5.15.2010

Unreasonable Neighbors

Since living in my geologically founded house for over two years, one thing has become clear: the neighborhood is good, with the exception of those folks next door. Pieces of trash lays strewn in the treeline between our yards, the raspy unpleasant voice of the live-in stepfather can frequently be heard cursing at the wife and daughters, years of spent kitty-litter is piled up in the back corner of their yard, and a pride of non-fixed cats continue to produce litter after litter of kittens that aren't properly cared for or loved. Well, things just got worse. Despite politely asking the stepfather not to, he has taken it upon himself to remove the row of 10 foot tall tree/shrubs between our yard.



Where there once was a lush thick green line of vegetation separating my property from that of my despised neighbors, there now is just the trash that was caught in the treeline. He claims that he is going to put up a 4-foot picket fence in place, but that doesn't allow for the same amount of privacy or beauty that the bushes did. I'm not even sure that the bushes were on his property, but one thing is clear - there is no reasoning with people this ignorant and selfish. If he wants to do something, he is going to do it and if you try to stand in the way, you're likely to be next in line for the chainsaw. I guess all I can do now is hope that he follows through with the fence, but decides to make it 8 feet tall instead of 4 to hide the ugliness of their trash-ridden yard.

These bushes were one of the bigger selling-points of the house when I bought it two years ago, so I am confident that my property value has just been decreased significantly. Thanks a lot, assholes!


5.14.2010

exiting gracefully

As the last semester of my educational career came to a close, I realized that I had 1275 pages in my print allotment that hadn't been used yet. The semester officially ended last Saturday, so I spent the entire week before preparing a "chordbook" or songbook for guitar. I went through my entire music collection and looked up each artist that I thought could potentially be covered on guitar. With just hours of the semester remaining, I was able to print off all 1275 pages and create two massive books, pictured below:


So it was stressful enough to try to use my allotment before it expired, but to complicate matters more I realized that I got another 1000 pages to use for the summer allotment. Since the summer officially ends before I return from Montana (Oh yeah, I'm going back to Montana for my fifth summer to be AI for 429), I must use the print allotment before I leave at the end of June. This means that I am constantly trying to think of songs and musicians that I have missed to add to the chordbook. So far I have 5 songs. only 995 more to go. If you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to post a comment on my blog!

Everything is starting to fall into place. Not my thesis so much, but the end is within view...but it is certainly peculiar how life has a tendency to work itself out...