I had a friend in college who was called Jefe. At the time, I thought this nickname alluded to his size (Jefe sounds like heavy). He was a bit large. In fact, his alternative nickname was Heavy D (like the rapper, but white and a saxophonist). Turns out that jefe is just Spanish for boss.
Month: January 2003
California Dreaming
I speak to my mother once every week or two weeks. She, a resident of Orange County, is relentlessly attempting to convince me to move to California. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live a southern California life. Other times I don’t want to wonder about California, but New Jersey just doesn’t cut it anymore. I guess I wanted to move back here after college to be in a place with which I had a good level of familiarity.
Other places I’d consider moving to if I were to move: New England, Baltimore area, North/South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and somewhere out of the United States.
Old Habit
Remind me to stop giving away other people’s instant messenger screen names.
Late Night Update
I should be asleep right now, but I am not. I borrowed Darren‘s external sound card so I could digitize a whole bunch of audio cassettes I’ve had lying around. I found some interesting things including some musical arrangements I did while I was in college. I put them online on my other website (the one with my real name). So go there and look in the “Projects” area.
I also found some recordings of me that are not fit for public consumption. They’re very interesting however; I have an “early demo” tape of a song I wrote about Conan O’Brien performed by myself on electric guitar, Darren on bass(!), Bryan on trumpet, and M-D on… umm… announcement.
Dar Williams
Dar is playing in the Bowery Ballroom in New York on February 18, the day her new album will be released. I’m undecided. Also, her website was redesigned in December, and it’s a great improvement. Finally.
Turning, Turning
When you get to the top of an escalator, do you ever get that feeling you don’t want to step off? Do you ever wonder what would happen, where you would go? Sometimes I imagine you would just fall on your face, but there has to be something else to it.
I need a change of scenery.
Addendum: I have learned to be skeptical of Fast Company. In the past, their writers have often taken view points that just didn’t make sense to me. They are starting to change though. Go read this article. It’s been linked a bit by other webloggers, but I didn’t read it until this morning.
Date Experience
Early in my dating career, I saw a girl I had known from summer camp. Although I can’t remember if it was my first or second year of high school, I was young at the time. We had scheduled a Saturday night movie at the Mercer Mall Cinema which no longer exists. My father drove me to her house in Princeton to pick her up.
We arrived a little early, and her family was just finishing Havdalah. My father and I stood and watched as they performed the family ceremony, and afterwards our families made their introductions. Of course I didn’t remember any of this, and perhaps I didn’t know it at the time, but her father was a Princeton University professor who, among other things, eventually received the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton. Her mother was also a professor (of astrophysics) at Princeton.
Their daughter was Orli, and we flirted. I still remember the drive home from the movie with my father driving and the two of us flirting (just flirting) in the back seat.
A few months later, we went on another date—at least I thought it was a date at the time—to see Pippin at her high school. I thought it was going well until she decided during intermission to sit with some other friends, leaving me to sit by myself. Maybe I was supposed to go sit with her, but it didn’t seem like it at the time.
But that wasn’t the only time I felt ditched by her. Once we went into New York City with a bunch of her synagogue friends to deliver meals to the elderly. When it was time to head back to Princeton, she decided to stay in New York with her friends, something I wouldn’t have been able to do. So I rode the bus home alone.
After these events we talked on the phone one more time. I was so hurt. She asked for my forgiveness. How could I refuse? She was such a cute, sweet girl.
Apparently she went to MIT, had a perfect 5.0 GPA, received a Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford University, and a few weeks ago spoke about Tuberculosis.
I just thought I’d give everyone an update.
What Drum Corps Is About
Drum Corps Chick Talks About Showering with Other Drum Corps Chicks.
Having never showered in the locker rooms in high school, drum corps was a change for me in that I suddenly had to be naked in front of other guys if I wanted to remain somewhat kempt throughout the hot, sweaty summer. Over time you just learn to get past any insecurities. You also learn how to make the most out of cold showers — there was never enough hot water for 200 people.
Memorable Quote
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was on television yesterday, as many other bloggers have pointed out. Thus I present a poem briefly quoted by Wonka towards the end of the film:
We are the music-makers,
And the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and the shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
And the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and the shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
– Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Ode
There’s more to this poem, and it’s highly suggested reading. Beautiful poetry.
Friday Trivia
Al Roker and I have the same digital camera.
Today is J.R.R. Tolkein’s eleventy-first birthday, were he alive. A very respectable age for an author.