Jul
03
Jul
01
For a long time now, I’ve been using “out of the box” wordpress themes because I’m not familiar enough with CSS to be able to get it to do what I want (yet) and I haven’t frankly had the patience for it. I found what I thought was a great resource for wordpress themes in the website BlogohBlog (would link but that would be like advertising), from which I’ve gotten three or four themes, all of which made both Johnathan and me happy in terms of scheme, layout and utility. The current theme is from there as well. I browsed over there only to find out that that his adsense account had been suspended because he was including his adsense information in his free themes. Well, that’s not very nice - he’s piggybacking off of any traffic information from any sites that use his free themes, and since this one uses one of his as does The Golden Road, another of my blogs, and I know of a couple of other sites that friends use which use his themes. I understand that these themes are free, but gleaning our traffic stats as part of his stats is just not cool. This is particularly annoying since I discovered that one of the feed links on the site was a direct link to his site’s feed - very misleading to the newbie blogger or feed user.
I will be changing the theme here and at TGR as well as encouraging anyone I know who uses these themes to change as soon as possible. I didn’t agree to boost his stats, and even though he won’t be doing that in the future (his promise to Google in exchange for a new adsense account), it’s the principle which infuriates me. He’s taking advantage of bloggers who don’t necessarily know any better. That is not okay with me. I’m going to be shopping for new themes as soon as I get home today.
I am not willing to support someone who is willing to take advantage of those who are less web-savvy in the name of statistics and money.
Jul
01
I’m not sure this is what they meant when they said “Park diagonally.”
The young man in the striped shirt swears he was traveling at 10 miles per hour.
This is why I bring my camera to work with me.
Jun
28
Over the last seven months or so of taking public transportation on an almost daily basis, I’ve gotten quite the list of annoyances. Here they are, my 8 commandments of public transportation. I have a feeling this will grow over time, but this is it for now.
1. Don’t occupy more than one seat.
If you have a bag, hold it on your lap or out it under your seat. Don’t put it on the seat next to you. Don’t be the guy who takes the outside seat on the train or bus and refuses to scoot over so someone else can sit down. If you are so incredibly large in the behind that you absolutely must take two seats, fine. Just promise me you will work with your doctor to lose some weight. Now.
2. Let people off before you try to get on.
I know we all get in a rush when we are commuting but for the safety and sanity of all those involved wait until everyone vacates the train or bus (or elevator) before you try to board. People may be trying to make a connection somewhere and your instance on shoving into the vehicle might be the last little thing that makes them late. Your bus or train won’t leave without you (usually). Plus, if you’re shoving your way through you’re slowing everyone down and the vehicle will spend longer at this stop than necessary because of you.
3. Don’t smell.
Anyone who has a job that doesn’t require them to be at a desk 100% of the time is going to work up a little bit of natural odor during the day. It happens. But if you smell like you haven’t showered in a week that is not okay. Maybe you took a shower this morning but your jacket hasn’t been washed since 1992 and you are a heavy smoker. That is also not okay. Heavy perfume or cologne? Not okay. It can make people gag.. Worst of all, if you smell like poop, expect to be thrown off the bus into a river. After being sprayed down with Lysol.
4. Use the back door to exit.
If your bus has two doors use the back door to leave because that’s what its there for. Using the front door to exit delays the people who are getting on and trying to pay their fare because they can’t board until you’re off the bus and that holds up the rest of us. Two reasonable exceptions are if you’re sitting in the priority seating at the front or if you have a bike in the rack on the front of the bus.
5. Don’t smoke at bus stops and train stations.
Here in Ohio this is state law. Depending on your city or state this may be transit system policy or state or local law. The signs that say “no smoking” apply to everyone. Yes, even you. No, just because its an outdoor place does not make it okay. Its rude. Stop it.
6. Don’t strike up a conversation just to deliver a sales pitch.
There is a young woman on my train that every morning and afternoon will strike up a conversation with the person next to them, sound interested in what they have to say, and then try to sell them weight loss supplements, energy drinks, and vitamins. She got me with this once. I made the mistake of thinking she was actually interested in talking to me, or even being flirtatious so I engaged in her conversation. Next thing I know I’m getting emails at work asking me when my wife (!) and I wanted to meet with her to go over her products with her. A few days ago she started talking to me again, but this time about babysitting her little brother when she was 12. Don’t be creepy like this! If you want to talk to someone that’s fine. But don’t pitch to them and stop talking if they look disinterested. This rule also applies to pyramid schemes and panhandling, through most panhandlers in Cleveland are also subject to rule three.
7. Stop noise pollution.
Your cell phone plays music? Awesome. Get headphones. You got a new ringtone? Cool. Test it out when you’re not in a metal box with a few dozen other people. A while back I was lightly napping on the bus and got jarred awake by “Dat dat dat dah dah, dat dat dat dat dah dah…” (also known as the Sonic The Hedgehog theme music). While I have to give the guy points for being nerdy enough to have this on his phone, I was over it when thePac Man and Dig Dug music started playing.
8. Control your children
Sometimes kids throw tantrums or are cranky. It happens. But if your child is running up and down the aisle of the bus or train screaming while you swear loudly at them from your seat and do nothing to actually control them you have earned yourself a spot on my “you suck” list. Seriously, the behavior of your child reflects on you whether you like it or not.
Jun
26
It’s so sad to watch old movies like Singin’ in the Rain and think about the actors and actresses who were in them.
Gene Kelly was in so many good movies (and not-so-good movies) and has an undenyable talent as well as a great deal of charm. He died in 1996 from complications from two strokes. He was 84.
Donald O’Connor was also a fixture of the 40’s and 50’s musicals. He died in 2003 from heart failure at the age of 78.
Jean Hagen, who is most well-known for playing Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain, died in 1977 from throat cancer. She was 54.
Millard Mitchell, who played R.F. Simpson, died in 1953 from lung cancer. He was 50 years old.
Douglas Fowley, who played the over-exuberant director in the movie, died in 1998 at the age of 87.
Cyd Charisse, whose legs are not only gorgeous but iconic, died on June 17 at the age of 81 from complications from a heart attack.
From this one movie, four of the actors playing main (and memorable) roles have since died. It feels like we’re losing legends of the screen, and our only way to keep remembering them is to keep watching the movies and seeing the interviews that they gave.
I, for one, was sad to find out that Cyd Charisse died this year, but was even more sad when I decided to investigate the health and well-being of her former co-stars for the first time. The only two who remain alive and well whose credits are significant are Debbie Reynolds and Rita Moreno (who played Zelda Zanders). It was a sad thing to realize that most of the cast of one of my favorite movies have died. I know this is the way that life goes, but it’s still a hard realization.
I guess all there is left to be said is: May they all rest in peace.
Jun
13
After stopping classes last year so that I could work full time in order to save up for my move, I am now pursuing school once again. This job will be a good one for it as it has a fairly steady schedule, even though it’s during the time that most on-campus classes would be.
Every time I go through the process of getting “into” a school, I’m reminded by just how much it sucks. There is no more eloquent way to articulate it: it sucks. First, there’s filling out the FAFSA, which is an adventure all on its own. Mine took me several disjointed times to finally get it all filled out, and even still, I have to wait for my mom to get back from her latest cruise before I can do anything further with it.
FAFSA, actually, is entirely silly. If I were to wait until the spring term, I would be able to file on my own, without needing any parental information. The reason being that I would be nearing 24, and would also be married. Somehow, these things make a huge difference in my independence, despite the fact that my parents will not be able to claim me as a dependent this year and indeed will not be sponsoring, cosigning or otherwise helping me out with my loans in any way. It’s a silly kind of rule, but in order for me to start school in the fall rather than waiting until the spring, I still need information from my mom. I was able to get the appropriate information, and now all I need is an electronic signature, which will just have to wait. It’s nice to know that’s done, though.
The next item on the list of Things To Do is to figure out which community college I’ll attend. We’re in the county for one of them, but it has a difficult website to navigate and I found it very frustrating. I also could find almost no online classes, which is a big problem for me, since I won’t be able to attend on campus unless it’s a once-a-week class. The other is out of county for me, but has ample online classes, including language classes. I know there will be times that I’ll have to go to the campus, for exams and such (at least that’s how it worked for the classes I took online in Oregon), but if there’s a window that includes Wednesday or Thursday (which my days off seem to alternate between), then I’ll be able to get down and take an exam at the college and still be able to work full time like I’m doing.
I’m excited for the prospect of getting back to school, especially now that I have a better idea of what I’d like to do “when I grow up.” I’m getting six or seven architecture books from someone who is studying architecture so I’ll see if maybe architecture would be a good career path for me. I’d like to take some culinary courses to see if perhaps a career in food is for me. Whether I study architecture, music or food, though, I’m bound to find some class or another that will be relevant to my ultimate pursuance of said career.
I guess, to put it bluntly, I’m going back to school, and darn it, I’m excited about it!
Jun
10
June is here, and that means a few things for me. First of all, my birthday is this month. I’ll be the ripe old age of 23 in a couple of weeks. I’m not really overly excited about it as it’s just another birthday, but I enjoy celebrating it even still. My birthday has always been a good holiday type day for me. I’ll be at work that day, but hopefully it won’t be bad. Johnathan and I are planning to go out to dinner somewhere, but I haven’t figured out where yet. We wanted, originally, to go to The Melting Pot, but given our current finances, that’s a bit out of our price range. I’d like to go somewhere we haven’t been, though, so I’m going to do a little research to find out what’s good around here and what would be a unique experience for my birthday. If anyone around the Cleveland area has any suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them!
June also means that summer is here. It’s summertime, whoo! It means that we’ve been alternating between (or coping simultaneously with) thunderstorms and 90+ degree weather. The humidity some of the days in the last week has been unbelievable. It’s a marked difference, however, from what I was dealing with this past winter, when it came to figuring out how to survive the cold and still have skin that felt human. My skin feels quite normal again and it’s wonderful. I think I’m going to have to decide through the course of the summer, though, whether it’s worth the heat to have the beautiful feeling skin.
Another glorious thing that June has brought to us is the opening of the apartment complex pool. We went for a swim on Sunday and it was wonderful. I was very tired after we got out of the water (likely a side-effect of my treading water - gently - for an hour or so), but my skin felt wonderful, my muscles felt wonderful and I felt that I was exactly in my element. I think, had the pool been a bit less packed, I would have been willing to spend more time in the water. Unfortunately, there were boisterous children and even more boisterous twenty-somethings hanging out about the pool which made it difficult to have peaceful enjoyment. We were constantly getting splashed by a thrashing child or nearly getting hit with a football because the twenty-something guys decided to throw one around, in and out of the pool. However, the pool being open will provide us with some opportunities for low-impact exercise and relief from the heat. It’s also given my skin some color, as we were out in nearly direct sunlight for that hour, in the water. Despite the 55 SPF sunscreen, I did get a little bit of color. I don’t look quite as sallow as I have all winter! 
June also means that we’re starting the apartment hunting process. Our lease is up in a couple of months, so we’ve decided it’s time to move. We’ve already looked at one place and put feelers out at a few others, so we should hopefully be able to narrow down our options by the end of June or early/mid July. I’m excited to look at these places. They’re all going to be easier on our budget, and hopefully we can find one that better suits our immediate needs. I’m getting pretty excited about the move, even though it’s still a couple of months away. It will be a place that we’re able to pick together, rather than the current place we’re in, which was where we ended up out of convenience more than anything else.
At any rate, I’m happy that June is here. Summer isn’t my favorite season, but I’m glad it’s here. The trees are green, the roads are mostly drivable and I’ll be spending more time out-of-doors than I did through the winter.
May
27
I’ve been living in Cleveland for about seven and a half months now, and something that has been bothering me since I moved here is that I haven’t really liked it. There are some really good points, and especially now that it’s green and lovely outside more days than not, I feel like I ought to warm up to it more than I have, yet I find that I simply can’t. It has taken me a while to pinpoint the reason why I just can’t find it in me to love this city (though I admit there are parts that I distinctly like about it), but I finally have.
People in Cleveland don’t like living here. It’s not something that I’ve even perceived from an actions point of view — it’s their words as well. When people learn that I moved here from out west, they ask me why I’d move here. It’s almost demoralizing to hear people who have lived here their entire lives talking down about their home city the way they do. People who live here complain about everything from their losing sports teams (Have faith, people! They have to win sometimes…) to the weather to the crummy roads in much of the city.
What people don’t talk about are the good points of this city. Cleveland has an amazing theater system which includes more than five theaters connected together through a tunnel-like system. There are festivals for everything, so at almost any weekend from March to December (weather providing), one can plan a weekend out and about. RTA (the public transit system) is working on a project that should improve it quite a bit (not to mention it was voted best public transit in 2007 - take that as you will). They have large, good looking stadiums which, though they’ve sold out to corporate naming rights, still have character - not to mention there are several of them, which is more than a lot of cities can claim. The greater Cleveland area is also quite as interesting as the city itself. There are lots of parks and interesting places to go. There are restaurants for almost every food fancy (with the exception of German, we found)… There are theater, film and music festivals, local musicians who perform (shocking!) locally, and of course the well-known things like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There are things to do, things to see, ways to pass time…
In short, there are things to like about Cleveland, but it’s hard to love a city that most people who live there don’t love.
May
17
On the 15th, Johnathan and I headed down to Playhouse Square to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I’ve been looking forward to this since we bought the tickets just after we saw Avenue Q in January.
We got to the theater fairly early, and I must admit, I don’t mind standing around in the theater lobby because it is a beautiful lobby. There was a flautist playing, which is fairly standard - every time we’ve gone, there has been someone playing some instrument. It’s nice to stand around and hear music before we get to see a show. Unfortunately, being a flautist (or at least a former flautist) myself, I wasn’t able to stand and enjoy her playing - I had to listen critically. Her low tones were lovely, but her high ones were thin and shrill. She fluffed quite a few notes and I was able to tell all too well when she made mistakes, even though I’d never heard the music before. It’s possible that she was nervous being around all those people who were milling about, though, so I imagine that was the cause of some of the tonal inconsistencies.
We originally had seats very close to the front, but they were for the week before, when I was initially scheduled to work 10-7, which would mean that I wouldn’t be able to get to the show in time for curtain. Johnathan called the theater and got our tickets moved to a week later, when I was working 8:30-5:30, giving me time to get down to Playhouse Square to see the show. As a result, our seats were moved, but instead of the usual moving far back into the rear of the theater, we were moved closer. As it turns out, we were in the front row on the right side. It was really great how close we were to the stage.
The cast we saw was excellent and funny. I had no complaints about them whatsoever. What was even more great was that two of them were Cleveland natives, and that always gives some energy to both the cast and the audience, increasing enjoyment of the show. Just like last time I saw it, I laughed, I cried and was thoroughly impressed with some of the improvisational moments that went on between the cast members. One particular thing worth noting, other than the two Clevelanders in the show, was that the boy who played Leaf Coneybear was Andrew Keenan-Bolger who is the younger brother of Celia Keenan-Bolger, who was in the original cast of this very show. Talk about keeping it in the family! That was a neat factoid (which many people may not have known or been able to put together unless they were fans of the show before seeing it on tour) and it was neat to see him act out that character. Leaf Coneybear and Olive Ostrovsky are my favorite characters in that show, I decided after watching it this time. It’s hard to really choose a favorite, though, because the characters are all so very lovable.
After the show, there was a Broadway Buzz just like we were lucky enough to experience after Avenue Q. There were three cast members scheduled to join us for it this time, but as they came out of the dressing room, most of them stopped to say hello and share with us. It was really neat seeing most of the cast members there, willing to talk with audience members about the show, about their experiences and other things. I was hoping it would be as enjoyable as the one after Avenue Q, and it had the potential to be, especially with so many amusing people, but thanks to a rather large group of private school students, we had the experience somewhat marred for us. They asked questions like “How long did it take to make the show?” and “Why do you make it so inappropriate?” That really bugged me. The show comes with a parental advisory that it isn’t appropriate for kids under a certain age, and to be perfectly honest, very little of what goes on in the show is misrepresentative to what goes on for kids that age. Adolescence isn’t exactly a smooth experience for most people. At any rate, I do rather wish that the students had been taken on a different night so that we might have enjoyed the Q&A session a bit more.
Overall, our experience was a good one. If it weren’t for precocious children and a theater director who is far too long-winded (we wanted to hear the cast, not the theater director), I would say it was an excellent experience.
May
16
The other night, I had an unexplainable craving for Indian food. Johnathan had never had it before, so I looked up some local places and we headed out to give a local place, India Garden, a try.
The place was tiny, and were it not for a fairly large sign, we might have missed it entirely. I liked the decor in there. It wasn’t overly fancy nor overly large. There weren’t many people there, so it was rather quiet, which was good because our waitress was very soft-spoken, though very pretty and very nice.
After a perusing the menu, I decided to order saag chicken and Johnathan got lamb curry. We ordered a side of saffron rice and some naan bread. It came fairly quickly while I admired the decor and learned that Johnathan doesn’t care for it. This will be a difference in opinion for us, I know, but when it came to the food, we were aligned fairly well.
My saag chicken, if I’m being perfectly honest, had the look of baby food. The smell and taste overwhelmed that quickly and I found myself enjoying the flavor of it immensely, though I did order it a little bit hotter than I really ought to have. Johnathan’s curry was tasty and flavorful, and the lamb was very tender. We both ordered the dishes medium and we agree that next time it’ll be mild for both of us. I like things a little spicier, but that was too much for me. I loved the naan. It was very tender and I loved the flavor. I’m determined to learn to make it because I would love to be able to have it at home.
The service at this restaurant was a little slow in spots, but nothing like what we had at the German restaurant, so we’re very pleased by that. The prices were more reasonable (though not cheap, by any means), and the service and food good. I definitely would recommend India Garden to people where I wouldn’t recommend Der Braumeister to anyone.
We love food, and I’m always glad when we can find good food locally. Next up, we want to find a good thai place that’s local. As much as I’d love to go back to NYC, we can’t do it just to get thai food. 