At Long Last, Eh?

So it's been a while since I've put up a post, and there are a variety of reasons behind it, but let's try to throw a few mor eupdates out there, eh?

The biggest thing that I completely neglected to report on was the motoVenture. It's over, we survived, but we had to change our destrinations quite a few times. Here's a link to the map (with pictures showing the route): http://picasaweb.google.com/notjoelshapiro/MotoVenture/photo#map
Below is the album with all of the pictures individually. My Mom's pictures are not included, (I don't think), these are just the pictures from our stops and from my motorbike mount.

motoVenture

I got a lot of flack for the 500-or-so posts that were put up during the trip, and I can explain that as a technical malfunction. The pictures from that ridiculous string were sent individually instead of in a pack, and the person who uploaded them didn't know what it would do to all of the poor inboxes out there.

Anyhoo, that's about the last of the motoVenture for a whilie (until I start editing the video sometime in the future).

I am working on some cool projects right now, both for my usual employer (The Daily), but also for the University of Washington's athletic department (www.gohuskies.com). I'm not done with our first video yet, but it's looking great, and might be ready to go up as soon as tomorrow, we'll see how Wimbledon goes, and if I want to edit the day away. Cool?

Summer has started off hot and my new roommate and I are dealing with it rather painfully, and I now realize just how poorly I've been doing at keeping the blog updated, so pictures and such'll be up soon.

I have been working for the past 5-or-so hours and my fingers (and mind) have started to fail me, so I am going to wrap this up.

As my map will show, the motoventure got us as far south as Tillamook, and as far east as Maryhill, WA. The majority of my pictures are markers for the map (so one can trace our trip), but I tried to restrict myself to taking pictures only when there was good scenery as well, so most of them should be interesting if you'd care to thumb through them.

More deets later, goodnight all.

-Joel

Camping in the wilderness

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RE: TRIP PHOTO

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TRIP PHOTO

motoVenture pics thus far

So if you go to this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/notjoelshapiro/Test/photo#map , you should see a map with pictures on it, you can kinda see where things are that way. That link might not work right though, you might have to dig for a map, who knows, this tech stuff is weird. Below is an album view of pictures thus far. Videos I'll do tonight, as we're staying at a good friend's parents house, and I'll have some time. Lemme know if you want anything fancier.

-Joel

test

Portland!

My house.

The cheese, Gromit, the cheese!

Tillamook, Oregon

40 Miles from Tillamook

Ocean Park

Yeeehaw!

Astoria!

40mpg

We're goin' to Monticano!

Finals Week

Finals week has a few peculiar traditions about it at the good 'ole U of W, the first of which is to be referred to as the "First Annual," and it's where I start this post.

Tuesday of Finals week we sat down and watched all five Dirty Harry films, seeing as most of us were done with finals on monday, we could think of no better activity to eat about nine hours of our day than watching Clint Eastwood break faces.

Since approximately the dawn of time, Eric Olson has taken it upon himself to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended editions) on the wednesday of finals day. Despite the entire house cleaning for summer live-ins during the day (at which time we had to leave the DVDs running whilst we vacummed, moved furniture, etc), Olson got through all of them (with a rather large audience accompanying him by the end).

The third, and final tradition is the University of Washington Undie Run. This is something of a tradition across the nation (drop a Google on it and see what I mean), and the first annual run was started by an unknown individual, and continued by our very own Scot Rastelli and crew. A general overview goes something like this:

1) Meet at the 17th Ave. and 45th St. median (in your underwear)

2) Run to Drumheller Fountain (same place that

the feudwas brought to an end if you remember)

3) Someone jumps into the fountain (few to no one follows, as it hasn't been cleaned since this)

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While I was writing this a few days ago my computer crashed, and now, about 4 days later I am getting back to it and lost my train of thought.

Well team, here are some pictures, a video, and a map (there is only one video on the map, just repeated). (since my video embeds aren't working, here's the youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM7VePqd2rI)

View Larger Map

I am moto'ing down the coast, expect some posts about that.

-Joel

Sleepy Phi-Taus

I was upstairs talking to my buddy Scooter, and he mentioned that he went down to the basement and saw a platter of bagel bites. He dug in, only to realize that there was a sleepy shell of a man sleeping next to them. He moved the bagel bites to the nearby washing machine and went upstairs to his room when he had had his fill.

Minutes later I went downstairs with another friend, Collin, and upon arriving at the base of the stairs we saw the fallen soldier, perched on a couch:

(notice the bagel bites on his shirt(formerly in a smiley-face configuration))

After seeing this, Collin and my first thoughts were of Indianna Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark:

Anyhoo, I hope that this video does justice to just how passed out Evan is and just how daring Collin is. Enjoy.

(hit up the site directly to see the video, and sorry it's so dark :( )

-Joel out.

(Not nearly as) Sorry

I have been procrastinating from studying for a final tomorrow morning (!!!!!) and stubled upon some pictures of Ricc Sheridan that are awesome. For those of you who don't know, Ricc is one of the greatest drummers that I've ever heard, and does so for a band called Earl Greyhound, who I first heard as the opening band for Chris Cornell, when he came to Seattle last fall/winter. When they were playing I just thought that they were a pretty solid opening band (rare in concerts, right?), but after listening to their album I was hooked. Right now they've only got one cd, but the second is in in the workd and hopefully coming soon.


Those of you who know me well know that I like to throw this around a lot:

My cousin made it to reflect his thoughts of me, and I've embraced it as my mantra, more or less. Ricc Sheridan, as seen in concert or in this picture, is the "Classy Motherfucker" that I'd like to be (not in the same way that JFK was portrayed in Bubba Hotep).

Enjoy your night/morning, gang. (and props to html for being so nice, check out all of those embedded links mmmmmhmmmmm)

Sorry!

So I know that I said that I wouldn't be posting for a while, but I really wanted to post this email that I got, letting me know that I was to be the summer HuskyCast Managing Editor. This comes from Andrew Doughman, the current News Editor, summer Editor-in-Chief, I'm sure he has another cool title, and generally cool guy:

One belated staff announcement to make:
Our summer HuskyCast managing editor
will be Joel Shapiro.Congratulations, Joel and thank you to everyone else who
applied.
The HuskyCast will be a weekly videocast from our Web site.
Please e-mail "Joel Shapiro" <notjoelshapiro@gmail.com> (it is
actually Joel Shapiro) if you're interested in working for the HuskyCast during
the summer or fall.

I just wanted to throw that out there, fun stuff. One week until the Moto-Venture!!

It's been a while, no?

So it's been a while since I've put anything up (some of you are thanking me after the last set of them, I should hope). Final assignments and final exams have been destroying my life for the past two weeks or so, those of you that have been spending time with me are probably well aware of that at this point, so time to post has been sporadic at best.

After all those photos that I put up individually (instead of using an album), I was planning on editing together a video about it for the HuskyCast, but in an unfortunate turn of events, that is now impossible. One of the photographers there (the one who caught me while I was interviewing the model) shot me an email and asked when/where he could expect the story to show up. Here was my response:

Matt,
I would have loved to put that story up on Thursday of this week when it was due, but when I sat down to edit I noticed that I had NO IDEA where the tape went. I went through the closest 9 MiniDV tapes that I could find, but no no avail. As much as I hate to say it, the tape might be MIA. Here's to finding a fallen soldier when I move next week,
-Joel

On a related (and last) note, I am officially the HuskyCast Managing Editor for the summer and fall. Katie (my boss) did the dramatic thing, and threw me the keys to the Com. Building/The Daily/Our Office/Lanyard all dramatic-like as she walked out of the office her last day, so it's pretty official at this point, I'm the boss. w00t. Katie and I have conducted some interviews, found a couple potential new people, and have one more interview next week before we drop the ball on our candidates, but this is exciting stuff, I can't wait to start up this summer with development stuffs.

Today has been pretty wordy, so I'll let you guys go, I have some papers to correct before studying for a final tomorrow morning anyhoo. As I left the two best videos ever last time (please watch them if you haven't yet, they'll blow your mind and change how you think about history. If you can't see them, hit http://www.notjoelshapiro.com/ and take a gander), this time I'll just leave you with a picture that really defines Sam Cascio; a member of the house that I passionately recruited, and may regret until the bitter end.

-Joel out.

Two last bits for a while

So I have been posting a lot today, so to cap off the night (and probably the next few days) I wanted to give you guys a few awesome videos and some good news.

As for the news: I am officially going to be the HuskyCast Managing Editor for the fall quarter. I just got the news today and I'm really excited. I am interviewing two people tomorrow, hopefully it'll work out well, I have a lot of plans and really want to make a name for our division.

So to the videos: They are both meant to teach you a little bit about history, the first (George Washington) is a little more out-there, some unsubstantiated stuff, but the second is dead on. Anyway, team, enjoy.

-Joel

p.s. Thanks to everybody who's been so supportive of this, I know that it's really here for the motoVenture/euroTrip, but it is great when I hear back from people who are liking this.

Round 2

Here is round two, I think it's all the photos from the shoot. I have taken a few out that were repeats or didn't turn out that great, but for the most part they're great! I wanted to thank again John Mclellan, John Cornicello, and Matt Henderson for the great pictures!

You can click on any of the pictures to make them all big-like, and again, I have some more that didn't go up if you should want them. My thoughts: the MySpace pose one is perfect, the one of me interviewing the guy makes me look like a T-1000, and the rest are just awesome. I had to do some resizing to fit them on this page, so that's why some look all stretched weird. I think we're done for the day, your email needs a rest.

(and I swear Dad, if you keep emailing me instead of commenting, I am going to devote at least four posts a day about things that you hate (Kevin Costner, the name of #1, the rights of illegal immigrants, and Kevin Costner. The threat is open now, everyone knows it.)

-Joel