8/29/01 10:36pm This is it, my last night in Albany. It's been a good run, but now I need to move on to bigger and better things... a new era is beginning. I'm starting the second arc of this lifetime (according to Mr. Coleman's triarc life paradigm... fabulous). I have a feeling that I'm well equipped... look out, world. Bard is on his way.

8/26/01 11:03pm I might be going crazy. Between the need to pack, the need to square things away, and my insatiable wanderlust... I don't know. The first part is over... act two begins very shortly... so where am I right now? Floating... somewhere.

8/23/01 12:05pm My BardCam at work is now online... watch me work... or something. Click this link to see the BardCam. Right... back to work, I know.

8/22/01 7:16pm Almost a month since the last update... man, where does the time go? Wait, I know... my "job" at Bethany Reformed Church, my trombone, my friends, Cape Cod, my reading, my ponderings. I guess it's been an acceptable summer thus far. I leave for Canisius College in nine days. Egan is the only other person from Albany that's going there... thankfully, I met a few nice folks at orientation, and my roomate seems like a cool enough kid. Hey, look... jellybeans. Now my parents are actually trying to get me to "think about" what I'm going to pack... hmm, let's see... clothes, computer... uhh... that sounds good. Yeah, this is going to be pretty easy. EKK... there's nothing worse than a jellybean that's supposed to taste like buttered popcorn. Oh, man. Well, that's the way it goes sometimes. Onward into the future.

7/27/01 11:01pm Shutting down, shutting out... I'm going to meet up with Route 6 in a few short days. Kerouac's grand red line, the highway of summers long past. Things are flashing before me, all of my experiences for the last... how many years... flashing, recapitulating through this mortal coil. It's time I shuffled off myself, eradicated the drivel... I need a vacation. I think that it'll come soon enough. Yeah... soon enough.

7/24/01 11:52pm I just realized with eight minutes left to go that today is my half birthday... well, for eight more minutes. Things are pretty good right now... hot summer days, reading Kerouac, learning Calculus, playing trombone, enjoying my last month in the nest. It's all going to end pretty soon, but whenever a story ends there's always a new one to begin. This is a good time in my life.

7/7/01 10:38am Billy woke me up with a phone call this morning. I walked outside to put the dog in the house... it's a damn nice day out. I should probably get out there and do something. My brothers come back from camp today... three player Quake action tonight, finally. Meanwhile, I'm reading a philosophy book and a science fiction novel by William Shatner. I'm enjoying the former to a significantly higher degree, rest assured. Yeah, rest assured.

7/2/01 8:38pm Hmm... I'm not sure what's going on. It just feels like I'm flying. I've only gotten this feeling a few times before, and most of those times were when I was... well... flying. I don't know what's going on, but I know that things are really good, even if I'm alone. Am I even alone anymore? I don't think so.

7/1/01 10:11pm I have returned from my odyssey in Buffalo (it was a most enjoyable experience and a good time was had by all). In addition, I am now the proud owner of Quake 3 Arena for the Dreamcast... simultaneously a dead system and the best system in existence. Today I finished my first-ever reading of Animal Farm by George Orwell... remember, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

6/27/01 1:13pm Well, I leave this evening for Buffalo and my college orientation. I have meningitis causing trouble in my left arm and tuberculosis in my right arm, or something like that. I hate going to the doctor. Anyhow, my work is done for the week, and now I get three days of traveling and doing things... when I get back, I have some parties to go to. This is turning out to be a pretty good summer already... mwa.

6/26/01 3:15pm This is a belated Merry Anti-Christmas (which was yesterday). Oh, Billy's birthday is today; Happy Birthday Billy. One of the things that sucks about today is the fact that I just found out that I need to get my wisdom teeth pulled sometime in my near future. I'm angry.

6/24/01 9:54pm This is one of those days where things just work well. Between the local State Assemblyman showing up at my house at 10 in the morning and my grandparents presenting me with a brand new valve trombone... I think that my graduation couldn't have gone better. All I have now is two months of something before I move on to another place... it's been a fun ride.

6/22/01 9:26pm I purchased the sountrack to Atlantis today... quality stuff. You may begin to think that I'm a bit obsessed about this film, and perhaps I am... but that's the way I do things. It's all about getting the most out of my experiences... stuff stays in my head better that way I suppose. Anyway, like I said, James Newton Howard did an excellent job with the film, effectively synthesizing some tribal-type stuff with techniques used by both Aaron Copland and John Williams. In short, it's nDo approved.

6/21/01 8:10pm So today I went to my school's graduation 1/rehearsal, which was fun because there was a squirrell backstage, running around for all to see (everyone save the principal, but that made it all the more entertaining). So anyhow, I went to see Atlantis for the second time today. It's basically as far-fetched as they get, but it's a fun ride, and I plan on getting the soundtrack sometime soon... good stuff. If you enjoy reading my quick updates, I'm sure you'll have a taste for my friend Mark's banter. Now is as good a time as any to check out Mark's site as he seems to have redesigned it. His most notable addition is a Pac-Man navigation bar. Ah, the good old days...

6/19/01 9:03pm Day is done, gone the sun: from the lake, from the hills, from the sky... All is well; safely rest: God is nigh.

6/18/01 12:18pm Right now I'm unemployed, but that's OK, for now anyway... in about two days I'll have absolutely nothing to do, and then I'll be in trouble. I wussed out of the Superman thing... damn, that thing was scary looking. I guess I haven't fully reconciled my deal with insane heights yet, or perhaps I just have something against falling 80 miles an hour nearly straight down for seven seconds, but whatever. For now, it's just me at home with my trombone... maybe I'll go bug Mark. He seems like someone that would be unemployed at a time like this. I guess that's the way it goes. I might have to pull a Final Fantasy 7 all-nighter tonight... maybe.

6/13/01 4:40pm This is one of those deals where I don't know what's going on... 48 hours of sheer limbo, doing nothing, sitting inside, listening to music, doing nothing. "Who can it be knocking at my door... stay away, don't come round here no more..." I could be doing something. Tomorrow I'll be doing something... Six Flags New England. Be it resolved that I'm going on the Superman rollercoaster if it kills me. We'll see if I actually go through with it. Anyway, this is basically it for me, but I still need a summer job. If you'd like to hire me, you know where to find me. Where? Easy Street... heh. Man, I need to go out and do something.

6/4/01 5:30pm Five days left, jazz gig tonight. My pinky finger hurts.

5/15/01 1:22pm So there's no real point to going to school, so I figured I'd stay home today. I have a better chance of getting work done here, anyhow, and I have the Biology AP test tomorrow... should be fun. I have less than a month left at Albany High School... it's kind of unnerving. In a very short amount of time, my life is going to change on a grander scale than it ever has before. I'm excited... the world's not going to know what hit it. Fine, fine... back to Crazy Taxi.

5/10/01 7:15pm Right... so things are going pretty well right now. I'm at the top of my form, nobody seems to object too much to my existence, and I'm into the last month of high school. I don't really want to leave, but time isn't going to wait around for me. I have to move on as expected, and start from scratch. It seems like an exciting thing. Last night I played trombone for two and a half straight hours... it was pretty rough. This Saturday I'm starring in the play... tough job, but someone has to do it. It's funny how I finally get the hang of things around here and they're ready to ship me off to college. Really funny.

4/24/01 9:52pm Bard, where have you been? Sometimes it's just better to shut everything out and knock off a bottle of ginger ale. That generally makes things better. What if I never recover from leaving the nest? I'm drifting now... to somewhere else. I'm going far away. Isn't this supposed to be good? Why do I keep forgetting the lyrics to my solo? Something is seriously amiss. If you find it, tell me what it is. I've been looking for it, and I'd like to have it back. How many more days must pass before I come full circle? Maybe it's all just a straight line, maybe I've got the wrong idea. Something tells me that it's time to fire up the shield systems.

3/14/01 3:28pm So I'm into Binghamton, making me three for three in terms of college stuff. Now it looks like I have a decision to make. I hate making decisions like this... wait, no I don't. It gives me a chance to determine fate. Heh, yeah, that's what I'll do. Time to go win the welfare tournament and qualify for States. Only then will I become a real boy...

2/22/01 9:45pm Right, so I think that things would be going great if I had any idea what was going on. Theoretically, I have no work to do for anything anymore, and I really ought to be pounding out scholarship essays as if there were no tomorrow. I really ought to be. Instead, I'm just going to sit here and type about some stuff. So I went to Harvard this past weekend, which was interesting, because it's probably the only opportunity I'll ever get to be in a bunch of Harvard's buildings for a legitimate reason. The most comfortable lobby on campus is in Robinson Hall, which, to my understanding, is the Architecture building. Naturally, I could be wrong, but no Harvard students visit my page, so nobody will know enough to call the bluff. In any event, I had a grand old time in Cambridge and Boston with my friends from Upstate's finest high school debate club triple alliance. I also got to eat at Durgin Park, which is one of New England's finer eating establishments. On the home front, as I said before, I am finished with the vast majority of my work, and I am now an Eagle Scout (the ceremony will be in a couple of months after all of the paperwork comes back from Texas). In other Bard news, I was accepted for the fall semester at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which is neat because it gives me an alternative to Canisius, just in case. Speaking of Canisius College, I'm visiting the campus again this coming weekend and I have a trombone audition there on Saturday... booya. There's more, too... I was cast as Herman, one of the bigger guy parts in my school's upcoming performance of Sweet Charity. It seems like a lot has happened in a month. Good stuff, good stuff... I think I'll take some time and do some work... on second thought, I'm on vacation. It doesn't get much better than this.

1/17/01 9:31pm Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bassoon. Wait a minute, that doesn't even make sense to me. That reminds me of a joke... two penguins are sitting in a bathtub. One penguin says, "pass the soap." The other penguin says, "pass the soap? What do I look like, a typewriter?" And there you have it... a perfectly good reason to never talk to me ever again (or at least for another week, whichever comes first). I'm not a crook, honestly.

1/16/01 9:43pm Be the gauntlet, Bard, be the gauntlet. Miles to go before I sleep... I might have gotten a half hour vacation in Worcester... no, wait, that was just a lap or two around the pool. Fortunately, my records are in place so there won't be any snags there... wait a second... I have how many days to perfect Mozart's little bassoon solo in B flat? Freedom... that's insane. Fortunately it'll all be over, some day, some time...

1/9/01 10:40pm I'm still trapped in the gauntlet. I can almost see the end now... wait, no, that was just another bend in the road. I have to keep moving... I'm starting to lose it.

1/2/01 9:50pm What the... right, did I just sleep for four hours? Where the hell did my evening go? Did I get anything accomplished? Above all, why am I wired now? Uh... perhaps I should pound through a few chapters in the old biology text. Yeah, that makes mouths happy. I think I'll go back to bed now. I think.

1/2/01 4:29pm Now I'm hibernating. It's colder than hell outside and I have a gauntlet to run this month... one hell of a gauntlet. Nothing really rests on it though, except for the entirety of my self image for the remainder of my life. No pressure. Right, back to the gauntlet.

12/20/00 10:55pm Bard got into Canisius College in Buffalo... buae. Have a merry Christmas, a happy Hannukah, a somber Ramadan, a joyous Kwanzaa, and a metallic Festivus.

11/21/00 8:40pm OK, so I was at Villiger. Imagine, I had an experience... hahahah. Anyhow, it was a sociologist's dream come true. You know, I should write a paper on it or something. Actually, why am I updating? I forgot. Right, sorry. Nothing to see here, move along.

10/25/00 8:17pm Wow, this is pretty terrible. What do I have to complain about? I don't know. Anyhow, I've finished the vast majority of my college visitations so I've narrowed my application desires to Cornell (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences), Binghamton, Canisius, and Stony Brook. I think Cornell is neat, but I probably won't get in because my grades are less than stellar (I've heard people don't get too far with a 3.5 GPA). In any event, this means that I have to forge a few of the most well-written essays I've ever written within the next month or so. It gets better though... I also have to pound through a whole ton of work so I can make Eagle Scout. It doesn't get much better than this... maybe I should get a job while I'm at it. Right, it's a good thing I'm lazy. I mean, otherwise I'd be suffering from some kind of stress-related anxiety disorder or something, and nobody wants that. Regardless, I think Chocolate Pop-Tarts are pretty good, but man cannot live on Pop-Tarts alone. Think about that... it may help you one day. I should probably start eating more than one square meal a day.... nah.

10/12/00 10:45pm I took second place in the Science Mini-Olympiad this afternoon up in Burnt Hills, which I thought was kind of neat. Basically we took and plowed through a bunch of suburban teams, and that makes me happy. Right, and Anne told me that I dance like a Muppet. This is probably true, but it's not easy being Bard... which reminds me, I watched that goofy one-time television phenomenon "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" this evening (this is the second time I've watched television this week), and to my horror (and amusement), Regis Philbin announced his new book. The book is entitled "Who Wants To Be Me?"... and the world wept. That's it for me... I should get to work on some college things... or something.

10/10/00 10:28pm I got pounded at the tournament on Saturday... the football team got pounded at the game on Friday. My ears got pounded at the dance on Saturday. Sunday... Rochester. Monday... Cornell. It was a good weekend, but it took a whole lot out of me, and time isn't exactly waiting for me to catch my breath. Ekk, it's no big deal. Perhaps I should write up that Biology lab... oh, I spent an hour laboriously fixing the nDo forum so now date/time reporting works. That makes me happy.

10/04/00 4:47pm Right... I'm thinking that maybe... wait, no... is offering an apology admitting weakness? I probably shouldn't do that then, should I? I mean... right, I need to get back to work. At least when you're working you're not thinking of the other stuff. Other stuff is bad. Maybe I should work on that other stuff... but I'm thinking that would require a few apologies. I should probably be able to take responsibility for my own fallibility, right? Why am I so afraid of being wrong? Forget it... wait, no, don't forget it. I'm going to keep fighting.

10/02/00 10:20pm Hmm. Yeah, this is just one of those days I guess. One of the major problems with having normal days comes when you get a whole bunch of them together. In my case, I've had about two months worth of normal days straight, and uneventful just isn't cutting it anymore. If anyone knows someone that runs a skydiving business, don't hesitate to drop me a line. I could probably use a near death experience or two. Speaking of near death experiences, I played football over the weekend. That's frightening stuff... I get most of my excitement from studying up on potassium-sodium pumps and their effects on the voltage differential around plasma membranes.

9/24/00 4:32pm Welp, I just got home from Yale. I managed to sleep for one hour out of twenty-four. I got to see Gladiator, though... and we spread the influence of the nDo throughout Connecticut and beyond. I threw my fifth debate round using a value premise of shoelaces. Oh, and I spent way too much time with some unique individuals from Niskayuna. They're neat folks. Right, if you're ever in New Haven, go to this restaurant called Chap's, it's on the corner of Chapel and Park right near the Yale Rep Theatre and the architecture museum. Great stuff. Right, now I need to do some work, or something.

e-mail me