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Back to gerritt.net NOTES July 29, 2004. 6:38 PM -Busy busy. -Tuesday night, on my way home from McLean, VA, it had rained so hard that part of Georgetown Pike had to be blocked off. A cop was there shining his flood light on the road to make sure we didn't drive through the stream. Its a pun! -I'm convinced that my new hands-free headset is more distracting to hook up, untangle from my ID badge, and figure out how to connect than just holding my cell phone to my ear like before. -Today the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee came to visit my work, although no actual representatives were there. Rumor has it that Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD 6th) was planning to be there, but could not make it. My team did a few demonstration runs to show off for them, but we didn't get to interact at all. PHILLIP MY GLASS July 25, 2004. 9:58 PM For the first time ever I almost didn't leave a tip. Melanie and I were in Ocean City again this weekend, this time to help Garry pull his boat out and paint it, and just to have a few days away. It was rainy and cloudy the whole time, but who cares. Back to the bad waitress. Saturday night I wanted steamed crabs and such so we tried Phillips Seafood, an OC tradition and a well reputed establishment. After listening to our waitress talk on and on about the best items on the menu and stuff (best=expensive), we ordered our drinks. I wanted the Philips OC Brew, an expensive microbrew that's sold only at Philips, as a nice accent to my crabs. Anita, our waitress, asked for my ID, took it, examined it, and said she was "unfamiliar with other states' licenses" (keep in mind its a Maryland license and we're in Maryland) and took it "to a manager to see what he thinks." A few minutes later she arrives at the table with Mel's soda, my water, and puts my license back on the table without a word or a beer. Our food arrives, and I ask politely if my beer is coming soon. "No," she says, "um, my manager and I don't think this is a real license, um, or its not you. . ." Well, I spout back at her about how she should've told me this before my food came out, should have brought her manager over to check it out, should have in the very least asked me for one of the three other picture IDs that I have in my wallet! But hey, I'm not that big of a fan of beer, or of lousy overpriced beer for that matter. So I told her if she doesn't feel comfortable serving a beer to a 22-year-old then that's fine with me. Then she started muttering something about being fired and fined and thrown in jail for life for serving someone with a fake, blah blah blah. Of course, its not a fake, and I am 22, and her obvious lack of competence in this matter was reflected in her gratuity. I would've left a big fat goose-egg in the tip space on the check, but since she didn't charge me for Melanie's Pepsi, I instead left her roughly the cost of one Pepsi, figuring a 5% tip is probably more insulting than 0. Although its nowhere near as insulting as calling a perfectly honest customer a liar. POETIC LICENSE July 22, 2004. 5:30 PM When I was in Blacksburg last weekend I picked up a Magnetic Poetry set, one of those boxes that has a bunch of words in it printed on magnets that you can put together into funny and creative phrases. But this one that I bought was peculiar because its called the Magnetic Poetry Pick-up Lines Version. Its a bunch of awful liner that you usually only hear stories about but never witness in practice all scrambled up into nouns, verbs, ect. A selection, if you will: -Can you talk as good as a drink? -Do you like this in astronaut pants? -Have you been wedding cake all my life? -Walk by again, didn't I see your organ? -Nice shirt, would you hold it on me? -Tequila makes the best looking goddess. -I know you & you have a beautiful nametag. -Does this floor taste sexy? DON'T TELL ROCKVILLE, BUT I MISS BLACKSBURG July 20, 2004. 6:30 PM A weekend with my college friends down in Blacksburg really reminds me of how great those four years I spent there were. Kim and Chris got married on Saturday, which is why many of us were down for the weekend, and we made plans for more visits over the next few months. The wedding was outside. It rained all day, but the tents and umbrellas kept us dry and the rain kept it cool. We said goodbye to Club 1304 as Tom and I finally moved the rest of our stuff out. I helped move him into the basement of Wesley as another member of the elite 'Residents Club'. In the bookstore I had to buy some Tech stickers for my office and a car-window windsock for my trips down for football games. In the lawn by Wesley a bunch of old alumni at a pig roast danced well into the night to a Jimmy Buffett cover band. A new menu showed the potential for change at Joe's Diner, until the waiter informed Gina that they were out of her first three choices for lunch. I guess some things never change. THIS VACUUM SUCKS! July 15, 2004. 5:55 PM I have a great vacuum. But it took me awhile to get there, from weeks of searching for a nice, used one and asking around to see if anyone had an extra. See, I'm not one to pay for anything if I can get one just as good for free. Finally, after a few weeks of dirty floors, Mel's mom found a really nice, practically brand-new Fantom, complete with headlights for vacuuming when the power's out. Its a bagless kind, with two filters and a big container that holds the dirt. But, on my first use I realized it might be all looks. The vacuum not only failed to clean the carpet properly, but it actually left tiny gray pebbles on the floor (later discovered to be cat litter- yuck!). So, following my engineer's intuition, I decided I would take it apart and put it back together. I cleaned the filters, dumped about two cups of cat litter into the trash, and made a huge cloud of dust in my kitchen as I beat the brushes clean. The final result was more than acceptable: my vacuum was as good as new with the exception of a dead headlight. I still have the other one, though! I'VE GOT BOATS TO BUILD July 13, 2004. 5:55 PM I stopped at Best Buy on my way home from work today to ogle at the surround-sound home theater systems and pick up a couple of CDs. The first, which I already knew was great, is 'Ben Folds Live', an inspiring live recording that closely resembles the set that Ben played when I went to see him play in North Carolina a few months ago. That show I'm certain I can say is my official 'second best concert ever' next to the Dave Matthews show when James Brown made a surprise performance. On the opposite end of the spectrum is my favorite songwriter and performer of all time, Jimmy Buffett. I picked up his newest CD, which went on sale today, and nearly didn't buy it when I saw that track 1 is his popularity-contest version of 'Hey Good Lookin' (whatcha got cookin'). He performs the song with five other big-name country singers, and much to the chagrin of true Buffett fans he also has a dozen other guests with him on the CD. But, I couldn't not buy it considering how happy I've been with most of his albums lately. As track 2 spun up, as if to apologize for track 1, Alan Jackson's voice cruises with Jimmy on the fabulous 'Boats to Build,' a song I cannot only relate to but probably could have written. I haven't listened to much of the rest of the disc, but it was worth 11 bucks already. I just hope there's no more screw-ups like 'Hey Good Lookin,' although there is a song with Toby Keith that's sure to be just as bad. MMM. . . CHOCOLATE July 11, 2004. 10:30 PM Another successful concert road trip. This time, friends from school made their way up here Friday night before we headed up to Hershey, PA Saturday for a Dave Matthews show. From Otey's flirting with the girls in the yellow Jeep to the noisy vulgar girls getting kicked off of the Sooper Dooper Looper, it was a weekend full of stories and antics. Ben and I continued our tradition of getting silly pictures taken on the rides, especially the chocolate tour, although the park was so crowded it hardly seemed worth our money. The Dave show was fantastic as usual, but we were so tired that it took some effort to really enjoy it. Plus, of course, there was a big crowd and nowhere to go. No big chocolate bars were purchased, but we did stop at the Distelfink, near Gettysburg. Yum. Pictures and more stories are now online in my Summer Picture Journal. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN July 9, 2004. 9:30 AM Another entry in the world of newspaper screw-ups. On the front page of Tuesday's New York Post: "KERRY'S CHOICE Dem picks Gephardt as VP candidate." That's completely wrong. Just as their press was shooting out copies of the errored paper, John Kerry announced his pick for vice presidential running mate will be North Carolina's own John Edwards. Senator Edwards, who seems the obvious pick for Kerry in many ways, probably won't win him any more states come November but won't lose him any votes either. The New York Times reported on the Post's error, and copies of the mistaken issue are going for a few dollars on eBay right now. I doubt if this will be as famous and historic as the 1948 Chicago Daily Tribune headline about President Truman's alleged loss, but still an interesting piece of trivia. This weekend I'm headed to Hershey, PA, for a day of amusements and a Dave Matthews Band concert. I'll bring you back a 25 pound chocolate bar. A YEAR TO REMEMBER July 4, 2004. 12:00 AM Exactly one year ago today saw the first ever entry into Gerritt's Homepage, then kept on the Virginia Tech server and updated regularly with pictures, stories, and personal details that I never thought would keep anyone's interest. Now, one year and 12,350 hits later, gerritt.net (which debuted on February 25, 2004) is more popular than ever. Thanks to you, loyal readers, this past year has made this website a devotion and a passion of mine, striving to update three times weekly and keeping the pictures rolling. I'm not an excellent writer, but that's why the freedom of the internet makes me comfortable. Thanks to my country, my freedom to write a bunch of internet pollution is protected and encouraged. Maybe that's why July 4, our Independence Day, is the best day to celebrate the anniversary of gerritt.net. Keep reading, and let's make next year just as great. As a tribute to you, the reader, here's a look back at my ten favorite entries from the last year, in no particular order: - LOVE TO HEAR THE STEEL BELTS HUMMIN' ON THE ASPHALT July 11, 2003. - OUTSTANDING IN A FIELD July 28, 2003. . . . and its follow-up SWISS FAMILY BUXTON November 15, 2003. - READ MY LIST August 18, 2003. - WELL BLOW ME DOWN September 19, 2003. - BIG G GOES THE EXTRA MILE January 20, 2004. . . . and its follow-up on THINK YOU KNOW BLACKSBURG? January 26, 2004. - IMPOSSIBLE February 22, 2004. - ET, KANSAS, GAY MARRIAGE, AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI, ISRAEL, AND MUPPETS March 23, 2004 - SIGN ME UP April 2, 2004. - GRADUATION!! May 16, 2004. - SPLAT May 26, 2004. ANTZ! July 2, 2004. 7:50 PM I have ants. In my kitchen. Not big ants, not ugly ants, not even bad ants, just those little teeny black ants that move slowly until you try to squish one. Then they scramble about erratically with seemingly no sense of direction, breaking up their steady line of drones from the colony to the food. I accidentally left a small amount of crumbs or something out, and ever since they've been sending out recon missions to make sure they're not missing any more. It is a constant battle, me cleaning up profusely and they checking daily in case I forget. Where do these little guys come from? What did they live on before I began providing their sustenance? If I don't ever leave anything out again will they all go away, or will I have to get some poison or something? In fact they don't cause any problems, I just don't like the prospect of having bugs crawling around my apartment. Maybe I'll get an aardvark. |