Tomorrow I move to my apartment in Burlington for the summer. I am really excited to see what the summer has in store for me. I haven't found a steady job yet, which I'm getting wary about at this point, but for a few weeks I'll be working for the Registrar's Office at UVM full time 8-4:30, which will help quite a bit.
In my spare time, this being on Tuesdays, I'm going to be participating in the Burlington Ultimate Summer League, which has games every Tuesday. I'm also going to be playing with the Burlington club ultimate team Double Dragon, so that'll be a good time. Hoping to be quite active this summer, so I'm not sitting around on my ass all the time.
But rest assured, there will be some loafing this summer. It wouldn't be summer without rolling around in bed or outside and reading. And boy, do I have quite the book list to tackle, and I really want to accomplish a hefty amount of it. Here it goes, take a deep breath... (in no special order)
- Coward by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski
- The Sorrows of Young Werther by J.W. von Goethe
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
- Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut
- Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
- Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
- Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
- Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
- Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser
- The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
- The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Suffice to say, I have a lot on my plate, but to make it more interesting, as I read them, I'll attempt to update the blog and give a little review or at least tell you what I think about it. And before I even start this mountain of books, I need to finish The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. God help me. Fingers crossed?
So since I've been home for about two weeks, and despite being quite lazy in this time, I decided I needed to do a little bike upgrade. Formerly, I owned a red GT Palomar mountain bike. POS for short. I won't even bother you with a picture. But in our garage hanging on a hook from the ceiling for about the past, oh, I'd say at least 13 years, there was a Murray Cintro 10-speed that belonged to my father. The last thing he's gonna do is ride that bike, so I decided to take it under my wing.
The first thing I did was take it to one of our local bike shops to get it tuned up
. My father said that he had gotten it tuned up around 5 years ago, but I called his bluff. So I got new brakes, pedals, and everything tightened up all for $37. Other than that it was in good condition. So I got this baby back. What next? THE CLEANUP.
For this job, I busted out my good old pal, Barkeeper's Friend.
Ignore the grimace on my face, but take note of the sweet pear lamp. So now what? Well let me tell you what, I spent hours sitting on the floor of my garage scrubbing all the rust pits out of those rims, the pedal crank, the brake levers, pretty much anything that wasn't painted, and I washed down the painted parts. It got really pretty really fast!
Look at that baby shine! In any event, so that guy rides real nice. I'll have to think of a name for 'em. Thurgood? Doris? We'll see. I'll keep you updated on that. It'll to come into it's own. Excited to cruise around Burlington with it. Hope it takes well to Main Street.
Okay, I'm going to cut this post short. My excuse is Hemingway's quote about writing: "The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next." It's late, I have plenty to talk about, so I'll just pick it up later.
Here, if you have 4 minutes: At the Drive-In -- Transatlantic Foe [Live]
