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People: Ma & Pa | My Sister Kirsten | Pearl | Matt | Dan | EJ | Danielle | Mikey G. | KtK | Yan | Melissa | G. | Justine
Things: Snowboarding | Sushi | Subarus | Stick | My Guitar | Computers | My Leatherman | Photoshop | kittehs
Snowboarding was - as many great things in my life have been - a direct result of Matt pushing me into them. And I mean that literally in this case. My first time on a real mountain (Attitash) on a snowboard was with Matt. I had been a terrible skiier for 4 years prior, and had been practicing snowboarding on little hills in Marblehead to gear up for my first real day. I was skeptical, but we got up to the top, sprayed down our boards with silicon spray (yes, we were THOSE kids), and as I stood there, strapped in and looking nervously down the trail, Matt just came up behind me and pushed. By the end of that day, I had already done my first jump and was entirely hooked. I sold my brand new, never-used ski equipment the next week and bought a snowboard. Granted, and this is for all of you young'ins out there... my first board measured a whopping 175 and was - get this - all wood. I mean, it had a laminate on both sides to make it slick and protect it from the elements, but probably weighed more than all of the other snowboards I have had since, duct-taped together. I mean, it was silly how heavy this thing was. And I was rockin' these totally gay, blaze pink, purple and blue high-top running shoes as boots. We are talking ZERO support, virtually no waterproofing and ABSOLUTELY no support. I don't know how, or WHY I chose that path. But I did, and I honestly think it made me a better rider. Well, I eventually ended up trading in the old G&S for Ubu-Abu, my beloved Joyride that was purchased at Something Else skate shop in Danvers, MA. When that board was new, it had so much spring and flx that I could bend it tip to tip. Quite a removal from the unbendable wood one. And I also upgraded my boots to the Arwalks that I wore up until just two years ago, got these killer Burning Snow snowpants that were plaid, and started getting really serious about the sport. In our various trips up to the White Mountains and Sunday River, we met some cute girls - Heather (Q), Trube & Lori who ultimately introduced us to Don and Darlene - the owners of Boardin' Daze in Ossippee, NH. Boardin' Daze is no longer, after some fuckwad and his cronies decided to break in one night, years and years ago, and steal everything Don and Darlene owned. It ultimately shut them down. Which was a shame - not only because they were two of the most friendly, laid-back, sweet, caring and totally stoked to go snowboarding people I have ever known - but because they were pioneering a cross-training technique that I still use to this day... Trampoleen training. They used to pull that trampoleen out every weekend and peopel would come by and bounce and do trick and try new tricks - many of which had yet to be invented. Don had invented a couple of his own tricks, like the "Roastbeef" which I still pull off sometimes in his honor. But from that, our many various trips up there to bounce and go riding with the girls and our friends in the area and all of the other practicing I was getting in at home, I quickly adapted to the sport and started doing some serious shit. Serious, mostly in the vein of cliff jumps and big air (or what was considerably larger 'air' then). And I was doing tree and rail slides a decade before anyone else really thought of it, at least as an available obstacle on a mountain. Also, at that time, I was going riding with my buddy Jeremy a lot. Well... he was on skis. Jeremy is easily the best skier I have ever known personally. I mean, I've met and 'skiied with Johnny Mosely at Squaw, but he'd never remember my name, or likely anything about me. No, I mean - of my friends and even of anybody who I have known longer than a week. Jeremy is just sick. And he's a big guy, who rides big skis and goes really, REALLY fucking fast. And in Jeremy's book, if you are going to a mountain with him and you want to hang, you gotta keep up. And so, from him, I learned what so many people forego these days - supreme stability, control and speed. I followed that kid all over the place, down trails I never would have gone down myself and rocketing all over every aspect of the mountains. And it was fun as hell! I can, to this day, pretty much keep up with any skier and can definitely out-pace just about every snowboarder out there. And I owe it all to Jeremy. I was also one of a very small group of people who went on the Chamonix Ski Trip in high school who was a snowboarder. And while they were having their biggest snow-drought in 25 years for the week we were there, it was still amazing. I managed to "jump a house" by way of riding up the low-pitched roof that was stuck into the side of the mountain, and drop off the other side, clearing a small drop and a person who was sitting, leaning against the house, reading a book. It was pretty sick.
In all seriousness, I could go on forever about snowboarding. I realize that I have now written more about that than any other person, place or thing on this entire website. I don't mean to diminish those others any, but hopefully you will understand just how important snowboarding is to me now. I have personally taught about 20 people how to snowboard with my 'patented' technique and I plan to teach many, MANY more, simply and solely so that they can experience this wonderful, liberating, absolutely incredible sport that I have loved now for 2 whole decades and will love until the day I die.
So, in light of my attempts at converting you non-believers into sushi-nomming fanatics like myself, I figured I would give you some links and instructions on how to find the absolute best sushi restaurants and recipes. I have to say, and give a shout-out to the very best place I have found for the best, freshest, most well-prepared sushi - Sushi House in Concord, MA. Holy crap. I was reeling in emotional turmoil over the inevitability of my break up with Chelsea the first time I went there, and I STILL recognized the profound difference between that place and every other one I had ever been to... So if you wanna try sushi, and are still scared... go there first, cuz thats the best there is! GOOD sushi restaurants:
Sushi Resources:
The 4WD and newer AWD that all Subarus have now are what has impressed me the most. The amazing difference in control and power between that and 2WD cars is unfathomable. Combine that with the control of a standard, you have, in my mind, a very versatile tool and something approaching a perfect vehicle. Having 4WD for so long - and much longer than most people even knew the benefits of it, or other car manufacturers had started to add it to their vehicle lines - I have come across several situations that were either life-saving, extremely helpful, or otherwise just plain cool. For instance - one year, when I was living in Butterfield at UMass Amherst - high atop Central Hill... it snowed heavily one day, leaving the roads slick. This made it nearly impossible for most people to make it up Central Hill in a car. In fact, some people were having a hard time WALKING up it without sliding back down. Me... no problem. Right up it I went. A couple of times, just for the fun of it. I even shuttled some folks up. One of the times I ascended the hill though, there was this old buick about half-way up, not moving at all, but spinning its tires furiously. I ended up passing it to keep them from stressing out that they had someone waiting behind them. I went up another quarter of the way, stopped, and thought that maybe I should try to help them out. So I backed back down the hill and offered my assistance. At this point people had tried to help by pushing, but to no avail. So I backed up, got my car in behind their car, edged up to it (try doing that in an automatic), and then put it in 1st and pushed his car all the way up the hill with mine! Yes, I burned some oil that day, but something bad could have happened to him or those people if they had stayed out there all day, struggling with it... or not, but it was a simple fix on my part. Also - and I still love telling this story to this day - when I was living out in CA with Shannon (one of the MANY people I have convinced to buy a Subaru) - it had been snowing and snowing and snowing and there was roughly 8 feet of it. It was awesome! But the thing is that during the winter months, and heavily enforced when it has been snowing, it is actually a law that you must have chains on your tires to increase your traction. And it's certainly not a bad idea seeing as I am scared to drive down some of those roads on a dry summer day, let alone covered in ice and snow! I don't remember where we were going, but we had to take a drive somewhere else, late at night (it was probably to drop me off at the airport). We left when there were virtually no other cars on the road. The conditions weren't great, but we were surviving in her Outback. We had to go over the mountains and as we approached the beginning of the mountain road, we saw what looked like an ice-fishing shack in the middle of the road. When we got closer a man came out of it, flagged us down and made us stop. It was very strange - middle of nowhere in the throws of a major snowstorm - just a temporary guard-post set up in the middle of the road. There was a sign that said, "All Vehicles MUST have chains beyond this point." We did not. We had come so far in this crap and now we were going to have to turn around and go back. But the guy just looked at us, then the tires, then the car and said very plainly... "Oh, it's a Subaru. Okay, you are okay. Go ahead." Clearly the people of the Lake Tahoe area appreciate a Subaru as much as I. To date, I have owned 7 of them. The first I crashed in a very unhappy, stupid and not really my fault kind of way. But it was also the only automatic I have ever owned. I actually got that thing to go 135mph with 5 other people in my car, and got the thumbs up from the driver of the Porsche I was, umm... racing :) Then I had Midnight Runner - my black one with all of the non-offensive bumperstickers on it (except for the "Don't Laugh, Your Daughter May Be In Here" one)
Here's the thing... many times the argument about having to replace more parts, such as the clutch, has been the justification of many who are against standards. But, as with any tool (and please bear with my assessment that a car is a tool), learning the proper use of said tool will both prolong it's life as well as allow you to master it the way it should be. And as my counter argument - standards negate the need for the most annoying invention in recent years - anti-lock brakes. For those of you who don't know, you can use the engine to brake in a standard, meaning that if you want to slow down, all you have to do is down-shift, and let the clutch out. The engine will do the rest. And furthermore, you can choose the amount of torque vs. speed vs. power that you want, on the fly and without the need for all sorts of silly traction controls and what-not. As far as I see it, automatics and the inventions that have enhanced the vehicles that are on the roads today, are all just means to bring automatics closer to being standards again... just for people who feel that doing anything manually is too much. All I know is that - as long as they make standards, and specifically, SUBARUS in standard, I will own one. I fear that those days are coming to an end though, with new advances in technology such as the power-shifter that some new Subes have - basically automatic, but with the ability to switch over to a manual shift system, just with no clutch. It's rather more like shifting a bike. Which kind of loses the appeal for me, but it was kind of cool anyways.
Like I say, I kind of suck. I mean, I am learning and have definitely come a long way since the first song I wrote - "When We Went Walking" for Danielle, years and years ago. It was basically all in G and C(9). But I am not exactly stage-ready. I just enjoy it. I enjoy playing things that I have practiced over and over again, I like embellishing on those as well and I like trying new things and making new sounds and trying to string together some kind of riff. It's just plain fun. So fun in fact, that I recently bought a brand new electric bass and traded in my sister's old Fender Squire for an Ephiphone SG, so now I have an acoustic, an electric and a bass. And I am sure that I will spend the next many years to come learning how to play those better as well. I have had some help along the way, first and foremost being from the now defunct OLGA.net - which stood for Online Guitar Archive. They had all sorts of user-submitted TAB for both bass and guitar, but were eventually shut down for copyright infringement. What erupted in it's place has been the tool that I have used to learn all sorts of covers and which has helped me to become a much better guitar player in a very short amount of time. That place would be: www.Ultimate-Guitar.com. They have all sorts of TAB, with tools that make the page scroll at varying speeds and hands-free so that you don't have to take your hand off the guitar to scroll down the page for the rest of it... and they are also linked in with Jango.com, an online-radio station and 9 times out of 10, have the song you are learning in their playlist and you can hear it on-demand to play along to or get the rythym right. Plus, Ultimate-Guitar allows you to create a profile, save your favorite tabs and bands, upload your own tabs and has all sorts of other great music-related tools and information. Definitely check them out if you haven't before! And here are a few other good guitar resources:
I suppose these things aren't particularly outstanding, but for one tool to be able to do all of it is pretty amazing I'd say. In all honesty, I abuse the shit out of my Leatherman - so much, in fact, One time when I was fixing the emergency brake on my car and trying to torque out a stripped bolt, I actually managed to break the tip off of the pliers, leaving only one side long. It made any small plier jobs really difficult. And though Leatherman has a 25 year warranty on all of their tools, and I had only owned it for about 6, I STILL couldn't part with it for the 2-3 weeks they said it would take to fix it and return it. Hells no I ain't waiting for it for that long!!! So, knowing full well of my inability to part with it for so long, yet also knowing of my supreme love for this indespensible tool - Scotts went ahead and bought me a new one for xmas last year. He even upgraded me to the newest, best model. So now I am rocking uber-Leatherman and it is all of the personal tool I will ever truly need. Oh, and I still have my other one as well... I strongly encourage you to go and get one. You will NOT be sorry, especially if you are constantly fixing a million and one things like me. You can check out the company at: www.leatherman.com And here are some other places to buy them:
I also remember getting my dad's computer magazines - lord knows what they were called now... but every edition came with a bunch of computer programs with it. And by that, I don't mean on disks (we'll get to those later)... no, back in my day, the programs came typed out in Basic. PAGES and pages of printed code that you could type in yourself and 'write' these programs for yourself. They weren't all super cool... I mean, some were accounting programs or utilities that I couldn't have cared less about. But some were games, or art programs, or I think the one I liked best was the music simulators... no 5.1 DolbyDigital surround sound then though... 1 speaker, emulating basic MIDI and varying tone "beeps". It was archaic and rudimentary by today's standards, but it captured my attention and hooked me for life. Later in life, when we had our first 386 with a blazing fast 16 megs of RAM that cost like $1000... I was introduced to the joys of serious 16-color video games like Leisure Suit Larry which was a favorite for many years. Oh, and "If It Moves, Shoot It!" <-- I can only imagine how difficult it would be to market a game like that these days! That's called sarcasm by the way... I was also introduced to a "scanner". This allowed me to take photos and scan them in and then edit them on the computer!!! Let me just tell you.. this was one of the first, which was about 6"wide and was hand-operated. So basically, you had this wide, mouse-looking thing that you had to position over the thing to be scanned, press and hold a button down to scan, and then drag it VERY slowly and consistently across the document. If you were scanning something wider than it, you had to make as many passes as it took, and then fit it all together on the computer, which was a task by itself. But using those tools I managed a few feats worthy of my future career of photo manipulation like a couple of controverstial doctored photos that I made up of our Vice Principal, the douchebag, ultra bitch, Deb Loomis. Who I still hate, if you didn't notice. I was also one of the very first people ever in a chat room. I was chatting online before the World Wide Web was ever established or known of. It was on a BBS (Bulletin Board Service) called Argus. My handle was "Aroc". Dan and Matt were on there too... "Dangerous" and "Ford", respectively. I even met one of my girlfriends on there - Hilary - who I am still in contact with these days (when she feels like it). So I guess I was likely one of the very first people to pioneer online dating as well! I was so in tune with the online world at that point - writing macros and small programs and such - that my computer class teacher in high school - Mrs. Stomatuck - gave me the green-light to use the computer lab whenever I wanted in exchange for teaching her and the rest of the class about getting 'online'. I even configured the modems in the school - which required the school's password, or so I told her... heheheh. That was fun, but I never did anything too devious. So fast forward to now... I ended up studying and teaching computer-based programs in college, based my major on them, use one every day, and rather love them. I started Focus Power with some friends, which is largely a computer/technology-based company, offering all sorts of various computer services like graphic design, audio and video editing and recording, website design... you name it. And here I am, right now, typing away at my computer with my two laptops next to me, each doing it's own thing - one of which is playing "Bodyrock" by Moby which was most likely created on a computer... Yeah... I know, I am jacked in. JAcked in for life... and lovin' it.
Speaking of school - Back when I was teaching/direction the final project at UMass Amherst, I was known as the "Photoshop God". Now, I am a bit more humble than that. I appreciate the sentiment, but, well... I don't know about "God"... But what it allowed me to do was be the universal Photoshop lecturer. So any time any of the classes had their obligatory class or two on Photoshop or compositing or something like that - it was ALWAYS me that they asked to instruct it. That was cool [geeking out right now]. The bestest best part was that I almost always got to rip on one of the familiar faces of the CKC lab community, I think my favorite being the one of Ryan Moore in his cowboy outfit... though I am remembering that that was a secret project of ours for a Tshirt. But oh well.. you get the point. And I got to rip on myself too.. which is always the best. In any case, I really hope that they keep making Photoshop, make it kick ass more and more, and *hopefully* make it a little more affordable so us die-hards don't have to die broke :)
One thing you should know is that to me, kittehs, like Native Americans have to find their own names. And yes, I can talk to kittehs. But these names that owners give their cats just don't do it sometimes. Which is why, despite their various attempts at convincing me otherwise, people like Chelsea had to finally give up on the name "Roxy" and just start calling her kitteh, "Fuzzy Kitten", and why - sooner or later - Kayla is just going to have to give it up and start calling "Zack" by "Minikitty". I mean, srsly? Which brings us to LOLCats. They have existed for a while now and there are several websites that deal with LOLCats, but none so awesome as icanhascheezburger. The basic premise of which is that people caption photos of kittehs, stating what they think it looks like is going on in the picture. There are several themes, first and foremost that kittehs are always in search of a cheezbrgr (cheeseburger) for which to nom (eat). This is much like the LOLruses who are constantly trying to find their bukkit (bucket). But there is also the dichotomy of good and evil as presented by Ceiling Cat (god) and Basement Cat (the devil) and cats performing invisible stunts and feats of greatness like riding bikes and flying. Nearly all of these photos are captioned using LOLspeak - which is basically English as a kitteh would spell and speak it, if kittehs could, in fact talk. But while I am here, I just want to give a little shout-out to all of the kittehs in my life, cuz, well, they all rule: To Benny - a friend who I have missed for many
years To Satin - Which was a nice way to say 'Satan'. Tessa's all black fuzzy kitty who I got to kitty-sit for a weekend, and who hung around in the office with us. I miss ya, ya little sharp thing. Of course, you are all grown up now. But Satin was such a fun kitteh to play with and snuggle. I hope Satin is less prickly these days though! To Pearl's Love Cats - Puppy & Curly - I have not yet met you. But I feel I know you already by way of Pearl's descriptions and stories and photos. I will meet you someday and we will have all sorts of fun with the pettins, and the playins, and the nomming of fuds. |
I
consider myself to be extremely lucky to have such wonderful, caring,
sweet, sincere, honest, giving and unique friends and family. I
am rather astounded at how functional and amazing my family is.
Yes, we have our quirks and our hard times like everyone else, but
instead of running to the divorce lawyers at the first sign of a
problem, my parents stuck it out and we have become the kind of
family that this country needs more of. My sister is an amazing
person and I have learned so much from her. And my friends are a
truly diverse and unique lot. And though I do, honestly, love and
cherish them all, and would certainly go to the ends of the earth
for any of them, there are certain people who have really effected
me the most over the years, which are the people who I have lived
for and would certainly take a bullet for if it came down to it.
For whatever reasons - these are the people who have been there
for me, helped me to succeed, helped me to grow and learn from my
mistakes, the people who have been my motivation and my inspiration
for artwork and music and poetry. There are some material items
and concepts below as well... things I could NEVER do without. But
it's really the people that matter most, fore with out them, I wouldn't
know about most of that stuff anyways, and none of it would matter
at all. And again - many if not most of my friends and family have
been these things to me, but the people listed below have done so
in a profound way. So please take a moment to understand me better,
by way of understanding these amazing people...
In
all, I have tried to stay ahead of the curve in snowboarding. I
suck in a halfpipe, and have since lost my chops for really huge
air, but can still pretty much lay down the law for freeriding.
I am among a VERY small amount of snowboarders who seem to absolutely
LOVE moguls and trees/glades. Many skiiers won't dare go in to the
trees that I go into full steam ahead. I am very proud of my snowboarding
career, and can boast about a lot of it. I have hiked Tuckerman's
Ravine about 15 times and have ridden down the steepest
slopes in the northeast. I hope to conquer the headwall cliffs someday,
but have done some nice, medium-height rock jumps there and got
some applause. I was also featured in two UMass Amherst yearbooks
for my huge 360 road jumps, and jumping over people. And while it
is probably last on my list of accomplishments, I was actually offered
a sponsorship at one point, the sole stipulation for which being
that I enter a contest and do fairly well in. And so I did. I entered
the contest - simple big air thing that I would have ruled at at
that time. It was at 
thing
to take away from this little excerpt is that I really dig playing
my guitar, no matter how much I suck. I started recording an album
years and years ago, and I am almost done with it, but what I love
most is just going and finding some quiet, secluded area - usually
at the beach at night or 
In
any case, let's get back to my baby... Adobe Photoshop! I have never
been so attached to or have devoted as much time and learning to
really anything else in my world. And please, I am not including
girls in that - though, admittedly, at least Photoshop never cheats
on me and always does what I ask of it. So that's cool ;) But I
have - I have likely dedicated literally YEARS worth of time specifically
to utterly mastering that program. The sad thing is though - that
I am a poor bastard and the constantly updated versions have proven
to be too much for me. So I have found the versions that have worked
best for me and wait until I can afford the next best. It is, however,
my strong belief though, that were there ever a Photoshop-Off I
could still school many of these CSers with my still smokin' ver.
7.
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