corinna

Busy Weekend!

Posted on by grahams

This was a pretty crazy weekend!  On Friday night I went to Symphony Hall to see Artie Lange, from the Howard Stern Show (and formerly of MadTV).  It was a great time, Jim Florentine and Greg Fitzsimmons opened, both of whom I’ve enjoyed for some time, so it was great to see them live.  The MC was some local guy, who wasn’t that good and got pretty heavily booed, but he handled it well and probably knew what he was in store for… 

Saturday was a hugely busy day for

[info]coco_b

and I.  After grabbing breakfast, we headed over to the newly-rented storage locker to check it out, and then went across the street and rented a van from U-Haul.  We only really needed the van to move some of the bigger stuff (closet shelves and one of our dressers), but we ended up taking a bunch of other shit that was ready to go over as well.  I think the U-Haul guy was startled when he saw our total mileage was 3 miles in 2 hours, but then again, they are probably used to that in the city.  Moving that big stuff into storage sucked, but not as badly as it could have.  We spent the rest of the day packing away some unnecessary clothes and items..  The goal of all this is to make the apartment look less cluttered when we start showing it (hopefully in April).  This was a good motivator, imho, because the whole house was a mess, so it was hard NOT to be compelled to clean it up.  We ended up getting into a fight, which I guess can be expected when doing something so stressful, but we worked it out.. :)  We took another carload of stuff over Saturday night, and when we got back from that trip,  I turned the car off and realized I could pull up in my spot a bit more.  I went to start the car and it wouldn’t even turn over (even all the instrument lights were working fine).  I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with it, but I guess I’ll have AAA tow it to my mechanic tonight.  Hopefully it’s just a bad battery, but I guess it could be something far more nefarious…

Sunday was spent cleaning and doing laundry..   I was pretty tired by the end of the day, and was nodding off a little bit on the train ride over to the movie theatre.  The film club saw 300 last night, which was fun…  It was much better than I expected, and while I had some minor criticisms, overall it was a fun flick.

Burned Out Excitement!

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

and I have been trying to get ready to sell her condo.  We’ve gone to a bunch of open houses, started tying up the projects we’ve been procrastinating on for months now, and started identifying things that we need to sell, give away, or put into storage…  I lined up a 5×5 storage locker for us to keep the stuff we want to move to our new home, but that makes the current place look cluttered to prospective buyers.

This weekend we have several projects to keep us busy, including packing boxes to put in storage, installing the threshold under the bathroom door, painting, electrical, etc…   I know that after we move, there will still be tons of projects to do in the new place, but at least then I won’t feel so guilty about procrastinating, as I won’t be holding up the sale and purchase…  I’m really excited to finish this process and move into our new home…  That said, this weekend is going to suck…  :)

Roller Boogie

Posted on by grahams
[info]coco_b

, Audra, and I went to the ALL SKATE Roller Boogie last night at Chez-Vous.  As you may have guessed, this was not my idea, but I try to be good, giving, and game, so I figured what the hell..    It was a good time, although I needed to take a break every time or three around the rink, as I’d guess the last time I wore roller skates was 15-20 years ago.  The DJs they had were good, and none of us fell, so I can’t complain.  Chez-Vous is Boston’s only roller rink, and it totally had the feeling of a business held together by passion and a strong family…  Audra had gone to the ALL SKATE event in December, and she said the place was empty..  Last night, however, it was hoppin’, and there were plenty of people to watch when I was taking a panic break. 

By the end of the night I started to remember how to skate, although I was still really nervous..  I managed to do something to my ankle too, as it is sore today, but such is the price of fun….  Oh yeah, they had a concession with fried dough, and it was great…..   Mmmm…..

Tandoori on the Asphalt

Posted on by grahams

Monday night

[info]coco_b

 and I decided to order in, and so we had a local Indian restaurant bring us some delicious food.  About 30 minutes after we finished eating, she said she was getting itchy all over, and some bumps started to rise on her arm.  I jumped into action and went out to CVS to get some Benadryl and other treatments.  The car was parked pretty far away, and when I got there, there was a nice thick layer of ice which needed tending…  I drove over to CVS, and it took me awhile to identify the most appropriate treatments..  I returned home….

I had ran out of the house in a sweatshirt, and managed to forget my house keys, so I started buzzing the intercom, but there was no answer.  I called Corinna, and noticed I had missed a call from her..  She was walking herself to the ER (right down the road from us), and so I set out for the hospital myself.  When I got to the hospital she had already been admitted and so I waited in the waiting room until they’d let me in.  I proved useful when one of the admitting ladies needed a bunch of Corinna’s info..  I was probably more knowledgeable than the average boyfriend, A) because we’ve been together for 4 years now, and 2) because I consume trivia like others consume food.

It turns out that soon after I left, Corinna’s reaction kicked into overdrive and she (appropriately) freaked out.  When I missed her call I was already at CVS, so even if I had gotten her call it would have been faster for her to walk to the ER, anyway.   Anyway, when she got there, they saw her immediately and gave her a Benadryl IV which apparently started helping almost immediately.  When I was finally let into her room, she appeared a little red still, but apparently she was one big welt before the IV kicked in.   The doctor and nurse were just telling her that she’d need to take Benadryl for a few days, and I got to look like a rock star when I pulled some out of the CVS bag of holding.  We were in the hospital for about 3 hours total, finally walking home around 12:45a.  When we got home, Corinna’s legs still had some hives (which were concealed under her pants at the hospital), but her upper body was pretty much cleared up. 

The whole situation was freaky;  she’s had Indian several times, but never from this restaurant and never this dish…  We don’t know if this is a new allergy or if she was exposed to a new ingredient.  Needless to say, we probably won’t be eating the leftovers in the fridge any time soon (or, at least, she won’t :P)..

Steve is Gay

Posted on by grahams

Steve is Gay
Originally uploaded by seangraham.

Corinna and I pass by this sidewalk almost every Saturday on our walk to breakfast at Moogy’s. Every week I laugh my ass off at the thought of Steve, who (in my imagination) lives in the home directly behind this sidewalk, leaving his home every day and pumping his fists in the air at the kids who mock him. I doubt whoever wrote this in the concrete had any idea of the laughs they created…

One day I will pass another piece of freshly-poured sidewalk and have the balls to put "Steve is Still Gay" into it.

Turkey Weekend

Posted on by grahams

and I headed down to Jersey after work on Wednesday.. We waited until 6:30pm or so to avoid traffic, which worked, until we hit torrential rain in New York state. The traffic wasn’t bad, per se, but the rain really slowed us down. We arrived sometime around 11pm, and crashed pretty quickly. Thursday morning I woke up to the turkey preparations, which were already under way. This year, my parents had access to two kitchens, as our neighbors across the street were out of town and we were watching their house. This inspired my mom to pick up two 20lb. birds! This way we were able to feed 16 people with plenty of leftovers! Corinna prepared Alton’s Cranberry Dipping Sauce, which I was always curious about, and was awesome.

Friday was pretty crazy… Corinna and I were planning on traveling into Manhattan to visit her friends Sara and Dave. Corinna decided that she wanted to do something “touristy” in Manhattan, so she plotted out a window shopping route that would take us from the 33rd street PATH station up 5th to 60th St. This wasn’t something that I was terribly interested in, and expressed displeasure, but never really made it clear how little I wanted to do it… When we got there, Corinna witnessed the power of this fully armed and operational battle station. It was a total sea of people, we could barely move, and by the time we hit Rockefeller Center we gave up. We jumped on the subway to head down to Sara and Dave’s (down by the World Trade Center pit). The rest of the night was tons of fun, though, so we were able to erase the bad taste of Black Friday Retail Hell.

Saturday was ‘s birthday, so we mostly celebrated that, going out to the townie bar Tidal Wave to celebrate after cake. It was a really weird bar; They had a football game playing on the big screen and pool tables in the back, but they also had a DJ spinning the worst dance dreck of today. I also, somehow, ended up as DD, so I couldn’t even drink it away. :P

The trip home on Sunday sucked SOOOOOO badly… A normally 4 hour trip took 6.5 hours, and Corinna and I were ready to tear our eyes out by the end of it… I was so freakin’ crabby and just wanted to find somewhere to hide…

Today I had a physical, my first real physical in ages… Apparently I am still inexplicably healthy, although I will have to wait awhile for the cholesterol and other blood tests to come back. My blood pressure was still pretty good at 110/76… Obviously I have to lose some more weight, but my walking to work seems to be helping in that department.

Brainwaves

Posted on by grahams

This weekend was the Brainwaves Festival over in Arlington, which was a ton of fun. Jon really did a great job pulling the whole thing together, and while I wasn’t in to every artist, it was great seeing so many different bands. The highlight for me was The Dresden Dolls turning out a great set (even if they seemed out of place in the midst of the other bands on the lineup). Amanda and Brian brought out Edward Ka-Spel (from The Legendary Pink Dots and The Tear Garden) for “Missed Me”. I’m not the biggest Ka-Spel fan (I actually left before his set, closing out Friday, was over, but I was mostly just exhausted).

After a Kelly’s brunch, I made it back to the theatre on time on Saturday Afternoon. This daytime lineup seemed to be mostly noise artists, which can always be hit-or-miss. Fortunately, none of them seemed to take themselves too seriously, which made it more palatable. came out Saturday night to join me, and it was great seeing him again and catching up. Saturday night was definitely my favorite overall night of the show. It was dedicated to Steven Stapleton, who did a “DJ” set playing some of his favorite records. All of the artists Saturday night were enjoyable, but the stand-out band were also the headliners, Volcano the Bear. They had great energy, and while at times they seemed to be in Schtick Coma, they really rocked it out.

I missed the final day of the festival as I had previously committed to heading over to ‘s place for some Nintendo Wii love. He has preordered his and was having a big party to celebrate (and play). We mostly played Wii Sports, Tennis and Baseball are the standout games, but Bowling is pretty cool too. Golf and Boxing were a bit spottier though. Boxing definitely felt like your actions with the remote had the least correspondence to what happened on screen. That, and Corinna kicked my ass at Boxing, so I can’t like it. :P

We played from like noon until 6pm, when and I had to run off to see “Casino Royale”. I really, really enjoyed it, as did seemingly everyone who showed up to the club this week (17 people!). Definitely removed the crappier aspects of Bond for the past however-many years and stuck to spying and action (Parkour FTW).

Halloween 2006

Posted on by grahams

This year’s Halloween Party at Sean & Kelly’s was as awesome as ever.  It’s always great to be able to able to see so many of my friends since we’ve all scattered away from Rochester.  This year’s party was a bit different than years past, with Master

[info]sophusalexander

now present and accounted for.  Other friends of Sean and Kelly’s brought a young child as well, so a “Swear Jar” was instituted (the proceeds of which go to christmas presents for the children who we damaged).  At the end of the party, I believe there was nearly $90 in the jar (with the typical “fine” being $1).  Not too bad for a bunch of foul-mouthed drunks…

[info]adamfletcher

created the above time-lapse video of the party, starting Thursday night (before

[info]coco_b

and I arrived) and continuing until Sunday morning when people began to depart.  I believe he said that he kept 1 out of every 400 frames, which (if my math is correct, is one frame every 13.3 seconds or so).  You’ll see the perspective change as we moved the camera on Friday morning to a corner-mount on the wall.  I don’t know how much work he put in to preparing for this, but it went off without a hitch.  Yesterday he put up all the raw DV files up on a server, as well as a ~100MB WMV “rough-cut” just so people didn’t have to download a few gigs of DV.  Anyway, I downloaded it all yesterday and cut together a version to stick up on YouTube as well as burn to a DVD.  Other than the “title cards”, everything else you see is Adam’s (all the “real” work).

God damn I hate home improvement.

Posted on by grahams

Saturday afternoon we ripped out the old bathroom door, which was less traumatic than I expected..  Didn’t really do any damage to the walls removing the trim and ripping out the old door jamb/frame.  It seemed like everything was going to be peachy, I nailed the small lengths of 2×4 we purchased into the opening to make it a standard-er size, we started attaching the jamb to the frame and making sure it was square, level, and plumb.  We nailed it in on the hinge side in two points, and then shimmed it out on the lock side to give it a test run… And the door struck the jamb at the top lock side of the door.  Not only that, but I drove the nails in all the way, so we had to mar up the jamb getting them back out.  We playedaround with raising the sides and all kinds of things, but no matter what we tried even though the jamb was square/true/plumb/everything it just didn’t matter.  We worked on this whole project for about 5 hours and eventually gave up for the night.

Sunday, we procrastinated as long as possible and started anew.  We were just about to start when Corinna had the flash of genius to call her stepfather for advice.  He is retired now and doing lots of the construction on the addition to her parents’ home in Michigan.  We mentioned that we padded out the space to make the opening “the right size” with six short pieces of 2×4.  We explained that the old 2×4 that formed the hinge-side of the existing frame was completely cockeyed and we were using shims to correct for it.  He provided the (now obvious) suggestion of getting a single 80″ 2×4 to run the entire length of the hinge side, and shim that as necessary to make sure it’s plumb, etc.  Using one long board eliminates discrepancies in plumb/true/squareness between the 3 separate pieces of 2×4.  He also suggested using screws instead of nails, because you have more fine-tuning available by tightening/loosening the screws, plus if you screw up you can easily back them out.

With this knowledge in hand, Corinna ventured out to Home Depot (knowing how much I hate going to that store), got the 2×4, we had it up and shimmed out in 20 minutes, and less than an hour later the door was hung and swinging freely.

So I guess the moral of this story is that installing a pre-hung door probably IS easier than fitting one into an existing jamb if you know what you are doing and do appropriate prep work.

Update: Re-edited this to remove some nonsense sentences (I “repurposed” this text from an email I sent to my dad).

You know you’ve been living in a place for awhile…

Posted on by grahams

…when the number of times you run into people you know begins to skyrocket. The past few weeks, Corinna and I have either separately or together run into people we know either through work or the film club… This past weekend we were at Six Flags New England, which is 80-ish miles away from Boston, and we ran into two film club members who were there on a date. The odds of that are pretty crazy, especially given how packed the park was. I normally reserve trips to amusement parks for mildly overcast or even rainy days, but the season was winding down and we had to use the discount tickets Corinna got from Harvard, so we pulled the trigger and went on a Saturday. The park was so packed. The shortest wait was for the Scrambler, but pretty much everything else was a 45-60 minute wait or more. It’s really an unpleasant experience waiting on line that long. One of the best parts of the trip, though, was waiting on line for Superman for 60 minutes, getting in the first car due to the kindness of strangers (who wanted to ride with their friends), and after our ride, the ride broke and we were stuck waiting for maintenance to get out of the coaster.. They blamed it on the temperature change, and had it going in about 15 minutes, but I was so glad that it waited to act up until AFTER our ride. If not for those strangers, we would have been waiting to go and probably nervous about flying off into the river or something

Rewinding a little, last Friday a bunch of us got together down at Fanueil Hall for ‘s birthday. Drinks and food were to be had, but Corinna and I couldn’t stay out all that late due to our Saturday plans. It was great seeing everyone, as always, and we even had a special guest! As of September 1st, I was able to count the number of times I had seen since he moved to Boston on one finger. And that one time was for 5 minutes. But with the Welcome Back party as well as Matt’s birthday extravaganza, that number has increased by leaps and bounds! Rumors are that he will be at Girard’s Wii party next month as well!

Sunday was delicious brunch at ‘s abode, which was awesome. After the brunch wound down, I headed over to the Kendall for my own little double-feature. I caught American Hardcore which was a documentary covering the hardcore punk scene of the early-mid 80s. It was a bit frenetic, which can be expected given the subject matter, but it was great. After that, I met up with the film club to see The Last King of Scotland, which I really wanted to be much better than it was. When I left the theater I was pretty strongly against the flick, but after I settled down a bit I realized that it wasn’t terrible, but it just could have been so much better.