauce. tamaquans - we're hitting the M & N again. i think we might be able to do a shot of everything in the bar and it won't be over 12 bucks. state college people - i don't really know why you're still living there, but i'm coming out and we're gonna eat every beer in town.

so, that's enough serious stuff for now. onto a few observations, then i gotta scram:

-apparently wheelz and company are going to see huey lewis and the fuckin' news next weekend. part of me wants to be there, and part of me is SO glad i'm not gonna. wheelz has been in love with huey for too long not to be completely insane at the show. 5 bucks says he gets punched in the face by someone. not because he gets into a fight, but because he'll actually yell "punch me in the face!!" at some random person until either they do it, or he ends up punching himself in the face. yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but this is also a person who had to be forcibly stopped from putting a combination of gold bond and paint thinner on his balls...i'm still not sure why we stopped him then, considering that we stepped aside just months before as he shot a staple through his sack for 30 bucks in front of 40 people. i'm looking forward to the stories from the show, though.

-i just hacked my new cell phone and now i can cut up and throw mp3s on it as ringtones. it's kinda geeky and dumb, but it's hilarious to set rings for people. i'm gonna have the most stupid rings on it...currently i have two songs from the karate kid ("you're the best around" by joe esposito and "cruel summer" by the bangles), one of the songs from rad ("thunder in your heart"), some msi, some cradle of filth, some gil mantera's party dream, etc. if you want your ringer to be any particular song, let me know and i'll make sure i put a dumb one on instead.

-i've been slamming coffee in recent weeks to keep my energy up for my long thesis writing sessions, but i guess it can only help me.

-everyone should watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on FX. if you don't laugh at this, we're probably not meant to be friends in the first place. "This is classic Tammy..."

-i recently got an email in my spam folder that had the subject "you always wanted to use your penis as a billiard cue". i'm not sure which is more unsettling: that someone actually put time and effort into sending out this spam or that there may be people out there that are thinking "you know, they're right! i would love to have a cock that i can play pool with. sign me up!". ouch.

-i'm really gonna miss the abundance of orangina when i move back to the states. it's everywhere here, and its helped out of hangovers so, so many times. who ever thought that mildly-carbonated fake orange juice could taste so damn good.

-i just had the image of Sahoo driving his motorcycle in my head, and it reminded me just how dangerous that is. i still can't believe he could manage to get a license...that test must be a joke. if anyone has ever been in a car with him driving, they know what i mean. he once almost killed me and Kirby by trying to make a right turn from the left lane, cutting off a BUS that was to the right of us. i also remember the look of absolute terror on Jenna's face when she found out that Sahoo was gonna drive her car back to our house at penn state from downtown. that's a half mile of straight two lane road and i've never seen her more afraid (well that might not be true...she was pretty afriad when she got into the car and saw Bomz' new facial hair design...well, i guess that was more anger than fear).

ok, that's enough for now. time to get to work.

(sigh).

ok, ok, Jen, you're right, my concept of soon is pretty out of whack. time for another installment.

well, so much to talk about, and so little time. little time in the day. little time in my program. little time in my stay in canada. or is it? i can already tell that this is not gonna be one of the more jovial posts. i'm confused. within two months, my life will be significantly different. i will be done with school (at least within the practical sense; thesis submitted, waiting for review, etc). i will be entering the 'adult' world. i will be moving. i will be in one of many different places. and here is where the confusion sets in. i could stay in canada, i could move to NJ, i could move to some other part of the US... i guess i'll break it down:

option uno - i move home for august and begin work at a brewpub in september (i've got about a hundred resumes out, and a few look promising). i start the progression towards my dream without delay.

option dos - i have a job offer here in canada working as a research assistant for my thesis advisor. it pays very well, it's interesting work (basically continuing my thesis research, but getting paid to do it), the people are cool, i get to stay around my montreal friends, i can pursue a possible romantic interest, i can have some cash to put away until i need to either go to brewing school or live on minimum wage while i intern at a brewpub.

option tres - i go to NJ to work in the same job i've done for the past six years (strutural engineering work). it pays better than the montreal job, i live at home and save the money i would spend in montreal on rent, food, beer, etc., i can finally own a car again, i can see my PA buddies more than once a year, and i can put away a lot more cash than if i stayed in montreal. i also can have my knee surgery within weeks instead of about 9 months, as it would take in canada.

if option uno pans out, and i can afford to live off of the minimal salary of being a brewer's bitch, then there is no question about the decision. but if it doesn't, i have no idea what to do. moving back home is the easiest, but then i might miss out on a good number of things here, like: the few amazing friends i have up here, the website idea Dave and i came up with, another chapter in the nightmarish book entitled 'Nick's Badly-Timed Attempts at Relationships', the amazing vibe of this city...all those wonderful things.

on the other hand, my knee gets worse and worse every day, and i haven't even been called yet about setting up a simple consultation appointment with the surgeon, whose waiting list i was added to over two months ago. i need to be able to travel all over the US relatively simply in order to go on interviews at the prospective breweries, which is a little difficult if i have a full time job in canada. i also might need to save about 10 grand to attend brewing school and get a certification, which would be much easier to do at home due to the large reduction in costs.

the worst part about it all is that i have to decide about these things within the span of around 10 days. (sigh).

on a very mildly lighter point, i have my first 10 pages of my thesis written. it doesn't sound like much, but for me, it's given me a small boost of confidence that i really can get this fucker done.

and on one last note, i cannot wait to brew again. and there is not any method of text formatting to let me stress that enough. all i do when i'm not working on my thesis is read my brewing books and come up with new beer ideas. but i have no time to brew them, especially since i might be moving from my apartment within a month. once i figure all this shit out and get my thesis done, these brews are on deck: latte stout (coffee stout with added lactose), mango stout (i really think it will work), pomegranate lambic, imperial ned flanders red (super strong flanders red). more to come.

a turn of the tides?

i don't know how i do it. for some reason, i have always fallen (often drunkenly) onto track for significant and serious jobs. i have never worked retail, never sold fast food (or any food for that matter), never had to learn a spiel that i would babble off over the phone to some unsuspecting consumer right in the middle of their dinner or session of crazy sex. don't get me wrong...i'm not trying to insult people who had these jobs. i have a lot of close friends that had them, and i have the utmost respect and admiration for them, if only for the fact that they stayed within a range of mild sanity throughout it all. i guess i've been lucky in that sense...the first job i had was working for McManus Design Group and Building Systems. as of now, i've worked there for over 6 years (on and off, of course, because of school). and i had possibly the greatest boss anyone could ever hope for. alongside that job, i've worked as a web designer for psu, programmer for new music synthesis methods, music system designer for abstract multimedia art installations, instructional video beer tutor, and other freelance tech projects. now, as most of you know, i hope to become a brewer after graduating with my master's degree. things have been lining up towards this plan: great reviews of my beer, multiple discussions with brewpubs in the area relating to a job, connections developing with multiple microbreweries in the states, etc. everything in its right place. well, that is, until i get a stick thrown in the spokes. not really a bad "stick" in any way, but it does upset the current momentum.

the "stick" presented itself during a meeting with my thesis advisor. lately he has been really impressed with my work (who knew?) and asked me what i'm planning on doing when the thesis is over. i've tried to avoid this question with him for a while, since he's being SO helpful with the thesis that i didn't want him to think that it's all for nothing. so, i said, as professionally as possible, "well, the thing is, i've been getting seriously into brewing beer, to the point that i want to pursue it as a career. i still want to continue with some research in this field, but right now, i'm not going towards a doctorate, and i feel that the brewing path is the best for me." well, to my surprise, he seemed pretty cool with it. i think he found it mildly amusing, but it didn't seem to throw him too much of a curveball. next, to even more of my surprise, he says, "the reason i ask is that i really want to continue research in this field and would like to offer you a job as a research assistant here, either part-time or full-time, depending on your interest when your thesis is done."

hmm? what was that?? pardon?

damn. just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in! now i have no idea what to do. at least he's offering a part-time position. maybe i can brew half-time and research half-time. and i know my parents are gonna be pushing for the research side. and i don't blame them. it's by far the smarter path to take. but, i don't think i want to do it. i'd like to tell him that i'll send him an email in 3 years and tell him whether i want the job or whether i'm opening my own brewpub. i was almost hoping that an opportunity like this didn't fall into my lap so that i could run with the brewing passion. well, i guess it's comforting that i could do it part-time, because i think that any brewing job i get up here will be of severely low hour/low pay. ok...lots to think about. and lots to do. ugh.

random other ponderings:

-i predicted it. the Two Dudes finally got internet. and as soon as the internet came, the profuseness and profundity of posts increased as greatly as Nugz' post-"cable installation" vocabulary (read the blog to figure out what i'm referencing). ok, well, "profundity" is a bit of an overstatement, but it is damn witty in a strange sort of way. in the last 1.5 days of having internet, they've posted 7 times. read it. for anyone who is unfamiliar with my psu friends, this will be a good warning of how fucked up they all are, so that you're not as surprised when you come to "The Party" and see things like: someone funnelling a family sized can of kidney beans, people shouting "hey , do your dance!" while a wasted kid of that name shuffles around like a jackass, someone smoking a cig through their nose (while racing someone else), people "powdering up them jams" (explained here by an outsider to the concept), people shotgunning 3 cans of PBR each within 3 minutes and 5 seconds at 9am to the tune of Alan Jackson's "Pop-a-Top", and, of course, disgusting bouts of binge drinking the likes of which few mortals have ever seen.

-The Locust fucking RULES. i forgot how great these guys are until ian mercifully sent me the album a week ago. bizarre, brutal, and even frightening at times. all with some of the most otherworldly rhythms and timbres i've ever heard. i remember the first time i saw them live. talk about alien...these 4 freaks dressed in green full-body suits with metal bug-eyes, twisting and contorting themselves in a way completely unknown to this planet, all whilst bringing the onslaught with a tag-team vocal effort that would send all but the most masochistic audience members running for the door. and all the while, they are perfect on their respective instruments. so mechanical in their timing that its hard to believe they are human. human or alien, i don't care...these things fucking rock.

-i've only started using the coffee machine in the music tech lab for a few hours now, and i'm already frustrated with it and its surrounding politics. i go in there, and there is a full pot sitting in the sink, still slightly warm, with no one around. what does this mean? are they done with the pot? if so, why wouldn't they dump it? do they like their coffee lukewarm? then why would they put the pot in the sink? were they kidnapped by The Locust the moment after they poured that first cup? i sure hope so. so, i dump it. i gave them 10 mins to get back to it before i did. then, i make a cup for myself (which is difficult to measure out correctly on a 20-cup machine). i walk out with it, bring it to my desk, check my email, and realize less than 5 minutes later that i left my new bag of Cafe Santropol coffee in the kitchen, only to go back and find that in that ridiculously short span of time, some assbag managed to make a 20-cup pot with my beans. what the shit? look, i'm not cheap, but that's just disrespectful. especially since there was a container of "communal coffee" on the shelf above the counter. it's like living back at patterson street again. but at least there it was your close friends stealing your food. here, it's just some weird researchers from western europe that are only here for two months at a time.

ok, enough for now. time to get back to research.

24 w/ a side of revelations.

well, let's start at the beginning. i wanna thank everyone who came out to Bru for my birthday shindig last weekend. from what i remember of it, a lot of fun was had...a lot of drinks were drank...a lot of shots were taken...a few carbombs were slammed...and some great friends made sure i got home alright. if anyone wants to see pics, check them out on facebook. Dave was the resident photographer that night, and he took some good ones.

being 24 doesn't seem to change much, but it just sounds shittier than 23. not really sure why. i think it is a bit of a motivating factor, though...get another year tacked onto the odometer, re-evaluate the current situation, come up with a plan to make the necessary changes. an interesting web site that i came across thanks to my friend Candice was an interesting one to find during this re-evaluation...it's called Future Me. basically,it let's you write an email and send it to yourself at a certain time in the future. an electronic time capsule if you will. the site's getting a ton of hits and the overhead is so low that i could see the site actually still being around long enough for one of these emails to be sent. pretty interesting concept. god, i love the internet.

in this process, i realized that i need to get down to business with my thesis immediately. i realized that the time it takes me to write is almost completely up to me, and if i work hard enough on it, i should be able to get it done by the early summer, which would be really awesome in terms of my current financial situation and travel plans i have for the summer. so, i need to get into the library today to start the painstaking research. the sooner i get this thesis out of the way, the sooner i can jump headfirst into the brewing world.

sitting at Dieu Du Ciel last night, drinking some pints with Carm, the longing to own my own brewpub burned so brightly inside that i almost felt like ditching the thesis program and just going for it, but i know i won't do that. the feeling just re-affirmed how badly i want to start on this career path. on a similar note, i'm soon submitting my mint-chocolate stout, dubbed "Junior Mints 'n' Bosco, to both the March in Montreal Homebrew Competition and the National Homebrew Competition. from all the feedback i've been getting from the serious beer people around here, it's got a chance to medal, so i'm really excited. i'm also going to attempt to brew it again this week to see if i can recreate it accurately (though i'm adding flaked barley to increase the head retention (thanks Aaron) and using a british ale yeast instead of an irish ale one, only because Steph at the homebrew shop didn't have the latter). after that, i've got a few IPAs up my sleeve to use up the ridiculous amount of US hops that are in my freezer. i also have to bottle my Altbier, tentatively named "Falter", within the next day or so.

on some random notes:

i apologize for the suggestion to read the Two Dudes blog. it had (and still does have) damn good potential, but everyone's going to have to wait until they buy internet for their house and stop having to go to the public library to blog. i'm disappointed guys. you both have steady jobs. you can afford to shell out 40 bucks a month. i guarantee that by the start of baseball season, it will be worth reading, cause they're going to need internet when that happens.

the dad at the beginning of The Neverending Story is a dick! how old is Bastian? maybe 11? and his dad is giving him shit for still being upset that his mom died and for drawing doodles of unicorns in his math notebook? he's fuckin' 11! ease off the kid, hitler.

alright...time to get down to it. catch you all on the flipside.

fear and loathing in foufounes electriques

well, it's been a while, hasn't it? i'll do my best to not take such a break again (that one's for you, Crystal). so, what's been up in my life? not too much...thesis topic accepted by the weirdos in the music theory graduate sub-committee, my mint chocolate stout (dubbed Junior Mints 'n' Bosco; a free beer goes to anyone who can name both references) was given a 39/50 score by a BJCP-certified judge (which is one point above excellent), and i STILL have not had a chance to go snowboarding this winter. i'm sitting here, Jay Peak season pass in hand, and i can't fucking get a ride.

so. foufounes. it was tuesday again, so i went to foufs...there is nowhere else that you can find good music, pool tables, and five-dollar pitchers. it was tough to find anyone to go...tuesday and all...and most of my friends are grad students (which in my opinion is bullshit. if you can't go out drinking every once in a while during the week, you are going to HATE your time as a grad student.)...whatever. finally, i convinced Kyle to get off the damn phone with work and come down for a few. he did, but i was already 3 pitchers in by the time he got there. during my observant alone time there (i am infatuated with people-watching...beats the hell out of bird-watching any day of the week), i noticed some very interesting characters. this is one of those great crowds...full of diversity in every sense of the word. let's run down the list:

punk: we have varying degrees here. there's the "i'm so punk, you don't even know i'm punk" people who you don't notice too readily. they may be wearing a punk shirt, slightly ripped jeans, etc. usually they are the older, more "battle-scarred" punks, ranging from mid 20s to 50s. these guys have been to all the shows, have all the albums, and may have punched henry rollins in the face at some point (or at least a guy who looks like henry rollins). on the other side of the coin, there's the "i think i'm so punk that i'm going to shove it in your face so much that you'll know i'm clearly not punk at all." you can hear these specimens coming with about 6-10 chains somewhere on themselves (wallet, nose to ear, etc). every piece of clothing on them is ripped (most likely intentionally for the visual effect), they are usually late teens or very early 20s, and are the most likely to get in a brawl that night. there are also punk girls, but often it's hard to make the gender discrimination especially through all the layers of chains, piercings, tattoos, and Rancid patches. (on a side note: how many punks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? three. one to stand on a ladder, the second to kick the ladder out from under him, and the third to say it's the punkest thing he's ever seen).

metalhead: i've dealt with these people most of my life (hell, i was one!). they're pretty basic: long hair, jeans, metal t-shirt. to them, nothing is better than talking about how killer the guitar work is on the latest Nevermore album, or how 1980s Metallica was the best music ever created, or how they wished they lived in the time of epic battles, maidens, and mead halls. the older ones will throw in oddly timed comments about how they played in some band "back in the day" and they were close to making it, if it wasn't for the commercialized rock industry. they're pretty harmless, mildly entertaining if you can laugh at absurdity, and definitely the people you want to talk to if you want to know about the Slayer back-catalogue or what type of ass cream Kirk Hammett used to use. if you need to know any more, go rent Airheads. who ever thought Brenden Fraser could accurately play a role?

goth: lots of different kinds here...there are the fetish goths, the black metal goths, the wannabe satanists, the "i go to classes on medieval swordfighting" goths...the list goes on and on. personally, i find the wannabe satanists the funniest. they walk around dressed in all black, mostly velvet and leather, wearing upside-down crosses and inverted pentacles inscribed with the face of the ::waves fingers in spooky manner:: dark lord of pain and torment. oooh, i'm scared! if these freaks are satanists, then i'm a bible-thumping catholic priest. often times, you may confuse one of these people with the "my darkened soul yearns to be in an Anne Rice novel" people. don't worry, it's hard to tell them apart...sometimes they can be both. and, most of all, they are like little animals in the wild, i.e. more afraid of you than you are of them.

that covers many of the types that you'll find at this wonderful establishment. there are more, too, like the flock of girls that look either too young, too out of place, or both. there are often some hippie types...not usually the DMB-fan types, but often the ones who have come to the realization that bands exist that aren't named "Phish". finally, there are the ones who are not there to create an image, not there to start fights, not there to slay dragons, but are simply there to kick back, drink cheap beer, play pool, watch skate videos, listen to good tunes, and have some fun.

the type that is never there (and this is one of the main reasons i go) is the frat guy. if you go to foufs, you will not see one flipped-up collared, golf-shirt wearing, shit-talking, roofie-dosing meathead.

so, after making these observations, Kyle showed up, and what happened after is blurry. from the looks of my wallet, i had 1-2 more pitchers, and then trekked up to 1+1 for a few slices. All-in-all a fun night...next day wasn't as fun, but i made it through.

anyway, i'm out for now.

on one last note, check out the best blonde joke ever.

spiritual ponderings, tattoos, and intoxicated viewings of futurama...yeah, it's a normal post

currently, i'm sitting at my desk (i made it off the futon! who woulda thunk it??) and i'm pretty damn bored. some season 2 futurama episode is playing on my dvd player, i'm enjoying one of my hopefully-soon-to-be-award-winning christmas beers, and i'm not tired in the least. well, let's just say, i'm not sure if i'm tired, but i know i don't feel like sleeping. in fact, i wish sleeping could be made obsolete. for me, sleep is almost always accompanied with a mild-to-strong sense of defeat. i think i'm in the minority here...i'm good friends with some people who would spend all their time sleeping if they didn't need to work.

it's so frustrating when there is so much to do, and so many things you could do, and yet you end up doing nothing. i could read...i've got about 30 books on my shelf that i'd really like to get into. i could research...my thesis is upon me, and it's not really gonna be easy. i could work on music...but, after being at mcgill for this long, most of my creative, artistic tendencies have been snuffed out "like a stale pall mall" (yeah, i've seen a lot of seinfeld recently). i could mull over the scattered thoughts in my head.....yeah, that sounds about right. and, at least with blogging, i can pretty much get some of them out there to my relatively non-existent audience.

i came across a notebook that i used for my reflections in my freshman year mysticism class today while scouring my apartment for a very expensive set of needle EEG electrodes that i'm probably going to have to replace, and, as usually happens when i come upon this thought repository in recent years, i get a little shocked at how far removed i am now from that time in my life. while i have learned so much since that time of naivete, about maturity, women, goals, friendship, etc., it seems that the promising avenue of spiritual exploration and consciousness expansion on which i was travelling has somehow been almost completely lost. the worst part is that i don't know where i went astray. was it the four straight years of booze? was it every badly-timed pseudo-relationship? was it the stifling experience of professors trying to shape me into a corporate mechanism? it's really difficult to say...probably a combination of many of these experiences. no matter what it was, i'm frighteningly different then i was. i haven't become completely cynical about this field of mysticism, as i am still open to it, but i just have little drive to go down that path recently. come to think of it, it's very possible that i don't want to walk that road again simply because of the pain that immediately followed the opening of my head to these pursuits. i had been almost experience-less in life and dove head first into a realm of contemplation and exploration that is as murky and hazy as the darkest of oceans. i did not end up in the shallow water and bump my head...i dove into the deepest of deep ends, and kept swimming further and further down, to the point when there was no clear way to come back for air. and it was in this confounding abyss that i was barraged with the heaviest and most profound experiences of my life so far. i guess now i'm trying selfishly to protect myself from getting into that position again. the keeping of spiritual rumination and life lessons in separate and distinct moments is very difficult to do. my only hope is that i can get to a place in my life sometime when i will feel comfortable enough with daily life to do another half-gainer into the deep end. damn, i need to quit it with the water metaphors.

one thing to look forward to is that i'm probably going to get my next tattoo soon. i was hoping for jesus (who did my first) to come back to montreal to do mine, but i'm not sure whether he will be anytime soon, so i'm going to get one of the other artists at Imago Tattoo to draw up a rendition of my design, and i'll decide whether he's got the right stuff or whether i'm gonna hold off for jesus. if you live in montreal and want a tattoo, you gotta check out imago. though, when i say tattoo, i'm not talking about just any cookie-cutter, "i wanna get a tattoo just to get one", "i'm hammered, so why not?", found-on-a-colorful-board-with-300-others tattoo. these guys are professionals. it's all custom work done in the most clean, sophisticated tattoo place i've ever experienced. so, i'm just crossing my fingers that jesus is gonna be back, or that safwan (the owner) has an opening, even though last time i checked, he was booked for over a year.

there are other things to look forward to as well...friday will be a blast with dave, jenny, and jen all coming here to watch futurama and taste beer. if anyone wants to join in the absurdity (oh, there will be some absurdity!), let me know. as most of you know, nick's apartment, aka NightTrain's Palace of Procrastination and Inebriation, is always stocked full o' beer and tv shows on dvd, so there's enough to go around.

anyway, i should probably call it a night. i'm gonna go lay on my comfy bed and unsuccessfully try to fall asleep. peace.

watch out stupid people

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Slap stupid people in the head. Get your resolution here

thanks to Crystal for the above link (you win on the more fun resolution!) and for the impetus that brings another post to this relatively barren blog. so...let's see. well, things have been slow here. working here and there, some amount of loaf-age, the occasional acid flashback. i really need to get back on track with thesis related things, especially considering that my thesis proposal that i scheduled to do by now is 110% non-existent. on top of that, i still can't get the max external that i'm contractually obligated to finish into a stable, working state (goddamn dynamic memory allocation...one day, just one day, i will smite thee!). "just nine more months...just nine more months..." echoes through my head. i'm really hoping that i'm going to have the willpower and perseverance to write this thesis even though i'm not going to be doing much of anything with my degree in the near future.

i went to the mall yesterday...it was a bit disorienting. the most poignant moment was hearing "the most wonderful time of the year" being blasted through the PA in a store. with the arguing customers, overworked employees, and the foul stench of unbridled consumerism in the air, it may have been the most ironic time and place possible. but i digress...

anyway, nye should be a blast. teaching my boss how to brew early in the day, hoping to hang out with Crystal after that once i roll into the area, and eventually making my way to Gill's party in nazareth, the birthplace of jesus. (you didn't know that jesus was born in pennsylvania?? ha...even if he was he still wouldn't have been white, you stupid people...slap!!) this should be one for the books. considering that none of the media people are making it to Gill's party, it rests upon my shoulders to bring the insanity that they would have. therefore, i'm just hoping that i'll be alive when tomorrow comes.

...and there was nothing to fear
nothing to doubt...


some of you will recognize these lines as coming from a Radiohead song. they used to be somewhat of a test for me. there have been times in my life that i have coincidentally heard the song and for some reason it signaled me to believe that if my life were to end at this moment, everything would be fine. as some who know me understand, i am not a religious person. i am, however, a 'spiritual' person, and these few words usually hit home pretty hard for me in the sense of summing 'it all' up. at certain times that i heard it, i would have this massively overwhelming sense that, based on the current moment in my life, everything was going to be all right. this is not to say that a 'heaven' was awaiting my arrival, but simply that whatever happened was not going to matter anymore. neither good or bad. just perfect.

i have a very hard time believing in a heaven ("it's fine...there's a shortage of chairs...yeah..."). not to say that there isn't an afterlife, but the idea that it's some wonderful, splendiferous locale where you get to see all your family and your pets and play craps with jesus just seems to be some wild pipe dream forced into our heads by the authority figures that are trying to keep people morally in line during our so-called 'existence'. i think of it more as escaping corporeal bodies into a collective consciousness in which there is "nothing to fear...nothing to doubt". on the other side of the coin, our consciousness may end as we depart our corporeality, at which time there would be "nothing to fear...nothing to doubt" simply because we wouldn't have the mind to fear or doubt.

going back to my original thought... i heard it tonight, and it did not hit me the same way that it had before. i encountered its beauty and simplicity but was not brought back to the feeling of content that i usually experienced. this leads me to believe that i have currently realized that i can offer more to this reality than i believed i could before. it's not very normal for a 19 year old to be at peace in departing his existence... it gave me a glimmer of hope that i'm progressing towards something and not just aimlessly wading in the currents of life.

quoting Ram Dass (some of you will know him as Dr. Richard Alpert), we should "Be Here Now". that's a powerful and univerally recognized statement that spans throughout mysticism from any spiritual background. it brings about the question of whether our existence is a totality of our deeds, actions, decisions, beliefs, etc. or whether we simply find beauty and life in a series of fleeting conscious moments. i think that during the moments that i felt at peace, i was at peace. no matter how awkward or seemingly premature they were, i was there. i'm not saying that i was complete in those moments, but considering the scope of my life to that point i was content. due to this, i think that having these peaceful moments are signs that i can be truly at peace, but within the current state of my life, i'm not. this is in no way a negative thing. it's refreshing. i've been there and my experience of these moments can only increase, both positively and negatively.

something that few people fully understand is the need for a balance between positivity and negativity. if life was 'perfect' we wouldn't know that it was. we would be bored, unsatisfied, and uninterested. beauty lies completely in this balance. we can only experience happiness on the scale that we've experienced sadness and vice-versa. i truly believe that this peace can only be obtained by a complete balance of these two, independent of the breadth of the individual scales.

my potential progress lies in the knowing that i'm not currently at peace. finally, a sign that i'm moving towards something.

last class assignment...

damn, i've been procrastinating so much of today. i have ONE more assignment due tomorrow for my music cognition class, and then i have no more classes EVER. it really doesn't feel different, but i know it will soon enough. then it's onto the master's thesis...that's gonna be one hell of an ordeal. due august 31st with almost no work done on it so far. it's funny that i'm going to be putting so much time, effort, and money into it when it's most likely just gonna hang idly on the brew room wall once i start my own brewpub.

ahh, i can't wait...such an amazing feeling when you actually realize what you want to do (and more importantly, what you would be happy doing every day). i never had it before. i did my undergrad in information sciences solely because i knew i was good at it, and that i would probably be content with a job in the field if it worked out that way. after 4 years of that, i didn't know what i wanted to do, but i knew it wasn't IT. The idea of a cubicle-ized existence, drowning in memos, bound in red tape, seemed to be the farthest thing from interesting. due to this realization during the end of my PSU years, i happened to start taking classes related to music technology. this, i thought, was interesting. what i didn't realize at the time was that "music technology" is not universally defined. at penn state, this was related to using technology to create new ways of making music, while at mcgill, the making of the music is almost completely erased from the equation. they make the technologies, but when it comes to using them to make art, they back away, putting their hands up, frightened, saying, "oh...ahh...let's find one of those...ah...performers...or...ah...composers...". with a few notable exceptions, no one in the entire program wants to make music. it gets confusing, because dartmouth, for example, has a "Music Technology" degree that is completely the opposite of this. they bring a much more creative, compositional side to the program.

i guess if i had actually been accepted to dartmouth, things may have been different...i may have become an electronic musician, or have gone on to a doctoral degree...it doesn't matter now though. either way, i knew i wasn't going to settle for anything less than finding a job that i was ecstatic about doing every day. and i found that with brewing...i think it may stem from the fact that some part of me always wanted to be a chef. and being a brewer lets me get close, while not shouldering the high levels of stress that come with being a chef. and all the time leading up to this realization, i have just been accumulating degrees, which will definitely support me if something goes awry with the brewing.

shit. all this hopeful thinking about the wonderful days after august 31st has brought me to 3:00am with my project still unfinished...at least it will be over after 1pm tomorrow...

see you on the other side...

Dusty

well, it happened. my dog, Dusty, died at home at about 6am this morning. it wasn't unexpected, considering that he's had a tumor in his heart for months now, and the vet was very shocked that he made it this long. it still hurts really bad. especially since i was gonna be home to see him in a little over a week. i knew i should have gone home for thanksgiving...i would have been around for one of his last days. at least he enjoyed his last (eating nothing but his favorite foods) and had a great, stress free life of almost 11 years, all coming to a close in my parents' arms at home instead of in a cold, clean, bright vet's office.

i wonder how my other dog, Tanga, feels. my mom told me that she seems a little depressed, but who knows? Tanga probably knew more of what was going on than we did for the last few months. the two of them always seemed to have a telepathic link of sorts. maybe it continues...we'll never know.

deception and limited resolution

baby steps across the ice. such is life.

very few times in our meager existence can we see it in a light that allows us to make judgments. this is not to say that the judgments are clear in any sort of way, but most often, we drudge through life as it slips away without sizing it up. maybe it's not our place to size it up, but we inherently do, regardless of our limited span of sentience.

staring at a delicate flower...able to perceive its beauty, not able to explain why. is it color? is it rarity? is it size? shape? vibrance? catch a glimpse of personal scars in the glass...a lingering sense of imperfection recalling both internal and external flaw. they are, in every sense of the word, delicate. where is the beauty in that? in their emergence? hardly.

cold rain pours down, stiffening the treacherous surface on which we walk. some glide, unshaken by the probable peril. others inch, too frightened...not of the surface itself, but of the conceived consequences. since we are, in fact, fragile beings, obviously inching would bring us safely to the warm, comforting place that we attempt to call home. but for most, home is a dream. home is an idealized place that never tests us, never pushes us. home is a place that always has a steady beat...only sometimes throws us a dissonant chord, which always is followed by a resounding consonance. never frightens. never leaves us uncomfortable. this does not exist.

we are in the wild. a cry trespasses the sense of safety. a horn startles from beyond vision. there is safety in 4/4. there is safety in familiar timbre. there is safety in recognizable themes. too many ache for safety. there is no surprise in safety. there is no outward experience in safety. there is no pain in safety. and without pain, where are we? never could a human experience joy, love, happiness, content, mirth, ambition, laughter without pain and anguish. safety is a cop out.

a homeless man excitedly thanks me for a handful of change that couldn't be more than 2 dollars. maybe he'll purchase a loaf of bread. maybe he'll be able to sustain himself for another day. what does that amount mean to most of us? a third of a pint of inebriating substance? a load of wet clothes in the dryer? a pack of gum so that our breath can seem 'fresh'? a shitty song off of iTunes? what we look at as an insignificant sum of change that we haphazardly throw onto our desk becomes life-preserving manna for another day of existence. don't get me wrong...i too relish in the extravagances of expenditure, but to what end? to be happy? to keep an image? to find pleasure in such a seemingly meaningless lifestyle? to make a 'home'? it is not i that understands the importance of life, but this man.