And if the road he's taken isn't leading anywhere...
Tagged by thropots. Interesting questions.
Four jobs I've had. I'll think about the more curious ones.
Four jobs I've had. I'll think about the more curious ones.
- Attendant in a pinball/video arcade. If I owned an arcade game (Tempest!), I could probably fix it if it broke. I also play a mean game of pinball when my mojo is working.
- Medical transcriptionist. After studying physics, calculus, and Japanese, the best job I could find was based on my 10th grade typing class. Good: Working from home. Bad: Long-winded chiropractor discussing car crash #2471.
- Inventory specialist. If you haven't been in a warehouse at 4:00 a.m., balanced on opposite shelves 20' above a cement floor while you count boxes of toilet paper, you don't really understand the movie Brazil.
- Drummer. Getting paid to play music for belly dancers is a happy thing.
- The Matrix. Gnosticism with a great soundtrack. And guns. Lots of guns.
- The Mummy. Walking dead! Egyptian tombs! Secret societies! Librarians! What more could you want?
- Legend. I get completely wrapped up in the myth (and the gorgeous soundtrack and visuals). Tim Curry is a god.
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. "It's your hand, Buckaroo."
- Hayward, CA. Most of my elementary school happened here. It never snowed, and I was OK with that. Not too far from San Francisco, so I have some nice childhood memories of foggy beaches and Golden Gate Park.
- Iron Mountain, MI. We lived with my grandparents for a few months while my dad looked for a job in Minnesota. They lived in a nice little house in the woods... 10 minutes on the two-lane road out of "town," then another 15 minutes on a dirt road. Nearest neighbor 3-4 miles away. Dark at night, quiet all the time, wildlife wandering through the front yard. Not a bad life, if you don't have to take a couple of hour-long school bus rides every weekday. The high school football team was the Trojans - who thought that was a good idea?
- Anoka, MN. My first day of school in Anoka was on Halloween. I was the normal-looking one. Never again.
- Minneapolis, MN. On the whole, I rather like the city. I think NE was my favorite area to live in, though the neighborhood we're in now is nice.
- The Daily Show. For obvious reasons.
- Firefly. (sigh)
- Babylon 5. Myths in space. Who are you? What do you want?
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking dead! Midnight graveyards! Secret societies! Librarians! What more could you want? innerwilds got me hooked.
- Redwood National Park. It's alive. In the Lovecraft mythos, it's on the border of the Dreamlands. I believe.
- Grand Canyon National Park. Take the donkey ride, it's worth it.
- Reno, NV. "Going up to Reno" for a weekend was a normal vacation every few months when my family lived in Hayward. They'd do some gambling (my mom on the nickel slots, my dad played Keno) and I'd sit in the camper and read. Then we'd go out to eat. No complaints. My dad lives there now, and on our last vacation we visited him. Quite a lovely area once you get out of the scrub and up into the mountains.
- Salem, MA. The obligatory pseudo-pilgrimage, and the first NecronomiCon was in the area. Fascinating nautical history there too, but the best part of the trip was tracking down little spots of Lovecraftiana in the surrounding area.
- Egg sandwiches. It's a comfort food, I think I can trace it back to family vacations in our camper. I have them as often as I can get away with. Strange anchor, but there it is.
- Popcorn. I don't know if it counts as a "dish," but it's also in my comfort food list. I like making my own, but there's also a great place on Cedar to get it in bulk for parties.
- Tiger pork. I first had it one night after Festival at China Pagoda, where it's crunchy. Mmm, crunchy spicy pig.
- Garlic dip. Specifically, the garlic dip at Beirut in West St. Paul, with warm fresh pita. Amazing.
- Man Bytes Blog. I get to keep track of a friend on the East Coast and philosophize about game design.
- Political Theory Daily Review. Always food for thought, and my touchbase for current events since I don't watch the nightly news.
- The Onion when I've got my ad-blockers in place. There are hits and misses, but the hits are really good.
- Lifehacker. I just started looking at this, but I suspect it's going to be one of my favorites.
- Chichén Itzá. Beautiful, fascinating, and a little creepy. There are energies here that lie dormant and hungry. When I was there you could climb the large central pyramid, I'm not sure that you still can. The builders were doing some fascinating things with light and sound. All this and a platform for the skulls of your enemies.
- Palenque. Another Mayan site, much less grim, but with a few oddities of its own. A great example of the archeological jackpot, where clearing out the pyramid reveals a hidden passage to an elaborate burial chamber; also a great example of why I would never make it as an archeologist, as it took about 10 years of very careful sifting just to clear the dirt out of the staircase. Some of the architecture is reminiscent of something you might see in Thailand, and there are some prominent lion depictions... because, you know, of all the lions in the Yucatan. Curious place.
- Area 51. Or, more precisely, as close to Area 51 as a civilian can legally get without an invitation. Somewhere I have a picture of myself standing next to the "we can shoot you if you go any further" sign. I didn't see anything unusual, but I didn't spend all night looking at the sky either. However, I have been there, I did do that, and I did get the t-shirt.
- Minnehaha Falls. Yes, I only live a few blocks away from it now, but it's still a site. In one of life's little amusements, I first visited the falls on a family trip when we still lived in California, and I lost a towel with my name on it somewhere in the park. I'm sure that bound my fate to the place in some obscure cosmic way.