Best pun of the week: Malackluster College.
That is all.
love,
Donald

Some announcements:
I'm done with Explo. It's over. Yesterday morning, I said goodbye to the three people who were around that I cared about (without getting their contact info! shit!), packed up all of my things in the course of 20 minutes, checked out, and drove away with Rebecca (eldest, wisest sibling). Tired, and really ambiguous as to whether I was happy or sad about leaving. Today, I'm still not so sure. But the fact remains that it's over. Seven weeks normal time/fifteen years summer camp time of my life foot! Away.
I revamped the Explo photo page, without really adding any new photos. But there are more comments, and y'all can rest assured that I'll be taking more and better photos of Nantucket: the addenum to summer camp.
I have no cellular phone anymore. My personal one broke, and ran out of service simulataneously. If you have been trying to contact me on this phone in the last seven weeks or so, you've been out of luck, as you may or may not have noticed. Anyway, if it's urgent, in the next month, I'll be in Potsdam, NY, and you can email me to request the number there, as I'm not going to post it on the web, readily available though that information may be.
Ugly By Now is back on the web! Go and get all of our music!. I'll post a sidebar to this page, so you can return from here if you lose the link, etc.
I hope, from the vantage point of my (seemingly interminable) travels that every one of you is having an experience worth remembering, and furthermore that I'll hear about these things someday.

It's 1:15 AM, and I was supposed to stay in all night. I'm on duty, after all. That means that I have to stay in, in case some kid has some emergency, or misses his mom, or just wants to chat. That's fine and good. However, in all of my six weeks here, I've never once had a kid come into my room after 11:00 PM check-in, for any reason at all. And tonight, it's raining. Tropical Storm Alex, perhaps? Making its way up the coast a little early? The first storm of the season. Anyway, it seemed prudent to strip down, strap on my lanyard, put my prox card in the pocket of my swim trunks, and run around in the rain.
Gosh, Donald, when you put it that way, it sounds like so much fun.
So here I sit. It's 1:18 AM. My hair's wet, but the rest of me is dry. Naked, because I can't summon the will to put any clothes back on for the 15 minute interim between wet and cold and bed. Not tired, because when I get more than six hours of sleep, I feel like I'm overly well-rested, like I'm wasting my day. I could be doing productive things, like writing mass emails for almost nobody to dubiously read.
Today I learned that I'm in charge of 21 kids, sixteen years of age, who cannot stay silent for longer than four seconds. Four seconds! That was the record tonight. It's 1:20 AM, and I can hear them upstairs thumping. Unable to remain quiet even for somebody else's sake. Fortunately, I'm being productive, and not trying to sleep. On the other hand, there's the last vestiges of a tropical storm outside, trying its hardest to lull me to bed. But I'm not tired. Not yet. Nothing's clicking. Nothing's saying "go to bed."
1:24 AM. Press return.
It would be funny, I'm sure, to watch me, or anybody at a computer alone in a dorm room alone at night, naked, trying to think of something cogent to write. Sitting, scratching at my belly (it itches!), playing with my eyebrow hair, scratching my head, my neck. Funny in the queer way, not the ha ha way.
Here, I'll put up some pictures, and call it a night.

Some days you sit down at your computer and you have a thousand emails from long lost friends, and you have no time to look at any of them. Other days you sit down and write a million emails, and then get none for a week. This is the way of it with email.
Some days you sleep so little it is arguable whether you napped or slept through the night. Other days you sleep for hours and hours. In either case, you can end up feeling well-rested, or extremely tired. Some days, you can't help from yawning even though you know that you slept well. This is the way of it with yawning and sleep.
Some days, you feel on top of the world, even if you have no reason. Other days, you have a reason to feel good, life is good, but you don't feel good anyway. Other days you feel bad because you've done something wrong. Or sometimes you do something wrong and don't feel bad. This is the way of it with feeling and right and wrong.
Some days you can be creative, write a poem and make some little origami out of paper and brighten someone's life with a witty comment, all without giving the situation too much consideration. Other days, you try your hardest, and only come up with sitting on the couch with an anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach, reading a book you don't want to read, waiting for time to pass so someone else with a better idea can show up. This is the way of it with creating.
Some days you're in love, and so positive that everything is fine, and you feel enriched and complete. Other days, you know you have love in your life, but need to be reassured. And on other days yet, the love you used to have ceases to exist. Or you feel like it might, and you're scared. This risk eats at you internally, and you doubt if you should have ever loved at all, if only to cease that feeling. This is the way of it with love.
Some days when you're happy, you need to listen to someone else's sad music to prolong your happiness. Other days, happy music will stop you from being sad. On still other days, you need to be depressed, maybe cry a little, listen to something horrible, and see that through to the other side. This is the way of it with sad and happy music.
The choice of what day today is, however, is random. It's up to the whim of some air current, or something in the water, or perhaps the way someone close to you felt yesterday, or this morning. There's nothing to be done about that. This is scary sometimes, and other times it's obvious and inevitable. Some days things are clear and some days things are not. This is the way of it with days. At least, in my experience.

Summer time.
It's summertime, and I'm on summer-time. Newton said that time moves in an inscrutable forward direction, and it's up to us to measure it clicking away. Liebniz, however, said that time is a fluid entity, and our measurement of it defines its rate. I'm inclined to believe in the latter definition. For instance, my time here at Explo happens whether I want it to or not. I turn around, I look down and look up, I check my watch and I can practically see the hand flying around. Anna in St. Paul tells me, however, that the days are moseying right along, time moving like sap on a Maple. Are we experiencing the same time? Is it like the inside and outside of a record, moving slower and faster and at the same rate, all at the same time? It makes sense, Minnesota being at the center of the record, and the coasts moving faster, but all at the same time. Maybe that's what's going on....

P.S. I may have made up that stuff about Newton and Leibniz

More Summer Pictures are up.
I'll post some backstory later, but I wanted to let y'all know.

Man oh man, read the news in Spanish, and look at what you get:

I'm scared. I'm very scared.

Hi all,
There's a new (small) set of pictures from my summer job up.
Go see.

This is a hoot. Apparently, this company did a survey of the music to which IT professionals listen, and it fell into categories based on what kind of computer work they were doing. My favorite is the top item; it says lots and lots to me. Also interesting is that I fall somewhere between Linux and Database Admin, which is interesting because I'm a Linux guy whose current job involves database administration. Aaah, it's so nice to see that I fit into the stereotypes. MMmmm, stereotypes. Of course, this survey was done of like 200 students in the UK, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. But what would you be doing reading this without your bag of salt?

• Job: Microsoft-certified professionals

  
  Favoured genre: Mainstream pop
  Top three bands:
  Britney Spears
  Dido
  Beyonce

  
  
  
• Job: Security

  
  Favoured genre: 60s "Alt" Rock
  Top three bands:
  Grateful Dead
  The Doors
  Hendrix

  
  
  
• Job: Linux

  
  Favoured genre: Electro
  Top three bands:
  The Orb
  Underworld
  Kraftwerk

  
  
  
• Job: Developers

  
  Favoured genre: Heavy Metal
  Megadeth
  Iron Maiden
  Slipknot

  
  
  
• Job: Database administrators

  
  Favoured genre: Indie
  The Smiths
  Haven
  Suede

  
  
  
• Job: Project manager

  
  Favoured genre: Rock
  Pink Floyd
  Queen
  Rolling Stones

  
  
  
• Job: CIO/IT director

  
  Favoured genre: Classical
  Mozart
  Handel
  Vivaldi

  
  

So.
Well well well. It's been a while, fair internet. And readers. Friends. Family.
Time stretches out like the rays of sun over water at night in Trinidad.
(do you like the simile?)
Here's another: I work like a king, eat like a dog.
Family motto notwithstanding.
(ask an Anderson, Learned, Greer).
This is a life full of excitement.
(how could you be around 700 high schoolers and not feel energized?)
So much tension, planned and programmed release.
Like bursts of machine gun fire: intense, premeditated.
Music keeps me going.
Ask me for a mix, and ye shall receive.
It's the new Donald.
Tired, happy, warm, content.

computers computers computers computers beers beers kids red tape computers computers computers computers hang out hang out yearn yearn love computers beers kids kids kids kids tired tiired bar bar beers bar computers sleep beers sleep dream love yearn computers computers sleep beers red tape love support beers computers

So Yale..
It certainly is what one would expect, isn't it? Yale. It's big and expensive. These buildings, some built during the Depression when labor what cheap and people had time, reek of having too much money and nothing to do with it. They actually pour acid over new buildings and renovations to make them look more "lived in." That's "kind of freakin' wierd."
My summer job is at Yale. It's called Exploration. It's a summer camp for rich high school kids, where they're taught by college kids (and recent grads) about things, and they get to live on the Yale campus and have sex in bushes. You know, kids will be kids! Ha ha ha! It's indicative of my situation that the song that makes me smile at the end of the day is "A Journey to Reedham," by Squarepusher, off the Big Loada album. If you can get access to a copy of that (IE you're near Paulo Casaes or Taavo Smith), I recommend listening to it. It makes me smile, anyway. Every time.
The East Coast is a real hoot. There are whole cultures here that seem to have missed my portion of the East. Like the culture where it's okay to be an asshole, and a really bad driver. Or where name-dropping gains you social status and admiration, as opposed to the general disdain of your family, friends, and peers. But what would the Ivy League be without name-dropping? I'll leave the bemused, worldy answers to you, my friends. It's to bed I go.

Thoughts

This trip is taking a long time. I remember funny things about it. I
remember the way the louds look in New York, and I realize how
different they are from the wispy, rambling clouds of the Midwest. The
clouds here are thicker, more substantial, they create layers and
layers in the sky, so that you get this great sense of depth. In the
Midwest, you get a sense of the space, but never the depth of the
clouds and the sky.
I remember a lot of things about today, but none of them stand out so
much as to bear description. The old lady who ran the place at the
Potsdam Greyhound Station, carrying her phone around wit her in case
anybody called for a ticket. The dense green landscape of the
Northeast. The gaggle of teenagers talking loudly on their phones to
their friends from Boston, only minutes away. The friendly fellow who
got on just before Lake George, where the moment my cell phone got
reception again, I got a call from Anna in Minnesota. The first time I
had said anything since I got on the bus!
I had to change buses twice to get to Boston, and changed bus lines,
which is confusing. I thought I was riding Greyhound, but I arrived on
Peter Pan. I thought that was a brand of peanut butter. Once in
Boston, I got a call from the person who was going to give me keys.
After taking a cab to her place, I spent another hour or so trying to
get here, where I sit in a friend's apartment, while she's away. I'm
so grateful to have a place to stay after all of today! It's a
wonderful privelage to have good friends, and that's all I can come up
with at this point today.

Moving Again

Here I go!
Tomorrow I go down to New Haven, the armpit of Connecticut, also known
as the home of Yale University, on the next leg of my summer
movings-around. It's funny, logistically, because they (the employers)
want us (the minions) to be in Norwood, Massachusets in the morning
this coming Sunday. I don't know about the other people working this
job, but it's kind of hard for me to get anywhere in Massachusets at
10:00 in the morning, coming from Northern New York. I think of it as
my first test, like I was Indiana Jones in pursuit of the Holy Grail or
something. Except the Holy Grail is actually a dead carcass, and all I
want is money so I can go to France. Only the penitent will pass.
Gee, I already talked about how Potsdam is nice, so what's left to say?
Let's talk about France for a while. Anna's and my plan, in case you
haven't heard, is to live in the south of France, Anna teaches English,
and I write tons of music, and we both tool around and have fun. God
willing, this will become a reality. Every day that it doesn't fold
under and get lost in the abyss of pipe dreams past makes it that much
closer to becoming a real thing. I certainly hope that it becomes a
real thing. The next big obstacle is actually purchasing the ticket,
which will come soon, I hope. I certainly do hope.

Potsdam

Potsdam has this way of sucking you in. Every time I come home, I'm
surprised to see who is still here, who has moved on, who has come back
from moving on. Almost all of my friends, from here or not, are in
some state of life transition right now, but it's interesting to see
how the ones from Potsdam always make sure to stop back before
beginning the next leg of their journey. It's like, we have to make
sure that at least one part of the world remains the same before we go
off to experience something else. This town is the litmus test for the
world.
On the other hand, it's always a little different each time I come
back, in its small way. Cowen's Country Store moved down the street,
into downtown proper. This is a big deal, because I had them pegged
for the kind of people who would run the store in that location until
they died, and be done with it. But no, movers and shakers they are.
The fence at the sorority at the end of the street is down. The music
store has more guitars, Stratocasters all of them, so many
Stratocasters! little things change for me. All the kids at the high
school have familiar last names and faces, but I don't know them at
all.
I ran by the school today, and was comforted that even though there's
not a soul I know attending that school, and my old teachers by and
large have made an exodus since my class left, that things are still
being run as usual. That's why I go back to Potsdam; it's my way to be
sure that, no matter how fucked up my world gets, there's still a frame
of reference, a town with neutral PH, waiting for the next catastrophe
to pass. A glacier could move right over this town, nobody the wiser.
That's why i come home.

Air

The best thing I ever hope for when travelling is an uneventful flight.
It seems like it would be a little greedy to ask for a flight that
lands early, or doesn't have any people on it. I hope for flights
where there won't be too many people scheduled for the flight, so
nobody gets asked to not be on the plane. I hope for a line at the
ticket counter that's small enough so that I don't need to fly to
Newark, New Jersey, instead of Chicago. I hope that, when we get onto
the runway, the plane doesn't turn back around and take us to the
terminal. I hope that when I'm in the air, Northwest's entire computer
system doesn't crash and burn, leaving me to become a frozen carcass in
the Northwest G concourse in Detroit. Unfortunately, all of these
things have happened to me at some point.
Today, it was the ticket counter. Apparently, Northwest thinks its a
sharp idea to replace their human tellers with E-ticket machines. The
problem is, nobody can figure out how to use these machines. Thus, the
lines grow longer as people gradually ascertain that, no, they don't
know the secret Mason handshake, and no, they don't have $3,000 to
donate to the United Way, and that they would rather be in the line
where there's a real, surly, overworked person at the other end. It's
like Big Air is trying to remove some of the last shreds of
accountability from the flying process. This is crap. Already, if the
plane is late, it's nobody's fault. If your flight is cancelled, it's
nobody's fault. If you have to sit on a hot plane for seven hours
while everybody in the cockpit jokes about what a good trick they're
playing fooling everybody into thinking there's actually a problem,
that's nobody's fault. Now, they want to make it so that if you don't
even get your ticket, nobody is to blame but you. It's a brave new
world, folks.
On the plus side, I feel super-secure now that there are two more
securiity guards at the checkpoint. Anyhow, that's all of Donald's
dispatches from the airport. Cheers!

Yes, that's a mohawk. Not a faux-hawk, like some of you believe. The real deal. The point is moot, however, because I cut it off yesterday morning. Reports on my reasoning for cutting it off vary from me being whipped to me being whipped (Anna hates mohawks, it turns out). But I maintain that it was actually my intention all along to simply shave my head, and the mohawk was just a little fun for Grand Ole Days. For those of you who don't live in the twin cities, that's like the county fair, except on the main shopping drag in St. Paul. The city's sweaty, overweight, pale, recently wintered hordes go out into the street to eat things like deep-fried pickles, deep-fried oreos, and deep-fried snickers bars, in addition to drinking beer and listening to bands. It's a hoot. So long story short, even though I had the mohawk for only a day, more people saw me sporting it than will see my shaved head in the next month.

Hi to everybody who is probably looking at this for the first time! I just sent out the one and only mass email I plan on sending out, to inform you all that you should look here for news of me. I realize it's slightly narcissistic to think that people on the internet want to read about my daily exploits, but I don't actually think that they do. This is just for family and friends, and if you're a random internet surfer who happens to like my random spewings, then so be it. That's fine with me.
I'm still working on that photo page; I'll post a link when it's up. For right now, I'm pretty sure the Macalester link on the left still works. Off to dinner..