i'm going to a wedding in may, and to help save some $$$ i'll be sharing a room with a friend - a female friend. upon discovery of this arrangement, the bride-to-be, our mutual friend, caught me on gmail chat. this is what happened:

bride-to-be: naughty boy
me: i do what i can
bride-to-be: or who you can

i'm moving to Dallas for the summer. june 5 - august 4, to be exact. i got a summer gig at a law firm that i didn't think existed in texas, but thankfully does exist and is doing just fine. they do software copyright and licensing defense work. translation: if you work for a business accused of exceeding its license quota on software installations, or of installing pirated software, or of selling software that infringes another software mfr's copyright, this law firm would defend your business against such lawsuits.

the way i see it, it's the equivalent of defending the little guy against the software industry's version of the RIAA, even if the "little guy" is a fortune 100 company.

also cool is the fact that i'll have access to a slew of new mountain bike trails.

the last time i was this excited for a job was when i was a DJ at UT. i can't wait to get done with finals and head up to Dallas. it's making it really, really hard to study... as if it weren't already hard enough.

My 4GB iPod Nano disappeared from my life a few weeks ago and never turned up. My dad, in his infinite wisdom, reminded me that i have a renter's insurance policy. Oh yeah. I completely forgot that i pay $11 per month to insure personal property over $100. My insurance company covered the cost of the iPod over the $100 deductible, so i got a nice chunk of change back.

In an effort to keep the total cost of the new ipod within the reimbursement, i decided to order a 2GB nano instead of the 4GB, and i opted to order it online because Apple gives free shipping. I also assumed that, as is usually the case with online purhases, there would be no tax.

After pressing next a few times I completed the order. It was only then that i realized that Apple still charged me tax. Dammit! That's what i get for pressing Next like a robot.

If i have to pay tax, i might as well just drive to the Apple store and buy the iPod in person - that way, i don't have to worry about not having the iPod for my trip to Denver on Friday afternoon. I tried calling Apple and canceling the order, but lo and behold, it was already out the door. Apple must have some really efficient order processing.

So, once again, my idiocy translates into your gain. I'm getting good at this.

c clued me in to several key bands while i was in denver and i finally got around to checking them out.

1. eagles of death metal - peace love death metal*
2. lcd soundsystem (heard some stuff before, but not the whole album)
3. morcheeba - big calm
4. kaiser chiefs
5. the new pornographers (heard some stuff before, but not the whole album)
6. dogs die in hot cars
7. the bravery (heard some stuff before, but not the whole album)

and some others i recently discovered...
8. beck - guero. have you heard this album? i didn't know it existed. freaking rocks.

other bands i still need to check out from carrico: drive by truckers, son volt, wilco, and uncle tupelo (my education in alt-country-whatever).

*did he just say shit goddamn i'm a man, i'm a man? yes, he did.

I went to an AIPAC Conference on Monday night and got to see Charles Krauthammer speak.

To summarize, he applauded the election of Hamas (somewhat tongue in cheek); declared the Oslo accords hollow; stressed his opinion that Arafat never really wanted peace, as evidenced by Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s offer in 2000; and said that building the fence was the right thing to do. He also commended Bush for his handling of the Middle-East conflict, adding that he’s ‘not sure why – and not sure if Bush knows why’ Bush did what he did (paraphrasing there).

>Click here to read his articles on the Washington Post.

And I don’t know about you, but I had no idea Krauthammer was disabled. He lost the use of his legs when he was a 22-year-old medical student. Oh yeah, and he’s also a strong supporter of stem cell research.

With that, I leave you. I take off for Denver tomorrow to commence my last hurrah before finals.

I was at Macy’s today looking for some flat-front pants (you ladies should be proud of me for that) and I overheard a familiar voice. It was a voice that sounded like someone I heard on TV. I turn around and see Craig Kilborn. Average looking guy, blond, mid-30s, sorta tall. Yeah, that’s Kilborn. What the hell is Craig Kilborn doing in Houson? Who cares. I called a couple friends and relayed the news. It’s not everyday you see a talk show host in the menswear section of Macy’s.

After I got home, I did some Google reconnaissance on Kilborn because something told me the guy I saw wasn’t really Kilborn. It was, in fact, the local weather guy, Frank Billingsley. Looking at the two pictures side by side, it’s clear these guys look nothing alike aside from the blond hair. I know, I must be on crack. So why did I think I saw Kilborn? Did I want to see Kilborn?

Ironically, Billingsley fits in well with another talk show host – Conan O’Brien. Billingsley has the same trademark O’Brien humongous hair wave.

i'm having a hard time studying this semester. motivation levels are at an all-time low. i don't think they can get any lower, but third-year students tell me, "if you think you're jaded now, you aint seen nothing yet."

case in point - i've spent more time researching 29" mountain bikes than i have researching my class notes. but only because i'm studying for professional responsibility, which isn't really a class. when i start studying for payment systems, that will be real, actual studying. and only because i'm terrified of that final.

i'm finding that a whole of stuff happened in my three and a half days in denver and there's a lot to write about. this could take a couple more days. in the meantime, i'll present you with Google Satellite images of key locations that were visited. they will make more sense when the final trip summary is posted.

here is the first:

1. It’s cool when a company like American Express sends you a check to compensate you for the money you gave them to pay a bill, until you realized it had several hundred dollars in fraudulent charges. What’s not cool is signing up for American Express Blue and dealing with the fraudulent charges.

2. I saw the Deathray Davies for the third time last night. And there were only about 50 people in the whole club. I guess that’s what happens when you play a show on the same night as Dinosaur Jr.

3. I really need to study today. A lot.

4. I really need to ride my bike today. More than a lot.

5. There’s a jewtastic happy hour tonight that I’m going to. Yee-ha.

6. There’s a law school prom tonight that I’m not going to, but I’m going to the drunken after-party. Ohhh yeah.

7. I’m volunteering for a benefit run tomorrow and I have to be there at 6:45. Ohhh crap.

8. I need to get new lenses for my glasses because the old ones are so scratched and smudged I can hardly see through them.

9. Remember how I lost my ipod a couple weeks ago? I heard that the 99 Cent Store was celebrating 999 days in Texas on March 31st, and each store would sell nine iPod Nano 2 GBs for 99 cents. They open at 8 am. I vowed to wake up at four am on Friday morning (a day I had to be at work at nine) and see if I could score an iPod. I woke up at four and arrived at the store at 4:15. There were already nine people there, some sleeping on the concrete. I guess they wanted an iPod more than I did.

10. Did anyone see the slashdot page today?

Hung out with Mr. and Mrs. Carrico and the one and only Heatherfeather.

Stories to come. And believe you me, these are some whack stories.

Sixth installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.

Day 1

Your trouble with the law begins before you even get on the plane. The small folding allen wrench you packed into your Camelbak that you packed into your larger bag has piqued the security peoples’ interest. Piquing their interest is not something you want to do. A security person tears apart your bag, fishes out the Camelbak, and runs it through the x-ray machine again. She then pulls out the offending allen wrench and asks the supervisor, “Is this ok?” Yes, my friendly security-obsessed airport employee, it’s a freaking allen wrench. You might want to watch out for the guy with golf clubs, though. Those look painful.

You arrive in sunny Denver and it’s a glorious 50 degrees. You couldn’t be happier. Mr. Carrico (let’s call him C) picks you up and you speed off immediately to what you’re told is an Engineer Party. You see, C is an engineer of sorts – an engineer that designs poo treatment plants. As such, it figures that these people need to party quite a bit to maintain their level of sanity (sounds like lawyers). Hence, the engineer party you’re going to in Golden, about a half-hour drive from Denver, is first on the list of attractions.

The party is held at the house of one of the engineers (let’s call him J). It turns out that no one is home when you and C get to the house. You have beer on the mind and are feeling impatient, so C does the sensible thing and calls J to see how to get into the house. And now your troubles with the law escalate to what we in law school call “breaking and entering” or “trespass.” That is, C reached his arm up through the cat flap in the back door and manages to unlock the deadbolt (he has long arms) thus gaining entry. Mission accomplished. One tort and perhaps one crime are committed on your vacation. And you’ve only been in the state forty-five minutes.

After you help ourselves to some beer (thanks, J) more of the engineer crew and their significant others show up and the party grows to nine strong. You meet Mrs. Carrico (MC) for the second time and hope you might finally get to know her. You only met her at the wedding and didn’t get much of a chance to talk.

Now would be a good time to mention the fireworks display that you’ll later get to see at the Colorado School of Mines. Yes. A bunch of miners are going to blow shit up and it’s going to be awesome.

Before the fireworks, however, there’s something you have to see. You kick off the fireworks party in the college’s ‘lab’ as it were – a place where they store all their mining devices and whatnot. J asks you, “You wanna see a big drill?” Do I? He walks you over to what looks like something out of Star Wars. Or Robocop. Or Wyle E. Cayote’s stash of tools that catch the Roadrunner. This drill is as big as a moving truck. The ‘bit’ is the size of a Honda. You stand under the drill and wonder to yourself that your old jobs playing with computers all day were really pointless.

The fireworks are held in the college’s football field. You and the engineer crew get the best seats – on top of the announcer’s box high above the field. The fireworks are phenomenally loud and close. You can smell the chemicals. The crowd of chants “BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP…” Your jaw drops, and you join in. For the grand finale, a man – assumedly crazy – runs out to a string a fireworks mounted across the field and attempts to ignite them by hand. It rained the night before and the fireworks are not lighting in succession as planned. He has no choice but to keep going back to light the fireworks when the fuse runs out. He appears to be wearing protective ear-coverings but you see no other signs of protection. He injures his leg the last time he goes back to light the fireworks – perhaps some shrapnel got him. Firemen and EMS show up.

You’re more than satisfied with the day’s events, but the party hasn’t even started.

The festivities end up back at J’s, the scene of the original crime. J proposes a neat trick to the group. A drunken stupid human trick, if you will. Fold a dollar so that it can stand on the floor by itself. Supporting yourself on only one foot, find a way to pick the dollar up with your mouth. Your hands cannot touch the ground. It quickly became clear that this was a great way to get people to do stupid things for a dollar – or just to do them. To up the ante, someone put a $20 bill on the floor. To up it further, you put your wallet on the floor, which was in fact not an “up the ante” because you’re broke. Though many had gotten close and you managed to fall and hurt your knee in an effort to retrieve the dollar, J was the first and last to successfully perform the trick. Bravo J.

Your hosts’ cat apparently discovered the air mattress, and well, that was that. You and C try to find the holes in the air mattress and find one. C seals it with a bicycle tube patch kit and it works like magic. For several hours. By morning, your back is on the ground and your legs are in the air. You end up on the couch cursing your long legs.

Day 2

You and C start the day at Green Mountain. Your lungs are still stuck at sea level so you have a hard time getting up the mountain, or as natives call them, foothills. Anyone from Houston calls them mountains, though. You have to walk half of the final climb and on the way got passed by a runner going up, who then passed you going down, who then passes you going up again, all before you reach the top. When you do finally reach the top, you see him again, and he turns around again. That’s called meshuggah where you come from. You hit Red Rocks after grabbing some power bars and ride another two or three hours there.

For dinner, you and your generous hosts planned on going out but somehow the party ended up at home. You head to Whole Foods, score some chicken, and start a BBQ. Others show up with more goodies to throw on the grill and Heathfeather and her friend also join the party.

It’s not long before the stupid human trick from last night emerges. Except this time, instead of setting doing the trick on a wood floor in a house, it’s on a brick patio in a back yard. Brick hurts a lot more than wood when succumbing to gravity. Needless to say, you abstain, having sufficiently embarrassed yourself the night before. Other stupid human tricks emerge as well. MC introduces the group to a trick wherein you cross your arms in front of you and twist them around so that you end up with your fingers on your nose. Note that says on your nose, not in, but that might be interesting too.

The last stupid human trick is proposed by J (the stupid human trick expert?). This trick calls for two people. One person stands, legs apart, preferably on a soft substance like grass. Person 2, preferably limber, jumps on Person 1’s back, crawls over their shoulders, down their torso, through their legs, and back up to Person 1’s back. J volunteers to be Person 2. Heatherfeather volunteers to be the standing Person 1, claiming to have served a stint in a circus. Que pasa? Circus? Then she reminds you that she knows how to ride a unicycle, but not a bicycle. Oh, right. Unicycle. You realize your hosts have like six bikes, none of which are unicycles. Too bad. Heatherfeather is unfortunately too short or not strong enough to support J. C, as it turns out, is about 6'4" and strong enough to support the weight of another grown man (man that sounds weird). J hops on C’s back, crawls over his shoulders, down his torso, through his legs, and scrambles up his back. You really had to see it. Oh wait, YOU CAN*.

You round out the night at a bar called The Funky Buddha.

Day 3

Your back is a little sore from the previous night spent on the couch. Thankfully, one of your hosts’ friends who we’ll call G graciously swung by with his full suspension mountain bike for you to borrow, so any back pain should be rendered moot once on the trail. Otherwise, this morning starts out quite the same as the previous, meaning that a bike ride is in order.

You and C hop in the car and drive to Boulder for a ride at Walker Ranch, deep in the foothills just west of the city. The trail is breathtaking and you wonder why people live anywhere else. Things like law school come to mind. Bummer. After the ride you head to a local brewpub, Southern Sun Pub & Brewery, for nourishment of the liquid and solid variety.

You take it easy for dinner and order Thai food. The free movie channel is playing Donnie Brasco and you watch Johnny Depp turn into a Wise Guy.

Before crashing you and C resolve to find the other holes in the air mattress. Or rather, MC issues a directive that it needs to be fixed. You locate two more holes and seal them. It does the trick. You sleep soundly on a bed of air.

Day 4

Your hosts go off to their respective office lives designing poop treatment plants and whatnot. With five final exams rearing their ugly heads in a matter of weeks, you set your sights on the nearest hipster café and ride a ridiculously small BMX bike to Devil’s Food Bakery. It’s closed. In fact, everything is closed. It seems Denver sleeps in on Mondays. You hang your head in shame and head to Starbucks. A city of full of nifty cafes and all you have at your disposal is a national chain... For shame.

Several hours later, Heatherfeather rescues your vacation from becoming a corporate-coffee-shop-law-school-study-fest and takes you to the Crazy Asian Café for lunch. You chat about the UN, Connie Rice, and They Might Be Giants (naturally). Agreeing you should at least make an effort at studying, you head to Stella’s, a café that is actually open. After an hour of conversation interrupted by occasional bouts of studying you face the facts and call off the charade. The Denver Folklore Center down the street sells all kinds of cool instruments and the allure is just too much.

You noodle with guitars, banjos, mandolins, mandolinas, basses, and other stringed devices. Heatherfeather gives you a sample of her sublime voice and guitar skills. You wish you could put a digital soundboard in front of her and record what you’re hearing.

Heatherfeather drops you off at your (er, C’s BMX) bike at Starbucks and you ride home. Your hosts arrive soon after and you head to Sushi Boat with C, MC, and their friend, who we’ll also call G (different than the earlier G). After stuffing your faces full of sushi, seaweed salad, and miso soup, you decide on the perfect follow-up for desert: Bonnie Brae Ice Cream. It hits the spot.

Day 5

Has it really been five days? Feels like two. Your hosts probably think it feels like 10.

Your flight is at noon. But before your hosts can unload you, you get to accompany them to a very special occasion: the inspection of their newly bought home. It was built in 1906 but is somehow in better shape than most newer homes. You follow the inspector around and carefully watch (from a distance) what he does. One day you’ll have to buy a house. Or at least you hope to buy a house, maybe in Denver.

OK I can’t write in passive present tense or whatever it’s called anymore, it kind of hurts my brain. Much, much thanks to Mr. and Mrs. C for having me, to J and G (the first one) for lending me their bikes, to Heatherfeather for wasting her afternoon with me, and to the house cat for not accosting me too much.

All of you are welcome in Houston any time. Except the cat. Sorry.

* it’s a little dark, so if anyone has video editing software and is willing to help, contact me via the link at the bottom of this page.

and i quote:

"I haven't yet tried to validate, following a long tradition of seat of the pants live recoding."

finals are quickly approaching and my annoyance fuse is short this time of year, but thankfully i don't have the energy to get annoyed with anything in the news, so it's a wash. i don't have time to read news anyway. i'm trying to spend every minute away from my desk on one of the three bikes. this morning i rode the hog around the neighborhood and got some smiles from various children and adults hanging out in the front yards. yesterday morning i did a few laps around Rice before it got to 148 degrees.

in other less brain-numbing news, i saw Thank You For Smoking, and it was good. perfect weekend material to sit back and laugh. witty, good camera work, enjoyable dialogue, katie holmes can't act, cheese-fest ending, and the MARLBORO MAN. how cool is that? the marlboro man. sorry if i just ruined the movie for you. i didn't tell you anything you couldn't have figured out anyway. it was totally predictable.

Even if you’ve followed another car into the parking lot without getting caught by the arm, don’t assume it will always work that way. Be more patient and swipe your card. It only takes a second. And you can rest assured you won’t get your antenna jacked like I did this morning.

i really wanted pictures of the trail itself, but Google Satellite hasn't gotten that good. yet. so this one's a little easier.

the ipod is here... already? i only ordered it on monday. i offer yet another valuable lesson: apple products (or ipods at least) ship from Tennessee, so if you live anywhere close to that state, don't bother with the upgraded shipping. i'm in TX and it got here in 2 days flat. this does assume, however, that the TN location is the only distrubutor - they might have others.

they should be at the top of the list, but you mighht have to sift through some others.