La Nuit de la Citrouille

Sorry for not blogging for so long... Haven't much felt like it. The fact that I'm stuck in Burlington, Iowa doesn't help much. There's not too much going on out here that's really worth blogging about... That is, until now!!

Bam!! Pumpkin carving night!! Who knows how to have fun? Steve does.

See the excitement? Yea, it's coursing through my veins right here. Actually had to sit down and crank a beer to calm myself. The only bad thing about the evening was that I've been unable to find Sam Adams Octoberfest out here. I've been to 3 places, and each has been sold out! I had to settle for the Cherry Wheat tonight... Just wasn't the same. A great pumpkin can only be carved with the accompaniment of a delicious Octoberfest.

I got over the lack of Octoberfest soon as the first cut was made.

Marc's thrilled to begin the creation process!

Proud fathers.

Yea I know, you afraid. Yea I know, I'm a loser. Especially for adding in the music. Can't help it, Halloween was on while carving. Anyways, I have to be up in all of 4 hours for work.

Au revoir!

Phillies!!!!

That's all I have to say.

A Sunday morning tour of Burlington, Iowa

Welcome to Burlington! My home away from home.

Due to my inability to sleep in, and my love of coffee, I arose early this morning and went out to explore some of the town. With camera and coffee thermos in hand, I was able to capture some decent shots of this cool little town.

This is the Great River Bridge which spans the Mississippi, connecting Burlington to Gulfport, Illinois (Which I believe was pretty well wiped out by the last major flooding of the Miss River). The bridge is pretty sweet looking... It's really well lit up at night, so I'll have to get out here this evening and see what pics I can take by opening up the lens for a while.

Bam... Snake Alley... The "Crookedest Alley in the World."

I'm pretty proud to say that I've conquered this wild little alley several times in my rental car. At times I feared for my life while navigating its bends, but that's what mavericks like McCain, Palin and myself do. Mavericks!!! Woo!!!

They have this pretty well lit up at night as well. I've got some serious picture taking to do.

This next picture is great. I love old homes with character, autumn, the Celtic new year that is All Hallows' Even and the sign that these folks have positioned oh so nicely in their front yard (An Obama sign if you can't make it out. There's also a pumpkin on the porch if you can't see that either).

Seriously, fall is amazing. Perfect weather, gorgeous scenery, that crisp autumn air, Halloween... What more do you need? As stated before, I wish I were at home, cruising scenic routes on my bike, sipping various Octoberfest brews and hanging out with friends... But alas, that will all have to wait. Damnit work!!!! Damnit Iowa!!!!Here you go Dad, this is a shout out to you and your Pops. Trains are cool, Choo Choo!! (I'm a loser).What the?!?! Bwaaaa?!?! Yea that's right, NYC doesn't have the only Statue of Liberty. What you know about Burlington's lady of liberty? The plaque said something about the Boy Scouts of America... blah blah.Twas an overcast morning, it twas.

This was taken from the Port of Burlington. And what a port it was... I didn't see any boats. But that's ok. I did however run into some dude who was chilling, smoking a cancer stick and enjoying his morning coffee. We got to talking (because I like talking to random men sitting on park benches early on Sunday mornings) and it turns out he's a 49ers fan (Bless his poor little heart). If the Eagles lose to the lowly Niners today, so help me god, I will burn one of the two Eagles jerseys I have out here. They should have won the past two games (Bears and Foreskins), but no, they chose to lose like losers. Eagles are supposed to fly... Fly to victory. Not lose.

And one final shot of the bridge.

Architecture is awesome. I love uniquely designed buildings, bridges, stadiums, etc (And no I don't fall "In love" when I see them, Jordan, Jason, Michelle, Dan and whoever else was there that night you were making fun of me for looking at skyscrapers online... I hate you all). I really need to get out in DC more to photograph that city. In due time I suppose. What I really want is a sick digital SLR camera. Anyone have an extra G laying around that they don't need? My ability to capture great photos is seriously limited by my rinky dink hundred dollar camera. Maybe after I win big at the casino next door I'll buy a new camera. Yea, a new camera and a house.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Time to make some lunch, sit on my ass and love the fact that I'm not working today.

Au revoir mes amis!

La la la

It's Friday night, I'm bored... Figured I'd blog.

The Phillies went up 2 games to none on the Dodgers tonight! For this, I am happy.

Due to work I've only been able to catch the later innings of each of the first 2 NLCS games. Fortunately though, I was able to see Utley's and Burrell's homers in game 1, and the last 3 innings of game 2. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty darn excited about the prospect of the Phils (Dare I say it? No, I can't do it yet).... How about I just say, Let's go Phillies! Can't wait to catch game 3 on Sunday.

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Today brought with it some good and some bad.

We've now fully completed 1 of the 5 survey areas that I'm working on. This is good. It's only my 5th work day out here and we've already polished off 1 of the grids... Opow! That's right, Opow! I'm thinking the one we're starting on tomorrow should go pretty quickly. However, 1 of the areas is going to be a complete and total pain in the arse. Oh well, just have to keep chugging along and hope I can get out of here early.

Some bad news is that the dreaded travel boredom has begun to set in. The thing that really hammered it home was the fact that I went grocery shopping today after work. Anytime you have to go grocery shopping while living in a hotel, you know you've gotten yourself into a less than desirable situation. It's one thing if you go out and get a few snacks, or pick up enough for a few days... but oh no... I dropped over a hundo today (Granted a portion was on a bottle of gin, some Boulevard Wheat beer and of course, the post work case of Coors Light).

Wow, it really sucks writing this on a Friday night, knowing that I have to work tomorrow. Not sure if I'm working Sunday... Might as well though, right? It's not like there's a terrible amount of touristy things to do in Iowa (no offense Iowins).

I wish I had my Harley out here... There's some wide open roads, no traffic and autumn weather is perfect for riding. I see dudes with chicks on the backs of their bikes cruising all over the place out here... Ahhhh!!! Jealously sucks.

I've also been seriously jonesin' for ski season to get here. Not necessarily wanting the nice weather to come to an end, but I can't wait to ski.

I've been torturing myself by watching a few of the Warren Miller movies this week. I wish I would have been able to hold off another month of so before doing this to myself. Oh well. I couldn't help it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ0DSrXEfeE

Watch it, love it.

I'm looking at picking up a new pair of skis for this season... Not boots or bindings, just the skis. I had wanted to get a pair of telemark skis and try them out, but mid-atlantic living just doesn't really jive with that. Right now I'm looking at the K2 Apache Raiders or Rangers. I've had K2s as my last 2 pairs of skis, and would rather stick with them. That is unless I find a sick pair of Rossis for cheap (doubtful). I've also decided (I think) that I'll stick with alpines. No sense in getting twin tips (which I sort of want) and increasing the chance of me doing something stupid and hurting myself.

Anyways, I'm bored, this killed some time... Thanks for reading.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

Wow. Tension is in the air out here in Iowa; Tension of the political variety.

As all of you know, unless you live in a cave (in which case you must be stealing a wireless connection from a nearby house), the circus that is the election is everywhere you turn. Since arriving in Iowa, I've been driven to a state of extreme anger on several occasions.

My first morning here, while trying to enjoy my free continental breakfast, I was subjected to the mind-numbing form of entertainment so commonly referred to as Fox "News".

I'm not going to go on a rant about Fox's absurdly biased news coverage, or the moronic, condescending mouth-breathers that they call news anchors, or their cheesy on screen graphics... Instead I'm simply going to point out that they kept showing the clip of Palin saying Obama pals around with terrorists. Then some shit-for-brains male news anchor who wore more makeup than all the members of Kiss combined, went and started to run with this story and spew all sorts of crap.

What a shit way to start your morning. I tried to block it out by reading my USA Today (Which sucks as well, minus their sports and games sections) to no avail. I ended up cutting breakfast short and getting out of there. I can deal with Fox News only when mentally prepared and in a mood for a good laugh. Definitely can't take it before I've even had my first sip of coffee.

Fortunately, a local news program was on this morning. But that didn't prevent several of the people I'm working with out here, including myself to get into multiple discussions/arguments/heated debates over the presidential race.

It sucks, especially when a few people wouldn't even bother to hear out others points. You just can't have an actual conversation with some people. They just don't have it in them. This one dude was just so obnoxious. His only sticking points were the color of Obama's skin and the "fact" that he's a terrorist. Awesome! When dealing with people like this, you can definitely have an amazing, open-minded conversation in which both people learn a lot of new things and come to a mutually agreed upon reasonable conclusion concerning the topics discussed.

Since it rained today, and we couldn't get much work done, there was a lot of sitting around time... Hence the political rants. It's tough not to get into it with the election so close and a number of people with varying political views sitting in the same room for half a day. It just happens.

Anyways, it was just frustrating seeing as though myself and another guy are the only ones who aren't die-hard Obama bashers out here. Crazy Iowa.

Aside from that, I'm now nearly through Day 3. 38 or so more to go!!!

I'll probably end up hitting up some dinner here soon. Right now, just kicking back, writing this blog and watching Monty Python's Holy Grail (for the hundredth time). There's some cool stuff in this town. There's a fairly large casino across the street as well as a place called Fun Land. I mean it's called Fun Land, it has a bowling alley, water slides, a large bar and God know what else. I can't wait to check it out... I'm thinking Thursday night. Apparently it's a locals hot spot on Thr, Fri and Sat nights. Bam!!! We also found out two of the more popular watering holes here in town... Annnnd, I drove the worlds curviest road last night!!! I'll take some pictures of it and some other parts of town soon as the weather clears up, and be sure to throw them on here.

So, it's about time to start my night. Nearly time for a shower and some dinner.

I'll leave you with some pics from yesterday. Good day from Iowa.

My little buddy I found.An even bigger snake in the grass.Baby snake that tried to bite me... Cute.Fossils!!! Sweet brachiopods and crinoid columns. Yesssss, rocks.

Home Sweet Home (v2.0)

I've come to the realization that staying in hotels for extended periods of time has only increased my laziness when it comes to keeping a tidy room. Having someone come in everyday, vacuum, change my sheets and make my bed, change my towels, clean my sink and toilet and do a general tidy up has spoiled me. When I'm home in Maryland, I think I expect a cleaning lady to come in and clean up my room for me when I'm at work... It hasn't happened yet.

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So, I'm in Iowa... For 6 weeks... 6 long, boring weeks. How did this happen?

Collin was kind enough to send me a nice little calculation today. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but according to his calculations, I'll be spending something like 1/526th of my life here. That's a bit depressing.

Here it is... My home for 1/526th of my life. Voila!

So here it is... The pad. I really like the carpeting. I just love how Fairfield always goes with that lovely puke green color. Screams class.

The kitchen. Note how I have multiple appliances. I'm just living the dream. Ima put Emeril to shame with this setup.

Where I'll be spending mass amounts of time watching baseball (GO PHILLIES!!!), football (fother mucking Eagles), reading and writing many a novel and sipping on fine beverages such as Coors Light, Sam Adams Octoberfest, Bud and Bud Light.

My office. No big deal, jus takin' care of bidness.

The entertainment center. I added the xbox. Not only can I now watch dvds, but I can hit up FIFA 09 when that comes out on the 14th. Only 9 more days, I can't wait.

And finally, the master (and only) bedroom. Where the magic won't be happening.

Ohhh Yeaa, nice.

25th Hour

Arghhh...

Not enough time in a day.

Seriously, I think I just blinked, and summer was over.

I'm in Ohio. It's cold. I want to blog b/c I have a lot to blog about. I'm too tired to blog. I shall blog non-stop starting next Monday.

Enjoy your weekend.