Someday I hope to have some of these.

Next week will see two new employees here at my company. The first is Sander a.k.a. The Delicate Flower.

The second employee is named DARKO. I can only imagine that he will look like some crazy anime dragonball Z fighter guy.

With the ability to jump two stories and lift trains, Darko will bring balance to the force. Either that or he will be dark and sinister. like Skeletor except with Flesh. I think that The Delicate Flower is going to have a a tough time competing with Darko who will likely have the ability to shoot fireballs out of his palms.

Tell me Shaun McQuaid doesn’t look like a used car salesman

The Bride and Groom

Delicious cupcakes. In both vanilla and chocolate flavor! All covered in a tasty frosting.

New Banner on Topsite!

Congrats to micah and evie on their wedding! I drove up to Vermont on Friday with Jill for the wedding extravaganza. It was held at a small farm in the Burlington VT area. It was beautiful. The ceremony was held at the base of a mountain and my guitar playing went very smoothly. Post ceremony there was much eating, swimming, frisbee, and partying. Kurt took the following photo of himself with his beer.

There will be more pictures like this one to come!

Also, here’s a followup photo of Alicia with Guster.

This morning I woke up to the following IM from my good friend Amanda:

your sister played a solo tonight during the guster/pops concert that absolutely rocked my world! she rules!!!!!!! seriously, i think she might be the coolest person i ever met.

and yes, indeed, Alicia did play with Guster last night and will be playing with them again tonight. Apparently her solo rocked so hard that after the song the Guster guys asked the crowd to give it up to the flute player. huge cheers. I’ll see if I can get her to write a memoir of her rock experience for the website.

Alicia is more of a rockstar than I could ever hope to be. bravo sis!

Also, Happy Birthday to Jesse. he turns 25 today.

UPDATE: The last line of THIS article is referring to my sis.

new topsites banner!

I restrung my electric guitar last night. This is a big deal because it signifies my passage from mellow acoustic ben harper cover guy to hardrocking drug AC/DC rebel. My next big purchase will likely be a 4 star guitar amp with pure testosterone effects, ear busting distortion, and rock my foot in your face volumage. It will come included with a bunch of guns, STDs, and a hefty dose of smack. Yes, I may be a mild mannered engineer by day but when the sun sets you best hide your daughters, because mike d restrung his electric guitar.

I also finished up my laundry last night. I think I may need to get some dryer sheets. My socks were full of static cling!

It’s cleaning week at the House of Rock. I have been working steady to fix up my room and the common rooms of the house. I’m excited to report that Sander will be joining us as roommate #4 within the next two weeks! He may not be staying with us permanently, but we’re still stoked. As a result, we’re moving the music room into the living room so that he’ll have a decently sized place to rest his bones.

Really though, not much else is going on.

For the first time in a long time, So Tired played a show this weekend! It was a good show. We all gathered at Colin’s place around 7pm pumped and ready for rock. Jill had even made a t-shirt for the event:

We weren’t going on until about 8:30, so we passed the time playing wiffle ball. Tim Cummings was there as well as Jill DeTeso, who I haven’t seen in ages but who apparently reads this website. So let’s all say hi to JillD-T.

It was your standard show, we had plenty of humor as usual. Tall Matt and I switched the instruments up a bit for one song and Colin was super steady considering that we were only able to practice with him once. Unfortunately, Steve Werlin was unable to make it. but Ted Breen was able to hold strong the sax section.

Rick Large wore a muumuu. and a blonde wig.

And, Jill took a short video. So feel free to check out: Rick Large, performing Britney Spear’s “hit me baby one more time”. (12 MB)

It’s very dark, as the show was at night and our lighting coordinator didn’t show up. So if any of you have video editing software and feel like lightening it up a bit for us, it’d be much appreciated.

Other than that it was a standard weekend. I played some paintball for micah’s bachelor’s party and hung out with my dad for father’s day.

I give this weekend 4 stars.

here’s a photo of the blanket that jill made for me:

Last night I submitted an essay to a cheap contest. It went as follows:

I am known for my cheapness. It’s more than a mindset, it’s an obsession. I am a firm believer in saving on the little things so that I can afford the bigger things. I do all the typical savings routines: cut out coupons to save money on groceries, avoid the car AC to get more mileage per gallon, and eat my cereal at work to get the free milk. But when I read your plea for a testimony of the cheapest of cheap I knew exactly what you were referring to: The Laundry of 2000.

In the spring of 2000 I was finishing up my first year at college. I was a typical college student who was in a constant battle with my wallet. I did everything I could to save cash but even with all my attempts the laundry machines in the basement of my dorm still cost 1.25 per load.
I came up with a plan. I went home during spring break and washed everything I owned. I had 7 weeks left at school, and I was determined to make it all 7 weeks without needing to do laundry. I figured pants and shirts could be worn multiple times as long as I had clean undergarments. I would run out of boxers after about 4 weeks, but I had nearly seven weeks worth when I included swimming trunks,
running shorts, and the like. In the worst case I could always go commando. The first 5 weeks went pretty well. Socks were the first to go. I had gone sockless as often as possible, but my sandals had taken on the smell of something very unholy. One night during week 6, I was making a quick ride home for a theater production at the North Shore Music Theater. Unfortunately the trip home would be too quick to do a load of laundry so I needed to find a fix for my very angry feet. I walked to the communal bathroom and grabbed some brown paper towels. I carefully wrapped each foot twice and slipped them into my sneakers. If this didn’t absorb the stench I didn’t know what would.

My feet were miserable. Paper towels, it turns out, do not provide nearly the same amount of comfort as a cotton sock. My feet were sticky with sweat and the paper towels were crumpled masses of creases and folds. My family got quite a laugh as I kept making small adjustments to my footwear to try and make it more comfortable.

Despite the failed attempt at paper towel socks, I’m proud to report that I did make it the 7 weeks. And I did save that $1.25. Another victory for cheap folks everywhere.

-mike d.

Jon Abad made me a birthday card. check it out here.

I got stung by a bee on Tuesday. It got me in the foot while I was wearing sandals. Shortly after this, Mark and I played horseshoes in a area of the yard that had much foliage.
This morning, I noticed that my foot had red splotches on it and that it itched like never before.

Either
A) I had a mild allergic reaction to the bee sting that is causing my day to be filled with itching torment
B) I happened to get poison ivy in the exact spot that I was stung by a bee, and will have to survive the rest of the day in itching torment

UPDATE: I’ve been informed that oftentimes a bee sting will itch miserably post sting. So it appears that that is what happened.

Well, my birthday yesterday was pretty spectacular. I got a multitude of birthday IMs (thanks to everyone who participated) and left work 10 minutes early so that I could get stamps at the post office.

But the real surprise was coming home to find Jill waiting for me, what a joy! she made me a huge blanket as a gift. I will post pictures tomorrow. Then I went out to dinner with Jill, Mark, and Jesse. And we played some cards after that. It was great.

At one point, the residents of the house of rock decided we would try to make funny sounds with our mouths. I took some videos which I will post on the website this evening. Maximum humor.

Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday fun.

A few weeks ago, after seeing the Guernica bitmap, Caitlin asked me if I’d MSPaint her an image of Einstein, Picasso style for this summer’s WPI theater production of ‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile’ a comedy by Steve Marin.

So I threw something together, and sure enough, it’s going to be used for the program and advertising posters.

July 14th-16th 8pm in Riley Commons.
Location WPI.
Once again, MSPaint saves the day!

Today’s the day! Yes, today I am moving from the lackluster age of 23 to the glorious and riveting age of 24!

5 of the top most rockawesome mike d moments to date:
#5. Helping my dad put in the brick walk 1990ish
#4. The Ham of ‘97
#3. National honors society speech 1999
#2. Interlakken 2002
#1. 8ofBass concert. WPI. 2004.

Single most disappointing event of mike d
#1. totally being too short to drive my own water boat thing. Florida, 1988

Top 3 birthday cakes over the past many years
#3. Millennium falcon (birthday #16ish)
#2. Lobo Fuerte (of Los Luchadores) (birthday #20ish)
#1. The Fire Engine Cake, complete with oreo tires and licorice ladders (birthday #7ish)

Biggest ego moment of age 23
#1. “wait! we don’t even know your name!” shouted the girls as I left the room after performing Journey’s “Lights” on acoustic guitar

Biggest ego burn of age 23
#1. “oh you ran the marathon? What was your time? 5 hours? That’s pretty good. My grandfather ran it last year in 3:40″

top 3 celebrities that I’ve ever seen in person
#3. Rosie O’Donnell 1994ish
#2. John Ridder 1988
#1. Jon Abad

Today I wore this tie to work:

Please note the exciting flags and fireworks.

June 14th: Flag Day.
a poem by mike d.

13 stripes and lots of stars
I think it’s made of polyester
it’s flown by southern red necks
and also by corporate investers
yes, our flag’s a colorful one
to that I proudly say “Amen!”
but if you’re traveling overseas
best to pretend you’re Canadian.

This makes me want a cat.

amidst this tragic news, there is still reason to be full of joy. My birthday. (june 15th)

so here it is! my birthday list.

1. cool hip clothes.
2. anything pretaining to rock climbing
3. exciting new ties
4. tons of money
5. kiteboarding lessons

Send all gifts to the House of Rock.

It’s been a couple years since So Tired last graced the world with a performance, but once again the band of the century is returning to rock your face off.

Colin, So Tired’s rhythm guitarrist, has two sisters: one who is graduating college and one who is graduating from high school. So Tired will be firing off 6 songs at a private party for them next weekend. the set list will include such rock hits as Neil Young’s: “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and hit pop tunes like Jo-jo’s “Leave!”. The sad news is that the party is private. The good news is that my parents got me a digital camera for my birthday (woo!), and I will make sure that there are photos aplenty. Perhaps even a few small video clips.

Steve Werlin, the band’s only engaged member, will not be able to make it to the show, so we will be short one saxophone. But perhaps I’ll photoshop (or MSPaint) him into the pictures after the event.

I went mountain biking with Galecki yesterday. It was extremely fun, and extremely hard. We were biking down precarious rock paths, through 8 inches of water, and in treacherous 4″ deep sand.

I tried to follow/keep up with Galecki as best I could. But he’s a far superior bicyclist. At one point he went down a steep mulch embankment next to a marsh and pulled a hard right turn. I followed down the embankment but couldn’t turn in time resulting in my falling waist deep into quicksand like marsh mud. I’m proud to say I was only thrown from the bike once. Though my shoulder suffered a bit from the impact with the ground.

(CAUTION: JILL, DO NOT READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH.)
When I got home and took a shower, I had to use a brillo pad and an old toothbrush to scrape the caked mud off of my limbs. I had to also remove the bug from my eye and the marsh smell from my hair.

I had an awesome time.

Friends. I think I would like to pursue Kite Boarding.

It’s essentially wake boarding while being pulled by a kite instead of a boat. Please check out the videos and the information about lessons here.

If you’d like to try it, you would have to be willing to really go for it. The first three lessons and the gear would likely flirt with $1000.00.

you probably wouldn’t have to fully decide until after the first lesson, which would cost between 150 and 200 dollars. Please comment if you are interested.