posts about things that happen in real life
Jun 7 2006
Yesterday I met a girl and I was like I WOULD!! But before I tried to sweat her I looked her up on myspace and it said she is a lesbian and I was like OH NOSE and I was really thankful for myspace because being shot down would have pushed me over the edge theend
Jun 5 2006
I’m going to make a real post about this at some point, but just as a prelude; I’ve only been here 10 minutes, and already someone has come in, waited to be helped, didn’t get helped, got tired of waiting and left.
Ridiculous!
I’m going to try to keep track of how many times this happens this week.
Jun 3 2006
Raul is on his way to pick me up right now. Despite the weather, we’re going riding at Markham Park. Should I get struck by lightning or otherwise kill myself on the trails today, please tell dreamhost it is OK for you to have my password for my account (only if I die today and I’m not dead YET!) so you can keep fanless.com alive for years to come. Also, please click on the dreamhost button thing on the right to keep my hosting free!
kthnxbi
Jun 2 2006
Dear innernets,
I just survived 10 days without the innernets (unless you count dial-up, which I would much rather suffer 1,000 paper cuts to my peep than have to use dial-up again!) during an ISP transition, but as of Tuesday evening that was resolved. When I left for work after lunch yesterday my iMac G5 was running swell, but when I got home it was off and now refuses to boot up. And I don’t mean it has hard drive/software issues… I mean I hit the power button and NOTHING happens. That means I either wait for the Lincoln Road Apple Store to open up (later this month? NEXT month? August???) or con someone into taking me and my computer to one of the existing Apple retail stores in South Florida.
At that point one of the “Mac Geniuses” will tell me that my iMac is dead and it will cost about $900+ to fix it. I will be like “zOMG OH NOSE!!” and commit suicide or try to get a new credit card so I can buy a new computer. And the later is a srsly bad idea, considering that’s how I got this computer in the first place!
theend
P.S.: I may or may not be back at some point, so keep checking in! Also, I might be able to make the occasional un-proofread/spell checked post (like this one.) from that place I get paid to be at 5 days a week. Or maybe I’ll get home from work today and my computer will decide to work again. Or maybe the Apple store will tell me I just need a new power supply and that will only be like $200 or something. Or maybe my computer is suffering from this and it will get fixed for free. (I’m not too confident about that since I had the mid-plane board replaced for free under warranty. They surely wouldn’t replace the broken piece with another one that would break months later, would they? I DON’T KNOW! (Imagine Pee~Wee Herman saying that ala Pee~Wee’s Big Adventure!)
Anyways, thanks for your fealty!
-Christian
Oh, P.P.S.! You’re probably like “Hey, Chris… (I’ll kill you in the face if you actually call me that!) I thought you were some kind of computer/Mac nerd or something…? Don’t you have more than one computer??” Well, yes and no. My IBM ThinkPad has issues and the battery won’t charge. I have two batteries, but the power plug deal doesn’t do anything when I plug it into the computer. I had it fixed under warranty once, but I never bothered looking into it when it broke the 2nd time,and I eventually scavenged it for parts. My Quadra 800 is… Well, it’s a 33MHz Quadra 800. And I don’t have a monitor for it right now. Gene is actually running quite smoothly, but, like my Quadra, it’s so slow that using it is more frustrating that it’s worth. It had been serving up GotDangit.com quite nicely up until my ISP switch and I lost my static IP and I haven’t quite worked out the kinks in linking my domain to fanless.dyndns.org or whatever I decide to use.
Oh, and my PC… Well, two weeks ago I took the hard drive out of it and put it into my Tivo so I could save the entire season of the AMA Outdoor Nationals. I have 2 other 80GB drives with most of the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Supercross and Motocross seasons saved. Whenever I can’t remember something about those seasons or want to watch one of those races, I just swap the drives. Maybe I’ll go watch last year’s Orlando SX right now. I guess I could erase one of those drives, put it back into my eMachine and install Windows again, but I think I’ll just find something else to do until I can get a new drive or get my iMac fixed or something.
stupid computers
May 24 2006
zOMG CHANNEL 10 just came in and they’re interviewing Mike right now about his opinion on “Washington AveNEW” and the impact it has had on business!
May 24 2006
Me: Hey, what’s going on over there?
Person on the sidewalk: Oh, they’re opening up Washington Ave.
Me: ORLY??
So, what REALLY is going on at Miami Beach Jail this morning??
oh hay maybe that IS what’sgoing on! I thought that person didn’t know what they were talking about. I mean, all of that for the repaving of a street??
Of course, the press release has yesterday’s date as the 23rd (which it was) but it states the ceremony as being on Wednesday the 22nd. WHAT
May 23 2006
Three years ago today I woke up in St. Louis, Missouri!
Our first stop of the day was Anheuser-Busch! (just fine, and yours?? – I pretty much said that every time someone said Anheuser-Busch. GET IT??)
Photo Opportunity! (plz note Brandon’s Stoner Drug shirt!)
Kim and Brandon.
After our tour of the brewery, we went to the St. Louis River front and the Gateway Arch. For the uninitiated, that’s the Mississippi River in the background.
I have no idea what’s going on here, but that’s the arch in the background.
I WOULD!!
This is the view from the top of the Gateway Arch! That’s a limousine and a school bus down there. Oh, and the Mississippi River too.
Kim’s feet don’t touch!!
I WOULD!!
After visiting the Gateway Arch (and buying jerky and Red Bull!) we drove on to Nashville Tennessee. As you can see, Kim was bored again. That’s her view from the back of the truck. It’s actually fairly accurate, as you can see in these two pictures.
We drove through Kentucky…
And we finally made it to Nashville. (I’m just going to skip over a little drama we had with finding a place to sleep and pulling a uhaul trailer down Nashville’s Second Ave.)
More pictures here! Also, here is a shitty video Kim made of Brandon.
May 22 2006
We woke up in Sioux City Iowa and someone from the hotel had slipped a piece of paper under the door. It was a printout of our bill for the room, and on the bill was a $40+ charge for a long distance phone call. Before I left Miami I had noted local numbers to dial to get on the innernets at each place I thought we would be staying. The problem was that on the beach you have to dial all 10 digits of a number even if you’re calling next door. In Sioux City Iowa, you will get charged for a long distance call if you dial all 10 digits. I tried explaining that I didn’t make a long distance call at all, but they pretty much said “We don’t believe you. You dialed 10 digits so it must be long distance!” I wasn’t happy.
Our first stop after leaving the hotel was Wal-mart for jerky and Red Bull. here’s a dumb video from the parking lot. (oh hay I wore that shirt today!) I had wanted Kim to take a PICTURE of me draining the water out of the ice chest… I thought it would look like I was peeing (not really, but you know…) and that would be funny. Instead, she made a video clip of Brandon putting ice in my shorts. Some friends, huh?
We got on the road and I don’t remember how it happened exactly… Either I saw a sign for a John Deer dealer, or we had to pee, or Kim saw their sign, or something… but we ended up at Stoner Drug in Hamburg Iowa. It was actually a cool place with a soda fountain deal in the back. We spent quite a while there just looking at stuff (and peeing!). Oh, I remember what happened… They had trouble with their credit card processing thing and that took like seriously 20+ minutes to get sorted out so I could pay for my Stoner Drug sweatshirt (and probably jerky and Red Bull!). Brandon got a Stoner Drug t-shirt, and I can’t remember what Kim bought. On the way into this town we passed a John Deere dealer, and before we even left Washington I had been saying I wanted to stop at a John Deere place somewhere in the midwest so I could buy a hat or something. Well, on our way back to the interstate I asked Brandon to stop at Athen Implement. Kim and Brandon stayed in the truck and I walked in. I was like deja vu all over again. I walked in and all of the old white people (like 5 of them) stopped their conversations and just stared at me. I was waiting for one of them to be like “zOMG BROWN GUY! GANG MEMBER!!!” or something. I had a look around and found a hat I wanted to get, but there was nobody at the counter and nobody else there seemed to want to help me so I just left. (NOT with the hat in hand… I actually never took it off of the rack) I was kind of upset because I’ve been dealing with people like that all of my life and there isn’t much I can do about it. I mean, I realize I’m not the shiniest person on the block, but I’m not a hood either. I wonder what would have happened if Kim had gone in with me. Or what if I had a white girl on my arm?? It’s like, if I can nut up and walk into this old-timer’s establishment, they should at least be able to be cordial. If they only knew how white I really am! I mean, I probably could have schooled them on a lot of farm things. I WAS A STATE LEVEL LIVESTOCK/DAIRY COW JUDGE AND TRACTOR DRIVER!! Wow, remembering that kind of got me fired up. Everyone was so cool and nice at Stoner Drug, but not at this joint. (see what I did there??) Anyways…
We eventually passed into Missouri, or as I like to call it, Misery, because even though I grew up on a farm and still have an affection for rural america, at this point I was feeling Ocean Drive a lot more than dirt roads.
EXACTLY!!
If I remember correctly, this was our longest driving day, and on top of that, we didn’t have any cool destinations to hit on our way to St. Louis. To illustrate how boring the drive was, Kim drew ME! I think she did a pretty good job.
Oh, St. Louis! Once we (almost) finally got to where we were going, we hit traffic. And I mean BAD traffic! We were stopped in the same spot for so long, but something cool happened… We’re sitting there and we’re like WFT why aren’t we going anywhere?? and all of a sudden a car hauls ass past us on the shoulder and then like 767657 cop cars went by chasing the car. It was awesome!
T
his is Kim with her friend Jamie. We stayed at his place in St. Louis.
This is Sadie chewing on the fake poop Brandon bought at Wall Drug. Brandon thought it would be funny to play a joke on Jamie by setting the fake poop out on his carpet by the front door for him to find in the morning. But what actually happened was funnier/more embarrassing for us! One of Jamie’s roommates (that we had not yet met) came home after Brandon had placed the poop by the door. When we heard the keys in the lock, Brandon jumped up to grab the fake poop, since the joke wasn’t intended for a stranger. Well, the roommate opened the door and Brandon was right there. The roommate (I forget his name) was like… “What’s up” and Brandon’s response was “Just playing with poop.” as he tossed it up in the air and caught it again. It was like, OH MAN! You just made us look like a bunch of stupids! but we had a pretty good laugh over it.
The next morning Sadie had played a joke on Brandon with the fake poop… She had chewed it up and made a huge mess with the little pieces!
More pictures here!
May 21 2006
So The Rock Crest Lodge is pretty much the gnarliest place I have ever stayed! We got there late and we were pretty beat. The place just had a creepy feeling to it. We got into our room, and I was like… “This isn’t the Rock Crest… This is the Bates Motel!!” Seriously, it was spooky!! The website makes it look pretty good, so maybe it’s a lot nicer now. After all, it was 3 years ago when we were there. If I were to find myself in Custer South Dakota again, I would for sure stay there again, just because! And the “Custer Southern Exposure Family Package” sounds enticing! Anyways…
We survived the night and started the day with some LOLz!
Here I am surfing the innernets or something. (The room was so small!)
I had been to Mt. Rushmore before, and was vaguely familiar with the area. I knew I wanted to drive through Custer State Park to get to Mt. Rushmore, but I didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to navigate those mountain roads with the big Dodge Ram and a uhaul trailer. It was a little stressful at times, but I feel it was worth it.
Kim, Brandon and me at Mt. Rushmore.
Me and Brandon at Mt. Rushmore.
Me and Kim at Mt. Rushmore.
From Mt. Rushmore we drove east and stopped at Olde Glory Fireworks where I dropped nearly $100 on firecrackers. No jerky or Red Bull was available.
Further down the road we found ourselves in Wall South Dakota. Naturally, we made a stop at Wall Drug for Red Bull and jerky. Here I am on a dino! Here I am… Uh… Well, there I am! (what you can’t see is that there was a group of strangers off camera and they were all like “Man, who put the retarded guy on that thing??”)
Kim and Brandon rode a South Dakota Jackalope! Here’s a video of a snake oil salesman! Brandon and I played a prank on Kim! She had been riding in the back of the truck with Sadie the whole way, and while we were at Wall Drug, we left Sadie in the cab. Brandon bought some fake plastic dog poop, and ran it out to the truck while I kept Kim busy. When we were leaving, Kim opened her door, saw the fake poop on the seat, and she called SHOTGUN! Brandon and I were cracking up on the inside, but we were trying to get the most mileage out of the joke, so we kept fairly straight faces. We had Kim snowed! She totally thought Sadie took a dump in the truck! Also, here is a video clip of Kim eating a Root beer float.
I thought I was going to be able to bone my way across the US, but I think this was the most action I got on the whole trip. =(
We stopped at this Sinclair filling station for Red Bull and jerky.
We drove on late into the night until we hit Sioux City Iowa. There was some road construction going on and the detour made us miss our exit so we had some extra driving time that night, but it was ok because we were watching King of the hill on my Sega Game Gear!
More pictures here!
May 20 2006
There’s no better way to start a day than with a can of Red Bull!
Hey, there’s something you don’t see everyday in South Florida!
This is Kim and Brandon at Spasm Geyser.
I think Kim was trying to make out with me but I was like blegh!
Me and Brandon at Old Faithful!
We almost froze to death taking this picture! That’s Lake Yellowstone or Yellowstone Lake or something. It was frozen!! (plz note Red Bull in hand!)
…so then we’re driving East and we come upon this beast eating roadkill! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! She peed on her find as soon as she saw us coming and started heading for the side of the road, but I guess she took our slowing down as a sign that she should go back and finish her meal (fresh pee and all). We sat there for quite a while waiting for her to finish and get out of the way. It was amazing! I hope I’m never that hungry.
Oh, hey, we found snow!
Lots of snow!!
Oh, man! I totally forgot about this place… We had been driving for a few hours and pounding the Red Bull! I think Brandon and I had each drank 8 cans by then. Well, I had to pee like REALLY REALLY bad so we stopped at Pahaska Tepee outside of Cody Wyoming. Check this out, I got out of the truck and waked to the bathrooms. I started to pee and was going for a good 15 -20 seconds before Brandon walked in. He peed and left and I was STILL peeing! It was like Austin Powers’ pee, and then some! That was something to be proud of!! Anyway, I think I bought some jerky and Red Bull and we were on our way again.
This is definitely not 95 South!
Rodeo Capital of the World!
We stopped at this place in Cody Wyoming for lunch. I’m really bummed I can’t remember what it was called, but that doesn’t really matter… The place was huge and when we walked in it was like a scene from a scary movie. The place was freakin’ deserted! We’re standing there like…??? I was waiting for a piano to start playing by itself and ghost cowboys to pop out and start shooting us. It was really bizzare! The freakiness didn’t even end there! We made our way to the back of the place which turned out to be the bar and when we walked through the swinging doors it was like we had scratched the needle off of a record and stopped the party music, because everybody (apparently locals there to get their afternoon drink on) stopped their conversations and stared at us. I was waiting for someone to be like “zOMG BROWN PEOPLE!!! GET THE ROPE!!!”
Anyway, lunch was pretty good and they had a couple of hot waitresses so all was not lost.
Me and Sadie
Kim and Sadie.
We drove on to Custer South Dakota that day. Up until this point I had made our hotel reservations online before we even left Othello, but since I didn’t know where exactly we would end up 3 days down the road, I we didn’t have a place lined up to stay in South Dakota. We stopped at some hotel in Custer, but they didn’t take pets. They advised us that The Rock Crest Lodge was the only lodging in the area that allowed pets. We turned around and went back to this place and that’s where we spent the night.
More pictures here!
May 19 2006
Three years ago today, we woke up in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. I’m the fat guy on the right (haw haw you can’t see me because my layout sucks, and I’m too lazy to resize these pics.), and what you can’t see is that the pointer finger on my right hand is bleeding. It got smashed between my fat ass/chain from my wallet and the rock when I jumped up there. I guess that’ll teach me!
We drove across Idaho and entered the great state of Montana, We stopped at the $10,000 Silver Dollar Bar (I must have lost my google mojo because I couldn’t find an actual site for this place!) in Haugan. I had traveled to Montana (and beyond) many many times with my family, and we would always stop there, so I had to show it to my friends too. Brandon tried to count all of the silver dollars on the walls, but we didn’t have enough time for him to finish.
Kim and Brandon tried on new hats! I don’t remember what all we bought there, but I’m pretty sure I bought a hat or 2 and I think maybe Brandon bought a belt buckle. And I kind of remember him buying some trinkets for Kim. Oh, and Kim and I smashed some pennies!
We drove on and a while later we needed to pull over to replenish our in-cab supply of Red Bull and let Sadie pee.
We picked a great spot to stop! We literally just pulled off of the road and there was a trail that lead to a river’s edge. Here’s a dumb little video from there.
I took this picture while we were stopped there.
We found this there too!!
I wish we had “Kum & Go” on South Beach! I made Brandon exit the interstate or whatever main road we were on so we could stop and I could say I went to “Kum & Go”! I think I bought Red Bull and jerky.
Then we drove and drove and drove and outside of West Yellowstone we saw a couple Wolves in a field. They’re there if you know where to look. I swear!
We spent the night at West Yellowstone. It was slim pickens for places to eat after 9 PM and the womens were nowhere to be found. There was a busload of AZNS at the lodge we stayed at, but they didn’t seem to know much english. =(
With all the anticipation of spending the next day traveling through Yellowstone, it was kind of hard to sleep that night!
More pictures here!
May 18 2006
I like to start my stories at the start, but in this instance it’s kind of hard to say where the start really is. Taking it to an extreme I guess we’d have to go all the way back to 1989 when I had brain surgery twice in 2 weeks and missed like the first 6 weeks of my freshman year in high school. That eventually led to me leaving Yakima (and my parents!) at the end of the 9th grade and moving to Othello so I could be with all of my old friends. It was during my sophomore (or maybe junior) year that I happened to sit in on a presentation of Walla Walla Community College on college day or at a college fair or something. Hearing about their “Irrigation Technology” program stuck with me and after a 2nd senior year and still not having enough credits to graduate, I decided to take methods tutor melbourne services before I was over high school and moved to Walla Walla. I started classes in the fall of 1994 and one of my classmates/new friends was Brian Weinmann. The following fall Brian had a new roommate in Brandon from Prosser. Brandon and I quickly became great friends. In the spring of 1997 Brandon graduated from WWCC and moved to Pullman to attend WSU. At the end of 1997 I moved to South Beach and after 8+ months of vacationing, I started working at Lazerland. That’s where I met Chad and eventually his sister Kim.
So fast forward to the spring of 2000, and Brandon is graduating from WSU. Somehow we stayed in touch through the years and I had been dying for someone from Washington to come visit me on the beach. As a graduation present from his family, Brandon flew to Miami to hang out with me for a week or something. I didn’t have a car so I asked Chad to make an airport run with me. Kim tagged along too. Matter of fact, I think we went in her car. That was when Kim met Brandon.
Kim and Brandon on the night they met.
Kim claims that she didn’t really like Brandon that much when she first met him, but it looks like she’s getting pretty friendly with him here. (hey, who’s that big guy on the left? NICE VISOR, DORK!!) Brandon flew home a day or 2 later.
On the 2nd weekend of December in 2001 I flew back to Washington for Family X-mas. Flights from Ft. Lauderdale to Seattle were crazy cheap! I mean, my round trip airfare was $105.50 and I told Brandon that he should come back down for a visit. His airfare was $111.50! My parents drove me back to Seattle so I could fly home and I met up with Brandon there. We flew to Florida together, and I had asked Kim to pick us up at the airport. She claims that when she saw him at the airport that she could tell that there was something different about Brandon and that she liked him then.
I don’t even know who that guy in the hat is! He just appeared in the shot.
Needless to say, a lot of Brandon’s time in Florida was spent with Kim. Then he flew home and a couple of months Kim flew to Washington to visit Brandon. And then he flew here a couple of times and I think she went there one more time. All of a sudden 2 of my friends were a couple!
Well, by the start of 2003 we were planning Brandon’s move to Florida! It ended up being one of the greatest road trips ever!
So on May 14th, 2003, Kim and I flew to Seattle. My parents picked us up and we drove across the Cascades to Yakima. We met up with Brandon at Miner’s. Kim went home with him and I spent a couple of days with my folks. On Sunday May 18th Brandon said good bye to his friends and family and embarked on a journey with a destination of a new life in Florida. I met up with him and Kim (and Sadie!) in Connell Washington and we drove to Coeur d’Alene Idaho. It was only 2-3 hours of driving, but it worked out as a good primer for the following 6 full days of driving.
Here we are on Connell Washington. That was 3 years ago today.
This is all MY stuff! I even added more stuff once I got to Washington. Like a box full of CDs that I left at my parent’s home when I moved to florida, and a case of Widmer Hefeweizen, my favorite beer which wasn’t available in Florida at the time.
NO TURNING BACK NOW!! (This is one of my favorite pics from the trip, so I had to include it.)
I think this was in Post Falls Idaho. We had a contest to see who could go the longest without talking. Naturally, I won that contest! Brandon said it’s hard to breathe without talking. Whatever!
We stopped by Wal-mart for Red Bull (and other things). In the following days you’ll see how Red Bull was a big part of the trip.
More pictures here!
May 15 2006
I am waiting for a tornado to go down Washington and/or Collins! Shit is super gnarly right now! I mean, it’s like we’re in the middle of a hurricane!! It’s awesome!
Jun 9 2006
I must be dying
There are currently 7 people huddled around the television here at work, watching the World Cup game. Luis and I are the only ones working at the moment, and I’m not even working very hard because I have a GNARLY headache only on the left side of my head, kind of like brain freeze behind my eye. It’s very odd and somewhat concerning because the last time I had a headache only on one side of my head, I ended up having brain surgery twice in 2 weeks! All I can think about is how my head hurts and what’s going to happen with it. I hope it just goes away and that’s that.
By FANLESS • Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: Back home, years ago., IRL, Uncategorized, Work