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rushingheadlong · 3 years

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Huge thanks to a very dear friend who bought this article out from underneath me from an ebay auction, and then sent to me as a surprise!

Originally published in Melody Maker in late 1974 (exact date unknown). Full article text below the read more.

The MERLIN File

EVOLUTION: Merlin's manager, Derek Chick, and Allan Love decided in May 1973 to form a new London-based group that would incorporate three basic essentials: musicianship, image and stage presentation. After extensive auditions and rehearsals the band was gigging by July under the name Madrigal, which was changed in February 1974 to Merlin.

PERSONNEL CHANGES: Jacob Magmusson (keyboards) left in October 1973 and Paul Taylor (bass) in September 1974.

ORIGIN OF NAME: Scully Wagon-Lit's idea in the van going to a gig.

FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE: Zero 6, Southend, 17/July/1973.

FIRST BROADCAST: BBC Radio One David Hamilton Show and Radio Luxembourg Power Play consecutively in March 1974.

FIRST TELEVISION: Scottish TV's Showcase in November 1973.

MANAGEMENT: Derek Chick, Chic's Own Music and Management Ltd, 246/248 Great Portland Street, London W1 (01-381 6192/3).

AGENT: Barry Collings Agency Ltd, 15 Claremont Road, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex (0702-47343/43464).

RECORDING COMPANY: CBS Records Ltd, 28-30 Theobalds Road, London WC1 (01-242 9000).

RECORD PRODUCER: Roger Greenaway.

MUSIC PUBLISHING COMPANY: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co Ltd, 246/248 Great Portland Street, London W1 (01-387 6192) and Grenyoco Music Ltd, 108 Park Street, London W1 (01-493 6439).

FAN CLUB: Ling, 17 Gladstone Park Gardens, Cricklewood, London NW2.

BRITISH TOURS: 47 dates 1/March-28/April/1974 Top Rank ballrooms, clubs and colleges. Solo tour.

AMERICAN TOURS: None.

TRANSPORT: Ford DO607 3-ton truck for the equipment and Audi 100 for the group.

STAGE MANAGERS: Iain Ward (Sound Engineer), Chris Taylor (Lighting Engineer), "Speedy" (Stage Roadie), "Crystal" (Assistant Lighting Engineer).

SINGLES: "(Let Me) Put My Spell On You" c/w "Just ANother Fish On My Hook (CBS, 1/March/1974), "Alright" c/w "Pictures In My Mind" (CBS, 28/June/1974), "Wild Cat" c/w "Half A Man" (CBS, 1/Nov/1974).

ALBUMS: "Merlin" (CBS, 25/Oct/1974).

P.A.: 1400-watt JBL system comprising Kelsey 16-channel stereo custom mixer, 4 x DC3000 Crown amps, 4 x bass bins with 2 x 15 inch JBL speakers in each, 2 x mid range JBL horns, 2 x high-frequency JBL boxes with lens horns, two bullets. Microphones are 8 Sure Unidyne III 545, 2 AKG 190C, one AKG D12, 4 Calrec condensers, 4 Sims Watts condensers, 3 Sure Unisphere B. Binson Echorec and Mavis 3-way active stereo crossover with stage boxes, cables, etc. Lighting comprises 6 x 100 watt Strand Floods on stage, 30 x 200 watt Strand Floods on stage scaffolding, 3 x Strand 1,000-watt follow spots and stands, 2 x Strobes and a Strand dimmer board.

ALAN LOVE: Vocalist

BORN: Hampsted, North West London. 13/Dec./1952.

EDUCATED: Challoner School, Finchley, North London.

MUSICAL TRAINING: None.

MUSICAL CAREER: Has been professional for seven years, playing in Opal Butterfly from 1967 to 1969 with Simon King (Hawkwing) and Tom Doherty (Sting). Referendum from 1969 to 1973 and Madrigal/Merlin from 1973.

OTHER OCCUPATIONS: None.

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Mick Jagger, Joe Cocker, Little Richard.

COMPOSITIONS: "Half A Man," "Space Raider" and co-wrote with Gary Hardwick "Getting Involved" all recorded by Merlin.

FAVOURITE SINGLES: "Something In The Air" (Thunderclap Newman), "McArthur Park" (Richard Harris).

FAVOURITE ALBUMS: "Tapestry" (Carol King), "Court Of The Crimson King" (King Crimson), "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" (Simon and Garfunkel).

FAVOURITE MUSICIANS: Paul McCartney, Steve Howe, Tom Doherty.

FAVOURITE SONGWRITERS: Lennon and McCartney, Cat Stevens, Carol King.

FAVOURITE SINGERS: Joe Cocker, Neil Diamond.

RESIDENCE: Bachelor flat in Wandsworth, South West London.

INSTRUMENTS: None.

GARY ALICE STRANGE: Bass, vocals and guitar.

BORN: Hampsted, London. 26/Oct./1952.

EDUCATED: Whitefield School, Barnet.

MUSICAL TRAINING: Three classical guitar lessons and then self taught.

MUSICAL CAREER: Various semi-pro bands and wrote first song aged 16 featured on ATV programme "Come Here Often." Former band with Dave Martin called March Hare and recorded LP for MAM. Group then changed to newly-formed Kinks Production Company, but after few months of touring with Kinks and recording, split up. Joined Merlin.

OTHER OCCUPATIONS: Director of La Starza Palace Studio.

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Beatles, Stones, Free, Average White Band.

COMPOSITIONS: "Gipsy Rose Lee" and "Lay Me Down" for March Hare both issued as singles by MAM.

FAVOURITE SINGLES: "I Am A Walrus" (Beatles), "Need Your Love So Bad" (Fleetwood Mac), "Little Bit Of Love" (Free), "Amoureuse" (Kiki Dee).

FAVOURITE ALBUMS: "Elf" (Elf), "Sgt Pepper" (Beatles), "Talking Book" (Stevie Wonder).

FAVOURITE MUSICIANS: Andy Fraser, David Martin, Peter Green, Liberace.

FAVOURITE SONGWRITERS: Lennon and McCartney, Holland, Dozier and Holland, Lional Bart and Paul Simon.

FAVOURITE SINGERS: Paul Rodgers, Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart.

RESIDENCE: Single and lives in Hampstead, North West London.

INSTRUMENTS: Fender Precision Bass with thin maple neck. Hagstrom six-string guitar with pick-up. Kemble baby grand piano. Rotosound Roundwound strings. Orange 120-watt amp with 2 x 15 inch reflex cabinets.

JAMIE MOSES: Lead guitar and vocals.

BORN: Ipswich, Suffolk, 30/Aug/1955.

EDUCATED: Schools in America and Japan. Shirley High School and Redhill Technical College in Surrey.

MUSICAL TRAINING: Self-taught.

MUSICAL CAREER: Given first guitar when ten, formed first band at 11. Formed the Inferno, 1969-71, in Japan, doing gigs, radio, TV. Came to England in 1971, worked with semi-pro bands and at a music shop in Croydon. Formed Angel with Scully 1972 and recorded LP of original material. Joined Madrigal July 1973.

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Jimmy Page, Paul Kossoff, Beatles.

COMPOSITIONS: "Just Another Fish On My Hook", "Gypsy", and "He Thinks About You All The Time" all recorded by Merlin. Co-wrote "Angel" LP with Scully.

FAVOURITE SINGLES: "Livin' For The City" (Stevie Wonder), "Can't Get Enough" (Bad Company), "Joybringer" (Manfred Mann's Earthband).

FAVOURITE ALBUMS: "Foxtrot" by Genesis.

FAVOURITE MUSICIANS: Genesis, Steve Howe, Free, Scully Wagon-Lits.

FAVOURITE SONGWRITERS: Paul McCartney, Genesis, Stevie Wonder.

FAVOURITE SINGERS: Paul Rodgers, Peter Gabriel, Mario Lanza and David Coverdale.

RESIDENCE: Is single and lives with his parents at Sanderstead, Surrey.

INSTRUMENTS: White Les Paul Deluxe (1973) and black Les Paul Custom (1974), both with Rotosound ultra-light strings and Gibson plectrums. EKO 6-string acoustic guitar with La Bella strings. Hiwatt 100-watt amp fitted with half power switch for distortion and sustain at almost any volume. Two 2 x 15 Fender Dual Showman JBL Cabinets. A cheap Japanese fuzz box with a three-tone fuzz switch.

SCULLY WAGON-LITS: Keyboards, guitar and vocals.

BORN: Balham, South West London, 20/Dec./1953.

EDUCATED: Henry Cavendish (Balham), Bec School (Tooting) and Archbishop Tennison (South Croydon).

MUSICAL TRAINING: Guitar lessons at night school for one year aged eight, cello at school for three years and double bass for two months, but is self-taught on keyboards.

MUSICAL CAREER: Played guitar in band in Balham (1964-65), joined Angel with Jamie (1972-1973) as semi-pros and recorded an album. Turned pro June 1973 with Big Wheel in South France. Joined Madrigal October 1973.

OTHER OCCUPATIONS: Organ salesman at Western Music and Selmer.

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Harry Stoneham, Miller Anderson, Keith Emerson, Christian Vander.

COMPOSITIONS: "Marina," "Takin' Part," "Pictures In My Mind," etc.

FAVOURITE SINGLES: "Rock Man" (Elton John), "Space Oddity" (David Bowie).

FAVOURITE ALBUMS: "Tarkis" (ELP), "Fire And Water" (Free), "Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd).

FAVOURITE MUSICIANS: Keith Emerson, Tony Banks, Steve Howe.

FAVOURITE SONGWRITERS: Paul McCartney.

FAVOURITE SINGERS: Paul Rodgers, Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Greg Lake

RESIDENCE: Single and lives in Surrey.

INSTRUMENTS: Hamond RT3 with additional height plynth and customised guts driven through Hiwatt amps and put out through one Leslie 145 and two RSE 1 x 15 inch JBL bins and three custom-made Werlin Bat rotating horn units. Muri-Moog (modified) through Hiwatt 100-watt amp with JBL Showman Cabinet. Hagspiel grand piano, with scaffolding, miked through PA. Black Gibson SB Les Paul Junior (1960) plugged into Moog.

DAVID WIGHTWICK: Drums and vocals.

BORN: Dunstable, Bedfordshire, 25/August/1950.

EDUCATED: Priory Secondary School, Dunstable.

MUSICAL TRAINING: Self-taught.

MUSICAL CAREER: Former member of Madrigal from 1967 to 1973. The band split and was reformed with new members and retitled Merlin.

OTHER OCCUPATIONS: Varied from soldier to postman.

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Beatles, The Move, Genesis.

COMPOSITIONS: None.

FAVOURITE SINGLES: "Say You Don't Mind" (Colin Blunstone), "Motet Overture" (Abors), "Eleanor Rigby" (Beatles)

FAVOURITE ALBUMS: "Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd), "Erismore" (Colin Blunstone), "Tubular Bells" (Mike Oldfield), "Moving Waves" (Focus).

FAVOURITE MUSICIANS: Carl Palmer, Jon Bonham, Simon Kirke.

FAVOURITE SONGWRITERS: Lennon and McCartney, Colin Blunstone, Genesis.

FAVOURITE SINGERS: Ian Billan, Colin Blunstone, Karen Carpenter.

RESIDENCE: Flat in London.

INSTRUMENTS: Hayman see-through drumkit comprising 1 x 22 inch bass drum, 1 x 12 inch and 1 x 13 inch mounted tom-toms, 1 x 16 inch and 1 x 18 inch floor tom toms, 1 x 14 inch snare drum, Ludwig/Paiste 22 inch cymbal, 1 x 22 inch and 1 x 20 inch Zildjian ride cymbals, 1 x 18 inch Zildjian crash cymbal, 1 x 14 inch Zildjian hi-hat, Ludwig and Hayman accessories and Premier C and Selmer sticks.

#merlin band #jamie moses #(I continue to not tag the rest because everyone continues to not care)#long post //#text #jamie

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oscopelabs · 3 years

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‘America’s Not a Country, It’s Just a Business’: On Andrew Dominik’s ‘Killing Them Softly’ By Roxana Hadadi

“Shitsville.” That’s the name Killing Them Softly director Andrew Dominik gave to the film’s nameless town, in which low-level criminals, ambitious mid-tier gangsters, nihilistic assassins, and the mob’s professional managerial class engage in warfare of the most savage kind. Onscreen, other states are mentioned (New York, Maryland, Florida), and the film itself was filmed in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, though some of the characters speak with Boston accents that are pulled from the source material, George V. Higgins’s novel Cogan’s Trade. But Dominik, by shifting Higgins’s narrative 30 or so years into the future and situating it specifically during the 2008 Presidential election, refuses to limit this story to one place. His frustrations with America as an institution that works for some and not all are broad and borderless, and so Shitsville serves as a stand-in for all the places not pretty enough for gentrifying developers to turn into income-generating properties, for all the cities whose industrial booms are decades in the past, and for all the communities forgotten by the idea of progress._ Killing Them Softly_ is a movie about the American dream as an unbeatable addiction, the kind of thing that invigorates and poisons you both, and that story isn’t just about one place. That’s everywhere in America, and nearly a decade after the release of Dominik’s film, that bitter bleakness still has grim resonance.

In November 2012, though, when Killing Them Softly was originally released, Dominik’s gangster picture-cum-pointed criticism of then-President Barack Obama’s vision of an America united in the same neoliberal goals received reviews that were decidedly mixed, tipping toward negative. (Audiences, meanwhile, stayed away, with Killing Them Softly opening at No. 7 with $7 million, one of the worst box office weekends of Brad Pitt’s entire career at that time.) Obama’s first term had been won on a tide of hope, optimism, and “better angels of our nature” solidarity, and he had just defeated Mitt Romney for another four years in the White House when Killing Them Softly hit theaters on Nov. 30. Cogan’s Trade had no political components, and no connections between the thieving and killing promulgated by these criminals and the country at large. Killing Them Softly, meanwhile, took every opportunity it could to chip away at the idea that a better life awaits us all if we just buy into the idea of American exceptionalism and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ingenuity. A fair amount of reviews didn’t hold back their loathing toward this approach. A.O. Scott with the New York Times dismissed Dominik’s frame as “a clumsy device, a feint toward significance that nothing else in the movie earns … the movie is more concerned with conjuring an aura of meaningfulness than with actually meaning anything.” Many critics lambasted Dominik’s nihilism: For Deadspin, Will Leitch called it a “crutch, and an awfully flimsy one,” while Richard Roeper thought the film collapsed under the “crushing weight” of Dominik’s philosophy. It was the beginning of Obama’s second term, and people still thought things might get better.

But Dominik’s film—like another that came out a few years earlier, Adam McKay’s 2010 political comedy The Other Guys—has maintained a crystalline kind of ideological purity, and perhaps gained a certain prescience. Its idea that America is less a bastion of betterment than a collection of corporate interests, and the simmering anger Brad Pitt’s Jackie Cogan captures in the film’s final moments, are increasingly difficult to brush off given the past decade or so in American life. This is not to say that Obama’s second term was a failure, but that it was defined over and over again by the limitations of top-down reform. Ceaseless Republican obstruction, widespread economic instability, and unapologetic police brutality marred the encouraging tenor of Obama’s presidency. Donald Trump’s subsequent four years in office were spent stacking the federal judiciary with young, conservative judges sympathetic toward his pro-big-business, fuck-the-little-guy approach, and his primary legislative triumph was a tax bill that will steadily hurt working-class people year after year.

The election of Obama’s vice president Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party securing control of the U.S. Senate, were enough for a brief sigh of relief in November 2020. The $1.9 trillion stimulus bill passed in March 2021 does a lot of good in extending (albeit lessened) unemployment benefits, providing a child credit to qualifying families, and funneling further COVID-19 support to school districts after a year of the coronavirus pandemic. But Republicans? They all voted no to helping the Americans they represent. Stimulus checks to the middle-class voters who voted Biden into office? Decreased for some, totally cut off for others, because of Biden’s appeasement to the centrists in his party. $15 minimum wage? Struck down, by both Republicans and Democrats. In how many more ways can those politicians who are meant to serve us indicate that they have little interest in doing anything of the kind?

Modern American politics, then, can be seen as quite a performative endeavor, and an exercise in passing blame. Who caused the economic collapse of 2008? Some bad actors, who the government bailed out. Who suffered the most as a result? Everyday Americans, many of whom have never recovered. Killing Them Softly mimics this dynamic, and emphasizes the gulf between the oppressors and the oppressed. The nameless elites of the mob, sending a middle manager to oversee their dirty work. The poker-game organizer, who must be brutally punished for a mistake made years before. The felons let down by the criminal justice system, who turn again to crime for a lack of other options. The hitman who brushes off all questions of morality, and whose primary concern is getting adequately paid for his work. Money, money, money. “This country is fucked, I’m telling ya. There’s a plague coming,” Jackie Cogan says to the Driver who delivers the mob’s by-committee rulings as to who Jackie should intimidate, threaten, and kill so their coffers can start getting filled again. Perhaps the plague is already here.

“Total fucking economic collapse.”

In terms of pure gumption, you have to applaud Dominik for taking aim at some of the biggest myths America likes to tell about itself. After analyzing the dueling natures of fame and infamy through the lens of American outlaw mystique in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Dominik thought bigger, taking on the entire American dream itself in Killing Them Softly. From the film’s very first second, Dominik doesn’t hold back, equating an easy path of forward progress with literal trash. Discordant tones and the film’s stark, white-on-black title cards interrupt Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s speech about “the American promise,” slicing apart Obama’s words and his crowd’s responding cheers as felon Frankie (Scoot McNairy), in the all-American outfit of a denim jacket and jeans, cuts through what looks like a shut-down factory, debris and garbage blowing around him. Obama’s assurances sound very encouraging indeed: “Each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will.” But when Frankie—surrounded by trash, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and eyes squinting shut against the wind—walks under dueling billboards of Obama, with the word “CHANGE” in all-caps, and Republican opponent John McCain, paired with the phrase “KEEPING AMERICA STRONG,” a better future doesn’t exactly seem possible. Frankie looks too downtrodden, too weary of all the emptiness around him, for that.

Dominik and cinematographer Greig Fraser spoke to American Cinematographer magazine in October 2012 about shooting in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans: “We were aiming for something generic, a little town between New Orleans, Boston and D.C. that we called Shitsville. We wanted the place to look like it’s on the down-and-down, on the way out. We wanted viewers to feel just how smelly and grimy and horrible it was, but at the same time, we didn’t want to alienate them visually.” They were successful: Every location has a rundown quality, from the empty lot in which Frankie waits for friend and partner-in-crime Russell (Ben Mendelsohn)—a concrete expanse decorated with a couple of wooden chairs, as if people with nowhere else to go use this as a gathering spot—to the dingy laundromat backroom where Frankie and Russell meet with criminal mastermind Johnny “Squirrel” Amato (Vincent Curatola), who enlists them to rob a mafia game night run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), to the restaurant kitchen where the game is run, all sickly fluorescent lights, cracked tile, and makeshift tables. Holding up a game like this, from which the cash left on the tables flows upward into the mob’s pockets, is dangerous indeed. But years before, Markie himself engineered a robbery of the game, and although that transgression was forgiven because of how well-liked Markie is in this institution, it would be easy to lay the blame on him again. And that’s exactly what Squirrel, Frankie, and Russell plan to do.

The “Why?” for such a risk isn’t that hard to figure out. Squirrel sees an opportunity to make off with other people’s money, he knows that any accusatory fingers will point elsewhere first, and he wants to act on it before some other aspiring baddie does. (Ahem, sound like the 2008 mortgage crisis to you?) Frankie, tired of the crappy jobs his probation officer keeps suggesting—jobs that require both long hours and a long commute, when Frankie can’t even afford a car (“Why the fuck do they think I need a job in the first place? Fucking assholes”)—is drawn in by desperation borne from a lack of options. If he doesn’t come into some kind of money soon, “I’m gonna have to go back and knock on the gate and say, ‘Let me back in, I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold,’” Frankie admits. And Australian immigrant and heroin addict Russell is nursing his own version of the American dream: He’s going to steal a bunch of purebred dogs, drive them down to Florida to sell for thousands of dollars, buy an ounce of heroin once he has $7,000 in hand, and then step on the heroin enough to become a dealer. It’s only a few moves from where he is to where he wants to be, he figures, and this card-game heist can help him get there.

In softly lit rooms, where the men in the frame are in focus and their surroundings and backgrounds are slightly blown out, slightly blurred, or slightly fuzzy (“Creaminess is something you feel you can enter into, like a bath; you want to be absorbed and encompassed by it” Fraser told American Cinematographer of his approach), garish deals are made, and then somehow pulled off with a sobering combination of ineptitude and ugliness. Russell buys yellow dishwashing gloves for himself and Frankie to wear during the holdup, and they look absurd—but the pistol-whipping Russell doles out to Markie still hurts like hell, no matter what accessories he’s wearing. Dominik gives this holdup the paranoia and claustrophobia it requires, revolving his camera around the barely-holding-it-together Frankie and cutting every so often to the enraged players, their eyes glancing up to look at Frankie’s face, their hands twitching toward their guns. But in the end, nobody moves. When Frankie and Russell add insult to injury by picking the players’ pockets (“It’s only money,” they say, as if this entire ordeal isn’t exclusively about wanting other people’s money), nobody fights back. Nobody dies. Frankie and Russell make off with thousands of dollars in two suitcases, while Markie is left bamboozled—and afraid—by what just happened. And the players? They’ll get their revenge eventually. You can count on that.

So it goes that Dominik smash cuts us from the elated and triumphant Russell and Frankie driving away from the heist in their stolen 1971 Buick Riviera, its headlights interrupting the inky-black night, to the inside of Jackie Cogan’s 1967 Oldsmobile Toronado, with Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” providing an evocative accompaniment. “There’s a man going around taking names/And he decides who to free, and who to blame/Everybody won’t be treated all the same,” Cash sings in that unmistakably gravelly voice, and that’s exactly what Jackie does. Called in by the mob to capture who robbed the game so that gambling can begin again, Jackie meets with an unnamed character, referred to only as the Driver (Richard Jenkins), who serves as the mob’s representative in these sorts of matters. Unlike the other criminals in this film—Frankie, with his tousled hair and sheepish face; Russell, with his constant sweatiness and dog-funk smell; Jackie, in his tailored three-piece suits and slicked-back hair; Markie, with those uncannily blue eyes and his matching slate sportscoat—the Driver looks like a square.

He is, like the men who replace Mike Milligan in the second season of Fargo, a kind of accountant, a man with an office and a secretary. “The past can no more become the future than the future can become the past,” Milligan had said, and for all the backward-looking details of Killing Them Softly—American cars from the 1960s and 1970s, that whole masculine code-of-honor thing that Frankie and Russell break by ripping off Markie’s game, the post-industrial economic slump that brings to mind the American recession of 1973 to 1975—the Driver is very much an arm of a new kind of organized crime. He keeps his hands clean, and he delivers what the ruling-by-committee organized criminals decide, and he’s fussy about Jackie smoking cigarettes in his car, and he’s so bland as to be utterly forgettable. And he has the power, as authorized by his higher-ups, to approve Jackie putting pressure on Markie for more information about the robbery. It doesn’t matter that neither Jackie nor the mob thinks Markie actually did it. What matters more is that “People are losing money. They don’t like to lose money,” and so Jackie can do whatever he needs. Dominik gives him this primacy through a beautiful shot of Jackie’s reflection in the car window, his aviators a glinting interruption to the gray concrete overpass under which the Driver’s car is parked, to the smoke billowing out from faraway stacks, and to the overall gloominess of the day.

“We regret having to take these actions. Today’s actions are not what we ever wanted to do, but today’s actions are what we must do to restore confidence to our financial system,” we hear Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson say on the radio in the Driver’s car, and his October 14, 2008, remarks are about the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008—the government bailout of banks and other financial institutions that cost taxpayers $700 billion. (Remember Will Ferrell’s deadpan delivery in The Other Guys of “From everything I’ve heard, you guys [at the Securities and Exchange Commission] are the best at these types of investigations. Outside of Enron and AIG, and Bernie Madoff, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers ...”) Yet the appeasing sentiment of Paulson’s words applies to Jackie, too, and to the beating he orders for Markie—a man he suspects did nothing wrong, at least not this time. But debts must be settled. Heads must roll. “Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still/Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still/Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still,” Cash sang, and Jackie is all those men, and he’ll collect the stolen golden crowns as best he can. For a price, of course. Always for a price.

“I like to kill them softly, from a distance, not close enough for feelings. Don’t like feelings. Don’t want to think about them.”

In “Bad Dreams,” the penultimate episode of the second season of The Wire, International Brotherhood of Stevedores union representative Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer), having seen his brothers in arms made immaterial by the lack of work at the Baltimore ports and the collapse of their industry, learns that his years of bribing politicians to vote for expanded funding for the longshoremen isn’t going to pay off. He is furious, and he is exhausted. “We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket,” he says with the fatigue of a man who knows his time has run out, and you can draw a direct line from Bauer’s beleaguered delivery of those lines to Liotta’s aghast reaction to the horrendous beating he receives from Jackie’s henchmen. Sobotka in The Wire had no idea how he got to that helpless place, and neither does Markie in Killing Them Softly—he made a mistake, but that was years ago. Everyone forgave him. Didn’t they?

The vicious assault leveled upon Markie is a harrowing, horrifying sequence that is also unnervingly beautiful, and made all the more awful as a result of that visual splendor. In the pouring rain, Markie is held captive by the two men, who deliver bruising body shots, break his noise, batter his body against the car, and kick in his ribs. “You see fight scenes a lot in movies, but you don’t see people systematically beating somebody else. The idea was just to make it really, really, really ugly,” Dominik told the New York Times in November 2012, and sound mixer Leslie Shatz and cinematographer Fraser also contributed to this unforgettable scene. Shatz used the sound of a squeegee across a windshield to accentuate Markie’s increasingly destroyed body slumping against the car, and also incorporated flash bulbs going off as punches were thrown, adding a kind of lingering effect to the scene’s soundscape. And although the scene looks like it’s shot in slow motion, Fraser explained to American Cinematographer that the combination of an overhead softbox and dozens of background lights helped build that layered effect in which Liotta is fully illuminated while the dark night around him remains impenetrable. Every drop of rain and every splatter of blood stands out on Markie’s face as he confesses ignorance regarding the robbery and begs for mercy from Jackie’s men, but Markie has already been marked for death. When the time comes, Jackie will shoot him in the head in another exquisitely detailed, shot-in-ultrahigh-speed scene that bounces back and forth between the initial act of violence and its ensuing destruction. The cartridges flying out of Jackie’s gun, and the bullets destroying Markie’s window, and then his brain. Markie’s car, now no longer in his control, rolling forward into an intersection where it’s hit not just once, but twice, by oncoming cars. The crunching sound of Markie’s head against his windshield, and the vision of that glass splintering from the impact of his flung body, are impossible to shake.

“Cause and effect,” Dominik seems to be telling us, and Killing Them Softly follows Jackie as he cleans up the mess Squirrel, Frankie, and Russell have made. After he enlists another hitman, Mickey (a fantastically whoozy James Gandolfini, who carries his bulk like the armor of a samurai searching for a new master), whose constant boozing, whoring, and laziness shock Jackie after years of successful work together, and who refuses to do the killing for which Jackie secured him a $15,000 payday, Jackie realizes he’ll need to do this all himself. He’ll need to gather the intel that fingers Frankie, Russell, and Squirrel. He’ll need to set up a police sting to entrap Russell on his purchased ounce of heroin, violating the terms of his probation, and he’ll need to set up another police sting to entrap Mickey for getting in a fight with a prostitute, violating the terms of his probation. For Jackie, a career criminal for whom ethical questions have long since evaporated, Russell’s and Frankie’s sloppiness in terms of bragging about their score is a source of disgust. “I guess these guys, they just want to go to jail. They probably feel at home there,” he muses, and he’s then exasperated by the Driver’s trepidation regarding the brutality of his methods. Did the Driver’s bosses want the job done or not? “We aim to please,” Jackie smirks, and that shark smile is the sign of a predator getting ready to feast.

Things progress rapidly then: Jackie tracks Frankie down to the bar where he hangs out, and sneers at Frankie’s reticence to turn on Squirrel. “They’re real nice guys,” he says mockingly to Frankie of the criminal underworld of which they’re a part, brushing off Frankie’s defense that Squirrel “didn’t mean it.” “That’s got nothing to do with it. Nothing at all,” Jackie replies, and that’s the kind of distance that keeps Jackie in this job. Sure, the vast majority of us aren’t murderers. But as a question of scale, aren’t all of us as workers compromised in some way? Employees of companies, institutions, or billionaires that, say, pollute the environment, or underpay their staff, or shirk labor laws, or rake in unheard-of profits during an international pandemic? Or a government that spreads imperialism through allegedly righteous military action (referenced in Killing Them Softly, as news coverage of the economic crisis mentions the reckless rapidity with which President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq after Sept. 11, 2001), or that can’t quite figure out how to house the nation’s homeless into the millions of vacant homes sitting empty around the country, or that refuses, over and over again, to raise the minimum wage workers are paid so that they have enough financial security to live decent lives?

Perhaps you bristle at this comparison to Jackie Cogan, a man who has no qualms blowing apart Squirrel with a shotgun at close range, or unloading a revolver into Frankie after spending an evening driving around with him. But the guiding American principle when it comes to work is that you do a job and you get paid: It’s a very simple contract, and both sides need to operate in good faith to fulfill it. Salaried employees, hourly workers, freelancers, contractors, day laborers, the underemployed—all operate under the assumption that they’ll be compensated, and all live with the fear that they won’t. Jackie knows this, as evidenced by his loathing toward compatriot Kenny (Slaine) when the man tries to pocket the tip Jackie left for his diner waitress. “For fuck’s sake,” Jackie says in response to Kenny’s attempted theft, and you can sense that if Jackie could kill him in that moment, he would. In this way, Jackie is rigidly conservative, and strictly old-school. Someone else’s money isn’t yours to take; it’s your responsibility to earn, and your employer’s responsibility to pay. Jackie cleaned up the mob’s mess, and the gambling tables opened again because of his work, and his labor resulted in their continued profits. And Jackie wants what he’s owed.

“Don’t make me laugh. ‘We’re one people.’”

We hear two main voices of authority urging calm throughout Killing Them Softly. Then-President Bush: “I understand your worries and your frustration. … We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.” Presidential hopeful Obama: “There’s only the road we’re traveling on as Americans.” Paulson speaks on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and various news commentators chime in, too: “There needs to be consequences, and there needs to be major change.” Radio commentary and C-SPAN coverage combine into a sort of secondary accompaniment to Marc Streitenfeld’s score, which incorporates lyrically germane Big Band standards like “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (“You work, you save, you worry so/But you can’t take your dough”) and “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (“It's a Barnum and Bailey world/Just as phony as it can be”). All of these are Dominik’s additions to Cogan’s Trade, which is a slim, 19-chapter book without any political angle, and this frame is what met so much resistance from contemporaneous reviews.

But what Dominik accomplishes with this approach is twofold. First, a reminder of the ceaseless tension and all-encompassing anxiety of that time, which would spill into the Occupy Wall Street movement, coalesce support around politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and fuel growing national interest in policies like universal health care and universal basic income. For anyone who struggled during that time—as I did, a college graduate entering the 2009 job market after the journalism industry was already beginning its still-continuing freefall—Killing Them Softly captures the free-floating anger so many of us felt at politicians bailing out corporations rather than people. Perhaps in 2012, only weeks after the re-election of Obama and with the potential that his second term could deliver on some of his campaign promises (closing Guantanamo Bay, maybe, or passing significant gun control reform, maybe), this cinematic scolding felt like medicine. But nearly a decade later, with neither of these legislative successes in hand, and with the wins for America’s workers so few and far between—still a $7.25 federal minimum wage, still no federal paid maternity and family leave act, still the refusal by many states to let their government employees unionize—if you don’t feel demoralized by how often the successes of the Democratic Party are stifled by the party’s own moderates or thoroughly curtailed by saboteur Republicans, maybe you’re not paying attention.

More acutely, then, the mutinous spirit of Killing Them Softly accomplishes something similar to what 1990’s Pump Up the Volume did: It allows one to say, with no irony whatsoever, “Do you ever get the feeling everything in America is completely fucked up?” The disparities of the financial system, and the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. The utter lack of accountability toward those who were supposed to protect us, and didn’t. And the sense that we’re always being a little bit cheated by a ruling class who, like Sobotka observed on The Wire, is always putting their hand in our pocket. Consider Killing Them Softly’s quietest moment, in which Frankie realizes that he’s a hunted man, and that the people from whom he stole would never let him live. Dominik frames McNairy tight, his expression a flickering mixture of plaintive yearning and melancholic regret, as he quietly says, “It’s just shit, you know? The world is just shit. We’re all just on our own.” A day or so later, McNairy’s Frankie will be lying on a medical examiner’s table, his head partially collapsed from a bullet to the brain, an identification tag looped around his pinky toe. And the men who ordered his death want to underpay the man who carried it out for them. Isn’t that the shit?

That leads us, then, to the film’s angriest moment, and to a scene that stands alongside the climaxes of so many other post-recession films: Chris Pine’s Toby Howard paying off the predatory bank that swindled his mother with its own stolen money in Hell or High Water, Lakeith Stanfield’s Cash Green and his fellow Equisapiens storming billionaire Steve Lift’s (Armie Hammer’s) mansion in Sorry to Bother You, Viola Davis’s Veronica Rawlings shooting her cheating husband and keeping the heist take for herself and her female comrades in Widows. So far in Killing Them Softly, Pitt has played Jackie with a certain level of remove. A man’s got to have a code, and his is fairly simple: Don’t get involved emotionally with the assignment. Pitt’s Jackie is susceptible to flashes of irritation, though, that manifest as a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and as an octave-lower growl that belies his impatience: with the Driver, for not understanding how Markie’s reputation has doomed him; with Mickey, for his procrastination and his slovenliness; with Kenny, for stealing a hardworking woman’s tip; with Frankie, when he tries to distract Jackie from killing Squirrel. Jackie is a professional, and he is intolerant of people failing to work at his level, and Pitt plays the man as tiptoeing along a knife’s edge. Remember Daniel Craig’s “’Cause it’s all so fucking hysterical” line delivery in Road to Perdition? Pitt’s whole performance is that: a hybrid offering of bemusement, smugness, and ferocity that suggests a man who’s seen it all, and hasn’t been impressed by much.

In the final minutes of Killing Them Softly, Obama has won his historic first term in the White House, and Pitt’s Jackie strides through a red haze of celebratory fireworks as he walks to meet the Driver at a bar to retrieve payment. An American flag hangs in this dive, and the TV broadcasts Obama’s victory speech, delivered in Chicago to a crowd of more than 240,000. “Crime stories, to some extent, always felt like the capitalist ideal in motion,” Dominik told the New York Times. “Because it’s the one genre where it’s perfectly acceptable for the characters to be motivated solely by money.” And so it goes that Jackie feels no guilt for the men he’s killed, or the men he’s sent away. Nor does he feel any empathy or kinship with the newly elected Obama, whose messages of unity and community he finds amusingly irrelevant. The life Jackie lives is one defined by how little people value each other, and how quick they are to attack one another if that means more opportunity—and more money—for them. Thomas Hobbes said that a life without social structure and political representation would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” and perhaps that’s exactly what Jackie’s is. Unlike the character in Cogan’s Trade, Dominik’s Jackie has no wife and no personal life. But he’s surviving this way with his eyes wide open, and he will not be undervalued.

The contrast between Obama’s speech about “the enduring power of our ideas—democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope”—and Jackie’s realization that the mob is trying to underpay him for the three men he assassinated at their behest makes for a kind of nauseating, thrilling coda. He’s owed $45,000, and the envelope the Driver paid him only has $30,000 in it. Obama’s audience chanting “Yes, we can,” the English translation of the United Farm Workers of America’s slogan and the activist César Chávez’s iconic “Sí, se puede” catchphrase, adds an ironic edge to the argument between the Driver and Jackie about the value of his labor. Whatever the Driver can use to try and shrug off Jackie’s advocacy for himself, he will. Jackie’s killings were too messy. Jackie is asking for more than the mob’s usual enforcer, Dillon (Sam Shepard), who would have done a better job. Jackie is ignoring that the mob is limited to “Recession prices”—they’re suffering, so that suffering has to trickle down to someone. Jackie made the deal with Mickey for $15,000 per head, and the mob isn’t beholden to pay Jackie what they agreed to pay Mickey.

On and on, excuse after excuse, until one finally pushes Jackie over the edge: “This business is a business of relationships,” the Driver says, which is one step away from the “We’re all family here” line that so many abusive companies use to manipulate their cowed employees. And so when Jackie goes coolly feral in his response, dropping knowledge not only about the artifice of the racist Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father but underscoring the idea that America has always been, and will always be, a capitalist enterprise first, the moment slaps all the harder for all the ways we know we’ve been let down by feckless bureaucrats like the Driver, who do only as they’re told; by faceless corporate overlords like the mob, issuing orders to Jackie from on high; and by a broader country that seems like it couldn’t care less about us. “I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own … Now fucking pay me” serves as a kind of clarion call, an expression of vehemence and resentment, and a direct line into the kind of anger that still festers among those continuously left behind—still living in Shitstown, still trying to make a better life for themselves, and still asking for a little more respect from their fellow Americans. For all of Killing Them Softly’s ugliness, for all its nihilism, and for all its commentary on how our country’s ruthless individualism has turned chasing the American dream into a crippling addiction we all share, that demand for dignity remains distressingly relevant. Maybe it’s time to listen.

#killing them softly #andrew dominik #andrew dominik film #brad pitt #Jackie Cogan #james gandolfini #richard jenkins #ray liotta #scoot mcnairy #ben mendelsohn #american cinematographer #financial crisis 2008 #independent film #beastie boys #oscilloscope laboratories #film writing #musings

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sevenfactorial · 4 years

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Info about applying to PhD programs in pure math

This is... basically what it sounds like. I’m sure a lot of this is applicable to other PhD applications but I’m only very familiar with pure math. This is aimed at current seniors about to apply, but there is a section about prepping for applications in advance.

The highlights:

Recommendation letters are the most important thing. Most schools ask for 3ish. Try to get people who know you well, not just a student in the class. Someone you've conducted research with and one from a different institution are ideal if possible

Ask for rec letters at least a month before the due date is a good rule of thumb.

Research experience is probably the second most important.

Get the opinion of multiple professors who know you in order to build a list of potential schools. Then widdle it down to your will-actually-apply list (probably 8-14 ish).

My opinion but please apply to at least 3-4 safety/match schools. Even when you're fully qualified, acceptance rates are simply low enough that a bit of bad luck means getting rejected or waitlisted from a few of them.

Most pure math due dates are in early-mid Dec but a few schools are in Nov and some are as late as mid-Jan.

Schools will generally have their own graduate application portals. Some are better organized than others. Some require you to submit all your material before you can send a request for submitting rec letters so plan accordingly.

Acceptance letters will very slowly start going out in mid-Feb but the vast majority of programs won't send out anything until like, March and not be done until later than that. Accordingly, wait until at least mid-March to begin freaking out if you haven't been accepted anywhere.

You should 100% be expecting a tuition waiver and stipend from a program if you're applying for a PhD.

The rest of the posts is.... ridiculously long so I’m putting it under a cut. I mention things to do in advance to help you decide if grad school is right for you and things that make your application look good, give a full time line of the process, a list of things applications commonly ask for, and some miscellaneous notes. (The points above are repeated in more detail).

In addition, some links to other resources math students may appreciate:

an old post of mine about grad school apps (overlaps a lot and features some ranting from during the application process)

about REUs including my addition specifically about math ones

summer programs for undergrads that aren’t REUs by @counter-example and @jungleuniversity

Tips for prospective grad student visits

Also about prospective grad student visits by @thisurlhasbeenleftasanexercise

Also for context, I went to a large state school in the US for undergrad. I started as a CS major and added on math as a secondary major after my first year and dropped CS during third year. I’m primarily interested in discrete and algebra, though I have a significant topology background from undergrad too. I got most of my advice from people around the department, as I became pretty involved during my third year. Now, I’m a first year grad student at another large state school in the US, generally considered pretty decent though not a “top math program” at all. Not that much else has happened so far.

Things in advance (aka things to help you decide if grad school is for you and things that look good on an application)

Take the standard classes. For pure math, this is at least one semester of linear alg, abstract alg, and analysis each. Linear and analysis are also good for applied math but I'm not sure what else if anything is considered standard.

Take some grad classes if you have the option. Most people are not ready for this until senior year, but some do manage as juniors. Talk to people who know you well and the prof teaching the class before you do this though.

Try to get involved with research whether this is through independent studies at your home institution, REUs, internships, or other stuff.

Be involved in your department. This helps with getting you more personalized advice for applying.

The rough suggested timeline (assuming junior yr is your second to last year and senior is your last of undergrad)

Junior April: Take the math subject GRE so you can take it again in Sep or Oct if desired (perhaps not applicable atm). The general can be taken kinda whenever; I suggest fall of senior year.

Junior April/May: Start talking to professors/post docs/mentors/etc. about programs you may be interested in. Write/type it down. Don't worry if it gets long, you will shorten again later.

Summer: Do some research if possible; an REU or research at your institution (if an REU, also get your mentor's opinion on potential schools towards the end as well)

Senior Sep: Start whittling down your list. 8-14 seems to be the "normal" range of schools to apply to but some people panic and do more. Remember that asking for waivers is completely acceptable but applying is still just generally expensive (I spent around $800 for 10 schools)

Senior Sep: Apply for the NSF GRFP. You can apply as an undergrad senior and once during your first or second year of grad school if you didn't already get it. The due date is in mid-late OC but ideally you'll have a draft of your essays and ask for rec letters by the end of Sep, if not earlier.

Senior early Nov: Ask for rec letters if you haven't already. The rule of thumb is a month before the due date. Provide them a list of schools you want to apply to including due date and where/how to submit as soon as possible (as well as anything else they request of course; many ask for a resume and a draft of your personal statement).

Senior Dec-Jan: Submit stuff! Pure math programs typically have deadlines in Dec or early Jan. I think the big days are Dec 10th, Dec 15th, and Jan 15th but some are earlier or later. (applied math masters tend to be earlier I think; in Nov). I suggest putting them all into a list or calendar. In addition, some schools won't let letter writers submit until all of your stuff is submitted so start applications early, even if you don't finish them immediately.

Senior Feb: Programs will slowly start sending out offers in early Feb and pick up in mid Feb, but don't fret until AT LEAST the beginning of March! Grad programs are just way too slow at getting out offers for it to be worth worrying until then (and even then, it's definitely not time to panic but mathematicians are frequently anxious people so I get it). Waitlists are slower to come out; usually starting in early March. Also note, there are many programs that don't actually send out replies to everyone unfortunately.

Senior late Feb-early April: prospective student days! They might be online in 2021 unfortunately but try to attend whatever form they're in if you can (only one of my visits during spring 2020 was online since the others happen to be very early and safely beat covid in the US). Be warned, it's very possible to get offers of admissions and to visit very last minute. I do not have advice for how to make that less stressful.

Senior April 15th: Common reply deadline. If you got your offer in the first round or two, this is probably your deadline to accept. In addition, this means more offers will likely come out shortly after once more people have declined.

Senior summer: graduate. Send a completed, official transcript to your new institution. Check your new email account for stuff you're suppose to do. Some programs have some sort of program during the summer for in-coming students. Most places have graduate student training of some sort for a week or two before semester starts.

Some common things to be asked for in applications

Not actually a thing asked for but many graduate schools have their own portal for which you will have to make an account to submit an application. A few use a common system that kinda sort shares a database of accounts? Some are fine and some massively suck.

Personal Statement/Statement of Purpose: Occasionally called something else and once in a while actually separate things; will usually have a prompt of wildly differing specificity. Sometimes, the prompts come from the department itself and sometimes from the university's graduate school. I suggest having one or two "base" essays then tweaking them for each school. Sometimes a word/page limit is specified but if it's not, around 2 pages/1000 words is pretty reasonable.

Transcript. Some accept unofficial but some require official but generally not an unsealed one. I ordered myself one official transcript and sent it to multiple schools instead of paying for them to be sent to each school during the application process.

Resume or CV: Most ask for either a CV or is fine with either, in which case I give them my CV. I sent more or less the same one everywhere.

Some other notes

Yes, ask for application waivers. Just be polite about it.

Your goals for your essays are primarily to show that you're interested in math and math research and are capable of like…. writing things that make sense

Do not start out an essay with either "I loved math since I was little" or "I actually didn't like math when I was young" or any variations of those. (I had one essay that started with a mildly humourous anecdote from undergrad combinatorics and another that talked about how my undergrad department has greatly affected me).

You should 100% expect to get a tuition waiver and living stipend as part of a TA fellowship (or more rarely, an research fellowship) as part of your offer of acceptance for a math PhD program (pure or applied). Health insurance is also frequently part of the package. This is not true of masters programs unfortunately.

How schools do waitlists depend wildly though most don't have super long ones like prestigious undergrads do. If you're still interested in a place you're waitlisted at, follow their instructions to confirm your placement on the waitlist then wait until April before following up again, expressing your continued interest and asking for an update. You might even want to wait until around the common deadline, April 15th. The number of people who declined before April is just really really low so nothing really happens until then.

#grad school applications #math grad school applications #math phd applications #math grad school application tips #math grad school application advise #seriously not qualified beyond i managed to do it #but hey it's good to have more people's advice for cross referencing!#seven stories #long post #grad school #god

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stillxnunpxidintern · 2 years

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Cause Tumblr is being a dick and not showing my post in the tags it should show up in, cause it has links in, that are from my tumblr posts themselves, I'm posting this without the links in it, so people can see it and know that the proper post with the links is my pinned post.

This post will be updated daily or when new Imagines are posted.

This will be my pinned post, so finding what imagine you want easy.

Eddie/Steddie x Reader – Fix-it Timeline

Eddie Crochet – pre Match 1986

Hospital DnD – Post March 86

Stress Baking – Pre & Post March 1986

Ren Fair – Summer 1986

First Proper Throuple Date – December 1986

Babysitting – 1987

Battle Scars – 1987

Excuse me what now – Mid – July 1987

First Fight

Late Night Walk – 1987

Dog House – 1987

Career Deviation

Officially Telling – Autumn 1988

Movie Night

Sleeping Positions

Scared of Thunderstorms

Prank Wars

Car Accident

Food Shopping

DnD

Cooking

Home Alone

Gig Night

Furry Additions – July 1989 (Aug – Scoop, Oct – Slayer and Ozzy – Feb 1990)

Cheating

Rough Day

Seasons

Sickness

Snow Day

Trauma

Drunken Night Aftermath

Swimming - summer 1990

Holidays

Final Showdown

Pregnancy – May 1991 – Jan 1992

Bad Dreams – (Eddie – July and Steve – Nov)

Learning Crochet – Sept 1991

Embroidered Surprise – Nov 1991

Baby First Ren Fair – Summer 1993

Jealousy – June 1992

Family Movie Outing – Dec 2001

Kas/Vamp Eddie Imagine Timeline

The Return

Finally Home

Bat Foam

Monster Town Au Imagine Timeline

Monster Town

Big Puppy

Forgiveness Coffee

Just a little tumble

A Bloody Kiss

So it begins

Hot Summer Day

An Unexpected Hero

Family Emergency

A New Bond Formed

The Claiming

Furry Rival Encounter

Graduation

Unrelated Eddie/Steddie Imagines

Prom

Spartan Kick

Spicy Time

Spider

#Eddie Munson #Steve Harrington #Reader #Eddie Munson x Reader #Steve Harrington x Reader #Steve Harrington x Reader x Eddie Munson #Steddie x Reader #Steddie #Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson #Eddie Munson x Reader x Steve Harrington #Stranger Things #Stranger Things Imagines #Steve Harrington x You #Eddie Munson x You #Steve Harrington x You x Eddie Munson

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acoolchickouthere13 · 4 years

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This is the text Taylor sent to Scott on Monday, November 19th at 8:57am:

Scott,

I hope this finds you well. Since communication ran dry on our negotiations, I’ve done what I told you I would do and gone out exploring other options. Owning my masters was very important to me, but I’ve since realized that there are things that mean even more to me in the bigger picture. I had a choice whether to bet on my past or to bet on the future and I think knowing me, you can guess which one I chose. I also saw a rare opportunity to effect positive change for a lot of other artists with the leverage I have right now. I know you believe in the same things I do and I’d like to think you would be proud of what I’ve negotiated for in my deal. I wanted to tell you first that I’ll be signing with Lucian. I honestly truly cherish everything you and I have built together and I plan on saying so in my announcement of the new deal. What we accomplished together will be a lasting legacy and a case study on excellent partnerships, and may it continue. I still view you as a partner and friend and I hope you feel the same. Sending you a hug and my most sincere gratitude. And SO much love, Taylor.

Taylor posts that she signed to new record label November 19, 2018. But I predict this was done sooner(late March-early May 2018)

Late March-early May 2018-taylor has hot pink nails in the new record label(UMG) insta post. She also has hot pink nails at very beginning of Miss Americana documentary in her NY apartment. I just assume that these events happen within the same week.

Heart eye tattoo makes another appearance ^

Goes back on Rep tour November 20, 2018 (Japan)- Reputation tour acoustic b stage song “I Know Places”

Reputation tour ends Nov. 21, 2018

she recorded as soon as she finished the Reputation Tour. At tour’s end, she channeled that positive energy into the studio, recording the new album in just under three months. But the fast pace won’t mean a short LP. Swift confirmed that her seventh record (she hasn’t announced a title yet; the working nickname among fans is TS7) will include more songs than any of her previous releases. “I try not to go into making an album with any expectation,” she says. “I started to write so much that I knew immediately it would probably be bigger.”

155 Franklin St. is already bought, but maybe not moved into until Grammy noms for 2018(61st Grammys) are announced(December 7, 2018) due to having time/scheduling. So I’m thinking she unpacked in late November/December 2018-red and green nails?

-chandelier(DBATC)

-fireplace (ciwyw)

-library/book cases

-describes as “handsome” in multiple articles(delicate)

Unpacking in NY: miss Americana documentary also here

“Says Little, ‘We did a week in New York; that week we did ‘The Man’ and ‘Me!,’ and ‘Only the Young’ was the last one that we did. That was one where I’d actually come in with a drumbeat, and she was like, ‘Oh, I was actually just playing around with chords that could go with that,’ and then the song just quickly moved from there.’”-(x)

💖The Man💖 - (swift, Joel little) “bad(IDSB, MAATHP)” Ioriginal lyrics: “they put a knife in me behind my back”- here

💖ME!💖? First verse and chorus (Swift, Joel little, Brendon Urie) “123”(so it goes, paper rings)

Original lyrics: “I know I said some bullshit on the phone.” Created with red and green nails, a white sweater, a dark brown velvet v neck, pantyhose, a ponytail, and short black buckle boots as pictured in the documentary(10:20)- here

burrito lunch with Joel

💖Only the Young💖 (swift, Joel little)

*in the documentary, she is eating burritos with Joel. She is wearing the pajamas she writes and records “only the young” in at the end of the film. This leads me to speculate “Only the Young” was written and recorded on the day they ate burritos. *nude, unpainted nails.

She said, while eating burritos, “I’m about to be 29.” While eating burritos, Joel is humming “ME!” While eating burritos, and playing “Me!” On piano towards the beginning of the film, her nails are painted red and green. This leads me to assume both songs are written december 2018.

^all those songs in that week created at Electric Lady studios

December 11, 2018 Taylor goes to London for Joe’s movie premiere

💖London Boy💖? - “Motown, american(KOMH)” “whiskey(gorgeous)” “rumours true”(New Romantics)” “west end” “queen(CIWYW)” “Stella McCartney(sport line with Karlie)—- Stella was probably played the track much later in June 2019. “It takes a really long time for Stella to get a collection that’s ready to be purchased, since she does all ethical clothing standards”( @ciiwy )

December 13, 2018=29, announces Netflix tour movie coming soon

Mid December 2018 lunch with abigail at Nashville home about Claire’s baby that was born December 7, 2018. Taylor says, “she’s gone for a month after this.” And I think she means filming for Cats-Taylor’s nails are glitter pink (MA doc 27:37)

#accohtimeline #taylor swift #taylorswift #ts #taylor #swift #kaylor #accoh timeline #gaylor #gaylor swift #me!#only the young #the man #london boy

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goodguidanceptc · 5 years

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Ironman New Zealand Race Report March 2, 2019

Welcome masochists and insomniacs. When people ask me about my races, I usually try to deliver a balance of facts (split times, data, total race time) and feelings (mind & body perceptions, key moments) in an entertaining yet succinct report. As usual, that often means STRONG LANGUAGE. Here goes:

Prologue:

A few weeks prior to the trip, I learned that I’d been selected for the “Ironman New Zealand Experience,” an online contest, administered with typical Kiwi approach by the local council. Read: relaxed, with ZERO Ironman lawyers involved. Six men and six women were selected--based on online posts--to learn a haka, perform at the athlete dinner and attend an after-race luncheon that included a presentation and performance of Maori history and traditions.

I suspect my "pick me! pick me!” post got me plucked from a small applicant pool. Supporting evidence: of the twelve selected, two others were my training buddies from Chicago, Christine B. and Bernie Mc. SIDE NOTE: Each winner was allowed one additional guest at the luncheon--so a very special thanks to Christine for graciously counting my wife as her guest which meant I had both my wife and son at the luncheon.

Haka is Maori for “breathe fire.” Historically, hakas were performed by Maori warriors prior to battle. These days they are performed ceremonially to celebrate major milestones (marriage, retirement), honor important guests or--perhaps most notably--to intimidate opponents at athletic events (here’s a link). Outside of New Zealand, the most famous and awe-inspiring hakas are performed my the Maori All-Blacks National Rugby team prior to each match.

I learned that there are hundreds of haka versions, each with its own inherent weight baked into the story it’s presenting. Although it was very different than the aggressive, male-only, pre-battle version the All-Blacks perform, I personally felt a tremendous honor and reverence for the one we learned.

The haka preserves indigenous culture, energetically injects traditional language into a modern forum, gathers and channels group energy by seamlessly melding ritual gesture and movement with raw emotion. It all adds up to a sum greater than it’s parts that’s simultaneously respectful and rebellious. Taken as a whole, the haka is something like how the Incredible Hulk would dance if the Incredible Hulk danced.

All of which is just to say that before I even started the race, I’d already experienced that tremendous joy that comes with receiving an unexpectedly perfect gift. IMNZ was already a success before the race even started. Now, let’s get back to facts...

Total race time = 11:33

Not a PR, but a mature result. “Mature?” you may be wondering, “Really?” Granted, few people would describe anything I do as mature, so perhaps a better word is un-deluded. Why? Because plantar fasciitis made for a “No-Run November” (all long runs performed in a pool), I hadn’t done enough resistance training, and winter holidays not only make it impossible to train, they make it nearly impossible to fuel properly.

In his book, Elite Minds, Dr. Stanley Beecham suggests giving yourself a W when you trained your best and an L if you didn’t. My record for this training sequence (Nov-Feb) was 89-20-11. ( I gave myself T for Ties on days when training went right but something else went bad...usually diet.) In other words, a respectable-but-not-stellar W average (.741) earned a respectable-but-not-stellar result.

But still, the haka was awesome.

Pre-Race

Slept well. Ate well. No mechanical issues. Huddled briefly with most of the training buddies and Iron sherpas prior to warming up properly in the water.

Swim (1:06 total swim time)

Clear sighting, aggressive line, good tactics (drafted when possible), and even got some help from the current towards the end. That said, the two turn buoys at the far end were both a raucous scrum. First time I ever took a hard shot to the lip. My best swim ever.

T1 (7:49)

"T1 is a 400 meter run from the swim out...” My ass. If that’s 400 meters, I’m Leslie Jones from SNL. Plus, AFTER the “400 meters,” a winding grass staircase comparable to any third-floor-walk-up or Wisconsin helix--easily another +50 meters at an +8% grade.

Once I did get up Mount Metric Bullshit, I moved right along. Sprayed on some sunscreen, stuffed a plastic bag under the regular bike jersey with some light gloves (in case it was nippy for the first hour), shoes on in the tent. Go.

Bike (5:38, technically a bike PR)

Two loops. Windy? A tad. The outbound tailwind was so strong, I struggled to maintain target watts. Get that? I didn’t have to pedal as hard as I’d trained to because I was easily traveling +20 mph on flat sections. Ditched the plastic bag and gloves at the first aid station because it was sunny and mild and I was feeling really great. Of course, logic dictates that inbound would be a shitstorm. Which it was. Oy. Mixed with some crosswinds too just in case you, oh I dunno...tried to pee on the bike and took too long...or wanted to take in some nutrition. Nasty. I caught myself using a bastardized mantra from IMAZ, “Frontside fast side, backside strong side” which morphed into “Out bound, throw down; In bound, get down.” whenever I was tempted to chase or draft.

A word on drafting: it’s illegal in Ironman races. BUT! By slipping into the draft zone of somebody passing faster than you are passing then letting them go, you can save energy and still stay within the letter and spirit of the rule. That said, 12 meters = 6ish bike lengths so don’t be the fucko that lingers.

Repeated that song and dance inbound on both loops. It’s a terrible thing when you can’t stay in aero-position because you gotta pee but can’t pee because the wind stuffs any momentum you need to keep your leg straight long enough to break the seal. But it WILL keep you legal.

For you data geeks: Normalized Power was 197 but I AVERAGED 20 m.p.h.

Another notable: the bone-shaking chip-seal they use to pave most New Zealand roads. It just rattled my whole rig from pedals to fingertips to helmet. That shit literally rattled my Torpedo bottle right out from between my aero-bars about halfway through. I’d already taken in the nutrition so I left it (apologies to all the Tidy Kiwis and the whole leave-it-like-you-found-it philosophy) and just held fresh bottles in with my thumbs as needed.

T2 (4:13)

Efficient but could have been a tad quicker. At this point in the race, I was on plan, feeling good and ready to attack the run. Nutrition was on point. Legs were solid, stomach was a non-issue and weather conditions were near ideal. Sunny and delightful low 70s. I was actually looking forward to Run Special Needs where I’d planted a fresh shirt and an extra bottle of nutrition.

Run (4:36 aka: avg 10:39/mi)

I went sub-4 hours in Louisville under raining mid-40 degree conditions. If I could have just matched that, I’d have delivered a juicy PR of under 11 hours.

It seemed reasonable that flat IM-LOU shitstorm would vaguely equate to hilly IM-NZ sunny delight, yes?

No.

That three loop run over what my training bro Andrew T. would call offensive hills was having none of that nonsense. Turns out, I was woefully undertrained. My legs were just not up to the second and third loop of hills, despite biking to plan, executing nutrition properly, and taking the first loop at a very easy RPE.

In past reports I’ve shared some of the actual mental chatter that runs through my head but in this case none of my mantras were very interesting or helpful. What I have learned to do when I’m truly falling apart is to reinvest in technique. Focus on the extremely immediate present, which I used to counter punch one particularly angry and persistent neg that I just couldn’t shake. See if you can pick it out of the following scientifically gathered brainwave transcription:

...chatter-chatter-chatter...BREATHE...left-right-left-right-Toe-off-knees-up-hands-up-lean-easy-at-the-ankles-glutes-tucked-somebody-fucking-LIED-to-me-goddamBREATHE!-Toe-off-knees-up-hands-up-lean-easy-at-the-ankles-glutes-tucked-somebody-fucking-LIED-to-me-goddamnit-Toe-off-left-right-left...chatter-chatter-chatter...BREATHE

On a slightly more-vulnerable note, I will share this: typically, a few tears leak out at special needs. Hormones? Pain? Mental breakdown/relief that the marathon is half over? All of the above, probably. Just a few moments of a grown man losing it. (Do NOT watch Ricky Gervais’ After Life while jet lagged. But DO watch it. Amazing. Shut up. Don’t judge my process.)

Anyway, I was all business during the Special Needs of this run but lost it right after a particularly steep descend where some guardian bros had set up an “unofficial aid station” consisting of Red Bull, handles of vodka, and liters of Jaegermeister. A runner just ahead of me had grabbed something off their card table and their robust cheering were suddenly horrific screams warning him off of chugging it. I was just tickled and toasted at the same time and it all came gushing out. Just all kinds of quads burning gasping ugly face craughing (learned that word from a tweet praising After Life, btw). Of course my male ego would NEVER allow me to overly express vulnerability in front of the drunken bros, thoughtful though they were. So I kept running. A woman running along side me kindly asked if I was okay, I said, “Oh...yeah...this...just happens,” between gulping breaths, “The good...news...is...it’s much...later...than usual.” Which cracked her up, so... y’know, pay it forward.

After slogging my way through the third loop, and making my way through the finishing chute, where the normally incomparable Mike Reilly butchered my last name, I was told that I’d been on the leaderboard during the bike and immediately fell off during the run.

So even though I did not over-bike, I did under-train. Plus, I did not need to go directly to Medical in shock, which suggests that my race plan, nutrition strategy and execution was pretty spot on. IMAZ was a PR of 11:19 and IMNZ was 11:33.

OVERALL RACE GRADE: C. Just a C.

OVERALL EXPERIENCE GRADE: A+

As with prior races, IMNZ yielded some incremental improvements. As I said at the top, this was a mature result, with which I am unsatisfied. I haven't yet done my best race. I haven’t yet DONE MY BEST. There is clearly opportunity for improvements to all five aspects of my racing:

Swim was well executed. Still room for growth.

Bike was properly executed. Adequate. If anything, I could have pushed more.

Run. Ugh. Time to throw myself into Runner’s World and CARA and make like Forrest Gump and Prefontaine and Mo. Also, back to Hokas. Or maybe Altras. The Brooks I ran in were farts. The blisters on my toes had blisters. Not kidding.

Fuel strategy and execution was on point, although I was a few kilos heavier than previous races. Holidays and too few resistance training sessions.

Transitions were adequate.

Am I one of the guys at the pointy end of the bell curve? Clearly still yes. Maybe I’ve just evolved beyond a standard group training plan. Self-Coach? I’ve got the credentials and experience. Back to a previous coach? Maybe a new coach? I’d take some applications. Yes.

In the meantime, I’ll see you in Chattanooga for some 70.3 action in May, 2019. That’s only two build cycles. Ima go noodle around in TrainingPeaks.

WAIT. HERE’S THE BERNIE STORY...

Bernie McNally is one of those people I am just glad to have in my life. This race report would be wholly inadequate if I didn't share how this amazing woman is absolutely unstoppable.

First, she got everybody who trained for New Zealand (at Well-Fit) a fleece.

I forgot to mention she broke her ribs in a bike accident a few months ago.

Then, in what can only be described as the luck of the Irish, she charmed her way into the “New Zealand Experience” haka class. Just showed up and got in. Turns out one of the women selected didn’t show up. Classic.

Here’s the unstoppable part: at around Mile 110 of the New Zealand Full fucking Ironman race, she hit a cone and went over her bike handle bars. Road rash up her arm, split her knee open and cracked her head/helmet on a curb. A bystander said, “Do you need some help? I’m calling an ambulance.”

Her reply?

“Just help me get my chain back on.”

So he did. And she finished the bike. The medics in T2 told her she needed stitches. She said she didn’t have time, to just patch her up so she could get on with it. She finished the race with half an hour to spare. Words fail.

All I know is this: whenever I’m feeling like I can’t get it done--and it can be anything from driving in traffic to folding laundry to a holding pace on a long run--I know exactly what I’ll hear.

A thick, sassy, Irish brogue doing the haka.

WITH GRATITUDE FOR…

I’m very grateful to my lovely wife Susan and my wonderful kids, Peter and Veronica for their support. Susan, you are my salvation.

I’m grateful to have the expert professionals Coach Russ and Coach Sharone and the entire Well-Fit staff and athletes who generously share their wisdom.

I’m grateful to my inspiring and impressive training partners. Especially the seven hardcore savages that got it done in New Zealand--Adam, Christine, Dan, Kelly, Megan, Mike, Will and Bernie.

I’m very grateful to anybody willing to excuse my terrible smell, deplorable language and barbaric sounds during training.

Maximum gratitude to Well-Fit, Get-A-Grip, Fleet Feet and all the pools I use.

I’m grateful for Crushing Iron (C26), Matt Fitzgerald, Joe Friel, Training Peaks, Scott brand bikes, Apple, Ironman.

Thank you to all the on-course maniacs cheering and making signs and wearing all sorts of crazy outfits to show love and support. For strangers exercising.

I’m grateful that I’m able to race triathlons. I’m grateful to you for reading.

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travellianna · 5 years

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Antarctica aboard the Ocean Adventurer... and yes there were a lot of penguins!

We made this unforgettable adventure by booking with Expedition Trips who then organised everything with Quark Expeditions. They were all amazing from start to end of the journey, and we would highly recommend them! People of all ages were on the trip, with the eldest woman at 97 years so it’s never too late.

My number one tip is to pack layers and pack less than you think you wil need because the weight limit on the slightly old and wobbly looking jet plane is 15kg per person! The coldest it got was -3C and maybe a little lower with the wind chill. Waterproof clothing is a must, not because of rain but because of the spray while on the zodiacs. It’s a good idea to take along some books as there is quite a bit of waiting time. If you get seasick, then motion sickness pills are also a good idea. Remember you are very far from any medical care so bring essential medicines.

You should try your best to go into the trip with the mindset that you will have to adapt to the weather conditions and Mother Nature is unpredictable. There is not point in getting mad or impatient (though some people spent a lot of energy complaining), because the company and crew are doing their best to get you safely on your way to an unforgettable voyage. The anticipation is great for whether your plane can take off... but when you are on the way it is an exhilarating feeling!

An alternate to the fly and cruise is cruising from Ushuaia, Argentina but be warned that the waters between there and Antarctica are very rough and it takes a lot longer to reach Antarctica.

The beautiful scenery was striking with blue-white icebergs and glaciers in all directions, pristine snowy mountains, penguins, seals, whales and an absence of most vegetation. We saw only one other boat with two people on it, and a few people at each research station, otherwise it was just our cruise ship of 130 passengers plus crew. There is peace and quiet, and being on deck early in the morning felt like an isolated encounter with grand nature all around.

The trip diary:

Our offical arrival day was 15th December though we were there a day early and I’d come straight from Torres del Paine.

15th December - Another day to explore Punta Arenas, the departure city for our Antarctic adventure with Quark Expeditions. We had to get our bags weighed by Quark adventures and pick up our heavy arctic parkas and waterproof boots. The parkas were bright yellow and very warm, and ours to keep! Our main activity of the day was a tour of the Austral Brewery, which was interesting, especially trying 7 different beers at the end. The La Patagonia brewery was started by a German man Jose Fischer and when he died it was passed to his son. His son committed suicide so then the family gave up the business and it was renamed Austral. All of the beers were quite good and I especially liked the Imperial lager and the Calafate ale, which was fruity.

We caught a Taxi to the hotel and arrived just in time for the 18h briefing meeting. We were briefed on the procedures like entering and exiting the zodiac rafts, timing and weather, and the Antarctic treaty and regulations. There were 4 cm of snow on the runway at King George island and the weather for the morning didn’t look favourable so our flight would be delayed. We were to check back after dinner for the timing update. We checked the update after dinner and it said we would have breakfast as normal, lunch at 11h30 check out at noon, depart at 12h30 and attempt to fly at 15h. The excitement and anticipation could be felt in the room and it was hard to sleep.

16th December - Woke up at 8h and got ready but we had some time until the update meeting at 10h, and only about half of the people turned up since they had already announced we would not leave before 15h. The staff announced that we would not be able to fly at 15h. A group that had been waiting for two days due to bad weather already had priority and one flight was in the air with a second planned for mid-afternoon. Normally there would be two planes but two of the three planes owned by the charter company clipped wings in the hangar and were damaged. One had damage to the wing and another to the structure so they were trying to repair the wing damage. Bad luck! A waiting game untl the next update scheduled for 15h.

While we were stuck waiting, Quark arranged meals and if people would be stuck overnight then they arrange accommodation. It must be a nightmare to handle the ever-changing logistics! Many people were complaining but...no one can predict the weather and it’s unfortunate that the planes clipped each other but it was out of our control.

We rested in the lobby since we no longer had rooms, and at 15h we went up to see the update. Good news is we were cleared for takeoff and group one would meet in the lobby at 17h45 for 18h30 departure to the airport. Our flight would depart at 21h and land on King George island at 23h. The second group would depart at 3h and land at 5h tomorrow morning so they will get to have a beautiful view but after a tough long wait into the night.

Excited to get to Antarctica even if it’s 12 hours later than planned! We were in the lobby and boarded coaches at 18h30 to the airport. A separate truck carried our luggage and we checked that in at Punta Arenas airport. We were on an Antarctic Air charter flight and departed around 21h15 so 15 minutes later than planned. We got a cold dinner of sandwiches, yoghurt, fruit cocktail and an alfajore (addictive biscuits/cookies filled with dulce de leche/caramel). The flight went quickly and everyone queued up to use the loo since they announced that there would be no loos until we reached the ship. We then had to get into waterproof pants and boots. It was difficult especially for the older people to have to bend in the small spaces. We landed by 23h30 and then walked 1.4km to the zodiac launch station. When we got out of the plane it reminded me of Iceland with rocks and snow. Beautiful! We couldn’t take photos because the landing strip is on a Chilean air base. We took a zodiac to the ship Ocean adventurer. We did a water entrance so the boots were useful. It was very calm water and no wind so the zodiac ride was peaceful. The oldest passenger on the boat was 97 years old and this was her bucket list trip- good inspiration to keep on living! We got into the boat via steep stairs and then checked in to our cabin 227 with two narrow twin beds, a starboard window, big double closet and a bathroom. Not so bad for an adventure cruise!

17th December - The second group arrived around 6h and the expedition lead Alison (Ali) announced that breakfast would be from 6h30 until 8h30 and then a mandatory meeting at 10h. We went back to sleep until 7h20. It felt a bit like camp with loudspeaker announcements. But it was much better than camp because looking out of the porthole at any time of the day promised stunning icy scenery in the 23 hours of daylight. We had a briefing and safety meeting at 10h and the expedition team introduced themselves. The ship Dr said the three most common problems are flu, bruises and seasickness. We are far away from any medical care so health insurance can be very expensive especially for the elderly....

We went back to our cabin and prepared for the abandon ship drill, a requirement. That went pretty quickly, though a few people went to the wrong place. The view of Greenwich island, part of the south Shetland islands, was beautiful. We passed a giant glacier and some penguins jumping out of the water on the side of the boat. The jumping is called porpoising - imagine mini dolphins jumping out of the water. Penguins are much more graceful and speedy in the water than on land. Amazing!

We went out on a cruise in the zodiac to see a giant iceberg and there were some penguins sitting on it and jumping off, gentoo and chinstrap penguins. The scenery was stunning with rocks, glaciers and the sea. Then we landed on the rocky beach of Point Fort and walked around to see penguins. One friendly chinstrap penguin, who the guide said they’ve named Charlie, came over to check us out. Many penguins were sitting on their nests as it was just a little early for the main hatching time. Ali the expedition leader introduced some of the staff specialists who gave short lectures on topics like whales and glaciers. Then she explained the upcoming weather conditions and plans for the next day. The plans are always changing depending on the weather and the ice, which can make some passages unpassable. The plan was to go through the Lemaire channel and get to Petermann island then visit Jougla and Goudier islands. We had dinner right after the presentations. I had antipasti salad, red snapper and ginger crème brûlée plus a scoop of coffee ice cream. The food is really delicious on board and we had not at all expected the gourmet dining and excellent service, so it felt like a real luxury.

18 December- We woke up at 6h30 and dressed warmly to go outside and look at the views of the Lemaire channel. It was a stunning clear day and we could see beautiful snow covered mountains and lots of ice. There were penguins swimming and jumping out of the water. We saw a fat weddell seal sunning itself on an iceberg. The captain broke through some ice and we made it partially through the channel but then the ice was too dense so we turned around and went back. Instead we went to Hidden bay for some zodiac cruising.Our driver Jens went very fast so it was fun but very cold! We heard the cracking of moving icebergs but didn’t see any calves. We got back to the ship and had a rest in the cabin until 15h. Sophie from the British antarctic heritage trust at Fort Lockroy came on board to give a short talk. There are 4 women in the team that stay here for 4 months from Nov til March. They run the British post office and museum there, and maintain the site. They have no running water so usually take showers and get fresh food from the passing ships. Tough life! We took the zodiac to Goudier island and visited Fort Lockroy museum and post office. The museum is a restored British research hut from the 1950s and still has canned food from back then including beans and Branston pickle! Our postcards were sent from the post office and it cost $1 to send one anywhere in the world. I walked to see more penguins but the snow was very deep so it was difficult. The lady there told us to try to fill in any deep holes because penguins can fall in to these post holes, get stuck and die. They make a lot of funny sounds, and they steal pebbles from each other’s nests. Very amusing to watch their natural behaviour. People on the cruise were very helpful in general and assisted the more elderly passengers since the zodiacs landed on rock, ice, or sand without any docks. We took a zodiac to the next island Jougla. It was a tough landing with a big step and slippery ice and rocks, then deep snow. It was quite a feeling of awe to make the first footprints in the fresh snow. I walked to see some old whale bones and penguins and cormorants on the rocks. The penguins use their little highways to go between rocks and to the water.

When we got back to the ship, it was time for the pre dinner cocktail with the captain. We got to see him and the main crew. They do an incredible job to take us to these remote places and navigate the ice. For dinner, I had seafood cioppino, prime rib with Yorkshire pudding and baked potato, and a beautiful French opera cake. Two of the expedition team sat with us. Jason from Arizona is a crevasse and ice expert. His job would be to scout the path for tomorrow’s walk to a viewpoint at Neko harbour. Acacia is the photographer and made the photo journal for the trip. She’s from Alaska, works the Arctic season too and spends free time often in Scandinavia. She must like the cold weather!

19 December- We woke up at 6h50 to get ready for breakfast at 7h30. The ship had already anchored in the bay for the landings on the Antarctic continent at Neko Harbour in Andword bay. Until then we had made landings in Antarctica but on various islands. The continent was the big bucket list goal for many of the people on the ship.

There was a rotation of group orders, although many people cheated and jumped on the first boat. My British training makes me follow the queue system out of a sense of duty! This time, we were luckily in the first group of zodiacs to the Neko Harbour Landing. We had to exit the zodiacs quickly because the glaciers can calve (break off into icebergs) and cause sudden waves. The scenery around was beautiful with mountains, glaciers, snow and icebergs. The snow was falling slowly. We took a photo with the Antarctic continental flag since it was our first time on the continent and not an Antarctic island. I took the steep path up the hill to the viewpoint and it was tough but worth it. The glaciers have lots of crevasses and a bright blue colour due to the light reflection. They’re also very active and pieces crack off/calve quite often. I was hot and sweaty by the top of the hill and took off my jacked to just (literally) chill out and enjoy the view until it was time to go down. The snow was deep and slushy. We took a zodiac cruise with Tom, the marine biologist. His specialty is whales and he spotted a minke whale and we saw it briefly breach then it went under never to be seen again. We then went to see a close-up of a Weddell seal and a penguin sitting together on an iceberg. Leopard seals are a penguin predator but Weddell seals are friends. It was fun riding and crunching over small icebergs in the zodiac. We went back to the ship and warmed up with some tea. Then it was time for lunch and the polar plunge. I watched a few people jump in but I decided that was one once in a lifetime opportunity that I could miss out on.

We passed via the Arera channel. We cruised with Cam in a zodiac for an hour and saw a seal, lots of gentoo penguins and a sailboat with an Austrian couple who came out to say hello. We chatted with them and they’d been sailing continuously for 8 years mainly with each other for company. They had just reached the Antarctic via the Drake passage a week ago. Impressive!

We saw a lot of huge glaciers and they were very blue and beautiful, and shaped by the movement of the water. Then it was our turn to visit Cuverville island. We landed and hopped from the water up onto the snow. I went up a small hill and the view of the penguins and icebergs was stunning! I could also see the sailboat. Then I walked the other way to see more penguin colonies. They’re so noisy and smelly, but also very cute! They have well established penguin highways from the water to their nests and some of them climb up a big hill. They have their nests high on the hills because that’s where the snow clears first. Sometimes the penguins decided to use our walkways and even laid on their bellies for awhile, so we had to wait until they moved since they always have the right of way. The day went by so quickly! Tom gave a short talk on seals then Acacia gave a short talk on photography. A passenger named Casey, who has been on the show Bachelorette, gave a talk about his project which was to travel to all 7 continents using commercial airlines in a world record time. He has a website 7 in 72 and has set the Guiness book of world records. He also applied for a drone permit and took some amazing drone footage especially the bird’s eye views of the areas. Ali gave us an update on the weather and plan for tomorrow which included Deception Bay, an active volcano, and a Polish research station on an island which has Adelie penguins.

We went straight outside for an outdoor BBQ dinner. It was cold but the scenery was stunning around us and the sun came out just then. There was so much food and mulled wine. I had a burger, salad, seafood skewer, rice, beans, corn on the cob, curry vegetables, chocolate brownie and bread and butter pudding. Each day is so full of amazement that it is tiring in a good way.

20 December- We woke up at 5h and it was tough to get up but we got dressed and went outside in the rain to see the narrow entrance (bellows) of Deception Island. It is an active volcano and we sailed into it to land at Whalers’ bay. We got out on the zodiacs around 7h30 and walked around the old whaling station. There are a lot of old decrepit buildings including a World War 2 hangar. The wind picked up quickly and the rain was icy. I was on one of the last two zodiacs and they packed it with 15 people (normally we had 10) to hurry back to the boat. The wind was blowing at 70 knots! We missed the landing ramp the first time and had to go back a second time. I was soaked and had to hang everything up. The boat was rocking a lot as we sped along to Arctowski station on king george island to see the Adelie penguins. Then at 11h we went to listen to Paola’s talk about penguins and other animals too. Antarctic toothfish are also known as Chilean sea bass. They are part of the food chain and are eaten by seals and fished (overfished) for humans.

Sometimes the penguins present gifts of stones and food to their partners. They also steal stones from each other’s nests. If a penguin partner doesn’t return with food then the other parent will have to abandon the egg to eat. Survival strategies in the harshest of climates. Intriguing facts!

We went back to the room briefly then went to the lounge to hear the disembarkation process. The airline uses the IFIS website for the weather and SCRM is the Chilean Air base on King George island. We planned to leave in the morning on the plane that brings the next passengers but it depends on cloud cover and the weather.

We landed at the black sand beach and disembarked at Arctowski Polish research station. We could see an Adelie penguin colony on the rocks and with the zoom and binoculars we could see a few penguin chicks. So cute, grey and fluffy! We also saw a lot of penguins on the beach and in the water. There were chinstrap and gentoo penguins around so all three species we had seen during this trip. We saw some whale bones which look very artistic with some of the only green algae visible in the mostly barren rocky areas.

We went back to the ship and the seas were very rough and rocking the boat a lot. It was difficult for people to walk. It was our last dinner on board and we had delicious food and excellent service as we had at every meal. The head of the service crew introduced everyone as they marched in to Despacito. Wow can’t believe it’s already the end of the Antarctic holiday adventure!

21 December- The alarm went off at 5h30 and it was very early! We got dressed and finished packing our checked in luggage. We had to put it outside by 6h. I picked up the China Great Wall station mobile signal briefly and a text came through but no WiFi until Punta Arenas. It was nice to be disconnected for a week. We had to get our carryons and move out of the cabins so we sat up in the main lounge with everyone else. At around 10h the first flight got called to board the zodiacs and go to shore. Then around 10h30 we got called to board the zodiacs and head to shore. Last zodiac ride was fun with Jens driving. We had to wait outside in the cold and wind for nearly 2 hours until we could board the plane and get in the air. As soon as the seatbelt sign went off everyone got up to use the toilets. Neither of the two toilets was flushing so that was kind of gross. The plane in general was a bit dirty cuz they do such quick turn around. We were just hoping that they actually checked maintenance enough.... The flight was only two hours so pretty quick. We got to Dreams Hotel in Punta Arenas and checked in then relaxed in the room until dinnertime with a nice seafood soup at Los Ganaderos.

22 December- We had a day in Punta Arenas as a buffer in case the flight back from Antarctica was delayed. We did some souvenir shopping and then I walked to see the cemetery and pick up some empanadas from Roca Mar for a midnight snack. We ate lunch at Le mercadito in the municipal market again.

23 December - We checked out around midnight and the Taxi came at 00h30 to drop us at Punta Arenas airport. When we went to drop luggage the lady asked if we wanted to take an earlier flight to Santiago at 1h26 so we said sure. We waited for awhile there then had another flight Lima and then finally on the way back to Los Angeles.

#antarctica #penguin #trip diary #glacier #iceberg #snow #nature

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junker-town · 2 years

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3 reasons why Colgate could make a Cinderella run in the 2022 NCAA tournament

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

The Raiders have been here before. Now they’re looking to take the next step.

Team: Colgate Raiders

Record: 23-11 Conference: Patriot League Seed: 14 First Round Opponent: Wisconsin (Friday, 9:50 p.m. ET) DraftKings Sportsbook odds: Colgate +7.5, Colgate +6000 to reach Elite Eight

What You Need to Know

For the third time in as many years (excluding 2020), the Colgate Raiders are headed to the NCAA tournament after rolling through the Patriot League and gobbling up the conference’s automatic bid.

Here are three things you need to know about the Raiders before deciding whether or not to pull the trigger on a 14/3 upset of Wisconsin.

1. They can light up the scoreboard

History tells us that offensive-minded teams one-bid leagues are far more likely to pull first round upsets than teams that have gotten to the Big Dance primarily with their defense. That’s good news for a Colgate team that ranks second in the nation in three-point shooting (40.1 percent), eighth in assists per game (17.2), and 11th in effective field goal percentage (59.9 percent). In their three Patriot League tournament games, the Raiders scored 91, 81 and 74 points.

2. They’re hot

Every team from a one-bid league is going to be riding a winning streak of some sort into March Madness (well, except Jacksonville State I guess ... grow up, NCAA ... let Bellarmine play), but the Raiders have been particularly hot. Colgate has won its last 15 contests, hasn’t been beaten since a 4-point loss at Boston U. on Jan. 28, which is also its only setback since all the way back on Jan. 4.

Eleven of Colgate’s 15 wins on this streak have come by double figures. The Raiders were especially dominant in the Patriot League tournament, winning their three games by 28, 20 and 16 points, respectively.

3. They’ve already shown they can slay a giant

Colgate played an extremely challenging non-conference schedule, nearly pulling upsets of both NC State (77-74) and Pittsburgh (71-68). The ACC team who wasn’t quite as fortunate against the Raiders was Syracuse, who got blown away by Matt Langel’s squad, 100-85 back on Nov. 20.

While Syracuse isn’t nearly the team Wisconsin is, Colgate will likely try to utilize the same game plan against the Badgers they they rode to victory against the Orange: Take a bunch of threes, make a bunch of threes. The Raiders launched a total of 43 shots from beyond the arc against Syracuse, and connected on 18 of those. Jack Ferguson and Nelly Cummings both went 6-of-13 from deep to lead the outside onslaught.

Why They Can Advance

Any team that shoots the ball as well as Colgate does is going to have a chance in virtually any game it plays. What separates the Raiders from other mid/low major teams in this tournament that have the ability to score is that Colgate also happens to have a pair of bigs (6’11 Jeff Woodward and 6’10 Keegan Records) who should be able to keep Wisconsin from dominating on the glass.

But the biggest reason Colgate has a shot at advancing is who they’re playing. After a string of narrow victories, Wisconsin enters the NCAA tournament coming off back-to-back losses to Nebraska at home in its regular season finale and Michigan State in its first game of the Big Ten tournament.

Perhaps more troubling than that is the fact that, as the chart below shows, the Badgers have a propensity for taking (and not making) a whole lot of bad shots.

: We ranked every NCAA tournament team using ShotQuality's shot selection and shot making metrics. Five teams rank in the top 10% of the NCAA in both categories: Gonzaga (1) Purdue (3) Loyola-Chicago (10) Vermont (13) Colgate (14) pic.twitter.com/CfkdSv1vHX

— ShotQuality (@Shot_Quality) March 14, 2022

A team that can get from deep against anyone against a team that is prone to lengthy droughts and lapses of poor judgment on offense is the perfect recipe for a closer-than-expected 3/14 game.

What Past Cinderella They Remind Us Of

The 2018-19 Colgate Raiders.

So technically Colgate wasn’t a Cinderella three years ago, but their statistical profile from that season is eerily similar to their current one. That Raiders team shot the three at a nearly 40 percent clip, had nearly an identical record as this year’s group, and entered the NCAA tournament with a lengthy winning streak that had been capped by a dominant run in the Patriot League tournament.

Colgate was a 15-seed that year, but they pushed second-seeded Tennessee to the absolute brink before ultimately falling in the final minute, 77-70. Do not be surprised at all if this year’s Raiders put a similar scare into another power conference opponent that has aspirations of playing deep into March.

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gonebethebirds · 2 years

Text

10 Year Look-Back

1 / 4 / 22

2021 (Age: 29)

COVID vaccines finally became available.

Carina & I went ocean kayaking in Laguna for her birthday.

In April, for Jesse's birthday, we hiked in Glendora and hung out in his backyard, swimming and having fun with him, Katie, and Anu and Anisha too.

Carina and I got married!! on 5/1/21 (on our 5 year anniversary).

In late May we celebrated our elopement with family on multiple occasions, since everyone had been vaccinated.

In early July, Jimmy & Amber came to visit (Jimmy's 2nd time visiting me in Laguna, 4th time visiting me in SoCal overall). We went and saw Black Widow with them.

Uncle Kim passed away in early July. Dad, Jenn and I flew out for his funeral. It was our first time seeing Massillon family in 18 months.

In mid July we went to Santa Barbara for the weekend, and hung out with Jesse, Katie, Anu, Anisha, Justin and Emily.

In late July/early August, Jesse and I went to Zion again (now round 10) and jet-ski'd at Sand Hollow State Park. We also spent a night in Vegas.

Carina was diagnosed with MS in early August.

On August 21st we spent a day in Malibu with Gal and Parthiv.

In late August we went to Big Bear with Jesse, Katie, Anu, Anisha, Justin and Emily. We brought the dogs, got out on the water in a boat rental, and stayed in a super nice cabin.

In early October I went to visit Giana in Seattle. It was a super fun trip. We also spent a day in Vancouver with Lauren which was awesome. It had been 2 years, 3 months since I had seen Giana. It had been 1 year, 9 months since I had seen Lauren. Stupid COVID.

Jenn announced her third pregnancy.

Around Nov 7th Carina & I went to Borrego with her family to stay at Jon-Jon's new house. That was a fun weekend.

Jessica Chan moved to Laguna only a few houses away from us.

We went to Ohio for Christmas after skipping 2020 due to COVID. Dad couldn't come due to being sick which we later found out were blood clots.

COVID-19 got even worse (record high numbers by Christmas/ New Year's Eve).

We spent NYE at Jesse & Katie's house in Glendora with the dogs.

7 Trips:

July (3): Ohio for Kim’s funeral. Santa Barbara weekend. Zion.

August (1): Big Bear round 5, delayed from 2020.

October (1): Seattle & Vancouver with Giana and Lauren.

November (1): Borrego Springs weekend.

December (1): Massillon for Christmas!

2020 (Age: 28)

I spent my 28th birthday in the bay with Carina & friends (Brian, Jimmy, Jessie Campos, Gal, others). We spent a day in HMB with Lauren too.

I worked my final Grammys party at MSK.

COVID-19 exploded into the US and changed life as we knew it.

On the same day that COVID was declared a national emergency, Carina left for her bachelorette weekend in the bay and Jesse and I went to Sequoia where we hiked in the snow. It was super gorgeous.

Westin was born on 4/3/20.

Jesse & Katie moved to Glendora.

There were really, really bad fires.

I worked my last day at MSK on 10/30/20.

Dad moved to Southern California in October/November.

I started at Villa on 11/9/20.

4 Trips:

January (1): Home for my birthday. It was a really fun trip. Got to see LOTS of friends (Brian, Jimmy, Lauren, Nicole Leclaire, Jessie, Chris Tham) and go to HMB, the city, boat rides, Rickshaw, etc. It was really a “home-run” kind of weekend. Fitting too because I didn’t know it would be my 3rd-to-last weekend ever with having a home in the bay.

March (1): Sequoia National Park with Jesse while Carina was on her Bachelorette trip to Napa. Ironically, this is the weekend that things started to get really crazy with COVID. Sequoia was gorgeous though, covered in snow once we got in far enough. For sure one of our most gorgeous NP trips/hikes.

June (1): the bay for Father’s Day.

October (1): the bay to pack up the house and move Dad down to SoCal.

2019 (Age: 27)

Carina & I got engaged on January 1st in Chicago.

I spent my 27th birthday with my family in Laguna (while also celebrating our engagement).

I went to Atlanta for LMA in April.

Sabrina left MSK in April.

We had Jesse's bachelor party in Zion & Vegas in April.

Endgame came out (which we saw while on Jesse's bachelor party trip).

Jesse & Katie's wedding was in Mexico at the end of May.

Brian & Monique came to visit for the 4th of July. We had people over, and there was an earthquake around that time as well.

Carina & I went to Singapore & Bali at the end of July.

Lauren and I ran the Golden Gate on 9/14/19.

My dad visited SoCal in October.

Jesse, Anu and I went to Pinnacles National Park in mid-November.

Lauren and I met up for brunch in Oceanside in mid-November.

We had Carina's family over for Thanksgiving. We hosted. It was super cold and rainy. I loved it.

Carina came to Massillon for Christmas for the first time.

News started breaking of COVID-19 in China, though it wasn't of concern in the US yet.

We celebrated NYE in Long Beach on the Queen Mary with Jesse and Katie. We got a hotel room for the night. It was super fun.

12 Trips:

January (1): Chicago with Carina for New Year’s! GOT ENGAGED!!

February (1): New York for work right after Grammys, stayed a couple extra days as Carina was supposed to join but couldn’t due to flight troubles.

April (3): Atlanta for LMA, annual Big Bear trip for Jesse’s birthday, then Jesse’s bachelor party trip at the end of the month which was in Zion then Vegas.

May (2): Home at the beginning of the month to visit Dad, then Ensenada last weekend for Jesse and Katie’s wedding!

June (1): Home at the end of the month with Carina, saw lots of friends.

July (1): Singapore and Bali at the end of the month with Carina! First trip to Asia! Amazing!

August (1): Yellowstone at the end of the month with Dad and Carina! The first time for both of them!

September (1): went to the bay for the weekend for Carina’s launch party. Actually had a super nice time in the city and a full day of walking around and exploring. It was a gorgeous day and one for the books.

December (1): Massillon for Christmas. We canceled Park City as the ski prices and hotel prices got ridiculous.

2018 (Age: 26)

Mom moved to SoCal on New Year's Day.

I spent my 26th birthday with friends in Laguna.

I bought my Hyundai Sonata.

Kinsley was born on 1/25/18.

I went to New York to work the Grammys, with Lexie as the photographer.

In late February I went to Zion (now round 6) in the snow with Jesse, Anu, and Akshay.

Carina & I went to New Orleans for my conference.

I moved in with Carina in Laguna Beach at the end of April.

Infinity War came out.

Carina & I went to the Caymans with her family at the end of May.

Mom & I went on a trip to New Mexico in September.

I took Carina to homecoming in October. We stayed with Kim & Patty for a night or two. While there, we talked, and basically realized we wanted to get married. I started looking around for rings once we got back.

Stan Lee passed away in November.

I bought Carina's engagement ring.

Carina & I went to Iceland in November with Fiona.

I was going to have my wisdom teeth pulled but then didn't once the surgeon recommended we don't do it.

Carina & I went to Chicago for NYE. I proposed a few hours after midnight!

20 Trips:

January (2): Home for New Year’s with Carina, and New York for Grammys (followed immediately by DC)! New York was basically just hours after Kinsley was born!

February (2): DC for work with Doug, and Zion with Jesse, Anu and Akshay!

March (1): Home/SF with Jesse, Katie and Carina for St. Patrick’s Day!

April (2): New Orleans for LMA with Carina! And annual Big Bear trip for Jesse’s birthday.

May (2): Colorado for a video shoot with Sashi and the Caymans with Carina and her family!

June (2): DC for work with Doug (Capitol Crypto) and Home! (Giants game, big barbecue, pride at the park).

August (3): Zion round 7 with Jesse (Observation Point), home to help dad after surgery, home again for Nicole’s wedding.

September (1): Albuquerque with Mom just for fun!

October (1): Ohio!! OSU and Massillon with Carina (for Homecoming but also a couple days in Massillon to introduce her).

November (2): Zion round 8, with Jesse and Carina (first Angel’s Landing ascent of 2018 and first for Carina in general). And ICELAND!!! Plus home for a day after Iceland as an extended layover.

December (2): Home for Christmas then Massillon for Christmas! (We had light attendance this past year though).

2017 (Age: 25)

I started off 2017 with a hike with Lauren McBurnie on New Year's Day.

I spent my 25th birthday with Carina in Washington, DC.

Caiba was born on 7/11.

Caiba came home to us (just Carina at the time) on 9/15.

Jesse, Katie, Carina & I went to Zion, Bryce and Arches in March.

I went to Vegas for LMA in April.

Giana & Lauren came to visit in late March.

Carina & I went to Amsterdam & Bruges in July.

Jenn announced her pregnancy.

Carina & I went to Cabo with friends.

I went to the bay with Dan & Chrystal in October.

Lauren came to visit again, for Halloween. She, Carina, Jesse, Katie and I dressed up as the Scooby Doo gang.

Caiba got bit in Borrego during Thanksgiving. Her face was slightly deformed for a month or two.

Leaving Ohio, flights got messed up, which ended up being a blessing as it made me drive from Akron to Cleveland in the snow. It was a really pretty drive.

22 Trips:

January (2): Home for New Year’s, and Washington, DC for my birthday with Carina!

February (1): Arizona road trip (through Page) with Carina.

March (2): Zion, Arches, and Bryce with Jesse, Katie, and Carina! And Vegas for LMA.

April (3): DC & New York for work, Big Bear round 2 for Jesse’s birthday, and the bay with Carina.

May (3): Vegas for Mother’s Day with Jenn, Brian, and Carina, NY & DC for work (again just a month later), and Denver/ The Rockies with Jesse, Katie, and Carina!

June (2): Pismo Beach with Carina and her friends, then Kings Canyon & Sequoia with Jesse (and we saw a bear).

July (2): Amsterdam & Bruges with Carina (what?!) and Santa Barbara with Jesse and Anu.

August (3): The bay for OSU buds, Jenn & Brian’s announcement, and Giana’s going away party. Then Cabo with Carina, Parthiv and his friends, then the bay again for Mom & Dad’s birthdays.

October (2): Zion round 5 with Jesse, and upcoming: the bay with Dan & Chrystal.

November (1): Home for Thanksgiving.

December (1): Massillon for Christmas! (No trip home for Christmas? We might have lumped that into the Thanksgiving visit).

2016 (Age: 24)

I went to Big Bear for the first time in April with Jesse, Katie and David.

Lexie and I did a road trip to the bay in late April. Jesse and Katie met us there.

Carina & I started dating on May 1.

Jenn got married at the end of May.

Carina and I went to Borrego Springs in early June.

We went to Seattle at the end of June and even spent some time with Anu there.

I went to Scottsdale with Dad right before the 4th of July.

I went to Yellowstone and the Tetons with Jesse right after Scottsdale.

There were bad fires in the summer.

Carina and I spent time in Laguna at the beaches with Clifton, or in Signal Hill at the park or at home watching movies - also with Clifton.

Carina & I went to Banff in September.

I went to OSU for homecoming at the end of September.

Jenn & Brian moved to Riverside around November.

I spent NYE in the bay again.

19 Trips:

January (3): Home for New Year’s, Portland with Tina, and Grand Canyon/ Utah with Jesse.

March (2): Joshua Tree with Jesse, and home.

April (3): Austin for LMA, Big Bear for Jesse’s birthday, and home with Jesse, Katie, and Lexie!

May (1): New York City for work right after Jenn’s wedding!

June (2): Borrego Springs with Carina and Seattle with Carina!

July (2): Scottsdale for the 4th and Yellowstone with Jesse!

August (1): Home with Carina.

September (2): Banff (!!!) with Carina and Homecoming at OSU.

October (1): Home to hang with Dad & Mom post-surgery and injury.

November (1): Zion round 3 with Jesse.

December (1): Massillon! [We did our Christmas in Riverside].

2015 (Age: 23)

I spent my 23rd birthday in Chicago with Giana, Lauren and Janelly.

Jesse and I went to Colorado in February.

Giana & Lauren visited in late March/ early April.

Dad visited in April and we stayed in Laguna Beach.

Jesse and I went to Sedona at the end of April - this marked the beginning of what would become monthly trips and lots of nature-oriented weekends or trips to National Parks.

Jesse, Dan and I went to Seattle at the end of May.

Jesse & I went to Zion in June.

I left M&R and started my job at MSK. My first day at MSK was 7/20/15.

Dan & I moved to Signal Hill in September. Dan still lives there as of this writing (1/4/22). I moved out in April 2018 but more or less kept my room there as I would stay 2 nights a week instead of commuting to Laguna. I paid a partial rent. I stopped doing that and fully cleared my room in October 2019, so I did the partial thing for a year and a half.

I went to OSU for homecoming again in October and visited Massillon as well.

I went to NY for work in October.

I went to Boston in November.

I went to Cabo in November with Dad.

I spent NYE at Giana's in San Bruno with friends.

18 Trips:

January (2): Home for New Year’s, and Chicago with Giana, Janelly, & Lauren.

February (1): Colorado with Jesse.

March (1): Bay Area with Lina.

April (1): Arizona (Sedona & GC NP) with Jesse.

May (1): Seattle with Jesse and Dan.

June (1): Zion [Round 1] with Jesse.

July (2): Rancho Mirage, then Home for a week after M&R/ before MSK.

August (2): Zion Round 2 with Jesse, then the bay for Elyse’s wedding.

September (1): Tennessee with Jesse.

October (2): Homecoming at OSU, then New York City for MSK.

November (2): Boston! And Cabo!

December (2): Home for Christmas and Massillon for Christmas.

2014 (Age: 22)

I spent New Year's in the bay.

I started at M&R on 1/7.

I moved out of Jenn's at the end of January and into Kelvin Court in Irvine.

Dad, Jenn & I went to Catalina in April.

Kassie turned 10 in May.

Kassie died in early June.

I met Dan Hough.

Vita and I broke up two weeks later in June.

Jesse and I went to Rosarito in July.

Jesse and I saw Eminem & Rihanna with Jimmy in August.

I met Anu.

Jesse, And & I went to the bay in August.

I visited OSU for the first time since graduation (in late August).

Dan & I moved from Kelvin Court to San Remo in September.

I went back to OSU in October for homecoming.

Jesse and I went to the bay for Thanksgiving.

Kaitlyn and I went to the M&R holiday party in LA in December.

I got back into running again - a little bit.

I ran my first & only sub-5-minute mile (4:53) on 12/30.

At least 14 trips:

January (1): New Year’s in the bay.

April (2): Bay Area and Catalina.

May (1): Bay Area.

June (1): Bay Area for Kassie.

July (2): Bay Area for the 4th of July. Rosarito with Jesse.

August (2): Bay Area with Jesse and Anu. OSU visit.

October (1): OSU for homecoming.

November (2): Quick Mexico trip. Bay Area with Jesse for Thanksgiving.

December (2): Bay Area Christmas weekend. Massillon for Christmas.

2013 (Age: 21)

We got a lot of snow in Columbus.

I was initiated into my fraternity.

I turned 21 in Columbus.

I came home shortly after with friends from OSU.

Dan Liu became my big in February.

I worked on State Tour started starting in June.

I graduated from Ohio State in early August and flew back to the bay where I stayed with my dad for a few weeks while I worked on editing state tour footage.

I moved to Southern California on 8/29/13.

Vita & I were extras in the filming of Batman vs Superman in October.

Jimmy came to visit in late October/ early November.

I got the job at M&R in December.

At least 6 trips:

January (1): Home for my birthday with OSU friends.

March (1): Home for spring break.

May (1): Home for a week, late May - early June, before summer classes, state tour, and graduation.

November (1): Home for Thanksgiving.

December (2): Home for Christmas. Massillon.

2012 (Age: 20)

I spent my 20th birthday weekend visiting the bay (from Ohio State).

Ginger turned 10 in March.

Brutal storms hit Columbus at the end of March - a tornado was only a few miles away.

I visited NYC in May with my dorm.

Ginger died in June.

In August I went back to Ohio (from the bay) with Vita and spent a few days at Patty & Kim's. I had to go back early to start work at my new job there and to get the move-in situated with the apartment on Chit.

I started living off campus with Dan, Parthiv and Ben.

I took Vita to Massillon for Christmas.

At least 12 trips:

January (1): The bay for my birthday.

March (1): Bay Area for spring break.

April (1): Chicago with the dorm.

May (2): Visiting Jenn in SoCal, might have been her USC graduation. NYC with the dorm.

June (2): The bay for the summer. Disneyland visit (from NorCal).

August (1): Back to Ohio.

November (1): Home for Thanksgiving.

December (2): Home for Christmas. Massillon.

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