And I've been fluttering all over the damn place.

Since my lease on my apartment in New Orleans was almost up and I planned to move rather than renew it, last month I set off on an 1800-mile roadtrip to check out the various places I was considering moving to. I decided on Knoxville, TN, for several reasons. I've really been wanting to live somewhere mountainous, and Knoxville is certainly satisfying in that respect. Andrés and Amy had just moved there for grad school and plan to be there for at least two years. Geographically it's within a few hours' drive of lots of the places where I have friends — Atlanta, Clemson, Raleigh. There is a healthy aviation scene in Knoxville — there are at least three good flying clubs with great rates, and there's a large commercial airport and a smaller regional airport and lots of private grass strips all over. It's a small city, so I have access to all the stores and resources I want, without having to deal with city blocks and traffic and nowhere to park.

[Entry Continues...]

(This entry is backdated)

With my impending move, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move both of my cars. I plan to rent a U-Haul truck to move my stuff, so I can tow a car behind it, but getting the second car there would be trickier — I'd either have to drive the truck with one car in tow, then fly back to Covington to drive the other one, or I'd need to pay a friend to drive my other car alongside the U-Haul and then fly them back home or something. Neither option is very appealing.

[Entry Continues...]

On Saturday I had a bit of a 'Dinner And Wine And Board Games' evening with Bryan and Cat, along with Danielle, the pilot from New Orleans I met a few weeks ago. We had a great time living the yuppie lifestyle for an evening. I made lasagna and Cat made pineapple upside-down cake and we played Apples 2 Apples and Cranium and Eat Poop You Cat.

[Entry Continues...]

Since I started flight lessons a few weeks ago, Bryan had occasionally mentioned coming along with me on one, but since my lessons are always during the day, he was always at work. Yesterday was a holiday, though, so he came along (after making me promise not to kill him). Fortunately, he brought along Cat's camera too, so he took some pictures and videos during the flight.

It was a relatively exciting lesson too, since we were practicing stalls and stall recovery. A stall occurs when a wing pitches up so high that the airflow breaks up and the wing suddenly stops producing lift. It tends to happen during slow flight, at times when you're flying just barely faster than the plane's minimum speed, such as takeoff and landing. The recovery involves adding full power and pitching down briefly to break the stall, then smoothly pitching back up to stop the plane from descending.

[Entry Continues...]

A few weeks ago Amy called and told me that Andrés' spring break was coming up at the beginning of March, and suggested that I fly up to Boston to spend it with them. All it takes for me is an invitation, so I soon bought my plane ticket and made my plans to fly up.

The departure didn't go quite as planned — the flight left at 1:30pm, so I aimed to be there two hours before that. We made good time crossing the lake, so Bryan and Cat actually dropped me off at the airport at around 11 am. I figured I could certainly stand waiting an extra half hour.

Of course, when I checked in I learned that the incoming flight had been delayed due to weather, so my flight was rescheduled to leave at 4:30pm. I called Bryan and Cat and delivered the news, and they offered to come back and pick me up so I wouldn't have to sit at the airport for hours. We did a little thrift store shopping and ate at Denny's, then returned to the airport at 3 pm. I thanked them for helping me pass the time and headed in.

[Entry Continues...]

Today I went Geocaching. I discovered the activity a few months ago, right around when I was moving up to Covington, but I was too busy to try it. This weekend I decided I'd give it a shot.

Geocaching is a sort of game or sport in which strangers will hide a small 'cache' (varying in size from a film canister to a large chest) somewhere inconspicuous, note the coordinates with a GPS unit, and then post the information on a website. Other 'players' will read about the cache, make a note of the coordinates, and set out with their own GPS unit to try and find it. Caches always contain a small notebook that serves as a log, and each player who finds the cache is supposed to sign the log to describe when they found it, and what they thought of the experience. Caches also often contain random trinkets (they can be anything from dollar-store toys to CDs to computer hardware to action figures), and you're encouraged to take some and leave others in trade.

[Entry Continues...]

Cat sent me her photos from the Christmas Party where Bryan, Matt, and I played guitar, so I thought I'd post them. She also shot a few short videos, so I put two of those online as well:

• Angels We Have Heard On High (4.3mb X-Vid video)
• Jaeden's Proto-Headbangs (2.4mb X-Vid video)

The people's talking kind of drowns it out, but you can still make out the music. Also, Jaeden is being brought up to be awesome.

At Bryan and Cat's place the other night, I tried wine yet again. This time it was only half terrible. I'm experiencing the same thing that happened with Guinness; I find myself occasionally feeling a vague desire for a glass of wine, while at the same time remembering how terrible it tastes. I think that, just as with Guinness, what I'm actually drawn to is the environment that I associate with the drink — the theatrics of carefully pouring a pint of Guinness and enjoying the creamy head, or the relaxing experience of enjoying a glass of wine and good cheese in a pool with friends. Still, for whatever reason, I find myself slowly (and painfully) acquiring a taste for these things that taste so terrible at first.

[Entry Continues...]

Today the organization that Cat works for held a small party at a local church, and she asked Bryan and I to play music while the guests were arriving. Bryan enlisted his far more talented friend, Matt (err, no, wait, this is the picture I meant to link to) to play with us. Matt is about to graduate with a Music degree, so his skills added a lot to the ensemble.

[Entry Continues...]

Today I went to a Renaissance Festival for the first time, and it was just as awesome as I'd hoped. They were holding it in Hammond, just about half an hour from here, so Bryan and Cat and I headed out there this morning. From the moment we arrived at the entrance I was already giggling with glee.

[Entry Continues...]

Today Bryan and Cat and I headed to the somewhat nearby city of Hammond. Cat was meeting a friend from grad school, and Bryan and I passed the time at the public skate park in town. We wowed everyone with our daring feats of bravery. Most of the kids there were in the 12- to 16-year-old range (and a lot better than me). Even this awesome little eight-year-old kid attacked the ramps like he was born on them (which might well be true). There were even four or five girls out there skating, and none too shabbily, either. Little skater kids today must have it great — when I was that age, skater chicks were way harder to find.

[Entry Continues...]

This weekend was pretty party-filled. I took Bryan to the airport on Friday for a weekend trip to take his CISSP certification test, and then came back and watched some Scrubs and Family Guy with Cat. On Saturday I met up with Cat again and we watched The Goonies. Just as the movie was finishing, Kelsey text-messaged me and suggested I come over for an impromptu get-together she and her roommates were having in New Orleans. What perfect timing. I knew I was going to have to drive back out to New Orleans the next day to pick up Bryan at the airport, but I've only hung out with Kelsey once since I moved up here, so I figured it was well worth the drive.

[Entry Continues...]

It's official — the Evo is sold, and I'm holding the check in my hands. As much as I loved that car, it's an incredible relief to be rid of the financial burden. I ended up letting it go for $23,000 — a ridiculously low price for that car, especially considering the inflated price of all cars in Puerto Rico. But I'm OK with that. The economy in PR is just not very good right now, and it was pretty clear that most people just couldn't afford to spend that kind of money on a sports car. And I did still get money back above what I owed on the car, so it's hard to feel too upset about the price.

[Entry Continues...]

The visit in Clemson was perfect. I didn't miss out on any visits, and I got to do all the things I had on my list: I watched Metalocalypse with Meg, ate at Waffle House, took pictures at the abandoned mill in Newry, finally hung out with Katie in person, went to Super Taco, spent a good amount of time with Alia, did an Irish Car Bomb with Jeff and Bobby, hung out with Kells, and even got to see Jenn, which I though would be infeasible.

[Entry Continues...]

In anticipation of living near Bryan and finally having someone to play music regularly with again, I pulled out and tuned up my electric guitar yesterday. I think it's been at least a year since I last played electric, and I had forgotten how enjoyable it is. I've lost the calluses on my fingers, so I was in pain after just a few minutes, but it was still enjoyable to play through some of the old songs I used to enjoy playing like Rush's YYZ and Dream Theater's Ytsejam.

[Entry Continues...]

I haven't posted in a while, I know. I've been busy making the preparations to move to Covington, LA — a town about an hour away from New Orleans. I'm excited as hell about the move — it's something I've been really wanting for years. I've already got an apartment in the same apartment complex as my friends Bryan and Cat. My move-in date is September 8. My car is up for sale — I'll be back in the good ol' cow-spotted Civic once I get back up there. I'm also giving thought to the idea of beginning to consider packing. Fortunately, I never really unpacked when I moved down here two and a half years ago. Most of my belongings are still in boxes, so it should be a much easier move this time around. Hooray for practically living out of a suitcase for two years.

In other news, today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. I don't need to be showered with expensive sports cars (that would hurt), but perhaps a peck on the cheek would be appropriate. You do like receiving your email, right? I'm just sayin'.

Cat sent me her pictures from the trip to New Orleans two weeks ago, so this seems like a good time to finally write about it.

I arrived on Friday evening, and, after some brief discussions of geography, we immediately set to drinking.

[Entry Continues...]

Camera Tossing may be the big fad nowadays, but Bryan has been doing it since before it was cool.

On the subject of camera tossing though, I discovered the other day that Ryan Gallagher, the guy who started the whole cameratoss thing on Flickr, posted one of my images on his CameraToss Blog. That's pretty cool. But man, those parallel lines in some of the other images posted are awesome. I still need to pick up some rope lights :)

After yesterday's outburst about my photographic desires, I realized that my upcoming trip to Scotland would be a perfect opportunity to play with new toys.

[Entry Continues...]

In a reply to a previous entry of mine about a big list of obscure English words, Bryan said, "This is precisely what's wrong with the english language. It's getting rediculous. Take a hint from XHTML; Simple and clean is better." My reply got reasonably long, so I figured I'd post it as a new entry.

[Entry Continues...]

After our unfulfilling experience with early admission on Saturday, we didn't bother getting up early on Sunday. We slept in and woke up around 11am and leisurely got dressed and headed to the park a little after noon. The weather report said it was supposed to rain, so the park was much emptier than the day before.

[Entry Continues...]

Hehe, unlike Ft. Lauderdale, at the Ohio airport the wireless access costs $8 for 24 hours (though of course it's more like $8 for however long you're actually going to be at the airport). I didn't remember how long I had to wait for Bryan and Cat, but I thought it was about 2 hours, so I figured it was worth $4/hour to be entertained. But seconds after I clicked the submit button on my payment, my cell phone rang and Bryan announced they had just landed. I quickly checked my email and shut down the computer to go meet them. $8 for 45 seconds or so... Not as good a deal as I had thought :)

[Entry Continues...]

Liz arrives today, and will be visiting for a week. Andrés arrives tomorrow, and he will be here for two and a half weeks. I've accumulated four vacation days from working weekend shifts over the last month or two, so I'm taking Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off. That means today is effectively my Friday, which is awesome.

After Liz regrettably leaves, Andrés and I are going to see if we can make a weekend trip to St. Thomas to visit Rose. A few weeks after that, I'm going to Cedar Point with Bryan and Cat. Around then, Michelle and Andrea get down here for the summer, and they'll be here for 4 months. So for the next few months, at least, my solitude seems to be in a temporary reprieve.

Liz's plane gets in around 6pm, so the plan is to call her when I get off work at 8. Just have to make it until then and I'm home free.

Some bands or albums are inextricably linked to places, and usually cars, in my memory. Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction is driving in the Bonneville with Andrés and Bryan. NOFX - Punk In Drublic is hanging out with Bryan and Andrés when we were living in Estancias (particularly, all of us harmonizing along with Linoleum in the Bonneville while leaving the neighborhood). Goldfinger is driving around in PR in the Camry when I was in high school (particularly, passing by that no-name pizza place on Esmeralda). Snake River Conspiracy is driving around in Clemson in the Camry (particularly, looking for parking in the Calhoun Courts parking lot). Hole is pulling into the CVS parking lot in Ohio with Cat. OSI is walking along the waterway between my host family's house and the subway station in Japan. Cafe Tacuba is riding the subway in Japan on my way to class. The Cranberries is driving to El Yunque in Papi's Lexus with Andrés, Meg, and Amy last Christmas. Godspeed, Rachel's, and Thornley all bring to mind working at Xapiens, but we'll have to let them settle a while to see if they will become distilled down to a singular image like the rest.

Am I the only one who has such specific memories associated with music?

Bryan and Cat's recent wedding has had me ruminating on the subject of marriage a lot lately. Well, not just lately... It's a subject that has been on my mind for quite a while (you'll need to be logged in to see that one).

[Entry Continues...]