Aww, Paul I'm sorry you're sad about estrip. That makes me sad too.
I'm not sure if it's specific to estrip though- I think society is just changing. I do think facebook (which I like) and twitter (which I hate) are probably a part of this sea change. I'm just not sure anyone really blogs much anywhere anymore.

In my case, moving and getting ready to start a new job has made it harder. And, I feel like my life isn't as interesting and blog-worthy these days. But like jbeatty said- when I first moved to town, it really was great and helped me meet a lot of people. Who I am still friends with now- so I think that counts for a lot. But now that I'm not single and out drinking til 4am and bitching and moaning about boys- there's not as much to say. I'm happy and boring now, I guess. haha.

But actually, I was coming here just to write a blog and post some pictures, so, I will go ahead.

I went to Maine this weekend for a wedding. Tiny little town on the water. Beautiful, but very remote. No cell reception anywhere. No national chain store/restaurant/gas station of any sort anywhere. Which at first seems cute and charming and quaint- but that would wear off fast. Fun to visit; I could never live there. Also- it's pretty in the summer, but I can only imagine how cold and bleak it is in the winter.

But it was nice to see old friends from college, and meet new people. It was a small wedding- and I'm actually really touched that I was even invited- I never knew I was that important to the groom.

But we went up a couple days early to make a little trip out of it, and we actually went sea kayaking, which was a lot of fun. Left me with some sore shoulders, (which means I was doing it wrong), but it was peaceful and beautiful.

Now I'm back home... start work next tuesday. One week left of 'freedom'. I'm super scared.

Ok, some pix...


This seems like the beginning of a Stephen King book, particularly as about 3 seconds later a sinister looking black pickup truck passed us at about a million mph. "the young couple drove cautiously across the narrow causeway, to the deserted island ahead..."
View from our B&B- Morning, low tide

Again, morning- low tide

From the B&B, but high tide this time.

Just driving around, had to pull over and take pix

I love that they sell lobster everywhere. Even at the ice cream shop.

Eggemoggin, I think

Pumpkin Island lighthouse


Waiting for the bride and groom

Self explanatory. :)

Across the water from the Inn


Reception in full swing

Doesn't that just scream "summer relaxation"?

Quintessential Maine coast.

Ok, so for the last couple months I have started getting this new spam.
I am getting 2-5 messages a day. And there is no way to unsubscribe.
They are all advertisements for business schools in India. It's a form, where you enter your name and email address and choose which campus (Mumbai, Bhopal, etc) and they send you more info.

I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL IN INDIA.

it's really infuriating because I can't make it stop.

Most of my spam is a one time thing, and I just delete it. And the recurring stuff usually has an unsubscribe link.
But these don't, and it seems like they're multiplying.

Just today I got messages from "Entrepreneur Business School" "Mumbai School of Business" "Bangalore School of Business" and "IILM Business School". They seriously send me these messages every single day.

Isn't this illegal?
don't they HAVE to have an unsubscribe option?
Is there some place I can report this?

Ugh, I wish I did not always want everything gadgety and expensive that I see.

So this town always used to just have private trash collection. You paid monthly or yearly, not a lot I don't think, and the garbage truck came to your house.
Then some town council people or whatever decided that wasn't fair to low-income people.
So now the town picks up trash, for free, but the catch is they will only pick up what you put in these special yellow garbage bags. And the bags cost $3 each.
But they gave every house, for free, three big plastic wheelie garbage cans. A gray one for trash, a blue one for recyclable cans/bottles, and a green one for paper recycling. And they made recycling mandatory.
Buying the bags is a pain, but at the end of the day it's probably cheaper than a monthly fee.
And the good news is, it makes people really try to reduce their trash. People are recycling more, composting more, etc.
So, it's a small bit of cost/effort, but with a good payoff.

BUT

My building has found some sort of loophole. They are NOT using the town trash pickup. Since they count as a commercial account, not residential (since it's more than 4 units), they can still pay for private trash pickup. which is nice- it means I don't have to buy the yellow bags.
But there's no recycling.
I even called the company about it, and they were like 'yup, your building is not signed up for our recycling service. you should talk to the condo association about that.'
So I'm sure they're just being cheap and didn't want to pay for recycling and got the bare minimum trash service. (But then why not just use the free town system?)
But since we're renting, we're not on the condo board, and they don't meet often... I don't know what to do.
We have 5 giant green trash cans out front. Which i thought meant paper, but for this company it means trash, which is confusing.

Anyway, so for now we are just stockpiling our recyclables and storing them. Even tried taking them to the dump ourselves the other day, but they wouldn't let us. So the options now are 1- just throw them in the trash. 2- store them up and take them to my parents' and put them out with their recyclables, 3- ask our neighbors if we can put them in their bins til we get it sorted out.

But so in the meantime I wanted to find a nice way to divide them up and keep things neat and not destroy and stink up the kitchen.

And I found this.



I want it.

It has separate compartments for paper and cans, and it has a built in compacter to smash cans and plastic bottles.
But it's $300.

seriously, only I could find a way to make a garbage can an expensive gadget that I suddenly really want.

A few misc thoughts...

Sunday was our 1 year anniversary. (awww). Though i'm in the middle of studying, and my sister was in town, so I think we're going to celebrate after my exam- I'm thinking a couple days in Block Island. We can even do it during the week to avoid weekend rates/crowds.

But after Steve Martin on friday, we saw Louis CK on sunday- who is very funny, but perhaps a little too heavy on the masturbation jokes.

Chris gave me a funny little tote bag that says 'Rhode Island. 3% larger at low tide'
heh
And a little hipster tshirt with a picture of a bridge in providence. Now I feel very local and trendy. ;)

It's so nice to be back home. I love this little state. :)

But, the cell reception is crap-ola... the AT&T guy told me it's because there's some town ordinance (or something) that won't let them put up cell towers, because they might block peoples' view. Grr.

But so having 0-1 bars in my HOUSE sucks. Until yesterday, when I discovered AT&T's "3G Microcell". It's $150 but then there's a $100 rebate... so basically a one time purchase of $50, and you get this box that you plug into your router... and it's like a mini cell tower in your house. Now I have 5 bars in my house. No service contract, no monthly fee, no nothing. LOVE IT!

Also, thinking of having a housewarming party/bbq over labor day weekend, but need to get an idea of if people will actually be available and/or willing to come.

Finally, an awesome little video (it's quick, so watch it!) and the requisite pix of my niece.






And now, back to studying! Have a good week, peeps!

Well the voice memo in my phone is all screwed up, apparently, so I had to extract it as a .mov file...

There's no video, but hopefully the audio works...

enjoy!

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Ok paul I just typed this long thing out, then uploaded a pic... then I couldn't type anywhere or click any buttons... I took some screenshots in case I lost everything. and then clicked reload, hoping there would be a draft somewhere, but.... there isn't.
What happened to the draft feature??
Anyway, I don't want to retype it all, so I'm going to try to upload the screenshots.

This is pretty good. Esp around 0:58, where he does a bit about fixies.

So, Chris and I went down to Virginia Beach for my aunt's annual BBQ/family reunion. She's been doing it for the last several years, and I've never been able to go. And this year my great-uncle, who I've never met, and is the only person left from that generation on my dad's side, was there- and he was darling.

But she lives on a lake, and the weather was gorgeous, and there were jet skis and waterskiing and tubing and swimming etc etc. Lots of sun and fun and food and family... My mom dreads it every year, but really I had a great time.

No fireworks though, which was sad. And made it not feel like the 4th.

But here's a pic of my little niece, on the left, and then my cousin's daughter, who is also super adorable.

Hope you all had a great weekend!!

So, I really don't ever feel a need to take videos... but the new iPhone's camera is supposed to be so much better. And then they made iMovie for the phone...

So to test it out, I made a little video-tour of our new place yesterday. It kind of sucks (apparently I need to learn to walk more smoothly) and I cut out my stupid audio commentary. It's way too long- but there are some good shots of the awesome kitchen, and the view and the yard (which is being excavated and restored).

But anyway, just to see how it looks posted to youtube.

(and to show off the place again.) ;)

So, last night I went to see The National (my favorite band) in Boston. They were playing at the House of Blues, which, it turns out, is RIGHT across the street from Fenway Park. And, the Red Sox were playing last night, and they WON (yay! go sox!), so it was a bit of a zoo. (Fortunately Chris did not get murdered for wearing a Yankees shirt.) But, it was a lovely night, so we parked about a mile away, and walked the rest. And, found a little dive mexican place on the way, that had maybe the best grilled chicken salad I've ever had. I know, I know, who orders a salad at a mexican place. But this was delicious. And cheap. yay!

But so on the way, Chris got a phone call, and it sounded very serious. I asked what was up. He said "Well, no one has heard from our buddy S in a few days... and last time this happened, it turned out he was in the hospital." So, everyone was a little nervous, but I was being an optimist and thinking "meh, so he hasn't returned a few calls, no need to panic" But then it turns out the last time people HAD talked to him, it was because he called to cancel plans because he wasn't feeling well.

Background- S is a super awesome guy, who was badly burned in a house fire about 3 years ago. He survived, but was in a coma for about 3 months. But now he does all this volunteer work with burn patients, etc. He's really just a great great guy.

So we keep driving. The next call comes. Well someone finally went over to his place and let himself in with the spare key. Found him on his bed, and called 911 because he "wasn't doing well". We later found out "not doing well" mean "cold and with no pulse". Then the call came, they got to the ER, and he was pronounced dead. Still no word on how or when it happened. :(
How awful. He was only in his 50s, but after the fire had not been the picture of health. So then we had to decide- do we still go to this concert (that we had been looking forward to for months, and had spent a good bit of money on), or do we go back... So, we decided to stay in Boston. If nothing else, it helped take Chris's mind off the fact that one of his best friends had just died, totally unexpectedly. And, not to be an ass, but- if he'd already passed, it's not like there's anything we could do to help, you know?

So, that was shitty.

The concert at least was awesome. Not shitty.

But we didn't get back into town til almost 2am- shitty.

I had to get up at 5 to go to work. Shitty.

Then, I got to work, only to find out that I didn't need to be there til 730 (not 6)- but they forgot to tell me. shitty.

THEN I find out that the other fellow (there are two of us) is not coming to work today. Again, would have been nice if he'd told me this. Then I found out he's out indefinitely. And, the number of days we need to be on call just tripled. SHITTY!

Great. So I was originally on call 3 days this month. Which tripled to 9. Which then doubled because I have to cover his days too?! SHITTY!

and THEN I hear that Blanche died?! Shitty!

and I hear from poor Chris that now that he is not distracted, he is "a sobbing mess". Shitty.

Overall- totally shitty day!

And I have a feeling it is not about to get any better, at least not at work.

At least I only have one more month. Then I have some time off, to move, and take my boards.

Oh, and the one other good thing- I got tickets to see Steve Martin (who I ADORE) play bluegrass as the Newport Folk Festival. So that is something to look forward to.

Ok, enough whining, now back to my giant to-do list.

thanks for listening to me vent!!