7/16/00-yesterday was opsail2000ct. not bad...i left here, picked up emily around 230, we got there, and parked and the shuttle service went really smoothly both to and from the piers so we were actually at the pier by 4ish. a lot of the boats were closed by the time we got there because they were all having private receptions before the fireworks so we couldn't go on them. so we did a lot of walking around, just looking at the boats and unfortunately, my camera ended up not having batteries so suckily i couldnt take any pics...but the boats were really neat...woulda been neater to see them with their sails down, but oh well...a lot of walking. i almost bought one of those funky kgb russian hats off the ukrainian ship until the guy said it was $45 and then almost bought a military flask, but that was $20 and even though i had the money on me, i wasn't looking to spend $45 for the junk some guy cleaned out of his closet after the cold war. it was a neat hat though and would have been great to add to the collection...

we saw andrea and karen twice over the course of the day...rather surprising since there were some crowds and it covers about 2 miles of waterfront, but still cool cause its always fun to catch them at just about every place we go :) lots of food places there and so i ended up introducing emily to the wonderful world of falafel :) a couple of live bands that played...we could hear one band down the sound playing disco classics, there was a band playing 50s classics, playing blues country ("meep, meep") and a bunch of freaky people wearing lobster claws and heads and crab heads and flowers...and there was the pirate on stilts...

the fireworks were cool even though it was downpouring by that time. they looked really good and even though they covered the tops of the fireworks, they also magnified the light intensity and listening to them shattering over the water was really cool and rather deafening at times. and we were a bunch of drowned rats, but i know i had fun...

didn't go to xmen because i got called after i left and i wasnt back in time anyways, so emily slept in the car on the way home, dropped her off and then got home and started talking to this kid named sanjeev, who's going to mcgill next year. he's living in douglas, but he's moving in either that saturday or sunday, so we're prolly gonna try and meet up before everyone else comes...seems like an interesting kid...from shrewsbury, ma...now its 6 weeks from today that i move in...this difference of a day is a pain...i wish moving day and the trip up were on the same day, besides...it means my stuff's gotta be in the car overnight til i can move in. and then i can find out the last 4 digits of my phone number and my room number and finally complete the puzzle...*sigh* but atleast i've been meeting people online before i leave so that a plus that our parents really never had...

i have zero clue what to do today...i gotta find something or it's gonna be really boring

42/41

7/15/00-well, literally, not much has happened since the last time...my poison ivy is incredibly itchy and has gone to places i can't scratch in public, which really sucks, the benadryl, caladryl, and oatmeal baths have amounted to about jackshit. so my dad's gonna bring home those corticosteroids i usually take for my cough because they function the same for this kinda stuff...i guess they're all purpose, but for this, they wanted to use it only as a last resort and that's what its become, i'm itching all over and its been about a week. other than that, not much has happened in work. yesterday we picked up trash at buckingham and there was quite a bit of it so it took most of the day and then we did almost nothing...we get a work list at the beginning of the week from our boss boss, but we finished this week on thursday so the trash pickup was a time waster...the older guys we work with were yelling at us (well not yelling), for working too fast, because they tend to work slowly and drag everything out...we do that, goof off, do fishtails (i've done 3), and take breaks and still get the work done ahead of schedule...i dunno...that's basically been about it.

the past coupla nights, i've been talking online with a girl from jersey that's going to mcgill next fall and unlike the other ones, i've actually had a few convos with her. she seems nice, likes writing poetry, music, acting (and some tech), not the drinking party animal type...but she lives in the more residences but that's not really a big deal. so it'll be cool to now have someone that i'll have known thats not local and i'll be able to meet her up there and she seems interested in meeting me, so that'll be cool...it's actually 6 weeks from this moment that i'll be sitting in the rented chevy venture hauling my stuff up to montreal for who knows how long...there was talk between my parents and me about airplane tix for christmas break, but we don't know my class schedule and exam schedule so my christmas break plans are extremely sketchy. we're still buying alot of the stuff i'm gonna need for my dorm since linens and things is having all these sales, so i've got sheets, bedspread, comforter, etc...

today is opsail and it's supposed to rain...i believe i'm going with emily so that'll be fun, i just hope the rain isn't too much, i'd like to see the fireworks. and if we make it back in time, i'm gonna try and catch the latenight showing of xmen. should be a good movie. i wasn't into the comic too much--atleast i didn't have any, but i remember in like 3rd grade when we used to have those comicbook heroes baseball cards that had all these stats and trade them and use the stats to have rpg battles...i didn't own any cards, so i always hung out with people that did...wolverine was my favorite because of the claws that were made of admantine that shot out when he needed...the movie should be pretty good, but its prolly more for people who are into that kind of comic book stuff. and tomorrow? i have no idea what that's all about...

middle east peace conference is going rather well with both sides trying to work out stuff...i don't think the peace will be at first, but with the negotiations, its a political start...i'd like to say that i'm optimistic about it...

good comedian...lewis black...he's a cynic and satirist and i've seen him on comedy central twice...funny funny man

43/42

7/11/00-this page is prolly gonna be a little scrambled since i'm writing during realworld so i'm not fully focused...sunday night- pool at my house since my parents were gone all day and didnt get home from pepes til about 7 so the concatellis came, we hung out a bit, i won a game, andrew won a game, and then sarah won a game. then yesterday was weedwacking at buckingham reservoir, which is in glastonbury but owned by the manchester water dept...anywho. then i went over to scotts to tutor, then shoot pool and he won a best of 5 tourney, 3-2. today was pretty much the same, more weedwacking, went to borders to pick up le monde, and then came home and am watching realworld. scott asked around 1012 to go to see scary movie but i have to get up at 6, i don't think thats happening. of course he called last friday to get people to go to the new x-men movie this saturday late night so...

i finished my book, the fuck-up. i wrote my first literary review and it's up on the media page where all the movie and album reviews are (obviously, since books are media...) and that was basically about it. sometimes i wish i had interesting news to report but it never comes...who knows...

47/46

7/9/00-yesterday, after not leaving the house all day, i went over to julies around 730 cause she was having people over...basically we just shot pool and i did sorta ok, but when andrew left, i did better....i dunno...so that was pretty cool and then we left around 1030, dropped off garett at home and dave, julie, emily, and i went to dennys for dinner. amazingly, i ended up driving behind my dad on sullivan ave between the light at ellington and by the dorchester. the timing couldn't have been any weirder cause i didnt know they were going out and they didnt know i we were leaving julie's early...dennys was really cool and a good break from some of the others i always talk to. we ended up talking about capital punishment, shooting straws, then dave has 5 sugar packets and one spills all over our booth seat and he says "thats ok, i kept it in [the packet]" so i say "kept it in, my ass...no wait, that didn't come out right, wait, neither did that." it was hilarious. and that was about it. i beat julie twice at 8 ball (close games although she scratched the 8 ball twice to give me the wins) and she beat me twice and more chalk wars between me and emily.

i found out i'm actually moving in my dorm a day before standard moving day which is that monday. you can do that for $14 more a day so in order to avoid the crowding that monday, they decided to do it so that saturday we go up, we sleep in hotel together. that sunday i move in, we go shopping for stuff that i can get up there or whatever, go to ballgame or whatever, and then sunday night i sleep in my dorm and they sleep in the hotel. freaky freaky. since my 18th birthday is 5 days before i leave, i got 5 days to get my international drivers license, register for the draft, and register to vote...but now i'm anxious as could be to go and test the waters up there. i scout out the member directory of aol looking for people to just say hi to that are gonna be freshmen up there next year. i've talked to 2 girls that are living in royal victorian college (the girls dorm), and one thats living at solin hall (the off campus dorm). and as the day is approaching, the list of incidentals that i'll need is gradually lengthening on the refrigerator.

i added (in response to andrew's site) my list of top 214 favorite songs of all time

http://members.nbci.com/Smalrus/top214.html

49/48

7/8/00-i'm not sure what i did thursday...oh right, a nice hard day at work and then i went straight to nicoles for an hour before just coming home and chillin the rest of the night. i got fully caught up on realworld and all that other stuff and went to bed my usual 1230

friday was a marvelous day...i went to work and did some weeding around the buildings at the dump and the sewer dept buildings and then basically sat in the truck. i read 130 pages in my book, the fuckup. its not a bad book. it definitely is a tragi-comedy because basically the main character is a fuckup who lives life on mishap after mishap. the book's not the most interesting in terms of plot, but its got a lot of dark comedy and the author's craft is really good because all of the narrators mishaps are inextricably linked together....i'll prolly review it on the media page when i finish it...the best quote so far- "fate's a sadist"

after work, i stopped to get a wahwah pedal for my guitar...my first major guitar accessory. its pretty cool and its nice to be able to do something different with my guitar...i gotta learn how to use it though. i mean not physically use it, but be able to incorporate the sounds into the music. i actually learned that toe down on the pedal is more treble and heel down is more bass, but you don't wanna over do it. so i got that to monkey around with for a while. then i went over to lisa's birthday/grad party (although i think it was more a birthday party). was pretty fun...me, chase, and garrett played emily edenburn-mcqueen, jeff burt, and jon bergman in the jews vs. gentiles battle of trivial pursuit. pretty funny. and then there was the pool game. i talked to pete a while, sort of catching him up on stuff since hes coming up here next year.

today i have no clue whats going on. mom went to pick elise up from camp and after that, i dunno whats doing. andrew put some music lyrics up on his page, to which i ended up writing him a response on his lyrics, what i thought of them, but i ended up branching out and explaining what music means to me, why i want to have a career in the industry, etc...here's an excerpt from the email i sent him...

but yeah, i totally identify with some of the songs, one of the reasons i enjoy music so much and want to get into the industry. because regardless of your own situations as a songwriter or lyricist, there's always someone who knows exactly what you're feeling.......example, the whole beginning of "new ways" i liked that. yeah, we're not talking about the same thing..... but you can still share feelings.

to me, music is the purest form of art. yes, its also commercial, as any art eventually becomes, but even that can't be confined. take prince for example...what he does, he thinks is art. now i don't like his music, i wouldn't buy any of his albums, and yet he still sells records because something in the music, people like, people identify with and he still tries to break the constructs of the music he creates. thats one of the reasons i love rane so much. yeah, its nice they're a local band that i'd like to see big, but i'd like to see big because i know they pour their hearts into their lyrics and their music. so if they got a multimillion dollar record deal, i know that the music and the art of creating it is the driving force...which is evident in the music on the albums and hearing it performed live...but that's one of the reasons i want to get into entertainment law, but more specifically the music business. i don't think you need to like everything you hear, but knowing the drive, knowing what you need to put into it, the universality...makes it so great to me. because in the end, even the people that listen to the backstreet boys, nsync or sisqo, can find something in the music or something in the lyrics, that strikes them...it doesnt have to be you, but someone else...

eh...so what if i'm not the best guitarist, i'm no hendrix, i'm no clapton, i'm no joe greenier...so what if i'm not the best singer...as long as there's something to drive me to make my own music...as long as the feelings surge through me, inspiring me to write lyrics to monkeyed around chord progressions, i'll keep doing it. i'd keep bed drumming and make bedroom bootlegs as long as it comes...

and so...yeah, i think they're really good lyrics, i'd write stuff like that...of course if i was to put up my lyrics on my site, it'd only be copying you and so i think i'll just leave them on the scraps and on the backs of old guitar tabs in my guitar case...maybe one day the world will get to read them...

now as for the other thing i was talking about...the ultra-orthodox. essentially in saying that we're not jewish, they're saying that our marriages are void and therefore we're not legitimate children. basically a lot of people are bastards in the dictionary sense. they say we cant claim israeli citizenship because we're not jewish. therefore alot of people in israel are also should not be officially citizens. (israel has a law called the law of return that allows anyone who is jewish to come to israel, and in their stay, declare israeli citizenship on the basis that they're jewish). its difficult because the influence of these ultra-orthodox jews has reprecussions in the states since ultra-orthodox do exist in the states. the unfortunate thing is that their intolerance towards jews of lesser religious practice is pretty can be displayed in malevolent actions, eg...the fire in the synagogue. it's sad, it's ridiculous, but as far as i could see, it would be hard to reason with them because they don't believe we are worthy to call ourselves jewish. its one of those things you wonder why people cant be accepting but thickheadedness isn't always easy to break through...personally, i'd think of myself as jewish, even if my mother wasnt jewish. why? because its part of who i am, its the culture, the connection I have with G-d, and the fact that I believe the core judaic belief, that there is one G-d. religion isn't something that can be proved but it can't be disproven either. thats where faith comes in. so if i'm not the most observant jew but i have jewish faith, why should i denied the right to know that i'm jewish? why do i need someone to tell me i'm not jewish...?

51/49

7/5/00-well yesterday was quite the monotonous day. i slept till 11, then noodled around on my guitar (which is what i basically do when i'm not online). then i monkeyed around a bit, fell back asleep and woke up around 430. so i called up andrew sarah and pete to go to the par 3 but andrew was afraid to play some "real" golf, so we were gonna go mini golfing after they met sarah d at work. well, it started to rain a few minutes, so of course, we had to punt on that...so we just got icecream and then went over to watch some fireworks on tv at the concatellis. so it was me, andrew, sarah, garrett, dan parker, pete, and mrs. c. it was pretty fun but i missed all of realworld sitting in garrett's driveway talking to him. i found out the 3eb concert is gonna be even more fun now, but whatever.

today was a nice 4 hrs of OSHA training on how to fell trees and using the chainsaw and how it takes 1/10th of a second to take your head off your shoulders and how the chainsaw chaps delay the chainsaw 3/4 of a second so at 550in/sec, it won't take your leg off right away, just a shade under a second. then it was talking about how a tree fell on a guy's leg and he had to amputate himself with a chainsaw to escape...yummy. had lunch, went back to the reservoir to do some more trimming. then went to find some icecream place on main st. in manchester, but i'll be damned if there was a place. so i went to media play to get a book. they didn't have the clive cussler one i was looking for so i was searching for a book for about 45 min when i saw the one that was on the concatellis' coffee table, the fuck up, so i thought, what an apt title, so i bought it and so far am about 20 pages in. its kinda boring. the language isn't what's boring, its that there's not much plot yet. maybe later...

tonight i went mini golfing and there was about 12 of us. the guy that worked the counter goes to mcgill and he saw my hat and was all excited and everything. but he was from willamantic, so i couldnt figure that one out. minigolf was pretty fun, then we went to dave's house to watch this new british import show on tlc, "junkyard wars"... i'm watching the second episode now. its hilarious. kinda like iron chef with british accents and weird phrases and everything. its hilarious. then got booted out and am here now....

so...what is a jew? i bring this up because a week or so ago, a synagogue in israel was torched by ultra-orthodox jews who didn't believe the people from the synagogue to be real jews. i'd call them anti-semetic jews(which do exist), but the sad thing is, they're not. they're jews with such an extreme religious superiority complex that they have no tolerance for anyone thats not as observant as they are. in their eyes, we should not be considered jews. so what is a jew? this is kinda hard to talk about, only because there's so much to say, i don't have the time to say it all. well yeah, i guess i do if i space it out, but i'm also not the expert. there was a book in brentanos in the mall called who is a jew? and it was about this. that was a book...anywho. judaic tradition states that a person is a jew if their mother is jewish...more tomorrow...

53/51

7/3/00-day 2 without my sister. boy, it's a lot quieter around the house without her. i guess she really does get yelled a lot. i had to take a tylenol a short while ago because the silence is giving me a headache :) unfortunately, i had to get up for work at 6am today. it was a rather interesting day. after going 80 down 384 to get to the plant past downtown manchester (i dunno how i do 80 at 650am), when i get there, i find out that the older guy we usually work with isn't in. so we follow our supervisor, pete to the water tanks up on howard street to do some string trimming before bob comes with the lawn mower. well, bob never shows by the time its coffee break. i found out that hitting those big water tanks makes a really cool sound and throwing small pebble rocks at them makes an even really cooler sound. i also found out today that ben (the upcoming senior), is actually turning 18 the same day as scott and me and mike (the 19 year old looking, actually working on a masters), is actually 29 and his kid is no baby-he's 8 years old.

pete's left us and its now time for coffee break. so i get some blimpies and the little mart they had there had these starbucks frappicinos in little refrigerated glass bottles, so naturally i was intrigued to get one. they're not bad. headed back to wait for bob, but pete radioed in and said if bob didn't come by 1030 to radio him and he'd show us where to do. 1045 and still no bob, so we radio in ("10-4"). then we move to the reservoir on finley street to do start some trimming around that reservoir (which is much bigger than the lydall reservoir that we were at all last week). then we head in for lunch after doing some scouting out and pete's forestry lesson. come back out from lunch, change the blades on our weedwackers to sharper ones, go back out, do some trimming of the hard wood around the reservoir. of course around 220, we get tired and we're out in the dead sun doing this, so we pack in the truck and start driving around the offroad trails in the woods around the reservoir. around 235, pete calls us on the radio, wondering where we are (cause we're not where we're supposed to be), but he doesnt get really mad that we werent there. he's a nice guy, pete. so we picked up some beer cans, headed in to the plant and then got razzed by the guys there who heard us on the radio. so bob orlowski (aka bob-o, aka village idiot guy, the one i'm convinced is related to jeremy and bryan), starts telling me how we gave them a good laugh, so i say to him "well, you give us enough laughs so i figured we'd give you some." then everyone starts laughing at him, "ahahaa, he told you." so that was pretty cool that i was able to shoot my mouth with the big guys.

then went to tutor scott, my hebrew kid, who lives about 10 min away. and he did a little better over the 3 days. then we played pig (the basketball game) and i lost piggies to pi. came home and basically watched a bunch of tv while my mom was doing a lot of typing for school. for a teacher, she does a lot of work over the summer. oh yeah, and next weeks road rules should be interesting when they play pranks on the realworld new orleans crew.

now for the main topic...unfortunately, its now 1230 (already 7/4, happy 4th of july) so i may actually talk about this tomorrow....*sigh* no work atleast...

55/53

7/2/00-today's a boring day...my mom and dad just left to ship elise off to sleepover camp for the next week, so no one's here and i haven't much to do til they get back and i have to mow the lawn :P that's been about it for today.

its been a boring few days cause there hasnt been much to do at work. thursday we did some more trimming and what not and then friday we did about 1/2 hr of cumulative work. then i tutored my kid in hebrew but he thought i gave him another assignment from the one 4 weeks ago when i told him to finish the book by the end of june (which he didn't do), so now he wants to meet twice a week to make sure he knows what he's doing. then friday night i got an interesting phone call and instead went to see rocky and bullwinkle with my parents. i think that was the first time all four of us had gone to the movies together in years. usually it might be my dad and us cause my mom never goes, but she actually came this time. i think it was the first time since beauty and the beast was in theaters. i'd give the movie 3/5 stars and a review is pending. i don't like doing stuff on my website when i have nothing to do, it's not as fun. something about having something to do makes writing here more enjoyable and thus, the reason why i really havent done much with the site redesign yet...but before i go to school, i expect it will be done.

yesterday my grandparents came up and i showed them some of the graduation pics and whatnot,then at around 830, we went to manchester to get some icecream and watch the fireworks. disappointingly, they were only about 15 minutes long, but some pretty ones. came back and watched tv, fell asleep watching iron chef around 130am

today i got up and had not much to do except i realized i slept in the same clothes as i was in yesterday so i bummed around, went online when my parents left and when they came back, i mowed the lawn. fun is. then i weedwacked, only i realized how sucky the little dinky electric toro 2in radius one that we have was compared to the gas powered metal blade ones i use at work are. anyways, finished that, had supper, jammed on my guitar a lot and then andrew and garrett came over. we shot 2 games of pool in a 1/2 hr (me-1, garrett-1), then on the 3rd game, it took like 1 1/2 hrs, so we finally gave up and went swimming for 45 min. and that was about it for the day. atleast it wasnt completely shot. plus, i downloaded the entire demo of 3eb's 1999 album, so that's cool, even if stephen jenkins is screaming chord changes during the songs...

tomorrow, i think i'm gonna talk some israeli politics...the eternal debate---who is a jew? sad that there are many ultra-orthodox that dont consider reform/conservative jews jews...more tomorrow

moving day in 57 days and counting, 55 days and counting til we leave...

Past reflections: