Wednesday, October 8th, 2003
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2:24 pm - monday was an interesting day
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i got pulled over. it's the first time in ages. actually since i got my permit which was also in michigan years ago and way on the other side of the mitten. all other tickets were for parking or wrecking. thankfully i did not receive a ticket this time.
when he returned all my info he said "i want you to do two things. first of all slow down, you just blew through two yellow lights. have a good night." whereupon i said "thank you sir." as i started up rita again i watched him run the red.
went to downtown detroit ramada inn. we went to the fourth floor which is supposedly haunted by jimmy hoffa. the elevator doesn't stop on that floor. you have to go up to the fifth floor and walk down the stairs. many of the rooms just have stacks of beds or toilets or trash. in the bar area there is a hole someone chopped in the floor about 2 foot square with a ladder going down to who knows where.
"From the outside, The Ramada Inn Downtown (formerly the Leland Hotel) looks like one of those once-posh, now faded old hotels with a grand lobby, 120 rooms, beautiful ballroom and plenty of art deco flourishes. It was built in 20s. The rooms are small and the beds a bit firm, but there's more than meets the eye at this infamous landmark. Some of Detroit's hipsters live among the rooms turned apartments and the parties are legendary which has given the hotel the affectionate title of The Chelsea Hotel after the legendary namesake in NYC. On the second floor of the hotel is the infamous Leland City Club, an unmarked underground Gothic/punkish club that has been beating with the pulse of Detroit for more than 20 years. I ran into Marilyn Manson there one night. However, even the city at large has some history there as the famous lounge bar on the now abandoned fourth floor was once a favorite haunt of Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa and the first place that the cops looked when he disappeared in what has now become one of America's great unsolved mysteries. Some say the floor is still haunted."
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Wednesday, August 20th, 2003
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6:00 pm
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these are from a building i call the fisher ford building. i'm not sure if that's the correct name, i've heard other ppl just call it the white building.
the rest of the pics can be seen here
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Sunday, August 17th, 2003
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2:17 pm - blackout 2003
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i swear that failing electricity follows me around or something. first the bayarea with the roving power failure and now detroit. i was driving home from north carolina thursday and switched from tape to radio to find out that detroit was out. then mimi and saja called to tell me what was going on. by the time i reached the city it was dark and i hardly knew i had arrived. everything was so dark and it was like i was in a small little village. there was hardly anyone on the highway and noone on the streets. xi and i sat on my tailgate in the parking lot and stared at the stars you usually have to get out of the city to see. we talked about how revolutionary it would be if it were like that for a while and people didn't have anything like the tv keeping them occupied indoors. how this was a really cool experience because neighbors were coming out and talking to each other. how detroit needs people to realize how bad it really is and to say you can't treat us like this anymore. an extended blackout might help really accomplish something like that.
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Thursday, July 24th, 2003
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8:35 pm - travelogue
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june 23 - dropped Saja off at the San Jose Airport and headed back to the apartment
june 25 - finally left San Francisco in the afternoon. the Donner State Park mountains still had snow on the peaks. stopped for the night in Auburn, CA. i didn't get very far due to construction, leaving out late, and being exhausted cuz i got up at 6a. (120 miles)
june 26 - many Nevada cities have their first initials on the hills. the ones i saw were for Reno, Sparks, Lovelock, Battle Mountain, and Elko. i stopped in Lovelock, NV, a super small town where the speed limit is 25mph and as i was coming off the ramp a cop flashed his lights to slow me down from 30 mph. i pulled up to this small gas station. it was all old school where you don't have to pay before you pump and you have to stop the pump yourself. when i commented to the attendanct that it had been awhile since i had to stop the pump myself he said "well, we're old-fashioned here". i stopped again in Winnemucca, NV to fill up on gas and saw a pug with a cart for his hind legs walking with his dad in the grass. i went up to the Walmart nearby and bought a new tarp to replace my ailing original and an older couple that parked beside me offered to help with the new tarp. i was also given a flyer for a 4th of July BBQ by three small-town teens. between Salt Lake City and my final stop for the night, Coalville, UT, i saw deer alongside the highway twice. (658 miles)
june 27 - nothing much happened on the drive to Alliance, NE except that i lost the lid to one of the plastic containers and one of my shoes in Wyoming. when i got to Alliance i first stopped at the Holiday Inn Express which doesn't take animals. but Amber, the woman at the desk, called and price checked the other places she said she would stay. i ended up at Sunset Motel, her former place of employment. i don't think i've ever had such excellent customer service. (626 miles)
june 28 - carhenge was amazing and totally weird. i hadn't heard anything about the dinosaur or the fish made out of car parts but they were really cool. "The Fourd Seasons" i thought was pretty funny but has elicited many groans from people i've told about it. just down the road from carhenge was the "Rest Area" which was too hilarious. Wall Drug was very commerce and less roadside garish than i would have liked. also i think it would have been more fun if i had been with someone else. between Wall and Mitchell, SD i saw a duck family scurry off the side of the highway. i stopped for the night in Mitchell, SD. (428 miles)
june 29 - the outside of the Corn Palace was in between stages but the inside was really amazing. in the off season the building functions as the high school basketball court. i overheard the teenage tour guide say that one of the depictions was of people hunting their state bird. i stopped at a South Dakota rest stop to put on another new tarp and and biker who had also stopped in helped me. he told me he is retired and he had just been to a rally where he was unsuccessful at picking up a girlfriend. he asked if i was afraid of travelling alone and i told him that i was being really safe and i had lots of people thinking about me and i was checking in with people every night. he left and then a cop stopped and asked if i was okay. i told him that i was just changing the tarp and he said yeah, those things shred pretty fast. the jolly green giant is very tall and very green. he's located right next to a Dairy Queen. i decided to finish up the roadside attractions and drove into the night to get to Riverside, IA which is a very tiny town whose late night activity seemed to center around the Amoco right across the street from the USS Riverside or possibly the bonfire i saw from the highway in someone's back yard. on the way back to Iowa City where i crashed for the night i saw a crazy cartoon dragon carnival ride in pieces on two trucks. it was surreal to say the least. the girl at the counter of the motel told me about her tattoos - she gets one for every continent. when she found out i was headed to Detroit she told me that she goes to the Movement Festival (DEMF) every coupla years. (523 miles)
june 30 - i made it through some terrible traffic due to road construction and arrived at Dad's. (324 miles)
july 3 - made the relatively short trip across the state to D'etroit, MI. (200 miles)
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003
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1:56 am - trip pictures
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Tuesday, July 1st, 2003
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10:51 am - hola
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i've finished most of my trip and am spending a few days with dad. when i get to detroit and get set up (probably this weekend) i promise to regale you with details of the drive.
in other news detroit is having a long weekend of free music and i get to see wilco for free tomorrow just down the road from my new place which has been dubbed 'the fort'.
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2003
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2:32 pm - this is hilarious
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| dirtybritches |
| Magic Number |
13 |
| Job |
Most Hated Person - Ever |
| Personality |
Paranoid And With Good Reason |
| Temperament |
Pussy Cat |
| Sexual |
Whatever, Whenever, Whoever |
| Likely To Win |
The Respect Of My Colleagues |
| Me - In A Word |
Evil |
| Colour |
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| Brought to you by MemeJack |
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(comment on this)
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Tuesday, June 17th, 2003
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4:01 pm - not just my birthday
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Friday, June 13th, 2003
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3:47 pm - to home operate or no
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out of nowhere there has appeared a piece of what looks like pencil lead in the inside knuckle of one of my fingers. i've been making co-workers look at it and now there are those for and against my proposed home surgery.
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1:45 pm - queer as folk for the lezzies
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leisha hailey now has something more than yogurt commercials and kd to do now. the L word is coming to Showtime. i hope this show is as horrible and wonderful to watch as qaf.
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
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12:49 pm - the importance of hello kitty
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11:59 am - not humanly possible?
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nikolai syadristy created insanely small art works such as a working clock fixed on the head of a dragonfly comprised of 130 parts, a map of australia carved out on a piece of glass and inserted into half a poppy seed, golden shoes made for and worn by a flea, etc.
http://microart.kiev.ua/index.swf
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11:28 am - the future doctors of america
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Monday, June 9th, 2003
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5:01 pm - moving again
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i'm all bit down fingernails, panic and excitement about moving this time. it seems that just as soon as i get all my ducks herded into some semblance of a row one of them wanders off. damn ducks.
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Wednesday, May 7th, 2003
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8:43 am - religion
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i just took a quiz about beliefs http://www.selectsmart.com/RELIGION and my results were very interesting. i am apparently 100% neo-pagan not a big surprise but out of 27 choices seventh day adventist was 24. i only believe 23% of what they teach which is funny cuz i was inundated with those beliefs during my formative years.
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Friday, April 11th, 2003
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11:03 am - let me tell you the story of the giant green gumball
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becca and i had gone to toys r us to get a game, scrabble probably, and on the way out there were these gumballs that had to be at least 2 inches in diameter. i decided that i had to have one because i had never seen one so big. then i decided that the thing to do would be to put the entire thing in my mouth and crack the tougher outer layer with my teeth and then be able to chew it. as soon as i tried to do this my salivary glands went into overtime. and i couldn't close my mouth all the way because the giant green gumball was too large. so we're walking back to the car and i'm leaning over so i don't get green drool all over myself and then i try to wipe my mouth with my hands and the only thing i succeed at is making them sticky. finally the gumball starts to give way and i'm able to get it to a manageable enough size that i can keep everything in my mouth which i'm thankful for because we're coming close to a car with ppl in it. as we walk by the lady says, hey do you want to buy some perfume. i shake my head no because i still can't talk around the huge mass in my mouth and becca declines for us. when we get in becca's car i look in the mirror to assess how ridiculous i look and i have green smeared all around my mouth and my hands are sticky and green, i'm a total mess. to this day i wonder why on earth that lady was trying to sell me stuff as silly as i looked.
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Wednesday, March 12th, 2003
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4:29 pm - rust
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4:23 pm - neon
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Tuesday, February 11th, 2003
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2:16 pm - the kids
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yesterday morning i was totally against mister sinner pants because she was punching the noisy lampshade to make me get up 30 minutes before my alarm was gonna go off. last night when i got home i had forgiven her but apparently me being against her in the morning gave her a reason to be against me. she wouldn't come sit by me or let me pet her or anything. this made the precarious balance of giving her and fred absolute equal attention even more difficult. i had to remember how many times i petted him so that when she wasn't against me anymore i could even things out. luckily i trained for this as a child when all my stuffed animals had to receive equal treatment. it was almost a drag when someone would get me a new one cuz where was it gonna fit in the circle around me on the bed? finally she had pity on me and she and fred snuggled in real close right when i started a project that would have been much easier without kitties snuggled in close. i think they've officially given up on saja ever coming back to restore their lives to the original splendor. well to the post-fred magnificence anyway.
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Wednesday, February 5th, 2003
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8:35 am - we miss saja
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i talk to myself more when saja is away. i forget how comforting it is to have someone else in the house. i am now trying to fill up the space with other sounds. fred wandered around all day yesterday looking for his mommy. making little cries and even going so far as to look out the front window for extended periods of time. despite all efforts his mommy did not return yesterday.
the kids have to spend today alone. no supervision when yelly smelly and cross-eyed kitties come over and commandeer the box.
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