As we all know, 5 years ago today, our country was hit by a tragedy more horrible than many of us could have possibly imagined. I lived in NYC when all of this went down, and while that doesn't give me license to feel more profoundly about this subject than anyone else, having a first-hand experience like that certainly changes your life in a very meaningful way.

A brief recap from my perspective: I get to work at around 8:15 that morning, after having only slept around an hour and a half the night before due to a very persistent mosquito in our bedroom. I'm busting my ass to finish some shit up for a meeting that morning, and a co-worker says to me - "holy shit, a plane hit the World Trade Center." At that time, we both thought it was a very horrible accident involving a small cessna or the like. Eyes glued to CNN... Then the next plane hits the other tower and I knew something very bad was happening. Working in Times Square, I didn't wait for anyone to tell me what to do in terms of evacuation, I just took off thinking that we're the next target. Get to the subway station - everthing is closed. Around 14th St., I start seeing people with ash and debris all over them; quite a surreal site. Everyone is completely confused, but strangely, any sense of panic is seemingly overcome by a innate sense to just get home to safety. Walking over the Williamsburg Bridge to get to Brooklyn was the first decent vista I'd had of the towers, and having walked for the last 2 and half hours without any news outlet, I had no idea they had gone down; I could only see the biggest cloud of smoke and dust I'd ever seen. I thought it was just a huge fire. 8 miles later, I finally made it home. I hadn't been able to get in touch with my wife the entire time since all the phones were either out or completely overrun with activity. It was good to be home, but I still hadn't had a chance to process all that had happened.

The overall feeling of the day and the following weeks was helplessness. Sure, I wanted revenge to be enacted on whomever had done this to us, but much more than that, I wanted to help however I could, but I was always a few hours too late with any volunteer effort I could find; they generally had enough people. So, I made it my life's mission that day to help out anyone I could however I could, little or small. I bought all the major religious texts from around the world so I could understand humanity a bit more. I cared about people. I still do, but today is a very solemn reminder to never stop. A week after 9/11, when people were still sad, angry and confused about everything, I sent an email to my company introducing myself to all of them as a person, not just a co-worker, or boss, or annoying person on the other end of the phone. So, how you doing? I'm Dylan. It's nice to meet all of you. I have a wonderful wife, and we live just outside of Charlottesville, VA. We both really enjoy music and cooking, both in terms of making and consuming. I've recently developed a rather alarming chicken addiction, which brings me here right now. It's nice to have gotten to know the cyber-yous over these last several months.

So, say good morning to that annoying person in the hall this morning like you really mean it, say "bless you" to a stranger. As cheesy as it sounds, have a nice day. This shit works.

We've got a little problem here.

If you've never seen a commercial for Florida's Natural orange juice before, you can just skip this. Actually, due to the wonders of modern technology, you can see one just below these words:



In any case, they have this whole advertising campaign based around the premise that you can just reach into your local grocery store's cooler units and then mysteriomagically have your hand end up in some orange grove in Florida where the juice is more fresher and more naturaler and considerably more Flordianable.

This campaign is ridiculous.

1) How can they possibly maintain all the equipment used to process and package the orange juice outside, in Florida of all places. If the rain doesn't get to you, and believe me, it will, then the humidity is certain to gum up the works. Then what? Further, I don't know when the last time you drank hot or even room temperature orange juice was, but it's not all that great. Who are we trying to kid here?

2) In every single commercial they air, the premise is the same: There's no damn orange juice left on the shelves. In the above example, the stock manager is freaking out because he's got no juice. In other commercials, there are literally fives of people looking for their juice, and it's not on the shelves. Why would a large national juice company be willing to publicize, no, to PROMOTE, the fact that they have extraordinarily shitty inventory control? Especially with this hand porting to Florida technology they seem to have. Might be time to rethink the corporate strategy, boys and girls.

Gimme a shout, I have very reasonable rates, and as you may have already read, I'm super kick-ass.

no explanation necessary, really, but if you're still not convinced, you should check out this bad boy, rightchheeya:



I mean really.

I am trying to get my life in order. Yes, I know, I've said this before, and I meant it then, and I mean it now as well.

I joined a gym 2 weeks ago, and have been going regularly so far. I have my first personal trainer appointment today to start working on a fitness program that will help me shed some pounds and get stronger. I honestly don't care what I look like; I just want to be healthy. This is but a start.

I apparently have some sort of psychological condition whereby I consistently make poor choices about improving my life. If left alone, I will always drink too much, smoke too much, eat too much, etc. I'm really perplexed about this, because I consider myself to be an intelligent person, but I always find myself doing things contrary to my long-term health and survival. I do also consider myself very lucky that Jiyeon has stuck by my side for over 5 years ago and serves as both a latent and very active reminder that the ship needs to be righted.

Upon further ponderance, I think that some of, if not all of, my bad choices are precipitated by the fact thaty I haven't been living up to what my family and teachers always called my "potential." Of course I can do more, of course I can do better, but I've acquired a complex of sorts. I am subpar for me, so I continue to strive for the same level of mediocrity that is both easy and familiar.

Easy.

But not healty.

Hopefully this personal trainer guy, Gary, can kick my ass a bit tonight. It's really what I need. Skate and/or die.

Yesterday afternoon, I went outside to see my boss' son playing in his sandbox. The babysitter said to him "hey look, a butterfly." Upon seeing the butterfly flying around, he said "I wanna do that."

Me too.

When I first saw Tony Bourdain's show on the food network about 3 years ago, I couldn't stand him. I'm the only one that's allowed to be that arrogant in public after all. I never read his book, Kithchen Confidential, but perhaps I should, which would be in keeping with my overall desire to read more. However, I digress...

As far as television programming is concerned, his latest show, No Reservations, on the Travel Channel, is damn good. He gets to go all over the world for free, travel within these far off places, eat great food and drink great drink and mingle with the locals. Not only that, but he has proven himself to be actually insightful, pithy and thought provoking. We watched 2 of his shows last night.

In the first show, he was visiting border towns on both sides of the US/Mexico border, and there were 2 prevailing themes:

1) That fast food can actually be good quality
and
2) The people that live near the US/Mexico border really don't want the thing to be closed off.

Regarding the first theme, this is a subject that is very near and dear to my own heart, and not just from an arterial clogging perspective. I enjoy food alot. I enjoy cooking it, and I enjoy eating it. I want to have a life in food, and I do, to a certain extent. I also abhor the fact that much of the American diet is chock full of preservatives, hormones, dyes, high fructose corn syrup and the like. As far as fast food is concerned, there must be a distinction made between food that is quick to order and serve, i.e. quick for the consumer, and food that is quick to preppare for the restaurant. So, I want to make food that is good quality, simple, and quick to order and receive. Everybody wins. Stay tuned.

Regarding the second theme, I'm sure this is a bit more controversial than the first. This is undisputed. However, there were 2 rather salient points made during the course of the program about border control: 1) Our economy and way of life (and by "our" I mean the comfy middle class types of which I am one) wouldn't be the same if there weren't cheap sources of labor, among which immigrants from Mexico are one, and 2) if you like eating at restaurants, you should have no problem with Mexican or other Latino immigrants. They cook your food. Full stop. In even the fanciest of French restaurants. Anyway, also, and I guess back to the original theme, everybody that was interviewed that lived in one of these border towns wants openness and free transit between these 2 countries. Nearly everyone has family on both sides of the border, nearly everyone in south Texas speaks Spanish and enjoyes Mexican culture and food, and the list goes on and on. Basically, those who want the borders closed are those that have a fleeting grasp on actual reality over an ideal, and that the ideal itself is misinformed.

I want to go to Mexico. However, I'd need to open my fast food place in America because I've become accustomed to a lifestyle that couldn't flourish there.

I'm severely conflicted, but I am at the very least thinking. Step.

I have very weak facial hair.

I had justified this fact to myself for many years with the explanation that I'm more highly evolved than others in my gender of my species, but this is just ridiculous. I haven't shaved in 2 weeks, and to call what's going on on my face as "patchy" would be exceedingly generous. I'm doing this, or not doing this, that is shaving, because Jiyeon likes it, and if I can do something that she likes that doesn't cause me too much discomfort, I'm game. It's part of being in a relationship, ya heard?

You should see my chest hair.

There are 3 jobs right now that I can think of that I'd really want to have. These are, in no particular order:

Commissioner of Major League Baseball - Bud Selig is a festering boil on our national pastime. He banned chorizo, for chrissakes. That, and thinking that the NL might actually have a shot at home field advantage by winning the All Star Game. You suck, I'd be better, watch your back "bud." My next band will be called "Budless Coup," which could very well be a segue into the next job I'd like to have....

FDA Quality Control Analyst - Medical Marijuana Division - I would be great for this job, if it exists, and that's all I'm saying. Other than that, I have this shirt already, so that qualifies as at least an Associate's Degree, right? I also don't like paying for weed, so it would be a win/win/snack/passout kind of situation for me and those poor souls with glaucoma or cancer.

Talk Show Host - I'd be better at this now than at any other time in my life. I've gotten significantly less socially awkward and I can carry on a conversation with just about anyone. I've also gotten very adept at the combination of appearing like I'm interested in the conversation and being very funny while doing it. Letterman, Leno, and whomever else that has a talk show these days should bow out gracefully and let the king take his rightful throne.

Honorable Mentions:
Rancher
Leader who is beholden to no one.

Btw, I do like the job I have now. I just don't want to get complacent, you know? Gotta keep the dreams alive. Oh, and let the record show that I'd really really really like to have my own food business more than anything else. Let me know if you want a copy of my resume.

Jiyeon and I were in the basement watching television this afternoon, and when we got up to go back upstairs, we saw that there were 6 (six) deer having some lunch in our backyard. We saw them, they saw us, and they just carried on with their business. We'd seen single deer in the backyard before, but never this many at once, nor for such a prolonged period of time.

As a side note, I've never eated venison before. I'd like to try it, as I'm generally a fan of the fleshy bounties of this earth, though I'm not sure that I'd actually be able to shoot one myself. Does this make me a hypocrit? Not sure. I know I like meat and don't like killing. I also like sleep, but the fact that I like coffee is currently precluding me from being sleepy.

I live about 15 minutes outside of town, town being Charlottesville, and, as such, I frequently find myself on the highway either to or from home. As highways go, it's not so bad, only 2 lanes in each direction around these parts with not all that much traffic.

I've noticed a few times in the last few weeks that I end up about an eighth of a mile both in front of and behind my fellow drivers, which leaves me alone and in the middle. I like this. Especially at night. There's neither the pressure to keep up or the blinding lights in the rear-view, and it lets me concentrate on whatever music or whatever is on the radio in the auto. Anyway, it was notable, so here I am noting it.

As an aside, I tried driving to work a couple of months ago without the radio on. That was also nice and peaceful until somebody honked their horn. Then I played Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. It's too bad that Josh and Nick broke up like that; they fucking rocked together.

to cut the grass, mow the lawn, whichever idiom you use to describe the time to sweat, listen to the ipod above the din of the lawnmower, and get bitten by several members of the insect family. Jiyeon desribed the lawn as "lush" the other day, which I think is kind wife-speak for "hey asshole, you realize that you haven't cut the grass in over a month and you could hide small children amongst the blades, don't you?"

so, yeah, I'm a responsible homeowner that would rather be watching television. I'm either lazy, or looking for a challenge greater than cutting the grass. I need to buy a table saw.

Welcome to my blog. I've titled this thing Blinkin Blogs because I like stupid puns and I think I'm funny. Also, because I hate the word "blog" and I figured if I'm going to have a blog, the tile of it might as well be a stupid pun that I think is funny.

Today I am thinking about the Atlanta Braves, and wondering if they have any shot to make it to the playoffs. They are currently 4.5 games back of the Reds in the wild card race, and there's something like 40 games left in the season. It'd be cool to come in under the radar and take the World Series from the Yankees or the Red Sox, but even I'm not delusional enough to think that this is what actually will happen. However, hope and reality are distinct items, at least for me, so I'll keep cheering and keep hoping.

I also got "Apostrophe" by Frank Zappa today, to which I've quite enjoyed listening. I'd call it silly beautiful. I need to get more. Zappa's genius (or former genius) is evident, but I'm only recently getting into him. Also listened to a Devotchka EP. Also good, but very different from Zappa.

With any luck, we'll have band practice tonight. Our first gig is now less than 3 weeks away, and I'd say we still have a significant amount of preparating to do.

Ok, so I guess I have a blog now. Wonder how long it will take to fester.