radiopeter

(Greek classes and stuff)

Tuesday night my return to Greek began. Or maybe I should say it restarted. The last time I sat in a formal Greek class was in 1990, nearly 18 years ago.

18 years? Woah.

Anyway, I was pretty nervous because I was entering the class mid-run. I knew the students had already been studying since September, and I was coming in with a slight lag. To my surprise, I didn’t have much to worry about.

I need to refresh my vocabulary, but the noun declensions and the verb conjugations aren’t as difficult as I’d remembered them. I *had* been studying for the last few weeks and realized I needed to brush up, so I did some due diligence. The interesting thing is that as we were speaking, I could feel when it sounded wrong. I guess the many years of studying had burned their way into my head.

As far as accents go, a couple people sound Greek in the class, but most don’t. I’m not being judgmental, but you know what I mean. Like people who say ‘yow hablow ehspanohl’ instead of saying it the Spanish way. I sound Greek when I speak Greek. But I have a knack for that sort of thing.

The teacher, Alexandra (I think) is engaging and fun to work with. I think I’m going to like these classes very much.

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I’ve been away from the blog for a few days because things have been really busy with work. I’ve ended up working late two days in a row and it’s nudged some outside projects out of the way, but I’m not too worried. I get to play catchup this weekend and chill.

I’m also getting two new teeth on Tuesday. Yay. Teeth.

Happy Feb 29th!

I haven’t been riding my bicycle in Chicago a lot lately because of the weather. And I haven’t been riding my bicycle in Chicago for very long, in the grand scheme of things. I’m not an expert rider, nor am I the kind of person who should tell people how to ride in the city. But I can’t help feeling that in this case, I know better.

Cyclist Matthew Manger-Lynch is dead, killed as he rode through a red light as part of an unauthorized street race.

The roads are a shared place. We (bicyclists) share the road with cars, trucks, buses, other cyclists, and basically anything else on wheels. None of us is above the law no matter what the situation. Race or not, this guy was in the wrong according to the story.

It is a tragedy that he was killed. Nobody wants to know someone who died while enjoying something they obviously loved. And I hope nobody forgets this story.

I’ll pull a direct quote from the article:

“It’s an event inherently designed to have people break rules and break laws,” said Rob Sadowsky, executive director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, which advocates city bicycling and promotes bicycling safety. “It provides a competitive incentive, almost, for people to run red lights.”

That’s a pretty dangerous game to be playing if you ask me. The average car weighs between 2000 to 6000 lbs. The average man weighs in below 200 lbs, from a tenth to a thirtieth the weight of a car.

I’m no math genius, but I know when to stop at a red light. I hope, through this horrible event, more people realize when to apply the brakes.

So I’m now in planning mode for my trip to New Mexico. The airline tickets are purchased, my car rental is sorted, and I’m gearing up for a solo vacation of magical proportions. The list of tech I’m bringing along is far larger than the list of clothing I think, but I intend to make this a super photographic/videotastic journey into the desert.

The only two things on the agenda at the moment are my spelunking tour at Carlsbad Caverns. The Spider Cave tour promises to be fun and rough. And I’m most definitely going to visit Roswell. But beyond that, I have some serious time to fill with desert road trips. Since I’m flying out early from Albuquerque on the day I return, I think I’d better spend my last full day there. That means Sunday at Carlsbad, Monday in Albuquerque, Tuesday head home.

But I still have to fill up Wed to Sat. I’m actually looking for more cave experiences while I’m there, so I’ve been on Caves.org soaking up as much as I can.

Aliens, caves, and cacti. I think that will be the theme of the trip.

(the weekend)

This weekend I fully intended to:

a) shelve all my vinyl records this weekend now that I have a shelving unit
b) scrub my bathroom from top to bottom
c) hit karaoke at the American Legion with Laura
d) clean out the ‘fridge

Instead I:

a) had Friday night cocktails with Ken & Brad and made a video with my new camera on the way to Nookies where I saw Richard, Lon, and Ludwig (who is apparently too blind to say hello).
b) spent a lazy Saturday with Ken buying wigs and eating a gigantic breakfast at the Golden <fill-in-the-blank> next to the Riv.
c) hit karaoke at the American Legion with Laura (after stopping at Davenport’s and a bar called Swig to recruit some peeps for the journey, namely miss Trista as seen above)
d) had a fun night in bed. ’nuff said.
e) watched Grindhouse: Death Proof and the oscars, immensely enjoyed the former, would rather have skipped the latter

Taken a few hours ago with the HV20. Some stuff on the street, some stuff @ Nookies. Enjoy!

Yay! My wireless mic kit just arrived from B&H. Would you believe it cost more than the damn vidjo camera?! But I got ‘em, and I’m gonna put ‘em to work this evening. I have a bajillion sound tests to run in my kitchen and with the hand-held mic.

Big props to Madge Weinstein for recommending the brand she uses, and basically for all her guidance. Without REAL lesbians like that, the world would be such a boring place.

Twitter is my new Tourettes manifestation. Well, no, not actually. I don’t suffer from Tourette’s syndrome, but I do tweet quite a bit.

Here are a few of my likes:

• It’s like an IM client.
• It’s like a blog.
• It’s a place where you can actually have conversations, spread out far and wide.
• I don’t use Facebook (euww) so Twitter answers the “what am I doing?” question.
• It’s there when I want it (mostly) and if I don’t want to, I don’t feel the need to.
• I actually like looking back at my tweets and giggling, especially the ones I send out when I’m out drinking with my friends.

For whatever reason, I think it’s fun. However, I think quite a few people don’t use it properly. Five long-form tweets in a row just isn’t cool in my book.

Brevity, after all, is the soul of wit.

Well my plans went into the trash for last night. I INTENDED to have a small soirée at my house to celebrate Cycle 10 of ANTM, but that just didn’t happen. To many things in too many directions all at once.

I did manage to watch the show late last night and well, as far as kick-offs go, it wasn’t all that bad. Predictable, mostly because the website and Wikipedia had been updated with the fourteen girls set to begin the season.

There was one girl, however, who my heart went out to. She’d tried eight times to get on the show, and was yet again rejected. I felt bad for her for a second, then I realized, eight times? You are cray-cray. Puh-leeze find something else to do with your time.

As usual, the tragic stories flowed. Abuse, female circumcision, and rough upbringings in general. I think the producers mean well in trying to create interesting plot lines, but it felt very exploitative to me. I can do without tears. I want to see photo shoots and ugly girls (and there are tons this season) turned into photographs.

So here’s looking toward next week for a REAL episode, when we will see how Paulina Porizkova (the new Twigs) does during panel.

And where are these girls going to live in NYC?

Well it’s officially official. I’ve left Windy City Media Group and the Windy City Queercast. I’ve been sleeping well these last two weeks, better than ever before, knowing the end was coming.

There isn’t too much to say in blog form about why I’ve left. I’m trying very hard not to be bitter (but it isn’t really working) so I’ll put together a podcast soon, right here, to fill all of you in on the details. The microphone tends to be where I can vent my thoughts best. And let me tell you, I have some stuff to unload.

I don’t know what will happen to their show. But I do know what is happening with me, and it’s possibly the best journey in the world I’ve ever started.

I’ll close with this, dear readers. Whatever job you may be doing, make sure you love it. And if you don’t love the work, love the people. And if you don’t love the people, love the money. And if you don’t love the money, then leave. Get out. Now. Today.

The world doesn’t (and will never) care what you do with your life. With that in mind, do whatever YOU want that makes YOU happiest and let’s YOU be the best YOU that YOU can be.

That’s not being selfish. That’s the road to happiness.

The first time I was in a desert, in the Southwestern part of the United States, it felt right. I can’t really explain it much more than that, but it did, indeed, feel like I fit in with the heat. In a way it reminded me of Frank Herbert’s Dune Series (how I love thee, let me count the ways). I remember visiting Death Valley and enjoying the 124F (51C) heat. Death Valley certainly isn’t a sand desert, nor are most of the places I’ve been in the US. But the heat and the barrenness really struck a chord with me. So now I’m ready to go back.

Near the end of next month I’ll be traveling to New Mexico, a state I’ve only briefly visited and intend to take a good hard look at this go ’round. I’m planning to take the spider cave tour at Carlsbad Caverns which will undoubtedly be a physical challenge. Spelunking is something I’ve always been fascinated with, and I’m ready to give it a go at Carlsbad.

I also want to visit Roswell because, well, just because. The thought of the whole alien landing site and a town drenched in alien memorabilia makes me a bit giddy. I’m sure it will be a feast for my camera.

There’s a ton of other stuff to see in the state as well, but I’m only now piecing my itinerary together. Ideally, I’ll be able to find places to stay along the trip outside of the big cities so I can get some morning sunrise shots of the desert.

I know it won’t necessarily be *hot* while I’m there but I’m really not very concerned with that. The landscape of the Southwest is the draw for me, not the heat. I’m ready to pull out my camera and make some serious photographs.

Good times.

I just returned home from Guitar Center an hour or two ago hauling a 60 lb. box containing a Yamaha YPG-625 keyboard. I’d been stalking it online for a few weeks now. The final decision would come down to the weighted keys. I’d been at North Shore Baptist yesterday with the Handbaggers for some read-throughs, and stole away beforehand to play a real piano. Just to get the feel of the keys.

So today, I ventured to the store to try the 625 out for real.

The Yamaha YPG625 is Yamaha’s first 88-key portable keyboard with weighted action. This authentic grand piano-like touch is heavier in the low end, lighter in the high, and very responsive. The YPG 625 has piano style keys, ultra-real feel and more. It has all of the best sounds available at the push of one button, and recording performances is simple to do with the built-in recorder.

I have to say, it is one of the most beautiful instruments I’ve ever touched. So sleek, and it FEELS LIKE A REAL DAMN PIANO! From the hammer action, to the touch on the keys, it feels so ultra-real, I keep thinking I’m playing a piano.
The sound is also pretty magical, but I was personally (and snobbishly) more concerned with the tactile-ness of the keyboard. And let me tell you, this thing delivers.

And so, another return to my childhood begins. First Greek lessons, and now a piano in my house. I’m regressing even as I type this!

I’ve found a pretty slick interface for WordPress admin stuff on my iPhone. It’s called WPhone and it works like a normal plug-in, but when you log in to the software, you can have an administration interface suited (with slick css and all the goodies) for the iPhone.

I know what you are thinking. Why on EARTH would you want to use yet another dumbed down interface for the web when the Safari on the iPhone presents full websites in all their glory?? Well, it really boils down to:

EDGE.

The EDGE network is fairly slow in the grand scheme of things when trying to navigate around the full WordPress admin implementation. So WPhone pares it down and uses some very clever navigation layers to deal with the rich WordPress GUI’s.

Slick, slick, slick and thank you WPhone!

Last night Ms. Trista and I headed to Chinatown after work to hit Lao Sze Chuan, one of my favorite spots for Szechuan food. The meal was fantastic; Dry Chili Chicken, Peapod Leaves with Garlic, and Steamed Pork Fat with pickled vegetables. I know the latter sounds gross, but it’s basically bacon that’s been slow cooked so the fat melts into buttery goodness. Deeeeelicious. The only disappointing thing about the meal was that the waitress told us they lost their liquor license. I wonder what happened…

We hit the basement of Maxim’s for a quick drink and then headed to the Cadillac for Rent. The production was faultless and the actor who played Mimi was stellar. Her very sweet and pure voice (Trista’s perfect description) really shined, as did Christina Sajous who played the woman that luckily gets to hit all the soulful notes during “Seasons of Love” along with the high C or D (or whatever that note is).

The Roger wasn’t all that in my book (he was some sort of South African Idol), but Mark (Jeff Cuttler) was cute as a button and on point the whole show. Maureen (Christine Dwyer) was also sharp as a tack and had perhaps the funniest performance of “Over The Moon” that I’d ever seen.

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It’s nights like these, good food, good show, and great company, that make me happy I live in here in Chicago.

I’m stuck on listening to canyougettothat by Funkadelic on repeat.

The song’s hook is a syncopated roll:

can? you? get?
I wanna know if you can get to that

It has been haunting me all day.

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I’m going to see Rent tonight with THE Trista Smith, and I should bring some tissues because I’m certain I will cry.

Last night I had dinner and coffee with one of the most creative people I know, Richard Bluestein. If you aren’t watching his films at InsaneFilms.com or listening to his alter-ego Madge Weinstein on YeastRadio.com I sort of pity you. Well, ok, maybe not pity, but do yourself a favor and check him out because he’s one of those folks who drips creativity from every ounce of his being.

We were talking shop about video cameras and microphones and I picked up so much good advice that soon my precious audience, soon I’ll be sharing all the wonderful whimsical bits and pieces I learn with you.

Last night after our wonderful evening, I headed home, trudging through the snow. I couldn’t stop thinking creative thoughts. For whatever reason, I’m trying to get more Greek because it feels right. And I have to move forward on that front with more energy that I’ve ever invested in anything.

What it means to my life right now will be revealed in a few weeks time. But for now, I can see the event horizon coming. Watch out when I get there, because ain’t nobody expecting this…