In Memoriam

Funny thing about the GRE. I took it less than an hour after I was in a 4-car accident on the interstate on the way to the testing center. Literally, my first thought after the accident was there is no effing way I am missing the GRE today. 

I was okay and so were the others involved in the accident. It wasn't my fault either. I was in the middle car of three stopped cars in stop-n-go traffic on the freeway when an unlucky girl didn't notice the cars were stopped in front of her and she slammed right into the first car. Unlucky for her because this was all her fault. Unlucky for her that the first car she slammed into, the one behind me, was a fairly new Saab that the owner had just bought a week ago. The impact of her car slammed the Saab into my Maxima and my Maxima went into the back of a pickup truck. We waited one minute for the sheriff and he took our information and I drove on to the test center in a car that didn't exactly look drivable, but it had one more place to take me and I was not going to let it die before we arrived at the final destination.

I suppose a lot of people feel the truth in this cliche before they are 26, but I feel old now that I realize there isn't anything like your first car. The Maxima was a total loss, with damages in excess of $5,000. I cleaned it out a couple days ago. No more 17-inch, chrome rims. No more black on black. 

Kate and I are buying our first car together tonight. I'll post about that later, but for now it is time to get sentimental and remember the Maxima and where she took me and many of you. She was a beautiful car.

While I was home for Easter in 2003, my parents surprised me with the Maxima. It all started with my Dad silently dangling a car key in front of me. I knew, but could not believe, what that meant. I took the key and rushed outside to the driveway and this is what I found.

Guy was with me and it was one of the most memorable experiences that I had with him. He was there for a big moment in my life. Yeah, I had the freedom to drive places before I had a car, but not the freedom that truly having your own car brings you. This was the first time I sat in the Maxima.

The Maxima, Me, and the proud parents gather together for a picture before I roll up to Laramie for the first time in my own car.

Travis, I believe, behind the wheel of the Maxima as we head out on the first leg of our move from Colorado to Milwaukee. 

The Maxima was a road trip pro. No breakdowns. No issues. This picture was taken near the end of the Maxima's last, big road trip this summer. We were almost back to Milwaukee after taking it out to Colorado and Wyoming.

Maxima covered in snow. She turned dirty when you had to drive her in snow but after a while I could even coax her through the snowbound streets of Longmont during the Christmas 2006 blizzard. 

R.I.P. Precision Driving with Erik

R.I.P. 1996 Nissan Maxima

The GRE

I took the GRE. I didn't get a perfect score. I wasn't expecting a perfect score. I wanted a score that would leave me happy. I wanted a score that would leave me feeling like it wasn't necessary to take the GRE again. I wanted to be over and done with the GRE last Thursday. 

That's exactly what happened. 

New Belgium + Milwaukee = About Freaking TIme

I saw an ad in a local paper just yesterday that I couldn't believe at first. New Belgium? Fat Tire? "Now legally cruising into America's Dairyland." ?!?

Starting tomorrow, New Belgium will be sold in Wisconsin. By mid-summer other brews (besides Fat Tire and 1554) will be available in the area.

Now we just need a Rio. 

King of Kong

I recently ran across this post at the Burnside Writer's Blog about the documentary The King of Kong. The post reminded me that I finally needed to set aside some time to watch this wildly popular film about the trials and tribulations of a man called Steve Wiebe and his arch-nemesis, Billy Mitchell, as they duke it out for the world record in the arcade version of Donkey Kong. 

Tonight, I finally watched the doc and was introduced to Billy Mitchell, or at least the objective look at Billy Mitchell through the eyes of the director of the film. Thusly, I was introduced to the most bombastic ass I have ever seen in film. The directors swear to the honest representation of Billy Mitchell in the movie. However, Mitchell disagrees and says one scene, in which Mitchell appears to snub Wiebe, has been edited in a way that paints Mitchell in a negative light. You can read about the disputed scene in the AV Club's interview with him that I linked to in the first sentence of this paragraph. 

Billy Mitchell aside, The King of Kong is a highly entertaining documentary that is as much about a man finally achieving a goal as it is about a classic arcade game. Wiebe is the guy who has always been good at a lot of different things, but being the best in the world at any one of those things has always evaded him. Wiebe looks to be on the rise in the film and over the 80 minutes of Kong, the director Seth Gordon, intricately weaves a story of the fiercely competitive classic arcade gaming world with dozens of interviews, drama, and history. 

Take any skill, no matter how extraneous it might seem, and there will be a group of people that have become so good at that one skill (in the case of this film, playing Donkey Kong), that their story will cross boundaries. Their story will encompass so much of the human struggle to overcome anything and anyone in their path that it will speak to those who aren't obsessed with the same skill. Great documentaries usually achieve this effect. King of Kong does.

Time Out

I think it is clear that I haven't had much time to devote to blogging or writing lately. That's sad, but some time away from both will be healthy. 

Don't expect anything until after this Thursday. 

That's Hott

81 in Milwaukee today. Weird.

7 Days

Next Thursday at 1pm is my date with the GRE. I find out my scores right after I finish the test. Thusly, I’ll be in one of two moods on Thursday night. Slightly buzzed to drunk with an ebullient disposition or slightly buzzed to drunk with a don’t-talk-to-me-because-I’ll-kick-your-ass disposition.

Pray that it’s the former.

Cheney Schmeney

Why should we care what Cheney thinks about the way the president is running the country? The media are sort of drooling over this guy right now like he was some sort of success over the last eight years. Correct me if I am wrong, honestly, but I’m pretty sure most everything about the United States has gone to hell in the last eight years. Cheney manipulated Bush like a puppet and, in turn, the American people.

I’m pretty sure a majority of Americans feel the same way. Oh wait, yep. I am sure about that one. See November 4^th.  Enough with Cheney. How can anyone determine the efficacy of an administration’s policies in roughly 100 days? And if one were so bold, what honorable decision by the previous administration qualifies them for a commentary at this point?

And Sullivan always has the coolest videos. This one of some bike stunts around Edinburgh. Amazing!

Free XBOX 360...seriously

Remember this? You know, the raffle you may or may not have entered to win an XBOX 360. Congratulations to you if you didn’t enter the raffle. You didn’t waste your time.

My condolences to everyone that did enter this little raffle. I was trying to tell everyone I would win, but still, people signed up like they had a chance. Let’s face it, you never did.

My new, used XBOX 360 arrived in the mail today. Thanks, Jarrod.

Pusillanimity

Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I’m not a big fan of guns. Actually, I see no use for them in our society. I wasn’t under any illusion when I voted for Obama. I couldn’t possibly have hoped that he would get rid of guns, but I had hoped that the Senate, under Obama’s guidance, would reinstate the assault-weapons ban that expired in September 2004.

I feel there are more pressing issues for Obama than getting right to the assault-weapons ban or at least to stricter laws making it harder for a man like Richard Poplawski to get an AK-47. However, I do expect Obama to move on these issues sometime soon and by the looks of this article in last week’s Newsweek, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

I thought this reader comment left at the bottom of the Newsweek article summed it up best:

"Damn, you Americans sure are difficult to understand. How can you love a tool for killing?"

YouTube + Ayn Rand

Found on YouTube, Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand in 1959. Very interesting. Wallace even lights up a cigarette in part II. Parts II and III.

The Fountainhead

For the third classic book of 2009, I went with The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. This book is a new favorite of mine. I didn’t expect it to become one. Actually, I didn’t know what to expect from this book and I didn’t know that much about Ayn Rand other than that her philosophy doesn’t quite match up with mine.

A lot of the books I love, I love because they reaffirm my values and way of life. But The Fountainhead undermines it and at times it is the antithesis of my beliefs, but that’s why I loved it. I found myself disagreeing and agreeing with bits of Rand’s philosophy. The Fountainhead challenged me and made me contemplate the impossible complexity of the human existence more than any other book recently has.

I’ll probably write more about it later, but I just had to say, Ayn Rand believes differently than I do, but damn, she could write a book.

Go West, Young Man

What I wrote last summer as we drove back to the Midwest through Wyoming:

The West is great. There is nothing like it. It’s been one year. That’s not long, but it remains home. This land is blessed and I am blessed by its unpredictability, staggering beauty, and its ability to effect my decisions even after I leave. Seeing the West again has been like pulling an old childhood book off of the shelf. When I see the book on a shelf I recognize it as one of my favorites, but it isn’t until I open it up and look inside that I realize this is the book that shaped my life. This is where I have been built…in these pages or, in this case, on this land. The book represents the purest form of life I know and even though I may not be around it right now or return to it very soon, it is something that needs to be opened, read, looked at, felt, and smelled on a consistent basis or else a huge part of me is going to die.  

Tea Parties

Exactly what I was thinking…

Does the lack of any actual tax increases undercut this anti-tax rebellion?

- Josh Marshall

Five Guys

A Five Guys Burgers and Fries recently opened up in Milwaukee. We went. I reviewed. I posted it here. Check it out.

To the Dells

I am going to Wisconsin Dells this weekend, a town of 2,500 people (2000 census data as reported by Wikipedia) with 18 indoor waterparks. I am sure they call themselves the waterpark capital of the world. I am always skeptical of statements like that. I don't know if it is true or if it is hyperbole. We will be coming back to the city for church, but we'll be spending most of our Easter weekend at the waterparks.

Happy Easter to you.

And happy birthday to this blog. Six Hours on Sunday will be four years old on Sunday. It's my little baby.

Best commercial on TV

There are so many beer ads these days that it is hard for one to stand out from the pack, but each time I have seen this Heineken commercial I've gotten this irrepressible laughter. Maybe it's just a stupid ad, but it strikes me as a creative, hilarious juxtaposition.

Potato Day...Really?

Watch Baracknophopbia - Obey. So on.

Their Failing Memory

I haven’t linked to a political blog in a very long time, but I read something at Sullivan’s blog today that accurately describes my angst and anger about the Republican response to President Obama.

Money Quote:

The remarkable thing about today's partisan Republicans is their capacity to forget instantly and entirely anything that went on for the past eight years. And so suddenly we are rushing toward socialism, even though by far the biggest jumps in state power and debt occurred under a president they worshiped and worked hard to re-elect. There were no tea-parties to protest the $32 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit. There was no Randian rumbling as Bush took over local schools. There was no defense of the Constitution as Bush and Cheney secretly suspended the fourth and first amendments. But put a moderate Democrat in office tackling a historic collapse in demand - and spending must be frozen! Reading the partisan right blogs, this ability to disappear the past is striking, and it helps explain base GOP loathing of Obama (even if the base is much smaller than it was).

Thank you.

This is a competition, right?

How can a championship game be so lopsided? I'm watching the basketball game right now and there is still 7 minutes left in the first half and UNC has a 20-point lead. 

I'm glad I picked UNC to win the championship, but I think a million others made the same pick on ESPN, where my bracket currently ranks 1,248,671. Not so good, but it's doing better than Obama's bracket.