So last week was the Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps’ annual fundraiser dinner … where all the EMTs and officers dressed up and thanked all of the wonderful people who support us, financially and otherwise. Everyone is amazing, we’re very luck to get such great support. Plus, we held our raffle … and a local girl’s father won the 42″ HDTV! I hope he lets her keep it:

She’s very excited. Clickly linky above for picture set.

And yes, of course, I can’t forget last weekend’s überAWESOME NIN/JA tour concert! Michela and I went down to Philly for this, we went with Jeff and Cyn … the show was as good as I’d expected it to be, better even, since I’d never seen Jane’s Addiction live before. Perry, sure, all the time, but not JA. And They did. Not. Disappoint. Pictures? Sure, click here!

First off, last night we had a wee photo shoot for the Park Slope Volunteer Ambulance Corps. We took over Pritchard Square in the ‘Slope for about an hour as the daylight waned, with a pro photog and everything (thanks, Howard). He has the money shots, but I just took some snaps of us having fun during the process.

Then, there’s lots of love for Jess Furman. She came back to NYC for a show on April 7 at Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side … she rocked, of course, and we packet the place. Take a peek at the pics here!

After that, it was a big ol’ BBQ dinner in Arlington with the Spenners, the Tants, the Stroineys, the Palmas, a Bueno, a Newman, a Canary, a Shnek and a Williams, and a Tom and some Rob and Marissa. Poor Michela, stuffed into a back room with 17 years of my history. She did well, though Mindi had cougar claws on for some reason.

Some more quality time with Josh, and then it was up early for a nice walking tour of the Mall. Michela had never been to DC, so the proper thing was to play host. Of course, there are so many new things there (the WWII memorial, the Korean War memorial) that I was quite excited as well. The pics are pretty good. Then, a traffic-free scoot back up to NYC and Bob’s your uncle, back home.

Now that you’ve heard about it, go check out the pictures!

And then, on Monday, I got to meet the foster kittens. Four of the sweetest wee things on the planet. And I get to visit and rile them up and then leave so they keep their foster mommy up all night. Sweet! I only wish they’d stay kittens for longer …

First, I finally got around to uploading pictures from last month’s party-slash-concert for Angela … Michela and I joined Niki, Angie and a host of others in welcoming Angela into *ahem*th birthday. We went to Hill Country BBQ, which is one of Angela’s faves, where the meat is plentiful and sold by the pound. We were very happy to catch a performance by Yarn, the country/bluegrass/Dead-y jam band that Niki’s husband plays in. Check out the pics on the new photo page, from the menu link above!

And next up … last night, Michela took me and Sherri to see Rachael Sage and a few other bands at the Bowery Poetry Club. This was a benefit for FREED (For Recovery and Elimination of Eating Disorders), and while some of the acts were more polished than the others, they were all a lot of fun and definitely on the spirited side. This was the first time I’d seen Rachael live, and she does not disappoint! Check her out, grab some of her tunes, and check out the pictures. One of the surprises of the night was the last band, Changing Modes … they had a sharp zydeco/trippy/punky sound which bit into the audience hard, I had to pick up some CDs.

Initial impressions? Creepy, original, and dark as hell. It’s a true horror book, in that the only supernatural elements are those the characters in the book attribute to each other and their surroundings. Plus a bit of the storytelling in the included 20 short stories can tend to push some hyperbole, all in the effort of planting images of the mundane macabre firmly in your psyche. While your psyche is saying “No WAY man, get that sh1te OUT of me!” …

I’ve got to recommend it, it’s an excellent read, especially if you’re a piecemeal reader like me. I cannot recommend it if you have faith in your fellow fictional human, or are at all squeamish, or enjoy your squamish cells. The way Palahniuk can describe the skin sloughing off a decomposing corpse, it’s sheer poetry. Let that be your ruler to measure your desire-to-read by, I guess.

Apparently, there’s a story in this book (“Guts”), which, when read aloud to a group of people invariable causes one or more to pass out. This, I have to see! There’s some info on this on the Wikipedia page, but read this only if you’re okay with spoilers …

And before I wrap up the free-form wandering book review, I have to mention that the last short story included in the book is strangely out of place, full of science fiction and religious overtones. I have to wonder why that one was included. Anyone have any ideas?

So Hunter students, despair not, notes are a-comin’ back atchya.

Highlight of the weekend — the Shake Shack on Friday afternoon, after the moto show. Frrreezing cold outside but worth the wait for the sack of meat and bread. I don’t know how it took me 9 years to find this place.

Pics from the International Motorcycle Show are up! See me and Jeff get fit for custom ear plugs. It was … bizarre … having warm goo piped into my ears, then pulled out when it was rigid.

Oh, and on a related note, this blog will be going bye-bye soon. I’m shutting down the home-hosting thing, and moving everything over to someone else’s server. I may get Wordpress, or summat, so the actual blogging will continue, just in a new format. It’s part of my whole master plan to save some money for med school, especially since, well, income got a whole lot more limited recently.

So since Christmas (worked at LMC on the ambulance on Xmas Eve and day) there was a wonderful week down in the Outer Banks … check out the pics here. A gun-filled, golf-filled, sunny bikey eaty-too-muchy, cookie-less xboxalicious week in which I bought a TV which I shouldn’t have. Great time with some great people, as always, even though were were missing some of our faves.

Something about quitting smoking and chewing lots of gum after that, grumble grumble crankypants.

Lots ambulance shifts, paid and vollie … lots of cooking (sometimes with other people and for other people, even the occasional dinner party or dinner date, which is way more fun than making a solo souffle) … and a very bizarre sleep schedule. Oh, and I’ve been taking these wonderful Italian lessons.

On Monday I went for a hike in Prospect Park with Paulie; we wanted to take some pics and get some exercise. It was cold, but we warmed up quickly with the walking. That is, of course, until I misread the snowline on the bank of the lake for the SECOND time, and fell in up to my hip. That definitely made it a bit chilly. That’s the honest truth, no I didn’t join a polar bear club, and poo on you if you don’t believe me!

Thanks for catching up. If you’ve been reading the tweets, you know all about all of it all the time, so double thanks! I’ll try to write something actually interesting again before too long.

First, from my trip this past weekend down to sunny Florida, where I whiled away the 80-degree days with me Dad, me sister and her man. There’s some Xmas shots, lots of family shots … and a metric pantsload of pics of birds and other wildlife. See, me Pop got me this slice-and-dice 300mm lens for the Nikon, and I had to go and try it out. I like this Nature photog stuff.

And then, pics from the 2008 Hunter College PHPB Holiday / End of Semester party! These are the ones that are fit to share (ask me about the other ones sometime). If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ve been seeing all the posts about the food I’ve been making … well, the food was for this party. And what a tremendous success the party was. We all had so much fun … and I got quite a few shots of me fave ladies in there. Ah, the holidays, they do bring out the fun and friends and pretty womenz …

Enjoy.

The company announced that we would be getting some layoffs this week, and I had a feeling I’d be one. They know I was planning to leave this Summer for medical school, and I had just switched into IT 4 months ago (so I was low man on the totem pole). So I wasn’t surprised at all today when I got the call with my VP and the VP of HR. At 5pm they cut off my network access, and now I need to sign a bunch of paperwork to get my (substantial) severance, and I need to send them back all my gear.

I’m covered through the end of March in terms of money (like I said, substantial) and my health insurance goes through February. After that I can get COBRA. I have a second job right now as an EMT, so I can work that to bring in some extra cash. This won’t be affecting my short- or long-term plans significantly (Duck is still a go!) but I guess my short-term plans will now involve a lot of cooking and sleeping in.

In January I may start looking for some consulting gigs to bring in more serious dollars. The EMT gig doesn’t pay as well as technology work, only pays $18 an hour so that definitely won’t cover my mortgage.

But don’t worry about me, I’m looking forward to the time off and having some fun while I wait to hear back from medical schools! I had an interview last week at SUNY Downstate, here in Brooklyn, and it went well.