Posts Tagged ‘ party ’

family reunion; the fragility of our lives

this past weekend K and i made a trek north for a family reunion (on my dad’s side).  the last time i went to one of these things was the summer after my senior year of high school.  i wore a red t-shirt that said “13th annual johnson family reunion” on the front and “back to the good ol’ days.  peace, love, and harmony” on the back.  note, my last name is not johnson and the family depicted on the back is black (i am also not black).  i thought for sure this t-shirt would get a laugh out of everyone there and i would be a comedy sensation.  alas, no one even noticed the shirt (even my parents) so all i did the entire time was wander around wondering why no one in my family paid any goddamn attention to the genius in their midst.

this time i didn’t have any such notions of being the center of attention so i just wore a really cool t-shirt i got at comfest from vivisect apparel of ohio with a bunch of math lines drawn on it.  (they don’t seem to have the design on their website or etsy store, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when i say it’s really fucking cool.  of course, i like just about anything with ohio on it, so maybe i’m slightly biased).

family reunions aren’t something that happen very often in my family.  this one was mostly for my dad’s cousins (with a different last name than ours) so i really didn’t know anyone there outside of my immediate family and my aunt/uncle.  i’m generally not that outgoing at events like this, and apparently no one else in the family is either, as i ended up sitting at a table with everyone i knew for most of the afternoon.

Great-great grandparents with my Great grandfather

Great-great grandparents with my Great grandfather

at one point my great uncle don from florida suggested that 2 people from each table get up and move to another table to get to know some people.  one of my dad’s cousins and her son ended up at our table which was cool because they were kind of interesting people.  the lady was a yodeller and had travelled to europe a few times to attend yodelling … events … i guess.  her son was a native american re-enactor who has been on the history channel a few times.  he was also a metal worker.  he recently did a handrail for the wrigley’s of chicago (wrigley field, etc).

it’s pretty interesting to hear about these people that share genes with me, but that i don’t know at all.  we have some things in common.  there are quite a few musical/artistic people in my family which is pretty neat.  of course, those genes seemed to have skipped me, although i guess i am kind of creative in certain ways.  just not visually artistic or musical.

the best part of the reunion, to me, was one of the 2nd/3rd/whatever cousins had done a good bit of geneology research and had cds with old photos on them.  it’s strange to look at these pictures and think of these people as actually existing.  even stranger to think that i wouldn’t be here without them. it just kind of brings into perspective the entirety of humanity, in a way. all these disparate events and people connect in your past and somehow you are made out of those completely random encounters.  even more amazing when you take into account the myriad and infinite ways that things can not happen.

Great grandfather and his first car in 1918

Great grandfather and his first car in 1918

Ancestral Home in Baden Baden

Ancestral Home in Baden Baden

2009
07/13
CATEGORY
Family
Life
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ohio got ike’d

yeah it was like 2 weeks ago but we didn’t have power for 6 days, then my pc was having issues so i’m just now getting around to writing about it.

let me just say that i really feel for those poor souls down in TX that got completely jacked by ike.  i have a much greater sympathy for them now since i’ve been through this minor ordeal.  not having power sucked for sure, but not having a home at all must be the worst feeling in the world.  so all my love and support to those people that have lost it all in any kind of catastrophe.  also, this is going to seem like minor shit in comparison to their troubles.

that said, here’s my thoughts on our little “adventure”.

for one, it was pretty cool to see the wind blowing like it was.  it was amazing to look up into the sky and see the low lying storm clouds flying by at amazing speeds, but then up above them the higher, wispier clouds just standing utterly still.  i really wanted to see something come crashing down, but i missed it all.  we did have some debris fall near our place though.

debris 1

debris 1

debris 2

debris 2

there was some pretty sweet damage other places around town too.  saw this tree brutally ripped basically in two and leaning on another tree next to it.

tree damage

tree damage

not having power is definitely very shitty.  of course, K and i had just bought groceries the day before we lost power.  by tuesday (almost 72 hours without power) we had eaten what we could and thrown out the rest.

i didn’t really miss tv all that much.  i really only watch a couple of things on it, so i didn’t feel like i needed it to be entertained.  you think “oh, i can read or play a board game or find something else to do” until you are actually in the situation.  have you tried to read anything by candlelight recently?  it fucking sucks.  it gives you a headache after a few minutes.  games are ok but they can be hard to see by flame also.  what we ended up doing was either going to other friends who had power, or else going to bed at like 9pm.

losing power also made me realize just how fragile our society really is.  at first it’s kind of fun.  you get to “camp out” in your own house and burn candles and all that shit.  after a couple of days it starts to get old.  after a few more you think that you’ll never have power again.  i started to think about what it would be like if we lost power for a longer time (or even forever).  it would be hard to feed yourself.  you don’t realize how much food you have that needs to be refrigerated until you don’t have one anymore.  peanut butter (but no jelly, because it needs to be kept cool after opening) and bread gets old fast.  so does slightly cooler than room temperature beer.

let me explain how our little condo neighborhood is arranged.  there is a road that runs around a cluster of buildings, with other buildings around it (see my oh-so-awesome mspaint diagram below).  what happened was, one night while K and i were out running errands the power came back on.  we drove by and saw a neighbors porch light in.  in elation we decide to go get dinner out one last night. this was on weds night, around 6pm.  by the time we made it back home at 7 the power was out in our building and a few others (in black below) while other buildings in our area had power (in yellow below).

let me tell you how annoying this was.  from our back window i could see buildings on the other side of the back street  with every goddamn light on possible. i swear these people went into every room in their condo and turned on every fucking light possible.  it was like they were flaunting their power to those of us a mere 20ft away.  i really felt bad for the people directly across from them that didn’t have power.

powah

powah

so since we saw other people around us with power we knew something must be up.  K calls the power company and lets them know we don’t have power, our neighbors do, etc etc etc.  they tell her that we should have power.  she assures them we do not.  they tell her they’ll look into it and get back to us.

by the next day, we still didn’t have power.  this annoys us greatly, so we call again.  again we get the “you should have power” line.  we tell them again that we do not.  we even go so far as to say we saw someone outside (a neighbor possibly, we weren’t sure) with a flashlight checking out boxes on the poles.  we’re afraid someone is going to try to fix it on their own.  the lady at AEP tells us thanks for the info and she’d put a note in our account.

that same day one of the neighbors comes by while i’m out back grilling.  he introduces himself and asks if we’d called the power company.  i tell him yeah we just did and also that we’d called the day before.  he then tells me that his wife had called, got the whole “you should have power” story so they decided to go around to every neighbor they could find to tell them to call AEP to let them know that there actually is a problem here and we don’t have power.

a few minutes later the previously mentioned wife comes by and tells us that one of the other neighbors she talked to was told that there weren’t enough units out in our area for it to be a “high priority” and that we shouldn’t expect power until early in the following week.

this news disheartened us greatly because we were planning on having a bday party for K on the next day (friday).  we decided that power or not, we were having the party and started to plan accordingly.  we went out and bought about 66lbs of ice and filled our coolers with beer.  we had already gotten rid of pretty much all the food so we went out and stocked up on snacks and stuff for the party.  we came back home around 830 or so and started getting everything packed into the coolers.

of course, about 10 minutes after moving coolers around, filling them with beer, getting candles out and ready what happens?  the fucking power comes back on!  the next day (friday) we had our party, with power, and all was well.

all in all it was an eye opening experience.  dealing with the power company during an emergency can be a real pain in the ass.  the worst part about it is, they’re the power company, so it’s not like you can threaten to get your power from someone else.  you are totally at their mercy.  i’m just glad we didn’t have to go for a full week without power.  the 5 days we did go was bad enough.

2008
09/28
CATEGORY
Life
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maybe you noticed my awesome intro on norbz.org?

or maybe not. whatever. doesn’t matter. what does matter is my man daryl who made that for me. he’s something of an internet phenomena in his own right. he’s had hits on ytmnd.com (yes that ytmnd.com). he’s been flamed on there even! what a feat! what a man!

this is for him too btw

last weekend i hit up the strip club for my friend’s bachelor party. now i’m not one to particularly enjoy strip clubs. i mean, don’t get me wrong, i like to see naked chicks… i’d just rather not pay too much for it. i do, however, love to talk to strippers. they tend to be either very interesting or very stupid. both of which can lead to some great conversations. (i find that taxi drivers are another sect of humanity that can be really great or really terrible to talk to. try them both out sometime)

the girl i decided to finally give me a lap dance was pretty cute. i’d been shooting down the girls most of the night as they made their rounds. finally i broke down for this tall girl with some piercings. we go back to the “private area” (where you can of course see every other perv getting dances… how “private”) so i can get my dance. the song hasn’t started yet so she’s taking off her top and we’re just kind of making small talk before the dance starts. i’ve not been to too many strip clubs, but i have been to a few so i know this situation can go one of two ways. 1) it’s awkward because she thinks you are perverted and/or some sort of lame ass dud that has to pay for chicks or 2) you can find at least one thing in common to talk about and avoid the awkwardness of seeing someone you don’t know at all completely naked about 1″ from you.

well, the talk turns to star wars. she tells me she can do a good wookie impression. i tell her to do it and i’ll be the judge. she makes a rather hilaroius attempt at it then gets embarassed (first time i’ve seen a stripper get embarassed). i ask her to do it again and she says that everyone will think she’s some kind of weird-o if they hear her trying it. we both have a pretty good laugh.

somehow she mentions that she plays World of Warcraft. i’m stunned. i used to play WoW for like 2 years. i’m amazed that i’ve randomly chosen the one stripper in the world that plays WoW. after the dance she goes about her merry way and i return to my friends to tell them of my amazing discovery (a couple of the guys there have played WoW too). there are many exclamations (a lot of them along the lines of “you nerd why are you talking about WoW with a stripper?!”) but nonetheless it’s fun.

she comes up to our table later to chat (and i’m sure to try to get me to pay for another dance, which i won’t). we talk about WoW some more, i ask what class she plays, etc. a couple of the other guys are listening in with looks of amazement. it’s almost as if a WoW character stepped off the screen into real life (hello WEIRD SCIENCE!). i always like to ask strippers if they like their job. sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t (not really any different from any other profession i’m sure). she says she hates it and mostly because of the mean guys and vindictive, crazy strippers she has to work with. as she says this, another girl comes over and WoW chick exclaims that this is her favorite person here. after a few minutes this new girl tells me she has a star wars tattoo, and that it’s of max rebo (the blue guy from the band in jabba’s palace). she wasn’t as nice as WoW girl and seemed annoyed when i told her i didn’t have money for a dance but that i liked her song selection when she was on stage (her: “why didn’t you tip me then?” me: “i have a dollar now” her: “well now i don’t want it!” me:”good!”)

so i guess strippers are nerds too. who knew??

2007
10/05
CATEGORY
Life
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