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June 2, 2006

Pandemics and Car Trouble

Bono kicks ass. Frontline kicks ass. I'm watching this frontline documentary on aids, and ooh boy... i'm being convicted. Suddenly, I no longer see Clinton as the adulterer he was framed up to be; he's become one of the first best campaigners for aids relief. Bono is not an eccentric rock star who takes a passing interest in global affairs to compensate for some guilt he accrued through stardom, or because "serious" artist personalities sell more records and he wants a new bentley... He KNOWS things. He knows the Bible better than I do. By a lot. He has sucessfully, actually, really, no joke, changed conservative "bible-belt" type christian senators positions on aids relief, causing them to well up at times. Even influencing G.W.'s position on the issue. He's not stupid, he's articulate and he appears to have the same power over senators that he has over countless moved concert-goers. And people continue to think that music is purely in place for entertainment. No, no... Remember the role of the artist as a phrophetic figure historically. Now I'm not advocating that every know-it-all member of say, Franz Ferdinand (my current pick for most overrated band of the year) should go out and campaign for something, but DO NOT be so jaded as to call U2 pretentious when they support political or humanitarian causes. Good lord. There seems to be a common thread running through all this, a story repeating like a broken record - A battle between amnesiac buerocrats and real people with visceral needs. Somehow, intellectual arguments and broad, sweeping social rights and wrongs don't hold up when there's blood on the floor. Animals form communities for reasons of survival. Seems like when two or more humans get together, it just becomes easier to write people off.

Okay well.... Now what am I going to do about it? Write my congressmen? Send money? Who do you even send it to? I suppose I could Google it, but who knows... Please respond with suggestions.

Okay well, I amm FINALLY home from school. After graduation, I went to Kristn's in St. Louis, to watch her graduation. Then I found out I had a job interview in Nashville, and I wanted to drive from STL rather than Chicago, saving me about $60 in gas. But I didn't have a suit or anything handy. I needed a new one anyway, So, I got a reaaaaaaaally nice blue pinstripe and new shoes and stuff. Got it tailored right, finally. I look GOOOOOD. So the interview went pretty well, I can never really tell with these things. The job was with a PPO network, they do a lot of C#, use an oracle DB, and move a lot of data around. Sounds like my kind of shop. I really think I would be good for a lot of the jobs that I apply for. I feel like if I get hired, the company would really think they got a bargain. But I have problems being able to put that across in an interview. Anyway, I'm still working on it. I won't know about the job for a little while though. Gonna call them tomorrow.

So I stayed in STL a little while longer with Kristin because there were some alumni activities with her sorrority she wanted to go to. Then packing took longer than we thought because we had to get rid of a lot of the furniture and stuf.... fun. So we eventaully leave STL at about 10 or something like that one night... And all goes well until bloomington normal. About 3 miles north, my car turns itself off. My tachometer DROPS. zero. the AC cuts off. I slow to the side off I-55, and I get the distinct impression that this car is not going to get me home tonight. I hope, and turn the key, no dice. So I pop open the hood, lord knows what I was gonna look for, but this is what you do when your car breaks down, and I am forced to play out this scenario, ridiculous or not, until a new one presents itself. It's pitch black out. No street lights, no city lights. I can't see a thing. Well this guy pulls up to me, gets a flashlight, can't tell anything either. He offers us a ride into town, we go. At Walmart, we call and the car gets towed - somewhere. We don't know where. We hang out at walmart, waiting for a call. I think to myself, walmart has everything you could possibly need to survive for months, except say, a bed. its like 3 am and i'm tired. We're worried about our valuables in the car... A lot of kristin's stuff... We both had laptops, I had a PDA, a new suit, a digital camera and two guitars in there too. We decide to walk somewhere, kristin is hungry. We walk down Veterans Parkway, and head for where the billboard said a steak and shake should be. I call my dad again from a payphone (at about 4:00 or so) and he has decided to come get us. We're gonna transfer all the crap from my car to my parents and drive home in that... figure out what to do with the car later. Maybe ditch it. We'll see. So I order a steakburger combo at SnS, and after one bite of the chili decide that I'm not really hungry at all... oops. Krsitin gets food and coffee. During our 2-hour "hotel-stay" at steak and shake, we watch the sunrise perfectly framed by the Steak 'n' Shake window. At least an hour passes this way. I've told several people this before, but being tired is a sort of natural high. Try it some time. Wake up early. Real early. Stupid early. Then, sit up on a comfortable couch, with an comfortable blanket. The key part of this is to SIT UP, or else you will fall asleep. Then, stare at something. Anything. Some corner of the room. A chair, a watch, a pattern in the wallpaper, a crack in the ceiling, a button on the TV - ANYTHING. Then, de-focus your eyes and sit there for at least five minutes. You will begin to understand what I mean. That's what this was like - I was surprised how fast the sun was rising. You could almost see it move. Anyway - finally my parents come and we find the car. The guy who owns the repair shop, reminds me a bit of a more southern version of sam neil crossed with tim robbins. He's cool, if a little... dodgy. But cool.

Since I may never see my little blue rustmobile again, I have kristin take some pictures of me with it, just in case. Well, dad drives back. he's tired, I can tell. But i've been in the car with him at the wheel A LOT, and I trust him even if its dodgy at times. Or maybe I'm just a bit tooo tired to even care. I've got my seatbelt on and I'm headed home, what can go wrong?

So that's that. Here I am, and the car is getting fixed. I've since turned my attention to other things, like getting a photographer for my wedding, trying to get my job details (both for the summer and for my first real job) nailed down, playing a hella lotta SimCity 3k, going to coffee shops and mexican places, and talking about the sovriegnty of Sealand. Life is pretty good, if very uncertain and completely subject to change (or renegotiation) very soon. Thanks for reading. I miss my greenville friends. If my Willowbrook friends are reading, be sure to let me know if there's a LAN or a good party or anything going down.

Peace.

Posted by pedalboy at 4:56 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack