8 posts tagged “entry”
This post could be titled “Good Son/Bad Son”. Good Son because I drove to Houston and back twice so my Mom could spend Thanksgiving with me. Bad Son because I’m totally about to make fun of her.
“Black Friday” was originally so named because of the heavy traffic on that day, although most contemporary uses of the term refer instead to it as the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black (i.e., turning a profit)
On that very day I was taking my Mom downtown to do touristy stuff (like see the Alamo, tour the Riverwalk, all the things I don’t do now that I live here), and one of the best places to park is the mall parking garage downtown.
I mentioned this and immediately retorted, “Ooh, wait. We can’t park there, it’s Black Friday. Going to be a madhouse at the mall.” (Luckily, nobody seems to like that mall so it was quite empty with plenty of parking.)
My mom, confused look on her face, says, “What does that mean?”
“Black Friday, ya know.” I respond, thinking she would understand the term by me simply repeating it. Why doesn’t that ever seem to work?
Pause, looking sheepish, almost whispering. “… is that when all the Black people come out?”
I laughed for a good minute before replying, “Yes Mom, that’s the one day they come out of their houses, but if they see their shadow they go back indoors for another 6 weeks.”
“Oh shut up,” was her only response. I <3 my Mom. XD
I’ve been quite the shutter bug since I finally got around to buying myself a digital camera again after I lost the last one in California. I try to find any opportunity to take photos now just to fulfill the secret desire to be a decent photographer.
I switched from Flickr to Picasa Web Albums a few months back (which I recommend everyone do, they offer 2gb of photo space and unlimited albums without the 200-picture restriction Flickr has), and I’ve gotten quite the collection built up.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s five thousand of my recent words:
Brackenridge Park is right across the street from my apartments, and I finally remembered to take my camera with me on a few trips to the park. This was from a rose bush right outside one of the main entrances. The light was just right in that part of the day that it made the whole picture glow.
I wanted to do something special for my thirtieth birthday this year, which is no small feat in itself as my luck with planning birthday parties has always gone awry in some fashion.
It was also that much more difficult that I now have two cities that I call home: the current home of San Antonio, and my home town of Houston. It appears that I may also be turning Austin into my “weekend home” as of lately, but that’s a whole other story.
Despite all odds against us–and that includes some of the worst weather in Texas in the past twenty years–fate and good fortune were to shine upon us that day.
(more…)
I think I’ve finally convinced myself that I am what John Dvorak refers to as a “joiner.”
I’ve successfully added myself to just about every blog, social bookmarking, digg, netscape, and whatever else is out there to offer. I found a particularly good one tonight, called BlogCatalog.
It’s a pretty nice community of fellow bloggers just looking for visitors, something this little blog is desperately in need of lately. My erratic posting habits don’t really help the visit count, but still for a site that used to get 500+ visitors a day average, it’s now down to about 200.
I know, it’s a Catch-22. Post more, get more visits. Lack of visits make me post less. The vicious cycle begins all over again.
I just spammed the hell out of the site hoping to get a little “link love” from my fellow bloggers. So far I’ve had a couple dozen, and I welcome you all to my not-so-daily ramblings. Hopefully you’ll add me to your RSS readers and stick around.
Five years ago I was just starting one of my first jobs in my field, working for a small yellow pages company. I was living alone but not enjoying it very much, and I was considering getting another apartment with a friend.
Ten years ago I was working for a telephone survey company and taking a year off before starting college. I made employee of the month two months in a row because I memorized the order of keys needed to advance to the next call without having to wait for the slow computer load screens, which brought my call rate to less than a second between calls.
Fifteen years ago I was nervous about going to high school, and probably spending my nights talking to strangers on BBS Chat boards (that’s pre-internet, folks). The irony is that I’d been telling online people I was 15 for three years, just so they’d take me seriously. At 15. What was I thinking?
Twenty years ago I was spending my time at the school park playing GI Joes and Transformers in the dirt, and throwing them off playground structures with makeshift parachutes. The rest of the time was spent riding my bike all over the neighborhood, or attempting to build tree forts in the woods next to my apartments.
Twenty-five years ago I was very excited about starting Kindergarten. Earlier that year I had gotten on the bus with a neighbor girl and went right into her classroom like I belonged there. The only supplies I brought were my sister’s Happy Days lunchbox filled with Marshmellows and a Thermos™ full of water. The administrative staff thought it was all very cute and funny. My mother did not.
And Thirty years ago today, I was squeezed out of my mother and thrust upon the world for the very first time.
Friends - check
Money - check
Well-slept - check
Opposite sex - check
Guitar - check
Microphone - check
Messages waiting on me when I come home - check
How come everything I think I need always comes with batteries?
What do you think it means?
- John Mayer, “Something’s Missing”
Heavier Things
I’d like to introduce everyone to the newest contributing editor of The Daily Haggis, Smokin’!
He’s a frequent commenter on Pajiba and a treasure trove of useless pop culture trivia, so of course he fits right into this website of useless pop culture news.
I’ve known Smokin’ for over ten years now, since we met in English class back in High School. We bonded over a Nine Inch Nails song of all things, and since then he’s proven himself to be a great friend many times over.
He’ll be covering many of the same topics that are already on this site, as well as some new features and content yet to come.
Welcome him to the team!
(I’m sure he’s gonna kill me over that picture.)
I finally decided to update my deviantArt gallery a little with some of the nicer photos I took from last years trip around the country.
Here’s a few samples of what I added:
Sunset in Nevada by ~onefryshort on deviantART
And:
The Salt Flats in Utah by ~onefryshort on deviantART
And of course:
Mr. Haggis Goes to Washington by ~onefryshort on deviantART
Click on any to navigate to the full size version of the photo, or click here to visit my deviantArt gallery.
