The best way to be a conservative woman?

So I was watching CNN today, (weird, right?) and this happened to be one of the commercials that aired:



I have NEVER seen this commercial before, and, of course, I had to see it on a conservative channel. Personally, I like how you can even slide the thing up and down so you can decide just "how much cleavage you want to show" read:"how much of a prude you want to be". Don't get me wrong, I'm all for respecting women, but she knew the shirt was made that way when she bought it. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe she should buy less revealing shirts to wear to work. Eh.

Also, it looks like a napkin.

ATP Presentation Action!

This past Thursday marked the end of a chapter for many BSC (BSU!) students who were approved for the Adrian Tinsley Project. For those who dont know, ATP gives out summer and semester grants ranging from 800-4500 dollars to students who wish to do undergraduate research. At the end of the research period, the students are required to present their findings at a research symposium. My partner in crime, Michael Galvez, (pictured with ATP chairman Steve Haefner) happened to be one of those students who was funded, and therefore presented. All of the presentations were executed very well, and all had quite a bit to report to their colleagues. There were interesting studies conducted on crime rates in Lowell, how Western media influences Arabian's body image satisfaction, how play therapy can be better suited to children in a clinical/home setting, several creative writing projects, and of course Mike's video presentation showing off his short films he/we made over the course of the roadtrip.



As I said before, all the presentations were great, and very informative. It was also nice to see some fellow classmates make appearances at the symposium, and it was great to have some good talks with my professor during the breaks.

With all that said, there was one presentation right before Mike's that was about the organization and difficulty of playing some saxophone solos for All-State bands. Im not 100% on what it was really about, as the presentation was interrupted by technical difficulties, and the presenter never got the chance to really delve into the subject as much as I wanted him to, but he still kept my interest. Maybe it was his awesome beard. Either way, he may or may not have been given 4500 bucks to look at sheet music. And grow a beard. That rules.

What were they thinking?!

So I was watching some tv tonight and I ran across an absolutely horrifying commercial. I dont know how someone could ever think "yeah, that would look good on our network. Lets air it nightly at 11:05 and 11:35". Naturally, I had to look it up online and share it with you all. Enjoy:

A promotional question

Now that the trip is over, I feel like this should take new direction. For those of you who dont know, I'm an avid guitar enthusiast and love playing for hours on end. As of late I have been watching a few videos online made by some of my favorite musicians to help develop some techniques, and I got to wondering: do labels make these artists put out videos for publicity reasons? Having worked with several promotion labels, I already know bands are forced into doing interviews while they are being promoted, but does it work the say way with all of their videos as well? I have been looking at this one for the past couple hours and then that idea sparked in my head. Its not really even an instructional video, its just what he does while warming up for a show. So did he get a camera shoved in his face, or really just want to show some people how he warms up? Might have to look into this...

Blogging......Right

Its been a little while since the last time I was here, and actually I've been home from the roadtrip for about a week and a half now...I think. Anyways, as I'm sure you might have noticed, I've been slacking on the blogging front, and I haven't even given you the final progress update since I've been home. So without any further delay, here it is:



As you can tell, it was a hell of a trip. The last leg of it was pretty exhausting, though. Thats probably why I didnt update this as regularly. This past week or so I have been trying to catch my breath and say "hey" to everyone, providing people with tidbits about the trip. All I can say is that managing a web class and a roadtrip at the same time was NOT easy. Going from place to place and then doing whatever at each place was tiring enough, never mind thinking about and doing work for a class after an already full day. Anyways, I'm working on keeping on top of this as the class comes to a close, so look for more regular updates!

Headed into the final stretch...

Soooooo its been a while since I've last updated; things have been pretty draining, and by that, I mean I'm freakin' exhausted. Days have blurred into one long day. So many things going on with the knowledge that I need to be doing other things AKA schoolwork along the way has just really tired me out. We're coming up on the last leg of the trip here. Right now we're just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee on the outskirts of Great Smokey Mountain National Park. It appears that we'll be in Pennsylvania by tomorrow night and with that, that means we'll be back in MA on the 15th. From that point I'll be able to catch up on some work, sort out all my footage and pictures, and finally be able to take a break. The thought of my own bed seems pretty amazing right now. I'm going to cut the short because I have some other work to do, but I'll give you a quick progress update before I head out:

LAKE POWELL FTW

So we've been at Lake Powell for the past few days, and it is totally the man. You get the whole desert atmosphere, but when things start getting too hot, you get to jump in the water. This place is absolutely gorgeous. There's 96 canyons, (one of which we camped in last night)and it is also home to the world's largest natural arch, Rainbow Bridge. According to some of the locals, they say that it's wide enough to fly a Boeing 747 though it. I'd say you'd need to be one hell of a pilot to do that, but it sure is huge! Here's a picture I took of it:



Still, that picture doesn't do it justice. Also, while it is somewhat on topic, I've decided that I will only be posting a few pictures before the end of the trip. With the amount of traveling and the course load for the summer class, not to mention all the crazy things we've been doing, I just wont really have the time to be going through all of the pictures I've taken. I've tried editing and organizing on the road, and its slightly nauseating. I will, however, post a select few such as the above picture for your viewing pleasure. Other than that, just bear with me haha.

While we've been staying at Lake Powell, we decided that it would be a good idea to day trip back out to the Grand Canyon. On our way to the lake, we saw the South rim, which is pretty spectacular, but it is extremely touristy. With that in mind, we headed to the more secluded North rim, and managed to arrive just in time to see a storm tearing through the canyon. It's really a sight to behold: you can just see the walls of rain pouring down and lightning was everywhere. Speaking of, I nearly got struck by lightning. I was standing on the highest point around, some 8500 feet above sea level, and Mike made the comment that my hair was standing straight up. I thought he was just making fun of me because the wind was blowing, so I ran my fingers through my hair to be like, "Yeah man, this wind is something else", but it turned into something more along the lines of " Yeah man, this wind is...(bzzzzzz bzzzt bzzzt) HOLY CRAP IM GONNA DIE!" I dont think I've ever jumped down from somewhere so fast in my life haha. At the time it was absolutely terrifying, but looking back at it, it was totally worth it to be up there. It was like being on top of the world.

PROGRESS:



Anyways, we're heading to Zion National Park and then Arches shortly thereafter. I'm super excited and I cant wait.

It's been a loooong few days, but Vegas, right?

Ok so I know its been a while since Ive done this, but Ive been a bit on the busy side and wifi/adequate cell reception has been pretty elusive up to this point.

Joshua Tree was absolutely awesome! There was a little bit of a bee problem when we arrived at the entrance, as they are so desperate for water that they infest anything that even remotely has some water, including us (you should have seen the bubbler there!). After we got past the bees, we headed into the park and shortly ventured off into the wilderness onto some really cool looking rocks that have been shaped by years and years of high winds. There was a huge rock arch there that Mike Galvez and I took turns sitting on; it was a little too high up for Mike Gilbert's liking, though.

When we got back on the road, thats when Joshua Tree really started to shine in all its glory. There were just tons and tons of Joshua Trees in all sorts of bizarre and contorted shapes. We also saw one that was absolutely huge dubbed "The Tree of Life".

Now, we had been kind of challenged by Bjorn to try our hand at a U2-esque Joshua Tree shot, so obviously I made the three of us make it happen. Here's the final product:



I think it came out fairly well, and yes, there are plenty more pictures as soon as we get around to posting them all.

Also, we were unable to get to Great Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Yosemite as the roads going into them were on the other side of the mountains and would have taken about at least 5 hours more of driving to get there. We did get to see the other side of it, though, and that was kind of cool.

From there we went into Death Valley. Its hot there. Really hot. And for about 30 miles, there are no paved roads, just some dirt paths. It really is quite an experience driving through. It's so open and surrounded by mountains. Oh and its still really hot. But we did see some awesome dunes and other formations.

After we emerged out of Death Valley, we decided to head into the Nevada desert, as all of the land along the highways there is public property (read: free camping). So we spent some time there and burned up a little under the desert sun.

Since then, we've made it to Las Vegas, and let me tell you, there's nothing quite like it.

Heres our progress update up to this point:



So now that Ive ranted about the past week (or at least thats what it seems like anyways), I'll leave you with this and hopefully you'll hear back from me soon.

Our wolf pack has grown by one...

Quick update here:

So we've spent the last five nights in Valley Ford, CA (just outside Santa Rosa) working, making some extra money, and just kind of enjoying our lives and taking in the world as it is out here. We day tripped out to San Francisco and explore the whole Haight-Ashbury scene, which is one of the most laid back places ever, and then checked out the sunset from twin peaks. We do have some pictures of it, but I lost my SD card, (wicked bummer) and Mike has yet to go through his pictures, so it might be a while. Even though we have been enjoying ourselves, trying to keep up with the work flow is pretty stressful. Not having wi-fi available for about 15 miles really makes it so you HAVE to be doing at least some work while you're out on the town. Anyways, we're making due with how we have to get things done.

As you may or may not be aware of, we have inducted another member to our party: Mike Gilbert accepted our invitation to join us around the country, and will be an invaluable addition to our production/post-production team. Though the car is prettayyyy prettayyyy packed now...

PROGRESS:



With that, we'll be in LA for two nights, including tonight, and then its off to Joshua Tree and Yosemite!

OBLIGATORY GO CELTICS YELL

Sebastopol!

So we're hanging out in Valley Ford, CA (near to Santa Rosa) with our good friend Mike Gilbert, when we're asked if we want to spend another day here and go to a wedding thats in Sebastopol (a town that the Grateful Dead used to frequent, aka hippie central for the area). Not wanting to pass up an occasion offering us free food and beer, we quickly accepted the invitation and when morning came, we headed over. Mike Gilbert was on "camera duty" which essentially meant pointing a little sony handycam at the bride and groom and letting it go, but we decided we could help out and take a few pictures and video, too. It was a really cool, very causal wedding that involved the Bride and Groom riding off into the the city on a little Honda Trail 70 minibike. Excuse me for calling New England a little stiff and uptight, but I dont think you'll see something like this anywhere around there. I'm really liking the atmosphere around here; everyone is wayyyyy more relaxed and laid back, and most definitely more hospitable. Massachusetts is like "the land of no eye-contact" compared to around here. I really could get used to living here haha.

CALIFORNIA BABY

All I can say is that Rt.101 is freakin' AWESOME. There's sooo many cliffs and awesome rock formations that you can just go out and climb on. And get totally soaked. Or at least thats what we did. I'll try and work on uploading a clip of that to here, but I need a free video editing program to be able to cut these clips down to size and trim them up. I just found out that I can use photoshop to edit video, but it only lets me edit the whole clip, I cant mark in or out and apply changes to only certain sections. Or if you can, I don't know how to do that.

Anyways, Mike and I have really been enjoying the Pacific, but we aren't enjoying the rates for any type of lodging. So we spent last night in the car on the side of the road. We're under the assumption that doing so is most likely totally illegal, but either way we did it and made a funny little short out of it. Like I said, I'll try and upload those clips soon so you can be free to have some laughs at our expense.

So with that, I'll give you the progress update and from there, I'm going to try and make some sort of editing happen.



So as you can see, we're in Northern California. Tomorrow is Redwood National and then down to the San Fran area where we'll be staying with one of our friends from Bridgewater, Mike Gilbert, to whom we are eternally grateful for the free place to stay and time with familiar people.

Where's an Ewok when you want one?

Alright. It really needs to stop raining. The whole “everything is wet all the time” thing is getting old fast. It seems like we’re constantly driving into another storm. It sucks. A lot. We thought we were going to have a day of no rain in Seattle, which would have been kind of ironic, but it lived up to its name anyways. The good news, however, is that we hit the west coast for real today and are on the Pacific Coastal Highway (101). This means that there should be fewer storms that are stuck in between mountains for us to drive through and hopefully less rain altogether.

Now that I’m done griping about the weather, here’s the lowdown on Olympic National Park: its holy crap awesome! Its like a different planet out here; moss grows on EVERYTHING and really gives the place an extraterrestrial look and feel. Im sure Mike already made this observation, but whenever I’m walking around here, I half expect a fuzzy little Ewok to be just hanging out behind a tree. The park really feels like I’m on set for the Battle of Endor. The trees are huge; there are vines, all sorts of little creatures around and plenty of fallen trees to climb. I just cant get over how cool this place is! I went in expecting big mountains and that’s about it. But now, I’d love to come back to have a chance to explore it a bit more thoroughly. Based off of this, I cant wait to see what Redwood National will look like!

Anyways, as I said before, we’re on Pacific 101, so here’s the progress update:



We’ve still got a loooong way to go before we’re done with 101, and to give you an idea of distance, we’ll be on it until we get to San Francisco. So yeah, it’s going to be a long haul. The next stop for us will be somewhere just over the Washington/Oregon line at a campsite somewhere along the coast, ideally Point Lookout as it would minimize tomorrow's driving time. I’ll try to keep you posted, and until then, I’m going to eat some food.

HOLY TOLEDO IM TIRED

All this driving is really starting to catch up with me. Currently, I just arrived in Seattle, WA, and I'm already thinking about hitting the bar and just sitting back and relaxing. Or maybe thats just the west coast getting to me. Unfortunately for me, I have some work to do first. Mike does have the Celtics on as a bit of a distraction. I' not a basketball fanatic or particularly even a fan, but I've got to say, it is pretty funny listening to the commentary from the west coast's point of view. The announcers keep putting down Boston as, obviously, the west coast is going to favor LA. They keep saying that they expect the Lakers to sweep the series, and any little mishap that the Celtics might endure is pointed out and sharply criticized. It's amusing. But what is even funnier is how whomever is on censor duty is pretty terrible at their job. You see someone miss a shot, followed by some obscenities, and then two seconds later you only hear silence. Someone needs to work on their timing. HA! and right before the commercial break, I just heard Rondo say "MYYYY NIGGGAAAA". I mean, its hilarious, but I doubt censor-guy will have his job after this game.

So now that the game is taking most of my attention, I'm going to wrap this up. I'll be in Seattle for the next day and a half and I'll keep you posted with any updates. Oh, an before I forget, here's my progress up to this point (we've gone just over 3,000 miles. Time for oil change #1 haha):

Some like it country...I guess.

When you're in Montana, pretty much everywhere you look you can see a mountain. Also, every radio station you tune to is pretty much country.

Mike and I were driving around today to grab some food and figured we should check out the local radio stations while we were out. I hit the scan button and BAM! Four country stations in a row. We laughed it off, thinking how cliche it was, and then realized that there were only about 8 stations available and two were talk radio, one was a variety show, and the other was static. So we started listening to the variety show which had quite the interesting lineup (Flock of Seagulls to Sexy Back to some Katy Perry song), only to go back to a country-ish song. Needless to say, the radio was switched off at that point.

Today has been one of those days where you just kind of take it easy and try to catch up on some work between watching various Jim Carrey and Rob Schneider movies. So with that, I'll give you the daily progress update, and then its back to Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls.



Until next time...

HAVE YOU DUG WALL DRUG?

So Yellowstone is pretty awesome, but I really wish I could’ve come on a few better days. I still really enjoyed the park, (the landscape and vistas are breathtaking), but it has been raining for the past 3 days and the clouds/continuous haze have been obstructing the views and everything is just mushy. But we did get to see a whoooooole bunch of bison, elk, and deer, so that was cool. They just come up to the road, which makes it extremely tempting to touch them, but I decided my life was slightly more valuable to me than possibly getting gored to death on video. I would really love to come back sometime soon, preferably not in June when snow is still on the ground, so that I can fully appreciate the beauty Yellowstone has to offer. Oh, on a side note, if you want WiFi or even cellular service, you’d best be ready to leave the park. In regards to that, I obviously haven’t been able to update this on the daily basis I was hoping for. And my mom is probably pretty freaked out that I haven’t gotten in contact with her in a few days…I’m not too concerned because, hey, I’m still alive.

Now that we’ve been pretty much off the grid for the past couple of days, we have no idea as to what has been going on in the media other than some local weather updates. However, on the way here, Mike and I found the infamous “WALL DRUG” billboards and advertisements to be particularly entertaining.



They start advertising 400 miles in advance in each direction on I-90 and then gradually do more and more as you get closer and closer. They have the most ridiculous ads about dinosaurs, cowboys, and some just really trippy looking ones that don’t even say how far away it is. We began hypothesizing that it was some sort of crazy interpretive billboard art meant for conversation and that WALL DRUG wasn’t a convenience store at all. But we knew it had to be something because we started seeing signs saying, “WALL DRUG Only 29 Minutes Away!” and then eventually, “WALL DRUG NEXT EXIT! Don’t Miss it!” Turns out it’s just this little hole in the wall store that has some novelties and gimmicks to attract tourists. Whatever, I still liked the signs. Oh, and check out our progress:



Anyways, I’m typing this as we’re leaving Yellowstone, and all these mountainous, twisting, winding roads and the constant smell of sulfur is all starting to make me feel a little queasy, so I’m going to stop here. Until later…

LOL WISCONSIN

So we've made it here to Sparta, Wisconsin, and I've got to say, its pretty wide open and full of cows. I guess they call it America's Dairy Land for a reason. There's not much to do here, but we did pass some cool looking amusement parks along the way.

Now that you know where I'm at, I figure I'll tell you a bit about the drive today because that's pretty much all we did. First things first, OHIO SUCKS. Sorry to all you people who live in Ohio, but I'm sure even you would agree. Every city we went into seemed to be pretty dirty, worn out looking, and just overall seemed to be dying. And even the townsfolk we had talks with commented on it that way, too! And after we managed to figure out how to get back onto I-90 (took us a good half hour of driving around until we finally got some help from a local, just to find out we were going the wrong way...), we were greeted by some gross weather followed by some terrible weather. Neither Mike or myself have ever been out to the midwest before, and all our weather knowledge of the area is based on watching one too many episodes of Storm Chasers, so when the weather began to take a turn for the worse,(you know, torrential downpour and lightning with swirling clouds of dust all around us), we automatically assumed the worst and jumped to the conclusion that a tornado was going to form right on top of us.

Looking back at the footage, its kind of a funny situation: you can tell we were freaking out a bit as our little red Ford Focus was being blown all over the road and brutally assaulted by the rain to a point where visibility was practically 0% except for the split seconds when the windshield wipers were clearing the glass, thinking that these could be our last moments here on this planet. Its ridiculous to have thought that, we know. Turns out it was just a really, really nasty storm. But hey, if we did die, at least it would've been in HD, right?

So that just made Ohio suck even worse for us. Sorry Ohio, I dont think I'll be back anytime soon.

Anyways, after that whole big hullabaloo we headed into Indiana, and then Illinois. The weather still hadn't made up its mind about what it wanted to do, so Chicago was pretty gross looking in all the shots I took thanks to the off and on rain and super hazy clouds. Even still, the Sears Tower was a sight to behold despite the conditions.

After Chicago, I took over driving and it was smooth sailing into Wisconsin all the way to Sparta, which is apparently the bicycling capital of the America/world? (One or the other...) Here's the progress update for today:



It's pretty crazy thinking about just how far we've come over the course of just two days of driving. We also have been filming more and more so we can have plenty of footage for post-production. We've come to the conclusion that we can't have enough footage for cutaways and we're working on getting some interviews. I just can't wait until we get to Yellowstone so we can actually stay put for a few days and do some exploring and get some other shots as opposed to just all road all the time.

LONG POST IS LONG GOODNIGHT

First Post! Interbuttz on the Go!

So this is my first blog here, and guess what? Thanks to the power of technology, I'm doing it on the road here in Cleveland, OH just because I can.

For those of you who don't already know, I have embarked on a HUGE 7 week, 10,000 mile cross-country road trip. Accompanying me is my very good friend, Mike Galvez, and together we're taking on the country, making short movies about our experiences and various other themes along the way. We are camping for the vast majority of this trip at about 14 National Parks, (including Yellowstone, Olympic, Redwood, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Arches, Rocky Mountain, Carlsbad Caverns, and Smokey Mountain, to name a handful). We will also be staying with a few friends and family at certain points to save on some money. Needless to say, this is easily the biggest undertaking of both of our lives.

We started this morning from Worcester, MA at, ohhhhh about 4am was when I think we woke up. We were on the road by about 5am, and thanks to the magical powers of coffee, we have been driving ever since.

The most interesting part about this trip is that I will almost always have internet available to me thanks to my phone doubling as a portable modem. This will allow spur of the moment updates at anytime, anywhere. Having this capability is absolutely fascinating. I can continually do research while on the road, upload footage to this and other blogs, and keep on top of my web class, all without breaking a sweat or missing a beat.

So for my first order of business, I'm making a rule for this blog: I can only post while on the road. More rules will come as I think of them, but for now, that seems like a good start. I'll also upload a map every day we travel as a progress update.

As of right now, we've traveled about 10.5 hours and are practically at our first destination, Sandusky, OH. Here's our progress so far (click for a closer look):




So we should be at Sandusky withing the hour, and then we'll set up camp and mosey around, cook some dinner, be nosey, but most importantly, get some freakin' sleep!

Until next time...