Gutzon Borglum, Multnomah Falls and a Wedding

From July 20th at 1:00 PM to July 27th at 2:00 PM I traveled with two good friends (both named Kyle) from somewhere in Michigan to Portland Oregon.

We drove straight through via I-80 on the way out and coming back we took a more northern (and more beautiful route) drive along I-90.

A lot happened over this trip, so I will give a quick list of "Better or Worse" experiences and then talk about something worthwhile.

• Mt. Rushmore: Worse than Nicki Minaj.
• A Semi-Tire blowing out in front of you on the highway: Worse than Nicki Minaj.
• Driving straight through to Oregon totaling 37 hours of car road time: Better than Nicki Minaj.
• Haystack Rock on the Pacific Coast: Better than Nicki Minaj.
• Meeting and saying goodbye to someone in the same day: Worse than Nicki Minaj.
• Gas for 3.29 in Wyoming: Better than Nicki Minaj.
• A state law that does not allow drivers to pump their own gas: Worse than Nicki Minaj.
• An Orthodox wedding involving two of my best friends: Better than Nicki Minaj.
• Missing a week of work during an extremely wretched heat wave: Better than Nicki Minaj.

So, those are only a few of the "Better or Worse than" moments I had on this trip.  If you desire and explanation on any of these, just comment.

The trip itself was well worth the time and money.  While the majority of the excursion was spent on the road and the majority of my money poured into a gas tank, it came down to a question that is fairly easy to answer.  In 20 years (God grant me that long) would I miss the money or the memory more?

After standing in the Church watching my two dear friends smile in a way I have never seen them smile before the answer is a definitive "Yes, it was worth the drive and the time and the money."  Both of the Kyles and myself agree with this.

So, ALWAYS take the experience over the money.

Oregon is a place I will miss.  Idaho and Montana were beautiful, Nebraska was consistent but in Oregon I have sturdy memories.  There are families in Oregon that welcomed us in as strangers and would invite us back in an instant.  There is a squirrel in Oregon waiting for me to return to feed it more peanuts and have more staring contests.  In Oregon, there are waterfalls I know by sight and name.  There is a restaurant on the beach with a waitress who made us a pepperoni pizza and whispered to us that there is no better pizza than can be found in Michigan, her native land.

The state is beautiful, the people are friendly but it is by no means a perfect place.  It might not even be better than Michigan, but Oregon and the people I now know there will always hold a cubicle in the nostalgia section of my heart.

Road trip to Oregon and back again: Better than Nicki Minaj.

Harry Potter and the Angsty Snoggers

Just finished watching Harry Potter 6 with a group of friends.  As one person said it, "I think this is Daniel Radcliffe's best performance."
I am not completely sold on that statement, and I refuse to declare my thoughts until I see his performance in Equus.  This play, in addition to winning several awards is supposed to be rather... interesting.  Go look it up.

The movie.  Ahh the movie.  While the idea of instantaneous wish fulfillment is very appealing, I can confidently say I am thankful for a lack of magic.  There are three reasons, listed from least to most thankful:

3. There are no dark wizards trying to kill, maim, control or recruit me.  Yes, the idea of dueling across an arctic cliff I recently apparated to in order to capture a villainous wizard with dark intent is quite romantic and thrilling, but I am glad I will never have to do such a thing.  I think this idea can best be explained with a real world parallel.  I would not want drug lords to have magic.  I also would not want politicians to have magic and I especially would not want the police/military to have such a weapon.  We all do want magic though.  Unfortunately, every bit of "magic" we've created works for good and evil. It really all comes back to the classic debate of "guns don't kill people, people kill people..."

2. There is enough to learn as it is.  Okay, so this is not an entirely convincing reason at first glance... but do we really need more to learn.  We already have History, Mathematics, Language, Film, the Arts, Engineering, Science, Physics and so on.  All of these would fall to the wayside.  We would instead study charms and transfiguration and defense against the Dark Drug Lord Arts. Still, I suppose we wouldn't need engineers for cars... and we wouldn't need fossil fuels.  We could teleport nearly anywhere we wanted for free.  Bye bye airlines.  Oh the pros and cons of magic. Still, I fear we would end up with an illiterate nation doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past as we attempt to calculate (without success) the size of a tip we should leavethe waitress.  Of course it would be cheaper to say "AVADA KEDRAVA!" I suppose.

1. The thought of teenagers with wands is more terrifying to me than teenagers driving cars.   My fears in both of these areas stems from a lack of responsibility on the teenagers part.  Blimey, I don't have enough of it to handle a car half the time, or even cook dinner on the stove let alone control a limitless supply of magic.  Nothing scares me more than a teenage girl, listening to Nicki Minaj as she texts her friend driving 75 MPH down the highway... or 30 KPH down a subdivision street.  The only thing that scares me more than that (aside from dragons wearing clown paint) is a teenage girl texting a while casting a spell, or riding a broom stick, or creating a love potion so she can snog with the dreamy boy.  The same dreamy boy who is using magic for his own devious ends.  We'd have adolescent witches and wizards running around snogging a different person every weekend with no memory of who they snogged or why they wanted to snog that person in the first place... oh.  Did we already invent magic?


Harry Potter and the Angsty Snoggers is in fact Better than Nicki Minaj because it shows us, rather subtly how bad things could become if we did in fact have magic.  Also, because it gives us the word "snog."

Cheers,
Melmoth


P.S. I'm thinking of opening a cafe... "The Snog Lounge." 

The 40 Hour Work Week

By the time I finish this post, I will have committed to about seven hours of sleep.  Don't make the same mistake... go to sleep.

The alarm on my phone goes off at 7:15 every day.  The ring tone is "Soft Haiku" or something that gives you the same feeling in your gut that the phrase "Soft Haiku" does.  At 7:27 every morning, my second alarm goes off (this one being titled "Arabian Dreams") and this one forces me out of bed.  I shower as close to 7:35 as I can, though I usually cheat towards a late 7:36.

After my shower, I stumble towards the kitchen, then back to the mini-fridge in my room to grab the bagel I forgot to get after my shower.  I stumble back towards the kitchen again, toast my bagel, pour a bowl of cereal and eat breakfast while reading articles on Cracked.com, NPR and The AV Club.  By the time I finish eating it is 7:48.  By the time I finish browsing the web it is 8:02 and I will be about twelve minutes late for work.

Luckily, my job is very relaxed.  It pays well and the people are friendly.  Honestly, I make up my own hours, so saying I come in late would only be true if I were to leave work early and not get in my full eight hours.

I always leave work early.

I arrive late and leave early (again, by the standards I set for myself) because there are no guidelines set in place for my position.  Heck, my position is "Summer Consultant."  I'm reorganizing a warehouse and tying together loose odds and ends so that this small-time company can become medium-time, and then one day become big-time, and then one day be bailed out by the banks.

I digress.  The job I have is great.  The people are nice.  The pay is good.  The work itself is not that bad.  Still, I am in a large part my own boss.  There is no fence around my playground so I wander into the street.  So far, I haven't been hit by any oncoming traffic.  I get in about 36 hours a week on average and it's not bad.  I have enough money to live in Australia (I leave August 17th and will blog while adventuring down...under there) and I like getting home at 3:30 instead of 4:00.

Still, I have worked several 40 hour work weeks and they are noticeably longer than 36 hour work weeks.  It's not a terribly worse experience... but it is noticeable.

That being said: 40 hour work weeks are Better than Nicki Minaj.
A 40 hour work week results in you getting paid, having the option to interact with real people and being able to bend the rules.
Nicki Minaj warps your perception of human beings, raps poorly and takes money away from you.

Cheers,
Melmoth