so last thursday we got free tickets to the jags game. we had unbelieveable seats. unfortunately our friend, Katrina decided she'd join us. Katrina is not your typical guest. She was a category 3 hurricane. It rained out the whole game, so we sat in a bar and watched it on tv, in the stadium. how pathetic is that? what's worse, is the Jags got spanked. Not unexpected, but discouraging nonetheless. and the most rediculous thing about it is the price of 6 beers billed to my credit card:

CHECKCARD 08/27 JAGS STADIUM MERCHANDI JACKSONVILLE FL: $42.00

yeah, screw pro football.
[/rant]

I found out today the secret to pleasing your woman:

Apparently, all a girl wants is for you to burst out into sappy Disney-esque love songs about them at opportune moments.

that's it. you'll win them over forever if you can carry a tune and make up amazing lyrics on the spot.....i'm doomed. [/rant]

Hey. It's 11:14. Here comes a stream of consciousness entry after forever of not updating. there's some bizarre commercial on. i put in my two weeks today to start contract work with the robin shepherd group. been on my mind for two weeks, and now its finally over, and decided, it feels great. i feel grate. kate hudson. who cares. i bought some wheat thins big. they're bigger. twice as big. they're on my desk. from the big to the little there is was. my apologies to everyone for this entry.

hey, so, guess i left some people wondering what happened with the wild fourth of july weekend, huh? well, obviously nothing of note because I didn't update afterwards. sorry to dissapoint, but i have no stories of wild escapades and quasi-legal activities. we just had a fun roadtrip around florida visiting friends. we did go to a redneck central florida 4th party with an open bar. that was pretty sweet.

otherwise, bunch of us went camping last weekend to magnolia springs in georgia. that was a lot of fun. i had not been camping in YEARS, so it was awesome to get out there and rough it again. we didn't do too much besides swim in the state park swimming pool (there were alligators in the lake), but it was a fun time with good friends.

the real reason i wanted to make this post thought is to plug my new favorite application, Google Earth. now, i've always been a map buff (probably why i'm into travelling) ever since i was little. i just have this weird obsession with looking at maps and seeing things from that perspective. it's awesome. so google earth will let you plug in any destination, and in this really cool graphical interface it zooms in on it slowly bringing up the resolution (and heightening your anticipation) until (BLAMO!) there's London! or there's Paris! or there's Truckee, CA! so, much fun. i retraced our europe trip, finding all the bars we drank at and all the hostels we passed out in. i found my old high school. it's a glorious waste of time. right ow i'm using it to see where potential jobs are. like say, this job at the surry intitute of art and design in farmham, england. where the hell is farmham, you say? well, it's obviously in low resolution, just southwest of london... so, as i hope i've pointed our google earth is not only a useful tool, but a wonderful way to pretend like you're doing work... like i should be now....
[/rant]

earth.google.com

Just a quick note before I hit the road with Travellin' Pete. Here's the spontaneous plan for this weekend:
Friday:
Leave Jax around 7:30
Arrive Terry's in Orlando approx. 9:30
Sat:
Up early to see Spencer's Semi-Final soccer game at Disney's Wide World of Sports.
Then back North to Melrose, FL for a Sorority Lakehouse Party (sounds like a bad porn, huh?)
Sun:
Drive to Juno Beach, FL
"Party" with Jamie.
Mon (the 4th):
Back to cheery old Jax.

It's gonna be a wild weekend. Stay tuned for the mishaps/adventures, notice the hierarchy of those two words.

lates.

yep. here's the accompanying photographic evidence of the last post. remember, this is two days of healing later.

i got a vicious thrashing from an inanimate object.

the funny thing about inanimate objects, is that when you animate them they can be quite destructive. I suppose that's why there's a natural state of rest thanks to mr. physics. it's god's little way of saying, "hey, you probably shouldn't flip that lifeguard stand, because it really likes sitting still. and if you flip it, it may just get angry and catapult you overtop of it."

"sure, god. but then why did you grace us with curiosity and ethyl alcohol?"

"why so you could learn the hard way."

"oh."

so, now my left side is all cut up and bruised. i took probably the biggest hit of my life last night. never in snowboarding, surfing, skateboarding, bike riding, or any other sport have i taken a beating like i did in lifeguard stand catapulting. i really don't recommend it as a sport/activity/drunken whim.

so, anyways. i'm gonna go get my sheets out of the drier, hopefully sans blood. lates.

[/rant]

So, it's been a while. I've been crazy busy. I'm swamped in freelance work (which is awesome...if i ever get the damn checks in the mail), 18 year old rich hot ponte vedra girls have been actively pursuing me (and i haven't been necessarily beating them off...shame on me?), and frankly it's been way to nice outside to be sitting in here typing on a computer. But since I'm forced to at work, i might as well throw up a blurty entry.

The real topic of this journal, aside from the hot pv chicks (although i'm sure you'd much rather have the juicy details on that...but i'm a gentleman....or just keeping my rep up..;) ) is that this weekend I got certified for my motorcycle license. Now, this may not seem like a huge event, but here's the twist...I learned to ride in Tropical Storm Arlene. That's right. we ride rain or shine, and let me tell you there was very little of the latter and a whole heap of the former. So, 7-4 saturday and 7-4 sunday was a heck of a lot of torture, but now I definately feel more capable on my motobike, and recommend the class to anyone (destpite the fact that it's on the other side of the city, and kills your whole weekend).

In other news, there was surf yesterday. i broke my board. that sucks. now i'm waiting on the aforementioned freelance checks to come in so i can buy a new one...grrr....

ok, stay tuned for news from monaco....(what?).....(just stay tuned).....

dennis and I are designers. Here was our conversation via AIM:

myPERFECTwave: mmmm....helvetica. luv it.
akinastar01: i love it so much
akinastar01: much better than frutiger
myPERFECTwave: i've been rockin verdana for so long i forgot there was anything else.
myPERFECTwave: dude. wait a sec...this conversation is definately going in my blog.

Wow. I mean. could we get any lamer? And Dennis didn't come to my party on friday. Nerd!

[/rant]

When is the first rapper going to use a line like "I'm gonna fire yo azz like Donald Trump?"

Any Trump rap lines out there? send em to me.

[/rant}

Well, I'm bored. Sometimes I feel like I'm just wasting my life away ... like what am i doing? I wish I was motivated to do something for longer than like an hour. Like I'm even bored of writing this journal entry now...

I guess there's a lot of conflicting thoughts going around in this handsome cranium of mine. It sucks when just living day to day isn't fulfilling anymore. I know I started this whole epic writing adventure on the topic that I felt fulfilled in all of life's pursuits and yada yada....but what do I do now?! I bought motorcycle...that's thrilling, but not fulfilling...Jeez, I think I need either a woman or some booze to distract me...

...anyone want to go to charleston this weekend and drink in both?
[/rantish]

So, the big event for the last few days has been that i thought this girl that worked in the office next door was cute and made the mistake of mentioning it to the married girls in our Marketing Department. Big mistake. Never do this. They blew the whole thing up...found out her name, and convinced me to buy her a flower. After the first flower died in our refridgerator I should have taken a hint and let the whole thing go. But no. Not Travis, he doesn't read omens well, nor does he back down from a flock of women questioning his manly courage. So, went through with the whole thing. Gave her a new flower and my number, accompanied, unfortunately, by a loud boisterous black lady from boston name Felicia. Suffice to say I got no calls back....probably just way too awkward, I thought. So to futher break the ice, I called her and left a message on her voicemail at work, appologizing for the circus that Felicia brought with her and the overall embarassing moment. Nothin. Thanks to some dilligent co-workers' research (read: elevator conversations) I come to find out she's not going to call, because I've already been to her house and met her.....yeah....I'm that dumb. So, turns out, after a lot of thought on my part, that I'm almost 99.9% sure she's room mates with "flake Katie." (see journal dated 2005-02-11) Flakey Katie and I went out, once, to dinner, and then saw a movie at her house. Apparently, I met Samantha (the girl who works next door) when I was at Flakey Katie's. Of course this was for like 2 minutes, 2 months ago...And I haven't talked to Flakey Katie since, because I got the vibe she never wanted to hang out. Well, how's that for irony, huh? Congrats, Flakey Katie on making it into the journal twice...that's more times than we've gone out.

Anyways, funny stuff, Travis luck. Looking forward to my other Katie's (UK) birthday tomorrow. Going to call her and say hi. Haven't talked to her in forever so she's probably moved on, but it's always nice to touch base and let her know I'm still thinking of her.

Also, been riding my new motorcycle which is loads of fun. Haven't gone over 30MPH yet, but baby steps...baby steps...

Anyways, here's what my mind has been doing, creatively lately. Inspired by the events of the week:

www.ginsengdesign.com/travis/05May2005.htm

[/rant]

Hey wow!
What a weekend. Kind of extended over to Monday a bit. Drew Domoto came into town for JU graduation and we had some great times, just like the old days. Worst of all, or best of all, the europe bug is back. Thanks to Dean Netter offering to get us an internship at some art place in France. I think we thouroughly convinced Drew he needs to go euroside. We'll see what happens but I'd like to find a way to be back in Europe for the World Cup. 2006 in Germany, baby!

I'm hungover.

[/rant]

hey. blog is a stupid word.
it's like "cookie." someone needs to stop asking their 2 year-old for names for internet technical terms.
[/rant]

ps- jason made me do this.

Been two months since I updated this thing...Always thinking about it. Always too busy, I suppose. When I was a kid I always wondered how my parents "never had enough time." Don't get me wrong, they were amazing parents, but good lord, a career takes it out of you. If I don't have time to do little simple things, I have no idea how they had time to raise a family. Bless em, albert and teresa, bless em!

Can't say life's been too exciting. Either that or the excitement's getting duller. Had a wild weekend in Charleston with ym friend's band, eleven:54. Awesome guys. Still haven't caught the "high and mighty rockstar" bug. Do see the early signs though. But, really, more power to em!

Just finished Tom Woolfe's new novel I am Charlotte Simmons. I highly recommend it. Ending could have been a bit more cynical, but it did make me smile. Good old Tom Woolfe. Amazing writer. I need to bust another short story sometime soon. I've only got two books left from the library of books I got over Christmas...Time to restock...

...anll this seems tedious and boring. I'll ahve to get back on sometime when I'm not being uncreative and it's not 8AM....[/rant]

yep. figured since i wrote the "bad day" entry yesterday i'd write the "good day" entry today. welcome to my bipolar life. Today was good day because: i thought i was getting sick again and i feel great today (apparently i was just sick of girls! ha!), it was also good because i bought these for $13 each: desk, chair, wall-hangy guitar holder. it's the little things people...oh, and also i drove my 81 vw scirocco down the street for the first time since swapping it's engine! woot! ok, tim to go grocery shoppin... [/rant]

been a bit since i wrote something in here. i always only seem to vent at the bad times in here, but tough, cuz here i go again. looks like i screwed up another potential datable girl...i mean i amy be jumping the gun here, but it was a real bummer or a night last night. started out really well because I went out to dinner with my grandparents at Bonefish. my first time there and it was awesome! definately try the atlantic grouper in the lime tomato garlic sauce. out of this world! so then i took them back to their hotel and got a call from this girl who i met a couple weeks ago at the something corporate show (awesome show btw). i had got a lot of good vibes from her and she seemed like she really wanted to hang out but we've both been busy, what with the superbowl and all (also an awesome time). so, she said she'd call me back at 9:30 and come 11PM i hadn'e heard anything... i tried her back but didn't get through. so, defeated and feeling like i was too pursuant (thanks jason) i went to bed. i'm hoping it was some legit reason but i'm not holding my breath. but i guess considering the three times i've written "awesome" in this last entry describing my first two weeks in feb i shouldn't really be complaining and should count my blessings. ahh, self therapy........here's looking at you valentines day! [/rant]

It's amazing how many personal revelations you come to when you're desperately ill. If i was only feeling strong enough to act on them now, and not forget them later. things like, "wow, i should really exercise more so i dont get sick so often," or "i could make a really good painting based on the feeling of having an intense sinus infection," even "do you think that over the counter drugs really have a serious effect on your auto-immune system?" There's nothing like lying awake amist a 12 hour sleeping binge contemplating your own mortality. seriously, who doesn't think, "this is it. i'm gonna die from this sickness..or at least one similar to it later down the road" ? Anyways, just thought i'd share. nothing heightens one's Seasonal Affective Disorder better than a good sinus infection and rainy weather. think cheery thoughts. [/rant]

this is me:
you know that line in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind where Jim Carrey says (thinks/writes), "why do i fall in love with every girl who pays me the slightest bit of attention?"
[/rant]

ok. heard an interesting story on NPR on the drive hope (lately i've been addicted to it). the story was about a judge in Tennessee, i think, who was catching flak for embroidering the ten commandments onto his judges robe. His thought on the matter stemmed from something like, "The ten commandments are my link between the law and the truth." now, i got to thinking in the traffic riding home that a true Christian must have an awful time being a judge. Because as far as I can tell christians are not supposed to pass judgment on others but let god do so. I tried to consort my "God Books," as i call them, but seem to have misplaced several. the only one i found had this to say about justice: "Don't say, 'I will get even for this wrong.' Wait for the LORD to handle the matter." (Proverbs 20:22) so, for the sake of all theological discussion, isn't a christian judge and oxymoron...

second religious though for the day: exhausted last night after a plane trip and subsequent drive home i lay in bed thinking about the WWJD bracelet things. I know they're supposed to guide you in times of a tough decision, but i tried to apply the question to a greater scope. Like, what would Jesus do if he came back. I'm not talking second coming, apocalyptic type stuff, but like what if he just came back and hung out for a little while. what would he do in a church...seriously. would he eat his own body and blood? i thought he'd say, "hey, stop worshiping me. worship my father. be like me."

anyways, sorry for all the theological crap. must be the season. time for a nap.
[/rant]