Congrats...

First and foremost, congratulations to Christopher Aaron Lindgren on his marriage yesterday. I wish you the best, my friend.

Second, I don't know if I'm preaching to the choir or if I will inflame some hate responses from any of you, but view Fahrenheit 9/11. If you don't want to because of the anti-Bush propaganda, then at least go to the movie and find some way to dispute it. Good stuff. Highly recommended.

And again, congrats Chris. What a stud.

Insight to Injury--with no insight

Hey everyone,

Erik, I'm sorry about the loss. I pray your family can find peace.

Now it seems almost vulgar to speak of, but I just wanted you peeps to know that I am typing to you from my bed, with a pulsating right ankle, neslted within a splint. I, Chris Lindgren, was having a most excellent Bachelor's Party on Sunday. My Groomsmen and I brought guns and ammo and shot and shot guns, smoked cigars, went canoeing and drank some beers and I smoked a couple more cigars in the canoe. It was pretty sweet. I gave my groomsmen their Samurai Swords, with the carved characters that read youyi on the scabbard, which means "profound friendship" or "fellowship". It was great. Then we all did some late night trampoline jumping as the hot dogs cooked on the late night grill. When the dogs were done, everyone but Trev and I went inside. We remained on the tramp. We were doing flips and such, each outdoing the other. Until, I tried something pretty stupid. I tried a front flip, immediately followed by a black flip. The good news is that I landed on my two feet, the bad news is that my right ankle buckled and made the most gruesome crackle-pop noise. The noise and buckle you can only see on ESPN highlights. Grant and Jake drove me back to Fargo, to Innovis and the ER Doctor told me I needed to have surgery and had to come back tomorrow and talk to a Dr. Piatt. So anyways, I had surgery on my right ankle because it is an "Unstable Fracture." I now have hardware, to be specific, I have a plate and 6 screws within my body.

Well, I will have to indulge everyone with the details later. I have to work on the Wedding presentation. The wedding is on Friday!

All I know is that it feels wierd to have metal underneath my skin.

Later,

The Chris Man

Kris gave me a good idea and i'm gonna run with it, I'm adding onto my previous post about bar life, check it out periodically as I continue fleshing it out.


erik

Thanks for sharing Kris and Sarah,

Sarah-I'm glad you got to go see prince finally, the wait must have been hell since you had your tickets before easter!! you shoulda went to his party, you coulda been drugged and raped and woken up in PRINCES HOUSE!!! oh my god wouldn't that be to die for?!?! heheh anyways, good to hear from you guys, I've had a pretty terrible week, last tuesday my 4 year old nephew from salt lake city drowned at a water park, very tragic. my family and i all went to salt lake to help my brother through it, very sad. Don't mean to bring ya'll down, but that s kinda whats going on with me lately.

talked enough,
erik

ps. talk about kris's poem is under the comment section of that post...

Finally posting something creative.

This is a poem that I started working on a month ago. Coincidentally, it sat dormant for about a month and I have three "drafts" of it now. This one is the third draft, which I decided to put to some kind of rhyme scheme, just for the sake of forcing myself into some kind of pattern. Should probably get into the habit of that. If anyone has any interest, I will post the other "versions" though they are a lot rougher. Suggestions/ideas/etc are welcome.

It's called "acyclical" which is a word that I have coined for "something that doesn't exist in cycle (or) infinite." Excuse any heretical meanderings in my thoughts, I'm attempting to say that God didn't do what he said according to the Bible, but just came here because he wanted to be cyclical (finite). Wow--I thought that was a great title then, but now looking at it, it doesn't seem so fitting. Seems kind of random in fact. And now we view Kris's verbose two paragraphs of drivel. Sorry for that, folks. Here it is:

Though easy to reason his purpose was greater—
The powerful thundering omnipotent Pater,
Who from the motionless throes out of time
Decided, desired, and so created a nadir.

Standing on the infinite border sublime
He cast forth his son to deliver with wine
A blessing a burden a gift with sinsear
Of purpose and passion, but queer yet benign

That people astounded perked up with their fear
To proclaim his purpose with infinite cheer
He’s come to save us all from our deaths
Because God has forgiven we sinners—o notre pere!

Though easy to reason his purpose was greater—
The Pater the nadir the gift le fils Christ
Descended with no greater desire nor drive
Than to live as a man, as man then to die.

I've been in Alaska for seventeen days time for a first analysis, the kind that often is chuckled over months and years down the line for it's naivety and ignorance.

The first impression of this place is the size. Glacier showed me a rugged landscape of snowcapped peaks and massive valleys. I never thought I would find a place to rival the wildness of that place but was proven wrong before I ever set foot in Alaska. Looking out of the window of the airplane as it flew over north western canada and alaska was humbling, here was size for sizes sake. Miles and miles of peaks as far as my elevated eye could see stretched out in an inhospitable grace. Here was no park, no scenic highways, no visitor centers or manicured campgrounds but simply mountains and valleys that could care less if they ever felt a hikers step. Glacier and Alaska, similar specimens, one caged and one wild.

Once I settled down in Seward my surroundings shrunk to a manageable size and I could begin looking deeper. I have started to watch and listen as the local alaskans go about their daily business. Living with the mayor has allowed me to taste some of the political cuisine and I learn more every night as we talk over a glass of wine. One thing i had to get a grasp of is the simple fact that alaska as a state is not yet fifty years old. There are many old timers who lived in the alaska territory. Already I am learning how much I cannot understand. Tales of clashes on the sea as fishermen vie for the best fishing areas, it was not long ago that setting ones nets up in front of another boats nets was an offense that may warrant a quick splash of automatic gunfire across the offending boats bow. Another interesting note is that alaska has roughly 600 thousand people comprable to north dakota yet is three times the size of texas. Also, the alaskan public fund set up by the state government as a surplus for the people using oil revenues and the profits from other resources harvested in the state runs in the billions of dollars, enough to pay it's residents upwards of 2000 dollars a year on the interest and simultaneously provide a financial backing to the states budget. Can you imagine having a billion dollar surplus?

more more and more i will stop now and continue my observations at a later date. talk to you all later hope you're having a good summer.

Sorry I'm late.

Hello gentles and lady.

Sorry I'm late getting on this. I've been busy with this stupid summer class of mine that eats up all time imaginable. (Chris--it's like Taggart times two and way too early in the morning for me to pull any effective 5:00am catch-up action.)

Speaking of which, I ran into her at Cashwise the other day and she was talking to me about graduate schools for rhetoric and composition studies. I think I'd rather (to vaguely quote Ginsberg): take ship to Africa. I don't know how the conversation progressed to that. Perhaps we were talking about the weather, or life, or what colors of underwear we were then wearing. Yes, that must be it.

Also, here's news. I'm in a class with Kyle Garey this summer (it's an art class) and he delights in drawing pictures of penises on all of his works. It's a good thing. We've done nude models for the past few days, so naturally any inspiration that I might come by has been sapped by (to again quote Ginsberg, though this time more accurately) "America's naked mind for love."

I will read your piece and comment on it shortly, Erik. On June 11th, the summer will be mine for writing.

Glad to see we're all here.

Hey, great to hear from you guys. Chris it sounds like you are pretty busy with all sorts of things, let us know how things progress! Sarah, I am assuming Hibbing is being good to you, it must be nice to spend some time at home before heading out into the vast Iowa wilderness. Things are good here, I climbed my first mountain today...ouch... it was tough but i'm glad I made it...it's sometimes hard climbing by yourself because you know you could always turn around at any time and nobody would know, I took a ton of pictures because I'd get to one point and say to myself ok, i'm for sure turning around here and take a bunch of pictures, then I'd stand up and find myself going further up...let me know if you guys have any suggestions/improvements for our little blog here. Did you guys see the new york times article about blogging? Good God! they made it sound like the next form of heroin! it is here but you have to sign up for an account to see it, it's free and i've been signed up for about a year with no spam or any problems, you get an online issue every day and its kinda nice. anyways, the author says blogging is addicting and focuses on people who spend the wedding anniversery blogging etc... retarded. well i'll talk to you all later hope all are doing well.

erik