It's 7 pm, my time. I'm sitting at a computer at the office of the Peace Corps in the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Keer-a-biss) in the equatorial Pacific.The sun set about a half an hour ago. The rhythym of the Pacific Islands is at least predictable: you know the sun will rise at 6:30 every morning and set at 6:30 every evening. We do our work in the morning; sweeping fallen breadfruit tree leaves into the burn pile, climbing to the top of a cocunut tree to coax the sweet milk from a ta...

My dearest friends at JoeUser.com... It's been a wild nine months, let me tell you that. I'm sitting here, at a computer, something from my life I hardly remember, and soon I will attempt to explain to you how different my life is now from the way it used to be. However, that will not be now, as I'm pretty drunk at the moment and plan to be more so in the upcoming moments. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day...someday soon, anyway, I will try to give you an update on how different my life isno...

Well, folks, this is it. The last blog entry of the me I am now. I may be able to acces the internet in the Peace Corps from Kiribati, but it's not likely and it won't be often, and even if I do I won't be the same person. I've been holding myself aloof, away for the past few days. I don't know if it's because I didn't realize how quickly this thing was coming up, or if I just didn't want to feel the sorrow leaving my life for days on end. But, now that there are only hours to go before...

(Is the spacing acceptable, Ted?) Unfairman so hot, kickin' that new doo he got, careful you don't get shot.... bring your tickets...to the gun show, and when he plays croquet best believe he make it through every wicket you silly ho. Now you know...the one whose farts smell like a rose, you girls keep sweatin' him even when he's pickin' his nose, and as his legacy arose, I'm kickin' poetry and prose... scribbled down in this book, and better duck down punkass posers when y...

I got my hair cut today. To a lot of you, that may not seem like a big deal, and it probably isn't. But I've had pretty long hair for nigh on 4 years now, and it's gone. I mean like, all gone. I got 8-10 inches taken off today, leaving my hair about 1/4 inch on the sides and maybe an inch long on the top. That cause for the sudden change is, once again, the Peace Corps. They don't demand that I get my hair cut or anything, but I know I won't get to bathe everyday, and when my hair doesn...

June 4th. That's the day life as I know it will be turned on end. I suppose I'm fortunate. A lot of people have no idea when their lives will change drastically. Of course, something unexpected may happen in the two weeks between today and June 4th, but barring that, I have the opportunity to be prepared to have my perspective on life comepletely and unalterably skewed. June 4th is the day I leave my cozy life in Minnesota. I fly into Los Angeles for my Peace Corps staging event. O...

I have had some internet problems this week, so here is the long awaited sequel...a few things have become fuzzy with time, so bear with. So I stayed at Adam's that night. The next morning, we woke up at 10:45 to get to his noon meeting, and I drove him up the school. After that, I drove over to Pete's house to giveaholla. We hung out for a while, played "Name That Tune", and then Pete decided it would be prudent for him to attend his last class session of the semester at 1:00. I talked to...

So, yes, I was in Duluth from Tuesday until Saturday (more on that later, I'm sure). Then, on Saturday, a bunch of my friends threw me a going away party at my friend Zac's cabin. Yesterday was Mother's Day...so, here's my first blog entry in a while, and I apologize. When I reached the Top Ten blog sites, no one gave me the "With great power comes great responsibility" speech, so I'm figuring this all out the hard way. I'll blog about my adventures when I was gone a little later tonight....

I can't find my Ninja Gaiden game. I've looked all over my room. My Xbox never leaves my room, and I have no friends so I wouldn't have taken the game somewhere else (besides, it's a one player game, and who would invite me over so they could watch me play games? Seriously). My "step-nephew" was over the other day, so I took the game out of the Xbox so he could play a less violent game, in which he promptly lost interest. So I've spent that past two hours cleaning my room (basically sortin...

Hey guys! I need a little help here. I'm always on the lookout for good new (to me, anyway) music. I'll define 'good', in my tastes. I love Dispatch, Pearl Jam, Norah Jones, Storyhill. I'm really into the acoustic groove. "College music", I guess some people call it. Anyway, even though I don't really have money to spend, I'd love to hear some suggestions of bands you guys like. I'd prefer not to hear names of really mainstream bands, because I already know about them, and that woul...

My friend July and I are married. Apparently, we went down to Vegas one weekend and got hitched. We were at the chapel anyway, and I decided that I may as well propose and get this dating thing out of the way. It's boring. Anyway, that's a fun pretense. It started when she told me a story about her being in church, and the usher asking her if she'd like to wait for her husband. She held up her ringless wedding finger and told him she wasn't married. I, being the born smartass, replied "Wha...

Yeah, those are Pearl Jam lyrics. So what? This blog will probably be pointless rambling. If you don't like pointless rambling, stop now, you've been forewarned. My keyboard is really gross. It's got all kinds of specks (I was just checking the specs on the rotary girder...I'm retarded) of food and coffe and god knows what in it. Fortunately, those are all in the cracks, so I don't have to touch them. I once read a "true story" about someone who called tech support because their keyboar...

[This was originally a reply to a post, but I liked it, so I copied and pasted.] I work at a grocery store, and you know how they have those "Take a Penny Leave a Penny" dishes? Well, at the end of every shift, I take all those leftover pennies and put em in the "Support the Blind Kids Who Wanna Go to Camp to Pet Bunnies and Stuff" donation thing. I know it's not much, but I take them from every till, and when I don't work my coworker Rex does the same thing (in fact, I stole the idea from...

So, today at work (seems like so many of my articles start with that phrase) I got to rake the ditch. Those of you who have winters know how much garbage piles up in the snow over the season. Then, come Spring, the snow melts and 6 months worth of dirt and cigarette butts and Subway cups sifts to ground, where some unlucky shlub has to rake it up. Actually, I didn't mind it at all...it sorta broke up the monotony of the daily job, plus I got to work outside on a fairly nice day. I found an...

I am a night person. One of my favorite things to do in the middle of night is to walk out onto the porch. Sometimes, even though I'm not a smoker, I'll smoke one of my mom's cigarettes. Sometimes I'll cozy up to our huge, old, smelly, outside mutt and talk to him, even though he is past the age where he can hear most of the sounds I can make. Sometimes I'll close my eyes and listen to the distant timberwolves, their cries weaving their way through the softly rustling pine and birch branc...