Monday, December 24, 2007

I did some photo editing for the photo rotation bank thingy on the GreyMatter Jugglers frontpage. I ended up really liking one of the pictures:

The predited version is from the The Oregon Daily Emerald's article about us a few months ago. I finally have the PDF of that article online as well for those of you who wanted to pretend that you actually have the paper in your hand. TWO PAGES!

Posted by Dreqan @ 09:21 PM PST Link | 9 People give a shit!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

We had our last Holiday Market show today. We have some video of the shows we've done over the last month or so and lots of pictures. The video isn't up on the website yet but the pictures are. We've also added more pictures of our September performance at Intermingle and Eugene Celebrations street show. Below I've posted a few excerpts to wet your appetite. You can click on them. Really. It'll be fun!

The first five are Intermingle and the final five are Holiday Market!

For those of you that are bad at taking links in context:

Go to the Holiday Market Gallery
Go to the Intermingle Gallery
Go to the Eugene Celebrations Gallery

Posted by Dreqan @ 10:41 PM PST Link | 23 People give a shit!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Do you guys love these log posts as much as I do?

Referring Link:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?blahtransamerica chinese fuck
Country: United Kingdom
Region: England
City: York

I get some weird fucking hits on this page.

Hah, if you actually run that search in Google I come up second!

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:44 PM PST Link | 9 People give a shit!

I finally signed up for facebook. I have been holding a grudge since they rejected me several years ago for no longer having a .edu e-mail address. But, people are on there that I want to talk to, so I had to finally do it. Find me using my real name.

Posted by Dreqan @ 11:15 AM PST Link | 33 People give a shit!

Yesterday it was proved to the world once again that I cannot be killed. As if past proof wasn't enough - A 16 foot face first swan dive onto pavement while stacking hay, falling off the roof of a car at 20mph, numerous ridiculous mountain unicycle crashes, and being lit on fire / almost blown up repeatedly every weekend throughout most of high school - as if these things not killing me weren't proof enough that it can't be done, the world decided to remind me in the form of a 30mph bike crash that I walked away from.

Yesterday it was 34 degrees and wet. I, not being an idiot, realized that there would probably be ice on the roads in certain areas. I live on a very steep hill that I enjoy riding down every day. Near the bottom there is a sharp turn that I usually hit at about 30mph. It's fun. The top of the hill had little ice on it so, I being a hubrical (yes, I turned "hubris" into an adjective) idiot decided to go balls out 'cause it's fun. Right as I was thinking that "maybe this is a bad idea" I hit a huge patch of ice. The fall happened so fast that I only heard it. I suddenly realized that I was sliding on my side, still on the bike, and still going near 30mph. Time slowed down as it does when things like this happen and was able to assess the situation. I decided that if I just ride out the slide things should be fine. It appeared that I would miss the oncoming traffic by a few feet and that there weren't any large obstacles in my way. This thought process took about 0.5 seconds.

Luckily the patch of ice was huge so I was able to slide out the whole fall. I slid about 20-25 feet before I stopped. I suffered a small strawberry on my elbow and a little bruising. My clothing was barely torn. My bike did not fair as well. My right pedal was caved in and partially ground off. My handle bars and break levers were also bent. My handle bar tape was also partially ground off. I was able to drag my bike to the side of the road and, after about 5 minutes of pacing back and forth going "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit," I bent my bike back to a workable form and continued to work. Oddly, no cars stopped to help. Not even the car that was going up the hill that I nearly hit. Jerks.

And so, I not only walked away from a 30mph fall but I was not even hurt. Therefor I cannot be killed. Had the ice patch been smaller and I had slid on dry pavement things would probably have been different... but I'm going to ignore that for now and pretend that I am invincible. Also, I'll probably be more careful on that hill.

Posted by Dreqan @ 11:13 AM PST Link | 8 People give a shit!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I have a pet peeve. Several, really... but only one that I feel like talking about now.

This one has a broad spectrum to it. Generally, it is whenever people do things without thinking about why they are doing them. Many intelligent people fall victim to these types of things. They are simply too busy, apparently, to endlessly analyze every one of their behaviors. This, however, can have unintended negative consequences - often even more serious then me just thinking they are idiots. An example I've used in the past is the case of the mysterious "rotting sanitizer water." A rather intelligent employee at The Flying Burrito once said to me "Maybe we should dry off the dishes after we dunk them in the sanitizer water. They stay wet awfully long up on the shelf and I'm worried that they might mold." Not in those exact words, but words to that effect. Apparently the WHY of we were dunked dishes in the sanitizer was lost on her, as was the fact the LONGER dishes stayed immersed in and damp with sanitizer the better it was for us all. In fact, drying the dishes would de-sanitize them. This example is only one of many that I come across several times a week. Most are minor and only remind me of how blindly most people stumble through their daily routine. Some, however, kind of peeve me off, hence the pet. I give you now our main course:

It is common knowledge to everyone but a youthful Qehndrah, who's parents were trying to kill her, that one should walk against traffic when walking in the street. These reasons are obvious, it's so that you will see the cars closest to you coming. Some people, nay many, take this lesson too far.

I bike nine miles to work every day. Four of those nine miles are on a bike path along a river that is about five to six feet wide. I have a little bell and often have to pass walkers on my way to work. I give them a little jingle and a rousing "on your left" and go about passing them. Many bikers don't warn the walkers, and they are assholes. Because of this a small portion of the walkers, probably five percent, walk on the left side of the bike path facing "traffic." They figure that if it works on roads then it must, of course, be applicable on a bike path. But if they gave it any real thought they'd realize they are being idiots - but they don't. Hence the peeve. Not only are they doing something mindlessly and being smug about it, but they are actually making themselves and everyone around them less safe. Not just for the few obvious reasons that I'm sure you, my above average intelligence readers have no doubt thought of by now, but for a entire deadly plethora of reasons. I will now list them here, because I like lists.

Why Walking the Wrong Fucking Way on a Bike Trail is Retarded - By MC Girr
• A bike trail is only six feet wide. That means that a bicycle passing a pedestrian has about 3 feet to pass, no matter what direction they are coming from. If they pass from the front they come within a foot of you. If they swerve around you and pass from behind they also pass within a foot of you. Walking on the left side of the path does not change these distances. The bike coming from behind is no farther away no matter what side of the path you are walking on. This is completely different from walking on a road, where this would not the case.


• Walking on the left side of the path makes you feel safer. This makes you smug and annoying. This also makes you more likely to get hit because your feeling of safety makes you less aware of what is around you. You mistakenly think that no bikes will be going near you anymore, and this may cause you to walk erratically and unpredictably.


• Rider reaction time to you is slowed down. The average walking speed of a person is about 2.5 mph. The difference in speed of a person walking away from a bicyclist and towards a bicyclist is thus five mph. A biker expects people on the right side of the path to be traveling towards them (relatively) at 5mph slower than the people on the left side of the path. If you change this up on them, and they aren't paying REALLY FUCKING CLOSE ATTENTION this can cause really big problems. Riders look far ahead to plan their path so they don't come anywhere close to walkers. If they glance at you and judge you speed, and when they look back up later and it turns out that they were off by 5mph this can cause huge collisions. Furthermore, riders going around sharp curves are much more likely to hit you if you are on the wrong side of the path for this same reason.


• Whoever is on the right side of the path, relative to the biker, is the person that the biker will need to "swerve" around. In the case of a failed swerve this person is the one who would be struck by the biker. If you are walking away from the biker when struck the impact will be five mph less severe then if you are walking towards the biker. Not only is your risk of being struck much greater due to the less reaction time, but the severity of the strike would also be much greater. The person on the left side of the trail does not require any swerving by the rider, and has an almost zero chance of being struck.


• Statistically, you will be swerved around more walking on the left side of the path than you will on the right. If you are traveling toward the riders at 2.5mph than you will be meet more riders and be swerved around more times than if you are walking away at 2.5mph from the swerve traffic. Remember, it's only the swerve passing that is dangerous - regardless of whether or not you are facing it.

You would think someone who took the time to "go against the grain" and smugly stand out by walking on the left side of the path would take the time to really *think* about if they really are being smarter than everyone else. But no, no doubt they think all those normal people are "sheep" and that they are way smarter than them for having the balls to go against the grain. Not everything that is commonly done is wrong. Some things are common for fucking reasons, even if people have no idea why they do it now. The people who started the trend probably had a reason for starting it, and if you're going against it you owe it to EVERYONE ALIVE, EVER to really think about it first and analyze whether or not you are being an idiot. Many trends start mindlessly, true, but many don't. It's become fashionable to go against the trends, so much so that people are doing stupid things. They either mindlessly follow the trend of mindlessly break the trends, BUT STILL NO ONE IS FUCKING THINKING ABOUT WHY THEY REALLY DO DO THINGS. I mean, what do people think about when they sit there and think? DO people sit there and think? WHY THE FUCK DON'T THEY? If people really need to break a trend they should try breaking the trend of going through life like a fucking zombie, only thinking enough to think of ways to be smug about how right they are.

Nevermind the irony of this post, you all can shut the hell up.

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:52 PM PST Link | 27 People give a shit!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Perusing my logs I again noticed an interesting search term that has led to my page:

The more interesting post is below this one.

Referring Link
http://www.google.com/[snip]en&q=leaf blowers fucking
Host Name office.silvermanmorris.com
Eegion Michigan
City West Bloomfield
ISP Silverman And Morris Pllc

Posted by Dreqan @ 04:43 PM PST Link | 22 People give a shit!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

As of this Friday I will be on xmas break until January 11th. I'm not really sure what to do with it. Zach is visiting from a few days after xmas until Dec 31st I think. After that I will probably end up trying to find some work to keep afloat, probably installing bamboo hedges for $15/hr if I can swing it. It will be manual labor again but that's good for me. I will probably have to invest in rain gear though, 'cause my old gear dissolved due to the alkaline concrete dust that was all over it. No, really, it dissolved. There were big holes in it. Similar holes to what probably formed in my lungs every time I drilled through into the concrete and inhaled the dust. (just about every day) Or maybe comparable to the holes in my eyes and stomach that I got when wet concrete was splashed into those respective areas. (the stomach stuff got their kind of round-about, from the top, not the bottom - thankfully)

So, yea, I might be working if I can swing the job, which would be good. I can't really go anywhere because the double whammy of not working combined with travel cost would be bad. Also Qehn doesn't get a break so I can't really go anywhere without her. Not this break at least. There was some talk of me going to Iowa alone, but that would be hard on her during the holidays. We don't want to brew any resentment.

I am toying with a few overnight bike trips, but it is awful wintery here. If I had a bivy sack I'd be more for it because it makes squatting easier. It's hard to find a place to put my one man tent sometimes. The bivy sack would make it easier 'cause I can squat on pavement and in ditches - places that I can't pitch my little tent 'cause it's not freestanding. I hear they don't handle the cold as well due to condensation, but I'd like to test that out. Also my cold weather sleeping bag is down, which could be a bad combination with a bivy sack and rain. Wet down is only one step warmer than sleeping in a glacier. My next long bike tour I think I'll try using a bivy and a 30deg synthetic bag.

With luck that will be two summers from now. Next summer I'll make money. Next winter break I go to new zealand with Qehndrah, summer after that I bike to RAGBRAI and then go home after to make a little money. Screw the eastern half of the US. Then hopefully every other summer I'll bike. Somewhere in there I'll get my teacher's license so that I'll actually make enough money during the school year to afford my summer trips. Then I'll buy a Tandem, Qehndrah will become a teacher, and we'll both have summers off to tour on a tandem. At some point we'll kidnap Robbie, Bess, and Rose and take them touring with us - probably when they get into their mid teens. They'll become bike junkies too and will keep RoadShow going after we die. Oh, yea, they'll also become the worlds youngest 3 person club passing team and break several world records before founding their own circus. This will happen in tandem with Team Roadshow revitalizing the vaudeville genre of entertainment and the world will be soon be filled with traveling entertainers and circus performers - with the TRS Vaudeville Extravaganza and the Fr*r*chs Circ de Awesome leading the field. Aaron and Dannye will retire early due to the extraordinary amounts of circus money being brought in by their progeny. This will allow Dannye to continue writing "THE" great american novel, cementing her place in history and in great books classes for centuries. Aaron will be already living comfortably off the income from his software company that he had founded years earlier, trumpeted by entrepreneurs and hippies alike for finally toppling microsoft and bringing ethics into the business world. He'll be Time Magazine's man of the year and entire courses will be taught about him in college business classes for the next two hundred years due to his invention of "ethical capitalism" - a new form of economics that eventually ends the poverty gap and in doing so creates world peace. This world peace will also be helped by Ambassador Bob Sr's many books on religious study that finally bring peace and stability to the middle east and between all the religions. Aaron and Bob will win several nobel peace prizes - they'll keep leapfrogging years until finally they'll have to make a new award just for them. This, of course, makes the world even safer for international travel allowing the TRS Vaudeville and Fr*r*ch's circus to travel world-wide, spreading joy and juggling to all the children of the world... by bicycle.

I'll do my part by becoming a teacher and riding my bike a lot. Y'all get started on your part. Meet back here in 20 years.

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:51 PM PST Link | 18 People give a shit!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Duuuuuuudes! So, Qehn and I have been dead for about two weeks due to a bad cold. First me, then her. It lasts for freakin' ever. I've missed two weekends of performing because of it 'cause Oregon Mark got sick too. Fuck.

But, on the bright side, laying around for 2 weeks let me discover that BLOWFISH ROCK THE FUCK OUT. THEY ROCK. THEY ROCK OUT HARD. THEY ROCK OUT HARDER THAN YOU COULD EVER THINK, EVER EVER, EVER,

EVER!

Watch this if you dare!

Oh, I also watched "Superbad" and that fat kid in it talks just like Eric Thayer.

Posted by Dreqan @ 08:16 PM PST Link | 16 People give a shit!