"I spiral down"

I'm a very nostalgic person. Today I miss the feeling of:

• Fall in college
• High school basketball -- the excitement leading up to each season
• Making mini-movies with my friends in high school

Listening to Radiohead's Kid A brought about the thoughts of high school and Death Cab's Plans the thoughts of fall in college. Going to class for one day now, would be such a refreshing change of pace. I truly hope I end up being a professor some day.

It's sad that these feelings will not be recaptured. But new feelings will replace them. I suspect a few year's from now, I'll fondly remember my house on Annabelle and falls in Michigan.

I realize it does little good to look back rather than charging forward, yet I can't help myself. Music does it to me everytime. Start playing Hootie and the Blowfish's second album and I'll quickly revert to middle school...

"In these typical times"

The time to post is overdue. Mi Padre y Madre Rosenberg visitan la Ferndale. It was a very nice weekend overall:

• Friday -- dinner at an Italian restaurant in downtown Ferndale (after a very big storm)
• Saturday -- toured the Edsel & Eleanor Ford house, Yankees vs. Tigers game
• Sunday -- church then Max & Erma's in Birmingham for lunch

A good time was had by all. Then Rogers and I rented Vacancy tonight, and I've got to say that it was a good scary movie. Suspensful, smarter than average for the genre, but still followed the typical plot points and threw a few good scares in. We both liked it. But then we also like Cabin Fever and House of Wax...

The next several weeks should be fairly busy around here. Looking forward to having visitors here and there throughout September. Goodnight for now.

"With my head in the clouds"

Saturday Aug 18 2007 Verizon Wireless Music Center
One Sweet World *Crash Into Me *Pantala Naga Pampa *Rapunzel *Where Are You Going Corn Bread *Jimi Thing *Eh Hee [new song] *Bartender *Crush *The Idea Of You *#41 *+What Would You Say *The Song That Jane Likes *Everyday *Ants Marching *

Encore: So Damn Lucky ~American Baby Intro *Two Step *

I've got to post the setlist for reference in future years. What an amazing set list. The Dave Matthews Band show on Saturday made me remember why this was one of my favorite bands for so long. I've barely listened to DMB over the last 3 years or so until this weekend. But this was just an amazing show -- the best I've seen out of the handful of shows I've been to throughout high school and college. Makes me want to snag tickets for the show up here on Thursday...ah, if only the money well ran deep enough to buy a house, fix up kitchens and go to every concert I want... I found out that this was the debut of the song called "Eh hee." First time the full band has ever played it. I'm trying to download the show so I can put it on my iPod. Assuming I can get past my lack of knowledge about BitTorrent files and download/convert as necessary, let me know if you want me to burn it for you... From the sample I've heard and what I've read, this is a really good quality recording.

And it was a great time with friends too -- despite Ben W. getting peed on and my brother-in-law nearly getting vommitted on by a female in the men's restroom. From sitting in the parking lot almost out of gas to yelling out answers to Movie Trivia to nearly losing Parliament to the tempting riches of a VIP life it was a great time...only enhanced by the contact high we all had.

Today I've had little motivation to do work. It was dreary out and I was tired. I slogged through the day from 9 - 4:30 then came home and worked for a bit. Then slept from 7:15 - 9:30. Now I'm trying to get another 45 min. to an hour done...so far, no good.

"It's 5:19, I'm feeling alone"

It wasn't too long ago that I would go to sleep at 3 in the morning night after night. Ah, college. Those who may read this journal in the future could read my posts over the past year in just an hour or two. The transition would be subtle when read. But the transition is anything but subtle.

As I said, 18 months ago, I was up until 3 a.m. nearly every night. My senior year of college culminated in me requiring only 5 hours to be in good shape the next day. So my bed time had inched up from 2 a.m. to a consistent 3 a.m. I'm not going to fact check right now (after all, it's late -- nearly midnight), but blog posts from that era may well confirm what I'm describing.

This being the case, my body was not prepared to wake-up at 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning and put a suit and tie on to fly to Indianapolis...My flight was at 6:20 a.m. the airport is 35 minutes away (plus parking). I woke-up, left the house at 4:35 or so and made it to the airport about an hour before my flight. Yes a bit earlier than necessary, but it was my first flight out since being in the new house so I wasn't sure about the drive.

By 8:15, I was eating breakfast with my sister and Noel. My boss arrived at 10 and off we went to our meeting. (In short, there are not a lot of direct flights from Detroit to Indy...) I arrived home around 8 p.m.

It was a long day. Now I am exhausted still on the recovery trail. Little rest for the weary as I'm getting up early on Saturday to drive down to Anderson for Dave Matthews.

What's the plan for the show anyway? Time of concert? Dinner? I'll be around mid- afternoon...

"Until then let's stay engaged"

As of 11:32 p.m., August 10, 2007, according to aVerizon Wireless text message Philandrea Patstra are engaged. Text: "Guess what? I'm engaged!"

According to Facebook this is the quickest non-relationship to relationship to engaged in history as noted in this photo:

Not to be outdone, as of 5:27 p.m., August 11, 2007, according to a Verizon Wireless text message Squacca Palmett are engaged. Text: "Becca and i are officially engaged!!"


Of course, becoming a part of a relationship and being engaged within the same minute is a hard act to follow. For ol' Squatch it took a day as noted in this photo:

I s'spect we'll have a couple of weddings to attend before long...and well, not to be presumptious, but these parties have White River Boyz reunion shows written all over them.

Congrats to my good friend, Phil and to my five-minute friend,* Squatch...You're in for a great time, no doubt! And congrats to their future brides. Simply wonderful.

*Squatch is my five-minute friend because since moving to Detroit, I have seen him a dozen times for an average of five minutes...including one visit that consisted of a wave from my car as I drove by.

"Tomorrow comes today"

• If one of my best friends growing up, Darren Rayl was still drumming for Jon McLaughlin, he would've met Jay Leno today.
• Do you think there's the feeling of melancholy in heaven? I really like melancholy. The changing of feeling/emotion, like the changing of seasons, is one of the things that makes life great. And melancholy is a great in the middle, kind of like the first whispers of fall in the wind.
• I haven't seen Darren Rayl since...my wedding day.
• I haven't seen Ryan Homer Chapman II since...sometime during senior year of college.
• I miss those guys sometimes.
• Disturbia is a good movie. It is a good Friday night thriller, but it holds up just fine on a Tuesday as well.
• Any work day that ends with ice cream in Ann Arbor prior to 5 p.m. is a good day.
• One of my coworkers realized that if I'm talking about food it's usually about cheese and ice cream -- now he makes fun of me for that.
• Tomorrow we find out just how far we can take our kitchen this month.
• I can't wait to see everyone at DMB, but I'm sad Lisa can't go.
• The only time I saw Dave live without Lisa was on the Carson Daly show when I was in New York with my Dad shortly after graduating from high school.
• Places I visited just with my Dad: Disney World (2nd grade?), New York City (18), Las Vegas (21), New Orleans (22) -- week before Katrina.
• My Dad is good at being a father. How do you learn that?
• As Wilbe noted many months ago, making lists is the way to go.
• Now that I live only 20 minutes from work, I sleep til almost 8 o'clock every morning.
• I wonder what Parliament's doing and if he is interested in seeing Rilo Kiley with me.
• I wonder if you guys would be interested in coming up for a football game this fall. Maybe the Lions, maybe the Big House (U. of M.).

"Play a song for me"

So it's my first normal Saturday in quite some time...July's Saturday's consisted of working, golfing/campbell party in Anderson, moving and visiting with my sister and niece in that very certain order. Work slowed down drastically for me yesterday, which is just fine as July was wearing me down. It'll come back around in no time so one Saturday of freedom will be nice.

I didn't sleep well last night, which is strange for me. It is hotter than coffee in our bedroom so we have a fan blowing on us. The air condition comes out of the vents and promptly disappears. In contrast, downstairs it's positively frigid. Unfortunately, our office is upstairs so working at night consists of sweating and sticking to the leather chair. I hate leather. Note: I'll never be able to sleep comfortably on Felder's couch in the summer.

Back to the point, I slept from 12 - 3 then woke up and watched Court TV and the first half of The Number 23 for 3 hours, then slept from 6 - 10. Strange night.

So with 8 hours of freetime, I've got plenty to keep me busy. I could:

• Mow the lawn
• Wash the dishes
• Do the little work, I do need to do this weekend.
• Finish The Number 23
• Sleep
• Coordinate with Bob to line him up for dishwasher/cabinet installation
• Go track down Billy to get my $20
• Call my sister back to finish our short conversation from this morning
• Sit right here surfing the net listening to my Bob Dylan record
• Write the longest Blog entry ever
• Walk downtown and buy a CD at one of two independent record stores in downtown Ferndale

Things I've recently found and later purchased on Craigslist:

• House
• Lawn Mower
• The services of Bob

Things I've recently found and later purchased at Lowes:

• Fire extinguisher
• Chicken wire
• Dishwasher
• 75 Minutes of Truck Rental (to bring the dishwasher home)

Time to walk downtown and buy a CD...then maybe finish watching the movie. The rest of the stuff can wait! See the movie Zodiac. It is good.