Eric

Things I like learned in Florida

-Never wear white in Florida
-Read all signs, so you don’t look like an idiot
-The people who play the characters, don’t look quite how you would expect them
-Its better to burp and taste it than fart it an waste it
-Iraqis blow themselves up because they have five wives
-8 person apartments are shit-holes
-Every one that works at disney likes guys, even the guys
-MGM does not stand for Metro Goldwyn Meyer, it stands for Mostly Gay Men
-Gay men like MMH
-High School Musical sucks
-People are dumb

Things I like about Florida

-I like when I am driving the trams and look down at the hour meter and see that someone has scratched off the U and the R so it says “HO METER”
-I like when I say “This is the only stop for Film parking lot” 5 times, then 8 different people as me if we will be making another stop for stage.
-I like when guests drive past a sign that says welcome to disney world, follow the signs to Disney-MGM Studios, park in a parking lot named after a Disney character, buy a tickey for disney world and then ask “Is this Universal Studios?”
-I like when guests refuse to board the stopped tram, then as we drive away they yell “ARE YOU GONNA PICK UP GUESTS IN THE RAIN.” I also like when I get in trouble for “driving away and laughing” at the guests
-I like guests who jump off the parking tram when its moving.
-I like guests who don’t speak English, then the manager comes out and they don’t even have an accent

Well, I’m barely 3 days into this thing and things are going pretty well. I’ve got my site up, running and setup for paypal donations at www.eandersonweb.com/seattle100. So far I’ve received $100 in donations and the promise of another $80 soon. I haven’t really done much work yet as far as asking for donations, mostly I’ve just gotten the website stuff and paypal ready to go. Hopefully with some effort on my part and the PNWRiders BBQ I can reach the $1000 mark.

Donations as of 6/7/2007
$97.50 (my entry fee)

Number of individual donations
2

After a two minute discussion with a friend, I have officially signed up for the Seattle 100. What is it? Basically it’s like those “run-a-thons” you have in elementary school where people set up a dollar amount to donate for every lap you do, except instead of running we ride our motorcycles around Pacific Raceways. Different groups take turns going out for twenty-minute sessions, with the eventual goal to complete 100 laps before the end of the day. The whole event is designed to raise money for the NephCure Foundation which is the only organization in the world dedicated solely to the cause and cure of glomerular kidney disease, a condition affecting the son of the one owners of 2Fast, the company hosting the event.

It only took me two minutes to decide to do the Seattle 100… riding for free on the track with celebrities for a good cause was a no brainer. But now I realize there is actually some work on my part required, and that work is to raise money. $500 is the minimum amount of money 2Fast asks you raise, so I guess my starting goal is $1000. Doing the minimum just doesn’t sound I suppose, doubling it sounds respectable in my baseless opinion. I have no idea if this will be easy or hard to do. I also don’t know where to start other then asking my friends, family, co-workers and strangers. So if I know you… open your wallet, I’m about to ask you for some money!

I suppose I should add a few more details about why I think this event is so great and my efforts so far. The 2007 Seattle 100 will be the 5th annual. Last year’s event raised $116,000! for the organization and their goal this year is $125,000. The event is gaining national acclaim, has been featured in many magazines, local news and SpeedTV. Celebrities are in attendance every year from comedian/actor David Alan Grier to racing heroes, Aaron Yates and Jason DiSalvo.

Donations as of 6/4/2007
$1 (my entry fee)

Number of individual donations
0

But hey, I’ve only been signed up for one hour! Updates will hopefully be frequent!

My birthday was on Tuesday April 17.  I turned 19 and despite the fact that my own brother didn’t even call me to say “Happy Birthday,” I still had fun.  You know its a good birthday, when you spend most of the next day in the hospital emergency room due to the previous night’s activities.  Let me tell the whole story.

I have several friends that live in an apartment complex right outside Portland, OR in a place called Clackamas.  I went to high school with them and they moved out to Clackamas after graduation.  I went out to there apartments at about 9 and we immidiately made a B, Double-E, Double-R, U, N to Haggans.  My friend who’s 21 ran in and brought out two 30 bombs of keystone light out to the truck.  Keystone because we’re poor, and light because we don’t want to get fat(ter).  We went back to the apartment and started celebrating (drinking).  Games like Fuck the Dealer and Kings and 3 Bitch got me pretty drunk, pretty quickly.  I drank too much too fast and started feeling a little queasy, but I wasn’t as drunk as I had planned on getting.  I decided to take a quick venture out to the balcony so that I could puke on the downstair neighbor’s patio and clear my stomach, empty stomach=more room for beer.  I came back in and continued to lose at Fuck the Dealer.  Besides drinking games we spent our night playing Guitar Hero and dancing, that’s how I spent my night anyway.  My buddy Curtis and I were hungry sometime around two and decided to walk to Haggans to grab some food.  Walking back from Haggans is why I ended up in the hospital on Wednesday.

Curtis and I were on a trail leading from the grocery store back to the apartments.  It was there that we found a shopping cart.  “Get in,” Curtis said “It’s your birthday, I’ll push you back to the apartments.”  That sounded like a good deal to me so I got in.  Curtis was pratically sprinting behind the cart, pushing it down this narrow trail.  We hit a rock and the cart came to a sudden stop.  Curtis backed up and trying going just a little faster over the rock.  The cart didn’t quite make it over the rock.  The front end stopped and the back end tipped up and started to go over the front, it stalled when it was straight up in the air.  I was still sitting in the cart as it stalled and started to tip over the right side.  I put my arm out to stop my fall but my sleeve was caught in the chain link fence that lined the trail.  My body continued to fall over but my arm was stuck in the fence.  My arm was pulled out its socket.  When I stood up my arm just hung at my side, I couldn’t move it.  My friend Curtis was an EMT, almost a paramedic.  I told him I needed to go to the hospital, and he said he could fix it.  He swung my arm all the way around, backwards.  As my arm was coming back down, I felt it pop back into place.  It still hurt like a bitch, but at least I could move it, kind of.  I went back to the apartment and ate the food I had just bought, even dislocating my arm couldn’t keep me from missing a meal.  I tried as hard as I could to go to sleep but ended up staying awake all night, my arm hurt too bad.

The next morning I could hardly move my arm again.  I drove from Clackamas back to my home in Vancouver.  It was the mose excrutiating pain I had ever felt.  Ever little bump I hit felt like I was getting stabbed in the shoulder.  When I got home I called my dad and asked if he would take me the hospital.  Before he would take me, he needed to know why I wanted to go to the doctor.  I told him a version of the story and we made our way to the hospital.  One thing I learned about the hospital, the emergency room is very boring.  We had to sit there for several hours.  Finally I was taken back to a room and given an IV, a very classy gown to wear, and a heated blanket.  I had to lay in the hospital bed for at least an hour more before getting the X-rays.  Then the biggest ass of a doctor I had ever met came in after looking at my X-rays.  he said it wasn’t dislocated and made me guess what was wrong.  I’m not a doctor, I don’t know what was wrong with my shoulder, I thought it was dislocated.  Finally he told me it was either a torn muscle or a sprain.  Either way, I got a prescription for Vicodin and my arm still hurt like no other pain I had ever felt in my life.  I can still barely move my arm, four days after the accident.  But it makes for a good story.

Vegas is Man’s greatest invention. Period.

I just got back from the 2nd annual trip to Vegas. Started out great other then losing money. But I made it back the 2nd night. $300 jackpot on nickel slots, thanks Mroczek.

I won $450 on the trip, that’s the 2nd trip in a row I’ve won money. I guess that means I’m due to lose about a grand next time I go. Shit happens.

I’m sure you can all imagine the great dispair I felt today when my dreams were crushed.  Luckily they were not childhood dreams, only dreams that came to me earlier today.  Here’s the story:

I’m at work, washing dishes.  I am not focused on what I’m doing and instead I am day-dreaming about cool things like meeting celebrities or having super powers.  I am washing out the inside of a coffee pot when it hit me.  The greatest idea ever.  An epiphany, if you will.  I figured out what my future job was going to be.  Well, maybe not a job, but at least a hobby.  I was going to create a website called everyonesacritic.com, thats everyone’s a critic (for those who need spaces and punctuation).  It would be a movie review website where I, and other people, could post movie reviews.  Then other people could comment on and discuss the review in a forum like format, much like pnwriders.com (mad props to you).  It would become more powerful than rottentomatoes.com or even American Idol.  I could just sit back and make millions of this simple/great idea.  I swore to myself that no one else could hear about this idea.  I needed to keep a secret.  If anyone were to find out about it, I would have their thumbs broken, I know a guy who does that. 

Now for the part about the great dispair.  I decided I needed a little reality check before I got too far ahead of myself.  I couldn’t start buying hamburger buns before the cow was even dead, if you will.  I came home and googled “everyonesacritic”.  There it was, the very first result.  “Everyonesacritic.net”.  I was devasted, my dreams down the tube.  I couldn’t eat or sleep for practically hours.  These bastards had stolen my idea before I even thought of it.  Other than that, I had a pretty good day.  The sun came out for a while, that was nice.

I once was a capable motorcycle rider, but circumstances dictate otherwise. I am forced to work continuously while trying to find time to feed my motorcycle habit. My life is a circus event filled with ongoing activities, social experiments, self improvement, moments of understanding, and more web programming than I know what to do with. My name is Daniel, and I am known around the Internet as beansbaxter.

On numerous occasions, I am asked how I got the nickname of beansbaxter. Nicknames come and go with people over the years, some do not always stick and others follow us into this technological future that will leave endless impressions. My reference to the future is the upcoming Web 2.0 that is happening all around us; it is a new Internet where websites are being driven through social participation. Over a decade ago, the majority of the Internet was static, and a push occurred bringing the web to something much more dynamic. The new online era we are moving into has been widely documented as content created by social interaction and participation. It is as each one of us embraces and uses this new Internet, that we are leaving non-tangible impressions; one day we will look back and see our marks over the years. My mark has been under the name of beansbaxter.

As for the nicknames that came before and ultimately to beansbaxter – this will be revealed exclusively on Eric’s blog. Stay tuned.

It was a month ago today I lost a friend. Shortly after hearing of his passing I tried to write what I felt, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how I felt only that it hurt. I’m going to give it another go.

I’ve known other people who have met their end sooner then we would have hoped, but something about Gleno’s passing hit harder then most. There are so many positive things to take away from the man’s life and so many upsetting things about his death. What do you do when a man dies doing the thing he loved most, a passion you share; leaves a loving family and hundreds of friends? What do you do when a man leaves the world too soon and too abruptly, who had only hours before been sharing his thoughts?

I still remember reading that post:

I regretfully inform everyone that Gleno has passed away due to his injuries.

I prayed it was a joke, yet somehow knew it wasn’t. The impact was immediate and it hurt. And this was from a man I had only met in the flesh twice. A million questions flashed through my mind, how did it happen? Was anyone else hurt? Is it being investigated? Where was he going? Was he riding dangerously? But I couldn’t type them, I knew the answers would come as more was known… and they did, but it didn’t help. (more…)

I suppose it shouldn’t suprise me that most people suck at driving, most people I believe are idiots. But riding a motorcyle this past year has truly shed some light on just how terrible people are at driving. Anything smaller then a 2-ton SUV (i.e. my bike) goes by unnoticed as they drive down the road in their own world, a latte in one hand, cell phone in the other. Changing lanes without a glance at who’s next to them I have to swerve out of their way everyday. Perhaps the larger problem isn’t inattentive drivers but BAD drivers. It seems so many people don’t realize blinkers come standard in every car (you are actually supposed to use them), don’t understand to merge on the freeway you need to move at freeway speeds and 95% of people can’t look more then 10 feet in front of them and only react at the last moment.

I’m not sure which pisses me off more, people who don’t move to the right when they aren’t passing or people who fail to look ahead to try and anticipate what they should do (i.e. hit the brakes.) Actually after today I think people’s failure to anticipate now tops my list of biggest pet peeves on the road today. I got rearended today and it shouldn’t have happened. Here’s the scenario; rush-hour morning traffic on the 520 bridge (two narrow lanes, no shoulder), traffic is heavy like it always is. We just get on the bridge to the point where traffic usually opens up. However this morning I see about 5 cars up, smoke come as someone slams on their brakes. So I realizing that means I may have to slow down decide it would be a good time to hit the brakes. I come to a somewhat quick stop, about as fast as you would at a normal light I suppose, and look in my mirror. I see a civic coming up behind me and don’t see the nose of the car diving which means… he’s not on the brakes. I have enough time to look over at Taylor and tell her we’re about to rear-ended. Yep, we did indeed get rear-ended. I jump out of my car to make sure he is ok and tell him we’ll pull over as soon as we get across the bridge. At this point I’m not pissed but not exactly in a good mood. Jumping back into my car I gun it as I don’t want to stop traffic on 520 (I’m sure we ruined the traffic even more anyways.) It seems however I messed up in some regard as the next person by flips me off and screams something unintelligible at me. Unknown person I apologize for; 1) getting rear-ended when clearly I should have somehow prevented it, 2) Slowing your commute by about 17 seconds. I mean seriously, I hate people.

So anyways, the long and short of it is, the guy has insurance and everything will work out but I hope people will learn to open their eyes… wishful thinking…

I don’t follow politics and I don’t know whats going on in this Presidential Race.  I don’t even know who any of the Republican candidates are.  And that is why I don’t vote.  I am not informed enough to make a good decision.  However, there is something I want to say though.  I was watching the news last night for the first time in two weeks and I saw a segment on Barack Obama.  People were getting all bent out of shape because he’s a smoker.  They said it “showed a sign of weakness”.  I don’t think it shows a sign of weakness, if anything, I think it is a good sign.  He knows how bad cigarettes are and he continues to smoke them.  He is willing to risk his own life for something he thinks is right.  I think we could use a president like that.