Posts Tagged 'Life'

Megan

Published December 21, 2010 Wedding 12 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

This is Megan.

We met in 2009 at Norwich, where we were classmates in the Military History program. During the our residency week in June, we met, found that we had a lot in common and began to date. She left, then she drove back up to Vermont. I drove down to Pennsylvania. She came back up, and I spent the New Year’s with her, and drove down again a week later after her father passed away to be with her during the funeral. We talked every night on the phone, even when we had nothing to say. I gave her books, and she surprised me with cards in my mail box.

In May, I somehow convinced her to move up to Vermont, where she worked at Residency with me for a couple of weeks. We drove to work together, and then she found a job working at a school nearby. Her parents visited us over the summer, and we stopped by my parents house to visit my family’s dog, Fionna (and my parents). My dad pulled me aside during one visit, and told me that while he didn’t know what my plans were, she wasn’t someone to let go. I agreed.

Megan moved in, prompting a flutter of change and movement around my life. My apartment was rearranged, our floors are groaning under the weight of our combined bookshelves. I’ve learned to cook for two people, and we take walks up and down the street or around the city every night. We rent movies together and surprise one another with a hug or a kiss when the other isn’t expecting it. We’ve gone swimming in the local rivers nearby and we drive up to Burlington on a whim for Christmas shopping or a movie when the mood strikes us.

I’ve never, ever been as happy as I’ve been since she entered my life a year and a half ago.

I’ve asked her to marry me. She said yes.

Barre St. Market

Published September 18, 2009 Post Closed
Tags: , , ,

I stopped by the small corner market on my street last night. It’s not a place that I’ve visited much, despite it being just down the street from me, within an easy walk. I only went into it because while cooking dinner last night, I found that I didn’t have any milk. Part of my meal was already cooking, so I grabbed my jacket and walked down to pick up something, and seeing that Shaw’s was about a half-mile down the road, this would be quicker.

I honestly don’t know why I’ve never stopped by the place. I think I’ve been in there only once before. I think the perception of that street and the shop’s size has just led me to think that there’s not much there – the larger supermarkets in the area carry just about everything that I need, and as such, I tend to drive right past this place. When I walked in last night, I wasn’t necessarily expecting much. I picked up my milk (Which I suspect, is currently sitting on the counter after using it last night. Crap.) went to the counter to pay, only to be told my the owner (who I think is Bangladeshi) politely told me that there was a ten-dollar minimum on debit purchases. Annoyed, I turned and looked around for something else to get so that I could complete my purchase and walk through the rain to my apartment to finish my cooking.

The store was immaculate. I hadn’t so much as glanced around the room when I walked into the shop as I made a beeline for the milk. Now that I had a chance to look around the store a bit more, I saw that the shoulder-high shelves were laden with goods, and they were organized, their bright labels facing outwards, each one perched on the edge of the shelf with care. The floor was spotless, and the candy bars were behind a pane of glass, neatly arranged. Further browsing for a second revealed that this wasn’t like a gas station convenience store, with the stock number of goods designed for a quick grab by a traveller looking to get in and out – there was a genuine selection here.

I grabbed a six-pack of beer, one of the things that sprung to mind that I knew I didn’t have, and planned to pick up, and returned to the front, where I waited for the shop owner to sell a boy a candy bar while his dad browsed. The exchange was very homely, comforting and alien to me. In the past two years that I’ve lived in Montpelier, I don’t think that I’ve exchanged more than a couple of words to the vendor, who looked about as interested in my day as I was in theirs. Similarly, I’ve never seen the same amount of devotion and attention to detail in the larger stores.

I’m not likely to shop there as much as I do the other stores. There’s a reason why I’ll make the drive over to Berlin or down the street to one of the larger stores – they have a larger selection for what I generally buy, and probably a bit cheaper. When I go shopping, I tend to go cheap, and get everything at once. But having gone down to this small street market, I’m far more inclined to stop in more. I like the feeling and ambience with the place. It is far more welcoming and interesting. Not to mention closer.

Summer Weddings & Growing Up

Published August 5, 2009 Post Closed
Tags: , ,

This year has been particularly weird for me, when I was asked to be the best man for my two best friends, Sam and Eric, for their respective weddings, this summer. It’s not weird that they’re getting married – I wholeheartedly approve of their wifes, Miranda and Marla, respectively, but I’m a little more weirded out at how this helps to point out that we’re all growing up. Maybe growing up isn’t necessarily the right word – we’re all adults now, thrust into postitions within the working world, and we’ve since scattered to the wind after high school and college to our careers, lives and hobbies in our own corners of the planet.

While at Eric’s wedding, I talked with a couple of friends from high school for the first time in years. I’ve only really kept in touch with two friends from Harwood, a larger number from college, but there is very little looking back, or effort beyond things such as Facebook, to keep in touch with people. I see what a lot of my former classmates are up to, but I rarely engage with them in any meaningful sort of conversation. I think that’s good and bad, honestly. There’s very few people who I want to keep in touch with from high school, and as the years go on, (Six already!) we’ve all changed a lot. Some people, from what I’ve heard, have essentially moved from student to parent, something that continually baffles me. Others have gone on to travel to other countries and do some pretty cool things.

It’s a very strange feeling, looking back at my education and realizing that I’m largely out of that stage of my life, and realizing just how little high school prepared me for this sort of thing. All of my social interactions have changed with my personality and mannerisms as I’ve grown older, largely formed while in college, but there was just so much crap that I didn’t need or have any use for, and from everything that I read and hear about, it’s largely the same everywhere else. There’s been very little that’s prepared me for ‘real life’, it would seem.

I’m very happy for my friends, I think that they’re embarking on some very good places in life, but jesus. We’re grown up! When did that happen, because nobody told me.

This Is My Bookshelf

Published July 27, 2009 Post 2 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

I bought a new bookshelf today to help accomodate the vast overflow of books that I’ve accumulated during the past year and a half at my apartment. Since I’ve moved in, I’ve aquired a couple hundred new books in all numbers of genres. I had a number of piles, then towers of books springing up in very strange places all over my apartment, and the time was needed to find them a new home. A trip to Staples later, and I found such a home, a five-shelf, seven foot tall tower bookshelf. After a little construction, it was up and running, and a couple hours later, it became home to all of my history, biography, geek, science and space books, all now proudly on display. The piles are now gone, and the remaining shelves have been freed up a little, so I’m not too afraid of them bursting apart any more under the stress of overburdened shelves.

I love books. I can’t say why or how, really, but looking at my new shelf, now neatly organized by genre, then by author and title, I’ve found myself sitting and letting my eyes wander across the titles and the brightly coloured spines. There’s one about the 82nd Airborne in Normandy, the British Military during the Victorian era, the Spitfire aircraft, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the Paris 1919 peace conference, Kit Carson, the origins of the US Navy, Smallpox, comic comic books, Isaac Asimov, Roy Chapman Andrews, Apollo 13, Dwight Eisenhower, Salt, the Falklands and on and on. At my fingertips is a thousand journeys, stories and personalities, bound together with some paper, glue and ink, almost beckoning me to discover something new.

I suppose that there is a pretentious nature to this display, and I’m okay with that. Some people deck out their cars with the finest of accessories or toys or mud, while others display their degrees on the wall. I guess I want to demonstrate that I’m well read, versed in a number of different fields, eras of history, people, concepts or opinions, while still realizing that I haven’t read all of these. My own journey is one of learning, and looking at this shelf, I can see that there’s still a lot of distance to go there.

My main concern right now is that after all of the books have been settled in their proper place, shifted back and forth, there’s no more space left for the inevitable next couple hundred books that will be coming through the door to join them.

Randomness

Published March 9, 2007 Post Closed
Tags: ,

I’m on spring break now – it really seemed to come quickly! Hopefully, I’ll be getting a little work done with my D-Day project, at least with the background research and reading for the opening sections. After I get back, I’ll have quite a bit to do with individual unit histories and things like that.

Other random things:

  • The USPS will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Star Wars by putting out a number of mailboxes that look like R2-D2. Looks fun, I’m sure that some of those will vanish to collectors. Theforce.net has some pictures.
  • Kieth R.A. DaCandido, the hack who was assigned to the Serenity novelization is set to help degrade another favored fandom of mine, this time, the show Supernatural, which airs on the CW. I think that I’ll be passing that when it hits shelves. the Serenity novelization was poorly written as it was, and I’ve got plenty of other things to read.
  • My reading list for break: Finish Children of Men, Tempest, Good Omens, The Gunslinger, Iron Sunrise.
  • Apparently, my current math teacher also taught my Uncle Kevin and Aunt Mary when they were in middle school in Bristol. Small world…

Edit: And UPS just arrived with a box of books for me, from Simon & Schulster, all hardcovers, all free. w00t!

Random Happenings

Published January 12, 2007 Post Closed
Tags: , ,

Work in the Kiosk has gone back down to pre-Thanksgiving rush for calanders. Fortunently, I’ve been in the store more recently than I have in the Kiosk, which gives me more to do, like organizing books and being OCD about it. I think, and some people at work have said that I’m likely to be retained for the spring, which would be really handy.
I did an interview with someone from Norwich about facebook, how the studen body percieves and uses it, which was interesting. I have a bit of a love – hate relationship with that platform. Good way to keep in touch with people, and less sketchier than myspace, but god, does it eat up time. I’m going to try and make a consious effort to avoid the computer more this semester and read more. Let’s see if that actually happens.
Saw my friend Blackwell yesterday, he’s going back to school today. I really haven’t been around a whole lot of people this break. Maybe because of work or something, but I’ve been pretty much operating alone. Work, home, sleep, work, home, sleep. My roommate came back yesterday, before I’d cleaned the place a bit, but there’s some company. He’s been quiet.
And it’s been a week since I met up with Sarah. I miss her.

What I Did Last Year

Published January 2, 2007 Post Closed
Tags:

Last year, I went to First Night with my friend Sam, lost an aunt due to a lengthly illness, got ready for London, said goodbye to people, boarded a plane and flew to New York, spent the night and then flew to London. Met Barbara, Fran and Will and Flat 9 of 5 Doughty Street, took a tour of the city, got lost with Will, learned how to get around the city, walked all over the place, visited the British Museum numerous times, learned to love Indian food, visited Cambridge, Canterbury, Stratford-Upon-Avon, York, Oxford (x3), Bristol, Bath, Norwich, saw a Tintin play, drank in the Eagle and Child, watched as the muslim world erupted after some cartoons were published, watched the Olymics, went to Scotland and went hiking, saw the London theatres are much cooler than their American counterparts, saw some musicals and plays, got hooked on House MD, Supernatural, Green Wing and Prison Break, missed Battlestar Galactica and Stargate, had roommate problems, learned to live in a city, met Philip Pullman and Brian Aldiss, learned about Alexi Murdoch, KT Tunstall, the Arctic Monkeys, went through two iPods, got my heart broken, Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell, learned that a camper from camp died, worked at an innercity London School, went to Athens, Marathon and Pireus, Greece and met Megan, Heather, Emily, Todd and Christopher, learned that Stanislaw Lem died, got rehired to camp, walked London at night, pub crawls with Zach and Jason, went on a trip to Eastbourne with Katherine, met up with Sara and her friends, went on long tube rides, packed to go home, said goodbye to the roommates, flew New York, then to Burlingto, met my dad at the airport, missed London terribly, went back to Norwich, was elected the President of the Tactical society, got an apartment, packed up everything in my room and moved to 46 Catamount Drive, got my movies back from Rachel, saw Mission Impossible III, got a job at the Y as a lifeguard, bought a car, got the entire series of Dr Who from Beep, went to X3 with a bunch of Abnaki people, got a mobile phone, got hooked on Veronica Mars, won a backpack from a hiking store, moved out of the apartment and up to camp as a village director for Tamakwa, went through Admin Staff training, met the two British counselors and a whole slew of new ones, sketchy Dave was fired, geeks ruled camp, we lost Grandpa Raymond from Camp, went to the funeral for that, watched as it rained for the first couple weeks, went to see Superman Returns, getting used to paperwork, switching cabins, Abnaki hated Hochelega, designed a campwide activity that went off extremely well, Carbon Leaf announced their newest album, went to see Carbon Leaf for free!!!, my friend Eric became engaged, got stressed and burned out, camp ended, went back to Northfield, scared the crap out of my roommate, grandpa died, I really messed up an oil change, went through a comic book kick, got a TV and cable and high speed internet, was hired to Walden Books in the Berlin Mall, got Carbon Leaf’s new album, as well as Amos Lee’s, watched the Tactics club quadruple in size, rode my bike to school, crashed three times, broke my arm once, Smith was cancelled, I got hooked on Heroes, and Studio 60, late night talks with Sarah, the halfmile walk in the rain to the telephone, missed papers, won a photo contest, watched Galactica kick ass, made impromptu plans to visit Sarah that panned out, saw Carbon Leaf for the second time with my Sister, fell in love, dressed up as a Stormtrooper for Halloween, got bored at Walden books, saw lots of sketchy people, watched as the democrats took control of the government, started a photoblog, my friend Sam and Miranda got engaged, I listened to every song on my computer, learned to make bread, managed to accomplish no work during vacation, Sam Cohn died, the funeral was depressing, Work at the mall picked up, the Beatles released a new album, and I found a band called Trilobite, I got hooked on Life on Mars, still missed London, went insane as finals came and went, went to a bar with some friends and had to pull their car out of the ditch, went on a weird trip to find a christmas tree that proved to be far more complicated than it should have been, found time to actually read, and then found that I have ten books to go through, got all As and Bs for the semester, got some cool things for christmas, making plans to go to Ohio, and went to First Night in Burlington with Sam and Miranda.

It was a good year.

Love! And Snow!

Published December 4, 2006 Post 4 Comments
Tags: , , ,

Anyone here a fan of the Beatles? Who isn’t? Recently, they’ve released yet another album – this one entitled Love, which is the soundtrack to a Las Vegas show. Sounds very tacky, but with the former Beatles producer at the helm, and with the blessing of the two remaining Beatles, this is a simply amazing listen.

//g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/e1/d6/fa931363ada001e5b893f010.L.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

What they did is take 26 tracks from the album and went back to the original outtakes, as well as mixed in a number of other elements from other songs. There’s something like 48 of their songs wrapped up here in this album, whether it’s a drum beat or something.
The result is phenomenal – this is the Beatles as you’ve never heard them, and the sound is great. It’s fast, deep, rich and created with quite a bit of care. Unlike their Beatles 1 album, this is a better spectrum of their works, and the album flows from song to song almost effortlessly. I’ve asked my sister for this for christmas, and plan on getting this for a couple of other people. If you haven’t listened to it, do so. It’s really, really good.

And I woke up to one of the best things that I can think of- the ground is covered in an inch or so of fresh snow. It’s quite something to wake up and see the landscape an entirely different color. And you can’t go wrong with snow.

Just a couple more weeks of school, and the semester will be over. It’s going by fast.

Alone in the Flatland 'tween the Dream and the Real

Published November 29, 2006 Post Closed
Tags: , , ,

Things have been ranging between calm to panicky to depressing to happy over the past couple of days. My lax work ethic over the break is catching up to me now, with papers due on Monday, today, Thursday and things to start working on over the next week. Not to mention reading, and other studying that I should be doing.
As of right now, I’m halfway through my five page book review for History, on the book Franklin and Winston, by Jon Meacham, a fantastic history on Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. I was 90% done with the paper this afternoon, but when I went back over it, I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk handing that particular semi-incomprehensible draft in, so two days down the drain and I’m slowly working to bring this paper from the current three pages up to the required five to seven. I think that I should make it, things are starting to fall into place.
I’ve taken far too many breaks, but they’ve been for semi-good reasons. House was on tonight, with an okay episode, then Veronica Mars with the mid season finale and conclusion to the rape case with a very typical Veronica Mars ending. The rapists are found, but to lead into the next mystery, Dean O’Dell is found with a bullet in his head. Yay for the mid season breaks to start kicking in! Veronica MarsPrison Break is off the air until January, as is LOST, Jericho will be off after this week and Heroes will be off after next week and Battlestar will be off shortly as well. Just in time for vacation, when I’ll actually have the time to watch things.
And the Decemberists were on The Late Show, which was far too short. If you’re going to get a musical guest on for the night, you might as well have them on for more than one song. At least talk to them a little. They’re a good band, although it took me a bit longer than a year for them to grow on me – I have Sarah to thank for that. But their newer stuff sounds (at least to me) much better than some of the older stuff. They did sound good though.
And despite the work and things, I’ve been getting to bed earlier than usual, getting up earlier, an arrangement I’m not terribly thrilled with, but it’s livable. Lonelier though.
Now, to finish up this report, get another 500 word thing pounded out and we should be shiny.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Published November 24, 2006 Post Closed
Tags: , ,

Hope that everyone had a good thanksgiving (yesterday now). I had dinner with the family in the afternoon, where we were expecting to have something like 13 people, but that went down to 8, which meant that some of us weren’t banished to the garage. It was a good dinner. Me, my parents, brother and sister, Uncle and his girlfriend and my grandmother were all there. It was fun, and the food was fantastic, as my mother is a great cook. I contributed bread, which people seemed to like. Lots of talking and fun, which was good.
After that, me and my sister went to go visit my friend Sam and Miranda up in Burlington, which was fun, I haven’t seen them since this summer. Keelia and Miranda watched Veronica Mars while Sam and I visited my friend Blackwell in his new house. He was surprised to see us, and we hung out for a little while, played with the dog that they were dogsitting and generally caught up.
It was a good night.

Hope that everyone else had an equally as good Thanksgiving.

“When ships to sail the void between the stars have been invented, there will also be men who come forward to sail those ships.” -Johannes Kepler

Blog Stats

  • 89,644 hits

Twitter

  • Question for genre folks: does anyone know how to get in touch with Katherine MacLean? 12 hours ago
  • Latest column submitted! Should be up later this week - looking at Alfred Bester & his legacy. Enjoyed this one. 12 hours ago
  • On this day in SF History: Alice Sheldon, aka James Tiptree, Jr. committed suicide in 1987. Intelligence agent, phychologist & SF writer. 14 hours ago
  • It's been a low-key, geeky day. Megan's been watching X-Files, while I've been working on SF History stuff. 14 hours ago
  • Happy '1st' anniversary to Megan and I! We had our wedding a year ago today. It's amazing how a year flies by. 14 hours ago
  • RT @founddrama: Weekends like this one are a reminder that it's good to be alive, but it's awesome to be alive in Vermont. 17 hours ago
  • Adam Warrock's Rap Tribute to Grand Admiral Thrawn: geekexchange.com/adam-warrocks-… via @geekexchange 18 hours ago

Archives

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 860 other followers

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 860 other followers