1:44 am thoughts

dream: had a sentimental moment with Jason Vorhees of Friday the 13th notoriety.

memory: driving to iowa city in december 07 amidst the worse fog i've ever seen. cars appeared like phantoms when they were mere yards away from me.

quirky moment: friday came back to the office from lunch and when i entered the elevator was greeted by xmas lights in otherwise darkness, xmas tunes, and two women in holiday attire serving eggnog and cookies. a little 40 second party in the elevator. doors opened on the 12th floor and my boss is standing there with some of the people working the construction in the new office space. "better get in on this," i told them, "elevator A only!"

new shoes: my new shoes were $11 and are being sent now (above).

hobby: during down-time at work i like to surf wikipedia for random towns/cities across america including the dalles, oregon; carol city, florida; truth or consequences, new mexico; hood river, oregon; santa claus, indiana; gary, indiana; santa fe, new mexico, etc etc.

funniest bit of interaction between shawna and her dad

on facebook chat:

animals

On a mac-n-cheese trip lately. I had the best ever at Montage under the Morrison bridge last Saturday night. Shawna and I also agreed that Montage serves the best bloody Mary cocktails either of us has ever had. A bloody Mary and mac-n-cheese to follow an interesting performance at Imago theatre. The show was called "Little Big Things," a production for all ages centered around animals. Grandmother had gotten us tickets as a Christmas present, so on rainy Saturday night we made it over there for the 70 minute performance. I appreciated the ability the performers had at either caricaturing or mimicking exactly the movements and behaviors of animals such as rabbits, fire flies, anteaters, polar bears, fish, snakes and others. It also brought back remnant feelings of that childhood wonder about animals. Reminded me of the days as a child running wild in the woods near our home or in the mountains in Colorado. All the animals in those places that I learned so much about through such direct and unbridled interaction.

The First X-mas Tree Away From Home

Shawna and I picked out a nice 5-foot fir tree from a roadside Christmas tree seller. With the help of Shawna's bargaining skills we were able to get it down to $15 from $25. The guy was easy to haggle with and soon we were off after stuffing the tree into the trunk (it fit snugly). We've set it up in the living room and adorned it with a strand of Christmas lights of suitable length. Furthermore it is decked with odd ornaments: trinkets of ours which we have collected from here and there. As you can see in the pictures, the ornaments are far from traditional, and in fact, the surrogate star at the top of the tree is actually a kitschy souvenir voodoo doll from New Orleans. The baby smoking a cigarette ornament (below) is from an underground mall in Nanjing, China. The Pinocchio-like boy doll (can be seen above) is from a toy bin at Goodwill in Portland. The Christmas themed neck tie around the base of the voodoo doll is one I picked up at Value Village in Tigard last Friday after work in a mad rush hour scramble to find accessories for my company's holiday party. This is my first Christmas tree away from home.

History Repeats Itself

I stood on a bridge over a wide river just after dusk. Before me in the distance was a beautiful blue-green waterfall cascading over a dam.

I was covered in blood, having been badly beaten at my brother’s hand. Blood ran a sticky course, some of it like mercury separating and joining together once more in an age-old dance.

begin november

Finally got around to reading a book I'd been wanting to read for 8 years. It is a graphic novel put together by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell called "From Hell." A brilliant work really with long annotated notes relating the historical references on practically every page. The illustrations are frantic and wonderfully crafted. Basically, Alan Moore did tons and tons of research on the Jack the Ripper murders from 1880s London and crafted a story around one of the stronger theories as to who Jack the Ripper actually was. It presupposes that a personal physician and surgeon of the royal family, someone very high in the freemasonry killed the prostitutes on orders from Queen Victoria in order to cover up a scandal involving her grandson's illegitimate child. Very interesting exploration of masonic lore and geography of London in relation to such.
Other than this, had some "quality time" lunch with the Boss today at Todai, the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. It was a good experience to have real one-on-one time with him and discuss things related to the company and the direction I would like to go. Still, I don't want to stay there much longer.
At least I feel I'm coming out of a slump. Weather had me down a little and so did the job, but all is well in the end. Cool line-up of three Icelandic bands at the Aladdin Theatre tomorrow night should further turn things around. And of course, will be in Chicago a week from tonight. Can't complain about that.
Halloween? Halloween: Party in SE. Dressed up as chemist and drank Drop Top from a 125-mL filter flask. Had plastic test-tubes in my lab coat pockets filled with Triple Sec, Tequila, and Evan Williams Whiskey. It was a pretty good time..

the photograph

I.
"Good to be home, friend."
"I knows it."
"Yeap"
"How's it goin' over't there in Norman anyhow?"
"It's goin.' Haven't made much in the way o'friends o'er there. Tryin' ta stay outta trouble, mostly."
"I see. Nothing like the good ole days, huh?"
"No, def'nitely not. I miss them days."
"C'mon these are the good old days, bud. Look t'us. Settin on this ole bear cage sippm' back 40's. Bullshittin. Just like in high school. Sheeit this moment is... well, timeless."
"Yeap. Though the times they are a changing, as the saying goes."
"Bullshit."

II.
"You know I'm thinkin' if you e'er wrote a book or sumpin', I'd be in one a 'em chapters. Hell, without a doubt I'd be."
"Well, I s'pose you're prolly right 'bout that, but I ne'er thought 'bout writin' no biography, man."
"Naw, man, not like no biography. I'm talkin like a fiction. Some char'cter, you know. Based on none uther 'n me. Ha. Whattaya think?"
"Aren't you sumpin'? Got-damn it , yer right. Hell, we only grew up t'gether, 'course an orn'ry sumbitch like you's bound t' pop up in 'ere somewheres. Sheeit."

III.
"Whate'er happen' t'that ole bear, man?"
"Shit if I know - it died, probly."
"You think they got its ghost caged up in here? Hey, watch yer spittin'"
"Well, I sure 'ope not."
"Don' wanna get haunted by no ghost bear for settin' on 'is rusty ole cage, huh?"
"Nope."
"You ever wonder why they kep' a bear in this cage out here? I mean, in a public park in our town of all places?"
"Naw, never gave 'er a thought act'lly."
"I reckon you will now."
"Mm."

IV.
"Well, then what's got you all hush' up?"
"I was thinkin' 'bout the good ole days, like you'd said."
"What about 'em."
"Maybe I'm drunk, but I'm thinkin' of how much I'm tryna commit this moment to memory. We don't get many opp'tunities like this to hang out no more."
"Wanna keep this Kodak moment, huh? I s'ggest you take a picture then."
"I'm serious man. You been away an' all. Y' should be a'le t' reco'nize the change in this town e'en more'n I can. I mean, back in th' day there 'as a got-damn bear'n this cage and now it's long gone. Hardly a trace 'cept for this big cage out in the middle o' the park. It's a landmark, ya know."
"Well, I got an idea then."
"What?"
"Take a damn picture of this cage, man."
"What, tonight? I haint got a cam'ra with me, fool."
"Naw, man. I mean t'morrow."
"Hmm."
"Yeah."
"What for?"
"I don't know. Keep this moment."
"'Morrow won't be this moment."
"Will be represent've at least."
"Well, yer def'nitely drunker 'n I am"
"A'right, suit yerself."
"Take a pict're of an empty bear cage, sheeit."
"Heh, well just an idear."
"What they doin to you o'er at that lib'ral arts college anyways? Makin you all funny."
"Yer the one gettin all reflective one me, sheeit. Take a picture if yer wantin ta r'member this. Aint nothin wrong with that. Don't have to be all artistic neither."
"S'pose yer right."
"I know. I only s'ggested that 'cause I don' want you 'xpectin' me ta write about it in my book one day. This aint hardly worth writin' about t'begin with. Not fit fer publishin'. No action. You'll have to 'member this moment by some other way, bud."
"Hehe. Well I s'pose yer right 'bout that."
"Damn right I'm right."

list of things i love about portland

(in no particular order and subject to additions/deletions):

-remarkable public transportation system
-access to beautiful natural areas
-movie madness video store in SE
-Bars/Restaurants (happy hour specials!)
a) Alibi
b) Voodoo Doughnuts
c) Delta Cafe --southern comfort food
d) Doug Fir Lounge
e) Best Baguette --banh mi thit sandwiches
f) Nak Kwon --best korean food i've ever had
g) Candy -- $3 pizzas
h) Palomino --amazing happy hour
i) Yuzu --best ramen
j) Rock Bottom --fish n chips
k) Veritable Quandary
l) Saburos --packed sushi
m) Koi-fusion --never been but it has to be good: Korean and Mexican food meet
n) McMenamins chains
i)Kennedy School
ii) Crystal Ballroom
iii) Bagdad
o) Ground Kontrol
-cheap/inexpensive place to live (can't complain about $190/mo. rent)
-no sales tax
-best summers in the country pretty much
-Rose Garden
-very creative haunted house (Fright Town)-- this, of course, is seasonal
-drive-in theatre not too far away (another one i have yet to visit)
-can walk 6 blocks in less than 4 minutes
-Forest Park
-Powell's books

getting into the Halloween spirit

Last night we went to Fright Town at the Rose Quarter in Portland. It was a 3-haunted-houses-in-1 set up. For 15 dollars you go to three haunted houses within the Memorial Coliseum, and all three are quite different. First there is a traditional haunted house which was so-so. It had some strong points, but was not nearly as cool as the one I went to with Ba and Alexei in SLC. The other two were quite a bit more creative and interesting. One was called the chop-shop and was fashioned after a creepy gas station/ auto-body shop. It was more of a set kind of thing with less of a focus on pop-out scares and more emphasis on the gruesome, apocalyptic sets they had created within it. The people in there to scare the visitors had insane tetsuo the ironman reminiscent costumes. Visually it was very cool and I enjoyed it a lot. The last one was the best, it was something like a museum of horrors and they also had a lot of really really bizarre set designs. It was kind of artsy in its horror, and I thought that was a refreshing take on the haunted house thing.
I miss those days when Seth and I (and sometimes Dave) put together the haunted forest walk for 3 consecutive years thru-out middle school. We used to make maybe 15-20 dollars of profit each year from that. Friends from school, relatives and neighborhood families would come to our haunted forest walk each year. Seth and I put that stuff together from scratch (and sometimes Dave).
One day it would be awesome to be involved with something like that again, but it would be a huge investment of time, money, and resources. I would hope to actually make a bit more profit of course, and actually have the time and help to make something like that possible.
The haunted houses we went to last night were not really scary, but interesting to experience. The one I went to in Salt Lake was insane and lasted for something like half an hour. That one was much more grandiose and had better scares. My best memory of it is when Alexei freaked out and yelled "fuck" right in this ghoul guy's face.

e-mail to seth

"yo , im going on a zombie walk in downtown portland on october 24th. they are trying to break a guinness world record: most zombies in a march . im not kidding! well, i will be among those zombies."

internet phenomena?

Shawna found a wikipedia a blurb about an internet meme wherein if you were to Google image search or Flickr search the following numbers: 241543903
you will see countless pictures of heads in freezers. Try it out!

keyboard cat

the max

I got on the max today and the train car smelled like sweaty asshole so I kept walking down the aisle to escape the scent, but soon realized it was a useless effort and so I sat down. At that moment a group of 5 or 6 ratty street kids got on and sat all around me, enveloping me in a stench even worse than that of sweaty asshole. I thought, if I look at them too long I will get harassed for putting on a front and if I were to avoid looking at them I would get harassed for being a "clean-shirt" so I sort of looked at them and didn't at the same time. One of them was particularly tripped out on some drugs and being comforted by his friend in the seat across the small aisle from me. "Listen to me... listen to me, you are a hardcore motherfucker, and that is why you can take a hit to the face and.." the one was saying to the other whose reality was all sorts of distorted. The kid suddenly stood up and a pool of coffee-and-cream colored liquid formed in the seat. At first I thought the kid pissed himself, but it was soon revealed to me by the friends' dialogue that it was some alcoholic concoction that had spilled out of a Pepsi bottle. Before I knew it, the drugged-up kid was bending over, his chapped and rashy ass-crack practically 6 inches from my face, and he was drinking from the pool of liquid that had collected in the seat. He was slurping it up like wildlife from a pond and I couldn't help but cough out a laugh and step toward the exit doors because luckily for me, my stop had arrived.

"father and son"

the below is something i wrote last week. part of it is inspired by a small visitor-made shrine at the anatomical museum in a hospital campus in bangkok. also referenced is the prevalence of foreign tourists in bangkok who cash in on the prostitutes. the underlying themes should be apparent...

father and son

The tourist snapped a photo capturing the monstrosity of a still-born child encased in a display box filled with yellow-tinted fluid. The boy’s eyes were shut tightly with an expression of anguish, a line of stitches running from the navel to sternum like the seam of a teddy bear. The photo appeared on the screen with a bright spot so the man pressed a button to turn off the flash. He re-framed the shot and took it, successfully confirmed by the artificial click of his digital camera. He withdrew from his pocket the wrapper of a strange condom that had a label with writing that was so foreign to him it could have come from another planet. He had used it to lay a whore in Soi 7 the previous night. Originally having it in mind to keep the wrapper as a souvenir of his travels, he decided it was worth this sight. The tourist placed the wrapper carefully on top of the glass case alongside mounds of countless candies and colorful little toys that had accumulated by donation as a makeshift shrine for this fatherless thing.

my day at the office

Generally it is hard for me to wake up in the morning. I've never been much of a morning person, though there are a few exceptions. I shower, dress, put together a sparse breakfast and pack a lunch, and brush my teeth and put on a tie depending on whether or not it is a business casual day.
I leave and lock the door even though Shawna is at home, but she is asleep. I usually make it half-way across the street and stand there awkwardly as cars blaze by, and wait to cross successfully to the other side. There is a usual crowd of commuters who take the same bus as me, sometimes that group is more fluid and there can be new faces. On the bus, I read a book and don't pay attention to anyone around me so I have no idea whether they are passing through their mornings feeling awful, blank, or cheerful. If I am tired, I try to catch some catch eye, either way my stop downtown always seems to come too soon. I walk the 6 or so blocks to work along the same route everyday, and everyday pass the same homeless people who don't beg for money like every other person in Portland seems to do. The only difference is how light and how cold it is at that time, which obviously changes with the season.
I brush my wallet (within which is my entrance badge) against a small black box and then I am allowed to open a door of the One World Trade Center, press the buttons 1-2 for the elevator so that it will program the 12th floor in its route up. The elevator door opens and a variable number of people step inside. The first stop is on the 2nd floor, and usually some person bashfully steps out there, when they could have simply taken an escalator to get there.
I reach the 12th floor and step out into it like I'm an exclusive member of an elite organization. I see a fellow colleague who I have nothing to say to so I say: "Hey, how was your weekend?" if it is a Monday, and if it is any other day I say: "Good morning, how are you?" with a big smile. They answer something equally as calculated, probably relieved they didn't have to make more conversation as I open the main door to our office which is made of glass and embedded in a glass wall. I was told 4 times on my first day that they don't want us to touch the glass and to make sure to use the handle. So I open the door by the handle, drop my stuff of in the closet if I plan on going to the gym after work and go over to where my computer is, and say good morning to the people who work around me. I start up the computer and walk over and pour some coffee or tea for myself and then return to my desk. The smell of coffee makes me feel good about life.
I check my e-mail and start working on a "project" which consists of data entry in some form or another, the difficulty and tediousness of which is unique for every client. Difficulty at my job is not like organic chemistry. Difficulty for me at work is needing to stay busy constantly and get into a dead-zone of no thought and only repetitive, mechanical movements so that I don't think about how boring and meaningless to me what I do actually is.
I usually forget where I am for a couple hours and then come out of it and do nothing for a brief moment to rest. I usually overhear the woman who is down the hall talking on the phone as though she were right next to me, so sharp and distinct her voice is made by the office's acoustics. If she is talking to a friend, I think, why do I need to hear this and if she is talking to a client I think, how phony does she sound?
Lunch restores me quite a bit. I'm usually very hungry by the time lunch rolls around and I try to take the elevator when no one else is going down for lunch to avoid awkward elevator conversation and just because in general I don't like talking to people sometimes. If someone is standing waiting for the elevator as I am about to leave as well, I either bite the bullet and pull off a charming Eliot, or I duck into the men's room which is right next to the elevators. When I come out just a moment later, like magic that person has miraculously disappeared, swallowed up by the elevator. And then I go down alone because I like the quiet.
Coming back from lunch, I do the whole elevator routine again, the door thing again, perhaps the coffee/other beverage run again, and finally the copy-paste thing again. And again and again...
After a while, 5 o clock rolls around. I gather my belongings, say good evening to whoever happens to be around. I repeat the same procedure regarding the elevator ride down, flipping a mental coin as to whether I'll allow some arbitrary task to "distract me" from catching the same elevator as another one of my coworkers. I step outside into Portland downtown and sigh, relieved. A good friend of mine once said that everyday when he leaves work he feels like a piece of him dies. Another friend of mine once said, 'at the end of the day, it's what you want [..and I'm cold, so I'm going home]' That last one has stuck with me all these years.
As long as this isn't what 22 years leads to, I cannot complain.

labor day weekend

Summer is gone and that is becoming more apparent as the weather changes to rain, some fall color is beginning to peak out of the American sweetgum leaves around town. Mornings are darker and colder and evenings vanish into night faster than they did all summer.
Seasons do fascinating things to our lives. They seem to account for quite a bit of the change we feel in ourselves. At least it seems to work that way for me. Autumn in Nanjing defined my life a year ago; autumn in Portland defines the setting for my life's story this year.
A whiff of Halloween in the air has got me a little excited. Last year I missed out on it completely. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my company will let us dress up in costumes to go to work the day before Halloween.
This year I would like to uphold a lot of the Halloween traditions I practiced in my youth, such as pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed toasting, going to haunted houses, watching horror movies, dressing up in a costume, etc.
What was the weekend? Just like every labor day in my memory: lazy. Stayed up until 2:30 last night with Shawna and a friend named Kevin watching "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episodes on Youtube. That's an old show that used to play on Nickelodeon; Alexei and I watched it at either Grandmother's house in Waterloo or at Kathleen's house in Naperville. We often watched while playing a game we created called "Miagi with Ice Cream" which was a mercy game. We would sit against either end of the sofa and take turns extending our legs while the other was squished against the other sofa arm until they couldn't take it anymore and said "Miagi with Ice Cream".

the imaginary zoo

the following was something i wrote based on something russ and i observed while sitting in front of the river in downtown portland:

On a bench in front of the river, okay view and I feel tired, jittery and I don’t like the clouds overhead. Next bench over sits an older man who is balding and carrying a clipboard holding important-looking documents. Young couple passes by, alternative/hippie-types, and man on next bench over disturbs them, “Sign a petition to keep unicorns in zoos?” Initial shock wears off, couple never stops walking but man turns slightly and in slightly disappointed voice squints, says, “No… I think unicorns should be kept free.” Nods as he speaks. Older man has no shift in facial expression, must understand the quip with which he was returned bore no injury to the curiosity that had escaped him long ago like an exhaustive sigh so indicative of an age at which the world is all but beaten down.

sick

Bad cold or flu, not sure which, blindsided me and had me bedridden all of yesterday and half of today. Feverish dreams of unending copy-and-paste prevented me from having a good night sleep. It was much like Henri Fuseli's "Nightmare."
Now I am at the tail-end suffering through some of the remaining symptoms.

Friday night

The Question of the Day was: why was I watching "Species" at my grandmother's house on a Friday night?
Truth of the matter is, it was good fun. Grandmother and I stayed up until midnight watching the better part of three completely inane films. The first, which I already mentioned, was "Species" an erotic sci-fi movie that came out in 1995. Afterward we watched a movie about a quadriplegic who has a telepathic connection with a monkey and every time he gets mad at someone the monkey will kill that person. Lastly, we caught the tail-end of a second-rate Hong Kong production featuring Tony Leung and some other famous HK actresses- it was a blend of action, thriller, and crime with the most atrocious English dubbing. I must say it was a very enjoyable evening spent with my granny.
That's my update

The News

With my new Freddy Krueger Nikes and my long-board which I have yet to give a nickname I went out across Barbur Blvd to the network of empty parking lots and wove an invisible web around the place, swooping in and out along the parameters and filling them in like water in a container of any shape and size. I surfed down some nice hills and after the curve in each at the bottom straightened out for a long time and didn't have to keep pumping because my craft carried me far as I could hope.
Now I am drinking iced tea and planning to watch some "Curb Your Enthusiasm," season 6.
Work has been boring, but I have to give a presentation a week from tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous about it even though I haven't even started preparing. Today at work I entered academic standards into a database entirely in Arabic. That might have been the highlight of my work day, except for my lunch break when I browsed fiction at Borders on 3rd and Morrison.
Last night I finished reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. I have a new favorite book. It blew me away. Aspects of it remind me of Herman Melville in its expansiveness and biblical quality. It also reminds me of Mark Twain in terms of his use of vernacular. And then maybe bits of "American Psycho" when it comes to the violence which seems to blow up every page. It was brilliant though. Cormic McCarthy has his own writing style entirely that I haven't seen elsewhere, regardless of things that seem familiar (as I just mentioned above). Those analogies were made for a lack of better description. Awesome book.
I try to write creatively here and there when the opportunity and inspiration both allot. I am inspired many times, but I cannot form words to go with the emotions. I'll capture them sometime. There have been moments when I capture in writing a feeling I had long long ago tha I once could not put into writing. Then the feeling, or a similar one, would return and in a form that is very amenable to cast into letters. Those are good moments.
This next year is still pretty unclear. My work seems to be considering a place for me, but I do not know where I would fit in and if I want to go through another winter here. In fact, I don't, especially if I don't start doing some brainwork, or at least something slightly more interesting than countless permutations of the Copy-and-Paste tasks.
I found out yesterday that my cousin in Shenzhen is getting married next month. So much for going there for their wedding. I don't think there will be much fanfare though. I'll try to get around to mailing a card. Turns out his girlfriend is 2 months pregnant as well, which means 任之 will be father this coming year, 2010.
Now I must watch 1.5 hours of what Alexei and I call "Curbage"...

holiday anecdote

Something I wrote back in December after arriving home from China, probably late into a timeless night for me as I lay awake, jetlagged:

Walking through Jewel-Osco in tandem around 10pm, Dave and I were dressed to the T, both wearing nice suits and looking sharp as a razor. Down the alcohol aisle we plunged like Draino through a plugged sink and we came out of there with a Crown Royal gift set that included two glasses, one for me and one for him.

Looked too nice to be carded at the cash register and went back to his house with the intention of drinking whiskey sours and watching “Leprechaun 3 in Las Vegas,” but much to our chagrin, the DVD (part of a Leprechaun 1-3 set I had given Dave for Christmas) was bunk, or rather it didn’t work in U.S. region DVD players. I think its proper region code was the one corresponding to Germany. I bought the DVD set in China on my second to last day there. I went to the DVD shop across the university campus, but I was not familiar with this particular one. I came across, first, the “Sleepaway Camp” series, 1 through 3, which would be perfect gift for Seth. So I pulled that out of the stack and set it aside. Then, less than 10 seconds later I came across the Leprechaun series which was the perfect gift for Dave. Just as the two are next-door neighbors in real life, so the gifts I would get for them this holiday season were nearly beside one another as well.

new shoes

It is almost time to retire my white Cartelo shoes with the red and blue stripes and the small illustrations of Beijing's famous Tiantan Park pagoda (天坛公园) on the sides. I bought those the first evening Shawna and I arrived in Suzhou after we took the speed train from Nanjing after my classes were out. We went to a shoe store and I thought for a while as to whether I wanted to pay the equivalent of ~$35 USD for a decent pair of shoes as opposed to ~$7 USD for a bootleg pair that fall apart in a matter of weeks. I decided I needed a pair that would last for some time, and I really liked the Tiantan design on them, they were pretty nifty. I typically rate shoes in my mind based on a scale of whether or not they are "nifty." This rating system came about the first time I went to China, when Alexei and I were in Century Mart in Shanghai. I bought a similar pair, white with red and blue stripes, that at the time struck a chord with me bc they looked like the cover of an Elliott Smith album entitled "Figure 8." They didn't have any other designs, but I remember thinking how nifty they were, and ever since that descriptor for worthwhile shoes has stuck.
Now I don't really like Elliott Smith so my decision to buy those shoes in Suzhou was based on entirely different values. I was wearing a horrible pair of flower shoes (bootlegged Nikes) I had bought with my friend Simon the preceding year in Beijing. Those shoes were quite miserable. I still have another pair I bought in Beijing, which in spite of inferior quality I still enjoy. They have a map all over them; the map is, of all places, belonging to a location in Florida called Carol City. Why? I don't know.
But I found a new pair of shoes I can settle for and although I am buying them on the internet, based on other buyer comments I believe they are legitimate. They are of a special edition release by Nike with horror movie themes. This particular pair I ordered are the Freddy Krueger edition Nikes, the infamous nightmare killer of, you guessed it, the "Nightmare on Elm St." series. They should be nice for long-boarding...

People in the City

There was the guy who stands near Pioneer Square and sprays his entire body with silver paint and stands like a statue all day for some money that people may drop in his box, or maybe he does something, but I was thinking maybe he just remains a mute statue. I saw him preparing for his gig the other day, sitting in the shade of a tree and spraying himself down. Everything was silver on him except for his arms, and just as he started on his left arm, the spray can was out, emptied. He was taken aback, and this was obvious in spite of the sunglasses shielding his eyes. The man paused thoughtfully for some time, seeming near the brink of a silent panic. Maybe he had come a long way from home that morning and there was no money or no spray paint to buy anywhere around. Perhaps he had thought about why he didn't buy an extra can the last time he went out and shopped for it; he remembered standing in line at the hardware store debating whether or not to get an extra can "because he'd have to get another anyway sooner or later," as the cashier line slowly inched forward and he decided against buying one more.
The man's arms dropped, slouched down slightly in defeat. What to do? I kept walking.

Later in the early evening, the city was cooling and the park on Salmon between 3rd and 4th was sparsely populated. A guy with mangy long hair and a weathered face wandered with a delicate lack of coordination, probably wasn't drunk, but simply woozy from the heat wave that struck town earlier in the week. He finally chose the right patch of grass to lay down in after a few moments of inspection. "This is a good place," he must have thought. He sat down at first and put forth what seemed a bit of energy to do so. And then extended himself to lie down and with his upper torso still bent upward, stuck his already lit cigarette into one end of a long green straw. He put the other end in his mouth as he put his head back to the earth and lay his arms outstretched on either side. He took a drag, and lifted a hand to pull the contraption out of his mouth. "What an innovation," he thought to himself.

delightful evening at granny's/message to dave

When I left work at 5pm yesterday the air in Portland had reached 106 degrees F. I had had a glass of red wine shortly before leaving and was blown away when I stepped out of the 1 World Trade Ctr on 1st and Salmon. Our apartment on Barbur was probably 10 degrees hotter. I had gotten up in the morning and found the place to be much like an oven, even at 6:45 am.
So we stayed over at Grandmother's house and slept worlds better.
Today at work, however, I nearly lost my mind, swallowed by the utter insanity of CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V for nearly 8 hours.
The following is a message I sent to Dave via Facebook:

Dear David Robert James Carter,
I am at work at the moment and 1.5 hrs remain. I am so ungodly exhausted of copying and pasting for the last 6.5 hrs, staring at a computer screen and doing the same mindless tasks over and over and over again.
After work I am going to the gym and plan to run enough miles, lift enough repetitions that I will be too tired to blow my fucking brains out with a gun when I get home, thus sparing my life for at least another day.

Sincerely yours,
xxxxx x. xx

company party

Last night was the much-anticipated Great Gatsby party which was shrouded in mystery until the last minute; as it turned out, my boss' own home served as the Gatsby estate. We arrived in a white PT cruiser and were greeted by a valet service after which we followed a woody path into the backyard and handed champagne while coming upon the massive waterfall system that had been developed. It started at the top of the hill and ended with an 8-ft deep pool full of koi at the bottom. There was a grill with a whole pig being slow-roasted and several isolated food tables consisting of fine cheeses and crackers, crab and shrimp and oysters on the half-shell, and all sort of salmon pate, smoked salmon, various other exotic rolls and appetizers, a shelf of desserts including tiramasu and chocolate mousse and ginger cookies, et al., a full wait-staff wearing jerseys specifically fashioned for this event. There was an open bar with specialty drinks consisting of blackberry ginger something or other and the bloody orange dream, lemon drops, and tghe basics. As well there stood an ice sculpture through which to pour the vodka for the drinks, a few kegs of microbrew, and that is only scratching the surface...
It was my first company party and quite an experience to say the least. Most everyone was dressed in their 20s attire and slowly but surely getting drunker and drunker. Luckily I paced myself and mixed in a good amount of bottled water to dilute the alcohol coursing through my system. Before I knew it, it was after midnight and the colleagues of mine with kids at home at nearly all left and things had emptied quickly. Still, there were many people there, and we were given a ride in a PT cruiser back home again.
It is more apparent than ever why people begin with the company with a year or two in mind and end up staying over a decade...
All in all, however, it was a good time, and I'm still trying to recover this morning and afternoon, so I am fresh again to go tomorrow for work.

monday night thoughts

Going to the gym has helped me tremendously from feeling the slump of a desk-job. I thank Shawna for the encouragement to keep up the habit, and my 3-day-a-week routine of running and weight-lifting not only gives me a medium through I may vent and exhaust the pent-up energy I gradually accumulate over the day and slough it off, but it also regenerates me to a significant extent.
I spoke to Dave on the phone at last. He is back in the States, and, having seen a "lion eating a warthog's ass sixty yards from his sleeping place," I should say he is quite well for the most part.
It is beginning to occur to me how quickly this summer is fading. I have been enjoying it very much, but soon I really need to update my resume and start applying for other jobs. I'm open to any new range of experiences. I don't want to get stuck in a rut, and I feel one of the things that keeps me going is that for now I am simply an intern, and there is a foreseeable end to my work there, an end to the hours upon hours of data entry.
For some reason I am not worried. If we move out of Portland, I should have plenty in savings to get started up and maybe find a gateway job to at least have some money coming in. Maybe it would be nice to have a more physically active job next time around... just a thought.

I'm getting more interested in travel as I catch a whiff of it coming up potentially (if I can get time off). I would love to travel with any number of people as companions- if not simply by myself, with a friend, a family member, with Shawna. Either way it would be special. Even if it were frustrating and bothersome at times. I like the identity of places and I like the thought of me being in places, as though those places define who I am, or at least, help to form some sort of vague boundary that is me. I think about the name of a place and all the images I can conjure, whether or not I have been there, and that mental vision is itself giving identity to a place, something very unique for each person who imagines it. In essence, any single place has billions of definitions, yet one very concrete position on a map. Traveling is a very precious opportunity, made all the more valuable by its lack of form for anyone but the traveler himself/herself.

the lavender man

Left work today, a bit more flushed than I had expected after a going-away-party for a "teacher-in-residence" who had been with us for a few weeks. It was a big fanfare: multiple types of cheese and wine being passed around. I ended up with a glass of merlot, which I drank, standing amongst my colleagues while trying to retain good posture after another long day in front of a computer.
I got out on the street and on my way to meet Shawna at Pioneer Square happened upon a man with a massive bundle of lavender stalks which he was handing out for free. I grabbed some, and carrying a copy of the book "American Psycho," made my way over to the Max stop on 6th and Yamhill, but managed to catch a good glimpse of the sand-sculpture contest going on in the Square. They weren't as impressive as I expected. The lavender guy had made his way to that area and was questioned by a young patrol (not police) officer, as if he were doing something wrong.
Shawna and I saw the new Harry Potter movie, it was awesome.
Now it is the weekend; tomorrow we plan to head down to Eugene. I think this may be the last time I ever set foot in the town, which doesn't feel too sentimental for me. I'm not looking forward to the clean up and the move out, but once I get this done, the string from me to Eugene is more or less severed and I can get on with my life.
What else can I really write at the moment. I don't want to write about work when I'm not there, but things are going well anyway. Sometimes I'm bored out of my skull, other times content and happy. We had a deployment team meeting the other day where people were making jokes (including other, very business-oriented, interns) that simply were not jokes. Everyone laughed and I couldn't fake it, I kept thinking in my mind, "that literally was not a joke (?)"
But after meeting with a few people at work I am sure that in spite of the monotony of my daily tasks, the people do want me to have a meaningful learning experience this summer, regardless of whether I stay or move on.
Next week I give a presentation of my training curriculum map that I have myself developed for a 1st yr medical school anatomy course. By the end of my internship I am to give a marketing presentation as well as a presentation of what I have gained/learned from my experience there. In the end, there is more good than bad to come from this, I feel, though at moments it seems not so. Just as many attribute the ails of the world to God's own agenda to which we are vastly unaware.
On the lighter side of things, I decided to spoil myself and buy an awesome new pair of shoes (more to come) and a long board (also yet to come).

im gonna write in my blog

Down-trodden weather this last week in Portland, and was hit with overcast and rain in Eugene over the weekend. It was great to see Russ and Zarah, though I felt the distance I've created between me and the place I went to college once. Ha.
We got a late start on Saturday, day of the fair but weren't late for the madness and festivities the network of forest in Veneta has to offer this time of the year. OCF was fun, though I cannot maintain that it was necessarily as bonkers as last year's, I still enjoyed myself immensely and the people-watching experience was quite phenomenal. I think it was the drum circle that started getting me into the vibe at first after watching people in weird interpretive deer outfits and stilts run around a crowd of peope, sniffing them and posing the threat of being caught in a butterfly net.
I saw a lot of people I never knew at the U of O, but could recognize their faces. Among these were the middle-aged white bald man with the handlebar mustache I used to always see surrounded by Japanese FOB girls at International Coffee Hour whenever Nick would drag me there. I even saw my old roommate Jon's girlfriend topless and getting her breasts painted as I walked by; a little boy with a balloon sword whipped an extremely tan guy in the junk who was wearing nothing but a mesh pouch over his junk; two kids walked by talking excitedly about a video game, so much so it nearly knocked me down and when the parade came by full of brass players and women dressed as goths and hippies and everywhere in between, there was a man dancing in the center of the parade dressed completely in a hockey goalie uniform, complete with the mask and the leg-guards... well, at that point I was just so very happy. But that wasn't even half of it. I encountered my old boss Gary from the organic chemistry lab working at the Odyssey Booth and carried on a long conversation with him, a big silly grin pasted across my face. After eating I found myself stuck in a whirlpool around the garbage center, tense hippies shouting at me to put different things in different places, which, in spite of my training through childhood to quickly differentiate trash into salvagable, recyclable, compostable, burnable, and actual garbage, I was rightly bewildered and pushed along by those behind me, terrified about what might happen if I accidentally recycled the compostable plate from which I had eaten.
It was a good day, wandered around the deceptively large fair with Shawna, Russ, Zarah, Paul and Shereen, and although the overcast sky was a little disappointing, we still had a good time.
I thought, and for good reason, that any notions that may arise of how weird I may be is completely drowned out by the weirdness of everyone around me. Country Fair is the place where you can be completely ridiculous and still be openly accepted.
Next morning, it was pouring down rain. While Shawna slept I scrambled to disassemble as much as I could in my room and pack it all out. We got brunch at a vegan/vegatarian restaurant that is actually good called Morning Glory with Russ and Zarah before hitting the nasty road back to Portland.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. Went to work today and put on a totally different face, the kind that no one thinks would love OCF. Even spoke differently, all diplomatic and such... business-speak.

awesome book

I can tell the work week will fly this time around and as soon as I am off on Friday early evening, Shawna and I will drive down to Eugene and prepare for Oregon Country Fair the following day in Veneta. I'm really excited and hoping to run into some interesting experiences and characters there. No doubt it will be fun and for those who have never been, I can't even begin to describe, but I think it is one of the great American treasures that nearly no one even knows about. It's a slice of NW culture that relatively few have seen.
Meanwhile, got random projects piling up at work; if I am kept busy long enough I forget about how boring the work I am doing actually is from an objective standpoint. That is, I can get into it and focus even if it is pretty boring, as long as I have some tasks to give me a break from the data entry, which is most of what I do.
I finished reading "The Road" today as I sat on the 94 express bus coming home from work, good air flow going throughout the cabin. It's an incredible book. As soon as I finished the last sentence I thought I could flip the book back to the first page and read it all over again from the beginning. I know I will re-read it eventually. The story is really simple and slow yet somehow it is really encapturing, the prose so intense and beautiful. There's this feeling of impending doom as you read, page-by-page, and the few scattered moments of more definable 'action' are immensely haunting images. I cannot even analyze the book in words; it just stirred within me ambiguous emotions that I have never really felt before.
Anyway, it's time to snuggle up for bed soon after a little ironing of the shirt I'm going to wear tomorrow at work.....

july 4th weekend

I'm enjoying the long weekend but still need the time to do at least one load of laundry, some ironing my formal shirts and pants, and research for the side-project I have going on in work, something specially assigned to me by the CEO. Unfortunately I have plenty of data entry tasks to do at work that keep me limited in my abilities to develop the project so I am going to ask about the possibility of doing over-time. As an intern? Moreover, the Boss wants a progress check with me by Wednesday afternoon and I've barely taken a step forward since I was put on the assignment.
Other than that I am settling into the job well I suppose, getting to know my "associates" little by little including my direct office mate from Benin. It's amazing how nice it feels to not have any lingering studying or homework to do at the end of my day. Also, I am loving Portland more than ever. The summertime here is awesome and enjoy every day of it that I have. I have found a renewed appreciation for books. I blazed through a library copy of "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" which is a wonderful and brief read and have moved on to some heavier stuff, namely "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
Now it is the morning of the 4th of July and already the weekend has been chock full of activity from black-light miniature golf to the Rose Gardens and Washington Park to 80's night at Lola's in the Crystal Ballroom, all of which was quite a bit of fun. Also watched a part of the 1968 version of "Night of the Living Dead" with Shawna at a posh restaurant with a $3 happy hour special on pizzas....

The Work Week

I've almost completed a full week of work now and the week seemed to stretch on forever. It wasn't entirely unenjoyable, however, and I feel I am settling in well and will hopefully be given a wider variety of assignments as time goes on. One thing I appreciate is not having homework/studying to do. When my day ends, it ends and that is definitely something I am relishing in. Also, I appreciate my time more now that it is quite limited.
With my gym membership it is great to exercise after work because by 5 pm I am aching to release massive amounts of pent up energy. So I am trying to get to the fitness center at the very least 3 times per week.
What's on the agenda for the weekend? Not sure yet, but I'm going to love it. Oysters and 80s night at Lola's on Friday for now.
I have a Cormac McCarthy book on hold at the library. I've rarely ever had to place a book on hold, but in a city like Portland, everyone reads. I want to read "The Road" before the movie version comes out. It seems like a pretty intense one, according to Ma who read it on the diving boat in Indonesia after her root canal some time ago.
But the living is good here.
I wonder how Dave is doing in Africa....
well i'm settling into a routine pretty quickly. i have lots of ideas in my mind but no sense of how to organize them yet.

the job: day 1

First day on the job went alright... much of the day was taken up with more in-depth orientation and being taken out to lunch, got to hear vague news of the upcoming 20th anniversary party that has a "Great Gatsby" theme. I hear this company does parties big...
It'll take some time to settle in and figure out what's going on; although I don't think it should be too difficult to get the hang of my day-in-day-out tasks. I'm excited for the point where I am comfortable with the people and what I do.
Other than that, I set up my gym membership and therefore at $30/mo am gonna be more motivated to actually use it. One of the greatest things about this transition from school to full-time employment is the lack of homework. I keep having dreams that I have assignments due and feel so glad to wake up without any impending shit. I will get to missing the learning and science however when the monotony of data-entry becomes more apparent to me.
For the mean time though I am excited to live in Portland, more excited than before. In the college bubble I feel it was hard for me to appreciate Oregon for all the wonderful places and activities it can offer. The coast trip with my ma helped open my eyes to what a diverse state this truly is. But I still don't think I wanna tough it out one more winter... perhaps this is the last summer for me to soak it all up like a sponge.. for a while at least. It's too early to tell anyway.
Up on the horizon: weekend after 4th of July is Oregon Country Fair, which is 13 miles west of Eugene in a town called Veneta. I can't wait...

Graduation Day!

Now comes the post-graduation wind-down. It was quite a rush having everyone flood into Eugene for a weekend (that is: Grandmother and Granddad, Ma, Ba and Jan, Aunt Beth and Anna, Shawna, Julian and Alexei) and then suddenly disappear, followed by an awesome vacation period with Ma in and around some unique spots in Oregon.
My internship starts on Monday and I'm feeling subtly nervous, still unsure as to whether I'm gonna need to throw down the money on a tailored business suit or whether a dark gray sports jacket to match my dark pants will suffice for my daily attire. I don't know quite what to expect, as is the case with most things that are new to me so I guess I will just have to dive right in the day after tomorrow and figure it out on my own.
Graduation was fun, a rush and almost a dream. During the whole build-up I didn't get much sleep on account of finals and then during the weekend still not a lot of rest on account of Julian. But it was a whole lot of fun and definitely quite a bit of British TV impressions on the part of the Brothers Ku.
Then Julian and Alexei went back to Denver, Shawna started full-time at Nia, and the Grandparents left for Iowa. So Ma and I spent the entirety of Monday up near the Columbia River Gorge on a 12-mile hike along Eagle Creek. Along the way we passed several amazing waterfalls, the most grand of which was the very last, Tunnel Falls, which allowed passage behind the massive waterfall. Words would fall far short of a good description, so pictures may be the best way to describe how awesome this area was.
The next three days Ma and I went on a short road trip to coastal Oregon, starting with Astoria where we found "The Goonies" house, the "Kindergarten Cop" school, and loads of old-school Scandanavian architecture. Astoria is a really cool place for a weekend visit with loads of beautiful access points to where the mighty Pacific meets the Columbia River. Also, it was interesting retracing steps of Lewis and Clark, the latter of which we are directly related to on Grandmother's lineage.
Next we went to Cannon Beach which was touristy but still it was great to be on the beach and see some sunshine. And lastly, we stopped in McMinville to see Great Aunt Kathy and Nick for some wine-tasting in Carlton. We went to a small boutique winery where the wine-maker was present to describe his craft. He was a personal friend of Aunt Kathy's and he was extremely knowledgeable about the stuff. He said something like, "each wine is an expression of a different time and different place" which blew me away for some reason and I felt like I was in that movie "Sideways." I imagined Dave and I reinacting that movie, albeit not quite verbatim: I would be the sour balding writer and he'd be the dude-ish aspiring actor driving around the vineyards.
Anyway it was an awesome graduation trip of sorts with my mama and of course a good segue between senior year of college and the workforce.
And now I have moved in with Shawna and we have been organizing and cleaning up the apartment, gearing up for this summer. It looks like it will be exciting, as soon as the weather becomes consistently good. Since Shawna just bought a car we will have better and more efficient access to plenty of places in and around Portland to make the most of the weekends. So I am pretty excited for this summer and hopefully amidst the work and the adventures we will be able to figure out our plans for the autumn.
Until next time, I will be adjusting to the full-time work week, adjusting to the environment of my new job, and figuring out how to maximize and utilize my free, homeworkless time.














Astoria-Megler bridge that connects OR and WA














Outside "The Goonies" house















Punchbowl Falls






















Tunnel Falls

Tetanus vs. Botulinum

A little essay question I answered as part of my protein toxins class; more relevant things to write later....

Although the molecular mechanisms of both botulinum and tetanus neurotoxins are highly homologous, each one’s resulting symptoms are rather different. Both toxins are produced by bacteria of the genus Clostridium and are composed of a heavy (H) and a light (L) chain connected by a disulfide bond that act as binding and active subunits, respectively. Evidence has suggested that botulinum (BoNT) and tetanus (TeNT) toxins require at least two cellular receptors, many of which are presently unknown. It is believed that all serotypes of BoNT as well as TeNT will bind ganglioside lipids such as G_M1, GT, and GDb1, albeit with low affinity. The idea behind this is that low-affinity binding to gangliosides allows for localization of the toxins at the neuronal surface, after which they may be internalized into a synaptic vesicle. The process of internalization would then require a second receptor with a higher affinity for binding the toxin. Studies have identified a few protein receptors, including the luminal domain of SV2 for BoNT serotype A, the luminal domain of synaptotagmin for BoNT serotypes B and G, as well as a GPI-anchored protein Thy-1 for TeNT. It is believed that TeNT has even more hitherto undiscovered receptors since its mechanism involves extra trafficking. Regardless, the notion of multiple receptors for these two types of toxins would give support for the neurospecificity seen in each case.

Both tetanus and botulinum toxins are endocytosed into synaptic vesicles according to their high-affinity binding to synaptic vesicle proteins. While different serotypes of BoNT cleave various SNARE proteins involved in binding and docking of vesicles with the synaptic membrane, for the purposes of comparison, serotype B (BoNT/B) will be discussed exclusively in relation to the enzymatic activity of tetanus toxin. After TeNT and BoNT/B bind the synaptic membrane and are subsequently internalized, the light chain will be pushed onto the vesicular surface with the help of the heavy chain’s translocation domain. Once exposed, the light chain causes proteolytic cleavage of VAMP/synaptobrevin, which is a v-SNARE. Although both neurotoxins cleave at the same amino acid bond in VAMP/synaptobrevin, the resulting symptoms are actually opposite one another. Whereas botulinum toxin induces flaccid paralysis in muscles, tetanus toxin’s effect is a spastic paralysis. The reason for these starkly opposing symptoms is ultimately attributed to the specific location at which the toxins are shown to act.

The effects of BoNT are localized at the presynaptic cleft of a neuromuscular junction. At this location, the toxin has been taken into synaptic vesicles and it cleaves VAMP; as a consequence, the toxin blocks other vesicles from the ability to bind to corresponding t-SNARES on the synaptic membrane, followed by fusion and release acetylcholine neurotransmitter via exocytosis. Thus, motor signals that are sent along neurons to affect muscle fibers are completely blocked due to the inhibition of acetylcholine release at the neuromuscular junction and the intoxicated animal suffers a flaccid muscle paralysis. While tetanus toxin cleaves the same v-SNARE protein, its action is seen elsewhere in the neuron. Interestingly, whereas BoNT is largely focused at the presynaptic membrane of the neuromuscular junction, TeNT is retrogradely trafficked to the cell body of the motor neuron following its internalization into a vesicle. Reaching the cell body, tetanus toxin is delivered into the presynaptic terminal of inhibitory interneurons that normally send a signal to keep muscle tissues from contracting. At this point, TeNT executes its action of VAMP cleavage, thereby blocking the release of inhibitory neurotransmitter much like BoNT does to stimulatory signals at the neuromuscular junction. The result of this blockage of inhibitory input into the motor neuron leads to excessive activity, wherein stimulatory neurotransmitter is released further downstream at the neuromuscular junction without an opposing signal to control it, and thus a spastic muscle paralysis associated with tetanus toxin ensues.

less than 24 hrs

Tomorrow at approx. 10 am I finish my last exam of my undergraduate college career. So far it doesn't seem very climactic, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet that the whole family is coming barreling into Oregon within these next couple of days.
June 22nd I start work as an intern for an educational consulting company where I'll be doing data-entry for a pretty penny. Come fall I don't know what will happen, but Shawna and I would like to move out of Oregon, and I personally want to keep close to a scientific field if I can.
I really don't understand where the time went... half a year ago I was still recovering from jet-lag after a journey over the Pacific Ocean.
Everyone is telling me I should be excited, but truth be told I do not know what to feel. Surely I am excited about the family reunion... I'm excited about this summer to a certain degree. It's been awhile since I worked full-time, and even then I was a manual laborer. Now I need to acclimate to the office environment: neck-ties, good posture, smiles, simulated and regurgitated conversation, business-speak. But I think it can be a wonderful experience in some respects as well.
Here I will be in Portland this summer, hopefully saving up money and having a good time; Dave is in Africa for a month (first Carter to step foot on the 'dark continent'?) followed by forestry research in Wisconsin; Erik Schuessler is working for EPIC in Madison, WI, probably up to his usual antics and dating a Jewish girl; Ryan will be doing some sort of sales internship for his aunt over in Ohio, the place he seems to thrive in; Seth just started EMT classes in preparation for becoming a paramedic while still hanging on to his graveyard shift job at the veterinary lab; Brian is working for his older brother Jeff (who is poised to get married in November [will be trying my best to make it back home for that]), and doing the long-distance-thing with his girlfriend who lives in Springfield, IL; Simon is working from home in the air-conditioning where he thrives most as a customer support line for people with I-pod/phone problems, Eric Hsu is working on Wall Street in something investment bank related don't really know before going back to Michigan for his senior yr; no idea what Eric E. is doing...
Whatever the circumstances, I will be making it home for Christmas this year and hope to meet with all of those I just mentioned (maybe not Simon since he is in California after all) and be able to catch up at length. As for now, the team huddle is broken.