watch my layout change like the seasons

i'm about 4 weeks away from graduating, typing this as rachel plucks my unibrow.

i'm gonna go write an essay for my graduate school applications

∆
∆ ∆

just some facts

1983 was an important year

Top 100 Hits of 1983/Top 100 Songs of 1983

1. Every Breath You Take, Police
2. Billie Jean, Michael Jackson
3. Flashdance... What A Feelin, Irene Cara
4. Down Under, Men At Work
5. Beat It, Michael Jackson
6. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Bonnie Tyler
7. Maneater, Daryl Hall and John Oates
8. Baby Come To Me, Patti Austin and James Ingram
9. Maniac, Michael Sembello
10. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Eurythmics
11. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, Culture Club
12. You And I, Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle
13. Come On Eileen, Dexy's Midnight Runners
14. Shame On The Moon, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
15. She Works Hard For The Money, Donna Summer
16. Never Gonna Let You Go, Sergio Mendes
17. Hungry Like The Wolf, Duran Duran
18. Let's Dance, David Bowie
19. Twilight Zone, Golden Earring
20. I Know There's Something Going On, Frida
21. Jeopardy, Greg Kihn Band
22. Electric Avenue, Eddy Grant
23. She Blinded Me With Science, Thomas Dolby
24. Africa, Toto
25. Little Red Corvette, Prince
26. Back On The Chain Gang, Pretenders
27. Up Where We Belong, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
28. Mr. Roboto, Styx
29. You Are, Lionel Richie
30. Der Kommissar, After The Fire
31. Puttin' On The Ritz, Taco
32. Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye
33. (Keep Feeling) Fascination, Human League
34. Time (Clock Of The Heart), Culture Club
35. The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats
36. Mickey, Toni Basil
37. You Can't Hurry Love, Phil Collins
38. Separate Ways, Journey
39. One On One, Daryl Hall and John Oates
40. We've Got Tonight, Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton
41. 1999, Prince
42. Stray Cat Strut, Stray Cats
43. Allentown, Billy Joel
44. Stand Back, Stevie Nicks
45. Tell Her About It, Billy Joel
46. Always Somethmg There To Remind Me, Naked Eyes
47. Truly, Lionel Richie
48. Dirty Laundry, Don Henley
49. The Girl Is Mine, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney
50. Too Shy, Kajagoogoo
51. Goody Two Shoes, Adam Ant
52. Rock The Casbah, Clash
53. Our House, Madness
54. Overkill, Men At Work
55. Is There Something I Should Know, Duran Duran
56. Gloria, Laura Branigan
57. Affair Of The Heart, Rick Springfield
58. She's A Beauty, Tubes
59. Solitaire, Laura Branigan
60. Don't Let It End, Styx
61. How Am I Supposed To Live Without You, Laura Branigan
62. China Girl, David Bowie
63. Come Dancing, Kinks
64. Promises, Promises, Naked Eyes
65. The Other Guy, Little River Band
66. Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, Air Supply
67. Family Man, Daryl Hall and John Oates
68. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Michael Jackson
69. I Won't Hold You Back, Toto
70. All Right, Christopher Cross
71. Straight From The Heart, Bryan Adams
72. Heart To Heart, Kenny Loggins
73. My Love, Lionel Richie
74. I'm Still Standing, Elton John
75. Hot Girls In Love, Loverboy
76. It's A Mistake, Men At Work
77. I'll Tumble 4 Ya, Culture Club
78. All This Love, Debarge
79. Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy, Sammy Hagar
80. Heartbreaker, Dionne Warwick
81. Faithfully, Journey
82. Steppin' Out, Joe Jackson
83. Take Me To Heart, Quarterflash
84. (She's) Sexy + 17, Stray Cats
85. Try Again, Champaign
86. Dead Giveaway, Shalamar
87. Lawyers In Love, Jackson Browne
88. What About Me, Moving Pictures
89. Human Nature, Michael Jackson
90. Photograph, Def Leppard
91. Pass The Dutchie, Musical Youth
92. True, Spandau Ballet
93. Far From Over, Frank Stallone
94. I've Got A Rock 'N' Roll Heart, Eric Clapton
95. It Might Be You, Stephen Bishop
96. Tonight I Celebrate My Love, Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack
97. You Got Lucky, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
98. Don't Cry, Asia
99. Breaking Us In Two, Joe Jackson
100. Fall In Love With Me, Earth, Wind and Fire

[via danish via musicoutfitters]

this should be a tumblr post

above is a chart showing what has created the current budget deficit, same chart below in pie form.

love to see people blaming "tax and spend liberals" for our current budget situation.

at the end of the semester, things get a little wacky. this semester, i:

1. didn't start school until the end of march

2. got engaged before i started school

3. wrote ~45 pages of papers for the classes that started the third week of march

4. delayed graduation another semester

This blog is looking more and more like a tumblr, but that's OK I guess. I wish I had a lot more to say but I really don't. I'm looking into starting a nonprofit this year that will promote understanding among motorists AND cyclists that bikes belong on the road, and never on the sidewalk. thinking of calling it

"we'll put a boot in ur butt it's the american way"

"get off the sidewalk, idiot!"

droppin some knowledge

some things i've learned while working at the state legislature:

CO2 is not a pollutant.

The slippery slope is very dangerous.

The children really need to be thought of.

Gays are the number one threat to America today.

The Google.

Bowser from ShaNaNa is a helluva singer.

My hair looks better when my last shower was 24-36 hours earlier, then goes downhill from there.

newsflash

i'm engaged

i'm getting a home made gift from brittany, which means i'm going to make home made gifts for the first three people to comment on this post. THE CATCH IS THAT IF YOU GET A GIFT FROM ME YOU HAVE TO MAKE GIFTS FOR THREE PEOPLE. ready set go

i don't know what you're doing to me

I've not been using this outlet enough, so I am making a January 21st resolution to do it more. Beware, January 21st resolutions are not nearly as effective as new years resolutions, so nothing may come of it. 

I'm working on a long post about that trip that we took to Cedar City, but it's headed for the trip log blog, and I think that's where it belongs. I admire Dave Kincaid for blogging about ideas whenever he blogs, though it is more rare than we'd like. 

There's a new sheriff in town, and I hope Barry makes good on his promises, he's got some tall boots to order, or some other mixed metaphor like that. 

I read a pretty terrible article about how legislation is not really like sausage making because you don't actually combine the disgusting parts of the pig into a wonderful delicious treat. I felt bad for the poor writer who didn't have enough self-awareness to at least admit that he was taking the analogy in a completely different direction than was originally intended. 

I'm blogging from Rachel's new MacBook. 

Shake it in the mornin' til you get it all right. 

School is for fools, I'm glad that I'm still on vacation. 

sing it as you please

My friend Evan Carpenter made a documentary this summer about musician Gabe Dominguez, a really great American folk singer/songwriter who is from Utah. It's still in production, but I got to see a fairly recent cut and was really impressed by it. It still needs a bit of cleaning up, but the message of the film was really impressive to me. My only experience with Gabe was seeing him play a really cold live show in April up near Sundance, and while I enjoyed the music, I didn't know much about the guy other than anecdotes here and there from some friends who were acquainted with him. The movie is called Sing it as you Please.



The whole film, at least for me, made it really easy to identify with Gabe as a person, and though the premise of a bike tour is a little wacky at first, you quickly get used to the setting and it seems both romantic and ordinary at the same time. I thought the tone of the rest of the movie followed that, I was surprised at the ease with which Gabe made things that might sound strange, wacky, or depressing (e.g. the story about being arrested for protesting) into more easily digested anecdotes that, while not initially shocking, were thought-provoking.

What struck me the most about the movie is that over the course of the film, I felt more and more empathy with Gabe. His friends, in a non-derogatory way, are a bit stranger than he is, and somewhat more difficult to identify with. This lead me to see Gabe, even as stranger information was revealed about him, as the most like me. What hit home at the end of the movie, in a shot of Gabe in a U-haul that they had rented, talking about the way that people see him from outside, and listing things like plowing up part of the yard to make a garden, or riding your bike more, or going to teach in inner city schools, as impetus for those that call him and others "crazy." As he talked about that it dawned on me that the film made me see his way as so natural that it was frustrating to think of those people that would derogate it without understanding the love that he puts into his decisions. The last exchange is Gabe saying "Just like Gandhi said, 'First they call you crazy,'" and at that moment, you feel that you'd much rather be called crazy with Gabe than be doing the calling.



Maybe I'm especially vulnerable because I sold all of my motorized vehicles in favor of bikes, but I really think that the movie can go a long way toward helping people understand that Gabe's lifestyle isn't just interesting or different, but desirable, even if they are not ready to do quite so much.

In any case, I loved it. Keep it up Gabe, and keep it up Evan. You guys are doing good things.