Nothing much

by Dom on December 11th, 2008

Not much going on anymore now that I’m back in America. For the most part I spend my days busy, but doing what I’m not really sure. I’ve been trying to work on my portfolio. It’s still in the beta stage shall we say. Pachoko pachoko eh. I’ve been having computer issues as well. They are looking up. Mostly still just kind of getting used to being home. The novelty is wearing off for everyone and so the stress of the daily issues and deadlines and surprises are starting to take a larger toll. Still nothing near what I expected so that’s good.

Anyway, I’m not quite sure what I’ll write about now that my life isn’t so interesting. I’d hate for this to turn into just some website of ramblings. So for now it’ll probably just sit, un-updated a lot of the time. Atleast until I get a new idea for the usefulness of this webspace. I’d like to thank everyone for reading. While I doubt anyone wants to, if there’s a post you particularly like and would like to save you should do so soon, since I could change everything at any time, though it probably won’t happen for months.

Back at last.

by Dom on November 18th, 2008

So I’ve finally made it home. Finally. And no run-ins with cops besides some parking tickets. Now I’m watching the fantastic four cartoon, they’re battling psycho-man. Classic and intense. It was a good time seeing everyone again. Learned a lot about those schools. I guess the party is over now though, time to get to work on the applications and my portfolio. Maybe I’ll nap instead. I guess either way I should probably turn off the tv.

The Finale

by Dom on November 16th, 2008

Driving was horrible today. Amazingly bad. It was rainy most of the time; then the sun came out for a bit and made a blinding glare on everything. It was great conditions to find out how stupid people are about driving. Many people forgot or didn’t seem to know that the left lane was for passing. I passed people in the right lane who must have just had cruise control on or something and they were looking at their cell phone. Ridiculous. I couldn’t handle it and when people wouldn’t notice the people coming on from the on ramp until they were right beside them and then cutting other people off. People just cruising right beside other people when there’s a line of cars waiting to move on. It was just absurd. 6+ hours of abusrd driving. I’ve never not enjoyed driving so much. Eh.

RISD was cool, except the first time I went it was just a bad day. I forgot my wallet and I couldn’t get breakfast, or a battery for my bike light. The building I needed to go to was locked. So I sat around and followed some kid in. Then the floor I needed was locked, so I knocked. Found out I that they had no time for me that day. So I drove back to my friends house where I was staying. The next day was much better though. RISD was cool, they had some great facilites and a real intense program. I spent some time at their museum too, that was real cool. It is nice to see some old friends and meet some new ones too.

Pratt was interesting. They had a three year program that really seemed to give a solid foundation in design. It was in a pretty neighborhood in brooklyn too, lots of brownstones. Their campus was fun too, there was art all over it. New York was cool, but it was weird. It was just miles of store fronts and apartments with random spots of glitz. It almost all looked the same so much that it almost tricked you into thinking you’ve really just been hanging out on the same four blocks the entire time. There was some good stuff there though. Glad to be on the way home though, it’s time.

NYC

by Dom on November 10th, 2008

I’ve been hanging out in New York for a few days. Expensive is the word. It works out with the budget a bit though because I spent a lot less than I thought I would earlier in the trip. It’s been a good time indeed. I’ve been staying with a friend from the Peace Corps; and the first night we met up with a friend from Augusta. It’s been real nice being able to see people again. New York is a lot of walking. This girl I’m staying with claims to have been too busy to really get out much so she doesn’t know where many things are and so we end up wandering a lot looking for stupid things like bars or breakfast places. It’s fun though. I finally made it to a guitar store. Guitar Center actually. I checked out some of the local ones and was a bit disappointed. I did find something at the Guitar Center though, something that turned out to be just out of my price range and not even close enough to fudge. A 1972 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic, it was real sweet. I learned a lot from talking to the guy though so it isn’t a total disappointment. I rode around all yesterday too. Riding with traffic here seemed a lot easier than in Atlanta for a number of reasons, cars are used to you, the land is flatter, things aren’t as sprawled. It’s still fun to pass drivers and taxis during rush hour too.

Through the Middle

by Dom on November 7th, 2008

So I made it out of Notre Dame after four overtimes. If only they could have punched one through and not lost…Oh well the past is in the past and we all know how much I care about sports anyway. Notre Dame as a school though was quite interesting. Super small program, taking only one a year. A whole lot of freedom and support. That seemed real cool.

Continued on over to Columbus. Hung out with both sides of the family the first day. That was nice. Had an early Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house. All the food was quite excellent. Especially the sweet corn. Two years without it is one thing but two years only being able to eat the corn flakes equivalent really made me appreciate it and miss it that much more. I piled like three extra scoops on my plate and because I didn’t see it until last it was all on top of my salad and potatoes and all that business. I’m not a mixer but some things just have to be done. In addition there was goose and duck and sweet potato pies and all kinds of other pies; like pumpkin. It was excellent. It was nice to see great grandma again and all the children and spouses of the cousins that are all grown up now. These times they are a changing.

Cruised over to Philadelphia yesterday. Supposedly a seven hour drive. I didn’t time it, I don’t know. It was pretty great because there was like no traffic. The weather was pretty fantastic yesterday too. Kind of warm but a nice cool breeze with all the green and orange and yellow leaves overhanging the highway. Every now and then it would hit me how different it was from the Malawian scenery but for the most part it was just some colorful leaves. Staying with a family friend here. Got some more Yuengling and some hot wings for dinner last night. It’s good to be in America.

Went to see the school here today. That turned out to be a bit ridiculous with a couple reschedules and rain. It seems to be a really awesome program though. I talked with a professor and hung out with some of the current grad students while they worked on some projects. The program seemed to really be connected to the city; which is real cool. Coming back was a bit of a financial fiasco because I’m not good at managing my money here yet and got on a $6 train with only $3. The guy just took the other $3 out on me. Whatever though, I got home. ATM tomorrow though.

I keep thinking/dreaming of a nap, and I keep postponing it. Tomorrow will probably just continue the cycle. Heading North again tomorrow. Oh so I just realized I forgot to talk about OSU. Their program seemed solid, but very teaching oriented. As in that’s pretty much the only new doors that would be opened for me from obtaining their degree. Since teaching is pretty far down my list right now I’m just not so interested in it. They had a very classical approach to the masters. Where I choose a topic and spend three years researching it and then present my findings as a thesis and defend it. All the while only formally meeting with my advisor once a year. I want something a bit more hands on and theoretical if that makes sense.

The first leg

by Dom on October 31st, 2008

The trip has begun. I made it up to Notre Dame. Had a nice stop in Knoxville first though. It was nice to see Doug again; he was the first friend from Augusta that I’ve seen. Ridiculous. We went to some pretty sweet bars. One had a sign that said all shirts must have sleeves. At the next one there wasn’t a sign, or sleeves. The latter offered beer in 32oz Mason Jars. The draft Yuengling was pretty good. It’s a shame they don’t sell it in Georgia. Closed the night with some Krystals. It was a good night but it made waking up at 8am a bit more difficult.

The drive up was pretty unproblematic. The only issue I had was that I wanted to take the bypass around Cinncinati but the signs weren’t well marked and were still in Kentucky so I didn’t believe that I was there yet and missed the turn. It turned out not to be a problem at all. I’ve been taking photos. For the most part it feels pretty normal being home but seeing huge balls of chicken breast in the deli seemed really odd. I didn’t get a photo of that but I decided I’m going to use my camera like I would when I was in Malawi. As in just whippin’ it out at random times and snapping snaps of random things. I’ll pick the good ones when I’m done and post them up. Anyway, debating what time to wake up tomorrow. Either way calls for bed now.

I voted.

by Dom on October 28th, 2008

I’m a Georgia voter, says my sticker

LA&ACCD

by Dom on October 28th, 2008

Hory Clap, I’m back. In GA that is. Just got back from LA. It was surprisingly cool. Of course that could be because of the short length of my trip and the locations I was, but who cares, I liked it. Jenn’s doing great. Except that whole number 2 business…hehe. The first day we just went for a ride on the boardwalk and Jenn made a dinner of tortellini alfredo. Good good stuff. The next day we actually went to the beach and hung out. Water was quite cold. Like one of those backwoods streams you find in the winter. I made her get in with me though, it was nice having company! Hit up some cool restaurants that day too, fish tacos and crab cakes and the like. Friday we checked out the Art Center. Cool school, however I was an idiot about visiting and didn’t make an appointment with the dept. chair and he wasn’t there. It really shook up my views of what I want to do and what I expect form a school. Then again, I think it’s pretty cool a visit to a place can do that. We went to Jenn’s parents house that evening after a very late lunch at Panera bread. Jenn’s dad made some pretty good steaks for dinner and we just went to bed. It was a long day. Saturday morning we went wake boarding. I’m still sore. Sergio came, yes that one. Serdhyo. It was a lot of fun, we were out there all day pretty much. I got a jump off and superman face-planted straight into the water. It was pretty awesome. Later that day there was a little party and a lot of family friends came over. I got to meet a lot of people and they got to meet me. I had brought some skupernong wine (I doubt I spelled that right, that’s just a kind of white muskadine though). It was a big hit. The next day we went to Disneyland! Jenn has a friend that dances in the Lion King section of the play. As a tiger…Yeah. It was cool though. I had never been to the land before and it was a lot of fun. Didn’t make it to the Tiki room though. Apparently one of Jenn’s favorites; however we did do the tea cups! Heck yes. I ate over half of this obscenely huge pizza there too. It’s a bit sickening to think of, but I couldn’t stop. It was good and the first pizza I’ve had back. Overall it was a great time and it was great seeing Jenn again and meeting those friends. That school really intrigues me.

Continuing transition

by Dom on October 20th, 2008

So yesterday I started to get some stuff done, like a pretty serious nap. One of those ones you don’t wake up from. Crazy. More seriously, I got my bike put back together. Spent two hours before anyone else was awake looking for my spare parts box. It was out in the shed. Forgot how much quality stuff I had. Anyway, once other people woke up I was able to find it. It all went pretty smooth except that apparently I did myself a favor and ruined my chain before I left. It was snapped in half and tied in a rusty knot. Never seen anything like it. After spending a few hours on it with a pair of pliers and a blow torch, well no blow torch but carb cleaner. I was able to get it untied and get my half link and power link off it. Spent another half hour cutting and installing my new chain just in time to test ride it and then get in the car to take Chloe back too school. That took hours.

It was a nice trip through some backwoods south though. Small town USA. It was funny Chloe kept yelling at me when I crossed the road because I wouldn’t wait for the little white man to tell me it was ok, or I wouldn’t even be at a cross walk. She claims the cops are that bad. Ridiculous. Had a buffalo chicken sandwich with fries that had spices like those arby’s ones…They were pretty good. Finished everyone elses food too. Then went and got a huge waffle cone dipped in chocolate and peanuts with two scoops of that good hard American ice cream, snickers flavored. Quite quite good. We stopped at this little shop on the way back and got some muskadine and black berry wine. Two different bottles. Pretty sweet, literally. Pretty excited about the bike still though.

Overall the transition seems to be going a lot smoother than I expected. I keep waiting for the rage to hit but it hasn’t. Maybe once I get a new phone and actually start driving places like stores or bars where there’s more people doing their normal(stupid) things. Eh, until then.

Ha.

by Dom on October 19th, 2008

Alright so I’m back. Been back for over 24hrs now. I think it’s going pretty well. I haven’t had diarhea yet. Only solids and pretty regular at that. I’m impressed if I do say so myself. I know I’m back in the states now so I should probably stop discussing these things but old habits die hard.

I decided not to hang out in Amsterdam airport. I had like a three hour layover so I bebopped it out into town. It was a bit hairy but I handled it. I first had to figure my way around this, the busiest, whitest and most first world place I had been to yet. Fortunately Dutch people tend to speak English like they were English. I found a forex and learned a little about the Euro. So I had a $20. Pretty good I thought. Nope, there was a $5 fee for exchanging money and it cost like 3.20 one way to or from town. So I changed $15 and got like 7.10 in euro coins. As most can tell, that barely covered me. the train was more like 17 minutes to town; when I was told it was 15. The ticket kiosk was a bit confusing. They had special English ones for tourists people like me, but wait they didn’t take coins and so I had to go to the Dutch ones that I found had an English option but not an easy ticket option. I almost bought tickets to belgium or prague or whatever a few times. I got it figured out though and made it into town with like two hours to spare. So I just picked a road and walked down it. Took a few photos and headed back. I was there at the convenient time of like 6-7, when pretty much everywhere was closed. The architecture was nice. I think I found the redlight district. It all worked out thought. I made it back with like 10 minutes to spare. Until the official boarding time that is. However I did just sit there for another hour or more. I wasn’t aloud to take the Nali I bought at the Lilongwe airport and had in my carry-on, they took it. Annoying. Anyway, I got home. Atlanta kind of sucked. I’ve heard it does that though. I had the gate changed on me 3 times, we were told the plane was on the ground 5 different times, and it was delayed so much they just stopped alerting us via intercom. Oh and they downsized the airplane and had to take 20 volunteers to wait until the next day to take the stupid half hour flight. I was suppose to arrive at 5:18pm I think I arrived around 8 or 9pm. Most of the family was there. That was nice. They had a pretty sweet characature of me drawn on one of the posters.

In terms of my first foods…I did eat moe’s. Except after Amsterdam I could only afford the vegetarian burrito. It wasn’t bad though, don’t be mislead. At the house I had two or three different sandwiches. I dipped them in mustard. Mom made pans of little ones. Some little reubens and little ham and cheese ones and I think there might have been others but I forget. Had a blue moon and some champagne and some seasonal pumpkin brew. All quite excellent. Tried some cheesecakes too. They had bought a variety one with like chocolate and carmel and regular and swirl. Oh yeah, she made potato salad too. Quite good. For breakfast I had a ham and cheese omlette, pepperjack cheese that is and a bowl of fruit. Strawberries, kiwis, grapes, cantelope, bananas and oranges. Pretty good. Left over sandwiches for lunch and went out for Mexican for dinner. I got the chicken chimichangas and a huge strong margarita and a glass of sweet tea. I pounded chips and salsa before hand and pretty much just drank cheese dip. I appreciate that my stomach is treating me well so far. Hopefully it will continue!

I got my electric guitar up and running yesterday too. Thats nice. Haven’t really got the feel of it again yet though. My fingers have no precision and while power chords sound good tuning the amp to the tone I like to get the notes hearable too while still liking it has been difficult too. I’m so used to playing the acoustic it’s got me biased on what my electric should sound like I think. Not a bad thing though, just something to get used to.

Anyway, it’s four am and I’m hungry, enjoy that sima! Tumbuka4Life!