Saturday, March 5
Pixie Cup Lichens
posted by Max at 3/05/2005 11:17:58 PM
2 comments
Thursday, February 10
All a Blur
I can't say it's been a particularly nice week, even in spite of innovations such as
harddrive shuffelboard. For being only four days it drug on forever, but perhaps that was just because Sara was ill all but one day this week.
Seeing her throughout the day certainly improves my days and weeks.
I've come to dislike my new College English class, although I like the teacher and the topic matter I can't say that I appreciate the herd of loudmouthed conservatives or the overbearing racist. The format of the class is far from what I'd like too, it's all a loud scramble to get brownie points. I can't say that I'm much for shouting indoors or raising my voice, it just seems senseless and counterproductive to education.
This weekend looks as if it'll be better though: a masquerade at The Elks Club, and a Saturday spent with Sara.
posted by Max at 2/10/2005 08:21:00 PM
2 comments
Tuesday, January 18
Nearly two months
I've done a lot since my last post, in the time between the end of November and now, I not only mastered the bicycle but became some measure of an enthusiast for the sport.
I had been bicycling on New Year's Day and fell on my face and got a fine cut in my eyebrow. I had been headed up the nearby bike path (which is quite nice as it's isolated from the road traffic) with my camera in it's case around my neck and nothing but a wool hat on my head. There must've been a slippery leaf, or a distraction to my left, perhaps even a sharp gust of wind. Whatever the case, I lost control of my bicycle and landed right on the bone under my eye and the one under my eyebrow on the left side (the infraorbital foramen and frontal bone respectively (isn't it kind of strange that one has such an elaborate name while the other one is so straightforward?)). One might think that such an even would hurt, it did not, after a minute I collected myself and got up noting that my face was numb on the left side. A rivulet of blood started down my face and I was reminded of the scene in "
The Saint" (which Sara and I had spent quite a pleasant evening watching a few weeks prior) when he "falls" and cuts his head.
Unfortunately I was all alone and not conveniently near the apartment of my love. So I put one of my socks over the wound and started back home slowly. That Sunday my face was realizing it's full capacity for hurting. That day Sara came over; she spent the afternoon with me playing Parchisi and talking -- providing the perfect distraction. Numerous shades of bruising followed in the days afterwards, but today my injury is nothing but a red mark.
My birthday came that Wednesday and Sara got me candy, hemp hand lotion and this nice oil vapourizer, a bronze dish on columns over a candle holder. She also got me some patchouli oil to use in it. Patchouli is a friendly scent, sort of piny and earthy while also very fresh and distinct. I couldn't hope for anyone sweeter and cooler than Sara. I love her.
That Saturday Sara and I went to a dance at The Elk's Club with some friends. Sara was wearing this great red dress and looked particularly wonderful. I, as usual, wore my black suit with blue cowboy shirt and slacks. She taught me a lot of dances, which was interesting as dancing is not something I'd ever done before, I actually found it quite enjoyable! There's another dance coming up soon...
That Monday saw both my Mother's birthday and the first release of
Elowel: Blogging Community Engine (a software project I've been working on for the past 6 months, it's what
Elowel runs). That evening Sara and I attended a beginners Yoga class, and Yoga is quite a workout.
And suddenly, it was Friday.
Sara,
Cody,
Kai,
Sara's Cousin and associates and I went to see The School's production of "Treasure Island." It happened to feature Sara's younger brother as an excellently crazy Ben Gunn.
posted by Max at 1/18/2005 08:55:57 PM
2 comments
Saturday, November 27
Another Day At The Downtown Mines
Tall Morose Scott has been particularly tall and morose lately (broke up with his girlfriend), having missed a weekend group outing a while back he wanted to have a group outing.
First Sara had to cancel (she was off with her cousin scrapbooking today), the Kai had to cancel (something involving her overachieving) so I ended up ensuring Cody came along fearing no one else would so up (Scott included, I hadn't heard from him for three days).
I was roughly half an hour late to the meeting place though, having missed the first bus. When I arrived at the transit center I was greeted by Cody, Scott, Jennifer and Scott's mysterious cousin who seemed ill-at-ease the entire time.
Our first stop was the mall to get some ultra-cheap food, McDonalds does the job well (although the once infamous 39 cent hamburger no longer exists). While I was in line Scott informed me that -- against my advice -- he was now dating Jenny not the afforementioned Jennifer mind you.
After that went to Powells, Cody and me wandered about in Psychology and Islamic Philosophy for a time before deciding we ought to get going or at least find everyone else. We couldn't find them so we went back to the Sufism section and sat reading Nasruddin stories until they all found us. While we waited we met a nice fellow named Faruk who was sitting next to us on the ground browsing the books in the General Islam section. He helped with the pronunciation of "Nasruddin" (I'd never heard it pronounced, only read it before).
Then I came home, and talked to my darling Sara.
posted by Max at 11/27/2004 09:35:55 PM
1 comments
Friday, November 26
Bicycle Redux
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, as the tradition stands everyone had a day off today so that they could run about and buy lots of things for Christmas.
Today, taking advantage of that time off, Sara came over.
It was quite nice to see her, we had lunch together (minestrone soup), played some Super Mario and then decided that it was time for me to resume my bike riding lessons.
She'd rode her bike over so we used it (I find the men's and women's seats to be equally uncomfortable so it didn't much matter). We went up to the nearby park and practiced over a map of The United States (which is yearly scarred by people's fireworks displays) and with tremendous amount of patience on Sara's part she got me peddling a fair amount.
On the way home, my mother came up the street behind us effectively destroying my plot to learn to ride bicycles without my parents knowing. It was all for the best though, later on my father told me that I could use his bicycle (which I'd used during the summer).
Her first lesson with me was last year on the week of November the 12th, or around that time.
I've still got quite a bit of learning to do, but I doubt Sara will have trouble with getting together with me to teach me more.
posted by Max at 11/26/2004 09:13:54 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, November 23
Homecoming of the Nikon Coolpix 5000
Way back in the back, when I first started this blog, I reported the theft of a fine Nikon Coolpix 5000 from The Journalism Department. It was a pretty huge loss, considering we spent $1000 dollars on it and we recieve about $1000 from the district yearly.
After month or so of searching, we'd given up on it. No one expected to find it, with good reason: most people who steal cameras steal them for money (I would assume). Then, one day, out of the blue a friend of mine came to me and said "I think I know who took the camera from Journalism."
I asked some questions, namely "who?" and then I enquired whether or not they still had the camera. They did.
It was a strange scenario in which he was informed, he'd been in the library with an associate of the thief and they were looking at pictures of cameras in a book. They came to a model similar to the Nikon, the associate said "That looks like the camera XXX stole last year."
He asked where she'd stolen it from, and sure enough it had been taken from a filing cabinet in the journalism room. He also asked several other questions reguarding the status of the camera, whether the thief still had it, etc.
After he'd come to me I had no choice but to tell my teacher Haker, and Vice Principal Noren about it. My informant preferred to remain anonymous, and asside from some review of the facts with Noren, I do believe hisidentity has been protected.
Some time later, without the help of the informant's name, the camera was returned in a Vans shoebox. I don't know who else was involved in the implication of The Thief, or what went on in the intervening time.
Once the Camera had been returned, I enumerated the other missing pieces with the help of the original invoice. In sum, it was approximately $150 of missing gear. I submitted a list of missing pieces and a copy of the original invoice to Mr. Noren and slowly the pieces came back.
Today the last piece came back after a month of assertions by the thief that she didn't have it. It was a 128mb memory card, the original invoice price being somewhere in the $80 ballpark.
So now, with all the components returned, and that stupid girl serving 40 days of community service I can rest well.
posted by Max at 11/23/2004 10:35:03 PM
0 comments
Saturday, November 20
A happy Anniversary
Friday was my one year anniversary with Sara, it was also the anniversary of a strangely unseasonal snowfall. It was undoubtably one of the most magical days I've ever had, but hardly compares to the sum of the past year.
We started out planning on eating dinner at
Burlingame Pizza, but 111 Ash had changed into another business. One with less of an all-ages venue, without live music and with dark green walls and the word "bistro" in it's name. We ended up walking a few blocks West, to a fine place called
Rocco's Pizza just across the street from Powells.
Dinner was quite lovely, the pizza (mushroom and olive) was delicious. It was so very nice, sitting close to Sara and watching all the cars and people go by as night-proper began. Quite beautiful.
Afterwards we went across the street to
Powells Books to kill some time until it was time for the movie.
A few blocks later we were at the Fox Tower, one of the many larger theaters downtown, just in time to get our tickets to
Garden State, some beverages and popcorn. It was a pretty good movie, Zach Braff was awesome and Natalie Portman was actually pretty cool.
Afterwards Sara and I wandered about Portland, debating whether to go home or to linger together for a while more. We ended up looking around for a warm place to sit and talk, but found none. We ended up riding the bus to
Cody's house, where we stayed briefly and talked to him and his mom.
After that we went to Fred Meyers, where we waited for a ride home.
I love you so much Sara!
posted by Max at 11/20/2004 07:00:29 PM
2 comments
