It's been a long time since I've posted, mostly because I've been lazy, but also because life has been busy. I'm now working at a bike shop here in Philly, Trophy Bikes. THis has been a good move because I am able to get more hours than at EMS and also am having a lot more fun working there. Bikes are good. My main problem with the shop is that it is rediculously tiny, about a third of my dad's shop size and about a half of what Grand Performance had. The customer turnover is tremendous though, and we sell a preposterous number of folding bicycles. I guess it makes sense given the size of the store.

We've spent the past few weekends goofing off in preferation for the upcoming rennovate-athon when we take posession of our new house on FRIDAY JUNE 9TH!!! We do the walk through, check stuff out one last time, then head to the realtor's office and do the dirty deed. It's gonna be awesome not to be dealing with the whole real-estate sales aspect of it and to finally get into the place. It seems like we've been making plans on the house for ever and now we're finally going to be doing something about it. Friday night we'll just poke around in the house, and see how everything goes, then begin the smashing in earnest sometime saturday. The bathroom is the first to go, we'll chop and cut and such, expose the plumbing and try to figure out how to replace the leaky sewer stack, a barrel of laughs for sure. We've got the main goal of getting a workable bathroom by the time that we actually have to move in completely, July 1st. I'll certainly have to post more on the world of home-ownership this weekend. Wish us luck.

As a person who at times fancies himself to be a "funny guy" I rely on peoples reactions to tell me exactly how funny I am. While Jennifer will surely tell you that I quite often find myself to be irresistably funny, I think that from time to time, I really come up with some hilarious stuff. I know it's good if people laugh. I know that I'm dealing with a looney when people laugh like this! The laughing Yogi

Holy shit, my brother graduated from college. I am shocked, not by the fact that he graduated, that was to be expected, but only that it seems that only recently that I was in school there. Crap-ola, I feel old. Just wait until I've graduated from "gradual" school, then we'll see who's ancient! I'm posting some pictures, just so they're preserved for all to see on the internet.

While looking for live Giro d'Italia footage this morning, I stumbled upon the municipal trampoline champianships for girls in the Milan area. Funny funny shit on Italian TV, that's for sure! I would hope that we in the US could emulate such terrific TV.

Ok, another bicycle note, and then some real life details!

Cycling is great. Except for the crashes. I should really not be posting this anywhere that my mom reads, but knock-on-wood, no crashes for me yet. I keep hearing about these spectacular pileups happening to guys all over the place. Last Saturday, one of my teammates was taken out by a crash in a beginner's race, mangling his front wheel and the guy in front of him at the same time. Then, last night on the local training ride/race there was a pileup big enough to make it onto the local news. My teammates all made it out ok, though one broke his nice carbon Fuji. Shit luck man, that's 1000 bucks down the tubes.

In other news: We're headed home for the weekend, well actually headed up to the Twin Cities. Ian and Kelly are both graduating Macalester. Apparently Ian is super relaxed and is looking forward to the road ahead, whatever that means. Kelly is thinking of chilling a bit, ignoring her debt and forging on with Med school. Good luck on that. It'll be great to see the whole family again, not to mention feel awkward hanging around at Macalester with my family. It still seems like the recent past when I myself graduated from that illustrious institution. "Dear old macalester, ever the same..."

To all of you involved in the whole whirlwind trip of the twin cities, thanks for putting us up, too bad we couldn't have stayed another day or so. Anyway, more catching up will undoubtably be had at Jude and Michelle's wedding in August. I shall certainly drink and debauch at any convenient opportunity.

A fun, exhausting weekend of bicycle racing is behind me. I love riding my bicycle but sometimes it kicks me in the ass. This past weekend's race was the Tour de Ephrata (pronounced "Eff-ruh-tuh") in Ephrata, PA
home of an early religious settlement, quaint stores and a host of restored hot-rod cars. The race was divided into three stages, the road race on Saturday, then an uphill time trial Sunday morning and a criterium Sunday afternoon. The road race was good, especially exciting was dodging the Amish in their horse buggies and then on subsequent laps, dodging the horse-puckey on the road. I've got a picture from the lovely "Mount Pain Time Trial" an event which indeed lived up to it's name.

The criterium saw a fair amount of skin rubbed off on the pavement, fortunately none of mine did so. I did my normal thing of working too hard early in the race and then sprinting from about twice as far out as I should have. Oh well, I guess that's life. I've just got to manage the "learn" part of the "Love and learn" adage.

Here is the virtual tour of the lovely new home. We have plans to rennovate the upstairs first, primarily enlarging the bathroom, currently when you sit on the toilet, which wiggles back and forth, you can also wash your hands in the sink, which is conveniently located in your lap, over your legs. Next, we're hoping to mess up the kitchen real good like and put in some new flooring, new cabinetry and a little island to eat and cook at. It'll be sooo cute!

When I'm feeling pissed at the world I'm going to go down into the basement and dig it deeper. That's the plan at least.

Oh yeah, and I wanna build a rooftop deck!!

From the entryway to the front door, facing out. The floors are totally sweet, though poorly redone. Two tone wood border, very chic.

The kitchen, obviously. There will definitely be a refrigerator in this room. There isn't one now, however

The back "yard" to use the term loosely.

the front bedroom, not much YET!!!

Crappy view of the middle bedroom

The miniature bathroom. To be biggerized

Damn folks, it's official. Jennifer and I (mainly Jennifer) bought a house the other day. We bought it on my birthday, in fact. We'll be moving to the mole hole sometime in June when everything finally closes. The place is a little two floor row house with a yard about the same size as my parents living room, but it's got cool hardwood floors, a kitchen big enough for two people to work in and it was the right price, cheap. The asking price was 89,000 dollars, and when all the fees and closing costs roll in, we'll have paid something like 92,000 for it. Considering that we were looking at crappier places for twice as much, it's really a bargain. The process of dreaming, revising, destructing and constructing will soon begin in earnest. My main backbreaker will be to see how feasable it'll be to dig the basement down 8 inches so that I can stand up. Let the labor begin.

If anyone with a strong back is thinking about visiting Philly this summer, let me know.

Hey Everybody! I've just discovered another career that I'm absolutely not interested in: Construction work!

I spent the last week at Jennifer's uncle's house working on his roof. The project is actually to double the size of his existing house by puttting a substantial addition on the back as well as a de-facto third story on his little house in Bethesda, MD. It was a learning experience. I learned something about putting on a roof, I learned how to effectively use a pneumatic nailer, I learned that safety is a relative term when dealing with construction work and re-learned a fair bit of Spanish. Dave has been using the help of two day laborers, Luis and Noel, great guys who speak nary a word of English. Dave has mastered about 20 Spanish words and uses them in varying combinations to communicate his intentions. An example sentence indicating that a board should be moved, "Luis, esta madera adios!" translates directly as "Luis, this wood bye bye." Fortunately for Dave, the guys don't make fun and they work really hard. I, with my vocabulary closer to 100 words was a substantially better communicator, but had the unfortunate disadvantage of not knowing what the hell I was doing. I did figure it out somewhat over the course of the week, but by that time I was pretty much pooped and my productivity level had already peaked and ebbed. I will not say that I was worthless, but I definitely would have been more help had I actually had some experience. Oh well, next time anyone needs a roof put on, I can help you with some moral support. You may convince me to even pitch in some manual labor, assuming that I've forgotten how much I didn't like this past week.

While riding through the ever-lovely streets of Philadelphia the other day, my mind played an interesting trick on me. Cruising along, my nose caught a whiff of the often-unpleasant aroma of rotten eggs, or maybe sewer gas. To me, this formerly repugnant smell signified something totally different, ONSENS!!! I was instantly jonesing for the lovely relaxation of sitting in a geothermal bath, nude, with 10 to 30 perfect strangers somewhere in the mountains of Japan. Shane, my man, if you're reading this now and it's raining and shitty in Montreal like it is here in Philly today, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What I wouldn't give to be in the lovely tide pools under the Yakushima stars cavorting with the mudskippers and Mr. Goshi-Goshi telling me to scrub my nuts with more vigor.
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On a different front, bike racing is going pretty well. Last week I ended up 5th in my category 3/4 race in Mullica NJ. This weekend was slightly less good, with temps starting at 52 and ending up somewhere in the 45 degree range on a rainy course through Farimont park. In the category 4 race I was only 9th, somewhat worse than I was hoping. My big problem was that while last week I was able to get away in a breakaway early on in the race, today was not quite so conducive to such attempts. The rain and the wind were de-motivating factors for a lot of other riders. My legs were also pretty frozen by the time the sprint finish rolled around, and one thing that we all know, is that Aaron can't sprint. I'm hoping to avenge myself tomorrow and work my way up in the rankings a little bit. I'd really love to win back my entry fee if nothing else.

Ok, time for a little tour of Philadelphia. Well, since we only know a bit about the place, it'll be a tour of my limited knowledge of Philadelphia. But, I'll be you'll all be wowed by my post anyway. Here is a map of philadelphia

If you squint really hard you can make out the numbers on the map. Jennifer and I currently live in section 18, or University City. We're right on the border of University city and the neighborhoods further west which have not had so much rennovation. Several of the houses on our block are in a state I would have to call decrepit.

Click on the neighborhood name for demographic info.

We've been looking for housing in the area marked 8, often called Point Breeze or south of south street. This area suffered a lot of blight in the past decades and is currently on the upswing, due to it's proximity to center city. For those of you who don't know Philly, center city is encompasses the areas marked by numbers 1-6 approximately. Here's a link to a nice PDF map with some bicycling avenues on it. Don't be fooled, just because a street has a bike lane, don't mean shit, it's still a pothole-ridden adventure in motorland. Since we've become disenchanted with our prospects of a nice life in Point Breeze, we've moved our focus a little farther away, more towards the near northeast of the city to areas labelled 39, 46 and 48. These areas are called Fishtown (west Kensington), Kensington and Port Richmond. Though both areas are poor, they tend to be more working class and suffered less depopulation over the past 50 years than other areas of the city. There still exist some cool little shops, restarurants and hipster-friendly hangouts and lofts. Additionally, there is the prospect for a house with a yard in this area, something which tickles my fancy as we're keen on the idea of a little victory garden in the back. I hope this gives a better picture of what we're jabbering on about the housing market here in Philly. Gambattemasho!

So, new favorite epic movie. "The Best of Youth" is an Italian film, 6 hours of it, chronicles the lifves of a family in Rome but focuses primarily on two brothers Nicola and Matteo. You can read all about it for yourself but listen here. Set aside six hours of your life with someone you like and watch the movie. It's a binge and the best thing about it is that it doesn't end for 6 glorious hours! The characters are all just awesome, they take you through a personal account of pretty much every major event in the last half century of Italy. The scenery is great, the story is super, and it just makes you want to move right in to that crazy half-backwards country because it seems so great and so tragic and so vibrant. Here's the link for the movie trailer. THough the trailer sucks, the movie itself does not.

Good weekend I tell you, good weekend. Well, aside from the ceiling attempting to form stalactites in our hallway. Karl's kitchen sink tends to clog up. Apparently the plumbing wasn't done correctly. Surprised? No. Anyway, the drip used to be an infrequent trickle down some of the moulding in the hall, but this week it's decided to pool in the light fixture, dripping down in fits and spurts. Now, I seem to remember Louie the Lightning Bug telling me in one of his public service announcements that water and electricity don't mix. Oh well, I guess we'll just avoid that switch and hope for the best. Aside from watching our home take on the hydrology of Mammoth cave, the week has been spiffy. I've had the luxury of a light work week and took advantage of my free time to do some tidying the house and also to do a fair bit of cycling. Friday was the best day though. In an effort to ingratiate myself to a local non-profit in the hopes of a summer internship, ended up walking through downtown Philly putting up some posters and flyers for their local Run for Clean Air. As I was walking with my partner, a young doofus from Ignoramus, MD, I spotted what looked to be a couple of bills on the sidewalk. Seeing noone ahead who had apparently dropped the bills, I picked up the money, $110 worth of it. Damn it all that I was walking with this obnoxious Drexel University student, and damn it even more that I felt obliged to split it with him. I guess my soul will more easily ascend to the lofty firmament without the weight of sinful money holding me down. As it happened, I ended up with 60 dollars of found money, not bad pay for an hour and a half of work.

After my do-gooding, I met up with Jennifer and Dennis (realtor) for a continuing tour of places not to live. Jennifer and I have pretty much given up the ghost on the "short commute, miserable neighborhood" scenario and have phased into the "longer commute, mediocre neigborhood" mode of thinking. If you want a picture of the neighborhoods we were looking at, check out the info available at (website to be put in when computer stops freaking out) Anyway, the place we're considering right now is called "Fishtown" whereas before we were looking in the Point Breeze and South Grad Hospital zones. Fishtown is where it's at, due not only to the proximity to the Yards Brewing Company and their free tours on Saturdays, but also because it does not currently look like Sarajevo circa 1997. Thirdly, we can actually afford housing here.

Friday night we went out for fish tacos with our new best friends (since Lara and Shane no longer live in the same country as us and no longer return our emails, hint hint) Rick and Cully. They're cool. They have a house that's connected to a warehouse and they've got a terra cotta warrior along with a dog that bites people. Sweet. Additionally, they have intimate knowledge of some of the best damn food in the city, as well as the locations of all the good bars. Double Sweet. While walking from Pura Vida, the fish-taco place to some bar, Jennifer spots what appears to be a dollar bill on the street. No, not a dollar bill. A $100 bill!!! Goddam, what a night for money!!! So, as you do when you find a total of TWO HUNDRED AND TEN DOLLARS ON THE STREET we bought beer for our companions and retreated home for a lovely rest.

Honestly, if the weekends keep on like this, we're soooo gonna be living large.

Damn, I realy gotta get some perspective. Last week was like the first honest-to-god busy week I've had in a long time and as such, came as quite a shock. First, the laundry list.

Last Friday we met up with our friends, Cully and Rick. I believe that it is safe to call them friends now that we've hung out on three occasions. We went out to eat some of the best damn burgers I've had in a while. A nice juicy hamburger has been seriously lacking in my diet.

Saturday was stupid nice weather, 70 something with minimal wind. Jennifer and I went for a glorious bike ride. We rode through some of the richest suburbs I've ever been to. Palaces, all of them. We could fit whole city blocks on the estates out in Lower Merion. Funny enough, while riding through the rich-ass suburbs Jennifer and I were jeered at by passing cars and buzzed by harley davidson riders, but while cruising down 52nd street in the heart of West Philly, not a single taunt. Dumbasses don't come from any particular background, they just suck.

Sunday turned out to be about 60 and rainy, perfect weather for my first bicycle race. As I left the house, Jennifer commented that the rain and slippery surfaces would give me incentive to be in the front to avoid crashes. She was right. Though it was a little dicey for a couple of turns, I ended up breaking away with one other guy and eventually won the event. Yay me. The Quaker City Wheelmen list was all a-buzz with congratulations, though honestly, it was a smallish field of Category 5 racers. I was the top of the bottom really.

This week proved long and drawn out, evenings filled with either my new job at the UPenn climbing wall (free access, shitty pay) seeing off my former manager Seth at various going away parties and organizing socks and backpacs for many hours a day at work. Oh, I really hate merchadising things!

Jennifer and I went out for our most recent round of disappointment on Friday with Dennis. We found a sweet house right by the train line with a view of downtown, immaculate floors, 12 foot ceilings and no kitchen. We also found shit-holes in various stages of decrepitude and depressing remodeled grossness. As it stands, we may just suck it up and buy this one house that we like really well that is unfortunately in a neighborhood with a little less charm. C'est la vie.

Who is the patron saint of homebuyers anyway? I'd like to make an offering at the appropriate grotto.

Coming off of a good week here in Philly. Saturday was spent joyfully riding my bicycle around the city in a bitchin' headwind. I met up with some reasonably cool chaps with the Quaker City Wheelmen cycling squad and have decided to join their little entourage. First blood came last night as I shaved my legs in preparation for the first race of the season which will be this Sunday. I'll be flying the Skunk River Cycles colors for the first few races as the kit for QCW will not be in for a while. I suppose that I really owe my dad a lot more for his support of my cycling "habit" than any team I may ever join. Too bad that the Ames market doesn't have any overlap with the Philadelphia one. You never know though.

Sunday was also a great day. I went out to a local park called Haycock Mountain about an hour from here to go bouldering. It was a blast. The rocks are like giant dinosaur eggs scattered willy-nilly through the forest. It's kooky, cool to look at and a hell of a lot of fun to climb.

The early part of the week was as to be expected until last night when I got an email from the University of Pennsylvania saying that I have been accepted into the Master of City Planning program. Sweeeeeet! I drank some cheap wine and some cheaper tequila to celebrate as I waited for Jennifer to get home from her field visit in Atlanta, GA.

I'm about to head out for our third installment of, "Cheap-ass homes, Philly STYLE!" with Jennifer and Dennis, our realtor. More pictures to come, especially if we really like one.

Trench warfare, Philadelphia style.

Two topics for my next post.

First. Philadelphia must be the home of graft. The second biggest tax on our income taxes is the city of Philadelphia. It follows right after the federal government. What do they do with this money, they sure as hell don't put it into the streets. A month ago a large pothole opened up in front of our house. By large, I mean 1.5 x 2 feet and about 3 feet deep. I'm not kidding, 3 feet deep. This remained for approximately a month, during which time, cars would cruise by, smacking their mufflers as they jolted in and out of the pit. A temporary fix was instituted when the neighbors stuffed a set of tires and a large stuffed bear into the hole. This did not last, however. Then, last week, the public works guys came out to dig a bigger hole. Apparently the water main had some issues and they needed to dig a big-ass trench. They worked from about 6 in the morning to 8 pm, then left after shoving some dirt and asphalt on top. This was not tamped down, nor filled with gravel, just some dirt and tarry sludge on top. They may have been waiting for the work-site to mellow, as you do with a fine wine. Or they may have just buggered off and left it. Either way, the pit was still there last Thursday when it began to rain rather heavily, turning the pothole into a Verdun-like morass. I counted 3 cars that got stuck before I had to go to work. The best was the fuel truck that was in up to its axles. Yay, public works.

Second.

Jennifer and I hit up the next wave of the house hunt. While we did meet an anxious pit bull, invade a squatter camp and find the place where dracula must live while vacationing in Philly, we also saw at least 2 promising places. One was nicely redone and in move-in condition, though it was right across from two vacant warehouses. The other was across from a park, had sweet green paint, and some really cool features that make us want to check it out again. I'll post some pictures shortly. At this point, we're thinking about the prospect of a fixer-up-er and exactly how much fix-er-up-ing we can do before our lease runs out here.

Our realtor, Dennis, busting into the first place we looked yesterday. One has to look at it from a more archaeological perspective, but then you can really see some nice features, including some nice detailing on the door as well a slate-floored entryway. The only problem is that I can't stand up straight in the basement.

Jennifer checking out the inside of the previous not-too-bad house that we found in South Philly. Oh yeah, it has a mural on the side. Mr. Something Lomax, founder of some magazines and stores and an example of a leader in the African American community. The mural is mostly purple. I dig it.

Squatter Camp. Note to self, always lock doors. Second note to self, if selling a house, do not allow squatters to live in it while it's on the market.

Inside of the rather nice one. It can be yours for the low low price of $144,000.

This one's got potential huh?

This decor was intended for the blind, presumably.

House number one, the funky church. This is the living room?

Jennifer and I had the super-duper experience of shopping for houses. As it turns out, we can afford dumps. I guess you could also call them crap-holes or shanties, but dump is probably as good a word as any. The first place we looked at, listed for $115K was a storefront church, complete with drumset and 15 seats as well as a resident homeless man and some serious mildew. The next house was furnished with nothing save some blankets, a few boxes of Sugar Pops and two TVs being watched by the current residents, a mother and her two 10-year-old boys. The next house had some possibility, primarily because no one was living there, though it was about 10 dumpster loads away from being refurbishable. The next two houses we went to were liveable, albeit decorated by either Herman Munster or speed-freaks alternately. At last, our shining hope in a more-or-less desirable neighborhood turned out to have a 15 degree slant to the kitchen floor. Oh well, you can't have everything you want.

As it stands, we're planning on continuing the search, finding a nicer crap-hole, fixing it up and moving into it sometime over the summer. I guess I should brush up on my carpentry skills. We'll need them if we want to live in an actual house rather than a rat-hole.

For the first time in about 3 years I rode a criterium. The circuit is run around a large oval of roads in Fairmount park here in Philly. Overall, about 30 riders showed up, then we divided into two groups, faster and slower. Everyone was supposed to have a blinking light as the ride didn't start until 6:30. Surprisingly few of the riders had headlights though, I was one of two in my group. Being rather out of shape and not having done much real cycling in a while, I took up with the slow group. Sprints were held every 5 laps and I expected some competition from the bigger guys, maybe even from one of the 3 women in my group. As it tuns out, I KICKED ASS! Oh yeah, I was like, totally faster than anyone else in the slow group. I totally laid the smack down on all of those beginniers and weekend-warrior racers. I got special satisfaction out of blasting past the spaz who bumped me as we went around the second lap. Actually, I felt a lot like Andy Kaufman wrestling women to the ground. I, however, didn't taunt anyone.

After 2 years of participating primarily in sports and activities that I suck at: downhill skiing, rock climbing, speaking Japanese, I really enjoyed not coming in at the bottom of my chosen activity. It's refreshing to know that I have some modest skill in a form of athletics. I'm really looking forward to joining up with a club here and getting my wheels back, as it were. Viva Philly! May the good times roll!!

It finally snowed enough to go skiing on. At last, at long last, I was able to go cross country skiing. With luck I'll be able to go at least once more before the snow melts into a giant slushy heap. It was unfortunate that the snow prevented Meghan and Brendan from experiencing the joy that is a Philly Cheese steak. I guess we'll have to save it for next time. B and Meghan arrived yesterday morning, we toured a brewery, chilled out, and then had ourselves some delicious home-made goodies courtesy of Jennifer. Plus, I've figured out this recipe for some damn fine soup, soup of the gods, in fact.
Anyway, just rambling a bit, but the winter olympics are nice to have on TV for a change, though it made me realize, again, that there are no snowy mountain peaks anywhere near here. Dammit.

Jennifer and I contacted a realtor the other day. We're thinking of the "next big thing". Marriage you ask? Heck no! Why, we're just waiting for the common-law statutes to kick in and then we'll be set I think. We're planning on being here for the next 5 years, give or take. Jennifer's job is really working out well, she was just asked if she wanted to be published, if so, one of her co-workers could put something her way if she wanted. Now that all my materials are in, I do the waiting game for grad school. I'm psyched about the idea of working on something more meaningful than selling clothes at an "Outdoor-chic" store like EMS. Work is going well though, I'm figuring out the perks and making friends.

Anyway, back to this house thing, Jennifer and I want to buy one. It's like the biggest toy you can get, aside from a yacht or a child. I like the idea of fixing up a place and making it work for me. I really want a workshop where I can put all my bicycles, tools, gear etc. It would also be sweet to build my own little rock climbing gym. These things are simply right out for a renter, however. Additionally, I'm getting tired of fixing stuff in this apartment. I'd rather do it for myself, and be able to reap the benefit, rather than turing it over to my landlord at the end of our stay. It's just not worth it to fix your own apartment. Lastly, Jennifer's saved up a heap of cash from Japan and work elsewhere, and I'm totally out of debt, at least until grad school kicks in. Now that I'm working part time, and the "spending moratorium" has been in place for a while, we can work on getting pre-approved for a loan and then checking out some places. The key variable is sketchy neighborhood vs. cost and standard of living. There are some damn cheap houses in Philly. Like 3 bedroom places for $20,000. Of course they're right in the "Little Beirut" neighborhood, so you get what you pay for. Or, you can get a condo close to downtown, 400 square feet for something like $250,000. Take your pick.

Oh yeah, homeowners out there, gimme all your inside advice. I want to come to this hunt armed to the teeth, if you know what I mean. Jesse Ventura in Predator style. Knowledge will be my machine gun! Viva Cuba! Viva mortgage de quatro percento!!

Good news all around.
Jennifer and I passed an enjoyable weekend in DC. Emi was out visiting and Brendan made his usual appearance, hung over as he tends to be whenever we're in town. Friday night was the best as he passed out on the couch, muttering things like, "But...who's gonna put him into the car-seat?" Ahh, good times.

Next, I got some good news from home, Asa is actually going to be able to skip the impending surgery, he's healed up quite nicely. The freaky part was, apparently, pulling out the various tubes that had been embedded in his body to aid his recovery. There was a PICC line from his upper arm into one of his coronary arteries and also a drain for the pus in his side. The doctors yanked those out and the boy is on his way to recovering from a week and a half out of school.

As for me, Jennifer managed to get me a bottle of Sake from the liquor store downtown, and let me tell you what... I am in flavor country! I've been missing my rice-wine something fierce. Not only that, but I made a flippin' awesome fish chowder. Probably the best soup I've ever made, and one of the best soups I've ever eaten. Now, if only I can duplicate it.

I've been busting my head for the past few days writing this damn personal statement for my grad-school application. For those of you who may be out of the loop, the plan is that I'm hoping to planning school next fall. I gotta get me some real skills. Maybe by the time i'm thirty I'll be able to get a "real" job. Not that I mind selling technical apparel at Eastern Mountain Sports, it's just that I'll go crazy if I stay there too long.

To think that this is the 5th draft is heartbreaking.
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“Couldn’t believe it, good 200-bushel-an-acre land under a dang Home Depot parking lot,” my uncle lamented over dinner at the farm. He was relating the story of his trip from Sioux City, Iowa to the Chicago suburbs where my cousin lives. My uncle and I have often differed on matters of politics and public policy, but on this topic we were on the same page. I see the natural landscape frivolously turned into lawns and subdivisions without a sidewalk in sight, he complains of the fertile farmland lost forever. We both agree that urban sprawl is out of hand.

While I have strong sympathies with New Urbanist design ideas, I have some reservations about high-density, transit-oriented developments. There must be some sort of sea-change for New Urbanism to catch on. Though the cost of our sprawling landscape is high, for many, those costs are less tangible than the benefits of the status quo. Without a clear comparison, we are likely to trade the nebulous problem: “less farmland” for the visible benefit: “abundant parking.” Finding ways to compare such disparate variables is an essential part of communicating the need to change our environmentally questionable development style to the public.

I am applying for the Master of City Planning degree at the University of Pennsylvania where I hope to contribute in two main ways. First, I hope to do research on the topic of incentives: specifically, the ways in which planners and policy makers can influence people into making transportation and housing decisions that appropriately weigh the benefits and negative externalities of their actions. I am particularly interested in Professor Keene’s studies on “walkable communities” and farmland preservation. Second, I realize that in order to implement change in a community, one needs the specific skills and know-how to take a project from paper to reality. While my undergraduate education gave me a conceptual understanding of urban landscapes, I realize that I need technical abilities to succeed. I am looking forward to improving my skills with GIS in order to use this powerful tool to communicate my ideas to others. Additionally, I believe that the opportunity to work directly with a client organization in one of the studio sessions will give me an experience unique among the graduate programs I’ve investigated.

After Penn, I intend to take my skills and experience to the workplace. As a firm believer in the necessity of regional planning, my aim is to work for a private firm or regional organization that will allow me to focus on the preservation of natural resources through sound planning. The need for mobility, independence and space are deeply ingrained in the American mind. I respect these needs, but understand that the long-term viability of our cities and country depends on us making better use of our resources. In our country, where space is not infinite, mobility depends on having a car and independence requires gas money, finding an alternative to urban sprawl is not just a good idea, it is imperative.

The flaming house across the street.

It's been an eventful week or so. I guess that I'll start off with last Sunday. Sunday morning was pretty average, Jennifer and I ran some errands to pick up the remaining supplies for the closet I'm refinishing. We also drove around some areas where we were looking at housing. The housing market here is schizophrenic. I've never been anywhere with such a driven redevelopment sector. Houses are being re-habbed everywhere you look. At the same time, this is a rather recent development and therefore the boundaries are often very distinct between the zones of refurbishment and the blighted zones. For example, in the area we're considering, Brewerytown, any house south of Girard street, a major thouroughfare, is cute, clean, rennovated and $150k and up. North of that street, depending on how far you go, you can find housing in gutted areas for $20k. Schizophrenic.

Coming back home, we spent an afternoon dinking around the house. Then, while sitting in the living room, I noticed some flames licking the inside of windows in the house across the street. Within minutes the fire had begun billowing around and out the second and third story windows. Those two floors were gutted by the time the fire department arrived 5 minutes later. Talk about excitement, the whole neighborhood was out on the street. I quickly got my camera and was about to run outside when Jennifer stopped what was about to be a really insensitive move on my part.

We had also been invited to the upstairs neighbor's apartment in the evening for a housewarming party. It was a nice time, though we were the only people in the room who couldn't speak any German. Karl is a supreme Deutchophile and is a regular participant in the Stamptish meetings of German speakers in Philly. I don't know what Stamptish means, but what the hell, Karl had good weisswurst.

Things were pretty chill until yesterday evening when I got a call from my parents. They were in the Des Moines children's hospital with my youngest brother Asa. For the past month and a half he's been having a lot of trouble with stomach pain. Over the past few weeks he's been in to the gastrointerologist a few times, gotten to chug liters of radioactive liquids and had a probe put where the sun don't shine. The diagnosis is Crohn's disease, and autoimmune disorder affecting the intestine. Imagine arthritis of the bowels. The call last night was because he's been admitted to the hospital due to intense inflammation in his abdomen. Apparently the abscess or abscesses caused by the disease became infected and he had some pretty severe and painful swelling that had to be treated in the hospital. They're pumping him full of fluids, antibiotics and the like and also draining the fluids from the region.

While I'll not say I'm devastated by the news of Asa's illness, I am concerned for him. Crohn's is not fatal, but could potentially degrade his quality of life to a severe degree. For example, he'll have to keep treating his disease throughout his life and it's likely that at some point he'll have to have surgery to remove affected portions of his intestine. Shit man. He's already had to miss a number of days of school and missed finals on Tuesday. That sort of stuff takes a while to recover from. Anyway, my thoughts are with him. Ganbatte Asa.

Ok, I'm gonna post sometime soon, swear to god, but I just made the big jump from 100 percent free time to something like 59 percent free time. It's a shocker I tell you, a shocker!!!

Ok, It's been a while since posting, but hey, I'm a busy man. No, honestly, I've been busy. I suppose that I owe an apology to something in the neighborhood of half of the people who read this for stiffing them last weekend on my excursion to the midwest. Here's the deal: My parent's neighbor Chad recently bought a truck on ebay. The truck, conveniently enough, was located about an hour's drive from here, near Valley Forge. The plan was that Jennifer and I could drive the vehicle back to Ames in time to get to the wedding of a highschool friend who lives in Minneapolis. We picked up the truck just fine, headed out towards the midwest last Wednesday, and we were fortunate enough that no one was shot on our block, so we were able to get out of Philly on time. A guy was shot by the police on the next block over, thank God we're not on the 51 block of Cedar!

Anyway, we drove our asses off and then ended up back home in Ames all exhausted and such and were considering the proposition of blasting off for the twin cities the next day, and I have to say, we quailed at the thought of driving up to Saint Paul so soon after returning to the comfort of our families. Anyway, it would have involved some serious car shuffling and making my parents go up to get a car was not really what I had hoped to do. Basically a logistics jam. We were all settled to send our apologies to Katherine, Ben and Marye as well, but then Jennifer got a personal email from Katherine saying how pleased she would be if we showed up. So, due to the autimotive restraints, we couldn't spend any real time in the twin cities, but we borrowed Jennifer's mom's car, drove up Friday night and drove back Friday night. It kind of sucked. The wedding reception was nice, I got to see a couple of highschool friends who had gotten larger over the years and we chatted about life. As we exited the freeway to Ames that night, Jennifer plowed into a skunk with the car. It was a long evening.

Whoa, where to start dudes?
Well, for starters, it's like, 2006. Second, I like have a part-time job at an EMS store in Philly. Thirdly, well, New Years was sweet, hung out with Meghan, Brendan and a gang of former Peace Corps volunteers at Meghan's place in DC. The weird thing about newyears is that I met this guy there from Iowa, and I KNEW WHO HE WAS. Those of you who are from smaller or more obscure places know that people always ask you, "Youre from There? Hey, I know someone from There, His name is ____. Do you know him?" To which you always have to respond, "No, no I don't." Even though you're from an out of the way place, it's not like the world is THAT small. Except when it is. This guy walked into the party and introduced himself and instantly I remembered going on a bike ride with him and the make and features of the bike he was riding, all from 8 years ago. Freaked him out, that did. Hah. My bike-remembering skills are second only to my dad's.

Oh yeah, now I'm employed part time at EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports) a chain of stores out East here. The pay is decent, part time will keep me just busy enough to be happy, but not too busy as I look for other "career" work and get ready for grad school, in theory. However, we all know that Communism worked in theory, but ask an Albanian what they think of Communism today.

Lastly, my GRE's are finally over. Thank God for that. Even though I'd rather pluck my head bald than take the test again, a small part of me wants to take the test over to see if I can get a better score. Dammit, I know I can! Fortunately, I won't be doing that again, primarily due to the fact that there's no way in hell that I'm going to pay $115 AGAIN to take a stupid test.

Christmas was different this year. Jennifer and I spent the weekend just hanging out together, kickin' it Christmas-in-Philly. The weather here was balmy, a whopping 55 on Saturday, so Jennifer and I went for a bike ride. Yay, bikes on Christmas Eve! After the bike ride was the inaugural Egg Nog Taste Off.

As some of you may know, the best commercially produced Egg Nog is made by Anderson Erickson creameries and is available primarily in Iowan supermarkets. I don't know what sort of chemical additives, natural flavors or un-nameable substances are mixed together with the standard egg, cream and nutmeg, but I know this: AE Egg Nog is the real thing. Not to be tendentious, but nothing comes close to the truth, the apotheosis of Egg Nog that is available for each and every one of us, should we choose to shop at Hy-Vee, Fairway or Kum and Go markets. For those of you who remember, "Ya Come, Ya Go, Ya Come Ya Come Ya GO!"
At the risk of becoming mawkish, I'll quit this expiation on AE Egg Nog and get down to the meat and potatoes of the matter: I needed an egg nog fix, and I needed one bad! I enlisted the help of my temerous and plucky life-partner Jennifer to procure the needed surrogate-noggs and to assist in the taste-test. Up for examination were four of the finest that the East Coast could bring to bear; Land of Lakes "Traditional Ultra Pasteurized Egg Nog", Lucerne "Holiday Egg Nog", Shop Rite "Gourmet Egg Nog", and Southern Comfort "Traditional Egg Nog".
In the picture you'll notice a number of nutmegs sitting in front of each quart, the rankings are from one to five, five being solely reserved for the AE. A summary:

Land of Lakes can be summed up by an alternate meaning of it's own acronym, LOL. Please, we would hope to find at least a creamy mouthfeel or a spicy taste, but LOL is a gloppy yellow. Two of five.

Southern Comfort was indeed a comfort. Sadly non-alcoholic, but with a creamy texture and cinnamon overtones. A personal favorite though not the grail. Four and a half out of 5.

Gourmet Egg Nog was Jennifer's personal favorite. With good creamy-ness, it clings to the tongue and slithers on down the alimentary like it should. Without the certain something (possibly the addictive compounds) of AE, a good second. Four and a half out of five.

Lucerne Holiday nog, well let me see. A fatuous beverage, no mouthfeel, slimy and resinous tasting. Had I not known better, I would have assumed that I'd drunk slightly sweetened latex. Not recommended, in fact, consider yourself warned. It garnered 1 nutmeg because it wasn't poison and actually tasted alright when put into pancake batter.

A contender not now in the picture below was the Garelick Farms Egg Nog. It was gross. Refer to the Lucerne description for a general idea.

Testing went well, but the final hurdle was, of course, the extremely disturbing hallucinations caused by over-ingestion of fats, proteins and nutmeg. I'll not write more but will include an actual photo of what was visible to me in my stupor; the effulgent aura of our Christmas tree bursting in incandescent sparks before my very eyes. An event truly horrifying until the euphoria set in.

Incidentally, studying for the GRE is going as well as my inchohate mind is capable.

The contenders. May they rest in peace.

The horror of egg nog poisoning.

So, as has been previously suspected, I am an Idiot. Yesterday morning I drove the 30 miles to the GRE testing site in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. The Testing site was in the King of Prussia area (I'm not kidding, there are some weird-ass names in PA)and it took me about 45 minutes to get there. After an uneventful drive, I showed up with all my required materials, some scratch paper, three writing utensils, my driver's license and even Jelly Belly beans with electrolytes, in case I was having a melt down.

I pulled out my ID, walked to the sign-in desk and smiled confidently. Then the woman behind the desk told me that I wasn't actually registered. Though I had gone through the automated process of signing up, I didn't actually receive a confirmation number indicating that the process was successful. Therefore, there would be no way for me to take the test.

Dammit, I had been studying for the past 48 hours, almost nonstop. I took a short break to go to the bathroom once, but that was all. Now my new GRE date is the 29th of December. The up-shot is that I have more time to study, the downside is that I have to study more. Like I said, I'm an idiot.

So, earlier this fall, when I had nothing to do, I set myself with the goal of taking the GREs. I checked out the library books, I took the performance enhancing drugs, everything but actually study for the test. So, when time rolled around to register for the damn things, I demurred. Idiot. Now that I'm thinking of going to Penn next fall to get a masters in City Planning, I've got to scramble to get everything in order. I guess that's not a change from my normal reality. I'm a goddam procrastinator, and there's little to be done about it. I gotta get some recommendation letters, I gotta take the GREs and I gotta get my act together by Feb 1st. While that's still a while from now, it takes a number of weeks for the GREs to come back and therefore, I've signed up for them next wednesday. I guess i'll be studying this weekend.

YIKES.

Urban youth are a surprisingly sheltered bunch. Why, just yesterday I had an experience that made me quite aware of the perilous degree to which many of today's inner city children have been kept from the wider world.

As it happened, I had gone for my first run in Philadelphia, a week after our arrival. Initially I ran westward toward the Cobbs Creek Parkway system that I had seen on the map. It proved to be a nice run, similar to the run along minnehaha creek in Minneapolis. As I headed back up Baltimore avenue I realized that it was 3:15, a time that schoolchildren everywhere long for. My route back home happened to be directly along the main thouroughfare for the Junior High students as they walked home or waited for the bus.

As I passed by, it occurred to me, "By golly, these youth have probably never seen a skinny white man running past their school in tights!" Indeed, I can only presume they never had, for their cries led me to believe that they were shocked to their very cores! So shocked in fact, were some of the youth that they in fact were taken with fits of what I assume was laughter, but seemed to me more like screaming or jeering! A number of the young boys, tried their best to pelt me with chunks of snow and ice, while others took it upon themselves to run along beside me. Being not as fleet of foot as I, they were soon outstripped however. At this point I came across a brace of young girls, one of which screamed again at me, while her companion took the courage to utter a greeting to me as I rushed past. While the greeting itself was unfamiliar to me, I can only assume it to be a local saying in this region, the meaning was nonetheless clear and pleasant to me. If I remember correctly, the utterance was, "I can see yer Gibbleys!"

At any rate, the brush with the native youth invigorated me to a degree that I was soon panting for breath as I sped home to the relative quiet of our abode. All in all, it was a good day and a good run, I shal have to duplicate it by and by.

Until next we meet, dear reader.

Here's the lovely house. It's actually half of a duplex, known here as "half houses", that was previously torn down.

the lovely living room as you enter the house.

The bathroom

the guest bedroom/tv room (thanks Chad for the tube)

Der sleepenzimmer.

The kitchen, more spatious than most porta-pottys.

What better to do when you're trying to get a job than to SURF THE INTERNET. I read an interesting interview with Lance Armstrong on the velonews.com website, I found out about bouldering opportunities in Philly, checked out Jennifer's work website and eventually ended up slapping out a cover letter and sending off a resume to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Authority. Since I'm feeling utterly under-qualified for any really good jobs, I'm sticking my neck out for an internship as a transportation planner. Please god, let them pick me and re-affirm my self worth!!!

Melodrama galore, but it's me and I'm out of my comofort zone in this whole job hunt/living in Philadelphia thing. Philly is cool, but it's a big damn city and I don't know much about it or anyone in it. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to be an adventurer, crazy people, that's who.
As to our abode, a little briefin is in order. Our new address is 5036 Cedar Ave, Philadelphia PA 19143. Our new neighborhood is in the University City area of Philadelphia, about a mile west of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. Our building is right on the edge of the real "university" part and likewise is in the transitional zone to the west of us which is overwhelmingly African American and somewhat more run-down. To get some more info, check out the Census bureau and and google earth.
Our apartment house is owned by a Jamaican guy and his American wife. They bought the building a year ago and have been rehabbing the thing to make it presentable enough to rent out to people who pay real money. The house is a typical Philadelphia style brick row house and as such is very narrow, very old and, in this case, very crapped out. Toney, Patrick and Luther, our rastafarian DIYers however are doing their best to refurb the place. They have been plugging away at it for some time and have made some big improvements(?) The main issue is that not a one of them really has much business doing home repair. These guys are just not into quality control. "If it works a little, it's perfect," is kind of the motto around here. Don't get me wrong, the guys are great, super nice, just super bad at carpentry, wiring, plastering, plumbing, cabinetry, grouting, painting and flooring. They do a nice job with drywall however. The best thing about moving into a place with sub-perfect workmanship is knowing, "Damn, I could do this better!" which gives a pretty good boost to the ego. Pictures of the abode soon to follow.

Philadelphia, what can I say; Getting here's a bitch, IKEA has everything my life requires, and I'm a housewife.

Jennifer and I took off for Philly last Thursday night about 8. We were gonna do the all nighter and get here the next afternoon after 20 hours of straight driving. The bitch of it was gonna be that both of us would be driving 100% of the way because we had both the moving truck and the car. It may have worked, but I wasn't really all caught up on sleep from the previous week and we ran into difficulties. The problems started about midnight. Jennifer and I had been in contact via walkie talkie and it was all good, yet as usual, I started getting sleepy. Since we all know that caffine does a great job of keeping a feller awake, I started hitting the Vivarins, hard. Between midnight and 8 A.M. Friday morning I had 7. And I had a crappucino from a convenience store along the way. It would have been 8 pills, but I have one to Jennifer. Well, let me tell you here folks, 7 Vivarins in 8 hours is too much. Each pill contains about 2.5 cups of coffee worth of caffine so do the math, unpleasantness ensued. At one point I thought I was going to freak out. Jittering hands, eyes that twitched and a nervous tick in my left cheek and neck meant that I was tripping dear readers, tripping like a speed freak. As tired as I became I couldn't relax,even for the two hours we spent trying to nap and freezing at rest stops.

The long and short of it is, we had to take a break in Bedford PA, coincidentally, the town where Cannondale bicycles are made. WE stayed in a sleaze-ball hotel and watched about 5 episodes of "That 70's Show" to keep us awake until 8 P.M. when we could fall asleep at a normal hour.

We finally got to our apartment about 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. Then the lovely process of unpacking began. More on the details of that process tomorrow.

Watching my brother Asa wrestle in his first meet was painful. Not that painful, because I wasn't actually wrestling, but painful to watch the little guy get turned into a pretzel. He joined wrestling to get in shape for soccer, a goal that Ian has said is honorable and stupid. Those of you who may not have seen Asa since he was but a little kid should imagine someone built like me, a little shorter and a bit skinnier. He wrestles 125 lbs and should really be wrestling at a lower weight, the thing is, there is no mass for him to lose. At the same time that he's wrestling, I'm watching all the other kids out there, the ones with muscles particularly. Dad and I were thinking of ways to bulk Asa up, maybe strap some muscle somewhere on his upper body. I don't know. It reminds me of getting thrashed in 7th grade when I wrestled. It sucked. At least with two pins (that's being pinned, not pinning) under his belt, there's no place for him to go but up.

Thanksgiving. A time for family, a time for fattening. I've been hanging out with the family this past week/weekend. Ian and Leah came back from Mac on Wednesday and we have been feasting for the past 72 hours. Fat, fatty fatty fat fat. Sooooo good.

I've been starving for vertical excitement in Ames, so I took it to a new level yesterday. Alpine tree climbing! Taking Chad's ice axes, I used them to scale up the side of a large cottonwood tree. It's tree climbing, just as we all used to enjoy, but EXTREME! It was going well for the first five minutes and then while executing a sweet cross over move with my left axe, I yanked it out of the tree and smashed my head. To explain the situation better, imagine watching someone smash a hammer into the center of his forehead while stuck on the side of a huge cottonwood
Yesterday Ian and I went rock climbing in Ames, outdoors. What's this you say??? No rocks in Ames you say? Well you're right, excepting the railroad bridge there are no rocks. So, we climb the railroad bridge. Yee haw! I'm UNSTOPPABLE!!

WEll, Living History Farms was a good damn race. I had so much fun that I thought that I'd take up running seriously again. Boy was I wrong. It just sucks to run without the motivation of a team or near term goals. It's like summer miles for no good reason. Anyway, the race was run, creeks were crossed, mud was slopped, thongs were worn, and chili was eaten. A hell of a day in November. Today I'm hoping to get out on two wheels and enjoy the cycling weather while it's still decent out. It's supposed to get shitty for tomorrow so i'll save running for the colder crappier days when cycling is just a no go.

Cheers to all. Happy thanksgiving.

Well, I went for my first winter run yesterday. The temperatures weren't so cold, but the wind, she was a howlin'. To the uninitiated, it might seem like a damn fool idea to go outside in a blizzard, but the grizzled veteran of the Midwestern freeze-fest that is winter running knows it to be a walk in the park. Besides, I'm training for the potentially adverse conditions for the Living History Farms Race.

The forecast for today has the high temperature at 25 and the low tonight should be about 5. Hmm, it makes me ponder exactly how dedicated I am at this point. I guess it will give me a crack at my first frosty beard of the season.

Well, most of my gloom and doom have passed. Jennifer and I have already signed a lease on an apartment in Philly. It's (supposedly) in a nice neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania. The selling features were: nice wood floor, two big bedrooms, cool landlord and proximity to Ethiopian restaurants and farmers market. We'll see all of this for ourselves when we get there however.

"Living History Farms; The Race" is coming soon to a town near me. So far I've got Tim Pavlish and Bo Rydze. The fun will only increase with more members! The race date is November 19th and the food is on me. Additionally, we are provided with T-shirts featuring the living history farms logo and then we get to eat as many donuts as we can stomach!

Come on down!!!

If you want more info, just call me! Also, I'm lonely so, just call me!

All good things must come to an end. I was riding high on the super-duper MIAC Meet-up with the ol' Cross Country Boys. Alf was back from China, Pete flew in from the west coast and the usual suspects, Paul, Ben and Derek were around for the fun. Many beers were consumed and then some frolicking, if we can call it that, ensued. Pete decided that there had not been enough "dog piling" going on recently. We quckly remediated the situation. Oh yeah, Mac did a good job at the meet. Roscoe and Dylan ran fast as hell and I was inspired, almost, to make a comeback onto the running scene.

Then, the very next day, after helping set up a halloween display in my parents front lawn, I decided to go for a run. It was halloween night and the kids were out. I was feeling genki so I decided to cruise. My parents' neighbor, Chad, was heading out of the house and I offered to take his dog on a run with me. As it turned out it would be the dog's last run. Tensing, named after the legendary Sherpa, was a really good dog, a Visla obsessively dedicated to his owner. Tensing was attentive enough to be taken for walks without a lead, or so I thought. When once I had taken my parents dog, Rudy, for a walk, Chad had told me that Tensing was so good as to not require a lead for running. True enough, he stuck right by Chad's side when they went walking in the mornings. Unfortunately, I didn't have the same sort of magnetism and while running homeward along a relatively quiet street Tensing, who was following me a few yards back, veered into the street to avoid some trick-or-treaters and was hit by two cars. The first car shocked him and caused him to yelp, at which point I saw turned around to see him laid out by a second truck. The people who hit him in the second car were very kind and drove us back home at which point it became clear that he was no longer breathing, nor was his heart beating. I tried CPR, but because of a dog's large mouth, you have to blow through the nose and seal the mouth completely. It didn't work out.

So, from a pretty good week, it has turned into a funky, shitty one. I gotta get out for another run, but it's gonna be difficult.

Life has slowed down a bit since coming back to Ames. Jennifer and I hare started making preliminary plans for moving to Philadelphia, but nothing super concrete yet. The plan is to move out there after Thanksgiving. We haven't been home for Thanksgiving for 2 years, and that is far to long to be without my dad's barbecued turkey and my mom's pies. Damn, I haven't eaten much today and this stuff sounds awesome!

I went rock climbing yesterday with Chad, my parents' neighbor, my brothers' soccer coach and my de-facto older brother. He eats at my house more than I do. We went out to Blue Mounds state park in Minnesota. It's a hell of a drive, 4 hours, but we made it more bearable by staying at Jennifer's family's cabin on Spirit Lake. Spirit Lake is one of the Iowa Great Lakes, as designated by the local tourist board. It neighbors the more resorty Lake Okiboji and was a popular tourist destination much the same way Minnetonka and Calhoun were in the Twin Cities. Now it's just lined with lake homes. I guess that the trememdous drive is just part of being a rock climber in Iowa. Shit. It was a great day, though the snow was a bit of a pain. Now, back safe in Ames, I would kill for another day on the rocks.

Ok, so we totally "did" the East. Philly was good, we liked it so much that we're thinking of moving there. Really though, "liking it so much" involves merely being able to see myself living there. Additionally, there are jobs, not shitloads but jobs nonetheless. Cheese steak is good as well. Man, I could go for a good cheese steak right now.

After philly we drove through lovely Gettysburg PA, home of the famous address was given by our great leader, Abraham Lincoln. From Gettysburg we drove on to Bedford Pennsylvania where Cannondale bicycles are manufactured. Cannondale is the only major manufacturer of bicycles to still make all of its frames in the US (with the exception of 1 model) and I met the guy who made the machines that make the bikes. It was COOL! We saw the process from raw aluminum tubes all the way to finished bicycles. SWEET!! After the lovely tour of Cannondale, we drove our way to Niagra Falls. It's amazing how the awesome splendor of nature can spur such shitty tourist development as in Niagra Falls NY and Canada.

Next on the tour was me going climbing in the Shawangunk Mountains in upstate NY. I sucked here, very badly and was rewarded by getting my ass stuck on the cliff face for 4.5 hours, 2 of which were in the dark. Yay climbing!

After the disappointment of sucking badly, we drove north to Lake Placid and hiked up Mt. Marcy, the highest of the adirondac peaks, it was nice, but surprisingly sweaty work and we spent a clammy night in the tent before hiking back the next morning under cloudy skies.

Next stop was the Ben and Jerry's factory for some awesome ice cream goodness, and then north to Montreal to see Lara and Shane. Montreal is good, but it's only awesome if you're french (I think) though it might be good after establishing oneself there.

Last, after an all-night driving binge, we arrived in the Twin Cities. Ahh, the Midwest, how I love thee. It was great to see people, and it really made me think that, had I not all ready lived there for 4 years, I would definitely be moving up to that Paris of the North. Anyway, I'm sure I'll catch some people up there for the MIAC conference meet in two weeks, but until then, I'll be at home, chillin like only the jobless know how.

J and I have been having a capital time in the Capitol. DC is a pretty cool city and I really can't say anything bad about it. We went to the museums, "did" some monuments and touristed the place up for two days. Yesterday I went for a long run with Meghan in preparation for her upcoming Marine Corps marathon. She was scheduled for 20 miles, of which I did 14. Fortunately I'd prepared by running 6 the previous Wednesday. No injury yet, but I'm working on that.

Next to Philly. Philadelphia should be good, but what I'm psyched about is the tour of the Cannondale bicycle factory next Friday. With luck we'll get to see a 3D lazer cutting tool in action. Totally sweet!

Well, the road trip has begun. Living the American dream in the passenger and occasionally the driver's seat of a compact automobile. We headed out from Iowa last Thursday evening and arrived twelve hours later at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. For those of you interested in spelunking, I'd recommend the trip highly, but as far as caves go, it really wasn't the most spectacular. There are relatively few stalagmites and stalactites or any of the other features that one associates with caves. The water formed lots of horizontal channels joined by vertical shafts making it more of an "I never want to get stuck here with the lights off" place than a "magical underground kingdom" place.

Next up on the tour we drove to the Red River Gorge national river in eastern Kentucky for some R and R. Relaxation and Rock climbing. The relaxation part worked out well, but the rock climbing while potentially spectacular, was limited by my limited abilities. I fell a lot and my toes hurt from the terribly small shoes I use.

Now, 8 hours of driving later, we're in Chapel Hill NC visiting my friend Claire Lutgendorf, whom I met while cycling in the Twin Cities. Chapel hill is nice, if hot and humid. Next up is our fair city, Washingon DC. where we'll hang out with our esteemed friends Meghan and Brendan. From there, Philadelphia, and from there, the WORLD!

Ok, so this is my trip to China, abbreviated of course. It would behoove the viewer to start from the bottom of the stack and go upwards chronologically. But really, since each shot in and of itself could win a Pulitzer, don't hesitate to skip around and feast on the glorious digital images.

Then onto the ferry for our 40 hour ride to Osaka. This trip was exciting, initially because I ate a dragonfruit, pictured here, and next because the boat sailed through a typhoon. It was my first experience with sea sickness. I can tell you truthfully, if you're gonna puke, green tea isn't so bad.

We met up again with Alf, for 3 hours, and ate scorpions. Then we went to a lovely little cafe and drank scorpion liquor. What a great trip.

Then to the Wall. As Nixon said upon his visit, "It sure is a great wall." True that Dick, true that.

There were hundreds of people selling kites, watches, guide books, post cards and the like, and occasionally, a really cute kid would show up.

After another couple of days in transit, we ended up in Beijing, on Tienanmen square, where everybody and his brother wanted a picture taken with foreigners.

We saw yaks, and the edge of the Himalayan plateau, in front of which we are posed so lovingly.

Next, after the 20 hour train ride from hell and the grottoes of Dunhuang, I, for my part, spent the time there going to the toilet and wishing I were dead, but we followed it up with a great spot, Xiahue- Little Tibet.

But the scenery was cool. Especially if you're into desert waste-lands.

Next came the 20 hour diarreah ridden train ride from hell.

This mountain overlooked the lake with the Yurts and is the main reason why it ranks up there on the beauty scale.

The next day we slept in a Yurt on the back side of one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. The scenery was great and the hospitality first rate, but this was to be the last day of my good health.

Organ meats? Grill 'em up and serve 'em hot. I ate sheep heart and spine, but couldn't bring myself to eat stomach. I couldn't get over my gripe with tripe.

The fabulous Terra Cotta Warriors, the only real reason to visit Xian. They were cool. Thousands and thousands of them standing in rows for two milennia. What the hell was that emperor thinking?

Guys sitting on a street in Xian. Everybody in China sits on the street, drinking tea and playing chess or some similar game with big wooden tablets on the ground. This goes on until maybe 1 am, takes a 5 hour haitus and resumes at 6.

Here's a Uyghur dude making some noodles by hand. First it's a dough ball and suddenly, it's a big fist full of noodles. Boggles the mind, delights the stomach.

We next went to Alf's new home town of Hangzhou. This is the lovely West Lake, and a fabulous sunset there. Shane's in the foreground sweating and taking pictures.

Shanghai at night. It's like Las Vegas, so I've heard. Lots of people, lots of humidity. Lots of people trying to sell you crap.

This is the Shanghai "Tourist Tunnel" it's purely a tourist trap that takes you from one side of the Yellow River to the other. It played weird music and said things like "Space Ray" in English and Chinese.

Well, now that i've been back from china for a few weeks, I suppose it's time to finally post some of the stuff from that trip. I'll start with the beginning, as it seems fit.

In preparation for the impending road trip/fact finding mission that Jennifer and I are embarking on, we took the car in for service at the local "Freedom Tire" outlet. THe CV joint boots are both cracked which means that the innards of said joints are crapped out. This assesment agrees with the clunking noise present in the left front wheel. Unfortunately, "Freedom Tire" really is an code, really they want to free the money from my wallet. $650 was their estimate for two half shafts, which, I have learned, are the drive units for all front wheel drive cars. This seemingly exorbitant price prompted me to think that, since I know how to fix bicycles, how much harder could cars really be, I mean really. It was going to be a big adventure, buy the parts, jack up the car, get reeeeally dirty and fix it in about 12 hours. Well, after looking at the repair manual, this dream turned to be not super fun looking after all. After calling around to less "free" establishments, we discovered a place that would do the job for $350. What a bargain. It's hard to imagine that one place would be so much more expensive than another. Is there a big difference in the quality of service or what? Number of cigarettes smoked by both places seems about even.


I mentioned fact finding mission before. Yes, this is a mission to find out the facts. The facts pertaining to the case of "Where the hell should I live next?" We're travelling out east to check out places with good stats in the following categories:
Jobs (interesting ones that pay me money)
Housing (cool old ones that just need a little loving)
Outdoor recreation opportunities (including cycling, climbing, running and skeet shooting)
Cool restaurants (Variety of cheap and delicious ethnic quisines, and steak)
Schooling opportunities (Some university where it's easy to get into the grad programs and it costs about $50)
Arts and crap (stuff like theaters and guys on the sidewalk drawing cariactures of passerbys, celebrities and bible heroes)


So, what it boils down to is this; we're going to tour all around the country, East and West, and then move back to the Twin Cities.

In other news, I'm heading up to the twin cities this weekend to watch one of Ian's soccer games. My youngest sister Leah is also at Mac starting this fall, also playing soccer, but she's probably not going to suit up for varsity games until a bit later. I think that I have unwittingly started a dynasty of Ritzes at the school. Leah's in Turck, and to her delight is next door to a "Hottie German skydiver".
I'll be in St. Paul probably just for Saturday night and Sunday morning, since the game is at 3pm at Gustavus. I don't know how many people I'll be able to catch up with, but rest assured I'll be travelling back up to the 'Cities sometime in the near future.

IF anyone wants to hang out, just email me or comment on this post.

Being back is good, but I have a couple of thoughts about it.
First off, Americans are fat. Not just a little fat, really damn fat. Why is this? Are we just a lazy bunch of slackers? No, not really, Americans are about as lazy as the inhabitants of any other country I've been to. The real problem is that our food is ridiculiciously tasty! I've been in nothing short of food heaven since returning home; Chicago style stuffed pizza, burritos the size of my face, Totino's party pizzas, French silk pie, home made hamburgers, fries, brownies, ice cream, delicous beer, strawberry daquaris, the list continues!

This leads me to contemplate; how can I prevent myself from porking-out with all the delicious food available? I've been cycling a bit, I'd love to go rock climbing but there are no rocks in Iowa and I've even thought of running again. I'm always hesitant to start running again however, because I'm rather injury prone and I tend not to last too long once my feet start to implode. THis led me to search the internet for injury prevention stuff and i found this interesting idea, POSE Technique running. I hadn't heard of it before but it kind of makes sense. During my convalascense from my achilles tendinitis I had contemplated a similar idea, our high tech shoes are really killing our feet. The idea with this kind of running is to use the natural cushioning properties of our foot musculature and not depend so much on the cushy sweetness of 100 dollar shoes. It makes sense, humans have been running for millions of years, and surely we would have all been eaten by lions and carnivorous mammoths and sloths by this time if we'd been suffering from such injuries all along. I think I might give this new technique a try, see if I can't regain my former glory a bit.

Ok loyal fans, and everybodeee. It seems as though I've made it back to the US in one piece after a good long 3 weeks in China. China was good, though it could have been better, what with the super-shits I had and all. It's just not as easy to enjoy a place if you're paranoid about the food and always looking for a bathroom. I understand why Alf likes it; there is cheap food always available on the streets, any time of day or night, there are plenty of girls who would just love to have a foreign boyfriend, and the cost of living is low enough for him to skip work for months at a time. Oh yeah, you can also get a pint and a half of beer for 25 cents.

I'll be posting pictures of the rampage acros Middle Kingdom sometime soon, I'm going to put together an AWESOME slide show for all 10 of my readers. Incidentally, the name of my blog is rather outdated, so any ideas for a new one would be much appreciated.

Well, holy shit. This will be the last post from the Land of the Rising Sun. Jennifer and I are off to China to see Alf, and of course all of the wonderful things that the Middle Kingdom has to offer. We head by bus tonight to Osaka, and then from Osaka tomorrow we will go by seafaring ship to Shanghai to meet up with Alfie. We still have a fair bit of cleaning to do today and unfortunately, I decided to take it upon myself to clean out the liquor cabinet last night. It's just a shame to see good gin go to waste isn't it? Now it's just a shanme that I'm a useless hungover idiot on my last day in Nagano, EVER!

Since China blocks Blogger, I may not be able to post anything until I get back to the US. I suppose a name change for this blog is in order, "aaronsinjapan" will probably not seem so suitable when at last aaronsnotinjapan.

Thanks Japan, it's been and interesting two years, but I can't say I'm all that I'm not ready to leave. It's been real.

Here are some nice ones. Unfortunately, I really can't put faces to names, I never made that effort, plus there were 90 of them, and I met them once a week. Oh well, the plaid one is from probably the best English speaker in the class.

This is the only student I ever have wanted to throw out the window. Stupid and annoying, but hey, her favorite band is called "Bump of Chicken".

This is one of my favorites. When I finally figured out what she was trying to say, I got a little misty eyed.

I got some pretty good thank you notes from the girl's highschool students at Nagano Jyoshi-ko. You can see how much of an influence I was on them.

Sorry about the scarcity of my posts recently. I've been waaaay to busy listening to Le Tour by using the power of the internet. My biggest gripe about this year is that Lance is a goddam juggernaut when it comes to this race. He doesn't focus on anything else, and while that is the same approach favored by so many other riderss, he swats them all down like flies. My main hope is in Ivan Basso, the youngish Italian who really showed up to race this year. Basso is the only guy to really stick with Lance in the mountains, that, plus Basso also raced in the Giro, where he was the odds on favorite until he suffered from stomach flu and lost 44 minutes on a single stage. My bet is that next year, Basso is going to be the guy to beat, but the race will be much more interesting without Big Tex in the mix.

I am almost through with the week from hell, but hey it was great while it lasted. I've begun to bid farewell to my classes, students and friends, a sad process but one that is easily accepted in light of my impending return to the world of the unemployed and homeward bound. Jennifer is due back on Sunday, which means that a good scrubbing is in order, primarily for me, and the apartment could do with a bit of tidying as well. My days of batchelordom are nearing an end, to my delight. With luck customs won't bust out the sniffing dogs to confiscate the kangaroo jerkey that I requested upon Jennifer's return.

This week coming up is my last full week of teaching. I've got a pretty whopping schedule coming up but I guess I'll just deal with it, as it's the LAST ONE I'LL EVER HAVE TO DO! I'm working from about 10 to 9 for four out of the five days this week and in addition, I'll be teaching 5 kids classes this week. You can imagine how excited I am for that. Loving the kids classes, loving them. Jennifer's still in Australia, cruising the outback or something, chucking shrimp and the barbie and kicking it Southern Hemisphere style. The apartment is in a current state of "not so clean" because without anyone to see it, is it really messy? By anyone in this case, I mean Jennifer, she tends to not like it when I leave the kitchen covered with dough and crumbs.
In other news I spent about 24 of the past 48 hours rock climbing, a pretty stellar ratio if you ask me, and one that has caused me to feel pretty sweet about myself. I am now officially a 5.11 climber after completing not just one but two climbs of the 5.11a grade. If you know what I'm talking about, you'll understand why I'm happy, but if not, consider it in the way you'd think of a 5:30 mile or winning a Cat. 4 criterium. Many people can do it, but it takes a lot of work. Yay me.

I've been trying to think of ways to get my digs in at the "System" while I'm still in Japan. I think that as an outsider, I have a better vantage point from which to see the terrible morass which is the Japanese Way. Why for example, is it necessary to have jump suited men at standing in places where a simple traffic cone would do the job? When I ask this question to my students, I can't seem to make it sound like anything other than an attack on a ridiculous waste of time and energy (which it is). While I want to let rip at the nightmare of futility and wasted energy which is the Japanese education system, I can't bring myself to do so for fear of alienating all of the people who grew up with the system and knew no other way. When your student is the owner of your company, you can't exactly bitch about the manager he hired, even if the guy spends his time mastering solitaire and watching us work. I guess that's where the ol blog comes in handy, letting off steam so that I don't flip out on the co-workers.

So, Jennifer's in Australia and I've got like 2 weeks of work left. What am I thinking about most? You guessed right! The Tour de France!!! I dreamt last night that I was riding in the peloton and Lance Armstrong was bitching at me because I was punching the tempo up some alpine pass. So I told him, "Listen, you're not my team captain, I don't have to do what you say." How cool was that! Usually my dreams involve me failing at something, or more commonly trying to kill something that just will not die. Approximately every week in my dreams I'm trying to fend off attackers, zombies or aliens and the damn things just won't die. I am forever hacking at necks and cutting off arms that just won't sever from the bodies of my assailants. So, this confrontation with Lance was a welcome change of pace, afterall, I was making him sweat, not trying to hack him to pieces.

Made it. The tori at the top has coins stuck into it, it's kind of an odd piece of wood. I had a juice-box-sized cup of sake at 4:50am to congratulate myself, what a way to wake up.