December 1st 2003
I'm plowing ahead with my remaining quarter schoolwork and the website.
The big news that I was referring to earlier is that I may be going overseas for a bit after graduation. I've been informed that it is semi-official that it is really going to happen, and it is not a secret anymore because mom told dad. You see, this december 14th will be a very big birthday for dad, and he has hinted for a long time that he would like to go back to Cambodia, where I'm told he spent a lot of time during the Vietnam war. The trip will also be a sort of birthday/graduation present for me (or so I'm told). I'm not exactly sure where we are going, or exactly when, but it has to be pretty shortly after graduation (because I need to get a full-time job ASAP after I graduate).
November 19th 2003
Not a lot of news. Everything is going really fast, I can't believe its time for the Michigan game again, happy anniversary Kelly and Charlie.
My watch stopped working on Sunday so Celeste got me a new one for christmas.
the 2nd job ended (no more marathon pics to enter). I'm making an effort (albeit small) to complete the website.
I still may have some exciting news, and I should know by the next post. We'll see..
November 5th 2003
I guess its been about two weeks since I've posted here.
In the mean time I didn't work on the site so much. I decided how I'd sell everything though. I'm going to go the zazzle route. I made a few shirts already. the only problem is that they don't sell black shirts...which cuts out about half of my designs.... I'm not done yet, and the new site has to be launched before everything will be officially complete, but you can browse my shirts for sale from HERE. Please always use that link to get there, or I WON'T BE PAID! zazzle works on a sale commission system, so if you don't come from my link I won't get paid. Once you get there go to "contributors" and type in my first name. My gallery should come up in the list as "andrew_long."
As for the new website, I haven't had any time to work on it. I started working nights at a second job yesterday and class work is starting to creep up on my as well.
We got our dragon a few weeks ago. We decided to call him/her Pimpy because we didn't want "spike" or "larry" or anything like that. Right after we got it, Pizza died. Pizza was the fish we bought in summer 2002 that would always tumble around and act like he was sick, but he wasn't (until recently).
here is a picture of pizza in his/her better days.
and here is a picture of Pimpy.
I may have some exciting news in a few weeks. ..we'll see...
October 20th 2003
Wow, haven't updated this site in a while. I wish I could say its because I'm getting a lot done with the new site, but it is not. I have however been doing some other things. I'm doing a series of handbills for a local band, Glitch Titanic, and I've started working on a (possible) commission to design a local realty companies new logo. That, school, and work has kept me busier than ever.
We decided that the oscars were getting too big for the 10 gallon tank. So, on Sunday we sold them. One was about 6-7 inches long and the other about 5-6. We also sold an algae eater that was around 6 inches. For all that we only got back $12....worse than nothing I suppose as they would have died if we had kept them here.
For some reason...I forget how it started...we have decided to get a lizard. I think Celeste wants a pet that she can actually pick up and pet...and I concur. Fish are nice, but no more interesting than having a nice painting on the wall to look at. We will keep the 55 gallon and our prize goldfish, but we will also install a terrarium/tank/whatever directly underneath. At first we were going to get a Uromastyx, but after seeing both that and a bearded dragon live and in person, Celeste was taken by the dragons aggressive look. I prefer the uros for their colors, but dragons are much easier to get (and less expensive apparently) so that works fine as well.
Brian came up to watch the Wisconsin game last weekend...I was supposed to show him why he should start paying attention to OSU football...how ironic..
Celeste has started clinicals and is making new friends. Her parents came down on Saturday and their car was banged into when someone tried to unpark in front of them. Now I know what the inside of the Columbus police headquarters looks like.
I'm (or I was) extremely jealous of my mother. She had box seats to the homecoming game on saturday. Apparently it helps to be friends with acquaintances of the team doctors
Did anyone else out there know that I work on Arnold Schwarzenegger's property?
October 4th 2003
Played racquetball on friday for the first time in more than a month. I lost 2-1, but I always lose when I play nathan, so no surprise. I'm completing minor work on the web site over the weekends. I'm thinking of just putting the web site up before getting the merch done and just having the pictures up, if I get enough interest then I'll go ahead and buy the printer at that point. We'll see...
September 26th 2003
I worked feverishly in the days before school began, but to no avail. The site is still far from finished. There are several things I can't do (for the merch part) until I get a printer. I don't know whether I should lay out the bucks now or later for that one... My free time is gone, thanks to 3 painting classes and one "drawing" class, my money is also too...
Celeste started the rad tech program. She will start clinicals in two weeks, which means she will be starting her day at a different hospital every week on monday wednesday and friday at 7 in the morning. That also means that I have a problem getting to work. One car can't be in two places at the same time, so I'm going to be doing a lot of sitting around at Easton at 6:30 in the morning waiting till 9 (when my place of work opens).
My classes are filled with the same people, all frustrated fifth year seniors just like me, except this is the last quarter for most of them...
I met and "jammed" with a bassist guy a week ago. I haven't heard from him since so I'm guessing my terrible guitar playing scared him off. Its the worst feeling in the world when you mess up your own songs in front of somebody because you haven't touched the guitar in a month.
I'm 22 and I still can't dedicate myself to a single thing that I enjoy and its all slipping away. Painting was kind of fun in the beginning, but the fact that I never get a break from it coupled with the fact that I'm not that good at it makes it miserable. After I graduate, when I may have time to put down the brush and pick up my guitar, I'll be so horrible at it that I'll be too depressed about it to even try.
At least tomorrow is a friday....
September 16th 2003
School is starting next week and I'm already way behind in everything. I originally stated that the new site would be up in October, now that is looking doubtful. Much is done, but I still have a lot to do with a few sections (the merch section in particular). I'm getting prices and getting images ready, but I want to redo some of the line graphics in Illustrator with paths so they will be smoother. Once that is done then I actually have to get some test shirts made that I can put on the site to show what they actually look like. I'm worried that I will have zero time to do any of that once school starts.
September 4th 2003
Celeste decided to sell her ticket to a friend and she got $50 for it. That's almost twice as much as we bought each ticket for. Her ticket wasn't even in AA section like mine, so I can only imagine what I could have got for a Michigan ticket in AA sixth row back. I found out when I went to the game that my seat was actually on the ten yard line (not the end zone) and on the home team side. In fact, for most of the game I was behind Kirk Herbstreet, who was watching the game on the sideline. Watching the game in person is much better than watching on tv....no commercial breaks for one thing. I know mom would have loved it too because at halftime the alumni band came out and performed with the regular band to make 4 simultaneous script ohio's (one for each direction), they then went into spell-outs of every branch of the armed forces, even the coast guard. Most of the game's action happened right in front of my face. Including the blocked punt and lydell ross' touchdown. I feel like a buffoon for not buying season tickets... The big cameras focused right in on my section at least three times ...but apparently it never hit the air.
When I came home from work and checked the mail I was surprised to find the october issue of car and driver. After I opened it up I found a note that said I had been given a free gift of a year's subscription by Crutchfield. If you recall we had to return two sets of tail lamps last christmas from them because they kept arriving broken.
I think we should start a petition to kick Clarett off the team completely. All he is good for is controversy. The ironic thing is that when he leaves for the NFL he will have played less than half the games of his NFL entering peers off the team but I'm sure he'll get a much bigger paycheck. What a great message we are sending, stupidity is rewarded better than integrity and hard work.
There is a growing movement suggesting that we ought to pay college athletes. The argument is that even though their tuition is paid...their living expenses aren't and they don't have time to work a job for the money because they have to practice all the time to keep their scholarship. Hmmm...lets think...how do OTHER students pay for tuition (I don't know anyone that can pay for their own tuition without help, even with a part time job).....LOANS! What is holding these athletes back from getting a loan? #1 if they are a successful football player they will only go to school for three years and have less of a loan overall. #2 if they are a successful football player and will play in the NFL, their first post-college paycheck will be higher than almost all of the rest of their graduating class. If they will have less loan money to pay back and an easier time doing it...why the hell do we have to pay them to play?
August 27th 2003
On the weekend of the 16th, Celeste's parents came to our apartment to visit. She went back with them that Sunday to spend the week up there. I went to pick her up on Friday. On Saturday her father decided to take all of us to Niagara Falls. We got on the road around 7:30am and hit the border around noon. It was decided that we would go straight to Toronto and hit the falls on the way back. Around 2pm we drove into China Town and parked in an underground parking garage. We walked around the shops and ate fruit that is not available in America until 6 when we decided to get dinner. The first restaurant we went into we promptly walked out of when the waitress was rude to us, refused to give us ice with our water, and couldn't give us a definitive answer to whether they use peanut oil ...or not. The second restaurant was better (although they still gave us a funny look when we asked for ice water), and I had my first duck. Very delicious sauce, and the meat itself was good too, although very skimpy....most of the plate was full of fat, bone, and skin. At 7pm we came back to an (almost) empty garage and discovered that the van's doors were unlocked. Upon further inspection we realized that the lock on the passenger door had been jammed open and her father's laptop (and accompanying accessories) stolen as well as my camera charger (I'm sure they would have taken my camera if I hadn't brought it with us). The perps opened everything in the car, including all the containers of food. We had to ask three different cops and drive all over town before we finally found the police station around 9. It took an hour to file the police report because there were three other engineers that had already been in that same day reporting stolen laptops. We started the long journey back at 10pm, stopping momentarily to catch a glimpse of the falls. We got back to Twinsburg around 5:30am Sunday. That was the first time I stayed up for twenty five hours straight.
Celeste and I picked up our tickets to the season opener yesterday. I thought we bought tickets so we could sit together, but they put me in a much closer section to the field than her (I guess because I'm a senior), so I don't know what we'll do gameday... Hopefully whoever is supposed to sit next to me doesn't show up.
view of
the CN Tower from Spadina Street in China Town
August 12th 2003
I worked feverishly for the last week on my little flash project, but it is not to be. I've given up on flash once again. I had to have worked at the menu for over 8 hours this past weekend, and I still can't get it to work. Then it hit me...even if I figure out how to make my site in flash...I'm not going to be a flash expert, and its not going to bring me jobs. Perhaps the website itself should be an example of what I CAN DO, not an example of what I was able to grind out in order to be cool. So, I'm using the flash templates I made to fashion the site in regular old dreamweaver. Now its just a matter of time and working out some bugs. The overall design will hearken back to the days of old (like say...January) because I always liked the transparency of that 4th design. I'm also revamping some old sections that were tossed away in the 5th design and I hope to launch a merchandise page. I think its doable with PayPal, I just have to give them commission. I also need to call around and check out screen printing deals in Columbus. I hope to have all of that figured out and launch the site by October 1st (January 1st was my estimate with flash). That would make this current design only ...10 months old...
July 24th 2003
Finally used the movie tickets that mom got me/us a few years ago. Celeste and I went to see terminator 3 on Friday. It was ...entertaining at best. Candy and Aaron came down to visit Saturday.
July 17th 2003
Twin
1997(?)-2003
On July 15th, Twin, the oldest of all the fish, turned belly up. Twin had been bought as a child by Candy Dino and raised by Candy and Celeste. When Celeste took the fish tank to Columbus in 2001, Twin rode along. Twins favorite thing in the world was aggressive eating and annoying the hell out of the other fish. In his later years, Twin started turning purple and shrunk.
I hope B didn't get caught in that Texas twister the other day. Still waiting to hear from him, although I did hear from him last weekend when he drove around and laughed at the less-than-Bartlett conditions of Little Rock Arkansas.
On the way to Twinsburg Saturday, we hit a deer. Not a live deer, a dead one. I was about five car lengths behind a truck, and had cars beside me and behind me. So when I saw the truck run over the thing (at 65mph) I couldn't brake or swerve, had no choice but to run right over it. It dented the right side of the guard in about 4 or 5 inches and sprayed deer blood all over the engine fire wall. There were chunks of deer hanging off the bottom of the car that we had to go to a "rediwash" and power wash off. There are still bits and pieces stuck to the bottom of the car, but the only damage appears to have been that front guard.
July 12th 2003
Byron is winding his way to Texas at this very moment. We all wish you well, B.
July 2nd 2003
On Saturday both Byron and Cliff came up. We all went to comfest downtown. It was the first time any of us had gone there. We ran into Kenny, and I ran into my old supervisor Josh. Basically the thing was a bunch of hippie bands with a bunch of hippie and food vendors. After we left, we picked up some La Bamba (open till 3am) and demanded that Byron make margaritas for us, and he did. Cliff somehow lost a belt to the toilet and then (later) fell asleep with his eyes open. Lotta laughs that night. The next day, Cliff left early and then the remaining three went to old man's cave. We hiked through most of the regular trails, I took a lot of pictures, and we talked about starting up that clothing company again. I had kept the company sketches but completely dismissed the idea, and assumed that Byron had too. If he wants to start it up again, I'm all for it. So, look for that on the horizon in the next few years. After the park closed (dusk) we made our way to the dairy queen in Logan. We stumbled in upon some kind of ritual post-religous event feeding in which everyone was dressed like extras from the church scene in Ode to Billy Joe. The good thing about this was that DQ had planned ahead and made sure every register was open. When we were ready to split for good and send B off to Texas....we got lost. B had led us in, but he couldn't lead us out, making Logan one scary place. Eventually we stopped at a gas station (?) and found our way to the highway.
I wonder if I have work this friday....
June 26th 2003
Found a great site that will show me how to do some of the things I need to do with the flash redesign. http://www.actionscripts.org/tutorials.shtml
B is moving on the 12th, so he may come here this weekend... If he is...he might want to let me know ..
June 18th 2003
Celeste can finally confirm that she did in fact get into the radiologic technology program.
Went home this past weekend and got some good pictures of B's commissioning and a lot of nature shots from my parents' ever evolving garden/backyard. They will be up on the site at some point. Going to be gone for the next four days so don't count on seeing anything too soon. Also have pics of four new paintings, but those won't be posted just yet either.
I'm trying to figure out this flash thing and just when I think I've got something down, it decides not to work right anymore.
My grades are in, AABS. So it looks like I'll never get back up to a 3.7 ever again.
While we are in Twinsburg this weekend, we'll take the car on over to the original dealership and see what they think of this magic tire. We'll also see what they can do about the continuous loud "oh that's normal" squealing brakes.
June 9th 2003
The tire that was "fixed" on the 30th ...wasn't. So, I took it in on Saturday (the 7th) again. They supposedly found the leak and fixed it, but now (monday) its low again. That's three consecutive saturdays that the car has been to the dealer to get the same hole plugged, and for some reason they just won't do it (do you think I can sue for this?). I've spent over six hours in the dealership waiting room in the past three weeks... I'm not about to go back again and get lied to. We are going to try and have it looked at in Bedford (where she got it), while we are up there two weeks from now.
The quarter is all finished up for me (celeste still has two more finals on wednesday). All my classes finished last week actually, but not a single grade has been posted. I know for a fact that my painting professor turned in grades on friday because she left for New York that night....yet the office will probably just wait around for another week and a half before posting them.
My regiment of lifting dumbbells and playing racquetball has apparently paid off. According to the scale at Larkins I've lost about 20 pounds since christmas (when I was over 215). My only worry is that since I'll work from 3-9 every day next quarter, I won't be able to play racquetball..
I decided on Saturday to start planning for version6 of this site. A year ago I said the next version would be flash, then I spat out two more dreamweaver versions (including this one). However, I'm on a mission to learn flash by January. I'm teaching myself the program by making the next site. The process is both frustrating and exciting. Don't worry, changing over to flash won't mean making a new bookmark, I plan on keeping my site URL until...I die or can't afford it anymore. Things to look forward to with the next site will be a new succinct biography, download page (AIM icons, etc.), interesting links (to other things), a downloadable resume, and a merchandise section (probably just shirts, posters, and prints).
June 2nd 2003
Way back on the break, on the day before my birthday to be exact (3.29), celeste, my father, and I put the altezza tail lights in the neon. If you'll recall, that was the third set of lights that crutchfield had to send before they figured out how to keep them from getting cracked in delivery. So, at the end of March we finally got those on the car. My dad tried to put in the lighted windshield wiper fluid nozzles at that time as well, but gave up for the day because his hands were too big to keep ahold of the tiny components, that and the thing wasn't really made to fit into a neon's hood correctly. I had also bought clear side lenses (the 4-way/turning blinkers), but we didn't even attempt to put those in because it wasn't going to be an easy task (you can't get at them from the outside, so you have to go in through the wheel well).
Last weekend Celeste got an oil change, tire rotation, and a wayward screw removed from a tire. On Tuesday while loading the van up at work I noticed one of the tires was low. I checked it later and sure enough, 10psi. So, I called up the dealership and told them they had to redo their patch on the tire. The guy said to just come in on saturday. Saturday morning I called again to confirm that I could just "come in," and also to ask if they could install the clear corner lenses and the windshield washer nozzles. The guy said "sure, we can do that, just come on in."
So we get there, wait in line (in the car) outside the service department only to have some guy come out and turn us away because we didn't have an appointment and they were "all booked up for today." I explained the situation and the guy said that maybe I had talked to someone across the street at their sister (chrysler/jeep) dealership. So, with no other options we went over there. They didn't know what we were talking about, but agreed to look at the car and try to install the stuff anyway. We were informed while in the waiting room, that the other dealership had "way over inflated" the tires when they changed the oil. Three hours and 82 dollars later, we drove away with the tires fixed and everything installed. Ironic, the installation of the corner lenses cost 14 times what I paid to get them. Also Ironic that it took until June to finish giving Celeste her christmas gift.
It has come to light that I have never put a picture of celeste and I on this website. So, here ya go: (I put a weird one in there too just to be fair to B)
May 26th 2003
Enjoying memorial day and getting some things done. Celeste read a book (for class) and wrote a paper last night while I stretched seven canvases and gessoed four of them (ran out of gesso at that point).
Cliff called from the road and I found out that he was accepted into the Johnson and Wales cooking school (the same one from the Food network "reality" tv show). The only problem is that he set everything up to move out there (one of their several locations around the country) with his fiance, and as soon as he had his financial aid squared away, they separated. Now he is afraid that he can't afford to move and won't be able to go to school.
Mom also called and sounded like she was calling from the road, but she was actually at home on a really awful cell phone. Apparently Alltell sucks...
I heard from Brian last week and he has decided to get a communications degree from Marietta College. Good for him. I also heard from Jeremy who is (surprise surprise!) bored in Kansas and wants to move somewhere else.
I noticed that in a post about a month ago I said we were going to Celeste's parent's "wedding reunion" on the 11th. I just realized how confusing that must have been. What we actually went to was their 25th wedding anniversary. A lot of their family (that lives in the US) came though, so for some reason I thought of it as a reunion. Celeste and her sister with help from Aaron and I spent all day Saturday fixing the house up and whatnot preparing.
I finally squared away my future on wednesday. I met with Alan Crockett, who agreed to do 5 credits of independent study with me autumn quarter. That means that now I am certain I will graduate on Friday, March 19th 2004.
May 25th 2003
I came home from playing racquetball on friday and there was a message from Cliff on the machine. In it he left his cell phone number, which is the same number from my last post. I talked to him later and asked him what happened and he said he hadn't called me until around 4pm (the two calls were both around 9 in the morning)...so...strange things are afoot at the circle of K.
Things got even weirder as the weekend went on. B and Meg came up around 7 and we all went to Cap City before heading off to the movies. We watched the matrix again, but this time from a good vantage point. The next morning the weirdness would begin.. After waking, B discovered that he lost his cell phone, apparently it fell out of his pocket as he reclined at the theater the night before. We called the theater (and eventually went over in person), but to no avail as the lost and found box was empty and according to the service desk, each showing room is swept out every night. We tried calling the phone to see if the moron who (likely) stole it would answer, but it was turned off. Then B lost 7 cds (my gift) ...which he later recovered. Later, B and I went to Microcenter and noticed that his tires were a little flat so we put air back in and headed home. When we got home, B couldn't find his Microcenter receipt...which he later recovered. These little mishaps were starting to get disturbing, so B decided to head home before anything worse happened. When we got to his car we discovered his back tire was completely flat... The tire was so bald that the small metal strips in the tire were actually exposed and had gone backward and punctured the inner tire. B's car is ten years old with 300,000+ miles let me remind you. We set off for the 17th ave. gas station to buy fix-a-flat. They didn't have any so we went to the exxon on 12th and summit, who were also out. We then proceeded to UDF and finally procured some (generic brand) fix-a-flat. Upon application of the fix-a-flat the tire seemed to be ok (after some frantic circling around the block), and B headed for home.
B brought a christmas/birthday gift of Risk the computer version for me. Very humorous considering that's what we used to do whenever he would come up (and other people were around). Below is a picture of B and Meg looking.....uncomfortable, combined with a picture of a bunch of morons having party in the pouring rain last weekend. These idiots were out drinking and carrying on in our back alley at 5:30pm on sunday night...in the rain... I took a picture for proof and meant to rant last week...but I never got around to it.
May 23th 2003
The class average on the midterm I took last week turned out to be a 62%. So, the professor added a big curve so the whole class wouldn't fail. With the curve I still got a 77.5%. So, basically, even though I got an A on the first midterm, a perfect score on the final would only get me an 89% in the class overall....quite sobering.
Also quite sobering is the fact that I apparently didn't get either of the jobs I applied for.
B is coming up today for a short visit. Left the funniest answering machine message ever (I want to print that on a shirt for when he gets here...and grow fat and a ponytail) but our machine erased it before I could record it on...something. This weekend should be nice, a 4 day weekend and not much to worry about (compared to past weekends anyway).
For the last couple weeks we have been having some phone problems. 1st, some (obviously) african american guy keeps calling his gangster friend "Q" and leaving messages on our machine of "holla back, Q." ...."Hey ma n***a, holla back!" ...and so on. Then the next problem is someone is calling here and not talking....and they leave blank messages too. I star 69ed them and the number is 740-706-1632. That's long distance and we are out of phone cards....so I guess it will remain a mystery. The last time this crap was going on it turned out to be my insane ex-girlfriend (you all know who I'm talking about...). My guess is that its a washington or athens county cell phone.
The Mexy Mix gave the new deftones album a good review. "better than the last album, so we can have faith in our bands." But I'll have to wait and see. Since the last album was kind of lame and their live show was even worse, I don't trust that band.
DT is having a halloween show/party, but its in youngstown....so ....poop...
If anyone knows any good bands in columbus (besides Fenster...GAG!) send me an email because I'm going to try to set up a DT show down here. Jeff said they are up for playing in different towns as long as they get paid for gas.
May 16th 2003
That was a long long week. The denman forum was interesting to say the least. I got there around 8:30 and after setting up had to wait 3 hours before lunch...then it was another hour before the judging started. I got my judges in the first half hour of the two hour judging period, so I waited an hour and a half more before the reception in which Karen Holbrook informed us that we were "all winners." Except most of us weren't...including me. But, somewhere in the eight hours a photographer snapped the picture below...and the next day it was on the front cover of the lantern.
On thursday I took the toughest midterm in four years of school. The results (class mean, etc.) should be quite interesting. Since I was so frazzled by the midterm, we pushed up our viewing of the new matrix movie to Thursday night instead of Friday. To try something different we went to the Arena Grand theater downtown. Big mistake. Tickets were $6 each ...plus a 75 cent "convenience charge" (each)...plus a 50 cent "service charge"....plus $1 to park in the parking garage. We ate dinner at the "cafe." For $22 you get 2 bottles of water, a small veggie tray, a small wrap, and nacho chips. Everything was pretty lame quality (celeste's celery sticks still had garden dirt stuck to them...). We finished dinner and got in line to get into the theater (not the building, but the actual screen room). We figured the food would be bad, but the brand new 65 foot screens would be awesome. And it would have been...if each theater had more than 50 seats. The screening rooms were the size of two in-ground swimming pools, and of course there were only 20 decent seats (the middle) in the whole room...which were taken by the first 20 people in there (i.e. NOT US). So, we watched the movie up close and all the way to the right. So, unless you are a gambler...I wouldn't recommend Arena Grand...just go to the Lennox.
While I was waiting for the judges at the forum, I met Terence. He was invited to check out the forum after a meeting with athletic directors about the stadium turf. Turns out, the grass in the Shoe is fake Dupont grass, seeded with real grass in between.
Speaking of the Shoe, Celeste and I bought tickets to the season opener on August 30th, can't wait.
May 9th 2003
The DT album is available online now, as well as some shirts and things. If you like good music, go get it, you won't be disappointed.
This denman forum thing is getting messier and messier every day. Nobody knows how to get our stuff there, how we can mount paintings/photos/artwork, ...
B, I have the golden egg for you. I found a working good quality movie of the MJK&AJ spot on Mr. Show. Ronnie Dobbs Ronnie Dobbs! Nobody ever mentions the fact that andy and conan make an appearance in the same skit as well. I will include this (and a lot of other TOOL footage) in your care package. (yes that's right, concert footage!) I have so much stuff for you dude...its gonna keep you busy for awhile.
May 6th 2003
Received my package in the mail today. The cd is great. I can put a name to some of the songs in the review. The song that they always used to open with is called Evora, the long song that I didn't know the name to is called Blank and Smiling. Another one that I liked but didn't know the name of till now is Roy, and I think it might be one of the best songs on the album. Unfortunately for us die-hard DT fans...there is no new version of Alastis, Placebo, or Stitch (Jeff tells me that the album will be up for sale online at their site (www.dollytrauma.com) by next week. So....go buy it!!!
I was also just made aware of this
Whatever I came down with last week has dwindled away into a lingering cough.
I've been asked to come back for a second interview at Easton to actually check my skills.
May 2nd 2003
I've been sick since Monday with a generally mild form of something... I feel tired, and I have a slight sore throat and some nasal congestion. Hope its not SARS....guess we'll know in another few days when either I'll get better, or die. I think I just caught something easily because being in that smoke room saturday probably weakened my immune system. I can't complain too much though, its been a good five months since I've been undeniably sick, and it was a lot worse then.
I have an interview at Easton today for a Photoshop job, and another one at the Wexner Center next week for a graphic design internship. I spiffed up my resume in Illustrator, so I hope that helped. To take a look, click here.
I put up seven new paintings in the art gallery, click here for a shortcut. All of these but two are the first completed works from my thesis work. There are many more on the way, including ten that are being critiqued in class at 1:30 today.
B, I'm getting ready one hell of a "care package" full of goodies for you when you move, so be sure and tell me your new address when you find out what it is. I'll give you the DT stuff when I see you in Ohio before you leave, can't keep you from the DT. The rest of the stuff you'll just have to wait for....unless you are driving out there...because you could use some of it on the drive. So, keep me posted.
Mr. Montez has let me know that he would like me to make him a simple website, but once again he has not sent me that heralded email with his divine instructions....so get to it, aaron!
Talked to Denise last night and we are going to hammer out her website this summer when she'll have a lot more free time. She said that Cora is going to take driving lessons soon... I'm starting to feel old.
Wanted to go to the Flaming Lips show tuesday, but I was way too sick. Too bad though because apparently it was an awesome show. I'm considering seeing Beck next month. Last time I saw him was after the release of Midnight Vultures (which sucks) and that was all he played, so if he does the same thing this time and only plays stuff off of Sea Change, it might be a good show.
The Deftones are getting ready to plop down something new in 18 days. I listened to the first single "minerva." Its....ok at best. I think that band had a few years of good ideas and then its all down hill.
April 28th 2003
Went to Kent/Akron/Twinsburg this past weekend. We got to the bar around 8:45, its actually only 15-20 minutes from Celeste's parents place. We couldn't find any seats, so we asked an older woman if we could sit at the same table. Turns out it was Josh (DT's singer)'s grandmother and over the next five hours we were introduced to a lot of Josh's extended family. Josh's grandfather was a (trumpet?) player in the army band and then worked in jazz bands afterwards, Josh's father was a "singer and incredible musician." So I guess its no surprise that Josh ended up where he is.
The first band (Petting Zeus) was supposed to start at 9:30, but they didn't come on till nearly ten. Their songs were ok, but a little lacking. They tried to win the crowd with a heavy version of Fade Out (street spirit), but half the crowd didn't know it was a cover; and coincidently, half the crowd were high schoolers (who all looked about 12 years old to me). The next band took the stage just before 11. We figured they would play till 11:30 and then head home so DT could get on stage before midnight. But....no... They kept going and going and going until midnight. The music wasn't bad (a merger of Primus and Pantera), and the three members of the band were very talented individually; but it seemed like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to be fast and funky, or slow and heavy, and it made most of their songs very awkward to listen to. After they finally left the stage at midnight, a little less than half the crowd (which was topping 300 heads at one point) left. When DT finally hit the stage, they played until 2am. They played all the songs on their website, Amidima, Alastis (or was it Stitch?), Sky Could Fall (featuring Eric?), a PJ Harvey cover (I THINK...), one that they used to open the live shows with but I do not know the name of, another nameless one from the coming album, and to end the show, they played a soft (I.E. no distortion pedal) version of Placebo with an extra verse at the end. This "special treat" is also on the sampler (see the last post) but not on the full album, it is cleverly titled Sugar Pill and was recorded last wednesday (according to liner notes). The other 2 songs on the sampler are Morla and Sky Could Fall. I bought 3 samplers. One for myself, one for B, and one for Nick. Sorry Rufus, I ran out of cash and couldn't get you one.
I also bought the Sevrul demo disc. It featured five songs (although I think one may be just noise unless I'm counting wrong), only one of which was on sevrul.com. So, if we have been loyal fans, we now have seven Sevrul tracks to listen to.
The next show is at the Lime Spider in Akron on the 18th, but there is no way I/we'll get to that since we have to go to Celeste's parents wedding reunion on the 10th and I'm not about to make three trips in less than a month.
I heard friday that I was accepted into the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum. That means I'll miss class and work for almost all day on Wednesday the 14th. Which sounds great at first...but...I'd rather work and make some money, and missing painting class will only serve to make me a day behind everyone else. The only upside is that I could win a lot of money... Ironically I have to make another 15 minute presentation for my 595 class exactly a week before that, on the 7th. Weeeeeee May is going to be FUN :(...
April 25th 2003
Got an email from Jeff (DT) yesterday. Apparently the cd place screwed them and their cds won't be ready by tomorrow night. What they are going to do instead is give everyone that pays their 10 dollars a demo cd with 3 songs from the album, and then they will mail the cds when they come in next week. So, for everyone I'm getting the cd for...I'll still order it for you, but it won't be ready till ...next weekend..
Got some great sky shots right before the rain started pouring down last sunday.
April 20th 2003
jammed with marcelo and eric, from delaware and worthington (respectively) yesterday. I think they have an interesting sound and I look forward to the next practice.
I found out yesterday that B will be moving to San Antonio Texas in July. That should be interesting, maybe he'll meet Mr. Robinson.
April 18th 2003
I was jumping all over B the other day about not checking my site often enough and I realized that I hadn't checked his in a while either. Click here to visit his website. I'm organizing an army of old (and newer) friends to come with us to see DT next saturday. Unfortunately, B will not be with us. He informed me that his 12 year old car has 300,000 miles, so I understand. Your presence will be missed my friend. All is not lost however, as B is getting a new (1999) car in a few months.
Candy just became a citizen today, to congratulate her click here.
April 15th 2003
I talked to the history of art department today and found out that I can finish the one class left for my history of art minor over the summer. They are only offering two grad level courses this summer, but I can take either one to complete the minor. I think modern painting and sculpture would be more interesting, but I think I'm going to take the class on ancient egyptian art, because I know the professor. That partially solves the problem with my classes in the summer, at least now I'm half-time instead of part-time. However, I still have to figure out how to graduate in march due to the time conflict of art classes. I will need to fit one more class on next winter quarter, but the time conflicts with the others I'm taking. So, what I'm going to try and do is see if there are any painting and drawing professors staying here over the summer. If somebody is, I'll ask them if I can do an independent study for 5 credits, thus freeing that part of next winters requirement and adding credits to summer so I'm still full time.
April 14th 2003
This has to be one of the most frustrating times I've ever had. Apparently, now there will be no advanced painting and drawing classes offered during the summer AT ALL. That means that I'm now definitely going to have to attend next winter quarter and very possibly spring quarter as well. So, lets see...I went from graduating in 8 months...to...15...great......
April 13th 2003
Ok, things just keep getting better and better for me... The master schedule for SU03 and AU03 has come out, and it doesn't have enough classes offered for me to graduate in December. So....(this is where I let out a blood curdling scream)...I won't graduate till my 23rd birthday! The awful part is that I'll already be done with EVERYTHING else even my business minor...so I'll have three quarters of 12 credits or less (27 credit hours spread over three quarters). What I'm hoping is that as scheduling day draws near, more classes will open up, or that I can go into the art office and wheel and deal something...but we shall see.
For all you DT fans, I got an email from Jeff (guitar) today about the show and Sevrul. So, here it (severely edited down the original) is:
CDs are going to be $10 and the cover is $5 for 21 and over and $7 for everyone else. we thought about not charging at the door, but we are in so much debt right now we need as much cash as we can get. ya know?
as far as sevrul goes: we've been writing songs for a while now...we are going to release a 4 or 5 song "demo" type cd on the day of DT's cd release. we are going to do a full-length in my studio shortly after DT's show is out of the way
April 12th 2003
Well, life must go on... I updated the art section with eleven new pieces. All are forms of photography, and all of them were taken on my birthday trip to my parent's house in hobbiton. Speaking of hobbiton, click here, dad. (the rest of you may enjoy too...but not as much). Oh, and dad, when you click on it be sure to have the IE window maximized...
So anyway, go to the third art page....oh ok you lazy butts...just click the tilda at the bottom of this post (that way you'll have to read through the rest first....) There will be much more art posted after this quarter is over, but that's a good eight weeks away, so I figured I'd better release this stuff now and save myself some time later.
So anyway, the big surprise for Celeste last week was just a surprise visit from her parents and siblings (and Aaron). We went to Red Lobster, which was the first time I'd ever been there. I had never had lobster before and...wasn't that impressed. It tastes ok for seafood...but still not as good as basic ground beef. Aaron got alfredo pasta that was pretty good (everybody took a bit before he started eating).
Got Sea Change, much better than the last few albums (Midnight Vultures was some awful crap...). Its back to the good old acoustic guitar for Beck, and I'm glad to hear it. Hearing "Guess I'm Doing Fine" was a delight because its one of the few songs that NPR plays that I actually like. Although, I searched and searched on the internet and apparently nobody has a clue that Beck didn't write the song... So, if any of you know who wrote the original version of the song...drop me a line. Unlike Mellow Gold, almost all of the songs on Sea Change were actually witten by Beck.
April 10th 2003
To: Andrew Long From: Department of Art
Dear Andrew:
The faculty of the Department of Art has completed its review of materials submitted by all the applicants to our graduate program. Unfortunately, you were not recommended for admission to our graduate program in Painting/Drawing for 2003-2004. There were many qualified applicants for a limited number of spaces, and it was very difficult to make our selections.
Well, there goes $30...
By the way, here is some "art" by someone who is a current painting and drawing graduate student at Ohio State, and also gave me a B in a painting class autumn quarter:
April 3rd 2003
Celeste's birthday was yesterday, and it went pretty uneventful, but never fear, she has a big surprise coming this weekend.
I keep listening to the new flaming lips disc. Even though Byron can't make it (he is certain his car would probably never speak to him again), I think I might go with Celeste anyway (she is unfamiliar with their work). I tried to convince mr. palmer to come up...we'll see.
I have a some bad news for myself and Mr. Montezzzz, mom informed me that there are no viable conferences to attend this summer on the west coast. Sorry dude...but you never came here either like you said were going to...
Ironically, Byron might be stationed out there in 2004 and beyond for his AF duties, so I'll have two chums to fly out and see (before moving)...
April 1st 2003
April 1st 2003
I found out that "the voodoo" is actually the new name for Ron's Crossroads. I've been there with both jeremy and clifford, so its a familiar place. It also happens to be just under ten miles from Celeste's sister's apartment (a very convenient coincidence).
Went to my parents house for my birthday. I got some nice loot, but the thing I'm most excited about is some new shoes! Some of you probably know that I've been wearing the same pairs of shoes since high school (which, since I'm about to graduate from college, means its been a long time). I still couldn't find anything that I particularly liked in the running shoe section, so I got some decent looking vans and a bland (which in this case = good) pair of new balance running shoes.
March 27th 2003
First topic of the day: FINALLY, Dolly Trauma announced yesterday the date of their cd release show. Their new site is apparently still not ready though, so the concert information is all that is available (but that's all I wanted to know anyway). The show is at the "Voodoo" ...which I'll have to scour the net to find directions to...on April 26th (exactly a month from when they posted it). This comes as great news to at least 2 people I know, and the next paragraph is directed towards one of them:
B, when you return from jolly old england, let me know about that flaming lips concert. Somebody at work mentioned that the tickets will probably sell out. I'm not going unless you are, so let me know soon. Also, if you go to it...maybe that is when you will finally get your christmas gift.
Downloaded imesh to get some stuff, and now I have pop-ups out the ying yang. I wouldn't recommend it unless you REALLY need to find something. Its even adding stuff to my desktop without asking...very very annoying.
I can't believe school starts again on monday, seems like I got no time off at all.
March 26th 2003
Got another update about Josh. Army Specialist Joshua J. Arnold is with the 3/15th 2nd Brigade Bradley Tank unit. Dad says that "Bradley" is the wrong word though.
Went to the guitar center on morse road for the first time today. A very cool place, they had a lot of true vintage les pauls and strats. They even had a 57 les paul. Not a single Jag-Stang though, looks like I've still got the only one on the block...now if I only had time to play it.
March 24th 2003
Some of you who visit this site might be aware of my anti-bush stance, I previously decided not to post any political views because I know how certain people feel about the subject and I'm tired of arguing with people I'd rather get along with. However, its time to toss that aside since I was just made aware of a personal connection to the war. A few minutes ago (10pm) I received an email from my mother informing me that my cousin Teresa's son Josh had been stationed in Kuwait for the last few months and is now a member of the 20 mile convoy of forces converging on Baghdad. I'll admit I haven't seen Josh in probably a decade or more, but he is still family.
While I do not believe we should be over there, I am hoping the war will end quickly and the troops will endure a minimum of casualties. I think some people thought I wasn't paying attention to the war due to my position on the bush regime. The fact is, I'm paying just as much attention to it as the Hawks that orchestrated and planned for this event for a decade. Because I believe American blood is being spilled for oil, I am paying special attention to the fighting and casualties in the war. The price of iraqi oil to date (the last I heard anyway) is 7 American lives. To hear that someone from my family is over there in the line of fire only makes me more enraged that we are even there. The CIA helped put Saddam in power (watch Frontline once in a while people!)....why can't they remove him and spare the lives of our underpaid and overworked military?
On a lighter note, when I visited Aaron (Glover)'s parent's house last weekend I spotted a small picture of a red car. This red car looked very familiar. Apparently, Mr. Glover had a red 68' GTO, exactly the same as someone else I know.
March 21st 2003
This world really is a crazy place. I just discovered that people are selling "digital art" on ebay. I figured it would be original pieces, like what I make and post (to download for FREE) on www.skinz.org. But, no, they are actually just REAL pictures that people took and used one or two filters on it to make it look like a drawing/painting etc. There is another guy that made real paintings (which are ok..) and it selling digital photographs of them, which then YOU have to print out. They are really taking advantage of people because those hapless buyers don't know that what the sellers means by "its cheap to have it printed" really means its a couple hundred dollars (to reprint on canvas). Also, these bastards are giving these people tiny files too. Here is a quote: "the resolution is 350 x 233 perfect to make a print 4 x 6, 5 x 7 or 8 x10 also you can use it as a wallpaper on your computer" Lets examine this for a moment...350X233 res...go to the art section of this site and open one of my pieces. The smaller ink drawings are (most of them) at a 500X? resolution. Thusly something 350x233 is obviously not going to look good on a 8x10 piece of paper. Also, saying that you could use it as a background is just preposterous. The smallest resolution you can use under windows is 800x600, whish is more than twice as big as this guy's "art" file. That means the picture would look extremely pixelated even on a 15 inch monitor. You might as well go to ESPN.com and right click on a picture and choose "set as background." (and that option is FREE)
Fools and their money are soon parted, maybe I should put some of my stuff on ebay....at least it would be original. By the way, to see exactly what I'm talking about, click here.
March 20th 2003
Finally through finals week and I thought I kicked arse on my HR final, but apparently I really messed it up and did well on the OM one that I thought was very hard. In addition, the art class that I thought I was assured an A in (when the instructor asks if she can take slides of your work to take back to germany with her you would assume...)...I got an A-. I guess the minus is for....oh...actually I have no idea. Then the marketing class that I was struggling with ended up being a B+, which is better than OM and HR which both ended up being Bs. All of this kicked the crap out of my GPA. I've only got three quarters left, so looks like the 3.7 I finally got back to last summer is gone for good.
Rufus started beating me on monday, and on wednesday he got me 4(games) to 1. It gets better, apparently he has an uncle (cousin?) that is a pro player, and he just happens to be going to see him over the break....so...I'm dead.
I don't know if you guys heard about this, but Mom and Dad, you should call Cathy (Sells) to hear about her near death experience.
March 16th 2003
Hello Everyone, welcome to the latest incarnation of Andrew’s website. This time the site features enhanced usability for patrons and administrators. I bought the domain, and host services (for a year) all for just under 25 dollars. So, no more skipping around to see my website, its gonna stay put RIGHT HERE for at least a year. This site might not be as technically cool looking as the last one, but it loads about ten times as fast, and that’s important to people (hi mom, hi dad) with sub 100kb connections. I started employing more of the given web building technology in my programs. I used to compress all the images myself, this time I just used PS’ “save for web” feature. I also saved time by using PS’ automatic slice save as image technique (I used to manually crop them). Then once in dreamweaver I discovered I could use dreamweaver itself to FTP my stuff, so that was easy…
I made a new section that serves as celeste’s website. It is not finished though, she is busy with finals and has yet to furnish a biography or first news update.
Played racquetball with nick for the first time in six months. So, I finally got a working copy of Dreamweaver MX. Thanks to a fellow in operations management I also got Office XP. Nick also gave me pro tools, but I can’t figure out how to install it…
Celeste got me a camera case for my birthday, so now I can bring the camera to the caves next week and then post the pictures on the site. Speaking of posting stuff on the site… I made it a lot easier for me to update the art on the site, so this time y’all (Bstyle) won’t have to wait till the next redesign to see my new work. I put up maybe 40 new pieces already, so go check those out.
The quarter ended friday, but it doesn't feel like it, because my finals are the same days as the normal classes, and my work schedule is the same (until thursday) too. At least I don't have to get up early on tuesday...
STILL haven't heard
anything about grad school or celeste's nursing school application.
