Free Chocolate Day

is today.

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Hey world

Sorry I've been neglectful in posting, but I've having way too much in the real world to post. Not to mention my boss officially outlawed blogs at work a couple weeks ago...so prime blogging time got cut off there.

However, things have been great the past couple weeks. Which is a refreshing contrast to all the getting sick and getting injured and stuff from earlier in the summer. I think I've finally managed to pick a major (Exercise Science) with the aspiration of going to grad school to become a Physician's Assistant. This is the first time I've ever thought of grad school as something other than "Ugh, that sounds like it'll suck". I actually can't wait to hurry up and get done with my undergrad and do cool stuff.

Furthermore, I've been going on lots of dates. And not any of those weak sauce "hanging out" dates that people seem to do all the time (I'm looking at you, Brett), but actual going and doing stuff dates. Just last night I had Japanese food for the first time and went to a bunch of local landmarks until midnight. Granted, I totally got to work late this morning, but there's no need to dwell on that (my bosses have an irrational love for me, they won't fire me, sweet huh!?).

Additionally, my sister had her third little baby last week and he's definitely a precious thing. And a total man, but that's another story. I posted a pretty sweet announcement on her blog, but it's a private blog so I'll direct you to another sister's blog for pics.

Additionally, I finally went to the local farmer's market on Saturday. I met a friend of mine from work there and checked the place out. There was mostly a crapload of crafty crafts but also some good looking food and, most importantly, some local organic produce. I'm proud to say that I got the two most perfect cantalope I've ever had for $1.50 each. Seriously. Perfect catalopes, people. Why isn't stuff like this in the news? I also got some stuff for Pico de Gallo, corn, a zuchini that was bigger than my new newphew (for only a buck!) and some rather delicious limeade. Not a bad morning. I came back later with my Mom and we got a couple loaves of cool bread and bunch of black berries with which she made some great jam. So yeah, we're officially locally grown elitist buyers now.

So that's what I've been up to lately. To end off, I'd definitely recommend a new blog I found called Bent Objects and this video on YouTube:

Oops...

So turns out I haven't posted anything in a week. I would have you believe that's because I've been too busy doing awesome things and haven't had time to write. That's partially true, I suppose, but not really.

However, tonight I'm going to this place:to see this movie.
Of which one of the main contributors is Michael Pollan, who also wrote:
Which is an amazing book that I love. I keep meaning to write a review about it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll be attending with Miss Nemesis (sister and fellow food snob), GH (who's probably getting dragged more than anything else, poor guy), and Aubrey (who is my date, I'm hoping this doesn't scare her away).

Anyway, for those who dont know anything about Michael Pollan, a great place to start would be an episode of Fresh Air which was given in October 2008 when his book, In Defense of Food, had just come out. I take this moment to say that I LOVE Fresh Air and Terry Gross. It would be the most-awesome-thing-ever to be interviewed by her. It's definitely one of my goals in life to meet her. Anyway, he was on her show once and I'd consider the interview a very good place to start if you want to start your journey as a more-aware food consumer.

Interview (podcast or whatever you want) is here.


P.S. The theatre we're going to used to look like this before it got demolished and redone. How sweet is this thing!? I wish they hadn't changed it.

In which the CoolBoy did something uncool

For my first real post, I think I'll put something down about my recent bike indecent which occurred on June 1st.

Firstly, my bike (I'm still working on a name, but Black Beauty has potential) looks like this:

(Thanks to rscycle.com for the pic)

Isn't she hot? She's also a fixed-gear, meaning that the pedals and the rear wheel always move together. No coasting. I've installed a rear brake (which is sort of against the "track bike rules", but whatever) for safety reasons, but I mostly just push/pull against the pedals backwards to slow down and stop.

Anyway, I was at about mile 3 on a ride down the P-Towne River Trail going about 20mph around a bend, when a young girl of about 10 came out from behind the trees on my side of the path. Most unfortunately, her 2 sisters, brother, and parents were all on the left side of the path behind her presenting me with the following choice:

1) Hit little girl with bike - This would probably kill her (not to mention untold damage to Black Beauty).
2) Go off the trail to the right, into the very narrow space along the concrete barrier that separated us from the road - In a word, this would probably suck.

So I did the chivalrous thing and chose #2. After several feet of rubbing my arm and leg on the wall, it became apparent to me the BB was about to go over. Being that I would fall onto a row of those lovely, processed, garden-type rocks with the gleaming razor-edges I decided to grab onto the wall instead, leaving BB to flip over on her own. I then announced I was alright (her Dad sounded very worried and apologetic), surveyed the damage (scrapes and minimal blood), and jumped back on for another 8 miles.

I then got home and took an actual look at the situation. It wasn't good. Long story short, my good friend R--- had to come over and clean me up because it hurt too much to do it myself. Not to mention we don't even have band-aids in my apartment. And I was tired of going to the doctor after the whole Mono+Strep episode of April '09.

End result

And a couple days of staying home and playing video games later (I consider injury and illness a good enough reasons to play video games) I got another couple shots of it.

And

Things are actually going pretty well now though. My arm's almost healed up and the burn on my leg hasn't ever really been a problem. The my ring finger suffered a setback with an infection that had to be removed, but other than that everything's okay. That and bandages are really expensive. So lame. But I'm finally going back to work, so that's also a plus.