Category: Friends

Spirits and Giant Squids,Geeks and Shipwrecks

 

IMG_3403.JPGMarch 11, 2019

Monday morning started off too early for Lin. Naturally, the hazards of living with a small child and having to get up early on a daily basis means no matter what time I go to bed, I get up at what, for some people, is an unreasonable hour. But being the trooper (trouper?) she is, she was up before 9am and ran out to the local bakery to get some fresh bread then fixed us both some eggs (Gordon Ramsey recipe and it was skanu!) and toast for breakfast. Continue reading “Spirits and Giant Squids,Geeks and Shipwrecks” →

Cursed Children, EasyBuses, and other adventures

IMG_3375March 10, 2019

A few weeks back, I was getting pretty ragged. I was exhausted, working on various projects, and hadn’t had a real break from anything in about 8 months. It also turned out that due to a scheduling thing at work, I could have a week off from work. It was at this point Rasa, my ever supportive wife, said, in essence, get the hell out! After debating for a bit, and looking at options, I booked a three-day getaway to London, where I could stay with my sister from another mister, Lin. Continue reading “Cursed Children, EasyBuses, and other adventures” →

A Magical Date Night

06594241-D336-47F2-A0C7-A8CA8F9952B4.JPGA few months back, I saw that The Illusionists, a touring mega magic show which happened to feature Kevin James, an old friend from Vegas, would be hitting Vilnius in early March. This was a cool bit of news. I immediately reached out to see if Kevin would have a chance to meet up for coffee while they were in town. Of course, since it was still a ways in the future, we agreed to talk as it got closer.  Continue reading “A Magical Date Night” →

Clown Trip | David Magazine

53063706_2375440049156706_2322080356414521344_nWhile I’ve written about my various trips with Aga-Boom on here, my personal blog, before, this time I’m writing about the trips for someone else. My latest David Magazine piece, Clown Trip: Breaking the Language Barrier One Smile at a Time, takes the wider perspective and involves what it means to make people laugh without language.

10 Gorgeous Retro Board Games Based on Sci-Fi Classics

So lately, I’ve been backing games on Kickstarter (well, games and books). I’m not even sure why, since we don’t really play games at home at the moment. Sure, I’m hoping once we move into a bigger place, and actually have a table, that will change. Plus, I’m hoping that once Monki gets a little older she’ll want to play some games and we can have some family fun outside of the TV. Continue reading “10 Gorgeous Retro Board Games Based on Sci-Fi Classics” →

19 Ways To Stay Close To Long-Distance Friends

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Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Living in a foreign country, one where few people speak your language (not just linguistically, but culturally as well) is not easy. It’s certainly led me to bouts of sadness and melancholy, and wishing I were closer to my friends back home. I’ve written about this before, I know, but now Buzzfeed has written a fun article which describes 19 Ways To Stay Close To Long-Distance Friends. Continue reading “19 Ways To Stay Close To Long-Distance Friends” →

Stan Lee (1922-2018)

Well, True Believers, the time finally came. a month before his 96th birthday, Stan Lee passed away. Down the Tubes has a couple of nice pieces: In Memorium by Alan Woollcombe and Tim Quinn’s piece “How to be a Hero.” Both of these pieces, as well as many others, recount Lee’s history, his start as a teenager working for Timely Comics (which became Marvel), and how he, as no one else ever had, came to personify the field and the artform. Buzz Dixon, in particular, speaks of the man and his problematic relationship with the industry Continue reading “Stan Lee (1922-2018)” →

A Day in Spain spent Mainly on the Plane – Aga-Boom in Barcelona October 2018

Aga-Boom BillboardThe theme for my weekend getaway with Aga-Boom was “Late.”

Here’s how it all went down: Continue reading “A Day in Spain spent Mainly on the Plane – Aga-Boom in Barcelona October 2018” →

“So there was this girl…”

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Recently, I was asked by the Baltic Summer University to give a lecture about how I ended up in Lithuania. I titled the lecture Stranger in a Strange Land: How I went from All-American to part-time Lithuanian. That picture to the left is from the talk.

This was all well and good until it came time to actually start to put the lecture together and I realized I didn’t really know what I was going to talk about for 90 minutes. I mean come on, even if you had Neil Armstrong come in for a lecture, he probably didn’t talk more than 60, and he actually did something important (although, if you ask him, it weren’t no big thing).  Continue reading ““So there was this girl…”” →

Gosh, I love arrows.

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This image is from issue #3 of Mark Gruenwald’s 1983 4 issue miniseries about Hawkeye.

For a long time, the phrase at the bottom of the frame, “Gosh, I love arrows,” has been a shorthand for me, for the lopsided pleasure that something small can bring.

In this story arc (and I highly recommend reading it), Clint Barton has a really bad day. The kind of day they write country songs about. And he doesn’t know how to carry on doing what he’s supposed to do. But then he gets some help and the clouds part a little bit. There’s a tiny ray of sunlight and he clings to it, fighting for every bit of space between the clouds until he’s standing in the noon sun again.

I think sometimes I just need this reminder. That no matter how bad the world is, no matter the set-backs personally or professionally, no matter the often encroaching darkness, that there are some good and happy moments. Small things that can bring a smile and let you know it’s okay to continue to fight.

Gosh, I love arrows.

On memories and nostalgia

Bailey with Uncle Jaq.jpgMany a year ago, I subscribed to a film service called Seattle FilmWorks. The basic idea was that you would get discounted 35mm film through the mail and then return the roll for processing, all of which was quite inexpensive. The added benefit was that for a small additional fee, they would include a floppy disk with your photos on them in a digital format.  Continue reading “On memories and nostalgia” →

On Loneliness

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo I’ve been thinking about loneliness lately. I was supposed to go to Kuwait in June, to repeat the trip I went on last year with Aga-Boom. Now, in the end, the trip didn’t happen, which is okay, but it got me thinking. I was excited about the trip because I’d had a ton of fun in China with the gang. But more specifically, I’d had a great time with Zack, hanging out and bullshitting about life and mutual friends and comic books and all that popular culture BS. And that’s when it hit me. I wasn’t upset about not going to Kuwait for any other reason than I was feeling lonely and it would have been nice to hang out with my friend.  Continue reading “On Loneliness” →

Nevermore

University RavensOn a midnight, dark and dreary
As my eyes had gone all bleary
revising my c.v., so weary,
Then I heard a knocking knocking,
knocking on my chamber door

Lightning flash and peals of thunder
tore my peace of mind assunder
I stood and toward my door I blundered
toward the knocking at my door
shadows cast upon my floor

The door I opened, there to see
A Raven, in his finery
an ebon tenure committee
Come a’calling at my door
Knocking, cawing at my door

His eyes were black, my mood was blue
For his dark post-tenure review
Turned all my horses into glue
with sticky student eval scores
(It seems that they expected smores)

I told the Raven of my vigor
Maintaining academic rigor
and trying hard not to trigger
memories that open sores
and make the kids wander the moors

The Raven gave a caustic laugh
and showed me all his charts and graphs
with cuts in faculty and staff
The victory in culture wars
going to the well-paid whores

Who make the budgeting decisions.
My mind grew dark with tangled visions
“What of the education mission?”
I heard my quaking voice implore.
Quoth the raven: Nevermore.

— Orson Welk