Well, I leave Tuesday for my Peace Corps staging in Philly.  Thursday, I hop on a jet to Frankfurt, and then another one to Bucharest.

I'll be very busy these next few days and my access to internet overseas may be limited depending on where I'm stationed, so this may be my last entry for a while.  During my 27 months, I'll endeavor to stop by here ( Read more... )

I am not an antisocial person.  I'd say I get along with 98% of the people I meet right off the bat (at least until I get to know them more and find out whether or not they're assholes).

Here's the deal.  I do not "mingle" well.  Countless times have I gone with a group of friends to a party, BBQ, or similar gathering held by a friend of theirs who ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

The Lost Command:  An adaptation of Jean Lartegy's novel The Centurions, the Lost Command follows a group of French Colonial Paratroopers (Anthony Quinn, Alain Delon, George Segal, Maurice Ronet, and Jean-Claude Bercq) in the wars of the 1950s.

The film opens with endgame being played out at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and the paras being taken ( Read more... )

I probably mentioned it numerous times, but the best summer job I've ever had (I'd make a career out of it if they had a full-time position open) was working for Erie Metroparks as a grounds and maitenance worker.  Though I worked in several of their parks my primary park was the Castalia Quarry Reserve.  CQR is an old limestone quarry that stopped ( Read more... )

I posted a longer entry, but it posted really funky.  Since I'm no tech whiz and need to jet, I'll repost later.

...and for Prohibition we don't care a straw..."

A good buddy of mine has been learning the art of homemade winemaking from his grandfather.  This isn't your fancy vineyard wine, but your oldschool backwoods "I make wine out of just about anything that ferments" wine.  He sent around to his friends and family bottles of his batch of elderberry wine ( Read more... )

Notice to the chick from California I met last night:

When I say "isn't it" I do not pronounce the "s" and, as you astutely pointed out, it sounds like I'm saying "idn't it."  This is Northern Ohio, if you hadn't noticed a good chunk of people around here pronounce "isn't it" as "idn't it."  It is part of the regional dialect so please cease and ( Read more... )

The following is from a selection of poems in the 2006 Red Mountain Review put out by the Alabama School of Fine Arts.  The series is by Lou Suarez (a good Ohio boy) and is entitled On U.S. 6 to Providence.  I'm sure you can guess the route the author took that inspired his work.  I liked the following poem and thought I'd share.

"John Scott"
by Lou ( Read more... )

I'm currently reading the novel The Terror by Dan Simmons.  It's kind of a combination historical fiction/horror tale set during Sir John Franklin's disasterous 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage (the book's name is partly taken from one of the two expedition ships, the HMS Terror).  The men of the expedition deal with the very real ( Read more... )