Never call me cheap again

Why? Because I am about to spend lots of my hard-earned money on this:
















This is a piece of paper signed by all four Beatles in 1963. I have wanted something like this most of my life, and yes, there is a part of me that is wondering why I'm spending thousands of dollars on a piece of paper. However, there's another part of me that says, "Cause it's fucking awesome. That's why."

Join us!

Hey Waple... buy one. "One of us! One of us!"


Via: Cell Phones

so suave.

may 2006

happy valentine's day.

Radiohead performance!

In case you haven't heard, Radiohead did a special performance recently to benefit the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. They auctioned off the seats and made a lot of money for donations. They also debuted a new song allegedly from the new album they're currently working on. There is a link to the bootleg of the performance available here. Enjoy!

My new job

For those of you who don't know and still read this (no one? Palmer? Ben?), I got a new job. I am going to be working at New Westinghouse high school, which is a Chicago Public School on the west side of Chicago in Garfield Park. It is actually a pretty rough neighborhood, but the school is one of only a handful of selective enrollment schools in Chicago, so that means the kids that are there want to be there. I hope that means discipline problems won't be much of an issue, and same for interest in the subjects. The neighborhood does make me question public transport, though. It'd be nice to be able to get rid of my car and save a few thousand a year, but we'll see.

There's a lot I still don't know about the job. I don't know what I'm teaching yet or if they'll want me to coach anything. All I know is that I'm going to be super busy and that I'm getting a huge pay raise from my current job. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm mostly just relieved. Getting a new job has been on my list for a while and I was really going to be in a pinch if I was at the same school again next year, earning little and being far away from my condo in the city. This new job basically means I can run my life completely independently. I'll get a cell phone. I'll be at my condo all the time. I'll meet new people in the city. And I'll pay for it all. That last part I'm not so excited about, but I guess it's all part of growing up that I've staved off long enough. I just hope that with this new job I have time to do the things I love: See improv shows, do improv, exercise, possibly even get a girlfriend (gasp) and keep my sanity. On the other hand, getting a new job right now is pretty hard to do. I had emailed districts I had connections with to see what their status was for this coming year and not only were they not hiring, they were actually cutting back. That put my new job into a new perspective - not that I didn't know already that it was an ugly job market.

I don't know how long I'll be at this new school because you never know what can happen, but I hope they like me as much as the administration liked me at my current school. It's nice to feel like your job is secure. I also don't know how often I'll be seeing all my friends who are now not so near as before. I know it's not easy to come into the city, but that's going to be my biggest concern - keeping up friendships with people I won't see as often. That being said, everyone is welcome at my place literally any time for as long as you want. I'll put pictures up of what it looks like soon, but most have seen it and I still don't have a bed. So whenever I get things all tricked out you'll see what it looks like.

There's a football fan in all of us

Whether you like football or not, I can almost prove that there's another version of you out there that DOES like football. How can I prove it? Well, I was looking online at photos from crazy football fans from this year and a few of the photos stood out because some aspect of the people in them reminded me strongly of some of my awesome friends. See if you can guess who and why.

What are the top three things you would want to do for a living?

Unrealistic:
Rock star
Famous comedian
Advocate for the poor

Realistic:
Carpenter
Teacher
Dodgeball business owner

New celebrity death pool?

I take you back six months to when I posted my picks for my own celebrity death pool, after Thom told me about the morbid pool he had at work with co-workers.

http://smithground.blogspot.com/2009/06/celebrity-death-pool.html

Well, none of my picks came through, but I'm willing to try again for 2010. Anyone else in with me? Maybe you can enlighten us with some of the rules, Thom. How many picks do we make?

Justice

So, today I finished jury duty. Have any of you ever served on a jury? It's kind of a painstaking process, but I still recommend that every citizen get the chance to do it at least once. It gave me a better appreciation for the judicial system and yet it made me realize how very flawed it can be. At the same time, I think it's probably one of the best justice systems in the world, however imperfect it might be. What has everyone else been up to?

Happy holidays!

I moved in!

I finally moved into my condo with the help of my friend Mark today. I was really happy to see that my furniture and the rest of my stuff should fit in pretty well. Also, since I bought the place with the purpose renovating it, I was happy to hear Mark, the carpenter friend, say "Oh yeah, this will be really easy to fix up." And then he started spouting ideas about what to do and how easy it would be. Although I'm sure it'll be a year or so until it's started, it's something to look forward to. Plus, my view of the lake from my windows hasn't gotten old yet, and I don't think it will. It's just so peaceful to see a big blue expanse that stretches out as far as your eye can see. I hope you can all come down and see it some time, and know that whenever you need a place to stay it's always open, even if I'm doing nine hot chicks. In fact, especially if I'm doing nine hot chicks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here you go, knuckleheads.

Notice the fantabulous photostream to the right. All you have to do is post a photo to Flickr and tag it "smithgroundblog" and it'll show up. Do it. Do it now.

I'd make it so you knuckleheads can add photos as I have them now, but there's all kinds of coding involved. Wapes, how's yer CSS and HTML these days? Maybe Mike should do it. Or Randall. They're both web friendly.

adding photos

Anyone know how to add photos to the side of the blog like the two that have been there forever? I want to put some up. This blog needs an injection of new spirit.

ranting

Not sure anyone still reads this, but I will rant here anyway.

I got fired yesterday. For real. It came out of nowhere, I walked in to what I thought was my normal weekly meeting with my boss, and there's the HR director sitting there, telling me they're making some changes to the therapist position, and one of those changes is that I'm "dismissed." They gave me a sheet describing what I've been doing wrong, mainly that they think I'm not doing enough to push the kids to work on their issues, and that my skills and experience aren't a good match for the severity of the kids we work with. I've never been written up or given any kind of formal warning about my job performance before this. I got an above average rating on my yearly evaluation in May. However that evaluation was written by my old boss who loved me. But she quit in june and was replaced by a new boss who apparently does not love me and thinks I'm a bad therapist. I had to clean out my office and leave immediately, I couldn't say goodbye to anyone. My coworker, who is black, has also been written up twice in the last two weeks and is about to be fired also. She's convinced the agency is discriminating against non-latino people, and wants me to join her in a lawsuit against them. When I was fired they offered me a $1200 severance package if I sign a contract agreeing not to sue them. The fact that they offered me that shows that I do probably have grounds to sue them, or else they wouldn't be bribing me to shut up. However, I'm not really a vengeful person and would much rather just take the money and move on, instead of putting effort into a lawsuit that probably won't go anywhere. I don't want to work in a place where I'm not appreciated anyway.
Obviously I was crushed when this all happened, but I'm trying to look on the bright side now. I hadn't been happy with my job for the last few months anyway, I didn't like my boss, the commute and the hours were killing me, and I agree the kids deserve a better therapist than me. So I'm excited to look for a new job where I fit in and can use my strengths and excell. Ideally with a much shorter commute, or a commute into the city so I'll have a reason to then move into the city. I'm also kinda excited about all this free time stretching out in front of me, I'll finally have time to go to the gym everyday, clean the house, hang out with people on weeknights, and all the other things I never had time for before. So, I'm kinda at a crossroads in terms of what to do with my life, but hopefully it'll work out for the best. Let me know if anyone knows of any social work jobs.

Thom Yorke's new band

In case you missed the news, Thom Yorke has a new band! I'm pumped! By the way, this doesn't mean Radiohead is broken up; they're just on hiatus. Yay for supergroups!

Seriously?

I file-system-checking HATE this town. Honestly, can't a guy have a new car for more than like a month before someone rear-ends him?

Damnit.

Some more live Radiohead

The site with live Radiohead shows went down for a while, and much to my surprise, is back up! There's a nice live show they have on there to download from a BBC3 broadcast. Not the whole thing, but what's there is nice.

http://www.radiohead-notforprofit.com/2009/09/01/radiohead-live-bbc3-reading-083009-mp3s/

October 10th

I'm excited for Charles and my birthday celebration. Let's us this as a forum for ideas. Sara already came up with a Jungle theme, but last time we tried a theme (vampires), we only got as far as a cape, red cups, and Ben talking in a hilarious accent. So maybe a theme is more than we can handle. If we really wanted to, we could do that. I do love Rainforest Cafe, and there is Congo River for putt-putt, but beyond that I don't know.

Questions to answer:
Where? City/Suburbs? House? Bars? My potential place in the city?
When? I'll be busy from noon-3pm on Saturday and in the city already, if that matters.
What? Drinking is always fun, but I always enjoy just the company of friends, and so far we have me, Mike, Sara, Thom, Mark, Tim, Charles (& Janet, I assume). I think I want to see Charles drunk, and Janet. And Sara. And everyone.
Gifts? No. Well, maybe a drink. And a hug and a smile.
Dinner? Sara suggested Rainforest Cafe, which is good, but I'm not tied to it by any means. Personally, my favorite restaurant is Cheesecake Factory. And maybe we can go somewhere that takes coupons to make paying the bill that much more complicated!