I Can Always Hear a Freight Train, Baby if I Listen Real Hard.

It has not stopped raining since it started raining on Sunday night. 3 straight days of rain. David and I have been working on a new job site with the group from Notre Dame. We are working on the job you would least like to do in the rain other than roofs; underpinning. Underpinning is 50 pound sheets of concrete that go at the base of trailers to keep moisture, wind, and rodents out from under the trailer; it is an insulator, aesthetically pleasing, and a pain in the arse to install. We have to dig a 6-20 inch trench all around the trailer in the steady cold rain which basically turns the work site into one huge mudslide. So, David, myself, Erin (from ND), and Nate (from ND) have been digging these trenches, driving in posts, cutting the concrete boards, and generally sliding around and getting filthy for the past 3 days. We have been coated in mud and completely soaked every day.

But, I really don't care about all that foolishness. Do you know why I don't care? We are working for the sweetest woman, named Snowy. She has such a quiet strength and peaceful mirth to her. She is probably about 60 or so, and wears long jean skirts and sweaters on these cold, damp fall days. She doesn't ask for much and worries about us working in the rain. Today she made us chili for lunch and insisted we come in on the clean floor to eat. We sent in the cleanest person so as to not coat her home in mud, but if we had all trampled in there and made a mess of the floor, I don't think she would've minded or spoken ill of it. She is a gracious host and a loving woman. You can just feel it in a home when loving people live there, its almost built into the walls, seeping out of the oven like baking bread.

Now for a series of random rainy day thoughts.

-"Raining in Baltimore" by Counting Crows is the best rainy day driving song.
-There is no way Colorado should be in the World Series
-Top 7 Pet Peeves while at music shows
1. People asking me to mosh. I do not mosh, neither should you.
2. People singing along to my favorite songs
3. When lead singers say "thanks for coming out tonight"
4. When crowds bring out their cell phones during slow songs and wave them all around like lighters...its almost a testament to lame music.
5. Some smoke is necessary to a show...too much is annoying
6. Dave Matthew's Band Fans
7. When bands can't play their own music.

-It is better to burn out than to fade away.
-I miss Daily Mass. I miss frisbee. I miss coffee shops. I miss baking things (I do not miss the hours). I miss marching band. I miss my napping couch at Fever. I miss beer. I miss the Blind Pig.
-You don't really *need* to shower every day.
-Everyone made such a stink when vinyl albums went away because they all had to get rid of their turntables. But when CDs switched to mp3's no one seemed to care or complain. Which I find kind of odd. You'd think people would make more noise because it is a much bigger change, especially because the media is going from something tangible to intangible, and mp3s restrict music to those who can afford mp3 players. But no one seems to really care. Maybe it's because mp3s are neat.
-English majors always overuse semicolons

Cheers mates.

quote of the day: From G. K. Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse"

Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.

Up through an empty house of stars,
Being what heart you are,
Up the inhuman steeps of space
As on a staircase go in grace,
Carrying the firelight on your face
Beyond the loneliest star.

Take these; in memory of the hour
We strayed a space from home
And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint
With Westland king and Westland saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.