I keep getting hooked up with 3 month freebies. Rockin'!

A lot has changed though. It's too busy, there's too much to wade through to find content I want, some of the interesting faces seem to be gone. I can't say I'd throw down my own cash for a subscription anymore. :/

Sometimes, when you leave a place, you can never really find your way back. The place may be exactly the same, but everything is different. I guess that's kind of what it's like.

It is nice to get my voyeuristic fix again, though.

Well, whoever paid for my subscription for 3 months, thank you. It was completely and totally out of left field. I shall enjoy the boobs to the fullest.

Well, I cancelled the re-bill on my account today, though I'm currently paid up through Septbember 3rd, so I'll still have access for a while.

I'm just not outgoing enough to merit being a member here. *shrug*

John Frusciante is pretty much the reason I learned to play guitar, or know anything about music. I've been trying to catch the Chili Peppers live since the Californication tour, and have missed them every time I've had a shot to see them. Being able to meet John after the show Tuesday was pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to me.



Addendum: I really hate how much of a tool I look like in this picture, but I was just SO FUCKING HAPPY to be standing there, I couldn't help it.

So, my flight lesson got cancelled thursday. The wind was coming at 320, blowing 9kt gusting to 21kt(!!). Since our runway is 020/200, that pretty much grounded student pilots. But I went back friday, and things were much calmer.

On friday, the Piper Warrior that I really wanted to fly was taken, so I ended up in a Cessna 172, . It was N7419G, or 19G (that's pronounced, "One Niner Golf") for short. So my flight instructor and I preflight the aircraft, and everything checks out.

At this point, I've never flown a real airplane before. I've had a copy of X-Plane since I was about 12, so I know a surprising amount about aerodynamics, flight instruments and regulations, etc, but I've never really been in the left seat of anything. So, I figure he's gonna take me up, let me make some 15 degree turns to headings he'd specify, work on trimming the aircraft, get it into a positive static, neutral dynamic oscillation, then he'd land. But no.

He makes a call to the tower requesting permission to get on the ramp (the taxi-way leading to the runway), and when they answer with an affirmative, he turns to me and says "Ok, take us to the runway." So, I nervously fumbled with the throttle and rudder pedals, and manage to get us to the runway in one piece. (I don't know who's idea it was to make the steering of an airplane on the ground UTTERLY BACKWARDS, but I have to give you a hearty fuck you.) At this point we walkthrough the immediate preflight, just checking some more minor stuff, he calls our takeoff into the tower, and just tells me to get us in the air. So I take us out onto the centerline of the runway, and push the throttle to 100%.

There's this thing that happens to an airplane as you're accelerating (or when you have a high angle of attack) where, for several reasons, the plane steers very hard to the left. I knew the theory behind this, I knew to correct for it. But boy is it ever different when it's happening to you. We're going down the runway, 40kt, 50kt, and suddenly the plane just starts left. and I mean, it's going LEFT. I'm pretty hesitant to just slam full right rudder to bring the plane back to the centerline, cause I don't want to flip the thing. So. we're coming dangerously close to the left side of the runway, and I'm sure we're going to die because I'm incompetent, and my CFI says (as calm as can be) "Ok, you've had sufficient airspeed for a few seconds now. Why don't you give the yoke a tug."

And then we were going up.

From here on out we did some basic stuff... turns, navigation, etc. He did all of the first landing, and I did a good portion of the work for the second, though he finally took over and put us down.

To me, there's just something exhilirating about being in a situation with complete and utter sensory overload, where your brain is at 100% and you can't quite keep up, and then starting to make sense of it. Starting to aclimate to certain things, leaving more concentration for the rest. This type of learning is why I get up in the morning, it's what I live for.

I can't wait for my next lesson. It should be in the Warrior.

So tomorrow I have my first lesson with my flight instructor. I'll be in a PA-28 160 (Piper Warrior).

Also, I got into college (university for those who prefer) yesterday. The dean of admissions called me up personally to tell me. It was highly unorthodox and made me feel super special.

I'm loving life right now, and I just want to spread that feeling around.

Beautiful Agony

So, it's been well over a month since I posted. Time to remedy that. I'd like to preface this entry by saying:

I need a camera, and a person whose sole job is to take photographs of interesting events in my life.

Now that i've justified my lack of pictures, let's begin.

Right after I got my tattoo (quite literally, less than an hour later) I made my favorite purchase to date. It's a 1995 Ducati Monster 900cc. To put it mildly, this bike is fast. FAR faster than I care to go, to be honest. Going less than 40mph takes considerable effort, as it goes 40mph at about 5500rpm in 1st gear(!!!). I've only taken up to about 95mph on the interstate. I wanted to break that 100mph barrier, but the fact of the matter is that this is a naked bike (no aerodynamic fairings or windshield) and I weigh about 140lbs. There's just too much wind at that speed. I'm going to get a fairing from Ducati, but that'll be another story for another day.

My on-the-side web business has hit an interesting point. I've (we've) got a client that is an aspiring start-up company who want to offer a unique web based service (I can't really be less vague than that right now, more details later). Anyway, the agreement we came up with stated that since they had no way of paying us at the moment, we would share 50% of the revenue and 50% equity in the company. At the time no one really cared about details because we all thought the service would actually end up losing a little money every year, and there wouldn't be any money to fight over. However, it turns out that in the month of July '06 alone, between Google and Yahoo over 5 million searches were done that relate to the project, and what it will offer. Needless to say, they're now trying to fuck us out of our money. I've got the upper hand though, because we've written all the code (and not given any of it to them yet), and furthermore, I registered the domain. Like I said, that's very vague and probably pretty dull, but I'll definitely be plugging this site when it goes live, so stay tuned.

So here's a question for everyone. Where do I meet early 20's people who want to hang out and have a good time in Charlotte, NC, WITHOUT going to bars? Any and all ideas are appreciated.

On a totally unrelated note, Catherine Aird once said "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." Remember that.

I have an appointment Wednesday at 3:30pm EST to get this (sans text) tattooed on my ribs under my left arm. I'm nervous as fuck, as this is my first tat, and I've been told (and read over, and over, and over again) I've selected the most painful spot one can get ink. I'm bringing two friends, one of whom has a digital camera, so I'll be sure to post pics of it as soon as I get it.

On of those friends that are coming with me has been contemplating joining SG. I think I'm going to buy him a gift account.

My reading has completely stalled. This very same friend has thieved my book of Borges' fictions, and I can't quite brign myself to dive into my next astronomy/astrophysics book. I really wish the sequels to Dune weren't so very lame...

What are you guys reading?

EDIT:

I finally got my tattoo!

I apologize for the lack of quality of that pic. I had a few more done on a disposable camera, but I haven't had time to get them developed yet, so I just took a few with my camera phone. There's one or two more in my pics.

Wow.

I just went back and read over all my jounrals (I will never, EVER, call them blogs) since I joined... and I've discovered that I'm not terribly interesting. In light of this discomforting revelation, I'm going to try to put more substance, and maybe even ask some questions in my journal.

I finished reading Stranger in a Strang Land last night. I've been thinking about it non-stop since I finished, and I still don't grok its fullness. The first half of it was about as captivating as anything I've ever read. However from about the time Patty becomes a water brother on it wasn't quite a chore, but I wouldn't call it interesting. Until the last few chapters that is.
The truth is, I've never had any exposure to religion in my life, and I've never longed for any. I never went to church, and I never (and don't) desired to. So everything that had to do with religion (i.e. the implications of Thou art God) were really of secondary importance to me.
Also, and this was very exciting to me, almost everything Jubal Harshaw said or thought in the book was something that would come straight out of my mouth(in fact, a lot of it was stuff I HAVE said before. Except his bit an altruism, which I promptly memorized because I agree with it so). There's a character I can identify with. In fact, when I'm an old fogey, that's exactly how I want to be.
Anyways, I get the feeling that this is a book I should re-read every 5-10 years, to see if/how my feelings toward it have changed.

--If you've read the book, what were your thoughts?--

In non-Heinlein news, in my last entry, I expressed my need for someone who knows Latin. there are two tattoo's I want to get. Being a bit of an astrophysics and astronomy fan, one of them is Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. But I'd like the laws written in Latin (the language he wrote them in), and since I can't find them in Latin I need help getting them translated... by someone who knows their shit.

--Do you want (another) tattoo? If so, what?--

I would like a new picture, but I have no camera. It is sad.

Well, I'm gonna go catch a shower and get in bed with my Powerbook. Thx for stopping by.

Addendum: I've been watching this over and over and over for about 45 mins now. You should too.