After checking out various shops around Philadelphia over a few weeks, I finally picked up a road bike last week from a place in Rosemont. I got out a couple of times between rainy days to get a hang of how to work this thing, but didn’t go any substantial distance until yesterday. After riding the Schuylkill River Trail the past two days, I wish I would’ve started sooner. Anyway, I thought I’d keep track of my progress, so I’ve got a little chart that’ll live over in the sidebar, and will continue to update as I enter in data. Fun! So if you want to ride, give me a shout.. winter’s right around the corner.
Archive for the ‘Life Things’ Category
October 12, 2010
Riding
August 13, 2010
Back to the Future will always be relevant
Over the last few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about my life since April. Ignoring the emotional complexities of late, I’ve found my memory of this time to be sort of fascinating in that at times over the past few days, I’ve had these nostalgic feelings — but not nostalgic like a birthday or graduation. This nostalgia has a dream-like/alternate universe tinge to it that has me dangerously close to questioning its actual reality. Inception jokes aside, I say this as an attempt to express how cinematic it all feels in hindsight, while knowing I was in fact there breathing/seeing/thinking/etc. Let me explain.
A month ago, I was living a life that I felt stable and satisfied with. My stresses were minimal, and I was doing what I wanted to be doing with myself. When life changed suddenly, a few things happened. First, and most obvious, was that volatility that shakes all your pieces around like dice in one of those yahtzee cups. Next, which was less obvious at the time, but apparent to me now, is how one day my life was focused on a particular set of things, and the next I found those things completely boggled around (excuse all the board game metaphors.. I like board games). Everything changed as quickly is it did back in the spring — this has an unfortunate poetry to it. The sudden change though, is why I feel the early summer was some parallel existence.
Almost like in Back to the Future, when Marty goes back and decides to push George McFly out of the way of Lorraine’s father’s car, which ends up hitting Marty instead of George. If Marty doesn’t play superhero, he wouldn’t have ended up in his mother’s bed sans pants — and so things begin to spin off accordingly. Back in March, I wasn’t quite feeling up to staying out after an already long and exciting night in the city, but we continued on, and I found myself dancing with Daphne — so like Marty’s heroic act, this event marked the beginning of a digression from my status quo… and without it, life would have presumably continued on, business as usual.
On the flip side, Marty’s existence is instantly restored (mostly) to life as he knew it, pre-car accident, when George finally plants one on Lorraine Baines at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. The details of my departure from an alternate reality are a little rougher around the edges, but the idea is still the same. Referencing Back to the Future is somewhat inverted since Marty got himself into a situation he was trying to escape from, where I would have gladly hung out in my 1955 a bit longer.
I guess I’ve found that although a person can have vivid, conscious experiences, cataclysmic changes that bookend this period of time can make it feel a bit surreal. I don’t think there’s anything one might do about controlling how these events play out. If you could, change wouldn’t be so sudden, but instead expected and likely more gradual. And though change has come for me in the form of great packages as well as dismal ones, ultimately it’s always led me to an improved state of being — perhaps there could have been better paths, but I don’t feel I’ve ever pulled “Go Back to Baltic Avenue” from the Community Chest. Full steam ahead.
July 28, 2010
On Lemons
I’ve been hauling around a pretty big basket of lemons for the past week or so. It was heavy enough to pull me to a struggling crawl when handed to me. Though it seems that through the struggle, I’ve misplaced a few of these lemons — some I’ve whipped at the wall, and others I’ve let fall to the floor unnoticed.
I’m not quite ready to open a lemonade stand at the end of 5th Avenue. The last few months showed me euphoric peaks I had never reached before — the ascent to which I sucked in every bit of thin air I could. I was high in every sense of the word. Falling from this altitude has been a fully volatile experience, but not completely untameable. A substantive existence has eased the descent.
I know mostly what works for me, and how I prefer to go about parading around in this city. There are moments of discouragement that pull you toward being in an infintely bitter pessimism about the way people fit into your life, but I’ve refused that path — I’ve seen it, and it’s not for me. Ultimately, I’m an optimist, and have found this keeps my world spinning in the right direction.
At present, I don’t understand where this is all supposed to take me, but I do know that I wouldn’t change how it all came crashing in. For now, my blueprint is to take it all as it comes. Just, you know… be open… get back to basics.
April 29, 2010
On Nostalgia
Last Thursday, I celebrated with friends for making it through the year to another Earth Day. I enjoyed their company, and as a nostalgic person, will remember these past few days for some time. When I have a cinematic night like this, I tend to think about existential things.
Lately, I’ve had a few laughs with some of my friends in what I like to call “get off my lawn moments”. How it works is, I’ll be in some random place, and make some remark toward a seemingly misguided youth — we laugh, and acknowledge what is happening to us as we age. Most of these occurances are insignficant, but there are others I feel more strongly about. Last week, my friend wrote about the days of playing outside in the evening — the imagery of fireflies, porch lights, and cool grass really sent my head into the clouds for a few minutes. If you read it, I’m certain you’ll flashback too — it couldn’t be painted more colorfully. What I want to say though, is that I can’t imagine growing up without these (my) memories — and this is silly because people generally don’t miss what they never had. “But we played outside, and threw tennis balls over powerlines, and it was magicial, blah, blah”, I’ll say. I’ve been throwing this adjective all over the place lately, but things were good.. just good — actually, they were great, but if you put the emphasis on the ‘good’, for example, “Mm, life is frickin’ good”, I would hear that as “Damn, things are just simply fantastic”. I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up with youtube coaxing me to my musty basement for hours at a time. I won’t mislead you.. we played NES and Sega Genesis, and we played them a lot. What I fear is that post-Jurassic Park youths are just the beginning of generations that won’t enjoy the sensory overload of summer evenings that chiseled my childhood memories into what they are today. I know it’s supposed to workout though — I’m certain my parents had similar trouble with my brother and I glued to the Nintendo, and we’ve both grown to hold some good times up in our nogins.
On the other hand, to me, the beauty of nostalgia is that it’s unique and non-transferrable. The days I ran around the woods by Miller’s Pond mean nothing to you — you may care, and be interested in learning about me, but ultimately, even though I might be able to tell you exactly what a day was like for me (the sun was shining, my knees were scratched, life as a fourth grader is perfect, fum fum fum), that memory is exceptionally impossible to completely recreate for another person. This is a bittersweet realization for me. Sour because I can’t possibly convey the entire scope of what I recall, and oh so sweet because the way an otherwise simple event is massaged into something extraordinary makes me feel very alive.
January 20, 2009
MR-why?
Those of you who have been around me over the past few months know that I’ve been having chronic headaches. Where they come from, no one can seem to tell me, and I have been unable to “sleep if off.” I often refer to this “sleeping off” method from my memory of having a silly ailment before going to sleep, only to rise the next morning, fully rejuvenated. This is not the first time trying to “sleep it off” has failed me recently (see fun with lungs).
That being said, I had my first MRI tonight, and they gave me a CD with all the images to take home — nice. I threw them up on the big screen as soon as I arrived, and gave it a good old fashioned try before forfeiting to the truth that I have no education in brain anatomy. It counts if I’d like to learn though, right? Moving on, what you’re all been waiting for… obviously… some sample images. Keep in mind, these are three random images I picked out. The images are more compelling when seen in sequence, folding through each cross section.
Just note on the above study — the cerebellum in the top image is, in my opinion, definitely strong to very strong.
June 6, 2006
Hello, Wisconsin.
I arrived here in Madison on Saturday… the weather was hot, almost unbearable. Me and the guys from Villanova spent the weekend getting acquianted with the area. Madison is a quiant little city. There is no traffic, the streets are clean and many restaurants line the main drag up to the Capitol (the building, that is).
Sonic Foundry’s office is a half mile from my apartment, so ten minutes gives me plenty of time to get to my desk in the morning. I’m on the seventh floor. The work is going to be good… I’m quite excited.
My experience here as a whole has been quite positive in the few days I have been here, and I expect it to only get better as I become more familiar with my role at Sonic. Hope all is well by everyone. Drop me a line if you feel so inclined. It would be nice to hear from some familiar voices.
Tags: madison, sonic foundry, summer
June 3, 2006
So Long, New York
My flight for Madison leaves tomorrow at 1:59pm. I should arrive there around 5:30. Everything seems to be in order… my bags are all packed. My only worry really is the handling of my guitar throughout the trip. Hopefully they’ll let me just carry it on the plane… I have it stored in the backpack case, so this makes for a more inconspicuous passing through the gates and various checkpoints.
An intern from the human resource department will be meeting me at MSN (the Madison airport abbreviation) to transport me back to my apartment. I have high hopes for my new living space. You can check out my space here at the apartment company’s website.
The following is the address for my apartment if any of you feel compelled to send perfume dipped letters:
Karl Shouler
121 E. Gorham #3
Madison, WI 53715
I won’t have a computer for the next week or so since Villanova doesn’t expect them to arrive until June 12. Until then I will have computer access at work from 9-5, so I will attempt to take care of all necessary emailing/interneting during this time. I’ll keep in touch via the usual methods as well keeping the blog updated. Alrighty… talk to you soon.
Tags: internship, madison, summer
February 13, 2006
These Are Undoubtedly The Best Years Of Our Lives
Instead of giving you a summary of my weekend that you probably won’t read, let me express my deep desire to stay in college forever. I must say that snowfall does funny things to people. It’s hard to feel down when walking outside in the snow at night. Some might say this is a false sense of happiness, but I have to disagree. The snow gives weekends like this one character… something to be remembered by. I enjoyed the company of a girl over dinner on Saturday night and I have to say that the snow added something extraordinary to our evening. These truly are the best years of my life… I dread the time when they will be a memory. Actually, I take that back… I will look back and remember that I lived this life so graciously afforded to me to the fullest.
Time for bed… UConn’s going down tomorrow.
Tags: basketball, college, love, nostalgia
September 12, 2005
The Bucknell Bubble
This past weekend I decided to take an adventure and visit Angela at Bucknell. Bucknell is in Lewisburg, a nice little town on the Susquehanna River. This town is literally out in the middle of nowhere, and although it wasn’t the upbeat suburbia that I am used to here at Villanova, it provided a much more peaceful environment. Let’s face it… there really aren’t many mountains surrounding the campus. I have to admit, and throw in the towel, that you win Angela — Bucknell is prettier than Villanova.
I took the local train into Philadelphia, then a Greyhound bus from Philly to Lewisburg. Total time? 7 hours, plus or minus a few minutes. By car, I could get there in about 2.5 hours… I can’t wait until next year. I didn’t really mind the ride though. As I said, the scenery was beautiful the entire way, excluding our passing through Allentown.
The weekend was nice. We went into the town, extremely reminiscent of Huntington Village on Long Island… we ate at the Bucknell caf (which also seemed nicer than Villanova’s offering)… we even watched <em>The Ring 2</em> outside at night on a big projection screen — spooky!
The weekend came and went so quickly, as I had expected it would. I had a great time though… it’ll be nice to go back in the winter and see how nice it is during a blizzard (slight bitterness)… haha. We’ll have to see who’s laughing when there are avalanches coming down those pretty mountains 
Back to the daily grind today.
June 3, 2004
Award’d.
So tonight was nice. I received two of the scholarships I applied for. That puts my successful scholarship count up to four. yay. It was nice to finally see everyone recognized for all of their hard work and what not… and the frisbee team become known as well. haha.
Well, I was at Angela’s door saying goodnight. And she says, “wait here, I have something for you.” She runs into her house and leaves me outside. About 2 minutes go by. She then proceeds to come outside with a bouquet of a dozen red roses. Tonight was the first time someone gave me flowers… it was so nice and wonderful and happy and exciting and all of the above. Best girl ever.
