Haight Ashbury Crime Syndicate

Drip Drip VD Shot
The water guys just left; our water has been disconnected. In about three hours a plumber will arrive to fix a pretty fast leak that spurted to life from an OLD junction in our basement. I was emptying a 5 gallon bucket every 4.5-6 hours depending upon how much water had been used in said time period. The leaking culprit is this guy:

The right knobby thing on the bottom was dripping constantly. Lucky for me it is about eight feet from where I sit in my office (for 12-15 hours a day lately).

This weekend Jenna and Her Friend come visit from Ann Arbor. I can't wait to have a good relaxing visit with my sister.

The web site I've been working on for the past month is live (albiet slightly unfinished). The site is at http://www.dangelicoguitars.com/.

Anybody else want these stupid things?

Current Music: Xen Cuts Ninja Tunes

Wegmon's
my lady cried at
the grocery store today
seeing frozen foods

Brian was right. Pennsylvania drivers are the worst drivers on the planet. This has been corroborated by the in-laws during their visit, even.

In-Laws and Hack Saws
A Story I Know
Has Been Rewritten and Seems
Cleverly Disguised

...

You should listen to the Real Audio on this site, it's pretty cool.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/ladle/

Crickets
This place is full of crickets. There is a constant chirping noise from outside (like the "dusk" soundscapes they use in movies). The first week here it was really bizarre -- in Seattle you don't hear the outside other than trucks and wind/rain. Here there are bugs constantly talking to you.

Anybody who wants to leave me a comment on what they think of this website I've been working on:

http://stebe.org/

That is all.

Current Music: Moon & Antarctica Rerelease

Me and My Moustache
Today was a pretty eventful day.

This morning I shaved off my moving month beard, and while I was shaving a mustache gestated and birthed itself on my upper lip. These things are really temperamental and have a wicked control streak. Mine made me put on a funky 70's polyester shirt, show off my belt buckle and go to town in Tasha's office. There is a photograph just under the cut (only for the brave of heart).

( click here to see my mustache in action )

Tasha and I went out and got some fabric to hang over our windows to make cheap curtains with. Yay. How very exciting.

We ate at an Indian place in town, where we both had great food (albeit a bit less spicy than I'd have liked it). It was our first real "meal out" in State College.

Tasha introduced me to the "pretend shopping" experience where you go into Sears, look at riding lawn mowers and "pretend" to buy one. Or at least she does. I was pretending she had to ride all four miles home on one.

New Work, Move Down
The house is coming together even more after the move; we bought a $9.99 sewing machine at a craft store (it is about the size of a coffee grinder) and some $0.88 a yard fabric from Wal-Mart and sewed floor to ceiling curtains for the living room last night. It is starting to feel like "home".

My office is just about complete, I just need to hang a few things on the walls so it stops being the "homage to 70s fake wood paneling" room. It is probably the best home office setup I've had.

I got a supplemental job that should keep me pretty occupied and be a lot of fun. I'll be working for a small specialized guitar company in New Jersey/New York. They are called D'Angelico Guitars, and their web site (http://www.dangelicoguitars.com/) is going to be my responsibility to build and keep up to date. This is an exciting opportunity for me because it is difficult to break into doing media for music companies, and this is definitely a foot in the door. Plus I can buy their guitars (selling for $2,000 to $13,000 list) at cost!

Current Music: Man or Astro-Man | Escape Velocity

It's wet at home
So we've moved to Pennsylvania. Things are (somewhat) settling down at home and have been able to relax a little in the past day or so.

The weather here has been mostly cloudy, wet, thundery and very like Seattle. It isn't what we were told it would be, but is definitely a welcome difference. It's currently 72 degrees outside and humidity is at 77%.

Our house is slowly falling together, with the living room, kitchen and my office in a usable state, and our bedroom not far behind. The house is definitely huge for what we're used to. Photographs to come after we get a bit more settled in.

I've learned that liquor laws in Pennsylvania border on draconian and uncivilized. No mail order beer/wine, special stores even for the weaker alcohols and you have to buy beer at restaraunts.

Also, I'm using my Libejournal again in order to keep in touch with all mah friends back home. Hi!

pece,
stebe

My Millionth Magenta Mallard
Again my life becomes busy. Surprising, no? In reading the daily news, I came across the cheesiest car in the history of cars I've ever laid eyes on. One hell of a quesodilla on that muffler.

This weekend my Canadian friend Matt Tripp comes into town, he's staying at the house of shag for a week or so. Hopefully we don't all catch SARS. I'm trying to think of things Canadians would like to do in Seattle... I always think in the other direction.

Theres ten or eleven new photo galleries up on my web site. I'll be adding a feature soon where I can flag a few photos as "good" so nobody has to slog through 25 to 100 mediocre or bad photographs to see the 3 or 5 decent looking ones. for now, all I have is the galleries to suffer through.

One such gallery is from my adventures with Grimlet and Food yesterday. We went to Gasworks, Fremont in search of seafaring vessels. The entire photo gallery is here, and I'm quite fond of Mr. Dandelion and Mr. Duck cruising Downtown not to mention Ms. Grimlet getting sprayed.

Confounded Kids
I am befuddled; today I was hanging out with my friend Geoff working on our standard fare (bad 80s and 90s Japanese video games) when the doorbell rang. I heard someone upstairs going to get it, so I figured they'd deal with it.

Not two minutes later, Brian shows up at my desk and places a newspaper wrapped gift at my feet with a hand made paper card on the front which says "Happy Birthday, ESTEBAN" with decoration, in dark green marker (not the kind that smells like mint). On the inside a question is posed, in the same green marker. It reads: "What do you get for the man who has everything? A monkey, of course."

Now of course this situation (mystery, monkeys, green markers) smacks of Lorien. However, Lorien has already given me a gift for my birthday. I can not even begin to guess who would place such a responsibility on my shoulders. In any event, I will post a complete description with photographs of his/her birth. I do need a name for it, preferrably not "Monkey Meat" (which popped to my head as soon as I saw the box) or "Anthrax" as Geoff kindly called the as of yet unknown gift before he left screaming.

Anybody have suggestions for names?

Tooth on the Dog
Really there (nbc) isn't much left to say about this.

Holy Birthday Batman
My friends rule! There was a surprise party for me on Saturday; it was a lot of fun. Betsy and Susie cooked up a storm while Tasha distracted me. Part of the distraction was hanging out with my little brothers. After the park, we went to Capitol Hill and played some pinball. When I got home we had a quick nappish, then surprise. My best friend Ethan even drove out from Walla Walla! Thank you, everybody, for all that you did. I am very lucky to have such great friends!

Yesterday, we took Tasha's friend Audrey on a ferry ride to Bainbridge after going to the International District for Tea and sushi. What an insane time.

Springtime is Here!
Today my Dad and I wandered through the forests of Carkeek park. The hike is beautiful; in a few minutes you go from being in the QFC parking lot off of Holman Drive to a quiet forest with babbling springs, brooks and tons of beautiful trees and fauna.

My Dad took a series with the Olympus D-600L while we were walking, and I took some with the Minolta. Definitely a lovely day for being outside taking photographs.

We Have a Dusty Cat
So today, after running some errands and paying some bills, I came home and the shag Kitty, Z (Tzeitl), was laying in a patch of afternoon sun being cast through our entryway skylight. By this I mean she was horizontal across the walkway so you could not possibly get by without paying the toll. She rolled around in such a way that screamed "photograph me"; and I did. You'll note she's a wee bit dusty. Thats what you get for digging your head into a shag carpet and rolling repeatedly.

Time Waste
I know that my friends will end up spending more time at this site than I will, but, now you can rate how hot blogs are. What a sad, sad world.

I've put some scanned film strips that are old. This gallery is from a walking day trip through the Eastern Washington desert in 1996 (warning, some of the negatives were damaged from crappy fixxer). Another gallery features some photographs of a 10 day kayaking trip I went on in 2001.

(boring photo crud) After quite a bit of playing, I have to say that scanning negatives is extremely hard work. I dug out my large sable static brush, use compressed air and still have problems cleaning the negatives. I am going to attempt to rig up a contraption that holds them taut while allowing full wiping (90% alcohol), dusting (nuclear charged static master) and blowing (compressed air, duh). So far my options have been limited to sheet metal, plastic and legos. I have the feeling that I'll end up using legos, although I'd much rather use a sheet metal solution. I'll post pictures of whatever I end up with!

Halfwayish Done Cleaning
We spent a great deal of yesterday and today cleaning the storage and office, after Kam had to leave so suddenly (we miss you!). Hopefully things are going good for him over in Illinois. I have a few photographs of the setup, although I took them in the middle of the night and probably should have fiddled with the white balance on the camera before shooting them. Love that blinding white wall effect.

I just found out (through some lateral browsing) that Sundance has an online film festival every year, which we missed this year. We like to go to the Seattle Int'l Film Festival, and the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; I'm sure we'd love what we saw at the Sundance online (next best thing to two cannes tied together with strings?).

A Day of Changes and Motion
Kam left this afternoon (at a little after 1pm due to slow movers; he wanted to leave in the morning) to go live in Illinois. I wish you luck, Kam, you will be sorely missed as I have surely learned a great deal from you and had a ton of fun playing, hanging out and generally causing trouble with you. You will always have a place to stay in Seattle (or wherever I live).

My little sister Jenna turns 24 today. That is craziness. I took copious amounts of photographs as usual, and had a really great time surprising her. Heather, Jenna's best friend, plotted a party that happened a day before expected. The whole scheme was rather elaborate and well executed. Hanging out with her friends was great as well -- she has a lot of really down to earth friends who are easy and fun to hang out with.

Puppy Love
I wandered around and got coffee with my friend Jamie yesterday, all the while taking portraits of Moby (his dog). On other fronts, things have been crazy around the house this week what with Kam moving and all.

Purging Dandelions
Today I woke up late (staying up till 5am working rules); just in time to get together with my pops for some wandering action at Alki point. I took some photographs and so did my dad (with the little Aiptek). It was a really nice day for pictures since the air was crisp and cool, and the sky was perfectly partially cloudy. We had sun and sprinkly water and shade throughout the hour and a half walk we had. It was a splendid time!

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