Archive for the 'Friends' Category

The West Coast Tour

Published on June 27, 2009 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments
“Well I’ll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun. I’m gonna have fun and you’re gonna have fun. We’re all gonna have so much fucking fun we’ll need plastic surgeory to remove our godamn smiles.“

I went on vacation. Webster and I were originally going to Sacromento to see Bobby Lau. Bobby Lau had to come back to the East Coast before Webster and I had a chance to visit, so we decided the best possible thing to do was go out there anyways. We would land in Vegas and drive up California, stopping at some great National Parks along the way. We knew some people out there ( San Diego, LA, San Fran ), and there was plenty to do out there. So the plan was to fly into Vegas, where coincidentally a friend of mine from work was also going to be attending “conferences” and doing “work”. Does anyone actually go to a conference in Vegas and expect to stay inside all day doing conference stuff? Oh yeah, trekkies… well, do normal people do this?

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon

So we flew out on a Tuesday night. You know the vacation started off right when at 330PM we were told we were going to miss our 830PM connecting flight in Ohio because of bad weather in Sri Lanka or some such nonsense. All the more reason why we need better air traffic control system in this country ( Story Here ). So we were rerouted to Minneapolis, naturally. Boston – Minne – Vegas, clearly the best possible route. We rolled into the rental car place at about midnight, and were out of there in a mere 1.5 hours. Screw you Thrifty via Dollar Rental! If you are going to be the only car rental place open, how about you hire more than 2 people to take orders? It was there we got our ride for the next 2 weeks, the sweetest, slickest, silverest PT Cruiser you ever did see. We debated getting something with a trunk for about 3 seconds, decided against it. 2 weeks later, that choice would haunt us.

Read on… it gets good.

Continue reading ‘The West Coast Tour’

The Summer of Stickney

Published on May 7, 2009 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments
“Welcome everyone. I am your dam guide, Arnie. Now I’m about to take you through a fully funtional power plant, so please, no one wander off the dam tour and please take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions?“

I know, it’s been a while. I’ve been busy. School, work, fun. But enough is enough. The People are dying to know what I have been doing. Yeah, I know you’re not. Just let me believe it. I need to believe it.

The weather is getting nicer, as it’s currently 60 degrees and raining out. But, nonetheless, plans for the latest Summer of Stickney are underway. This includes couch surfing, concert going, baseball gaming, road tripping, BBQs, parades, Euro tripping (??), along with all the usuals, Feast Party, beach going, bike riding!

Ive got a road trip planned, with details forthcoming. It will prove to be awesome, and Ive got charts and maps to prove it!

So check your emails, watch out for your voicemails, I might be heading your way soon!

The Stickneys go to Asia

Published on November 22, 2008 in Family and Friends. 0 Comments
“Do you know the difference between dying for nothing and dying for something. That’s why I’m still alive. That’s the only reason why I managed to stay alive in China, so I wouldn’t die for nothing. Today, I can die for something.“


http://www.xkcd.com/503/

OK. It’s been a while. I know. So I recently went to China. Just me and my parents. Bin, a friend of mine from college, is now living and working in Tokyo, and his parents have wanted my parents to go over to China for a visit for a while. Now that the parents are properly retiring and no longer productive members of society, the time was right. We started in Tokyo, stayed there for a few days and then toured 4 cities in China over 7 days. Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi’an and Beijing. Tokyo was very expensive and quite frankly, I couldnt have afforded to stay there much more than 2 or 3 days. Whatta town though. Very clean. The Japanese people confused me a bit though. On the streets, and from what Bin has told me about his job, they are a very uptight people. But their TV shows paint a very different story. Wacky, crazy, zany, lots of sound effects. It’s almost as if making crazy TV shows is a release for them. Very interesting.

It was a hell of a trip and we all had a blast. Dad managed to find beef in every restaurant we went to and Mom tried a little bit of everything. Noodles, pasta, same principle. More than once I heard from people in China that I would fit in and should consider moving there and getting a job. But you know me, better dead than Red. Ive got a lot of photos and I hope to find a good working wordpress gallery plugin to put some of the pics up. I dont trust flickr, facebook, or anything like that really. GET OFF MY YARD!! Yeah, I guess I am something of an Old Man on The Internet in this regard.

A Quickie

Published on February 24, 2008 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments

Far be it from me to judge our current political system but… I dont think the 2 party system is the best. I mean there are other political parties, but none of them have emerged as a powerful enough alternative to the the Big Guys. Enter Ralph Nader. Visionary that he may be, he pops up during these elections and tries to run. He’s not going to win. I know that, he knows that, the Viet Cong know that. So why does he run? Maybe to draw attention to the fact that we lack a powerful third party political party, maybe just to spoil elections. Enter the following text message exchange between myself and Paul F, Group Political Activist:


Me: Nader is running.
Paul F: If a Nader runs in the forest and nobody votes for him, does he make a sound?
Me: Ask Al Gore.
Paul F: Fuck.

I laughed my ass off. And I think there was some of this same kind of conversation going on around the country. “Ha ha, Nader’s running.” — it sinks in — “Oh crap, Nader’s running.”

Like I said, I am all for more ideas, more parties, not too many more, we don’t want to turn into some kind of European country with 30 parties, powers changing every 2 years, nothing gets done. That might work for the smaller countries, but we’re a Super Power!! Arent we?

A Worthy Update

Published on February 15, 2008 in Friends and Life. 0 Comments
“Politics. As exciting as war. Definitely as dangerous.“

First and foremost, congratulations are in order for my sister, Alicia and her ( now ) fiancée, John. He proposed to her just 2 days ago, and The Stickneys couldnt be happier. It’s funny, everyone asks me, “Is he a good guy?” Which I think is almost kind of odd. I mean, would I really let me sister marry an asshole? Probably not. So John, if there was any doubt in your mind, I do NOT think you are an asshole. Congrats! We’re all crossing our fingers and hoping for a Casino Wedding. I say Vegas, showgirls, booze, gambling, family, it would be grand!!

Now, onto other matters. I know, it’s been a month. Life has been going good. Good job, good food, horrible weather. I just havent felt inspired to write of anything of great importance. Until… today.

A few years back, I met a pretty interesting guy. Scott Ritcher. He was living with Webster at the time, and worked with him at Citadel Communications in North Kingstown. Scott was from Kentucky and had inexplicably moved to Providence pretty much for the hell of it. He was a graphic designer with a lot of talent, had lots of interesting photos, even edited and published his own magazine ( K Composite ). He even once ran for mayor of his home town of Louisville, started his own record label, wrote a book about it, was an influential member of Louisville’s punk scene, had a radio show about said punk scene, has gotten hate mail about his art work, and wrote a book about that.

Now he’s all grown up and still wants to make Louisville a better place. Scott feels the best way to do this is by running for state senator. Ive read through his website and I like what I see. He basically wants to make Louisville a better place by cutting through all the bullshit that comes with politics. I have to respect that. Also something I noticed that I found refreshing, I didnt see the words “democrat” or “republican” on his page. I think it’s foolish to label yourself. We did fight a war of Independence, we might as well all be Independents. I dont think I get many readers from District 35 in Louisville, KY, but if there are any 35thers reading, do yourself a favor and check out Scott’s campaign page: http://www.ballotrevolution.org/ Give em hell Scotty!