| alcoholism |
[Aug. 30th, 2009|10:37 am] |
So I was at a bar last night where the menu had a Kerouac Cocktail, named after Jack Kerouac and his "love of tequila." Now I'm a big Kerouac fan and like to see things named after him, but do you think it's respectful to name a mixed drink after a guy who died of alcoholism? Isn't that like naming a brand of nails after Jesus or a fast sports car after James Dean?
Cocktail was good though. Like most good tequila drinks they were successfully able to completely smother the taste of the tequila. |
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| anticipation |
[Aug. 27th, 2009|08:57 am] |
For the past few months I've thought that I'll start feeling less depressed once I've had a chance to start sending out resumes. But I've sent out ~150 in the past three days and I don't feel any better at all. Most of the places I've applied to explicitly said on their web sites that they were not hiring anybody. So it seems more like I'm just checking off boxes than doing anything that will actually lead to a job. On the plus side, I'll soon have a large number of new rejection letters for my rejection letter collection. It's quite an impressive collection already, and this new batch should really make it something special.
Speaking of something special, I'm sure you all remember the one-hit wonder indie band The Innocence Mission, right? Did you know that they kept putting out albums? I did not know this until recently. Did you know that one of their later albums, Birds of My Neighborhood is completely awesome? You've really been missing out if you stopped listening to them back in 1989. |
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| change |
[Aug. 19th, 2009|03:14 pm] |
I was standing in the kitchen in the office this morning, like I’ve done every morning for the past few months, making coffee and looking at the mountains through the window. I was thinking how this is going to be the last time I do that, since this is my last day at this office and I fly home tomorrow. I was holding this little spoon that I always use to stir my coffee tighter and tighter, realizing that, after today in my reality this spoon will cease to exist, this kitchen will cease to exist, this view will cease to exist, everything about my life in Alaska will simply cease to exist. I can’t go back to that bar and drink Alaskan Amber on draft, and I can’t hike in the hills by the abandoned mine anymore, or sit by the dock at twilight and watch the cruise ships sail out of town. It’s not even that I really liked Alaska all that much, it’s more the feeling of finality that I found so distressing, the knowledge that change is coming and that, for better or worse, my life won’t be the same tomorrow as it is today.
But I guess that’s true of everyone’s life every single day. I’ve lived in a dozen places and had a dozen jobs, and each time I left that part of my life was closed forever. Even if you try to go back later, things won’t be the same, things never stay static. Once I went back to my old college years after I graduated and I found myself staring up at a window that used to be my friend’s dorm room so long ago. But it isn’t his room anymore. It’ll never be his room again. That part of my life, that version of reality simply doesn’t exist anymore. Even if I came back to Alaska at some point things would never be the same as they are now. I’d live in a different place, some of the people I know wouldn’t be here anymore, jobs, stores, everything (including me) would be different. It might be great to live here again, but it would never be the same as it is now.
But maybe that’s something about life we should embrace. It’s inevitable after all, you can’t stop change. Even if you don’t leave things still change, just on a slower scale. People still move away, your favorite restaurant closes only to be replaced with a different restaurant, the weather one summer is much different than last. I guess there’s nothing to do but just accept it, watch each day go by, watch each season go by and realize that it’s all going to change, that no matter how much you want this particular version of reality to be static forever, that’s not possible, and the best we can do is to hope that the new version of reality right around the corner is somehow even better than the one we are living in right now, or at least good enough so that you don’t miss this one so much when you are gone.
That’s what I was thinking about this morning and a clutched that stupid little spoon trying to somehow hold onto it forever. But you can’t hold on to anything forever. Take a good hard look at where you are right this second, appreciate your surroundings. Understand that no matter how tightly you cling to the people, places, and things around you, the world will never ever be the same as it is this exact moment. |
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| small town folk |
[Aug. 15th, 2009|07:07 pm] |
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I think the year I spent in rural South Carolina really soured me on the idea of living in a small town. Since that time I've always said I want to live in a big city because small town folk are all inbred anti-intellectual uncultured hicks. But I'm starting think that maybe it was just South Carolina residents that are inbred anti-intellectual uncultured hicks. I've only been here in Juneau for two months now, and in some ways I'm starting to see that small town life isn't all that bad. The people here are, at least to a degree, friendly modern and interesting. And it's kinda fun to see the same people over and over again everywhere you go. I'm not the most outgoing person, and even I find it hard to go a day without bumping into someone I know on the street or in a coffeehouse or at the movies. I feel sort of welcome here, and that's a nice feeling. I can see why people like living in a place like this, even if there isn't as much to do here as in a big city. Maybe the people seem more interesting because they all have big city attitudes. Even though Juneau has less people living here then went to my college, it's still one of the biggest cities in Alaska, so the people here don't think of themselves as 'small town folk', they think of themselves as sophisticated city dwellers. So it's really the best of both worlds, you get the small town friendliness of living in the sticks, with some of the pro-culture, pro-intellectualism of living in the big city. Not a bad mix really. |
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| north |
[Aug. 12th, 2009|12:08 pm] |
So, this weekend I travelled further north on the planet than I ever have before. It wasn't super-far north or anything, It was just above the 60th parallel, which is still 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle, but it was still pretty far north for me. And it also had the advantage of being in the Yukon. There isn't all that much in the Yukon to go see, outside of some mountains and forests, and Whitehorse makes Juneau look like a teeming metropolis, but it was still worth it to say that I've been to the Yukon. Plus I went swimming. who else here can say they've been swimming north of the 60th parallel? Not you.
Speaking of swimming, I learned that Alaska isn't the best place to shop for bathing suits. If you are coming up here to go swimming, you should probably bring your own suit with you. I'd imagine that this advice holds true whether you are considering swimming in Alaska or the Yukon. |
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| glacier |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|01:34 am] |
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When my life is over, historians and biographers will no doubt engage in endless debates about my many accomplishments. And one question that will almost certainly come up again and again is "Did Chris ever lick a glacier?" My friends, the answer to that question is yes. |
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| hoops |
[Aug. 1st, 2009|01:24 am] |
So I've been working on my application to work at DOJ after graduation, and boy they don't make it easy. Their online submission form is the most annoying job application form I think I've ever seen. For example, it asks for references, but you can't just give them a name, phone, and email. You are required to find a street address for them too! You also can't just send them a transcript, you have to individually retype every single grade you got in every single class into their website. And then, at the end, just when you think you are done, they make you write TWO 2000 word essays about why you want to work at DOJ. Considering that I have almost no chance of actually getting a job there, having to write two essays seems like they are just trying to be difficult. I know that they probably want to 'weed out' people who aren't serious. But considering there are a million other opportunities working elsewhere that don't require writing essays and retyping your transcript into their website, they really aren't weeding out the unqualified, they are weeding out people who aren't so desperate that they are willing to jump through all these hoops for a miniscule chance at a job. Hiring the most desperate doesn't seem like the best way to staff your office DOJ! All that being said, I have to admit that I'm one of the losers desperate enough to jump through all those hoops for a miniscule chance at a job.
So there's this bar here in Juneau that has al these old-timey photos on the wall of life in Juneau 100+ years ago. The thing that really struck me about the photos is that in every one that shows the Channel, there are icebergs floating in it. Big ones. There are no icebergs anymore. I even asked some of the locals, and people who've been here for years told me they've never seen an iceberg in the Channel. I think that's pretty good evidence that the climate up here is radically different from where it was 100+ years ago. |
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| water |
[Jul. 22nd, 2009|12:46 am] |
If I knew anything about how to get a company set up, I think it would be a cool idea to set up a water bottling plant here in Alaska that only bottles water coming off melting glaciers. There's plenty of those around nowadays. Then I'd ship it down to the lower 48 and sell it, with all the profits going to fund alternative energy research to stop global warming. I bet it would be a big success. It would make people feel better about drinking bottled water, and doesn't glacier melt water sound extra refreshing for some reason?
Alternately, if I was a rich republican, I'd start a company that would go to the poorest, driest regions of the world available, like Darfur or somewhere, and build a giant factory that would squeeze out all the water they could get from the soil, bottle it up, and export it back to the developed world to be sold as "the world's rarest water." I'm sure people would pay a premium for extra-rare water, don't you think? And if the peasants who lived near the factory really wanted the water, they'd be willing to outbid my factory for it, right? Isn't that the purest form of capitalism? Ayn Rand would be proud. |
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| certainty |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|11:08 pm] |
I'm not the first person to say this, but I'm really starting to come to the conclusion that there is a major downside to the internet in that it makes almost everything instantly available. It sounds weird to say that, because everyone would agree that access to information generally a good thing. The problem is that it makes things too instantaneous. There's no room left for either wonder or debate. It used to be that kids could lie around and wonder what made the sky blue, or could discuss it with friends and argue their competing theories, or just ask around and see what other people said and try to deduce who's answer made the most sense. But now, type any question into Wikipedia and you have an almost indisputable answer in seconds. In a way it's great because it removes people's misperceptions and increases accuracy. But in another way it kinda sucks because it removes any need to think about anything, or argue your position with other people, or just lie around daydreaming and trying to figure it out yourself. I'm worried that the next generation of kids won't have the ability to work through problems themselves, and if the answer isn't easily available at their fingertips, they'll be completely stumped. I don't know, maybe I'm just becoming a grumpy old man who is afraid of change and new technology, but I think this is a problem.
In other news, if you hadn't noticed, tiny ghosts #200 came out the other day. Hooray me. |
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| filling in the blank places on the map |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|12:25 pm] |
I'm always telling people that they should travel more and see the most exotic places they can get to, but I'm starting to think that maybe it isn't the best idea. The problem is that when you actually experience something first hand, it ruins any fantasy you have about a place, and that fantasy is often much better than the real thing. For example, I always figured that Vancouver Island was this vast uncharted primordial forest filled with mountains and bears, with very little human settlement. But I finally went there, and I drove all the way from Victoria to Nanaimo and the entire drive was filled with strip malls and fast food restaurants, and not really any places that could be considered uncharted or primordial. Turns out that Vancouver Island looks a lot like most of America, and there wasn't any time during the drive where I really felt that I might get lost anywhere. There were more Starbucks outlets in Naniamo than there are here in Juneau. Perhaps it would have been better to not have gone, and keep the fantasy alive you know? Everytime I actually go somewhere that I think is going to be really different, it is mostly the same old stuff. I've been thinking for a long time that I want to go to Madagascar and see primordial forest and get attacked my lemurs, and now I'm worried that it'll be nothing but mile after mile of McDonalds and car dealerships.
In other news, because semantics are important, I will no longer refer to the fact that I am incredibly bad at playing pool. Instead, I will claim that I am incredibly good at playing anti-pool. Please make a note of this. |
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| patriotism |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|03:46 am] |
So, as I was saying, I just got back from Victoria, which is in Canada. I happened to be there for 'Canada Day', and I went down to the harbor to see the fireworks. I was impressed by how many patriotic Canadians there were. I mean, everyone likes to see fireworks, and there are huge crowds in the US for July 4th, but it seemed to be like the Victoria residents were much more enthusiastic about their country than the typical BBQ attending, fireworks watching Americans are. A lot of people were wearing Red and White clothing, and not just the weird people. There were piles of very attractive, young, hip Canadians that were wrapped in red and white maple leaves fervently supporting their country. Maybe it's just that the Canadian flag only has two colors which, while a tad garish, you can make a reasonably matching outfit with. The US flag has three primary colors and there is no way to effectively put together a matching outfit that combines red white and blue without looking like a total dork. Maybe Betsy Ross should have taken that into account...
Oh, and I remember now why I wanted to live in Victoria all those years ago. Turns out I had a ice hockey game (kinda like foosball) that I played all the time. It came with a very detailed plastic Stanley Cup trophy that, like the real trophy, lists all the previous winners. I noticed that going back pre-1940 or so, it was all teams I'd never heard of from cities I never heard of. Seems that back before WWI places like Kenora ON and Dawson City YT actually had teams playing for the Cup. I found the idea that tiny towns no one had ever heard of once competed at that level. For some reason I became fixated on the fact that a team from Victoria won a number of times back then, and decided I wanted to live there in some kind of support for a team that hadn't existed in 70 years. I was a pretty weird kid. |
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| Victoria |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|12:07 am] |
Ok, this sounds weird but when I was a kid I used to keep a list of places I wanted to live. It was really only three places actually; Minnesota, Australia, and Victoria in British Columbia. It wasn't like I based my decisions on anything rational. I was fascinated by Minnesota because it seemed so obscure that I couldn't imagine that anyone actually lived there and yet somehow they were able to support a professional football team. I picked Australia because it was filled with weird animals or something I guess, or maybe because my Mom once told me the plot of the movie "On the Beach" and I figured that was the safest place to be in case of nuclear holocaust. For Victoria, I just liked the name and the fact that it was off on what seemed to be an exotic island. It wasn't like I had any information about Victoria except for the map, I knew nothing about it other than there was a little star to note that it was a Provincial Capital. I couldn't tell you a single thing about it other than I really wanted to go there (remember, this was in the days before Wikipedia so it was hard to get information).
Well, it's many years later and I still have never been to Minnesota or Australia, but I can now finally say I've been to Victoria! I spent five whole days there actually. Even though I never imagined what it would be like, it still wasn't what I expected (it seems to be the San Diego of Canada). When I was a kid, I never thought I'd actually ever get a chance to go, and now I've been. I almost feel like one of those people who dreamed about becoming an astronaut and who actually got to go into space. Except not nearly as impressive. |
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| Tracy Arm Fjord |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|12:49 am] |
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So, being in Alaska and all, I decided to go on a boat tour of a fjord. I took a whole bunch of pictures which you can see here --> (Photographs). |
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| needs |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|01:43 am] |
One of the interesting things about being away from home is that it gives you perspective on what is actually important to you, as opposed to what only appears important to you. It’s so easy to get into a rut of comfortability when life doesn’t change, and you can mistake that rut for need. You might think that you absolutely must watch that particular tv show, or read that particular website or partake in a particular activity. But when you in a different place, and your whole day-to-day life has changed and you are far away from all your stuff and your friends and you family and your ruts, you can gain some perspective and realize that many of the dumb little things you felt were so important really weren’t, and all those things you felt you couldn’t live without, you actually can live without. For example, back in DC I felt this need to keep up with all the political news of the day because that’s what people do there, but here in Alaska, where I don’t have a tv, a decent newspaper, or reliable internet access, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really ‘need’ to keep up with political stuff. It’s almost like I’m a totally different person up here; with different interests, hobbies, and requirements for day-to-day life. I haven’t had a single latte or wasted an evening chatting on IRC since I got here!
It’s all temporary of course, as soon as I get back, I’ll go back to being the same person I was before I left, but maybe this time with a little more perspective about what I really ‘need’ from life vs. what I just lazily keep around because I’m used to having it around. I think this goes back to a pervious post of mine about how a person needs to continually break themselves down and rebuild in order to really understand who they are at their core. |
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| attitude |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|03:10 am] |
If you ask pretty much anybody why they moved to DC, they'll tell you it was because of work; either they had a job there or they wanted a job there or they were related to someone who wanted a job there or something like that. I've noticed that if ask that same question here in Juneau, not a single person will say it had anything to do with work. They came here because they liked the mountains, or wanted to live somewhere far away from the rest of the world, or because they knew someone here and came for a visit and never left. What job they were going to get once they arrived didn't really factor into their decision. They have a totally different attitude towards working than what I'm used to. One of the lawyers in the office is quitting so she can sail around the world for a year or two. What about her career? What's she going to do when she returns? She doesn't know or really care all that much. When I told people that the legal market was awful these days and didn't know how I'd ever get a job as a lawyer this fall, they seemed to think this was a great thing and that I should 'go bum around Europe for a few years' instead. I'm not sure how I feel about this attitude towards life, but it's a refreshing change from what I'm used to.
Speaking of being unemployable, in the hopes of improving my resume a little, I sent off some papers I had written to a bunch of law journals to see if I can get any of them published. I'm probably just asking for more disappointment, but it didn't take too much effort to email them out, so what the hey? I sent them to every journal I could find. I even bit the bullet and sent one to Stanford. However, I drew the line and refused to send one to U Texas. So I guess if nothing else I learned something about myself; I hate the State of Texas even more than I hate Stanford.
I saw the movie The Hangover tonight. It was quite funny. |
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| risk perception |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
Have you noticed that when that plane crashed over the Atlantic last week, no one really speculated that it was caused by terrorists? I remember a few years ago that when anything bad happened, the very first thing people did was freak out at start blaming 'terrorists', even when it made no sense (like when that Space Shuttle exploded). Maybe the collective paranoid delusion the US has been living under for the past few years is finally starting to lift and people are being more rational these days and risk perception and not not reflexively lashing out whenever something bad happens?
I'm still editing an article for my law school journal, despite the fact that I should have been done with that sort of thing back in May. But if I don't do it, it won't get done, and it needs to get done. I was thinking about how 'global' this article has become. It's for a Washington DC journal, but the editor (me) is stuck up here in Alaska. I asked the author, who is Canadian, to send me some files, but he wrote back and said he couldn't because he was in South Africa. So he asked his coauthor, who is from the Netherlands, to send the files, but that guy can't do it because he is currently in Laos. The joys of working on an International Law journal...
Speaking of crazy, I spent the last few days rewriting all of the Contract Law summaries on my law school web site. I could try and defend my actions by saying that the summaries really needed some revision in order to be up to the standards of the rest of the summaries on the site. But really it was just do to a combination of boredom and OCD. |
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| forest illusions |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|01:50 am] |
You know what the problem with hiking these days is? The people. There you are, out on some remote trail in the Tongass National Forest, totally surrounded by pristine, primordial wilderness, and you're just starting to dig it and all of a sudden, up the trail walks a bunch of other people. And it's not like they are being loud or annoying or anything, it's just that with their baseball caps and bright colored clothing they just don't really fit in. It kinda breaks the illusion you know? Like when you go to a renaissance fair and you see someone dressed up as a knight talking to some guy in a sports team t-shirt and jeans. You know what they should do? They should make it a requirement that if you want to go wandering in the forest, you have to dress up like some kind of caveman or native or something, then at least people would seem to be a natural part of the environment.
You know what else would be cool? If internet service here in AK was more reliable. I've been offline more than online all week. |
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| required reading |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|11:39 am] |
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I just heard that one of my novels is going to be taught in a class this fall in college. This is totally true! I was kinda surprised to hear about it, considering no one ever reads my book, I've been told by internet trolls that it 'sux0rs' and it's a fiction book on a weird topic in a fiend with lots of better known similar works. But next fall if you go to Richland College and take a class called "Wackos or Warriors for Truth, Exploring the Conspiracy Community," you will be forced to read City of Pillars. I'm not sure if the prof is going to say I'm a 'Warrior of Truth' or a 'Wacko' but hey, it's 40 more copies sold than I had last week. |
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| alaska |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|12:23 pm] |
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So, I'm now settled here and got my internet access set up. The apartment is only marginal at best, but I guess it'll do for the next two months or so. Can't say too much about work since I have only been there for a short time. The people in Alaska seem very friendly, I guess that the fewer people you have nearby the friendlier you get. Everyone also seems really excited to do hiking and other outdoors stuff. My supervisor told me that if the weather is nice, I should just leave work and go kayaking or something. It's going to be 84 and sunny today, which is warmer than I was expecting. Apparently this is what passes for a heat wave and everyone is excited and talking about the great weather. The city is right at the base of a giant and very steep mountain, and it ominously looms over everything. You can hear the cruise boat horns when they dock in the mornings. |
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| creepy down pat |
[May. 27th, 2009|10:15 am] |
So, I did another comic convention this weekend. It was just a small, indie show of Washington DC comics creators, craftsmen, and artists. There were less visitors than some of the bigger shows I've been to, but I sold more stuff, possibly because I wasn't overshadowed by famous people, possibly because it was labeled an 'arts' festival. What I do isn't really a 'comic', so if people come to a show expecting superheroes they aren't going to like what I'm offering. But if they come looking for 'art' then they'll give me a chance. I gave away a lot of flyers, so we'll see if I get any increased sales on the website in the coming days. That would be nice.
One thing I find interesting is the misperceptions people have. A number of people that I talked to thought that making creepy, unmarketable comics was my full-time job. One guy even asked where my store was! These people have no understanding of the business dynamics of internet commerce. The other question I get asked all the time is, "do you take the photos yourself?" That seems like a strange question to me. What do they think my participation in the comic is? Alternately, they ask, "so how did you make the robot and the ragdolls?" That also seems like a strange question to me. I guess the assumptions I make when I see a person selling art are not the same assumptions other people make.
The best comment I had all day was from some girl who was looking at my work and I said, "my art tries to get to the nexus between 'romantic' 'funny' and 'creepy'." She looked at me, said, "Well, you've certainly got 'creepy' down pat!" derisively, and then walked away. |
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