http://cargocollective.com/hgoodspeed

learn something new every day

So, I sometimes used to come across the site, read a few facts, consider myself enlightened, and leave it for another few weeks. But, upon returning to there, I've discovered some questionable "facts".











1. Actually, after consulting Snopes, I discovered that this was made up by someone in 1993 to prove people will believe obscure viral facts.











2. What?











3. Really? 7,500,000,000,000,000,000? I think that might be a quintillion? If you've ever held a handful of sand, tried to comprehend the amount of sand on (in?) a beach, or been aware of the existence of deserts, I think it'd be fairly clear there's a little more sand in the world than that. Maybe, if those same sized zeros continued off the screen for, say, the entire width of Texas, maybe that could be in the realm of an accurate number.

Unfortunately, reading these and a few other "facts" has made me skeptical of the validity of this website. I guess I'll have to stick with Snapple for my quirky, informational tidbits. I mean, they work hard for theirs.

Spring semester is looking promising at the moment. My last four classes in college, and besides Mr. 3 there I'm pretty excited to get started.

1. Graphic Design Portfolio: I'm expecting this to be the closest experience I've ever had to drowning and for it to end with me triumphantly standing on the shore.
2. Self-promotion: I'm expecting this to be where I finally create a website I can be proud of, one I can and will update with regularity. It will be nice to be able to point someone in a specific direction to see what I'm about instead of trying to explain myself in a handful of words.
3. Principles of Advertising: I'm expecting to finally learn how to successfully suck souls out of people and make mad money. This isn't particularly an industry I think I'd be able to do for long, but hey, it's another skill, right?
4. Intro to short story writing: Because deep down I wish I was as well versed in literature and writing as anything else. It'll be fun to explore.

The Past

There is no doubt we all had one,
waist deep as we are in the evidence of diaries,
home movies and strange names in old address books,
not to mention Architectue and Geology,
stone clocks that measure the deeper past.

And we have anecdotes, warped beyond recognition,
and a scar on the chin from a fall,
but nothing to compare with those few vivid moments
which are vivid for no reason at all-
a face at a children's party, or just a blue truck,
moments that have no role in any story,
worthless to a biographer, but mysterious
and rivaling the colors of the present.

Remembering them is like reading a poem
that begins by carrying us, zombie-like,
down basement stairs as if to leave us in the dark
feeling the air for a light cord,

but when a little metaphor begins to grow
with such detail that it becomes a place,
a lake, for instance, cold and pine-bordered,
which we could dive into and feel nothing,
or a sunny white room where we could live
without ever having to be alive.

(A poem by Billy Collins. This was posted outside David's office door.)

David Crawford, assistant of Graphic design, passed away yesterday. He was young, probably in his mid to late thirties. Usually well dressed, very neat in appearance. You could tell by his stutter that he was intelligent, in the sense that he had too much to say, was thinking about so much that it was hard for him to keep up with his mind.

Once, while working in the studio where he was holding class, I saw something on the ground, moving fast, out of the corner of my eye. I got up and discovered it was a squirrel. I just kind of shouted "Hey! Guys! There's a squirrel running towards you." At first no one reacted, but eventually everyone started moving and trying to help the frantic squirrel get back outside. How these squirrels keep getting into the art building is still a mystery.

About a week later I was working, making coffees in the student center. David came up and ordered a coffee, mentioned that he remembered me as "the kid who found the squirrel", and told me that he had a squirrel story to tell me sometime. I kind of laughed, only because he had his own squirrel story. I told him I'd enjoy hearing it sometime.

About 4 or 5 days after that, I was in the same class I had been in before just before his class actually began. I jumped at the chance to ask him about his story. He casually obliged and told it to the 6 or 7 other people in the classroom. It went like this:

(Try to imagine this story told with a mild stutter. Not a speech impediment but something more charming and humanizing, something to let you know there's more going on in the person's mind than they can physically express.)

"So about 15 years ago I was living in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Everything was kind of dilapidated and falling apart and it just wasn't very well kept. Anyway, my roommate was a painter and had an art studio set up in one of the bedrooms. One day we were both home and we heard something rustling. It turns out there was a squirrel in his studio, running though paint and making a mess. We tried to corner him but he kept running around, covered in white paint. Eventually he ran out into the hallway and into the bathroom. And, okay, here's the punchline: he ran up the water pipe into our upstairs neighbor's apartment..."

He kind of smiled nervously when he finished the story because he realized his "punch line" was no punch line at all. Where one would expect the climax of the story, the highlight, it just ended. That alone made the story funny to me, that it would just stop abruptly with nothing very funny actually happening. I instantly decided that I liked this guy's sense of humor.

After that, I saw him several times. Once he was standing up at the top of the outdoors stairs going to the second floor of the art building, reading a magazine and looking out over the west lawn. I walked up the stairs (he was still reading) and paused ever so slightly as I rounded the corner so he would look up and we could exchange "hello"s. Another time I was walking out of his classroom when he was seated at the front. He said "hi" and I said "bye" a the exact same moment. I guess it makes sense that the first thing one would say is "hi", but seeing how I was leaving I thought it more appropriate to say "bye". Just one of those little oddities that make life wonderfully awkward, something that keeps a smile on your face while walking home.

The last time I saw him I was, once again, in the studio during his class. I was with another person and we were conversing and whatnot, unaware that the class had already begun. He approached us and asked us to be a little more quiet, that he couldn't concentrate with the noise we were making. We were instantly silenced and felt bad for disrupting his class. My friend Danny, who was in the class, noted that David wasn't the kind of guy who could yell across a classroom. He got up and walked over to talk to us because, as Danny said, he wasn't the kind of guy to ever raise his voice. Even if it was for a simple "hey, guys, quiet".

Outside of those three or four run ins, I didn't really know David at all. I had a little insight to his personality, enough of a taste to know that he was an interesting individual. Just a really smart guy with a lot to say. I'll miss you, David. I can't pretend like we ever knew each other outside of squirrel anecdotes, but I'd like to imagine we could have.

[I edited this post out of respect for David's family and friends. Though everyone considers their own speculation important it's not necessary to include here.]

I want to direct any traffic from this page (((here))), to a memorial site set up for David. There are lots of pictures and links to his own artwork there, including couple videos. It's wonderfully informative and well put together.

Last night I heard bats outside my bedroom, the squeaky noise that bats make. I am not mistaken. There are bats by my house and they need a bat house. Unfortunately I read that you must put houses up at the beginning of the summer, because that's when they inhabit their homes. Installing one now would be too late, because they already have their own nest (or whatever you'd call it).

I had a dream last night. An interesting one. It began with me and some other military people running around blowing things up with plastic explosives. Then, all the sudden, I was in this bright green field, surrounded by St. Augustine friends. There was this white box kite flying around everywhere and for some reason it had 4 or 5 different wigs attached to it. At one point my friend Andy grabbed it and tried to control it, but it was powerful and hard to hold onto. Everyone there was laughing and it was really pleasant. It was funny, because I remember in my dream saying "this is the second time I've gotten to lay in the grass in this dream!" but I don't remember the first time. So basically I was remembering my dream in my dream even though while conscience I couldn't remember it.

How do bat houses work?
How are bats attracted to bat houses?
What are all the technical things about bat houses one would need to know before constructing one?
If I were to construct a bat house, how long can I expect before it's inhabited?
Do bat houses need to be made from a certain material?


I just want some pet bats. Not that I'd dress them up and put them on little bat leashes or anything, but it'd be fun to have a bat house out in the yard somewhere. I'd just be able to point to it and be all like "HEY! See those bats? Those bats flying out of that bat house to kill some bugs? I made that house for them, so in some cosmic way that makes them MY bats. H3££5 Ψ3/\|-|."

For those of you wondering:

“From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light — a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut’s eyes. In about one and a half centuries —– after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs — metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible… . Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukrainian skies electric. We’re here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We’re here, and we’re alive.”

-Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've been thinking of ways to perpetuate my existence after I've died. I have made a list:

1. Break a world record.
2. Erect a statue of myself.
3. Actually live forever.

That's all I have so far. I think about it fairly often, but I'm a little stumped. I'm going to have a lot to contribute to the Brautigan Library regardless.

I made chai ice cream for friends at work tonight. it wasn't completely done by the time we clocked out, but they took it home and we're all even better work friends* now.

(* Work friend- A person who one converses with, makes jokes with, and passes the time with who is not, outside of being clocked-in, an actual friend. You may fully enjoy each other's company, and you probably get along well, but outside the context of work you probably would never talk to each other. Ever.)

Oh, and I also traced the bones in my arm as accurately as I could remember with a sharpie on the underside of my arm.

Ad Ogni Costo by Ennio Morricone could be the sound track of my morning every morning. I mean, if every morning I woke up to fresh coffee and beautiful weather. It takes a little work to get there, but go to grooveshark.com and search Ad Ogni Costo. It's the only result and starts with some kind of bass saxophone. It's an extremely fun song, give it a chance!

I sometimes wish I still recorded the doings of each day in a journal. In the past 4 months so many wonderful things have happened. So many adventures and fun weekends and weekday nights. I don't know, i just fell out of it because it seemed to be getting super repetitive. Oh well. If nothing else I have memories f the more memorable moments and can always jot down notes from those later. Oh well. I'm sooper excited for the next 3 months. Holidays, events, nice weather, home for Thanksgiving. All kinds of things. I've been feeling real positive for the past several weeks. My life, once again, has plateaued on the better side. It always seems that it happens to be that way from October till months after. I mentioned I'm axiously anticipating being home for Thanksgiving, right?

I feel I'm deserving of a nice/creative/visually stunning display of my books. As soon as I'm out of St. Augustine that is going to be one of the first matters of business.

Radio Shows: Wolfie and Maury from this week

Radio Shows: Wolfie and Maury from this week

Check this out, it's my friend Maury's radio show broadcasting from Martha's vineyard. It's a cool set up, this station is manned by only a handful of people, all of whom have a wonderful understanding of music and an appreciation for the art of radio DJing. You can stream it on Itunes, it's worth whatever time you have to explore it. I challenge you to listen to it and not find an element you enjoy for find interesting. Definitely one of the better locally run radio stations I know of.

http://www.wvvy.org/

Stream it here: http://www.sc13.shoutcaststreaming.us:8046/

We finally have the internet in our apartment and it's so completely wonderful. If you get the chance, listen to this song, it's been on repeat for quite a while now.

This morning whole I sat outside, I saw these four birds over a course of maybe a minute and a half. I suspect it's because of all the aphids on the tree in front of our house, but needles to say I became a bird watcher almost completely involuntarily.

1. Some kind of finch.
2. A bluejay
3. A cardinal
4. What I suspected to be a woodpecker.

OH YEAH, AND I'VE RECENTLY GIVEN UP ON TRYING TO FIND MY LOST MOLESKIN AND I'M PISSED AS SHIT. Well, not so angry anymore, but there's going to be a piece of me missing for the rest of my life. I guess I better get used to it.

This is my new baby:

I'm a winner! Sweetzorz.

Sometimes certain pictures just make me want to lay type all over them. This is one.

Sometimes I just want to wander back to the coast of Washington and spend the day there wrapped in a wool blanket thinking "isn't this nice?".

Listen to the title track of Disco Inferno's latest, it's refreshing.