Canadian hay is happy hay

Went on a whirlwind drive through the Northeast a few weeks ago, this picture was taken on Day 1, somewhere in Ontario, literally on the side of the road. We eventually passed a lot of these and a few chip trucks. That's right, trucks dedicated to serving fresh fries. I think my only regret from the whole experience is that we were never able to actually buy anything from one of those trucks!

Ben

Just wanted to share a quick photo of Teddy and Ben. My parents rented a cabin on Camelback a couple of weekends ago, so this was the boys at the playground :)

Nice

Stopped at a red light and made the mistake of looking under the guardrail next to me. Yes, those are all cigarettes. Gross.

How Long is the Pell Bridge?

12 Long Weeks

For those of you who don't know, this is the Pell Bridge which separates the lovely seaside town of Newport and it's Naval Base from the rest of the world. This picture was taken from the Newport Hyatt at a nice bayside restaurant where I was boozing it up in civvies and not from the more familiar angle visible from the Physical Training Field at the Naval Base. That view was normally seen at 5am in the morning while doing Push Ups or Sit Ups and being yelled at. It's a well known point of longing and a symbol for the outside world for all the candidates so it's only fitting that my first post after graduation is of that bridge now that I'm on the other side.

And I shall call him....MiniPepper!

I cut into a red bell pepper to find... another pepper! Mutant pepper!

5.12.10

This was taken last year on May 14th from the window of an SUV as we made our way up a mountain road in Sichuan. Children's Hope International was working out a funding thing with a mining company there, which offered to take us to the site of one of their buildings, which had been devastated the year before. I got to tag along.

This kind of imagery is often known as "ruin porn." I feel a little bit like an asshole posting a couple of them up today, but they're also some of the most beautiful scenes I saw during my visit. I mean... awful, but captivating.

Honey, I shrunk my hand

Is that one big berry or one iiiiiiiitty bitty hand?

Climate change, eh?

I can't take credit for this picture as it was sent to me this weekend by a friend also living in the southwest. But yes, that is snow on the flowering tree.

Shotguns

View from my friend's brother's front porch in New Orleans.

Isn't it beautiful? I want to steal his house.

We were in town for the APA conference last weekend.

It was awesome! But now end-of-the-semester work is even more terrifying.

You know me well enough to know what state I'm in.

Eat sushi, Defend the galaxy

This was an internet ad in my sidebar while I was reading an online article about healthcare. Needless to say, I felt that this was a lot more relevant to my life than the BS in the article that I was reading.

Oh, yeah, and they ARE real: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/c50f/?cpg=cj

Thank God for spell check

In the rush to prepare this document for a group presentation last Friday, I was still able to be thoroughly amused by this. I'd added an extra space in between all the letters in the heading, and Word was comprehensive enough to be like:
C... ok, that's correct
O... no problems there
N... yeah
N... oh! no, that is misspelled.

Baton of Eat

Note the serrated edge on the fork.

poutine!

some of the best fries i've had in my life.

didn't hurt that they'd also been tossed in duck fat.

at the grange in ann arbor, the night before spring break!

i was very much sleep deprived.

Expectations

Had to do two posts in a row cuz the cartoon from this weeks CSMonitor was too awesome to pass up.

Kina!

I received my preorder of Kina Grannis's new album this week, which is a pretty solid album and I encourage everybody to take a listen.

Her sound is general pop indy singer/songwriter type of music but it has a great deal of depth not often found in a lot of music. It can be a little too cutesy for me at times ("Mr. Sun" or "The Goldfish Song") but sometimes it really works for me too ("Together"). But where she really shines is the uniqueness of her voice and simple but haunting melodies ("Stay Just A Little", "Delicate"). "Stay Just a Little" has joined Alexi Murdoch's "Breathe" as one song that I can listen to on repeat for hours without losing anything. Also of note is the song "Back to Us" which has happy spring pop song written all over it.

(For those that don't know or don't remember, no Corey has not become random fan of female indy guitarists. Kina is one of my good friend's sisters so that's how I found out about her music. But she really is worth a listen. There's a lot of talent there.)

You can buy on iTunes and Amazon if you're curious. Or preview some songs or order a hard copy at kinagrannis.com