Tonight: Girls Gymnastics

I still don't care about the Olympics. Sorry. I love America, and I don't love the Olympics. But I'll still capitalize "Olympics".

Sorry about the tease regarding Space Camp a couple days ago. I don't have my cheat sheet with me, so I won't be posting right now. Soon, Daniel-san.

Last night at class, we had to give readings for a "radio break". You've heard it a million times before. "Welcome to Ninety-two-three, WCSB, Washington's Hit Music Station. This is Aaron, and on the way we have Your chance to win tickets to 'The Bob Ross Band', Saturday August 23 at the Verizon Center. Listen for your chance to win, on Washington's Hit Music Station, Ninety-two-three, WCSB."

Well, long story long, I was having a very hard time doing my reading in the classroom environment. Having all eyes on me, standing up to read, I plainly...sucked. After everyone gave their readings, they had us read in the studio booth, playing over the localized airwaves in the small school speakers. Once I got into the booth...MAGIC. I was totally "THERE". Suddenly I'm conjuring Tom Brokaw, or better yet, Venus Flytrap from WKRP. I had it right there, and everyone knew it. I, simply, kicked ass.


I brushed on something there a minute ago. Everytime I've given a good reading, I think about Tom Brokaw. In fact, I wrote "BROKAW!" on the paper as some sort of mental battle cry. The hard "K" helps to really scare the enemy into submission, see. After I did my good reading, I thought about tattooing it on me somewhere. The problem is that 1) I'd want to be able to look at the tattoo in order to 'evoke Tom' at a moment's notice, and 2) I don't want the tattoo to be easily visible for fear of scaring off potential employers.

Then, if I do get the tattoo, I'd have to explain it. Unless I make the font so obscure or stylized that no one realizes that I have the last name of a respected news personality from South Dakota tattooed on me. Because that's weird.

-fin, since that's the perfect stopping point.

The Gang's All Right Here!

For the first time, I've put 100% of the Kraznoy posts in one place, right here. It's up to you to figure out how to navigate my blog to find them though. Good luck, you fool. I'll be waiting over here, re-editting my Smithsonian-Hazy Museum post where I'll go into my experiences at Space Camp in great detail. Have fun staring at my blandiose stark-white background.

The Password Is: Table

Sites found:
www.clearancejobs.com
www.obeythepurebreed.com
www.robotwisdom.com



When I attended my "copywriting" class last night at CSB in Arlington, Virginia, I discovered that my teacher had once been DJ in my hometown, Sioux Falls, South Dakota! On "Mixx 97.3", he was a late-night on-air talent. However, he has never set foot in the state of South Dakota. He recorded his shows from West Virginia! He looked up about as much as he could regarding South Dakota on Google so he'd have an idea of where everything was at (for concert announcements, etc), so he never had to go within 1000 miles of the town. The reason: he was working with Mixx as a consultant while they were trying to find a DJ to fit their format. With no suitable candidates, due to necessity, he took the reins himself.

The future is kind of neat.

500th post

Interesting Sites I Discovered This Week:
thedcuniverse.blogspot.com
conceptispuzzles.com
usedbooks.com
half.com
cuil.com


Although almost 100 posts are still sitting on my old blog-site, this is my 500th post on here. I think. If you combine my different blogs...well, it's probably closer to 600.

We'll call this #500.

So, classes are going well at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. So far we've scraped the surface of TV & Radio Production, along with Film & Audio Editting. What I'm finding out is that the job I'm already most qualified to do (TV Production) is the job that, at this moment. I least want to do. However, all 4 of the job-areas seem to be great. The differentiation is simply levels of greatness.

I am very glad to be in a catch-all program like this, so I can discover what positions I like, without being stuck in a semester-long, 3-hour a week debacle.

I'm being constantly reminded of my times in the TV/Radio class at Lincoln High School from 1992-1994, and my short career as a part-time unpaid DJ for KBHU, the college radio station on Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. I wish I would have had more self-confidence (or a more-inflated ego) in order to voyage down that career path at that time. However, I'm in a very good place right now, with a great wife, in a great city, and I can't say I regret the "would have beens" too much.

Other than that, nothing much new. I need to eat my lunch before it gets cold. Have a great week everyone.

My Right Foot (guffaw! Daniel Day-Lewis joke!)

Here's my foot today. I don't have to wear the velcro-boot, and I don't have to tape it up. I can't run yet, but soon.

Search for a Teacher: Mike Mattke, Sioux Falls SD

Hello there. I'm looking for Mike Mattke. He was a teacher at Lincoln High School in the TV/Radio department. He also helped run OWL-TV, the old public access channel for the high schools. (OWL = O'Gorman, Washington, Lincoln. I always thought about the need to change it to ROWL-TV for Roosevelt, and then SCROWL for Sioux Falls Christian...but it started to get silly.)

The reason why I want to reach him is simply to thank him. Finally, I'm getting back into the field of study that I should have gotten into in, oh, 1994 when I went to college. TV and Radio production is one of maybe 3 things that I truly enjoyed doing when it was supposed to be "work". I don't know if I can recapture that feeling ever again, but I have to give it a shot.

I'd like to thank the guy for giving me the shot to begin with, to leaving the feeling of accomplishment within me all these years. I hope to be able to live up to that ideal, to make something of myself in this field of study.

So, if you know him, please let me know. I'm Aaron Burman at aarona1c@gmail.com. Thanks.

-Aaron

It's all good until you get lyme disease...

I went out geocaching today, trying to find "Fallen In Flatlick", and "The Cache With 9 Lives". Fallen was very difficult, and after over 1 hour, I gave up. I attacked that one from the 4 points of the compass with no luck. I'll head back there sometime this fall when the foliage has died off. That was when the cache was originally planted, so I may have better luck.

The other cache, as I said, was "The Cache With Nine Lives". I cruised out, ducking out of the way of swallows and dodging around a sizable marsh/lake. Upon finding it, I discovered the container was cracked, and everything inside was damp. I couldn't log my visit since the log book was ruined. I didn't bother to leave my travelbug there either. Like I said in another post, I'll probably take that back to South Dakota and leave it there.

While I was checking out the cache, I found 4 ticks and a couple inchworms all over me. I always wear a hat when I go adventuring, so thankfully I didn't get any ticks in my scalp. I showered immediately when I got home, and I'm crossing my fingers.

I can't help but think how cute the little guys are. Ticks, I mean. I was pulling one off my leg, and I had him trapped between my thumb and forefinger, and the way he squirmed was very funny. His pain, my pleasure. I let him go soon after. I'd feel worse, but it was a tick.

I like bugs. I have grown very fond of them in the last year or so. Just thought I'd say...

Nothing Reall-e

So...not much to say, but I'm trying (hard) to post every day or two. My wife and I went to Wall-E the other day, and I had a very lukewarm reaction to it. The jokes were kind of obvious, and the "message" was really crammed down the audience's throats. Yeah, alright, Internet bad, Real World good. Whatever.

I've been geocaching a lot, and I got my first Travel Bug. See, a travel bug is a metal keychain the size (and plink-sound) of a military dogtag. The object of the game is to pick it up from one geocache and drop it off at another one.......and I feel like I told you about this in the previous post. Whatever, no going back now.

I got into a conversation with a member of the cleaning crew where I work. She doesn't sound local, sounding more like someone south of the border. She mentioned that her husband and herself don't celebrate the Fourth of July. And I guess that doesn't surprise me much. My wife and I barely get to celebrate, because of her crazy retail-manager hours, and my wish to work on more holidays to get better pay. In the end...I'm not huge on the 4th anymore. It's more of a holiday for kids and/or pyromaniacs. I like fire, and I like seeing things burn. Unfortunately my conscience, my need to avoid jail-time, and my overall need to live a long, boring life prevent me from lighting things on fire. But little green army guys always burnt the best, and the smell! Whew, to DIE for! Calvin Klein has nuttin on those guys.

Besides that, I'm writing again. I'm taking it very, very slow, so I don't lose my will to write this story. It's about my Junior High School years, with some fiction thrown in. I had a very rough time of it, and for a while I didn't think I was going to be able to go on, literally. I obviously did, but there were some almost comedically sad moments here and there. I want to basically write a rough account of the goings on back then, and maybe write a couple things to end differently. My main influence is actually the movie Superbad. I didn't entirely care for the movie, mainly because it's a little too close to my life back then, as far as the embarrassment and self-conscious life I had back then.

Annnyhow, that's about all there is to say for the moment. Take care youtze.

Geocache: Friday Morning Staff Meeting (on Tuesday Evening)

This was a fun little geocache. Located about 1/2 mile along a trail twisting into the woods in the Ellanor C. Lawrence park. I started off pretty frustrated, for I had intended on doing the "A Walk Through Time" geocache. However, the crucial piece to that jaunt was access to the visitor's center, which is closed only on Tuesdays. Instead, I flipped through my small stack of choices, found this little gem, and took off.

My busted toe is still causing me some problems, creating a stiffness in my right foot. I took it easy, while not allowing it to slow me down too much.

The cache was an ammunition cannister, a little larger than a toaster. I entered my record, and dug through the loot.

There was an awful lot of kids toys inside, which tells me that not enough people are bringing their kids to this cache. I noted this in my comments on the cache.

This took the better part of an hour to reach, look inside the cache, and return. Upon returning to the visitor's center, 3 young deer were poking around on the edge of the woods. I watched them for a few minutes, but I felt like I was intruding on the privacy of an African American couple, so I left. On the way back to the car, I told a couple of women in their 40's or 50's about the same deer, which really made their day.

All this on the same day I started a new job. Funny part is that the job doesn't seem nearly as cool as this little hour jaunt into the woods.

The Toe

So, yeah, here's my broken toe. The picture on the right is the clearest. I must say it's healed an awful lot more since this picture was taken. I was able to walk several miles on the Washington DC mall last Saturday.

It's subtle (unless you have actually looked at more than a half-dozen x-rays in your life, unlike myself). In the right picture, look for the point extruding from the larger bone connecting to the base of my foot (what I think is the proximal phalanx of the big toe). There's a darkened smudge, in the shape of a right triangle with a little dongle added to the right portion. That's my break.

Remember that the right foot is used for the gas pedal. And that I drove about 1/2 of the distance from Nebraska to Virginia, or about 500 miles of the 1000 mile trip.

I don't care what you think, for I Rule. (heh)

Besides this little smattering of toe related stuff, I've taken up geocaching. I finally found the cache that's roughly 500 feet from my hotel room. It was hidden a little better than I thought it would be. Sarah and I found some "virtual caches" tucked in around Washington DC. One of them forced me to go inside the Smithsonian Castle, which I otherwise would have simply looked at from the outside.

If you have a GPS, I highly recommend this fun activity.

Geocaching - First Shot

Wwwwwell, I haven't posted in a while. Not that I've been that busy, but just that I haven't had much to report. I've been doing a lot of posting on www.criticker.com, and my ultimate goal there is to list a review with every movie I have ranked. So far, of the 2500+ movies I've ranked, I have reviewed fewer than 100.

Anyhow, I was looking up various geocaching locations, and one of the sites is, oh, about 300 paces from my hotel room. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. However, I'm going to put a sticker on the back of one of the signs, and essentially do my "own" geocache...or just modify the other guy's cache.

Besides this, Sarah and I are going to ride the Metro for the first time tomorrow. Wheee!! I'll tell you how it goes. Take care, and say hi if you see me on the train. I'll probably have my black "FUL" hat on.

- Aaron

Quick Post, and Weight Costs for Flights

Nothing much new on this end. I just applied for about 20 jobs in 2 days, and walked for a short bit today too. My broken toe will be looked over this Monday, so I'll finally see what's what.

I just wanted to comment: Airlines are thinking about categorizing passengers as "cargo", thus charging by the pound. And I think it's a great idea. I'm overweight. I was overweight most of the time I was in the Air Force, and I was overweight prior to my service. And I still think it's a great idea. For one thing, it'd be a great motivator to lose some pounds. Another thing to think about: we should all do our part. If I weigh 240 pounds, then I should pay to transport 240 pounds of cargo.

Nuff said for today.

Happenings

Unfortunately this is a text-only post, since we sort of packed our USB cable for our camera to talk with this computer, and we won't be getting another one until, well, probably not until I get my first paycheck. Which brings me to my occupation at the moment: finding an occupation. My minimum is 5 job applications a day. My focus has narrowed a little bit since before.

In lieu of some visual representation, I'll just do this the old fashioned way. Sarah & I are staying at an Extended Stay Hotel, and we'll be here for at least a month, maybe a couple months. We're in a typical urban-sprawl type of commercial area. With 3 blocks of me there is an Applebees, a McDonald's, a Taco Bell, and a Hooters. Oh, and Chick Fil-A (pronounced Chick Fillet), which is a kick-butt chicken fast-food restaurant that they don't have in Omaha.

Besides that, everything is very spread out in this area. We're in Chantilly, Virginia. There are parts that seem similar to Old Towne Bellevue, Nebraska. A very small-town feel, with a main road connecting it with the newer areas. While Sarah & I live in the newer part of town, there are definite eastern feels that are very foreign to the two of us, and as I was telling a friend of mine earlier, it's like stepping into some old European village. It's easy to forget that there are buildings in America older that 150 years of age. And it's really amazing.

Going back a little bit, the drive out here was long, but it actually wasn't bad. We definitely drove the right car for the trip, a 2005 Saturn Vue. While overall quality ratings on those have been less than stellar (just ask two of my friends), ours has held in there pretty well. The seats are comfortable, even for long trips, and it has minimal road noise (thanks to a minor tweak on the front passenger door at the dealership recently).

The trip was uneventful for the most part. We left late Friday, May 30. We had wanted to leave at 1pm, but it ended up being 9pm with all of the stuff we had. We reduced the amount of 'crap' we both owned by about 25%, but we've both vowed to clear out even more when we see our things again. Sarah and I used ABF "Relo-cubes", kind of like the PODS systems you might see ads for, but much more reasonably priced. We got 3 of the units, which figures out to be one 16-foot moving truck. For reference, when Sarah moved to Omaha originally, she used one 16-foot Ryder truck just by herself.

Once loaded and underway, we just aimed at getting out of Huskerville, crossed the border into Iowa, and made it only as far as Des Moines. We used our new toy, the Garmin Nuvi 260w GPS, told it to find us a Marriott or Fairfield hotel (since we have a Marriott rewards card) and phoned them. Unfortunately that hotel was sold to Ramada about 6 years prior. So much for staying up to date. I pulled up the 2nd hotel on the list, and we had a winner.

By the way, continental breakfasts save so much money. I just thought I'd put that out there.

The next day we slept until Noon, both exhausted from the trip before. Finally, we got a big Taco John's meal (since we probably wouldn't be seeing that wonderful fast-food chain out east), and hit the road. Besides a brief stop at a really old Wal-mart (which was kind of entertaining), we drove straight through to Toledo, Ohio. We only got in about 8-9 hours of driving that day, but that was fine. Toledo put us about 1/2 way from Des Moines to our goal, near-Washington DC.

Day 3 we got up earlier, hit the road by 8:30, and started our drive. Originally, we were going to head to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio...but we opted to just getting there. Besides, the drive to Cleveland is only about a day from Virginia. We might make it back sometime, who knows.

It was actually the previous day that we experienced our first toll-roads. Yeesh. Now I know why there's an "avoid tollroads" option on the GPS. It cost us $7 to cross Indiana, and $8.50 to cut the corner of Pennsylvania. And the roads SUCK! Where's the logic here?!

We made a short respite in a small town in Pennsylvania. Sarah and I were hungry, and I told the GPS to find something with an interesting sounding name about 3 miles off the highway. Well, it found a Firehouse Cafe...but it was kind of like a Bonanza, which is not what we were expecting. However, next to it was an Eat n' Park, which was split off from the Bob's Big Boy franchise in the mid-1970's. Very good food, and smiley sugar cookies. Just good all around.

We hit the road, finally got down to Maryland, nicked West Virginia, and made it to regular Virginia. It was a very twisty trip, with tunnels and high speeds galore. But it was uneventful weather-wise, which was good.

I'll post some more later. For right now, I'm on the job hunt. Wish me luck!

- Aaron

PS: I'm going to be taking at least 1 picture a day until, well, forever. I'll post them on here when I can. Thanks!

Life in the East

Howdy all. I haven't posted here for a long, long time. I'm now living out of Huskerville, thank GOD. I'm temporarily living in Chantilly, Virginia, and we'll eventually be moving to Leesburg in a month or two. My wife transferred out here for her job, and I'm a tag-along. I'm temporarily out of work, but my job right now is to find a job.

Otherwise, I broke the big toe on my right foot. It doesn't hurt...it's just really freaking annoying.

Anyhow, it's my wife's birthday and we're going to go to a movie. Take care! I'll post again soon.

Untitled Boum

Sorry I haven't posted anything on here for a while. As I said, I got things going on, and I want to spend a little less time on the internet. Well, here's what's rolling as we speak.

This weekend was all about toys. On Friday, I picked up my pair of Georgio Armani specks. They are definitely a change from the generic military-pair I've been wearing for 3 1/2 years. With the special coatings on the lenses, they are also the most expensive pair I've ever had. Well, they're cheaper than the very first pair I bought on my own, which had all the coatings and a brand-new technique to make my Coke-bottle lenses about 1/2 as thick. What's nice is I had the same thing done this time, but the lenses are about 1/3 as thick as the old-style "thin-lenses", and the process was about 1/4 the price. Also, this time around I had insurance to pay for it. It was a good purchase.

Otherwise, Sarah & I got our tax stimulus check, and the moving expenses pretty much ate it up. However, we decided to splurge for a single $30 purchase, each. And so I got a plastic owl for $22. With a swivel head. For good reason. See, I work 2:30pm to 11:00pm. Little piercingly annoying chirpy-birds don't sleep in that late. And air conditioning is expensive. So, if I want to leave the windows open on the western-exposure windows, and I want to sleep, an owl is the way to go. Especially with the bobblehead. Because that's just cool. Although both Sarah and I are very creeped out by the eyes, especially when the head swings around and the eyes just sort of lock onto you...good thing it lives outside.

This morning I got the moving-pods setup (through a company called ABF Freight Systems), I got a quote for getting my car shipped out there, and I got an appointment to get my windshield repaired. Yeah, I got a crack in my windshield, right before we're set to ship the car out there. Excellent timing.

Besides all of that, I only have 6 days of actual work before I'm done with my job. Next week I took some days off, so I could wrap up whatever packing we have to accomplish. Memorial Day weekend will be chock-full of going away gala's, however. Sarah's parents are throwing a going-away in Sioux City, and then my Dad is throwing one in Sioux Falls. I tried to get the two parties combined, but apparently the extra gas money is being spent on beer instead. So I stopped arguing.

That's all the new stuff for me for now. Enjoy the picture-free posting. -A

Turtle Kid

This one affected me today, not because this kid is so good (and he is), but because I hope that I can pay this much attention to my kids when they come, instead of being hooked on the internet as I am right now.

I find that right now I'm a moderate internet addict, at least according to the Internet Addiction Test. What this means is that, while I'm not so much of an addict that I have-to-have-to go on every waking minute...when I'm online, it's very hard for me to unplug and get stuff done. When I get my chores done earlier than my online session, I'm ok.

I'm probably going to ditch the online experience very soon. Which means this site will suffer. So be it, I'm sorry to say that it will miss me more than I miss it. I don't think I'll be entirely successful, but it's worth a shot. I already have another (subpar) browser that I'll be using to avoid all of the tabs that come up when I use this browser.

I have a life to live. Sorry Internet, and sorry Kraznoy. I'll be back sometime, just not right now.

Just saw IRON MAN!!!!

Dude, you have to see it. Also, check out Jeff Bridge's website. He's really great in this movie, and you really should check out his site - only the GREATEST actor-blog out there. Very artistic and cool.

Go and see this movie! It's really great, seriously. I have to automatically rank it in the top-10 action movies I've seen. The acting and writing are really good. Just go already!!!

Advice from Stephen King

This is why I started acting in College. Maybe I should jumpstart both acting and writing again...

Press One For English

This is a fun little song, but I don't "entirely" agree with it. I wish we could have some mish-mash form of English evolve from current American-English and the incoming Mexican-Spanish dialect. I mean, look at the history of the English language. You have so many invasions, notably by the Normans, Norse, Romans, and what-have-you, that modern English is almost nothing like early Middle Ages English. Why can't we just sort of inject that kind of blending of languages without resorting to bloodshed? Spanglish, anyone?

Anyhow, I'll shut up and let you listen.

New rules for my "list"

Or new "gripes" if you prefer.

1) Learn to drive that SUV. Yes, it's a bigger car. The lines seem closer because they ARE. Your goal is not to eat those white "dots", Pac-Man.

2) When going to a public bathroom, NO TALKING. If I wanted conversation with my junk out, I'd want dinnner and a movie first. But seriously, when I'm "dropping ballast", I don't want to speak to you. Or look at you. Or even acknowledge your existence. (Random thought...it's words like "acknowledge" that give those English 2nd language folks such fits. Just look at how many useless letters are in that word.)

3. Also, whan going to a public bathroom. NO TALKING ON YOUR CELLPHONE. For one thing, ICK! Dude, you realize you're PEEING, and when you're PEEING, droplets of PEE go places, and not always where you're aiming. So not only is it rude, it's unsanitary. No wonder you caught that cold 3 times last winter, dummy.

4. When walking down the hall, walk on the right side. We're in America, people.

5. When passing, either in the hall or on the road, pass on the left, drive/walk slow on the right. With the driving example, if your left-turn exit is more than 1/2 mile ahead, and if the traffic is rather light, you better either be driving fast, or you better get your butt over into the right lane. Now, if the traffic is heavier, I understand that you might want to stay in the left lane. But if you do, at least drive the speed limit for pete's sake.

6. When merging onto the interstate, you don't "always" have to speed up. Sometimes you can slow down and merge "behind" me. A similar thought process works on an airplane. Let's say you have a water landing (crash into the ocean), and you need to get out, fast. Most people will probably freak out and rush toward the front of the plane. Me, I'll hop some seats and go toward one of the rear exits instead. See, sometimes hanging back is a better option. (Or maybe I worked two hard to get two thoughts into the same rant.)

7. If you're foolish enough to merge ahead of me instead of the HUUUGE space behind me, drive the dang speed limit! Don't slow down! If you wanted to drive slow, merge behind me you fool! Sheesh!

That's all for now. Get to work.