** SUN - 10.7.07 - 2:08 AM
The time has come. I've started a Blogspot account to serve as my internet home base for the near (and possibly farther) future. Come see me at Shortstop Manque. It'll be good.

FRI - 7.6.07 - 9:01 PM
The bad thing about living in a town situated on a river is that eventually it's going to rain every day for two weeks, the river will flood a low-lying area about a mile wide, then the waters will recede and the whole town will stink to highest heaven.

Yep, I'm in Bartlesville. I've been living and working in Price Tower for the last two weeks, and things are going quite well. Work doesn't feel like work (photographing original Frank Lloyd Wright furniture and digitizing old architectural drawings? I'll take it) and I'm essentially living in an upscale hotel room. Bartlesville itself isn't worth many more words, but I'll take what I can get. I'm here until August 3.

Once I get around to coming up with a layout, I'll be abandoning The Correct Dosage and starting anew somewhere else. Eventually I'll probably buy a domain, but with a semester in Europe coming up before long, my financial priorities are elsewhere. So it will probably start out on Geocities or something, and I'll provide a link in this space when it's ready. Along with the physical move, the format and content will shift a bit as well. It will still be a personal site, but the focus will be less explicitly on me.

The blog in particular will be less about what's going on and more a depository for whatever's on my mind. I think it's shifted in that direction on its own, and I also think that the continually decreasing frequency of my posts is a good indication of my interest in keeping a personal blog anymore. I've thought long about my relevancy (read: lack thereof) in the blogosphere to begin with, but while I don't feel like I can consistently and regularly channel the insight needed to be of any interest to the population at large, it's still fun to have a place to make the jokes I think of to myself while I'm waiting on a red light.

It's been real, y'all. Call me or something.

SUN - 4.22.07 - 11:21 PM
This week is for putting the intellectual pedal to the academic metal. I am going to get things done, and those things are going to like it.

Two more weeks of class, then a couple scattered finals the week after that. Once all that's done I'd like to spend some more time here. Definitely redesign the place, trim some fat. Get some photos going of things that have transpired. Talk about some exciting new albums and excellent concerts, and surely-would-have-been-excellent concerts (sometimes bad people make great music). Eat off campus (I wouldn't mind never seeing a Burger King again).

Oh yes, things will change.

TUE - 2.13.07 - 12:07 AM
It may be time to stop making promises about updates around here. I don't know that I've ever followed through on one. Anyway, I'm still working on my music review...I believe the following post will explain why it's not done yet.

On Thursday, the College of Architecture hosted a career fair. There were something like 40 firms on hand, mostly from Oklahoma and Texas, but a few from the farther reaches of the country's midsection. I visited with over half of them, picking up far more business cards and informational booklets than I will ever look at, let alone need. I interviewed personally with two of them the next day (and a third decided to take off early for lunch). There are no immediate leads on a summer internship, but most people aren't hiring for another month or two anyway. People were complimentary of my resume and portfolio, but it's hard to tell if they were just being polite. Everything seemed to go rather well.

Naturally, I needed to pretty up said resume and portfolio before such an event. The problem was that I had three major assignments for Tuesday and a studio project due on Wednesday. I got a jump start over the weekend, but still needed all night Tuesday to finish pre-career fair business. I got to bed early Wednesday (like, 8 PM early), but even with 11 hours of sleep I had trouble waking up. I had time to polish the resume and slap together a makeshift portfolio before the fair. Then Thursday was another short night as I worked on a slicker portfolio for my interviews. And then, in between interviews on Friday I slipped over to the UMC to meet with a prospective student from Florida who wanted to hear from a Presbyterian campus organization.

The weekend was just what I needed. Friday night I went out with some architecture friends before the "Irreplaceable" party at the Slanty Shanty, both of which were a ton of fun. Other than some Structures homework late Saturday, I made the executive decision to take time out for a while.

That basically brings us to now. Bebe's with me in Norman while mom makes a trip up north. Busy week coming up, but it doesn't seem as bad as it did a week ago.

THU - 2.1.07 - 11:28 PM
Much has transpired since we last spoke. Or at the very least, many days have passed. Following are the most relevant and noteworthy items of the past six or so weeks.

Dad's in Omaha. He took an administrative position at Missouri River Valley Presbytery. Specifically, he's the interim executive presbyter and will be there for the next 1-2 years. Mom, Courtney, and I are still in Oklahoma attending to our various educational and vocational obligations. It's taking some adjusting, but nothing we haven't experienced at some (lesser) level in the past. We moved him up a couple days after Christmas and then spent a couple days, including New Year's, in Sioux City with family (prolonged by a brief ice storm).

Postseason football highs and lows. Things went downhill pretty fast after the (totally awesome) Rose Bowl. It's really hard to complain about the Fiesta Bowl, which improbably outcrazied the USC-Notre Dame game from last year and will certainly be remembered among the greatest college contests ever played. I didn't expect much out of the Chiefs in their playoff game against Indianapolis (and the fact that they got in at all was a more than minor miracle), but it's frustrating to watch the worst-case scenario play out in front of you. The high-powered offense of yesteryear would not have been required to win this one as Manning laid an ostrich-sized egg through the first three quarters, but on this day all they could manage was a near historical impotence. I cannot say that I have much confidence in the coaching staff as we head toward a stretch where it appears that Larry Johnson and a couple young defensive players will be the only things worth watching.

Umm...school started? It turns out I don't have as much to talk about as I thought when I set out on this post. The semester's started out well. 16 hours, nothing overly taxing (except sitting through class during lectures on noise control...sheesh). I'll be back in the next couple days to wrap up my 2006 In Music.

WED - 12.20.06 - 8:55 PM
Vanity license plate spotted today: "MEGAPMS"
(Green Porsche convertible; gender of driver unknown)

School's out for a month. I have small things I could probably be doing (laundry, cleaning, shopping, etc.) but instead I've been choosing to sleep late and not really do anything afterward. I've rolled some coins so that I can eat better than lunch meat once this week, but have yet to get to the bank.

Um, if anything comes up, I'll let you know.

SUN - 11.19.06 - 10:44 PM
The time was roughly the same as this entry (albeit in the Pacific zone), the date was November 10th; I looked out the window to my right and could just make out the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles amid an infinite expanse of identical orange-yellow lights. I had not seen these buildings in three and one half years. I smiled.

I was on the ground a few minutes later and in the front seat of a shuttle on the freeway system a few minutes after that. I caught only a few glimpses of campus as I was delivered to my friend Russ' apartment; not enough to gauge any kind of reaction or emotion. I was exhausted after a day of classes, terminals, and bad mid-air movies, with an even longer day ahead of me. I fell asleep on a couch wondering if seeing USC again would give me fuzzies or induce vomiting.

Call time was 8:00 at the football practice field. I got there, but not before disorienting myself in the student-occupied neighborhoods north of campus and then having to look up my destination at a kiosk map (what am I, a freshman?!). I still arrived early and was handed a ticket, a credential to get on the field, and music for Heartbreaker. For a few minutes, I didn't know anyone else. There was a wide age range; mostly people in their mid-to-late twenties, but a few gray hairs here and there as well. I didn't have to wait long to see some familiar faces. Hugs and handshakes, a short warm-up and run-through, then we moved to the track stadium to play with the band.

It didn't feel like coming home. I recognized everything I saw; I felt connected, but distantly. It was pretty similar to going back to Hope last year. I suppose it would have been nice to have felt like I was still completely a part of my surroundings, but an even nicer side effect was that nothing bad was coming back.

Practice wrapped up. Hearing the band play Conquest for the first time may have been the highlight of the trip. A group of us went to Denny's for our choice of breakfast or lunch, then came back to campus. With the game still several hours away, we had more than enough time to lounge about and tailgate in front of the P.E. building. The weather fluctuated between just a little too warm and just a little too chilly all afternoon. I made a quick trip back to my host apartment to get a sweatshirt and got back just in time to join the throng in front of Heritage Hall for the band's pregame preparations. Following that, we walked to the Coliseum and got down to the field to store our horns. The players and coaches were there going through warmups, including Pete Carroll tossing the ball at near conversational proximity. We hung out on the field for probably half an hour, until finally it was close enough to game time to find our seats.

I found myself awash in a sea of Oregon green and yellow in the upper reaches of the southeast corner. It was at least twenty minutes before another Trojan showed up to sit near me, but not long after that it was determind that I was in the wrong section anyway. I was more than happy to move. The game itself couldn't have gone much better; the Duck fans began filing out early in the fourth quarter to shouts and even a variation on "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" ("You came a long way just to lose" x4). There was a bizarre series of events late in the game where SC challenged a play, had it reversed after what seemed an eternal review, then subsequently had it reverted to the original ruling on an Oregon challenge to the challenge after another unnecessarily long review. I don't understand how that was, in the first place, legal, and in the second, possible...had they not just reviewed that very play? But the final score of 35-10 was more than satisfactory.

Alumni from all sections of the band were invited to play with the TMB at the post-game concert on the field. I only remembered about half of the songs and choreography, but it was a blast nonetheless. My time in the band was the best part about the year at USC, and to relive it for just that short amount of time was as big a thrill as I can remember having.

After the band dismissal at the bookstore, I said some goodbyes and walked back to the apartment with a couple folks. I opted out of going to Tommy's with some of the trumpets, which I kind of regret, but I was sufficiently exhausted to justfiy it. I woke up the next day around 9 and spent the morning walking around campus and taking pictures. I think I had forgotten what an attractive place it is. I had lunch with a couple architecture friends, then got back to the apartment just in time to load my shuttle back to LAX. I got a couple of "Fight On!"s in the terminal from band alumni on their way back out of town. A sports bar television informed me of the Chiefs' loss to the Dolphins (sheesh), then I watched some Office on my iPod until the flight. I was back at the house in Norman by 1 A.M.

I don't have a strong desire to live in southern California at the moment, but I do hope I can make it out there with regularity. It's a great place, and I miss it a lot sometimes.

My pictures from the weekend, plus a couple from other people since I don't photograph much other than buildings.

And as a final thought, I'll say that the Trojan Marching Band is a lot less intimidating when you're not a freshman in it. Still, don't take any chances.

TUE - 10.17.06 - 3:32 PM
Knoxville pics now up. 99 total. Lots and lots of the stadium, most of which you will probably find boring and/or useless. That's okay.

Since I have nothing else to say that even approaches something resembling interest, I'd like to give the new season of The Office my official five-star recommendation. It's getting a little more surreal, but somehow even funnier and more uncomfortable. These people know what they're doing.

THU - 10.12.06 - 11:59 PM
This most recent weekend found me in Knoxville, Tennessee for an AIAS conference. It being OU-Texas weekend, I was the only representative from our fair institution. I left on Thursday right after lunch and pulled into a Nashville Days Inn around midnight. A beautiful two and a half hour drive full of hills and foliage hinting at orange the next morning and I was at the home of Harold, my best friend from the Arkansas years and current attendee of the University of Tennessee. He would be gone the rest of the weekend, but we had a good catching up sort of lunch and then I stayed in his room.

Most of the weekend involved going to lectures given by prominent people in the field. Some of you may remember the Cranbrook Natatorium precedent project I worked on as a freshman (a couple images to jog your memory). Tod Williams was one of the speakers, who just so happens to be the designer of that very same natatorium, and who just so happened to speak for a few minutes on that very same natatorium. Early Saturday morning we drove in vans for a couple hours and then hiked (so to speak; it was a recently paved trail) to the peak of Clingman's Dome, which is the highest point in Tennessee despite practically being in North Carolina. To simply forget about everything going on at home for a few days made for a pleasant and relaxing time for sure. The drive back seemed somehow more boring; I could probably come up with several reasons for that which would all have some truth to them. I crashed at another Arkansas-period buddy's place on the way home, this time actually in Arkansas, then made it home Monday afternoon. I hope to soon have some pictures to share with you, and I certainly have enough to choose from (108!). Until that time, go Tigers.

TUE - 10.3.06 - 8:03 PM
The Flaming Lips are going to save the world.

I remember reading that in a review of their album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, way back in 2002 when I was still trying to figure out just what it was about this weirdo freak-rock band that everybody loved so much. My musical tastes were in the early stages of a pretty big shift, and it took me what was probably an abnormally long time to warm up to the Lips. Gradually I began to see the wonderful in the weird, to see why they're the most universally acclaimed and adored band of the last 25 or so years (other than Radiohead, maybe). And how could I honestly not dig the most important rock band to ever come out of Oklahoma?

So imagine my delight when I found myself at the OKC Zoo Ampitheater a couple Friday nights ago, September 15th, occasionally bobbing my head to three opening bands while waiting for the Flaming Lips to take the stage for their first hometown show in over three years (and my first time to see them live). I knew coming in that a) they had a reputation for bombast and theatrics on stage, b) Wayne Coyne had constructed a UFO in his yard specifically for this show, and c) the show was being recorded for a live DVD due out next year. Realistically, there was zero chance of not having a memorable evening.

In between the first and second bands, Wayne walked out onto the stage, drawing raucous cheers from the still small early crowd. He waved with a huge smile, then grabbed what looked like a PVC pipe and shot a round of streamers and confetti into the crowd. He continued wandering around the stage, helping set things up and occasionally acknowledging the audience, much to our delight. We stood through The Evangelicals (excellent local band on the rise), Stardeath and White Dwarf (Wayne's nephew's band; not really my kinda thing, but listenable), and Deerhoof (another good-weird band) until finally, somewhere between 9 and 10:00, it was time for The Flaming Lips.

The sun was gone. The aforementioned homemade UFO began to sporadically light up above the stage like the LED-equipped whistle I had grabbed from a cardboard box on my way in the gate. It slowly descended toward the ground, accompanied by spacy sounds and ethereal instrumentals coming from nowhere, awaited by two groups of about fifteen people, one dressed as aliens and the other as Santa Clauses. Once it hit land in a billowing fog, a ladder descended from the center. Out climbed the band members, except Wayne. He appeared on top of the structure inside some sort of crumpled, plastic mess. This mess gradually began inflating into a big bubble, and suddenly he was descending from the UFO, and suddenly he was rolling around on top of the crowd as the music crested and people went completely insane. He never rolled over me, but he got close and I could see him, manic and joyous, scrambling desperately across outstretched hands. Finally he rolled back onto the stage, where he emerged victoriously to unending cheers. Before we knew what hit us, he was back with the band, who immediately kicked into "Race for the Prize." Two orange cone-shaped things were spewing similarly orange confetti over and into the crowd at a dizzying rate, and what seemed like dozens of enormous yellow balloons were bouncing overhead from the first row to the very back. Two arms for every jumping body were in the air; I was surrounded by a joy pure and profound, something I had probably felt before but which had never resonated as deep and undiluted for as long as it would the rest of the evening.

The remainder of the set was a blur of favorite tunes, dancing aliens and Santas, UFO lightshows, and, of course, confetti and fake blood. All told, it was about two hours of eleven songs and two encores. Every last minute was spectacular and life-affirming. The Flaming Lips will most certainly save the world. We just have to get the world to one of their shows.

Deerhoof
Whales acting as beach balls between acts
The UFO hovers above the stage
Wayne Coyne from a mic-cam
Wayne descends in the bubble
During "Race for the Prize"
A better shot during "Race for the Prize"
During "A Spoonful Weighs A Ton"