PotD – Tea Time
October 23rd, 2009 ryan
Home, pinky out.
Beware of This and That
Winding Down
October 10th, 2009 ryanHome stretch, y’all.
Cut off the bulk of the beard as this crazy tuft action surfaced depending on face to sleeping orientation ratios. Spur of the moment self portrait, cut off the top and I’ve no clue as to what this body posture is trying to portray.
Salvaged propaganda for a Kindle case, details and pics to follow.
Despite starting school, working 84 hours / 7 days a week for the last 3 months, and doing the odd project here and there I don’t feel as though I’ve taken advantage of the these 3 months in isolation. Been fighting what I believe to be a sinus infection for the last month which has made brushing my teeth a chore, let alone facilitated the workout routine I fell in to. I’ve hit the gym twice since harboring this nasal parasite, both times the sheer volume of choking snot stunned me in to evacuating as to not pool the thick mucous in front of everyone. Seriously, I feel shame at the sheer amount of discharge over the last month.
Frustrating.
I had originally scoffed this 3 month venture, mocking its diminutive size when stacked against previous bouts with the Middle East I have under my belt. No clue how the fuck it got the best of me but this stint is winding down like a buck shot with a dulled arrow, thrashing and bleeding and spastically kicking every step of the way until it dies dies dies.
Yet optimism pervades. While historically Return Home Experiences never live up to the expectation that has been brewing since departure I’m confident enough to look forward to whatever life I left in Seattle being jumpstarted back to life.
Really should start PotD back up again.
Pier to Nowhere
August 19th, 2009 ryan
Boredom set in and the motivation to carve a structure from once living biomass overcame the stagnant nature that pervades once the surge stops pulsing. OR, we built a damn porch in the middle of nowhere.
Highlight of my week was the repurposing of an old parachute, the typical use of which is to drop palettes of 1000 lbs or less. It was damn near blasphemous to cannibalize the thing, seams stretching as ribs to support the silk that was reprogrammed to catch sun and not air.
Pier to nowhere. Bisected just in case we have to cut the thing in half for easy transportation.
My vote for arranging the excess fabric at a tight right angle was shot down in favor of a more boudoir approach. wtf.
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Business as usual out here. Pondering a 250cc dirt bike so screw around with, there’s a vendor on base that rumored to have a hookup in town. Old hat at people saturation, the kind where the same group of 8 guys are within 6 feet 12 hours a day at work then another 10 as their bunk butts up to yours. No room for that on a bike, not to mention this place is like a giant bowl of brown flour begging to be tore up. Well, tore up with 250cc of gas powered um, angst.
Bringing the tv out here was a wise choice, been holing up in my fabric cave for hours a day and falling in to whatever media I came out here with, something I was never really able to capitalize on at home.
- Still rocking Red Faction by way of a mandatory completionist obsession, tiny dots on the map starkly contrasting eye sores of oppression my sledge hammer wielding hero simply can’t ignore. The actual story missions are keeping my interest alongside the fully destructible buildings. A couple of bandwidth hurdles lay between me and what’s next in queue, namely Shadow Complex and the rest of the Fallout 3 DLC.
- Reading a lot of Gibson, military history, and various comic collections (100 Girls, Authority, The Boys, Transmet). Just purchased a mini DVI to HDMI adapter so I can upgrade from the blackbook’s 13″ to the flat screen’s 20. I have collection of ebooks that spans dimensions and time, in fact it’s so overbearing its organization supersedes any usable content. Dammit.
- No projects yet, the price point of entry for PEGGY is still a thorn in my side as will be its eventual transport back to the states. For some reason I imagine FedEx looking at the wired up circuit board and promptly having me cuffed. Which sucks because it’s been at the top of my Project List for, well, over a year. Typing two sentences has just convinced me to take the plunge regardless. Damn near therapeutic.
Here’s me and the chute’s apex. Prior to cinching back the whole deck was enveloped, someone with an IR thermometer measured 125. It was sweat tastic. Tiny beads of sawdust laced success.
PotD – Suspended
August 9th, 2009 ryan
Started Red Faction last night, because I really need another outlet -virtual or otherwise- in which I wander a dusty, barren landscape.
So. Video Games.
Gave up on finishing the repetitive exercise that was Afro Samurai. Every once in a while Samuel L. Jackson’s character would bust out some kung-fu flavored dialogue and my interest would be refueled but for the most part the game strikes me as little more than a notch in the board of mediums that the franchise has populated. I have the comics and anime in the media buffer, perhaps they’ll prompt a revisit.
Cleared the first town in Red Faction at one go, the above gaming configuration a testament to accidental ergonomic perfection. At nights when major components are hidden away power plugs and HDMI cables encircle, either above in parallel lines or below tucked beneath sheets and springs.
I’m enjoying the change of scenery but between Crackdown, Prototype, and now Red Faction I feel as though a break from the sandbox styled run-around-and-carjack-vehicles formula is on the horizon. Pity as I had slotted time out here for GTA IV.
If I can truck my xbox down to the tent (where the satt internet link dwells) I can fill up with the last Fallout 3 DLC and, you know, wander a different wasteland for a while.
I started a new campaign in War 3 as well.
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Updates
Been throwing pics up here and there. To be honest the landscape in this isolated pocket of Makeshift Democracy fails to inspire. More like international summer camp than a Foreign Country.
I have developed a thing for the MRAPs, though.
Shot an updated version of My Day, Yesterday on a whim, should be up at flickr in the next couple of days.
Not much else to report. All the down time has me churning through media or sweating my ass off in the gym. Days of the week have failed to hold significance and 84 hour work weeks only measure is a biweekly pay stub. Scheduling has at least stabilized to where web classes are feasible so perhaps I’ll have something to show for 3 months in this dust pit other than a chunk of change.
PotD – Bumper
July 30th, 2009 ryan
PotD – Fuzzy
February 7th, 2009 ryan
Fitful, restless, unfocused and exhausted. Taken after a painfully hot shower at hour 40 or so.
Used to be I’d lift 6 days, run 3 miles every other, and leave one for recovery. Kind of skipped that in the last two weeks in an effort to push the envelope. Went up in weight, no days off, 4 miles per day. Caught up with me last night and, much to my discomfort, the time honed talent of catching a nap anywhere/anytime doesn’t translate to anything resembling a night’s sleep.
Stupid body.
…holy christ long neck.
EDIT: crashed for for a few, awoke, feel tip top. Go figure.
PotD – Tech Support to the Past
January 17th, 2009 ryan
Cell shot captures a recent addition to my old grade school, the unlikely arena for today’s AV support.
Oh private school kids, you are fabulous.
Each area smelled exactly the same. More here.
PotD – Swole
November 16th, 2008 ryan
It’s not uncommon for a group of images to get left behind, orphaned to a sort of unlabeled limbo on my desktop. The above was one such I came across this afternoon and, not being one to really stare intently at my own mottled flesh, eventually led to an insight.
I didn’t start weight lifting until mid 2005, odd considering I’d been part of an enforced fitness culture for nearly 3 years. The desire simply wasn’t there. I was consistently putting down perfect scores in two of my three required bimonthly tests (the third being an 18 minute 3-mile run directly following the other two tests of 100 sit ups in 2 mins – easy – and 20 dead-hang pull ups) and while immersed in a distilled Brosef sporting, dip spitting environment I didn’t feel the need to kick it up a notch by rat-tailing others at the gym to get my pump on.
It was while stationed at this indescribable shit hole of a camp out east that I finally took up my former roommate’s offer to join him in the makeshift gym. As in single-incandescent-light bulb-rusted-to-shit-hodge-podge-of-miscellaneous-free-weights gym. Now my roommate was also in Data but didn’t fit the stereotype at all. Dude was huge, proficient, and smart as hell but didn’t really get off on the more MacGyver related aspects of the gig like some of us did. He’s the one I credit with getting me in to lifting which, surprisingly, I really enjoyed despite being the only skinny white dude in the place.
Time passed, we joined the rest of our unit at an arguably preferable location, and hoofing it up and down 10 flights of stairs to the ground floor gym (which I can’t believe I never thought to photograph – it’s alongside these massive turbines in the bowels of an immense Soviet-built Dam) became part of the daily routine. It was at this time I joined the throngs of my supplement slamming brethren. As such I’ve been off and on ever since without a second thought given what I was taking was pretty weaksauce compared to others and I never noticed any adverse side effects.
Unfortunately a glance at my still-bulging veins an hour post-workout has me thinking it might be time to take a break given my current bout of insomnia. In the past I’ve had no problem drinking a whole pot of tea just before bed but doubt it will hurt to curb anything that could contribute to keeping me up at night.
So the supplement is out after a chance observation of a random picture which I likely would have never considered given how long I’ve been taking it.
PotD – The Reason Why
November 8th, 2008 ryan
…you don’t see many shots with the two of us.
Also, having put nothing but gourd through my big camera in the last two weeks month, screwed around with some off-camera flash.
Eyepro is important critical.