In the words of Madonna (when in doubt, always quote Madonna), "Je Suis Désolé. Lo Siento. Ik ben droevig." Guys, I am ending this blog.
I'm pretty sure that this is the part where I tell you how great longboarding has been, or where I try to convince those of you who were interested in longboarding to do so, but I'm not going to do that.
"Sono spicacente."
I believe in endings and all, but this really won't be the end for my longboarding or my blogging. They may become separated, and even divorce entirely in a few years, but ultimately, the two concepts had a good run together and have influenced one another in a way that cannot easily be erased from my life and potentially even yours, dear reader.
I could give you a heartfelt map of my blogging over the years, starting with high school ramblings on a now socially dead website - xanga - up to my undergraduate studies at a major university, writing about concepts that flowed in and out of my mind and secretly questioning the increasing connection of internet blogs and the media and what that means to me in the future (seriously, almost every popular artist keeps a blog, for their fans, and the humor section of bookstores now carry a variety of blogs-turned-into-paperbacks). But...I'm not gonna do that either. (Probably because I'm lazy, since that seems like a pretty interesting topic that I would otherwise persue). "Perdóname".
What I am going to do, is encourage you to continue to cruise the internet for great and exciting things. Red vs. Blue, Kelly's "Shoes", Nuklearpower, PostSecret, Omgblog - the things that make you laugh or give you something interesting to talk about at work tomorrow. This blog may be ending, but I'll probably continue to blog about other things, throwing pebbles of thought into the lake of the world, and watching the ripples vibrate out forever, or disappating only a few feet away.
I won't say that I'm sorry. You have heard it all before.
-Andy
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Yes Mom
Don't talk to strangers. Eat all of your food; there are starving children in Africa. Do your homework. Go to bed. Don't sit so close to the TV. Have you washed the dishes yet?
My mom earned a degree in these and similar quotes by the time I was 7, and returned to the University of Parenthood for her Masters by the time I turned 14. Don't stay out too late, she'd warn. You need a haircut. Take out the trash. Go to school.
Most common: Clean your room.
Most annoying: Go outside and play.
Most archaic: Don't eat breakfast foods for dinner.
Seriously, what's wrong with a little cereal with the Late Show (besides watching "the Late Show")? Why wait until midnight for the a.m. go ahead to munch down on some Reeses Pieces when it's only 2 hours away anyway? There are starving children in Africa - what should it matter what type of food I'm eating as long as I'm eating at all, right?
But I digress. I've been holding on to that argument since 10th grade.
The reason for this post lies with another one of my mom's frequent chastisements. Wear reflective gear at night. This became a bigger and bigger issue as I began to pick up jogging as a way to lose weight and to relieve stress. In a typical Floridian summer, I wouldn't so much as run to the mailbox in fear of heat exhaustion, let alone 'round the neighborhood a couple of times, so waiting for the comfortable warmth of evening became a ritual for me. The sun would set, I would dawn my jogging sneakers, and out the door I would go. But this - like my uncanny ability to leave my clothes in the dryer all afternoon - drove my mother crazy. She would try to get me to wear a neon yellow jogger's vest, the kind that you could tell almost instantly someone was wearing because their mother had forced them to, and I simply wasn't having it. I would wait for her to fall asleep after dinner and take my jog then. I would "forget" to toss it on in my mad rush out the door.
Yeah, teenagers my age were sneaking out of the house for the most classic of reasons (sex, drugs, or rock and roll), and I was the dirty rebel who tip toed out of the house for a good cardio workout. Judge me all you want. Just know that my calves are sexier than yours.
But now, I've finally found something reasonably cool that can keep me visible late at night while I'm out longboarding. Check this out:
They come in different colors too. Red, green, yellow, blue, orange, etc, etc, and you can place more than one on your board. I want to get a pair that flash a mixture of colors so my board can look like a 12 mile per hour techno/rave party. My mom would take one look and say, "wow, that's very pretty. Now where's your helmet?"
-Andy
My mom earned a degree in these and similar quotes by the time I was 7, and returned to the University of Parenthood for her Masters by the time I turned 14. Don't stay out too late, she'd warn. You need a haircut. Take out the trash. Go to school.
Most common: Clean your room.
Most annoying: Go outside and play.
Most archaic: Don't eat breakfast foods for dinner.
Seriously, what's wrong with a little cereal with the Late Show (besides watching "the Late Show")? Why wait until midnight for the a.m. go ahead to munch down on some Reeses Pieces when it's only 2 hours away anyway? There are starving children in Africa - what should it matter what type of food I'm eating as long as I'm eating at all, right?
But I digress. I've been holding on to that argument since 10th grade.
The reason for this post lies with another one of my mom's frequent chastisements. Wear reflective gear at night. This became a bigger and bigger issue as I began to pick up jogging as a way to lose weight and to relieve stress. In a typical Floridian summer, I wouldn't so much as run to the mailbox in fear of heat exhaustion, let alone 'round the neighborhood a couple of times, so waiting for the comfortable warmth of evening became a ritual for me. The sun would set, I would dawn my jogging sneakers, and out the door I would go. But this - like my uncanny ability to leave my clothes in the dryer all afternoon - drove my mother crazy. She would try to get me to wear a neon yellow jogger's vest, the kind that you could tell almost instantly someone was wearing because their mother had forced them to, and I simply wasn't having it. I would wait for her to fall asleep after dinner and take my jog then. I would "forget" to toss it on in my mad rush out the door.
Yeah, teenagers my age were sneaking out of the house for the most classic of reasons (sex, drugs, or rock and roll), and I was the dirty rebel who tip toed out of the house for a good cardio workout. Judge me all you want. Just know that my calves are sexier than yours.
But now, I've finally found something reasonably cool that can keep me visible late at night while I'm out longboarding. Check this out:
They come in different colors too. Red, green, yellow, blue, orange, etc, etc, and you can place more than one on your board. I want to get a pair that flash a mixture of colors so my board can look like a 12 mile per hour techno/rave party. My mom would take one look and say, "wow, that's very pretty. Now where's your helmet?"
-Andy
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Dead End
Florida has its own culture. You don't really realize it until you move down here, and you start to avoid going to the beach in January because "it's too cold", or you drive to your friend's house just down the road because "it's too hot" to walk, and your ideal footwear never requires laces.
Along with this goes those things that most people actually consider culture - a Spanish influence in architecture, a whole host of country radio stations that you can pick up the second you leave any major city, etc, etc. But there's something else that I have (so far at least) found distinctly Floridian: the vanishing sidewalk.
The sign says "welcome", but what I think it meant to say was "get out".
What's with this? Do they suppose that you just decided that you've come far enough and are insinuating that you should turn back now? Or that maybe you've had your fill of sidewalk luxury and should start walking in the street from here on out? Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get somewhere, only to discover that your path has been terminated for you.
Ok, so in reality, there has to be a technical reason for this. Like, the local government deemed a certain area not "developed" enough for a sidewalk, or something. Or maybe, it's up to the people who own the property to install a sidewalk and some people just aren't that willing. Granted. But, what happens when a sidewalk goes out into the middle of nowhere and just stops?
.....?
That one is on campus, at USF, near the gym. Did they change their mind mid-construction or something? Whatever the reason, it's a little frustrating and confusing for the pedestrian. For me. Sometimes, like in the case of this one, you can tell before you branch off onto this path that it leads nowhere, so you don't take this way. But sometimes, you don't know until you've made it halfway down the street that the sidewalk ends (in my "hometown", on the other side of Florida, sidewalks end at telephone posts, or street lamps) abruptly, in the middle of nowhere, leaving you no other place to go but the road, or a ditch.
Whether cities want them to or not, these kinds of sidewalks (or rather, blatant lack thereof) send out a pretty negative message. They say "we don't care about you, or your safety after this point". They say "we don't want your exercising kind here". Roads do the same sort of thing, but at least they have a sign stating that you're turning onto a dead end. I wonder if they'd consider making signs like these for pedestrians? (....."sidewalk dead ends"....."dip in sidewalk"....."yield to crossing lizards".....)
But that's not the way it is. Instead, sidewalks just mystically end. It's like they expect us to just disappear along with the pavement. I don't recall ever finding this sort of thing in any other state, although I'm sure it might exist. I just think that if newspapers want to continue to call us all an obese nation, and that health care reform is making a gigantic splash on TV, that we should at least be provided a cheap but safe way to exercise (and travel) without getting run over.
-Andy
P.S. The best sign ever would be a "do not walk on the grass" sign at the end of every sidewalk that does this.
Along with this goes those things that most people actually consider culture - a Spanish influence in architecture, a whole host of country radio stations that you can pick up the second you leave any major city, etc, etc. But there's something else that I have (so far at least) found distinctly Floridian: the vanishing sidewalk.
The sign says "welcome", but what I think it meant to say was "get out".What's with this? Do they suppose that you just decided that you've come far enough and are insinuating that you should turn back now? Or that maybe you've had your fill of sidewalk luxury and should start walking in the street from here on out? Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get somewhere, only to discover that your path has been terminated for you.
Ok, so in reality, there has to be a technical reason for this. Like, the local government deemed a certain area not "developed" enough for a sidewalk, or something. Or maybe, it's up to the people who own the property to install a sidewalk and some people just aren't that willing. Granted. But, what happens when a sidewalk goes out into the middle of nowhere and just stops?
.....?That one is on campus, at USF, near the gym. Did they change their mind mid-construction or something? Whatever the reason, it's a little frustrating and confusing for the pedestrian. For me. Sometimes, like in the case of this one, you can tell before you branch off onto this path that it leads nowhere, so you don't take this way. But sometimes, you don't know until you've made it halfway down the street that the sidewalk ends (in my "hometown", on the other side of Florida, sidewalks end at telephone posts, or street lamps) abruptly, in the middle of nowhere, leaving you no other place to go but the road, or a ditch.
Whether cities want them to or not, these kinds of sidewalks (or rather, blatant lack thereof) send out a pretty negative message. They say "we don't care about you, or your safety after this point". They say "we don't want your exercising kind here". Roads do the same sort of thing, but at least they have a sign stating that you're turning onto a dead end. I wonder if they'd consider making signs like these for pedestrians? (....."sidewalk dead ends"....."dip in sidewalk"....."yield to crossing lizards".....)
But that's not the way it is. Instead, sidewalks just mystically end. It's like they expect us to just disappear along with the pavement. I don't recall ever finding this sort of thing in any other state, although I'm sure it might exist. I just think that if newspapers want to continue to call us all an obese nation, and that health care reform is making a gigantic splash on TV, that we should at least be provided a cheap but safe way to exercise (and travel) without getting run over.
-Andy
P.S. The best sign ever would be a "do not walk on the grass" sign at the end of every sidewalk that does this.
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