wedding pictures and sounds

michael chan, my friend and brother in law (in law) took some pictures of the wedding and wedding time. he made a slideshow of these photos, which you can see by clicking the word "slideshow". not that one there, the first one. or you can click here. enjoy!

moving in, kim and jeremy style

here's a shot of our new apartment. and our old car. and our ingenious method for moving and hauling the groceries, etc. ultimately we hope to involve several pulleys and lots of clips and wenches and things. when you come to visit us, if you don't feel like walking up stairs we'll probably just put you in the basket. it'll be fun!

things are going well--we're still getting settled in, and there's of course the decisions about the color of the paint and the arrangement of boxes and records and furniture and all of that stuff. but it's coming together. when everything is in its place kim and i will give you a grand tour of the place. it should be a good time.

oh and by the way i'm using the apple store's internet right now, where i also tried out an iphone and hot diggity they are just really, really, really neat. i realize that they're sort of a big item you've already heard about, and that i should probably have something more to say if i'm going to mention such a ubiquitous device/pop culture phenomenon, but...that's all i have to say. it's really, really, really neat. and also hot diggity.

the land before time

readers of blog and fellow net citizens (i know i'm supposed to say netizens, but i just can't get myself to do it), i have undergone a life-changing experience. i have a completely new perspective on the world that will probably lead me to completely redefine the direction and meaning of my life. i'm thinking of maybe volunteering at the city rec center or an after school club or something. for behold, i write to you from a strange, foreign land. a desolate, depressing, empty land characterized mostly by a lack of information and a lack of trivial pursuits or really any fun at all. a land where messages can only come as fast as the post office delivers them, where news can only be read in newspapers.

haha, i bet you thought i was talking about marriage until that last one there! no, sadly my friends i am referring to life without internet (married life is actually pretty great, really). i have so much to tell you, so many stories to recount, pictures to upload, and so forth. but for now instead i give you this small update and the assurance that today we decide between at&t's dsl and comcast's cable. and a hope that very soon i will learn about the world's catastrophes from the comfort of my couch. until then, i guess i'll call the soup kitchen.

a perfect day

so, kim and i got married on saturday. if you were there, you know the day was about as great as it could be, with nice sunshine and a breeze to keep things from getting too hot. people ate food and played park games (thanks to everyone for bringing games--especially dave, who lugged his cornhole game a whole 88 steps from his car to the park (he counted and reported how much effort it took, so i know)) and generally everyone seemed to get used to the idea of a wedding as kim and i had envisioned it, and relaxed, and ultimately enjoyed themselves. at least, the people who told kim and me afterwards what they thought of the ceremony all indicated that they thought it was a success. i guess probably most people don't go around telling the bride or groom they think their wedding is terrible while it's happening, but i'm definitely willing to take this as a positive sign. personally, i thought the thing was a smashing success, and if you didn't come you really missed out on something special. (likewise, though, i suppose the groom doesn't go around saying he thinks his wedding was a failure afterwards. but you should take this as a positive sign, too.)

although we started off designing as simple an affair as we could get away with, this wedding couldn't have happened without a whole host of talented, free labor friends. what follows is unfortunately not a complete list...

first of all, thanks to nellie chan for being the wedding coordinator, at times from as many as 5 time zones away, and for arriving at the scene calmly and coolly and making everything work. (the decorations! the food! the site! and patience and enthusiasm and panache and etc etc etc)

likewise to the entire roth family, who showed up early and moved boxes and foods and peoples around and were very understanding and cooperative in helping us make the thing we wanted to make, even if it wasn't exactly what they wanted to make.

and to the howe family for the meal the night before, for bringing friends and family together and creating such a warm environment in which everyone could meet. that was also exactly what we were hoping for, and we were so delighted with the opportunity to see our friends mix.

to our crack team of photographers, jonathon miano, ryan clarke, and michael chan, for their flexibility, patience, and understanding, and for (probably) taking really great shots. the shot above is courtesy of michael.

to all our friends who helped out the days before or the day of to make either the meal or the wedding or both work so well. slicing vegetables, cleaning fruits, organizing, arranging, carrying, cooking...and all with such great smiles and humor. this couldn't have happened without you!

we mentioned some specifics of the ceremony to carlos and janeil a couple weeks ago, and that was how we realized that we had failed to actually ask them to officiate the wedding. but they took it all in stride, and worked very patiently to discover with us what kind of ceremony we wanted, and put up with being forced into last minute preparations and then made it all come together so well. thanks you guys!

and finally, to everyone who came and participated, and helped us make the day the kind of day we wanted. we had a blast, and we hope you did too!

i'm getting married today!

...that's all. hooray!

see you soon!

blogs, weddings, etc.

first of all, i'd like to apologize to all my dear friends and readers for the total lack of blogging. this has been a crazy month, but that's no excuse--this blog is important! be assured that i have every intention to be a very diligent, hilarious, and insightful blogger in the coming months, when i become a newly married first year med student. i'm sure the entries will start to get very interesting in the next couple months...so stay tuned if you want to know what goes through a man twice gone crazy.

in other blog news, kim has now become an official member of this blog, thus making our holy union that much more real and binding. you can expect to hear all kinds of funny stories and musings from her life in the coming days. don't worry, though--she's not going to be some yoko type that starts to edit and limit the creative explosions of words and hilarities that you've all become accoustomed to--she'll simply add to the wonders that happen here. and when we have really passive-aggressive fights we'll probably just post insulting things about each other here, which ought to make for a pretty good read for all of you in internetland. let the adventure begin!

finally, i've heard some concerns from various people about ability to find the wedding once they've arrived at the park. i understand your fears and hopefully will clear them up for you all now. i think the best tool for finding the park is the google maps feature, and i suspect that some of those who are concerned about finding the place don't understand how the map works, so i've included an image of the map here to explain a little. click on the image here for a bigger picture of the map (you need to go to the link on the wedding website to actually USE the map, though). first of all, did you know that by clicking the picture and dragging you can move your view of the map? and did you know that the scale over on the top left can be used to zoom in and out of the picture? and finally, and perhaps most importantly, did you know that by clicking "satellite" over in the top right corner you can have the view of the park you see here, allowing a real-life view of actual landmarks and such? well, if you didn't, i hope this mini tutorial has been of some help to you and will make using the site more helpful in the future, as well as when attempting to find this part of the park. if not, the picture above is a shot taken while standing on the actual place the wedding will happen, and probably there will be signs on saturday directing folks to the location, or to a different location if it turns out we have to go elsewhere for some reason (like a bunch of puerto ricans playing baseball or some such). or call a friend or me or kim and we'll attempt to guide you if you're lost.

so i guess that's it for now--we're in the last days here, so i hope those of you who are coming out are excited for the trip and are looking forward to a great time on saturday--i know i am! hey, if you know my number, do me a favor and call me when you get in town so i can keep track of who's arrived and who's potentially lost. and plus just so i can hear your voices and say hello!

see you all soon!

chicago, leading the way

chicago is a notable, leading city in many things. we've got the olympic bid, we've got the cuisine (i'd mention more than chicago dogs and italian beefs if it didn't seem so much like bragging), the architecture, the culture, the list goes on and on. and this summer we're #1 in a whole new category: gas prices. that's right, the highest! the number 1, most expensive in the whole country. in your face, everyone else!

and as if that wasn't enough, we're also at the top (or bottom) of another pile. our mail service is the worst in the country. that probably explains why i STILL can't get mail forwarded to me from my lincoln address. this honor is special, though. i mean, anybody can just jack up gas prices--shoot, i'll sell you a gallon of unleaded for $50 right now--but it takes a special something to lose letters, delay parcels, destroy postcards, (and the packages! don't even get me started on packages!) quite the way the chicago post office does. it's a real thing of beauty to behold.

so, in summary. chicago rules. we lead in so many things that we even lead in things other people don't want to lead in. because we lead. we rule.

the cicadas

as you might remember from a lazy saturday discovery channel program (or wait--didn't you spend your lazy saturdays watching the discovery channel?), periodic cicadas are fantastically disgusting looking bugs that live underground for 13 or 17 years and then come up to make a huge racket, find some insect lovin, and then very quickly die as their offspring head underground for another 17 years. perhaps upon hearing this information you thought "how interesting! what a strange life cycle!" and maybe you also thought "but this information will never have any real impact on me". i did. but then, i wasn't planning on moving to chicago and getting married the summer that three "broods" (that's what they call them) would emerge from their subterranean lairs to make really noisy mating calls (they say it gets up to 100 decibels!), litter the ground with their carcasses, and gross out innocent people throughout the city and in any outdoor weddings that might be happening in any of the city parks. like the one i'm planning on having in a month, just at the height of their infestation.

we, the intrepid bandit wedding planners, are going on as planned with our wedding, plague of locusts or no. perhaps someday we'll look back at a wedding overrun with noisily horny bugs and laugh. or maybe we'll end up miserable and wonder why we didn't take God's warning more seriously. i mean, it's a plague! on the wedding day! what else would you expect?

i guess probably we'll look back and joke that we're miserable, perhaps in response to questions people ask about why we have a cicada's molten body framed on our wall (which also sounds like something else we'd do). probably we'll grossly exaggerate the number of cicadas, the noise, and how many we accidentally ate because they ended up in our sandwiches. probably i'm already exaggerating the number of bugs we'll have in our park and how loud they'll be. if you're planning on coming out for our little picnic/wedding, do us a favor and try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story. and...bring some mosquito netting.

shaken, not stirred

the hotel room was in complete disarray. on one bed, the pillow had been heavily stained by something red and the sheets were disheveled, three ominous tarot cards apparently arbitrarily arranged amongst the sheets. the other bed was covered in money, poker chips, and playing cards. women's fishnet stockings and oddly colored wigs were strewn about the room, and the light bulb had been removed from the night table lampshade. in the bathroom, several lines of a white powder were neatly laid out on the counter, and the name "IVAN" had been written on the mirror, perhaps in blood. in the bath was a red-stained shirt and a general disorderliness. a knock sounded very distinctly at the door, six times, just as we'd agreed. "vladimir?" i nervously called out in what i hoped sounded like a british accent. after a moment's hesitation a woman's voice said "...yes?" i rushed to the door and opened it to a group of smiling, middle-aged businessmen and women.

last week i was an actor for go game, a company that specializes in team building and scavenger hunts--"the future of corporate play", they call themselves. i played the role of a secret agent at a murder scene--dressed in a black suit, mod sunglasses, and carrying a three-olive martini around the room with me (i don't have to tell you how it was prepared, do i?). as teams entered the hotel room, taking pictures of the "evidence" in the room, i told them of the crime boss ivan, and how vladimir was the only man who had ever seen him and lived to tell about it--we had met in russia two days prior and were meeting in chicago to review the evidence one last time before he testified in court. but it seemed as though vladimir's vices and ivan's henchmen had been his demise--and ivan would be a free man again.

i like my job as an interpreter, but even if this job hadn't paid way better by the hour, it would have been nice just to have a change of pace and pretend to be a double 0 for a day.

best week ever

let's review, shall we? first i went out to california (read: great weather, inn n out burger, trip to vegas) to meet kim's parents. while i was there i found out i got accepted to med school here in illinois. then, kim and i set a date to get married--june 30th, in chicago. and then we came back to chicago and saw björk in concert. and THEN i found out i got accepted to the urban medicine program and will definitely be in chicago for the next 4-5 years, thus making pretty much exactly what i wanted to happen come to fruition.

oh, wait! did you hear i'm getting married? i am, i am! isn't that cool? you've really got to meet this girl--she's the best one of the whole bunch, and she's going to stick around until one of us dies! AND she's an illinois resident, so she cuts my med school debt in half! AND she doesn't mind the styling twist-tie ring you see displayed so proudly in the photo. AND she's even such a good and kind person that she puts up with me for hours on end without even rolling her eyes, even when i show off my radical dance moves in public (that happens pretty often). you will, of course, be hearing more from kim in the near (and distant) future, so stay tuned for an opportunity to get to know the incomparable, lovely, and utterly fantastic kim roth!

i can't tell if buying a lottery ticket right now would be greedy or just common sense--i'm on a roll!

the big envelope

yesterday while kim and i were driving around california my roommate nate called me to let me know that i had recieved another official looking piece of mail from the university of illinois, and...it was big. he opened it up while i was on the phone with him and began reading:

"dear incoming student..."

...and then, you know, "it is our pleasure," etc. and they even have a seat for me! even though my own state school doesn't. so i guess i didn't have to have the letter in my hands to believe i'd been accepted, as long as someone i knew had it in their hands. so i'm in, i'm in, and all that waiting wasn't just a really long tease. JOY!

i'm so happy to have been accepted, and to be honest a little relieved. the next question is if i've been accepted to the urban medicine program, which will determine if i'm on the chicago campus or the urbana-champagne campus. i'll keep you all updated, but for now i'm just going to have a nice deep sigh...

med school mailroom drama

i very nearly had the momentous moment i've been waiting for the last couple weeks (or months, or couple years, depending on how you look at it) yesterday. the UIC website informed me earlier this week that they'd made their decision about me, and a letter informing me of this news had been sent. so when my friend sarah (my good friend and fellow high school alum who now lives one floor below me) called me to tell me she'd seen some mail from med school in the mailbox i grabbed the nearest train home and listened to my heart beating louder than my headphones in my ears. i was finally going to know! i found my letter and ripped it open, only to find...information on financial aid? nothing saying i've been accepted or not accepted, just information on how i ought to go about applying for fafsa. but...but...am i accepted or what?!?

i suppose it's possible to speculate that these facts would INDICATE that i've been accepted, but i'm not believing anything until i have the letter in my hands. this waiting game, i tell you what. i suspect i've ridden on so many miserable, long bus rides (and waited at bus stops for long, late, cancelled bus rides) just to condition me for these experiences. so i guess i'm thankful, because i feel like i should be going crazier than i am. we'll see what happens when i get back from california...

oh yeah, california! so in a couple hours i'm flying out to california to visit kim and her family. in the short time i've been here kim has progressed from being an especially interesting and fun person to a completely unique person, to a person unlike anyone i've ever met in my entire life. somewhere along the way she's also become my girlfriend and since last week she went home for a bit i've decided to run out there as well. so the next post should have more definite news about med school and maybe some sunny beach pictures.

unless my plane crashes and i die.

the weekend is free!

this is a shot of the congress theater in between modest mouse's sound check last night and when the doors were opened. i was there to take the picture because i was an usher for the event. that's a job which doesn't pay but does afford one the opportunity to watch the soundcheck...and, you know, actually see the show for free, from more or less wherever you want. plus it provides a fun format in which to chat with other enthusiastic concert-goers, and the ageless quandary of what to wear to the show is handily resolved: i think i'll wear black slacks and a button-up white shirt.

i had a great time, in other words, and really enjoyed the show. this was my first time seeing modest mouse live (but not my first attempt) and they were the rocking energetic crazies i had expected them to be. plus they played the view and paper thin walls and that made me pretty happy. and as an added bonus it's at this exact same theater i will reprise my ushering role in a few weeks for bjork's concert, whom i have also never seen in concert (that one ought to be memorable--i'm excited nearly to the point of incontinence over that show).

friday night was ushering a play called black diamond, which was about liberia and their civil wars and bloody history. that was not quite the same pick-me-up atmostphere as the rock show, but it had some very solid parts to it (amongst the gritty violence and occasionally dismal moments) and i'd say i benefitted from having seen it.

i wish i could say i had some point to this post other than to brag about going to concerts and plays for free, but it seems to me that's all i really have to say right now.

med school madness

i told you all i'd update with information about my med school plans when i had them. and here i am to do just that! here comes the infos:

when i moved to chicago, my mail did not follow me. despite filling out the appropriate forms i still haven't gotten mail forwarded to chicago since i moved here. i was reflecting on this a month or so ago and decided that i should call my friends in omaha to see if they'd made a decision and had sent it...to the chicago post office, where it was wasting away and wanting to tell me all its important news. the addmissions person told me they hadn't made a decision yet, and we chatted a little bit and then all of the sudden she started talking in a very quiet voice and whispered that she wasn't supposed to tell me this, but the fact was that my file had been reviewed and that i had been accepted to med school!!! but since she wasn't supposed to tell me, i couldn't tell anyone, either, so i had to keep it on the dl.

fast forward to just before i left for china, and let's open the letter i got from unmc, congratulating me on being accepted to school but saying that unfortunately they didn't have a seat to offer me at this time. and that's how i came to know the fabulous world of the alternate list. since everyone that gets accepted to unmc doesn't ultimately decide to go there, spots open up with time, and i'm on the list to get one of those seats when that time comes. i am in the top 25% of that list, which pretty much guarantees that i will be offered an actual seat (ah, the fine difference between being accepted and having a seat! very important distinction!) by the time august comes. so that's the situation for going to nebraska.

meanwhile, let's talk about the chicago situation. right after i got back from china i interviewed at the university of illinois-chicago college of medicine (uic to you) and had a great experience. the interview process there is three one on one interviews, and during the second one after discussing a little of my background and the parts of medicine that interest and concern me the interviewer interrupted me to ask why i hadn't had an interview sooner. i told her i wasn't sure and she said "the reason i ask is because usually we see people of your talent level much earlier in the process". she went on to tell me about a relatively new curriculum at uic called the urban medical education program (umed, thank you very much), a small program focused on serving patients in urban areas and meeting the needs specific to that environment. there are several aspects of the program that pretty much perfectly match what i want to do with medicine, so i'm obviously very excited about the chance to be a part of the program. so was my interviewer, who went so far as to call a person on the committee for selecting students for the umed program to say that i am a "phenomenal candidate" for that situation, and helped me introduce myself to the dean of admissions while i was there. it's hard for me to imagine having had a better interview there.

so we'll see what happens. i've never been a "phenomenal" candidate before, but i have been a very strong candidate who didn't get accepted, and i've been an even stronger candidate than before who got accepted but who didn't have a seat. so i guess i'm cautiously optimistic. but the program would really be an incredible opportunity and i'd love to be a part of it. i should know in the next month or so about all of that, so we'll see how things turn out. more updates on the way!

china

i've finally found myself enough time to pick some pictures and post them for your pleasure. lucky you, and lucky your pleasure. before we go to the pictures, let me just say that going to see china with my mom was a really great experience and it's a really cool country and there's lots of neat-o things to see and do there. i recommend traveling with your mom and i recommend traveling to china. on to the pictures!

when we landed we went to our friends in shanghai, the meyers. in a display of recombinated hospitality and tough love they refused to let us go to sleep upon arrival in the afternoon, despite our bleary eyes and slurred pleas. that night, to keep our adrenaline pumping, they took us downtown and then to this hotel's 40 or so story atrium, where they apparently figured the onset of vertigo would keep us on our toes and fully awake. they were right--i nearly threw up. or down. down 40 stories.

here we are having another amazing meal in shanghai. bee tin (mrs. meyer, who is singaporean) ordered food for us so we didn't end up eating dog. she did a good job of that as far as i know. either that, or dog tastes really good--all the food we had was delicious. plus this restaurant does a remarkable job of keeping its ceiling mirrors clean.

here's a picture inside a temple in xian, which is the second city we went to. this is where they light the candles and then bow several times in the smoke. that probably would have been a better picture than this one, but this one's not so bad. plus, this way you SEE this one and get to hear about and imagine that one. so this one picture, in a way, is worth TWO thousand words. that's word economy right there.

this, then, is word and picture extravagance and superfluity. this is also in xian, overlooking one of the excavated portions of the tomb of the first emperor of the qin dynasty. this tomb was under construction for most of the guy's life, which means mr. qin was either really morbid or blessed with a strong sense of foresight. or both, i guess. first of all, let me give my standard photo disclaimer (long-time readers, sing along if you know the words): it looks way better in person. but seriously. each and every one of those clay statues is life-size and individually designed and hand made. this room, in other words, is approximately enormous. and it's sort of surreal to be there. plus, they've only excavated three of the many many pits full of untold treasures and tourist traps, so the whole thing is completely unique and bigger than whatever comes close to it and so on.

this is the great wall. some folks say you can see it from outer space, which is not true. so if you tried to see it from there you'd be pretty disappointed, and not only because at some point you'd probably realize you could have seen it without leaving planet earth anyway. we went from where we're standing here to where you can't see the wall any more in this picture. this hike was probably my favorite part of the china trip. there was incredible scenery, that palpable feeling of history, fun times with the mom, and the fun feeling of breaking the law when we snuck past the "danger in path ahead" sign. breaking the law in repressive communist countries just gives you an extra little thrill.

here's a picture depicting the scenery. and the history. and the mom time. and the overall awesomeness. but not the law-breaking, because this part wasn't forbidden. but probably there's extra helpings of awesome here to make up for it. we visited the great wall while we were staying in beijing, which is where we went after we went to xian. those are the three cities we went to: shanghai, xian, and beijing. next picture!

finally, this is tiananmen square. an enormous swatch of cement filled with monuments to various pieces of chinese splendor, it's also the site of an incredible massacre for which there is no monument. the eeriness of being between the time when that happened and when it will ultimately be acknowledged is...like, really eerie. the square is enourmous (in typical empirical fashion) and full of people and just walking through it was a very exciting experience.

so that's some pictures of china. there's probably more around somewhere, and there's therefore a decent chance i'll post more pictures after these pictures. but here are some of them, for now.

ping

yes, i am back from china, and not dead or now communist. but i also brought back like 500 pictures and haven't had time to sort them into fair, good, and blog-worthy categories. but i will, dear readership, i will. and when i do, you can be sure i will share those and other pieces of news and updates shortly thereafter. stick around! we'll be back to normal production soon!

mexico, like it used to be!

i have successfully returned from mexico, without apparently bringing back a single unfriendly microorganism in my bowels. either that or my bowels have become more diplomatic and don't just expel every foreigner it meets. ...wait, that's not what i was going to talk about. here, as promised, are some photos from the last week:

this or something like it was what the clinics we did looked like. in the foreground we have pete, the physician's assistant i worked with all week. in the background we have mexicans. sick mexicans, probably. this was the third of four clinics we did, during which time we saw about 350 patients (including 100 on this and the day previous). i enjoyed working with pete, and i think we made a pretty good team. this picture also hints at the importance of dust in the tiny poverty-stricken towns we visited. it's not just a reason to buy pledge and a medium on which to write "wash me" on windshields--it's also roads, sidewalks, floors, and the thing the hot dry wind blew in your eyes!

here's a shot of another clinic, before we started. this was most of the people who had already lined up before we'd arrived. no kidding, probably 75% of the kids in the picture have a cold, sinus or ear infection, or flu. and of those, about 3% cover their mouths when they cough. i, then, am a testament of the miraculous disease-preventing power of God, because i probably had an index of infectious saliva on my arm at any given moment during a clinic. the whiteys in this photo are, from left to right, johanna, kelly, and david.

this is the scene previous to a third clinic. the pastor's wife had made us a delicious crab salad, which you can see us eating here. while we all appreciated and were probably to some degree humbled by this generous gesture, david's facial expression, and johanna's watching him eat it, more or less sum up the group's feelings about the actual eating of this dish--it's hard to make out in the photo, but what we have here is crab meat pulled right out of the ocean, lettuce, and some kind of mayo base to the whole thing, which had apparently been sitting out long enough for the lettuce to wilt before we tore into it. i don't know how savvy you are on what not to eat in little tiny villages out in the middle of nowhere in mexico, but...i think i just listed all of the major things to avoid. but we soldiered on, and we all didn't get sick. when someone said we'd just have to smile and eat it and trust God with the rest, i said "so...you think we'll get sick." but somehow God sent neither lightning bolts nor amoebas to my belly in response, and we all lived happily ever after, even at great distances from toilets.

here's a shot of me in action. notice my form--i'm leaned way in, like i'm about to interpret the sound of her heartbeat, should it become necessary. for the record, the heartbeat sound in spanish comes out as "tun tun. tun tun." this was at the end of the day, which is sort of unfortunate because you can't really appreciate the crowds and general activity going on for most of the day while we worked. so you'll just have to take my word for it--we were pretty much rock stars. ROCK STARS!

in addition to working, there was a lot of playing. we stayed in a missionary house about a 10 minute walk from the beach, so in the mornings we'd go over there. one morning i went exploring a little and decided to check out an apparently deserted and under construction house. while i was there the watchdog ("pulgoso," i later learned he was called) alerted the security guard (gabriel) to my presence. gabriel is, i'm sure, an excellent security guard, but i found that he also makes a top-notch tour guide after minimal conversation. he showed me the house and told me a bit about the place and his life while we walked. the house was very cool, and i'm currently working on a good plan to usurp the wealthy americans to whom the place belongs in the near future. if it works out you can come down to party with me.

here, then, is one such view from the house. you're probably wondering what hair styling products i use, but try to focus. (but i'll let you in on a secret--i just use a hair compressing device known as a "baseball hat" and it does the rest. the deeper mystery is, why'd i take the hat off for this self-portrait if my hair looked so dumb underneath? and that's one i won't answer for you just now.) don't tell anyone, but the beach where we were supposed to be doing all this thankless work was pretty awesome. you can kind of see it in this picture.

so there's some pictures from mexico. there's a lot more, and maybe i'll show you later. or maybe you should come over and i'll show you. it's up to you later. don't forget, though--tuesday night is menomena's show here in chicago, and it's also wednesday morning over in china.

trains, planes, and automobiles

today begins a stretch of adventure and excitement. in a few moments i'll head out the door and get on the train which will carry me (via airports and such) to mexico for the next week before it brings me back long enough to clean my clothes (and show you all pictures, of course!) and then head out once again, this time to china (via the other airport). this is, i guess, what wandering folks like myself do when they feel the icy grip of a 4-year (plus) commitment creeping up on them.

i am going to mexico with a group from my lincoln church led by dr. martin (that's him modeling the proper way to say "ah" from the last time i went). for the past several years he has gone to a series of small pueblos in northwestern mexico to do free clinics there. 2 years ago i went as an interpreter, and this year i'll be reprising that role as well as once again meddling with the setup and attempting to find the very best, most efficient way to clear the language barrier and see as many patients as possible. i'm very excited about the trip and the challenges and fun that i'm sure are awaiting all of us there.

my trip to china, on the other hand, will probably not be of any benefit to anyone other than the people around here who are glad when i'm not here. my mom and i are going just purely for the fun and edification of it, and also of course to finally find the magical, mythical part of china where the world's toys are made. this is a trip i've dreamt of ever since i played with my first transformers and while converting a car to an ominous looking robot (with lasers!) i wondered to myself "where on earth did such a fantastic piece of plastic come to be?" and there, on the robot's food (formerly a rear fender) was the answer: made in china. so china, here i come! (in a week.)

come back soon for pictures of mexico and for progress reports on the red's efforts to indoctrinate me. but mostly for the pictures.

home is where my habits have a habitat

i have now officially, completely, and as permanently as can be expected (given the temporary nature of my chicago stay) moved into the apartment which from this point forward i will refer to as my apartment. this triumphant return to chicago will, i hope, coincide with the end of this awkward blog silence and is now going to be kicked off with a photographic tour of my room, furnished as it is with a smattering of belongings most accurately summarized as "stuff".

we begin our tour with probably my greatest wood-working achievement ever (it wasn't just a weird coincidence that we never had shop class at the same time in high school--i was probably in choir that period or something). while i was home this weekend my dad and i made these 6 open faced cubes for my records. they might look a lot like what you've been calling "crates", but given the amount of energy expelled in making them, and making them actually uniform and actually cube-like (and not trapezoid-like), i feel like open faced cubes is a much more prestige-appropriate title. note also my brilliant use of suitcase as speaker stand and my freakishly tall bed. i'm actually putting in a bid to host the 2018 summer games entirely under my bed. that's how much space there is down there.

moving your head slightly to the right, you begin to suspect that nearly all the space in my car was devoted to musical things. and you are right. (we feel the musical culture surrounding the underbed area will be a huge draw for the IOC.) also, i'd like to thank, from left to right, sarah, betsy, and jordan for these excellent wall-hangings which, in a pinch, have also served as very capable articles of clothing, especially in cold weather. thanks, guys!

snap that head back to the left, and you see the epcot center-like covering of the olympics complex. my grandma made that for me. my grandma is way more hip to geometry than your grandma.





this last picture is pretty much just here for completeness, so you can have seen the fourth wall. there's a closet, a mirror that the former inhabitant left me (probably as a hint about my grooming skills) and a door, which i think is probably one of the most underrated, least appreciated parts of any room. because either you use that or you have to dive in and out of the windows to go anywhere.

baila, guapa

in addition to black history month, the chinese and korean new years, groundhog day, family day, and darwin day, in chicago february is also host to the chicago flamenco festival, a month-long celebration of the spanish music and dance form, with various performances given throughout the city. i am by no means a flamenco afficionado, but i just totally love watching and listening to it. the music and dancing is at once delicate and aggressive, the movement is fluid and also abrupt, and the wrists are just...enchanting! this saturday was the final performance, and i thought it'd be fun to go. unfortunately, so did a lot of other people who presumably had heard about the event before i'd even arrived in town, and they got all the tickets.

i really wanted to go, so i told my new friend kim about this dilemma, and she said she figured we could get in. we made some calls and planned our possible points of entry. the first move was to arrive early to the show, when ticketless potential patrons would be given a number based on their arrival, which would then determine the order in which returned or cancelled tickets were distributed. so we got to the front of that line, and while we waited kim reviewed our other options. we'd both come dressed as ushers in the event that more were needed, and kim had brought black tux jackets so that we could dress up as caterers and walk past the ticket takers in that capacity. (this is a ruse kim has successfully pulled off before, and is both one of many things that has made getting to know her a real adventure and the main reason i think she is a direct descendant of macguyver. also, i think she might be crazy.)

it was a very stormy and snowy night, so several tickets were returned and as kim and i were first in line, we had no trouble getting in after all. the show was quite enjoyable, and afterwards we went to a reception where was served tapas and sangría. the wine, the bocadillos, and the spanish accents flying around the room transported me back to ehspain, and overall i had a really great night. kim did, too, although i expect she would have preferred to have gotten in in some way that required a grappling hook and made less use of the front door.