::Repost from old blog::

Another long day rounded the bend. After writing last bit I opted to stay up rather than going to sleep. More wasted time, sorta. Yesterday morning, at around 7am I got a wild hair up my ass and thought that it would be fun to go up the Washington Monument. I wanted to take an ass load of photos for up there at around 555ft. I rode my bike down there arrive at 8:30- find a line for tickets is stretched down the block. I opt wait in line with tourists from all over the country, thinking it would be worth it. Make my way to 10 feet from the ticket kiosk, and find they ran out of tickets for the day. 1600 tickets a day. That’s just lame. Does it have to be 1600? I mean come on. 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I wonder if they just changed it for the Patriot Act. 45 minutes wasted, and I was cold from sitting on my bike & watching kids injure their wrists from playing Red Rover. Grrrr. Trekked back to dorm room and decided to make an appointment for a free hearing test that is given daily, and cleaned my room, stage one. Organized all the literature from yesterday and put it all in a bad, it broke. I got so much cool stuff that I think I’ll have a use for sometime in the future, maybe decorations for a classroom? Food’s ready- angel hair pasta & Italian red pepper pasta (makes for an eye pleasing pasta dish) with spicy tomato sauce and more of that soy milk. Yumm! I’d definitely have the TV on right now, but my idiot box block is still up. I want go put up some of those Krafted stickers, but riding my bike has stopped me from doing that because it takes too much effort. Yeah lazy ass.. Anyways, my plan yesterday was to recite my lyrical remix of "Television, the drug of the Nation" at a slam poetry reading on campus. But it didn’t pan out the way I thought it would, but instead it worked out nicely. The world works in funny ways. So I practiced reading it a lot most of the morning, and I was looking forward to reciting it. At 3pm, I went over to get the hearing test done. I’m amazed at the human ear. I can’t get over the fact that we as a species have only heard amplified music for three generations. I mean, a hundred years ago there was no such thing as amplified music. In that time we’ve created sounds that far exceed what the human ear was design for. You’d think that we’d all be deaf after going to a club or rave. And I know after walking out many a nights, with the tinnitus ringing in my ears, that our ears were not designed to withstand such an auditory assault. Nonetheless, I hear relatively fine, what did you say? My scores broke down that I could hear most frequencies better than average. The only frequencies were I did have some loss were at 8000hz which is really high pitch and well beyond what I need to have. With normal being 25 dB, I was kicking at 35 dB, but the average for my right ear of all the frequencies was 10 dB and 7 dB for my left ear. With 25 dB being average, I’m astounded that my ears have withstood five years of "damage" without much harm. What did you say? After spending time in the sound-proof booth that looked and smelled that it was from the early 60s, I went to meet up with Holly & Jason who want me to help them make a music video for their electronic and computer music show. I’m hoping that it will pan out and that we can come up with something that will look good. I’m still out to lunch with what they are going to shoot for because their piece is really abstract, so I hope we can make something that is equally as abstract. After the meeting I went to my Remote Sensing class, where Mike & I pounded away at the stupid Idrisi program for almost 3 hours trying to create a Maximum Likelihood Classification using our GPS data points from around DC. I hate hate hate using Windows now, I scoff at the bugs that show up in all windows programs. Idrisi is no different. The file name after the third round was aptly titled BIATCH. Our collective disgust was apparent. By the end of the time there and not really making much progress, I was able to show some of my fellow students what I had been working on as of late. I make it back to my room about 6:45, practice the poetry piece, and being up for about 18 hours or so, I decided to lay on my bed for a minute. Three hours later I arise, and bust ass to location of the Slam Poetry event. I arrive as the janitors are tearing down the stage. Slightly pissed, I over and get some fries. I had slept through my chance at telling people the evils of TV with rhyme & plagiarized reason. But the silver lining was that Kat, a girl from my Yoga class, was eating with her friend. I sat down and found out that I’ve got someone to work with on my yoga paper and to practice for tomorrow’s final. Yeah! The conversation moved to my missing of the slam event, and I gave her friend the piece to read- she liked it- and I don’t know how, but the conversation moved to CS gas that was used on her friend at the Quebec City FTAA protest. She mentioned how the gas causes women to instantly menstruate and that it caused some women to miscarry when it was used in Seattle. How horrifying! Of course its not legal to use, but neither is Depleted Uranium, and that is still used. But lord, I that stuff scares the hell out of me! Anyways, after chatting it up for a bit, and feeling confident that I’m going to have someone to work with tonight, I left. Outside I met up with my friend Jon L. who mentioned that my boy Greg won second place at the poetry slam. This further validated my sleep, because I know Greg’s lyrical prowess. He’s an awesome writer! I went back to my room and call him up to give him props. I think I’ll get another chance to read my piece, probably on Saturday at Nancy’s wheatpasting party. I dressed myself, and headed over to club 5 for LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad. I arrive and have Harry and Matty do a double take (they weren’t the last!). Luckly, since I was behind Harry in line and he is a major figurehead in the DCDnB scene, I was able to get in free because he had a plus 1 on the guest list. Saved myself $12 dollars. Or did I? I told Harry I’d go buy him a drink- bought two Red Stripes for $12 :-\ Made my rounds with the scenesters, took some photos. And then Allison R. introduced me to hear friend Cassidy, who offers to buy us drinks– for the whole night. I’ve never been fed so much liquor at a club before! Kamikazes, buttery nipples, shots of I don’t know what, and by the end of the night I was krunked. The place was jammed packed for most of the night! LTJ Bukem’s set was nice and smooth, but the biggest drawback of the night was that I could hardly hear MC Conrad at all. And I know it wasn’t because of my ears! The sound system at 5 is too much low end sound and not enough highs, and unless Conrad was speaking at 8000 hz, it shouldn’t have mattered. Anyways, I was one drunk bicyclist on the way home. I ran into a lot of friends at Red making the night fun. When I got home, I called Mariel, and chatted with her for a bit, but I’m not sure why I called- there must have been some impetus. I ended up falling asleep on a sad note because of it. Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through the pain of still loving someone who has scared my heart. Yet I know that I’ll never stop loving her, its still hard for me to give her up. Maybe its because she is still my best friend, only more removed from me, or maybe its because I’ve never let her go (but I have tried) or maybe its because I know that she made a mistake and I want to forgive her. Or maybe I’ve just made the mistake of keeping her kept up on a pedestal, when she doesn’t deserve that, I don’t know, but what I do know is that I miss her. I miss snuggling. I miss the nape of her neck, the lil puppy dog noises she makes, the way she would talk to me when she was half-asleep, the innocence of my only love. I miss having some drunken lovin after a night at the club. I just wrote an E-mail to Mary Morris, it took 2.742 seconds to send. Sigh. The number 42 showed up again, it has not left my life. I’ve got to go to Physics class in a hot minute, and I hope Gus is there. Afterwards, I hope that I can get some of my Yoga paper out of the way, so its easier tonight. I’m still tired tho. At least I slept through the night this time around. Well I’m excited for this weekend. It should be fun. Critical Mass bike ride tomorrow should be fun too. The collaborative video & the wheat pasting party should be fun too. I wonder who I’ll meet! Off to class!! Onward & Upward!

::Repost from old blog::

So I never ended up going to sleep last night. I don’t know why, but sleep just wasn’t something I could do. However, I had a semi-productive day. I got my hair cut (before & after) A major transition! I’m going to have to reintroduce myself to all sorts of people, but oh well, you gotta keep reinventing yourself. And the shaggy ass frock had to go, I’m not sure why I didn’t do it sooner. I guess I had some far-fetched notion that the long hair was attractive, but I know it totally wasn’t. With all the activism I’ve been doing lately, I probably looked like a hippy! Woohoo! Minus the patchouli…. Anyways, starting at 8am, I began calling all the local area barber shops and beauty salons in search of the cheapest cut. After 10 calls or so, I found a barber that would cut for $12. His name was Carl and he did an alright job I think. I was expecting a little more conversation from him, but I guess his clientelle are usually businessmen who keep to themselves. No doubt I’m very happy with how it turned out. Maybe I’ll pass for a military man- yeah! After leaving the chop shop, I opted to take a different route home. Taking new routes is the beauty of life! I happened on going to the south route down 17th to Est, and in Rawlings Park there was a mass of folks. It turns out that it was an Earth Day celebration being held by the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, General Services Administration, the Department of the Interior, and the Office of Personell Management. There were booths set up everywhere, all giving out loads of freebies (paid for by our tax dollars). So I basically crashed a federal Earth Day event, that was open to the public, but aimed at the federal employees! I was walking with my bike and my arm got filled with so much literature that I had to go lock my bike up. I went around to the rest of the tables and filled my other arm up with posters, pamphelts, cups, pens, videos, CD-roms, seeds, stickers, buttons, coasters, pads of paper, and various reports on the state of various departments. I had to trek back to my room to drop off my booty! I went back and flirted with a lady who was with Friends of the Environment, who had a roll of 5,000+ KRAFTED stickers (which are a good jam- the stickers shed light on the fact the Kraft uses GMOs). I took so many of the stickers from her, and she was more than obliged to give them to me :-) I look forward to sticking them all around the city! They also gave away a flyer that was a month by month timeline that shows the environmental regulations Bush has stripped since he’s been in office! I’d love to make a flash movie using the text as source material for their website. I loved that table the most, simply because it was something that was rather "anti-bush" at a federally sponsored event. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Except if I would have gotten that lady’s number :-) One of the posters I got from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service shocked me tho. It was blatant military propaganda! It says " Small Whorled- Big Mission" <graphic> "The Marines – We’re Saving A Few Good Species" The <graphic> shows marines decked out in the woods and in the forground a small whorled pogonia, that had been photoshopped in! I took a few posters tho, just because I could, and I knew what I was taking- propaganda. Now I need to figure out what to do with with all my booty. I think I’ll donate some of the literature to the geography department. I know a few professors that would like the literature from the USGS. After I snagged a few more popsicles, krafted stickers, posters, and more literature ( I have a 6 in stack of literature!) I made my way back to my room to take a shower and finish off the Nikolas transition by shaving my face. After the metamorphisis was complete I went to my Physics class and talked about how quarks are bound together. I found the most interesting stuff was the concept that neutrinos are massless and that they only have mass when moving because of the kinetic energy. So they only exist at the speed of light. I tried to correlate that with a red/blue shift, and if the universe began to reverse direction(begin to shrink, rather than expand) the massless photons & nuetrinos would be lost because the net direction would change and they’d slow down and dissapear. I’m not sure where the spectualtion came from. I’m still trying to formulate my abstract theory that since light bends that the concept of distance from earth to stars is seriously flawed because light could be bent massively due to high gravitational fields in space, so the concept of a straight line of distance from a to b is more like a roller coaster ride, making the light year moe ambiguous. Gus, my favorite non-GW student, retired former NSA employee was in class today. He mentioned something about it being his fault that in the 1980s the Space Station had budget problems. I’d like to talk to him about that! My aunt & uncle were working on it when he was making those "errors" No matter what, I’ve got so much respect for that man! I’d love to have him as a adopted grandfather and rack his brain on sunny saturday mornings over coffee and chess. I still can’t believe that he held the plutonium ignition device for Fat Man, the first atomic bomb! He said it was a nickle plated ball of hot plutonium, similar to a bowling ball… The first atomic bomb- and he held the ignition to the greatest technological feat of the twentith century. Add that to my old girlfriend Garrette, the reason I came to GW, working at the White House and meeting the president a few times. Add that to TJ’s mom, the trapeze artist, who performed for Hitler and was praised by him. Man its a small world. After class, it got even smaller. I went and got a stuffed green bell pepper, mashed potatos, and green beans and ate with my back to the TV in J. Street. After I was done eating, I noticed a familiar laugh, and below was Laurie, my exotic Remotes Sensing GPS partner. I threw my trash away and went over and sat by her, and she was like "wow, you look hot" Woohoo- first happy hairday compliment! She was sitting with a girl that I remember meeting back in October who was from Saint Louis. So after shooting the shit with her for a bit, I found out that she went to St. Joesph, a private school in STL. And I remembered that my old friend Katy C. wen there. So I dropped her name– and it turns out that they were best friends in high school. She decided to call Katy, and I left a message. Even more funny was that she was in STL for Thanksgiving and saw my Buy Nothing Day antics on TV!!! We even found out that we hung out with a lot more of the same people back home after chatting a little longer. I recorded her phone number with my camera, and went back to my dorm room. It was about 5pm and at 6pm I passed out. I awake at 12:30am. Why can’t I sleep for like 12 hours? Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up in the morning, as the sun comes up? At least in Colorado that will be key. I might even get on a decent sleeping schedule that will last a long time. I can only hope. A few hours ago, I IMed someone from Colorado who is going to be working there! It was a short, but good convo, I’m uber excited- I’m estatic! Well now I’m going to clean my room, and move my booty someplace, write a paper for my yoga class, maybe edit my slam poetry, and maybe get to sleep. Tomorrow night LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad and Makoto are going to be playing at Red. I haven’t seen them in almost a year! Progression Sessions- its time to get down!

After finding out about my summer job, I hightailed it to my geography class. We looked at slides of Paris & Bangkok and talked about urban planning. The klongs of Bangkok were very interesting. They are canals that people use for transportation. What interesting was all the shanty towns that were built over the water along the klongs. Thousands of people living two feet above the water that have tin roofs, no sewage, and no running water. The fetid smell of the canal makes my nose twinge. Bangkok’s government built hundreds of low income housing for people, yet many choose the klong life. These low-income apartments are very generic and rather ugly, yet they have running water and electricity! It boils down to community. And I totally understand. City living (and apartment living) kills the community. I hardly know 10 people in my building, and I’m surrounded by hundred of people. Comparing the klongs to downtown DC, GWU, which is relatively devoid of community, I’d probably pick the klongs (I’d just pimp mine out!) Here there are people, always anonymous people, and everyone stays on guard. I look forward to living where people are less uptight and more cordial….. We also looked through slides of La Defense (western Paris) and the professor explained how it was a "New City within a City" and I had to agree. So much thought was placed into the building of the area, and beautiful form balances so nicely with gracious function. And the buildings have style! So much more style than the generic buildings of DC. Oh I wish a building had some architectural style- something that says- "look at me, my creator took extra time to create me, and I am not just another building of my time, and I won’t be torn down in because I’m démodé" Nonetheless, I was very happy how the class turned out, it seems that I spoke up and asked more questions than anyone else. Afterwards, I went back to the corporate cafeteria, the aptly named J-Street (cause you know if there isn’t a product[or in this case: street name] its up to a corporation to make one available) for my usual veggie grilled stuft burrito. Went downstairs and purchased some more Edensoy Soy Milk, which as of late, I’ve been really enjoying the taste of. Back to the cave. Checked E-mails, updated the ol’ website, and started working on the drawing for my new invention. I won’t disclose the concept, but it follows my disposable society line of thought, but with a fix. After chatting with friends, I found that there is a poetry slam Wednesday. With it being TV Turnoff Week, I decided to search my hard drive for the copy of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy’s lyrics to "Television, the drug of the nation" After reading it a few times, I was like, "this can be rewritten to sound a little more up to date. So I "lyrically remixed" aka plagiarized with citation my own version of the tune. I don’t know the ethics behind "lyrical remixes" but I used use the core of the lyrics, took some parts out, added some, but kept at the top originally written by Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, lyrically remixed by Nikolas R. Schiller. I dunno, I like my version better. Now its late as usual. I thought I’d get to bed a at a decent hour, but now that is before 6am this days. I need more sunshine! My cave has killed my internal body clock. Its going to be reset tho- in 39 days! So now its time to get my classes all set for next semester, talk to my advisors and what not, and find a place to store all my shit for the summer, pick out my dorm room for next year, figure out how I’m going to pay for it all, see how much more I’m going to be in debt for choosing to remain a college student a little longer- wait its 4am. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe. Its a new day. Without TV still, I still like my TV’s decoration. I wish there was a TV decorating contest. I think mine would win- "Got a few things to say?"

::Repost from old blog::

I’m going to work in Colorado for the summer!!! Woohooo! No more city, no more buildings, just an escape to the serenity of the 5,000 acre Snow Mountain Ranch situated at 8,600ft above sea level. I’m finally going to be that kick ass camp counselor I always wanted to be! 40 days until Camp Chief Ouray! I can’t wait!

::Repost from old blog::

Decorated my TV for TV TURNOFF WEEK

::Repost from old blog::

So my weekend went by quickly as usual. Actually time has been flying by at rate that is too fast for me to take in. Chaos is expanding, it must be, things are speeding up too fast for me to notice.

Friday, I went to my Yoga teacher prep. class. I’m going to be glad that class is over next week. Its gotten so monotonous that I dread going. Although I love going to Yoga, doing the same four postures is not the way teaching people to teach! Grrrr…. Next week I have my final paper due, extra credit due, and I have to teach for 30 minutes. I wonder what poem I start and end my class with? After class I went to the hardware store and had a simple metal rope made for my bike. Granted someone with a lock cutter could cut through it or simply snip off my Master lock, but its the price I’m willing to pay ($5). From the hardware store I went a block north to meet up with folks for the Critical Mass bike ride. It was an extra special ride too. Apparently, a DC city council member sent a scathing letter to the police chief about there being way too many police at the previous Critical Mass gatherings, so Friday’s ride there wasn’t one cop there. And since no one had come up with a ride plan, it was nice to meander through DC without getting annoyed. I wrote up a summary and made a video. Afterwards, I hung out with some of the Georgetown Peace Action kats, and then I made my way back home and bought some "Pete’s Wicked Ale" -went to sleep early.

Saturday, April 19th, 2003, I woke up very early. I think when I consume alcohol I don’t really sleep. Its the same when I take sleeping pills, I do fall asleep, but its like my body doesn’t really fall to deeply asleep, so I wake up either uber-tired for the rest of the day or I sleep extra long. Like the drug put me to sleep, and then after it wears off, my body then goes to sleep. Saturday was such a morning. At least it wasn’t a hangover, rather I just woke up at like 5am and said, why go back to sleep? Maybe I should have. But I was able to get some things done..like…ummm…I know I did some things! Probably just read stuff on the net. I remember seeing something for the memefest competition. I wonder if I could come up with a good one? Have I already? Hmmm.

The day before my friend Josh mentioned something about going to a rally his friend’s family organized. He mentioned something about the Mojahedin. I thought they were the "terrorists" I thought they were the ones who were supplied by the American Govt to fight the Russians in the Afghani-Russian War of the 1980s… What I did not know is that they were for a secular government of Iran. The rally was organized by numerous Iranian-American groups. It was pretty cool. Lots of beautiful Iranian women!!! The biggest drawback was that all but one speech was in Farsi, so I didn’t really get the gist of the rally. But I did get to meet a lot of folks who helped explain that the American Govt allowed the Iranians to attack the Mojahedin during the Iraqi Invasion to ensure that the Iran front would not be attacked by America. Weird. Sad too. After the rally we all went to a Iranian restaurant in Clarendon, VA. It was my first time eating Iranian food. I had Shish-Kabobs before, but never authentic Iranian ones. I was happy to see so many vegetarian options on the menu! I started eating hummus and this eggplant puree (I can not remember the name of) and I didn’t finish eating until well after everyone else was done with their main course. I think I secretly had twice as much food as everyone else!!! I even ate a salad- I’ve never been a big fan of salads, maybe its the dressings? But this salad was made cucumbers and tomatoes (Mariel would be proud) and some really tastey spices. I really like the inclusion of mint leaves into cooking, I’m going to try to add that to my culinary repertoire. We also had "Doogh" a traditional Iranian drink, made with mint, yogurt, and I think this had baking soda in it. I was told its the Iranian version of the Lassi (I like the Lassi better)

After dinner, I went back to Foggy Bottom with Josh and went over to his friends place where we hung out for a little bit. I got to play chess and take some pictures of the sunset on their balcony. After we left, Josh and I randomly ran into Ari on the street. He was about to meet up with some friends and go to the first new party series called "Destination" My friend Steve is in charge of the sound in the DnB room and making sure the DJs were picked up from the airports and what not. He drunkenly said he’d put me on the guest list but it didn’t pan out. Nonetheless, I was excited about the party. And it turned out that Ari could give me a ride. It also turns out that one of the random friends he was waiting for was my friend Lyra from Belize. I went back to my dorm changed clothes and met up with Ari and went to the DC Tunnel. On the way there I took some cool footage of the repititous lights in the tunnels on H395. We listened to some burned copy of a DnB set from London. Too much MC- not enough music… We parked and got there made it inside for the early-bird special price of $15. The moment I went in I realized that I had just entered a rave. Not that raves are all that bad, but I just felt OLD- and I’m only 22 :- After walking around in there for about 15 minutes I was ready to go. There was no escape from the loud music, even the lounge room (which had the best music of the night) was loud. And I kicked myself in the ass 15 times for not bringing my earplugs. They are offereing free hearing tests on campus- I’m scared to go- what did you say?

I think the musical highpointe of the night was when BT played "Godspeed" which was my first record I purchased from Satellite Records back in 1998. I guess with tune being 5 years old, I had reason to feel antiquated. Godspeed- funny name for a tune being dropped on Easter… I went to the DnB room, aka the sauna, and danced a bit. A lil too loud for me sometimes, and the wooden floors slightly trembled as 200 people brocked out. I really enjoyed the MC trio that came for the show. I was very happy to see my old friend MC J. Messinian. Around 2am, all the DCDnB kru made their way from Players Ball to Destination. It made the latter part of the night more enjoyable being around folks I knew, and more importantly, roughly my age and sober. I took some great fotos! It was kinda random for a minute, I was talking to Allison R., after taking some fotos of her and a few others, when Alison M. shows up. I hadn’t seen her in over 3 weeks! My perfect rebound relationship, now only friendship, one that had the easiest breakup ever, who I hadn’t seen for awhile, shows up. It was nice seeing her again, and I really wanted to see her one last time before either of us move. I just wonder if last night will be the last time. We got along fine, but I knew there were some differences between us that would never be resolved, yet I enjoyed her company simply because I knew she was moving and after leaving a nearly three year relationship, its wonderful to meet someone who you know is temporary. I avoided the instant attachment / post breakup scenario. Anyways, it was fun dancing with her for the last hour of the event. I was ready leave tho. I didn’t see Allison R. again, :- At least I took some good pictures of my friends. That, after all, is what I’ll remember more than the music. Didn’t fall asleep until freaking 7am.

Easter Sunday, 4/20/03 was spent in hibernation. I was awoken at 2:30pm by a fire alarm. Irony? Fire on the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I wonder if that was an act of god? Saying that my idleness is a sin, or my staying out late at places of drug induced debauchery should be minimized or I’ll burn forever hell. After going back inside, because there was no fire, I went right back to sleep again. Waking at around 5pm, I wrote a few E-mails, snacked on some food, and at 7pm loaded my backpack up for my radio show. No guest DJs this time, I’m hoping Allison R. will DJ next week or maybe Steve. It was fun for a bit- I had three really good long mixes, and at the end of the third Josh & Emily banged on the glass of the studio and said hello. I put on a CD and went outside for a few minutes with them. I love knowing that not a soul is listening to my radio show! It gives me the freedom to not have to worry about trainwrecking…aahhhh… Mix of the night was my Easter Sermon, that I had actually missed. The sermon I used for my Electronic and Computer Music final project– "Signs of the Time, the End of the World, and Second Coming of Jesus Christ" by Billy Graham, recorded in NYC in 1969. I love that record so much! I’m not too much of eschatologist but for some reason it has always interested me. I think it was the finding of 666 embedded in the barcode that probably started it all. Or maybe it was something else, I wonder. Anyways, I had fun playing that record with the Konflict tune "Messiah" I thought it was very fitting for the day :-) After the show I came back to my room and wrote up the article on the Iranian-American rally and decided to work on my website. And now here I am… I wonder what time I’ll get to sleep? I wonder if I’ll get everything done that I need to this week? I wonder if I’ll get the job and be able to work in Colorado for the summer? Please get me out of the city lord! I want to the beauty you created, not the ugliness of man’s creatio.

And now, I think I’ll begin to clean my room, but before that I’m going to put some hummus on my free loaf of Subway bread. Me hungry! I wonder what the week has in store for me. Yoga, writing, Yoga, blogging, writing, writing, and a little bit of the general theory of relativity. I need to bend my time some more. Woohoo- Its now TV Turnoff Week! I wonder how many people will turn off their TVs this week? I’m going to make a decoration for my TV! Until next time :-)