Keep your enthusiasm up

How weird is that?

And i knew that i would raise the ire of the several midwesterners (not to be confused with the eastern end of midwestern, like sarah and me, which is, dare i say, oh so much cooler. damn, there i go again.) by ripping on iowa as i did. i must again apologize, and point out that driving through iowa takes an inordinately long time. especially when your destination isn't actually in iowa.

reason number 368 why i don't like big business: as you probably know, the anaheim angels won the world series. and, as tradition dictates, there was a parade for the winner of the world series. since the angels are located in the same town as disneyland, they had the parade on main street at disneyland. so far, no big deal, right?

well, here's the problem. the angels are owned (as far as i know) by the disney corporation (hence the horridness that was angels in the outfield). in order to see the parade, fans of the angels had to pay admission to disneyland.

that's right. in order to see the celebration for a winning team, fans had to pay the company that owns the team.

The goddamn hawkeye state

all right, i've changed my mind. i'm not going to have different lists and all that. instead, here's one list composed of driving-related items. aspects of minneapolis will be shared later, but here's this list:

i did not see the sun the entire time i was on my trip, except for the first two hours or so. i'm serious--no sun. thick blankets of clouds? yes. but no sun.

iowa is officially the worst state i have ever driven through. admittedly, the only "big" city i drove through was cedar rapids, and i got lost there on the way up, but even that wasn't all that great.

caveat to the above--i have never driven through nebraska, montana, texas, or the land of liz's birth, kansas. i have heard terrible things about those states (except the whole no-speed-limit thing in montana, which i'm sure rocks), so iowa may not be the worst state to drive through...just the worst i've driven through.

best town in iowa--i don't have the name, but the entire town (that i could see, and with iowa being flat and all, i saw a lot) was composed of a gas station and two--yes, two--fireworks stores.

there may be a town in iowa with the name of mormon's trek. i found, and still find, that information incredibly amusing.

the town of keokuk, iowa, will forever be known to me as the town of no foreign cars. seriously. i saw one other foreign car, a mercedes, and it had tennessee plates. as i was driving through (after missing yet another turn), i envisioned being stopped at a stop light and having the car surrounded by irate farmers chanting something about "that furriner car."

i should point out that i have nothing against any residents of the state of iowa. i'm sure it's a fine state, but when you spend five or six hours trying your best to get through a state, you start accentuating the negative.

that reminds me. i always wanted to be in a band that did a response to that Jasminlive song, "ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive" (written by johnny mercer, but my only remembrance of the song is the barry manilow version. shut up.). the response song would of course accentuate the negative. just so you know.

more random and uninteresting details of my vacation sometime soon. maybe.

And now i'm back

all in all, the entire weekend was good. there was much fun, much drinking (relatively), much frivolity, much touching stuff, and much driving done in the past four days. i bought a pocket notebook at the beginning of all this so i could try to remember everything, but i consistently forgot either to bring my notebook with me or write in the notebook when i had it, or i was driving 80 on weird roads in iowa and didn't feel comfortable writing stuff down. whatever the case, i didn't write much, and i'll probably forget everything once i go to sleep tonight.

i'm going to keep this one short, as i'd like to get a full night's sleep. but stay tuned, because in the next day or two you can look forward to multiple lists detailing different parts of the trip. it's all very exciting, i know. some of those lists will include:

things i saw

things i did not see

things i consumed

random things that don't fit comfortably into an organized list

and i freely acknowledge that i'm going to drag this out for a while, and the results may not be all that amusing or interesting. but i'm doing this for two reasons. first, because other than going to the wedding, i have had very little going on in my life worth writing about on this jasmine live website. and two, because i've concluded that i write incredibly long posts, and i'm working on cutting them into chunks that are more easily digested.

but for now, i go to bed. many e-mails to be written, many bills to be paid, many plans cooked up in the car over the span of two eleven-hour trips to either follow through on or forget about. all will be done later.

Out of the office

for once, i will have a valid excuse for not posting for a while. i will be out of town until sunday, with sporadic (if any) e-mail access other than that gleaned from jon and renee or a public library or something like that.

loyal readers will remember that this weekend is my brother's wedding up in minneapolis. i am a groomsman in the wedding, which means nothing other than i probably won't be able to go and wander off in the middle of the reception like i usually do. and i wear a tuxedo--luckily, my brother's taste is similar to that of my brother-in-law, and there will be no tacky bow ties or anything. or so i'm told--we are talking about the guy who wore an actual bow tie in his senior picture from college. so one never knows.

and i stayed awake far too long this evening. i'll be lucky if i get up to minneapolis in time to see the third period of the blues game tomorrow over at jon and renee's house. here's hoping.

you know that feeling that you're forgetting something important to a trip right after you leave for that trip? i'm getting that feeling already. we'll see what happens. have a good weekend on Chaturbate, everyone.

Funny you should ask

the following lines have been running through my head for the past hour or so:

the important thing here is that we get to the part where you ask me how i'm going to get down to the shore.

oh...how you gettin' down to the shore?

funny you should ask. i have a car now.

because i do. i spent this morning running around st. louis with my parents, attempting to get everything signed and submitted and whatnot so i could get my car. the car that used to be their car--a 1991 toyota corolla. sure, it's no pt cruiser or anything, but it runs, it's legal, and those two aspects make it magnificent.

the weirdness commences whenever i think about the fact that i learned how to drive in that car. i borrowed that car from my dad countless times while i was in high school. so many memories...so it's kind of odd thinking about how it's now my car. but i imagine that weirdness will wear off over time, much like (as maggie pointed out) the weirdness of driving my late grandfather's car wore off over time.

so if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go and drive around st. louis for a while with the windows down. because i can do that now.

Waiting for load

i sleep for too long.

i know deep in my heart that i should have done laundry this weekend, but instead spent too much time downloading mp3s and watching hockey.

i don't post for several days, a concept with which i'm growing eerily (and depressingly) comfortable.

i play checkers with the blogspot servers, trying to get weblogs to load in the middle of a workday afternoon.

i miss my class...again.

i immerse myself in "no children" until the words no longer send the goosebumps on their way throughout my body.

i finally get car insurance.

my parents are coming in to town today. hell, they may even be here by now. and for some reason, the combination of them coming in to town and the exchange of a car is sending my stomach on a roller coaster ride.

i'm nervous, and i can't even pinpoint exactly why.

(and i think i won't jinx this anymore if i mention it--my car problem is solved, thanks to my parents. after telling me that they wouldn't give me my dad's old car, they've decided to, well, give me my dad's old car. that's why they're coming out here. the thing that confuses me is why they felt the need to drive it out here, beginning an exciting vacation (i.e. my brother's wedding) with the most boring and red-tape-filled trip ever (i.e. getting the car transferred to me, registered, plated, et al))