Greater Satellites

It’s hard to know where to begin after leaving off writing for so long. My initial intentions for getting this domain set up was basically so I could have my own place to blog but ever recently I’ve either shirked the task or just downright did not have enough time. Well let’s hope I can change that all around. I’m trying my best to post at least once a week for the rest of the year. Call it a late New Year’s Resolution. Let’s get this recap under way…

Since last I blogged, a little over a month ago, quite a bit has happened. Nothing huge, but all things worth mentioning for memory’s sake: Two one-month-increment anniversaries on the road to the big one year, first small vacation with the lady, Jimmy Buffet concert with Denise, a promotion at work, some minor construction in the room area, and not to mention Jackie’s birthday tomorrow. Come with me on this journey…

I’ll follow the order that I listed them above just to keep everything nice and tidy, which puts us at the 8th and 9th month anniversary days. In case you didn’t know the day is the 15th of every month. How I remember is pretty cheap, but it serves it’s purpose as my personal mnemonic device. For those of you who’ve seen V For Vendetta, the day Jackie and I officially started going out was the fifteenth of November, so I modified it to say “Remember, remember, the fifteenth of November” and since then I have not forgotten. We’re usually pretty chill about out anniversary dates, as they’ve been pretty variable throughout the week (only a few have fallen on a party night [read: Friday or Saturday]). We usually just relax and watch a movie, have some dinner, and enjoy each other’s company. Two nights ago I bought dinner from Bennigans, gave Jackie a card (I’m such a sap sometimes), and we just relaxed watching some TV and playing around on the computer. Last night we also got together and celebrated Jackie’s birthday a few days early because her parents are leaving for a week of partying in the mountains (it’s their anniversary). It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows her that she had a Superman cake (for the 2nd consecutive year, if I’m not mistaken), which I’ll have pictures of soon enough. After the commotion died down and most of her family left or went to sleep we watching Employee Of the Month, laughed a bit at that, and then called it a night. As I was leaving her house two big motherfuckin raccoons ran by my legs about 2 feet from where I was standing. I’m actually not sure if they were big raccoons or not because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one that close, but they were the size of small dogs and looked mean as hell. I’m just realizing this is my second run in with a wild animal I’ve never seen up close before in the past month, because when we went on vacation to Promised Land State Park…

…We ran into a big ass BEAR! There were two, actually, one cute cub which I snapped a picture of and a shit-yourself-big mama bear. Needless to say, well all slept in our cars that night. Let’s back up just a moment to the start of it… I had Jury Duty on the day we planned to leave (July 13th). I wanted to have that shit wrapped up way earlier that week, but things happen and Jackie and I didn’t end up leaving for the State Park until well after 6 (it may have even been 7). Regardless, we start trekking up there in her car blasting through traffic and listening to some tunes. We got a little lot lost but it’s all fun because we pretty much rule and made a great time out of it. By the time 11pm rolled around and we still weren’t where we needed to be we called Denise to let her know we’re hotel-ing it up. Turns out we were about 30-45 minutes off course, and we still needed to set up a tent, eat, and eventually get some sleep. We drove right in to a Best Western and shacked up for the evening. We hit the bar downstairs and had a few drinks. Jackie actually only had part of a 7&7, mainly because, well, it’s a fuckin 7&7. After that we went back up to our room and eventually went to sleep. Camping rules.

The next morning we awoke, showered, and rolled out shortly before 11. We bought a map, got our bearings, filled up the gas tank, and bounced our way to the state park. It was a nice ride through a variety of quaint little neighborhoods that you’d think only existed in movies. It was a great day to drive and just be outside in general… We arrived at the State Park shortly after noon. We set up our tent in record time and were surprised at how spacious it is. Made some lunch and just loafed around for a bit until we decided to play some volleyball and toss the disc around for a bit. Volleyball went ok… I’m not too good at it, but always willing to try again (on the sand of the beach, maybe?). After Volleyball Denise and I played frisbee for a bit while Jackie and Kathy talked, took pictures, and took in the scenery. Denise phone was stolen (naggers!), and that was the beginning of the end of that trip. When we got back to the camp site, we cooked up some delicious dinner (burgers and dogs, the American way) and tried to get comfortable. I found it difficult to do so up there between the bugs and lack of seating (bench vs. rock vs. ground). After making smores, one of our neighbors told us there was a bear cub in a tree on his site. We checked it over to verify he wasn’t bullshitting us and boom, bear cub. Now I’ve heard, along with everyone else camping, that wherever baby goes, mommy is sure to follow. We didn’t see mommy right away, because she was hiding from us (which in retrospect is kind of funny, considering she was like an 800 pound black bear… how do you hide?). We were all pretty spooked and it wasn’t until our fire died that mommy came out to play. After seeing that big MF’er, we decided to regroup and take some action. I intended to run right into the bear and skewer it with a plastic fork a la Troy, but everyone said stuff like “It’s a bear, you will die” etcetera, etcetera so I decided instead to just wrap up our food as best we could and head for the safety of glass and metal… the cars. Jackie, Denise, and I slept in Jackie’s car and Kathy slept in hers (only Asians could possibly sleep comfortably in Hondas).

We woke up around 6AM, packed everything up, and rolled out. We hit Perkins on the way out and I bought breakfast because everyone looked like they needed a pick-me-up, and then started rolling home. We arrived home in the early afternoon and dispersed. Total vacation time: 3 days, 2 nights. Total time Jackie and Andrew actually camped: 0. One night in a hotel, one night sleeping in the car. We rock.

The next big event was the Jimmy Buffet concert. There’s not much to say about it other than the fact that it was fantastic. I had a blast and got wrecked off of Landshark Lager (a thumbs up in my book) and huge frosty Margaritas. We were successfully able to sneak alcohol in and although I saw two separate instances of man-wang, I saw enough sets of boobies for it not to be considered a gay concert. Jimmy is good people in my book.

Another short but noteworthy mention is my raise/promotion at work. I won’t go in to salary details on here because I’m not trying to be braggadocios about what I make, but let’s just say I received a little over $2 more per hour and I’m in a position to have as many as one person working directly beneath me. Fun times, indeed.

I tore my wall apart two weekends ago and put up some new awesome shelves to store my books, CD/DVD media, and random crap that I didn’t want in my desk. This past weekend I also bought a new desk chair that’s no less than 114% more comfortable than the old one. What does all of this mean for raising my at-home computing productivity? Nada. But it certainly does look nice.

Last, but certainly not by any stretch of the imagination least, is Jackie’s B-day tomorrow. Now I can’t really re-cap it since it didn’t happen yet and I don’t own a flux capacitor, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be one hell of a good time. There will be pictures, oh yes, there will be pictures documenting the whole evening and I’m totally looking forward to it. Last year at Jackie’s birthday was the first time we actually truly hung out and I started grasping just how awesome she really is. One might say that was the night that kick started it all, so it’s kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling for me being out with her again, a year later, only playing a better role in her life. The role of boyfriend extraordinaire (her words, not mine [ok, they were my words]). Look forward to more blogs over the coming weeks so I don’t have to write long diatribes like this any friggin more.

…I end up slacking off again.

This is the story of every website I’ve ever had since the beginning… The URL for which I cannot consciously recall.  I all I remember was that it was an Angelfire.com website about cars…

 Sidenote: I found the URL of a site I worked on a hell of a long time ago with my friend Dan.  This site pre-dates my high school era, so be gentle (when judging both the content AND design) –> http://www.geocities.com/gottheliphe

Anyway, every day I’m in here I start bangin out at least one, often times two templates for sites that aren’t my own.  Meanwhile my site has been a splash screen for the past 5 months.  It sucks.  By the time I arrive home and sit at my computer, the last thing I want to focus on is designing another site.  It’s just not the same anymore (unfortunately) because web design went from being a hobby to a jobby… It starts to lose it’s appeal after the first 8 hours a day I spend on it.

REGARDLESS NONETHELESS:

I will finish my site, even if it’s only a few static pages with minimal content.  I will fill it up as I go, because I feel like I have a lot to offer in the vein of design and video on this crazy internet of ours, and I’ll be damned if my voice goes unheard for much longer.

Things That Web Design Will Now Take Precedence Over: Eating, Sleeping, Cleaning, Relaxing, Napping, and other web-related design endeavors.

Things That Web Design Will Not Take Precedence Over: Jackie, Family, Friends, Work (damn it), Weekend Fun, Thursday nights.

As many of you know, I have a proclivity towards the creative aspects of life. I love making things, whether they’re videos, audio snippets, pictures, illustrations, or web pages, if there’s some degree of creative freedom involved, I want to be a part of it.

For the last couple of months I’ve been the opposite of inspired, but for no real reason other than lack of time. As a result, all of these (in my mind) great ideas I’ve had were placed in the crock pot that is my mind to simmer for a while and become delicious. Recently I was hit with the urge to create in a big way. It’s a writing/video project and maybe something in the vein of music making (though correlated to the original). I discussed this briefly with the lady last night, but I’d like to extrapolate upon it a little further and give it a life of it’s own, something I can reference back to when need be:

The music idea came to me while walking down Chestnut Street between 2nd & 3rd Streets. I crossed a small walkway, which I always assumed to be an alley and for the first time in my entire life walking around in this area (I’d say I’ve passed this stretch of pavement at least 50 times before), I glanced down the alley to find that it was no alley at all, but a remnant of a long forgotten street. Cobblestone lined and just slightly wider than the width of my arms extended, there was one sign hanging from a building a few yards away, it read: Bank Street Hostel.

The how’s and why’s never really dawned on me, but I instantly had melodies playing in head. Beautiful and dissonant as the phrase Bank Street Hostel swirled around my mind. I immediately began relating it back to a story that I conceptualized, but never actually began. The words started coming to me and I haven’t forgotten them yet:

SCENE: A dark basement room, lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a bare wire. A man is tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised. The camera pans slowly around him in a circle to reveal he’s surrounded by four men wielding pipes, bats, etc. A voice starts speaking, but it’s unclear who is actually talking.

1: “Ever hear stories about deep meditation? I wouldn’t expect you to have… The Cliff’s Notes version is this: the end-all be-all goal is reaching a higher level consciousness, a deep, spiritual sanctuary within. Buddhists are probably the most notorious meditators on the planet.”

2: “Is that a fact?”

1: “It certainly is. Get this… true story: a Buddhist monk once meditated for 10 straight years with no food and no water. When scientists heard about this, they immediately came seeking permission to study him. Their findings revealed that this monk, simply with his mind, was able to slow his heart rate and breathing down to unbelievably low levels while constantly maintaining his higher brain functions.”

3: “Sounds like a crock.”

1: “You haven’t even heard the best part. After the ten years, this guy just wakes up and tells everyone that he now has ‘a heightened sense of things’.

4: “Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

1: “While walking through his hometown afterwards, he hesitates before going into a market. Moments later the market building bursts into flames. While traveling along a cliff he felt the imperative need to rest in a small cave moments before a 170 foot Cypress tree came rolling down the edge of the mountain.”

2: “And just what the fuck does this story have to do with you?”

1: “I’m also feeling a heightened sense of things, and it’s telling me you’re all going to die very soon.”

2, 3, 4, 5: [Laughter]

2: “And how do you…”

SCENE: Just at that moment, the ropes drop from the hands of the man bound to the chair. He swings his right arm up and around hard enough to send the gun hidden up his sleeve into his hand where he immediately shoots the man in front of him, quickly grabbing the pipe he once held from mid air with his left, then snapping his arm right and shooting the man frozen there, who was too paralyzed to die immediately. He simultaneously swings the pipe he’s holding in his left hand into the jaw of the man on his left and kicks the chair he was on backwards and it slams into the man, moments ago standing coolly behind him, now charging him with a nail-bat. He does all of this with a grace that would make you uneasy to watch, you can tell he’s done this before. Maybe a million times. Before either of the two remaining men have a chance to hit the ground, they have a flurry of bullets headed in their direction that they should be worrying about first. The once-bound man walks off toward a door in the distance. He exits into what appears to be an alleyway, throwing the bloodied pipe into a sewer. The sign hanging from the building is white and pronounced and defiant in this cold, midnight air. It reads: Bank Street Hostel.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Any and all comments appreciated.

As some of you may know, yesterday was the six month anniversary of Ms. Jacqueline Sauer and I. I know, I know… it’s probably a bit gushy and over-the-top to make a huge deal out of it, but I’m going to anyway because I love her like whoa.

There will probably be many, many, many parentheticals contained herein:

We kept it low-key, since it was a Tuesday. If it was, say Friday, then we would’ve gone all out balls-to-the-wall happy fun time extravaganza. But, I reiterate, it was a Tuesday, so we tentatively planned to go see Spiderman 3 at Neshaminy and get some ice cream from Coldstone (the ice cream idea came first, for the record). On the drive up to Neshaminy, I was yawning up a storm (not that I wasn’t excited, I was just tired) and moments before we left Jackie had just waken up from a 2 hour nap. Suffice it to say we were a ton of fun to be around… for a Tuesday. We ended up not seeing a movie but instead just going back to my house, talking and laughing with D-bag, and ended up with her coercing me into staying over her house so we could sleep a little later today (on account of my driving her downtown for Jury Duty).

I have some fun things planned and for this weekend and I hope we get to do them all. That’s all for this post.

I’m making my triumphant return (for about the fifth time in two years), if only in a mediocre, bloggy kind of way. It dawned on me that I was beginning to let some meaningless things (like work, mostly) get in the way of pursuing what it is I would like to do. As a result I’m going to do some heavy-duty blogging on here and really working hard to get my site built using Wordpress as a CMS. It’s been something that, quite frankly, I’ve been adverse to doing because it’s a whole new learning experience for me, but I’m determined to get it done for myself and for everyone interested in reading what I have to say. I also thought it would be appropriate to keep my personal journal separate from the main Greater Satellites one if for no other reason than privacy.

Let’s recap since the last time I updated, which by my estimates was a brief, almost inner monologue-esque post about a month and a half ago:

Let’s start with the family. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and a very pleasant one for the matriarch in our household. Denise and I made her dinner, bought her a nice flower arrangement, some chocolates, and two cards. Although I wasn’t there to see her face when she walked in the door (damn bowling league), secondhand accounts from Denise combined with mom’s big hug at the end of the day led me to believe that she was quite pleased. Outside of that, all family stuff is going swell.

I wish there was a synonym for the following combination of words: gorgeous, fun, inspiring, artistic, supportive, understanding, honest, and wonderful that also happened to rhyme with Jacqueline. She’s always on my mind, and not in that stalker-ish kind of way. She’s always the last person on my recent call/text list. She makes me feel better when I have a case of the Mondays. I would do anything for her, and I hope she knows it. In case you couldn’t tell I’m pretty much head over heels. Tomorrow will be our 6-month anniversary and I have something special in mind for her.

Work is going really well too. I know people don’t really celebrate month milestones at jobs, but I like to keep close tabs on where I’m spending my time and if it’s benefitting me in some long-term fashion. Cinco de Mayo was the 6 months at this job. In the past, me having a job for six months was like ice staying solid over 32 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course). In this instance, I believe I’ve found something really special and I’m glad to be a part of the team to which I currently belong. My coworkers are all cool, the bosses are great, and my pay rate is more than satisfactory. Now all I have to do is start stashing some loot and preparing for either A) a new car or B) an edifice I can call my own.

The next big thing is getting Greater Satellites launched. I’d like to start taking on some more freelance work, even if I have to hand some of it off to friends or co-workers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great getting your check on the 1st and 15th, but it’s infinitely more rewarding to accomplish something on your own. That what I want to set out to do again.

That wasn’t really much of a recap of the past month or so… Before I wrap it up, here it is in a nutshell: Family is doing great (dad will be getting a pool installed by June… woot!), all time spent with or talking to Jackie has been fantastic, I need to reconnect with some friends I haven’t spoken with in a while, the new computer is still fucking awesome, I have a bed now for the first time in about a decade, and I think that whole “growing up” thing that I’ve heard so much about is starting to gently settle upon me. Things are really, really good.

I’m sorry, January. You know I didn’t mean that. I was just playing, that’s all.

I wanted to update because I haven’t written anything in quite a bit. So far this month has gone by very quickly and it shows no signs of slowing, either. I’ve worked a lot and played a little… which is something I would ultimately like to change, if possible. I’m just so tired after work that I feel like doing little-to-nothing. Couple that with the fact that this weather is getting more bitter by the day and you have the perfect formula for creating a shut-in.

Either way, I’m now taking steps to rectify that and hopefully see friends more often than I currently do (rarely). Goal number one is to get the car running by the end of the month. Just get some decent insurance going and have it inspected pre-emptively so there are no unexpected issues that crop up when driving to and from somewhere important. Goal number two is to buy some decent winter clothes to combat this stupid weather. It sounds silly, but I don’t own a really good winter coat that I like wearing. So this weekend I’m gonna buy a heavy duty Carhartt/Dickies work jacket or hood, so I don’t have to keep layering the shit out of myself everywhere I go. Goal number three also happens this weekend: get another god damn cell phone. I’ve lived in the dark ages long enough. I’m going to sign up for Cingular (soon to become AT&T) and get me a Blackberry Pearl so I can be one of the cool kids again. The job now affords me all kinds of interesting stuff, so I’m definitely sticking around there because they appreciate the work I do, and they compensate me fairly for the work performed. Gotta love respect in the workplace.

That’s all for now, kids. By the end of the month I also intend to have my new website provisioned at the very least. Maybe a February opening. So stay tuned for all that good stuff.