And I'd like to take advantage of a flock of wild birds.

It’s Sunday night and I’ve officially finished settling into my new apartment. Today my roommates Emily, Heather and Lindsay and myself went through the house, cleaned out the kitchen and the kitchenette in the house making room for new food and hodgepodge. We're all pretty green people (Emily is even an ECO-Rep for UVM) and I'm glad about that. We recycle, return bottles and cans, and even have a compost on the back porch. Once I have time and completely finish setting up my new room, which is the attic of the house, I’ll post some pictures.

Last night we had company over for a potluck sort of shindig. We made jungle juice for the occasion and I made my specialty, hummus. If you know me, you know I make a mean hummus. This kind was roasted red pepper and roasted garlic and it was delectable. All the folks were residents of the Green House here at UVM and friends of Emily and Heather. They were really some genuinely awesome people. Some made pasta, others brought fruit, veggies, chips, a kickass batch of cupcakes and later in the night a savory flatbread. It was a tremendous effort by all that resulted in a great time.

Classes begin tomorrow morning, and I’m super excited for my course load. I’m taking Intermediate German, Ancient to Medieval Art History, the Fund of Social Research, Globalization, and the Social Organization of Death and Dying, which I am very keyed up to take. I’m also glad that I’ll be able to see my friends all the time. The most difficult part for me right now is transitioning back into the swing of school. This summer has been very laid back and it hasn’t hit me yet that school is back in session. Once it does though, I’ll be ready. A day of classes will help. I haven’t really had time the past few weeks to catch up on my book reading. It was good while it lasted. I did pick up The Nimrod Flipout from the UVM library before I went home last weekend and started it, but I never got to finish it.

Speaking of going home, I got to see my friends Nick and Marissa. Nick, after taking a year off, is going back to the University of Rochester. Marissa just left for France yesterday to study at Sciences Po in Paris to the next year. I spoke with her today and she seems to be having a great time already. While home I went to the doctor to get my stomach checked out. They said that it is most likely excess acid building up in my stomach, which is causing my problems. For the next month I can’t eat spicy, salty, greasy, sugary, citrusy or other foods of that nature and take Prilosec every night before bed. This will be a tough month; I'm a spice man.

I need to get to bed early so I can wake up early tomorrow ready and energetic for classes. I have German and Art History starting at 10:40. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you’re interested in some reading material right now, read this article about this new bill being brought to the Senate. Prepare to be appalled.

[Link]

Bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands.

I haven’t been reading much as much this past week or two. My bad, I guess. Well I’m going home this weekend to drop off stuff from the summer I won’t need for my new apartment and also picking up stuff to bring up. Basic stuff. I’ve decided to try and be as minimal as I can be considering what I have and need. I’ll try not to collect so much crap I don’t need. We’ll see how that goes. Probably not well. It’s inevitable.

Also while I’m home I’ll be going to the doctor to get a a possible diagnosis on what’s been going on with my stomach lately. On and off for the past 5 or 6 months I’ve been getting stomach aches once every week or two. I had one yesterday that was pretty debilitating and I had to leave work early, spew my guts throughout the course of the day and night, and miss work today. That seems like a problem to me. I personally think it’s some sort of acid issue.

Last weekend I had my friends Nick and Tim visit me. We spent some quality time together eating, drinking, and going to the beach. Per usual we went to Pacific Rim on Friday night. We also ate at the local American Flatbread on Saturday, and even got a free flatbread. This happened because upon Tim’s last visit we had gone to AF and received a free flatbread token from our wonderful waitress because she had accidently dropped our leftovers. If you ever go, her name is Nikki and she’s awesome. Thereupon we got the meat special, which had organic Yak meatballs, the roasted tomato salsa and the punctuated equilibrium flatbreads. Nick got the Evolution Salad and Tim and I got the special salad of the night, which had three different types of tomatoes (red, green, and yellow), mozzarella, arugula and a great dressing. Never lets us down for a great meal.

As you probably know by now, I live in Burlington on Lake Champlain so we don’t get tides or real waves or anything at the beach but on Sunday, it was tremendously windy so the waves were about 3 or 4 feet above head level. It was absolutely perfect. The water was warm, the air a bit cooler, but the sun made it in the high 70’s. They were the perfect height for bodysurfing and diving. Fantastic day, and we had a great lunch at Vermont Sandwich Co. If you ever get a chance to go to VTC, get the Fire and Smoke, because it’s good. Damn good.

In the meantime I figure that I should post something at least a little interesting. So I present some of my stencil work. This is stuff I’ve done over the past few years. I make ‘em by hand, oftentimes they’re from pictures that I take myself. I like to do portraits a lot. It’s sort of a side project I like to go back to every now and again, but unfortunately I don’t usually have much time for it these days.

This one was for a friend's snowboard; he wanted a custom graphic

Katie

Nick

Circa 2008

This was for my old roommate Gavin's broomball team jersey.

Beth

Gail

Kappes -- My favourite one

Yours truly.

I have others, but I either haven't photographed them recently or they're my um... secret ones. Shh. Look! Yonder! A ferryboat! Cough. If and when I make any more, I'll have to post them for you guys.

This is World War II and everyone here is thinking of you.

One Wednesday night two weeks ago the sunset was surreal. The whole sky was yellow and there was a rainbow in the eastern sky and it was sprinkling a bit. Surreal evening. Gianna and I decided to walk to the waterfront and watch the rest of the sunset. It was quite stunning. We stood around and watched for about 10 minutes or so and then decided to change vantage points. We walked towards the fountain by the waterfront and on the ground I happened to find a soaking wet book face bown on the ground. I was super excited, so I picked it up and gave it a stare down. It was called The Girl on the Fridge written by Etgar Keret, who is an Israeli author. After scanning the covers and reading the reviews, it sounded like a really weird book, but I was intrigued. I took it home excited. It's a book filled with 46 different short stories none more than 5 pages long. Some are funny, others are sad, some hit you right in the gut, while others are just stupid little stories that make you laugh out loud. Separately they may not add up to much, but together they make a great collection, which is strangely cohesive and makes you want to keep reading. When I got home, I read the first story in it, called Asthma Attack.

"When you have an asthma attack, you can't breathe. When you can't breathe, you can hardly talk. To make a sentence all you get is the air in your lungs. Which isn't much. Three to six words, if that. You learn the value of words. You rummage through the jumble in your head. Choose the crucial ones--those cost you too. Let healthy people toss out whatever comes to mind, the way you throw out the garbage. When an asthmatic says "I love you," and when an asthmatic says "I love you madly," there's a difference. The difference of a word. A word's a lot. It could be stop, or inhaler. It could even be ambulance."

After that I was sold. Ended up blowing through the book and loving it. I'm going to be looking into his other book The Nimrod Flipout, and I see it's at the UVM library, so I'll have to check it out.

The book I was reading prior to that one was the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser. Millhauser is actually a family friend, and I have been meaning to read that book for years, but I never got around to it until this summer.

I started it two Sundays ago and read a little bit of it, but once Monday came, that was a whole different story. I read on my way to work, on my lunch break, on the walk home and then for three hours on my porch and couch. I finished it in Bliss Park leaning up against a tree when I went home for my uncle’s funeral.

Whilst reading, I kept imaging nineteenth-century New York City, it's boom and it's splendor, the entrepreneurial spirit in the air, the old pushing out the new. Some scenes depicted in the book at points are so grandiose and flamboyant that you don’t know what could top such things, but he manages to do it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Martin Dressler and I need to delve into more Millhauser. I should shoot him an email.

What I’m reading next is The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I’ll update when I finish that.

Also, went to a show at Metronome last night. Maps & Atlases, Laura Stevenson & The Cans, and Cults played. Great show, even though Cults had a horrible sound check/set-up. I didn't bring my camera to the show, but I'm sure you guys can google like champs. If I put up another mix I'll throw them on there!

God I hope I'm keeping this blog interesting enough.

I developed a couple rolls of film recently.

All images taken with a 35mm Canon FTb.

This is the night I found The Girl on the Fridge.

Dr. Gerald Esi Odentz [1924-2010]

Thursday, the 29^th of July my great uncle passed away. To the family he was Uncle Jerry. He was 86 when he passed. I went home that Friday and stayed until Monday spending time with family and friends. The funeral was on Sunday and was very nice. It was good to see family I hadn’t been around in a very long time. I stress that. I hadn’t been in my Aunt Jolly’s house for about 5 years. She lives in the same town as me. We used to go all the time for Passover dinners and get-togethers of that nature, but when my uncle developed Alzheimer’s he retired, it got hard for her to manage it, and we moved the holidays to my cousin’s house, and then I went to college so I was rarely home. It was sad to see him pass and we all will miss him greatly.