You owe me a turkey, all the fixins and a four day weekend - Dude

If you follow me on twitter, you are probably aware that my bathroom flooded last night, and then sometime overnight, again this morning, and once again this afternoon....

It started with a bath.

And then the water wouldn't go down the drain.

After consulting a variety of people (pardon the technical jargon you're about to encounter), I decided the tub plunger thing on the wall of the tub, that lever thing to use to open or close the drain, its wall plate needed to come off. I imagined myself opening that can of worms unscrewing the plate, digging around inside the hole I've now created, and finding a chain that I could fidget with to open the drain. Except, by the time I was ready to do this, 40 or so minutes had passed and the tub was now an inch away from being full.

Spontaneous tub filling: interesting phenomenon.

And then the upstairs neighbor took a shower and my tub began filling quite fast. Within about two minutes the water spilled over. While this was going on, my toilet also filled up with the same soapy water and it too was spilling over.

Taking the advice of my friend, "You've got a bucket and a window - get your ass to work," I emptied the tub bucket by bucket. I then left my apartment to stay elsewhere (hello, no working toilet) and returned in the morning to find my bathroom flooded again. I cleaned it up and within a couple of hours, it flooded again. And then it flooded this afternoon.

I called my landlord last night and he explained that it's a building-sewer-drainage issue and I can't fix this myself. It's been 21 hours and no one has come to look at this problem. I've called twice today and the dude won't even return my call.

And now I am too afraid to leave town for the weekend like I was supposed to, for fear of returning to a catastrophic mess.

Thanks, dude, for being a non-responsive asshole landlord. Your inability to respond totally screwed up my Thanksgiving. You owe me a turkey, all the fixins and a four day weekend.

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Listening to: Wax Tailor - Que Sera
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I wanted a snow cone, I swear

In the distance I heard The Ice Cream Man's creepy music and grabbed every dollar I had in preparation for a snow cone. Today is November 21st, so of course he was out of anything snow cone related, had none of the cartoon-character-shaped-with-gumball-eye-balls ice cream and after four times hearing, "I'm out of that," I asked him to point out what he was out of.

Wrong question.

"I'm out of this one, these four, that one, these two, these three ---"

- What DO you have?

"I have one of these, three of these, and two of these."

- You have six total things in stock?

"Yes."

- So what two items can I get with four dollars?

"This."



Watermelon-flavored, (giant) phallic-shaped ice cream thing.

Score.

Let the slurping noises begin.

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Listening to: Wax Tailor - Ungodly Fruit
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My next tattoo

When Geoff came to visit me a few weeks ago, we paid a trip to the Army Surplus Store here in town. It was full of army clothes and guns and knives and stuff, but then there were a lot of random things that were too awesome. I would've loved to take photos, but they are very serious about no one taking pictures. As the store is full of guns and knives, I wasn't about to attempt sneaking in a few snapshots of things like a gorilla head statue (WTF?).

The good news is, Geoff scored this awesome patch. What's not to love about a fire-breathing winged seahorse riding a rocket?



I think I'll get this tattooed on my forearm.

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Listening to: Mechanical Me - I like
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Baseball and LSD, count me in

I hate baseball. And being from St. Louis, that is truly a Cardinal sin. Watching the game is boring, listening to it on the radio is tolerable, going to a game in person is meh. It moves too slow and over an entire game, there might be one minute of excitement for me.

On the other hand, I love people. It's amazing the amount of diversity on the planet. Every human has differing perspectives, unique beliefs, their life has provided them with an array of experience that is theirs and only theirs. Everyone has a story to tell -- it's just a matter of presenting it in an interesting and informative manner.

Last night a friend sent me a link to an animated clip, Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No. Baseball might be stupid, but Dock's story, which has been animated, is quite fascinating and entertaining as well. This clip is well worth the less-than five minutes of your time it will eat up.

Sadly, the great Dock Ellis died last December at 63. A year before, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, had recorded an interview with Ellis in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Alexander and Ilels original four minute piece appeared March 29, 2008 on NPRs Weekend America. When we stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio.

I went (to Colorado, back in July), I saw (lots of) stuff, I went home

I uploaded photos on Sunday from my trip to Colorado in July. It was a whirlwind experience.

I drove to St. Louis on Thursday, met at my mom's where her, myself, my Gramma Sue and my mom's youngest brother, Kenny hitched a ride to the MetroLink station in East St. Louis. It took about two hours to get to Lambert airport and we ended up riding a total of four trains just to get there. Breaking down sucked, but at least our train car was under the shadow of a bridge. After that, we had to miss several train cars before finding one we could pack into. And at every stop, one person would get off and five more would get on. It was tightly packed and I was stuck next to a very smelly person who's armpit my nose was inches away from.

And that was the worst part about the whole trip.

Once we got to Lambert things went smooth. I even spied a piece of artwork that I'd never seen before.

Then time started moving fast.

Fly to Denver, land, meet up with my cousin Jeremy and wait for my Aunt Diana's flight from Kentucky. Pick up our rental van that holds seven passengers, drive to Jeremy's, snack and talk, get ready for bed.

Wake up Friday, eat breakfast, drive to Red Rocks, explore it, drive to Loveland Pass, explore it, stop at a gas station before driving past some wicked forest damage caused by mountain pine beetles on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Ahh, Friday.... we easily covered 200 miles this day.


Red Rocks with Denver in the distance


Moose and some mountain pine beetle forest damage.


Rocky Mountain National Park


Rocky Mountain National Park

Saturday was much less hectic, but still with a lot of driving.

We drove from the suburbs of Denver to Canon City to take the train through the Royal Gorge before we headed to the bridge. And then we headed to Pikes Peak. We had to have been in the car for 300 miles that day.


Royal Gorge Bridge as seen while riding the train.


People rafting the Arkansas River while we rode the train.


The Royal Gorge Bridge is 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River.


Looking between the boards of the suspension bridge. See the two rafts below?


That bridge was totally cool.


Well worth the visit.

That was fun. But we had to skee-daddle and make our way to Pikes Peak. The last ten miles or so, we were caught in a terrible hail and lightning storm. Thank you, Jeremy, for getting us to the top safely.


Photos cannot do the view justice.


I could see for miles.


Lots of switchbacks to make our way to 14,110 or -15 foot elevation and back down.


Oh, and hairpin turns, too.

On Sunday, four of us flew back to St. Louis and my Aunt Diana headed back to Kentucky. It was a quick visit but it was so nice to spend time with my family. Well, a portion of my family.



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Listening to: The Flaming Lips - Slow Nerve Action
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