changes

in keeping with my personality and disposition, i'm making a few changes in my plans and committments that i fell i should alert you to. i figure if you are masochistic enough to suffer through this blog, then you might be interested in what's going on with me.

1) i'm not going to new zealand anymore. i've given rotary their money back to support someone else, and all is hunky dory. if you need further explanation, give me a call sometime.

2) i'm adding another internship. combined with my current internship at The Onion and my two food service jobs, my new internship at Denver's alt-weekly newspaper, Westword, will bring my employment list to four, count 'em, four jobs. i'm crazy, i know. but i'm pumped about this one, and in a couple of months or so, you can read the stuff i publish in Westword online at westword.com.

3) nic and i are moving into another apartment in the same building. bigger, nicer, jsut a shade more expensive. our new mailing address as of friday will be 2205 Larimer St. Apt. 209. send us something.

4) not sure what i'll be doing or where i'll be for the holidays. i'll keep you posted as i know more. where will you be?

5) finally, if you have no idea what's good for you, and you have way too much time on your hands, feel free to read more of my writing on my new blog. http://rickwhite.wordpress.com/ it'll be longer, more thoughtful stuff - and i'll keep this one up and running for pictures and general updates on what's going on with me.

peace and love

it snowed.

yep, that's right. it snowed. in Denver. in October. like 400 inches or something. it was ridiculous. i had to borrow Kayla's window scraper. i think i'll have to invest in one. i used to get by with an empy cassette case, but Denver don't mess around.

but it melted the next day. so don't worry - i'm not stranded. didn't even have to go to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and water and vienna sausages. and look - i made it!

Balloons!

Here is my photo essay of the 2006 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, which Kayla, Holly, and I drove down from Denver to enjoy. The weather nearly ruined the whole balloon part of the Balloon Fiesta for us, but forturnately on Saturday we got a window of clear weather, so about half of the balloons took to the skies. Enough talking already - let's look at pictures. The ringleader: the tricentennial balloon. Apparently Albuquerque is 300 years old. Happy Birthday, ABQ.

Kayla is really happy that Albuquerque is 300 years old and that thousands of strange people that have a fondness for large hats and call themselves "balloonists" have decided to come to Albuquerque to celebrate.

Some people volunteer at the fiesta and help govern the timing of rising balloons, thus preventing unneccessary accidents. This is one of those volunteers. Balloonists refer to guys like this one as a "referee." In other circles he is more commonly known as a "sexual predator."

Fire!

 

More Balloons!

These are the spinning light-up portable fans that we got in our search for free stuff at the Fiesta. The lights change patterns and colors every 2 seconds or so, which at 5 a.m. can be pretty hallucinogenic. I was amazed by them, and decided to share in my amazement with the guy at the Qwest tent. I said, "These are crazy! Where do you think they came up with such technology?" He replied, "China." Funny guy.

There were lots of balloons. Yes, that's a balloon shaped like a can of wet Alpo dogfood.

Holly and Kayla either a) pretending to be that turtle in the background, b) under the hallucinogenic effects of the spinny light-up fans (unpictured), or c) providing evidence for jurors in future trials when they plea for lesser sentence due to insanity.

Fact: The balloon fiesta is the most photographed event in the world.Fiction: This lady is extremely happy to be having her picture taken by both her daughter and by me. (A click on the picture will provide full zoom effect of the "E.T. phone home!" desperation in her eyes.)

settling in to a new routine

finally, something resembling a normal schedule. true, i have 3 jobs, but i'm only putting down about 45 hours a week and i have every weekend off now. last weekend we had a little shindig at kayla and holly's new place on friday night - about 30 of their friends came over for the housewarming celebration. it quickly devolved from a conversational get-together into a throw-the-nerf-football-through-the-two-waving-hoola-hoops-to-a-guy-diving-on-the-couch.
this followed by a four-man fruit juggling demonstration, with nic and i being the brains behind the idea, as well as the far best fruit jugglers in town. nevermind the splattered peaches and tomatoes and apples on the walls and floor...we were amazing. however, our prowess faltered in the Colorado vs. Arkansas Egg Toss Competition unfortunately, with the crack of the egg smashing into the pavement being surpassed in loudness only by the simultaneous blow to our egos in the loss. foolish pride...

nothing like the Rockies to help you recover from such a hard loss. we spent saturday and part of sunday camping up near Nederland, CO, just west of Boulder. snow on the ground, chill in the air, trees looking like a very large Jackson Pollock took a big bucket of gold paint and splotched it all over the mountains...hard to beat. the only thing from my weekend that might make me more excited than a great camping trip? oh yeah, i rented my skis this weekend, my very first season rental and validation that no longer (at least not this year) can i be categorized as a "vacation skier". no thank you, you can file Rick White under "ski bum" now.

cheers. (that's how everbody says "thanks" or "bye" or whatever around here. "cheers"...like they're british or something. strange.)

Revived!

Okay, people. I'm back. For good. For real this time. Let the blogging resume.

What a month (and a half). It's been a steady flow of visitors, guests, and celebrities around here for a while. In mid-August it was Mr. Stuart Buergler, fresh of a summer at the Heifer Ranch. Much rock climbing, bar hopping, and some apartment rapelling ensued (don't ask). Anyone looking for tips on how to be a good guest, feel free to give Stu a call - he cleaned, bought groceries, and even left his hosts a pair of giftcards to boot. You're not so bad, Mr. Buergler. Not so bad at all.

After Stu came some of Kayla's high school pals, Amy and Lauren. Quite the pair, I assure you, with an endless capacity for shopping and questioning. I worked most of the weekend they were here (the last in August), and I missed out on the Denver scavenger hunt, but the times we had together were the times of our lives. And I passed the boyfriend polygraph in flying colors. A reunion tour has been scheduled, the opening date scheduled for October 6-8 in Albequerque (Balloon Fiesta!...more elaborate details on this event coming in due time).

Oh, Courtney, don't get your panties in a wad. I know you're out there reading this thinking I forgot all about you. How wrong you are. Also a good friend of Kayla's from high school, Courtney also had the dubious distiction of good post-college buddy of mine from the booming metropols that is Conway, Arkansas. A.K.A. "Little Miss Sunshine", Courtney was also in town th elast weekend in August, and a raucous time was had by all. She'll be making a special guest appearance with the band at the Albequerque show in early October. Don't miss it.

A visit from one of Nic's friends from Cajun's Wharf coincided nicely with a one-night throwdown at the Cheesecake Factory with two of my favorites, Mr. and Mrs. Will French. The former Sarah Moyer, now Sarah French, and her P-Ville buea Will strutted their stuff in the mile high city for a night before heading west to Aspen for a weddin'. I had the best cheesecake that night - some triple chocolate madness - closely followed by Nic's peanut butter cheesecake extravaganza.

And then there was Hayden. The world-renown acupunturist to-be, Dr. H.A. Henningsworthingham, III himself drifted into town via Frontier Airlines last week. As is usually the case, it was a week of good food and wine, with Chef Hayden serving up delectable delights like spring rolls, stif fry, and sufflet. Sous chef White contributed what he could to the mix. We also took a trip down south to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, one strange sight that everyone should check out if the opportunity is afforded. Smack dab in the middle of the south Rocky foothills is an expanse of rolling sand hills ripe for the running on and rolling down. We bought some used skateboard decks (no wheels) and gave it our all, but to no avail. An untimely hurricane-force wind decided to visit the dunes that same weekend, so our 2-day trip was shortened a bit. We resigned ourselves to rolling down a hundred foot dune at the speed of light (you might not guess, but when you are rolling uncontrollably down a massive sand dune, your mouth becomes similarly uncontrollable and you tend to open rather than close it while laughing hysterically and getting a spray of sand in it like a burst of whipped cream or easy cheese from an aerosol can). Then we hightailed it homeward for a night of R Kelly HipHopera and wine.

All this and a new interhship at The Onion, and you have a recipe for one crazy past month. Life seems to be settling down around here now, at least for a bit. The first real snow of the year came and went this weekend, enough for a few brave backcountry boarders to make some tracks and make me jealous. I'm getting geared up - ski season is right around the corner. Rick White, food servant/intern, is soon to be R. Harrison White, food servant/intern/ski bum. Livin' the dream.

Pitiful

That's what I am. Apologies for not posting for a while. Life has been a bit crazy in Denver lately - a steady stream of visitors, work, and activity. Hayden is rounding out the last of the visitors this week, and I'm settleing into a new internship at The Onion and better hours at my other jobs, so posting should resume to normal next week. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. Stay tuned.

the purpose of my hips

i've spent many years wondering why God bestowed upon me - a 6'2" lanky white boy with only a tinge of rythym - such remarkable hips. i couldn't have cut it as a member of the high school dance team. i don't have the build per se of a hula or a belly dancer. and i'm not sure i'd bring in too many dollar bills with my hips at the local male strip club (though i can't say i haven't given consideration to stripping for hire...think tetherball poles, people).

yesterday, i finally figured out the reason, the purpose of my hips:

SALSA!

every thuhrseday night for 6$ at the cherry street bar and grill in denver, a.j. and yolanda - international salsa dance champions extraordinaaire - teach me, kayla, and about 20 other wanna be's the basic afro-cuban salsa steps and shakes. never before (and yes, i've taken dance lessons before...jitterbug from nana in her living room, swing from the little rock bop club at the wyca, etc.) have i been encouraged to shake my moneymaker the way i like to (it just feels natural!), to occasionally separate from my partner and do some pectoral jiggles, to clap, snap, jump, slide, bump, grind, dip, lean, and generally be as sexy as i know i can be...until now. look out, people...this could get dangerous.

(oh, and on top of it all, the cherry street bar looks like it came straight out of Miami Vice. makes me feel like wearing a white suit, a v-neck shirt that reveals my mighty chest hair, and tinted sunglasses...like smoking a smooth cigar and drinking a martini.)
i'm so crazy/sexy/cool it hurts me.

Make that 2 jobs (and more $un$hine)

Things are continuing to hop in the mile-high city. I got another job this past weekend at LoLa. I'm an expo for this fancy restaurant serving up coastal Mexican cuisine (i.e. seafood with a Mexican flavor...$2 happy hour fish tacos!), which means I convinced them that I'm not only organized and efficient, but also not clumsy and very outspoken. Hmm...we'll see how it turns out. So far, so good.

The other night, the chef at LoLa promptly gave me the nickname Andy. For those of you who don't keep up with pop culture, this is in reference to Andy Dick (below), the actor/comedian popular for cameos in various sitcoms and awards shows and his briefly popular MTV show, The Assistant.
A word of advice to all young men ages 18-30: don't be tall and skinny with fluffy/curly blonde hair and glasses. It can only mean bad things. You see, for the longest tme I kept my hair nice and short: 6 guard on the top, 4 guard on the sides. In those days, I recieved comparisons to movie stars Matthew McConaghey and the young Paul Newman. A few years back I decided to let my hair go a little bit. Who knew that it would be blonde and curly? Who knew that I would be publicly recognized as Andy Dick? Who knew that it could get worse than Andy Dick...that the sick minds driving American pop culture would perpetuate - exacerbate - the humiliation of we tall, skinny fluffy/curly blonde guys with glasses?