Experiments with my new camera...

Here are some of my first shots with my new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T1I 15.1 MP Digital Camera.  Many more to follow...

"The Game"

Since nothing really exciting has been going on in my life lately I will delve into the old memory bank and talk to you about my first introduction to "the game" and inform you on how it is ruining my life, and maybe yours if you continue to read on.... (consider yourself warned)

Again, I must take you back to Myrtle Beach, no not the time when I was coerced into doing a naked swan dive into 3 inches of water which resulted in my snaggle-tooth, this Myrtle that I am talking about is exactly one year after the aforementioned Myrtle.  As I already have talked about in my previous blog, all of the F&M campus migrates down to Myrtle Beach at the end of the year for some quality boozing, beaching, and bad decision-making, and it was here in Myrtle, this past May, where a freshman on my soccer team, Krem-de-la-Krem, told me about "the game" and subsequently ruined my life.  (warning #2)

So, my roommates and I are all sitting around our hotel room listening to music and doing a little bit of drinking before we go down to the beach and this is where Kremer decides that he has to tell us all about "the game".  We are all excited.  "Yeah we want to hear about the game, Do you want to hear about the game? Yeah I totally do too.  I'm totally going to win, I'm really good at games, lets here it, I'm excited, what is it? How do I win?"  But NO! This is not that kind of game.  There are really no winners in this game.  There are only two real places to be in this game: losing, or waiting to lose.  I know you are probably a little confused at this point but be patient, everything will be explained in time.  Actually, all will be explained right now.

Okay so here is how "the game" works.  First, everyone is playing.  Once you learn about the game you are in.  And by "in" I mean that you never stop playing "the game" EVER...  So basically at this point you are in whether you like it or not.  Alright, so the object of "the game" is not to think of "the game".  If you do happen to think of "the game" then you lose.  But, this is a gentleman's and gentlewoman's game so if you do think of "the game" then you have to tell the people you around that you thought of "the game" and concede your defeat.  But, that is not the end of it.  Once the sorry soul does confess to thinking about "the game" then it starts all over again.  As this is a gentleman's and gentlewoman's game it is polite and proper to give a 10-15 minute rest period where people can gradually stop thinking of "the game" before it really starts again because obviously once the first person thinks about "the game" and tells those around them then obviously everyone is forced to be thinking about it.  The 10-15 minute lay period helps with getting "the game" out of peoples mind before the game officially begins again.  And that's all there is to it.  Don't think of "the game".  Easy enough right?  I thought so too, at first that is.

At first, I was like okay this isn't so hard.  This is easy.  I'm not going to think of the game.  We start drinking some more, blah blah blah, someone that wasn't in "the game" convo walks into the room and asks what game is on the television.  A perfectly ordinary question but what do we all think about?  Yes, "the game".  This was the start of "the game" ruining my life.  For the rest of the time at Myrtle we were all constantly thinking about the game, especially with the amount of sports and games we were playing out on the beach, and all of the drinking games that occurred on the trip, every time the word game was uttered I immediately thought of "the game".  In my mind I just kept thinking that "the game" would slowly start fading and I would soon be game free, but boy was I wrong, and I really can only blame myself.

I amused me greatly to tell new people about "the game" at really terrible times to hear about "the game" for the first time.  So, a week after returning home from Myrtle I was invited down to my friend Ryan's house for her graduation party, along with my other friends John, TJ, Bush, and Diane and we all decided to ride together.  Oh, Ryan lives in Lancaster, PA and we all live in Sauquoit, NY which makes it a five hour car ride...  So we start driving and about 45 minutes into the drive someone asks if we should play the "alphabet game," a much more sane game then "the game" and everyone agrees.  The only problem is that when I hear the word game I thought of "the game" and because no one in the car had heard about "the game" before I thought it was the perfect time to tell them all.  So I describe the game to them, but then I did something that Kremer had not done, which made the game 10x worse for all of us.  Once I described it, I then went on to tell them that they were going to think of the game in the most random of places and will soon start to really hate "the game" as it will take over their lives.  But I took it one step farther.  I started naming places that they were going to think of "the game" because I thought it would be funny to name really random things that people do so that when they did them they would think of "the game".  So, I was like, yeah you are going to be CODing (Call of Dutying) it up and think of "the game".  Or you will be brushing your teeth every morning and when you look up into the mirror after spitting out the tooth paste you are going to think of it.  Or, every time you cut your toe nails.  I was giving all of these examples partly to be an asshole, but I was also trying to show them how random it is when the game pops into your brain, which really sucks.  Then I said just imagine you will all be laying on your deathbed many centuries from now and just before you take your last breath you are going to think of "the game".  I might have gone too far with that one because we all sat there for a moment then I thought about how awful that actually would be.  I'm 207 with all of my 13 son's standing around my bed, my 33 grandchildren, and my 2 young baby great grandchildren all sitting around my bed and instead of thinking about how large and amazing my family is I am going to be thinking, "FUCK YOU KREMER!".  I just lost "the game" and that is why "the game" is slowly but surely ruining my life.

The rest of the trip, the entire car was pretty angry with me because they all kept thinking of "the game".  And by the end of the trip I'm pretty sure they all were no longer my friend, especially Bush, because "the game" really hit a soft spot with him.  He was the driver, and for the record also the most level-headed person of the whole bunch, but for whatever reason he could not get "the game" out of his head. ("the game" accepts all colors, creeds, intelligence levels, etc. which is part of its charm, you never know who it will really get)  By the end of the trip, in the car ride home, we would all be sitting in silence listening to music or whatever else people do in 5-hour car rides and Bush would just let out a large sigh and look really sad.  We started picking up on these sighs and when we asked him what was wrong he just said, "the game".  He couldn't get the game out of his head.  He said that he was thinking about "the game" for the entire car ride home.... continuously.  I felt a little bad, but mostly I just laughed...

Now, it has been many months since my first introduction and I am still amazed at the complete randomness of the times I think of it.  tying my shoes in the morning, listening to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA", eating upside down pepperoni pizza from Grande's, eating a push-pop, getting my tooth fixed at the dentist, washing my grundle in the shower, you name it I've probably thought of "the game" doing it.

In conclusion, that is "the game" and do with it what you will.  For some people it doesn't really affect them and they really don't get it or care to partake, but for others it really does sink in.  I hope I don't ruin anyone else's lives by introducing them to this game but I had nothing else to talk about so this is what you got(and secretly I really do hope it does so I am not the only one living in misery).  Also, as a side note, for best results in getting other people with "the game" I suggest doing it situations that require lots of time in confined places with not much to do (i.e. long car rides), or with people under the influence (I'll leave this one ambiguous).

THE GAME

YOU LOSE

PS if anyone has any completely random places that they have thought of or think of the game it would be funny to hear them so post a comment if you have any good ones.

TJ added: any songs by the doors, death, Diane talking, whenever someone says, "Guess what?"

Where Are You Tooth Fairy?

 This might be the first time in my life that I have ever really wished that a mythical being from the fairy tales told to me as a toddler was real.  Sorry to burst anyones bubble that still believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or the Stinky Cheese Man.  Ya know what? If you wish hard enough maybe they will come to life just like Tyra Banks did in Life Size (fantastic movie btw).  Also, another side note, if you are from the Sauquoit area and know Mike Fadel, formerly seen around the science halls in the middle school but has since left, was recently on the Tyra Show and got shot down by Tyra during a "singles mixer" episode.  It's on Youtube, check it out, funny stuff.

Anyways, back to my wishing for the fairy tales to be real.  I really wish the Tooth Fairy was real, just with a slight twist.  Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, I am not still losing teeth and I do not want the Tooth Fairy to come to my room when I am sleeping and take my tooth and leave a $1.  No sir, I want this Tooth Fairy to come and give me back the bottom half of my front tooth that is now gone.  To give you the picture, I basically look like Carrot Top minus the steroids and oddly dark skin mixed with Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber.  Not a great combination, I know.  

To be accurate and thorough in telling you the story of my chipped tooth I must take you back about a year and a half to a place called Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  At the end of every Spring Semester at Franklin and Marshall much of the campus pack up their bathing suits and beer helmets and embark on a 4-5 trip down to Myrtle Beach to unwind from the year and enjoy the nice weather and beach before returning back to F&M for graduation.  So, as my Junior Year ended at Franklin and Marshall I, along with all of my roommates and soccer team, made our way down to Myrtle.  The first 2 1/2 days went swimmingly, no pun intended, and we were all having a great time.  Then came the mini golf match that was the turning point in my little mini vaca down in Myrtle.  Actually, first came me waking up the day after the mini golf match and then the story was retold to me by the rest of the gang in our hotel room and my unfortunate partner, G (What up South Africa. Thanks for being a follower G, I love you) .  Okay, so I wake up, a little dreary and I see the face of dread on G's face waiting for me in the living room of our place.  So he commences to tell me the story of the mini golf massacre in two part harmony, with the 8x10 colored, glossy pictures with arrows, and a paragraph on the back of each one describing its significance.  Slowly it began coming back to me, and by slowly I mean really not at all, but I believed G and the pictures didn't lie.  What had happened was that G and I, two drunk kids took on two of our friends (sober) in a mini golf match.  The losers had to run (clothing excluded) from the sand dunes at the beach down into the water at midday in front of everyone that just so happened to be enjoying a nice time down at the water. Needless to say, G and I lost the match and that came to me like a slap in the face.  It hurt! And it hurt bad!  I argued that we had been taken advantage of, but it was to no avail, and to be honest a bet is a bet is a bet and that must be honored.  It was set in stone.  We were going to have to go ahead and do the dance.

So, we prepared ourselves, as any college kids would when gearing up to do something really stupid.  We grabbed a bite to eat, stretched out, cut our toenails, trimmed up our manscapes, and consumed an inordinate amount of alcohol.   So 12 o clock rolled around, 1 o clock, 2 o clock and then we were finally ready.  We began the shameful walk down to the beach, followed by a large gathering of "so-called friends" that were just along to see us make complete fools out of ourselves.  Once down at the beach, the "so-called friends" of ours rounded up as many people as they could down at the beach and created a gauntlet for us to run down and we headed up into the dunes.  Once we got into our nakedness, we started sprinting out of the dunes and running through the spectators as they yelled and screamed at us.  We made it through and just as our feet hit the water and we took a few steps into the ocean we both jumped to dive and this is when it happened.  My chin rammed itself into the sand smashing my lower jaw into my upper jaw and CRACK!!!  A lower chunk in the corner of my tooth was gone.  I knew it as soon as it happened.  I arose out of the water and turned to G and gargled through some salt water, "I justh chipthed my toofth, I justh chipthed my toofth."  So once back in a bathing suit and back up to the hotel room I checked the mirror and sure enough there I was a toothless man.  The pain was excruciating and every time anything, and I do mean anything including liquid, food, or even air, touched the newly exposed parts of my tooth a shooting pain surged through my body.  I couldn't believe it.  So the rest of the 2 days on the trip I was forced to push through the pain and eat and drink although the pain was pretty extreme.

Once Myrtle was over and I returned home after graduation at F&M I had the unfortunate task of informing my parents of how stupid there son was.  So I told the story of why I was there slurring my language and drooling out of the crack in my tooth, minus a few details, that I felt they did not need to know about, and they were actually very relaxed about the entire situation.  It actually was not that big of a deal.  I was in college so I still had dental insurance so we made the call over to the tooth doctor and set the appointment to fix up my snaggle-tooth.  And up until about 3 days ago, this is where my tooth story ended.  Me, walking into the future with a full set of incisors restored in my mouth, and the ending credits beginning to scroll up the screeen, a song beginning to play, and a quick fade to black... THE END.

But, alas, it was not so because the missing tooth saga was to return to me just as swiftly as a boomerang does to an Aussie, although it took a solid year and a half to come full circle.  But full circle it came nonetheless, and this is what brings us back to the present narrative of this story.  About 2 days ago I was enjoying a nice productive day, which for those of you who know me and my current situation as a post-grad degenerate is about as frequent as an eclipse of the sun, so I was enjoying my newfound fruitfulness.  I woke up at 6:27 to my alarm, showered, and got ready for a fun-filled day of substitute teaching at Sauquoit.  The school day went smoothly, and I returned home and relaxed for a while at home watching tv and winding down from a tough day at work (Note: subbing is the easiest gig ever...haha).  Anyways, after relaxing for a bit I decide that I am going to make some dinner for the family.  And I can cook assholes.  Someone on facebook, who will go unnamed for the time being, answered a question about me that asked if they thought I could cook and they said no.  F U!  I am a great cook.  I was really in the mood for some rice so I cooked up some rice and then I did a stir-fry of some grilled chicken, onions, peppers, and my own special blend of spices (mostly cayenne because I love spicy foods) and then mixed it all into the rice to create a jambalaya of sorts just as my mom and dad were walking in the door.  They also through in a California Pizza Kitchen flatcrust margherita pizza, and by they I mean my mom did, who is not the best with cooking (sorry mom), and she forgot to put a timer on for the pizza.  As the time passed my dad realized that my mom had not put the timer on the oven for the pizza and asked my mom how long the pizza had been in.  She nonchalantly said about 2 minutes, but after the fact we came to the conclusion that it was most likely closer to 5-6 minutes, and my dad put the timer on for what he thought would be the remainder of the time.  However, when the timer went off and I went to pull the pizza out of the oven it was very over-cooked and came out pretty burnt and really crunchy.  If you are reading this and think you are figuring out where this is going, well you are right.  We didn't throw the pizza out, mistake #2 after the timer incident, and we cut the pizza up and each took a slice.  My mom took a bite, she seemed pleased because nothing really phases her when it comes to foods, my dad took a bite, he seemed mildly pleased and I could tell he had somehow managed to get through the burnt taste and taste a bit of the pizza within, and then it was my turn.  So, I picked up my slice and went in for a bite that would change my life forever, fooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr.  (Anyone know that reference? Everyone should).  Actually that was a bit dramatic because it didn't change my life forever but, what it did do was crack the filling on my upper incisor that had previously been fixed up after my Myrtle incident, and I knew it right away.  I felt the crunch of the pizza and then I felt the crunch of something very different in my mouth.  It was the crunch of my teeth crushing my tooth...  I just put my head down, dropped the slice of pizza, and said, "FUCK!"  My parents both looked up, "What?," they said.

"I just chipped my tooth... again," I said.  And it was so.  The filling that had once been there was gone and I again had a snaggle-tooth.  I was so pissed and the reason wasn't just because I chipped the tooth but it was because I no longer had dental insurance, or health insurance for that matter (and probably never will thanks to Joe "Brutus" Lieberman and those damn Republicans who don't want to help out the some 40 million Americans who are currently uninsured... sorry I digress)  that would easily cover such a cost.  So now here I sit, talking to you about my current situation.  It's a Saturday, and it has now 2 full days since I chipped my tooth and I am still missing a big chunk of it.  And although I did find out that to fix my tooth up again it will only cost about $100, that's still $100 thats coming right out of my pocket, which is not fun for anyone.  I will probably be making the call to the dentist on Monday and see when we can get this taken care of.

Although, the more I wait the more I think about maybe keeping the tooth as is.  Or better yet maybe just getting a big gold cap to replace my damaged tooth.  I feel that it could be a character builder or at least a conversation starter out at a bar.  So, that is the story of why I wish there was a Tooth Fairy that gave me a new tooth for free, or atleast took my broken tooth and gave me $100 instead of $1 to get this shit fixed.  

This time I will not say that I am ending the tooth story saga, but rather I will say that this new chapter is coming to a close.  Until the next time that I do something stupid that ends with me breaking my tooth again, which I fear will not be very long, I bid you all ado.  

(KEEP READING MY BLOG AND BECOME A FOLLOWER.  I HAVE 5 FOLLOWERS NOW! WHO IS GOING TO BE NUMBER 6?  THE NUMBER 6 FOLLOWER WILL GET A SPECIAL GIFT FROM YOURS TRULY SO WHO IS IT GOING TO BE!?!?!?!?!?!  MAYBE YOU!!! haha)

Oh College...

It's best if you don't ask questions or judge on this one...  This is what happens on a Sunday when a bunch of college kids are hung-over, bored and don't want to do any work.

Boston Excursion - 10.11.09

A girl playing with the pigeons in Copley Square.

A little girl waiting for the merry-g0-round.

Guitar man strumming on the streets of Boston.

A homeless man resting in the Boston Commons.

Two young musicians relaxing in the Public Gardens.

The couple above in 40 years?

A crazy man playing with his razor scooter in Copley Square.

A group of Break-dancers performing in Quincy Market.

A mysterious pair of shoes, notebook, and sweatshirt on a bench with no one around...

An ominous-looking building looming over Copley Square.

Two suns shining down on Copley Square.

Gothic Revival building in the foreground with a newer and much bigger building standing in the background.

Sax man playing the blues in the Public Gardens.

Shadowy Clock Tower around Copley Square.

Gothic Revival Reflection off of a building bordering Copley Square.

Hook'd On Fonix

Alright, so today was a pretty typical day for me, and I will shamelessly share it here in order to put this blog into context.  Note to the 3 people that do actually read this: DO NOT JUDGE.          

         Okay, so I woke up this morning around 11:23 a.m. give or take, a pretty typical rise time for me when I have absolutely nothing to do, something that has become quite a usual occurrence in my life these days.  I think about going out into the kitchen and making some whole wheat ego waffles because they are freaking delicious and it is before 12 p.m. and we all know that the only acceptable time to eat ego waffles is between the hours of 6 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. or between the hours of 2 a.m. and lets say 5:59 a.m.  The first time frame is obvious: typical morning hours where breakfast is okay.  Yes, breakfast goes until noon and not a second before and McDonald's should get the hint and extend their damn breakfast hours a little bit because the only way a college-ish age kid is going to make it to a McDonald's breakfast is if they are still going strong from the night before and are making a quick stop at McDies to pick up a bacon egg and cheese biscuit on their way home to sleep for the rest of the day.  And "breakfast for dinner" does not apply to these standards of acceptable times.  However, breakfast for dinner has to be made from scratch with either waffles, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, or some delicious combination of them all, just not pre-made egos.  Okay, back to my day.

So, I think about doing the waffles idea, but then I decide not to and I turn on the television to veg out a little more, like I hadn't gotten enough in my 10-hour beauty sleep of which I had just awoken from.  But, it is the life I live and that was what I decided to do.  So, I’m flipping through the channels and I stop on FOX, something I do from time to time to get my laughs.  But on this day, they actually had a good story, probably because it had nothing to do with politics or anything of significance.  It was the story of the “Barefooted Bandit”.  It is actually a really interesting story about a modern day Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leo DiCaprio from Catch Me If You Can if you don’t know that name).  Anyways, he has been on the run for some time now, robbed a bunch of houses, stole a few boats, stole and crash-landed 3 planes, etc. etc…  As I am watching this, my phone rings, another unusual occurrence that I will get back to later.  It’s J, (I will keep his identity anonymous so the paparazzi don't show up outside his house tomorrow…hah),  one of my best friends from home and he asks if I want to go to lunch.  I accept and we go to lunch at Applebee’s.  I love Applebee’s and the 2-for-$20, fantastic!  So we get our food, we both got burgers and boneless buffalo wings, he was responsible and had a water, I had a margarita, (It’s 5 somewhere… Right?). 

         The rest of the meal and day went along swimmingly and mostly uneventful for this guy.  I sat around the house, watched tv, went online and stalked people on Facebook, you know the usual.  Then, I decided that I was going to take advantage of my Netflix account and watch some of the season 1 episodes of Californication since with a single and decisive swift flick to the nuts of any diehard Californication fan Showtime (the tv station that it airs on) and Netflix decided to air only the premiere episode of Californication Season 3 on Netflix.  Effectively, giving “us all” broners (Californication reference used completely out of context) and then not airing any of the following episodes.  Not cool! And neither is flicking guys in the nuts.  I know a girl who actually told me that she used a nut flick during foreplay.  Big No No! That shit hurts!

So I’m left watching season 1, which isn’t so bad because the show is freaking awesome.  I’m watching the third episode I believe with the red-haired girl that Hank sort of dates for a little bit in the beginning of the season.  Anyways, the episode begins with Hank and her in bed and she says, “LOL,” as if it actually was an acceptable statement in ordinary face-to-face conversations, which it most definitely is not.  And then I got to thinking about it more and it doesn’t end with the LOL’s and the WTF’s and the ABITHIWTITB’s (this abbreviation is real.  Look it up.) of this world.  The new cool thing is to spell words completely wrong purposefully and adding letters to words just to make them unique or something and I find offense because spelling does not come easily to me and this new language that has become such a mainstay in modern speech is destroying the English language.  Just to demonstrate my point I know a group of girls, who will go unnamed, but go to my old college that have created a “secret group” and they only talk in their code language that involves adding z’s to words that absolutely do not need them and changing y’s to –eh’s.  Not a very good code language, not even as good as pig latin.  But it really makes no sense and although I will admit that I did like when they started calling me Homzer (My first last name, minus the z, for those of you who know me only by Brian) and I did enjoy changing my BBM name to Homzer for a few days, I find the whole phenomena completely and utterly ridiculous.  It just makes no sense to me why that would be the cool thing to do and yet still I was somewhat drawn to it so that I could be on the in crowd and spell my wordz with z’s.

         And I know that I am part of the problem these days with all the texting and abbreviating I do on a regular basis.  I had a full conversation through texting that involved only the use of the first letters we were trying to represent and we actually carried the entire conversation out and made plans for that night.  It went something like this, (translation in parenthesis)

J: S? (Sup?)

B: N. T? (Not. Tu?)

J: S. W? (Same. Wasupi?)

B: B’ed o o m m. (Bored out of my mind.)

J: Y.  M @ 9:20? (Yeah.  Movie at 9:20?)

B: W O? (Which One?)

J: S-Gates (Surragates.)

And so on and so on…

Both of which are minor miracles and really show how ridiculous things have gotten.  Now I know all of these new technologies with internet, cell phones, etc., are supposed to make society better and more connected, but please not at the expense of humanity and the English language.

         So, in my own personal attempt to mend our ways I am vowing to text less, bbm less, actually call people more, or better yet get back to the old-fashioned face-to-face interactions of yesteryear and I advise you to do the same.  It will be a better world I promise.

         Anyways, that’s enough of my rant.  I told myself that I would be in bed before 12 a.m. because I have to be responsible and be a substitute teacher tomorrow at 7 a.m. in the morning and that clearly didn't happen so I am now going to shut up and go to bed for real.  Good night and N.O. (no offense) to anyone who may have been off-handedly mentioned in here. 

         Oh and if there actually are people out there reading this, which I really am skeptical about, I encourage and plead with you to comment on my posts.  For one, I just would like to see what other people think about some of this same stuff, and secondly it is just nice to know that there are people taking an interest and reading this stuff as I am a new face in the blogging world.  Also, and if you want to really make me happy, become a follower of my blog as posts like this will hopefully be coming regularly since I am a guy with way too much free time on my hands and nothing else better to do...

         I will leave you with a fortune cookie fortune that I received the other day, “Don’t give up.  Your problem gets better next month.”  (I guess you will have me rambling on here for at least another month because China is telling me that October just won’t be the month for me.)  Farewell.

 Editor’s Note: There is no editor so please apologize the spelling and grammatical mistakes in this blog because I am not even going to proof read.

The Ultimate in Bro-ness

Yes, I have found it! The absolute ultimate place for bro's to be bro's. For those of you who do not understand the full extent of what it means to be a bro I will give you the very politically correct urban dictionary definition that got 1134 thumbs up and only 257 thumbs down that seems to fit the bet. A bro is,

"An alpha male idiot. This is the derogatory sense of the word (common usage in the western US): white, 16-25 years old, inarticulate, belligerent, talks about nothing but chicks and beer, drives a jacked up truck that’s plastered with stickers, has rich dad that owns a dealership or construction business and constantly tells this to chicks at parties, is into extreme sports that might be fun to do but are uncool to claim (wakeboarding, dirt biking, lacrosse), identifies excessively with brand names, spends a female amount of money on clothes and obsesses over his appearance to a degree that is not socially acceptable for a heterosexual male" (Urban Dictionary: Bro).

Okay, the Holy Grail of Bro-ness is amongst us, and contrary to what you may be thinking it is nowhere near Baltimore, or in the locker room, although both of those places are undoubtedly very sacred places within the realm of this meaty sanctuary. Drum roll please.... (sound of drums rolling?)......www.brobible.com!!!

At long last, a place that combines a patented Compatibility Matching System® that narrows the field from millions of bro-worthy men and matches them with a highly select group of compatible bros who have been prescreened on 29 Dimensions™ of personality: scientific predictors of long-term brobility. Oops, actually that was from E-Harmony. My bad.

But seriously, this place truly does exist. It is self-purportedly a place to "make every bro's life a little easier" (brobible.com/about). In a slightly different definition of a bro, the site states that it serves as a forum and meeting place for ambitious, socially active, sports- and recreation-minded men aged 18-up to have a one-stop hub of Bro-worthy content, tailored to the Bro’s specific needs and interests. Included are articles, media, forums for bros to peruse and further perfect the craft of being a bro (Brobible.com/about).

Hilarious!

NOTE: Despite this rant on the utter ridiculousness www.brobible.com , it actually is pretty entertaining whether you are a bro or not. Just beware and be cautious of long-term visits as the bro-ness may rub off.

Sunny Day in October- Sauquoit, NY

Upstate New York- Fall '09

XC Bike Trip- Summer '08

These are a few of the pictures that I took on my bike trip across the country, from San Francisco to Long Beach Island, New Jersey, during the Summer of 2008.  To see more pictures or to read about the trip you can go to it here.  (http://www.greatxcadventure.blogspot.com/)

San Francisco Skyline.

At the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Fran.

Take two...

Sunset in a California State Park.

Mountain range in Utah.

Sunset...

Historic Fruita District in Colorado.

A doe and fawn in the Fruita District.

Ibid.

Another sunset.

Sunrise with hot air balloon landings.

There are many mountains out west...

"The Shoe Tree"- Middlegate, Nevada.

"The Shoe Tree"

"The Shoe Tree"

More sunsets...

Laying in the middle of the road out west...

Ditto...

Leaving the Rockies behind us...