I had a brief chance to check out my old university newspaper during a break in the directing over the weekend. I jumped right to the Viewpoint section to see if the same old was still the same old. And it is. I read a letter from two of my favorite professors that frankly and [...]

     - thanks to Joseph Campbell “Through me; the way to the woeful city;”1 a hero with a thousand faces;2 a story you always wanted to hear. We continue though we know we continue ending. A desolation of hope. That is the story. and I say: This must be a prophetic life- Why else cry to [...]

If you’ve sent an email in the past three days to my email account on this domain you need to send it again. The blacklist on my webmail isn’t the most intelligent and spammers are ever devious, so when I ran my blacklist over the 70+ emails I had waiting for me this morning all [...]

Day 2 was the team event, which went much faster than the individual stuff. I was dressed slightly warmer and with more comfortable shoes and was this time complimented on both my corduroy blazer [2 sizes too small, for that ill-fitting euro-chic] and my shoes. There was a little bit of fuss from the Northwestern [...]

After 10 hours on my feet directing epee fencers of all shapes, sizes and levels of attractiveness, my knees are small novas of pain. It is fascinating how much nicer fencers are when you’re a director. Especially the females. Today I was complimented on my scarf [mom-knitted!], my style [what!?], my pronunciation of Dumas [although [...]

This weekend I’m going to be directing at the Notre Dame Fencing Invitational. It’s an easy way to make a couple hundred dollars and an excuse to eat at CJ’s. I’m doing some serious brushing up on my USFA rules, since I’ve not actually fenced since I’ve graduated. [I can't believe it.] The Invite is [...]

we wrote love poems before pomo. now, all must          represent,          symbolize. not just           your body under mine its             t            w             ist; but also,            a hand;           under the     table.

I’m currently at the Phoenix on Lee [Where is Jeff Hess?] applying for jobs. Ever since George posted my frustration, I’ve gotten quite a heartening response from folks in the area. I just finished a meeting with a fellow blogger about applying to his company. You people are the reason I love Cleveland. I’m starting [...]

I had a crummy run today. I was supposed to put in six miles, but only did 2.5. My calves felt like bad clockwork. I think If I’d run much farther I would have torn something. No matter how much I stretched, they were still tense. Better take it easy.

This is posted on my brand new résumé page. I am a man of action, and a man who thrives on communication. I do my best when I am constantly challenged and required to use critical thinking and problem solving to reach a desired outcome. Yet this is all too general. If you are involved [...]

I feel a bit mercenary doing this, because money isn’t the only reason I’m seeking a non-dead-end job. But while I’m crafting my online Statement of Ambition as it pertains to my career, I might as well dish out some basic metrics for what certain salaries would mean to my lifestyle; at least in Cleveland. [...]

I now own a $20 nametag. I also had an excellent mediterraneanly catered meal from Middle East restaurant. Their grape leaf rolls were the best I’ve had. I also got free parking in downtown Cleveland. [!] Now that the important stuff is out of the way, I’d like to share my thoughts on my first [...]

They say that it takes six weeks of any exercise program before you start noticing results. And by results, they usually mean weight loss. I don’t think I’ve lost much weight, apart from maybe a pound or two, but my body has definitely changed shape. I dropped a waist size and am now back to [...]

The library is a natural resource. And I really enjoy that pun. I had a dream that I was in a library, and specifically in a computer room in a library with a bunch of ruckus friends. This computer room was from an Irish movie I saw years ago, and I remember a character watching [...]

Life in Cleveland is becoming increasingly unfulfilling for me. I have spent the last 9 months looking for another source of employment in this area, and have been most unsuccessful. This is my third Cleveland winter, and in the time I’ve been here I feel that I have offered plenty of myself to Cleveland through [...]

I think 12 miles is the longest distance I’ve ever run. I managed to do it in three minutes under two hours today, which is three minutes faster than pace. About 5 miles in I started singing “Venus in Furs” to myself, which is a very bad idea. “I am tired/I am weary/I could sleep [...]

After a week like this week, it isn’t really a surprise that I ran like a fiend today. Only three miles, but I busted it out like the fat kid in dodgeball and was raring for more at the end. I’ve got a 12 miler tomorrow though, so I didn’t run more. I finally got [...]

My left eye has been twitching an awful lot lately. Not the eye itself, but the flesh and muscle around it. I’m sure I don’t have a vitamin deficiency and pretty sure I’m not dehydrated, so until it goes away on its own I’ve decided to make good use of it. I’ve added a hunched [...]

After my run yesterday I went to Dave’s and made myself a salad and grabbed a Braeburn apple. It was what my body was craving, so apparently I needed some iron [the majority of the leafy greens were spinach] and sundry other ruffage. It disappeared in no time. When I was working over the summer [...]

A little over 6 miles in a little under and hour today, but I was bushed. I did a truncated version of what I’m already coming to call the Bridge run, since I cross over Abbey, Carnegie and Detroit bridges, not to mention Bridge Avenue. When I extend it, I’ll also run over the W. [...]

This is the time of year when I’m extra-fidgety, extra-grouchy, and extra-dissatisfied with life in general. The miracle that is February, and perhaps Seasonal Affective Disorder; but diagnoses for every little thing aren’t really my bag. What I could really go for is about three hours in a fencing gym and a lazy dinner with [...]

Three miles – check.

A run across Carnegie Bridge, I see for miles. The north rock towers, Lake Erie distance. Underfoot swans tack the Cuyahoga snow crust. Art deco, overhead eyes swaddling Cleveland, steel carved in stone on steel under stone. Traffic is light. There is silence even in my stride. The pace a great muffler: my girl, her [...]

Girl and I had dinner at Opa! over the weekend. It was both a tasty and nice time. We started out with an Octopus Salad which was a bit too smoky and olivey for our tastes and I had Pulled Lamb over Penne and Girl had Cherry and Apple glazed Pork, both of which were [...]

I went to the dentist for the first time in several years today. They kept exclaiming over how nice my teeth were, but it seems like going to the dentist is now akin to getting your oil changed at LubeTown; every three seconds someone is trying to sell you a little perk that you don’t [...]

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #9: John Woo’s Hard-Boiled. John Woo must like Jazz clubs, because both The Killer and Hard-Boiled feature them, with Woo making a cameo as the club bartender in Hard-Boiled. Rarely have I seen a film with a body count as high as Hard-Boiled. The influence of [...]

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #8: John Woo’s The Killer. There is something of a directorial dialogue between Eastern and Western filmmakers. Few things so appropriately evince this tendency than the relationship between Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï and John Woo’s The Killer. Woo readily states that Melville is a great [...]

I try too hard and then I marvel at the patience of others. I was hanging out with Girl the other night and after breaking her work computer once, and thereby causing her workplace to institute a “you break it, you pay to fix it” policy, I did the same dumbass thing that I had [...]

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #306: Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï. In a film like Le Samouraï, “never” means “always”. When the police inspector says that he never thinks, we know he is always thinking and when hit man Jef Costello [Alain Delon] says he never loses we know he’s already lost [...]

I was supposed to run 10 miles over the weekend, but the weather was so bad that I had to put off the run until today. I put in 4 to 5 instead of the full ten, because the streets and sidewalks were still pretty ice-covered. My time was good nonetheless, and I’ll just crank [...]

I watched just over half of the Super-boring Bowl [complete with lame-ass commercials] and then headed over to the Beachland Tavern to hear a few bands. I saw two locals, The Driven High and my friends Humphry Clinker and a band from Boston called The Beatings. All three bands had chick leads, which was nice. [...]

A part of this viewing list: Criterion Collection Spine #301: Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table.

3 miles in about 24 minutes today. I need to keep pushing the short runs to build my strength and high gear stamina.

I filed my Ohio Tax Return online in about 20 minutes last evening. It was a piece of cake, you create an account and can then save your return as you work on it. I highly recommend using I-File if you live in Ohio. They’ll even direct deposit your refund. Of course, bureaucracy increases by [...]

I had a 5 mile run in the rain today and I finished it in about 40 minutes. My shoes are well and truly broken in now that they’ve gotten their first soaking.

     -for r.a.washington These are- granite days, they demand- hard men, fortifications of strange shapes watchwords- must blend in We split the rift wider- brother gives grift- but my words are foreign currency in his hands. The songbirds The long words spill into our ears- “from whence came ye, wanderer? to loiter in the eaves of [...]

Bachelorhood: I have four different kinds of mustard in my fridge but no mayo.

In which Adam reflects upon Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

I was supposed to run on Tuesday but I ended up sleeping instead and moved my schedule up one day for this week. So instead of getting next Monday off, it’ll be a cross-training day. I ran three miles again, but harder this time and cut a couple of minutes off my time. The wind [...]

My bros Bo and Phil [who are bros] just started an mp3 weblog. Go check out Lead Singer Disorder, bro.