Author: Joel Gross

I have been talking for awhile about getting a new blog and a website and i finally have done it. Please put me in your bookmarks and link to my site from your site if you have one: http://www.joelx.com

My blog will be located on this subdomain: http://www.joelx.com and I am going to try to update it on a daily basis if possible. Right now, I am working on moving all of my old blog onto this domain right now. I currently haven’t built a site on joelx.com yet, but it will be up soon and it will rock. I am going to have a forum, a picture and movie gallery, funny and interesting articles and tons of other good stuff. Keep checking back, I hope to have it up within a week or two!

MOUTHOLOGY

Q. What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. Balsamic vinegar mixed with olive oil and spices.

Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. Chipotles

Q. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. Anywhere Ian works.

Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. 15%

Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick off of?
A. Protein drinks… I have been having these almost every day for years lol. They are an easy meal replacement.

Q. What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. Hmm… I like exotic varieties, but a quick answer is Hawaiian.

Q. What do you like to put on your toast?
A. Honey & jam

Q. What is your favorite type of gum?
A. Cinnamon

TECHNOLOGY

Q. Number of contacts in your cell phone?
A. New phone- 98.

Q. Number of contacts in your email address book?
A. 50

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. Landscape of a beautiful day in a meadow.

Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A. Three

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. Right

Q. What’s your best feature?
A. My entire body 😉

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. A small piece of foreskin.

Q. Which of your five senses do you think is keenest?
A. Touch.

Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. 1 year ago.

Q. What is the heaviest item you lifted last?
A. 245 lbs on bench yesterday with Fletchie.

Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. Don’t remember.

BULL[CRAP]OLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. No

Q. Is love for real?
A. Absolutely

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. I’m thinking about changing my last name to my biological father’s last name- Eide.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Darker shades.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. Lots

Q. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. I’ve saved Jeremy’s life dozens of times by simply telling him , “No, you can’t do that” . 😉

Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. My grandma

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you walk naked for a half mile down a public street for $100,000?
A. Yes

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. Yes

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000
A. Negotiable

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. Yes

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. Yes.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. I’d do it for free, why would you pay me?

Q. Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000?
A. Yes

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: Phone, keys.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A: It’s decent

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A: Hardwood in the kitchen and entry and carpeting through the rest of the house, except the bathrooms which have linoleum.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: Who sits in the shower?!?

Q: Could you live with roommates?
A: I do

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: 2

Q: Where were you born?
A. Sioux Falls, SD

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: I was driving to a party and got a $600 ticket for forgetting to have insurance and not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: A helicopter.

Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8
A: Jordan… though I didn’t arrange it in any order.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A: Jeremy.

Q: Last person you called?
A: Justin- He just got into UW!!

Q: Person you hugged?
A: Stephanie

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A: 7

Q: Color?
A: Blue

Q: Season?
A: Summer

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A: Yes

Q: Mood?
A: Hungry.

Q: Listening to?
A: Internet radio

Q: Watching?
A. My computer screen.

Q: Worrying about?
A: Building my new website.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A: To get my bike to ride to work.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: Attend the underwear party on Friday night.

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?
A: Helsing… So bad it was good.

Q: Do you smile often?
A: I never change my granite expression.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Sometimes

Q: Now that the surveys done what are you going to do?
A: Have a meeting.

One of my acquaintances, Adam, invited Fletcher and I to hike up to Camp Muir on Mt. Ranier on Saturday. Fletcher doesn’t want to do it, but I am going to. It’s going to be pretty intense hike, but not as difficult as Mt. Adams was. The thing that got me on Adams was the altitude (12,000 ft) and Camp Muir is pretty high up as well (10,000 ft). Adam has been talking about actually summitting Ranier this summer and I am thinking about doing it with him. Tomorrow will be a good indication of whether or not I can physiologically handle the altitude or not. I will be leaving Seattle tomorrow morning at 6:40, driving two hours to Elbe and meeting with Adam, and then driving another hour or two up to Paradise lodge where we’ll take off from. It’s about a 6 hour hike up and a half hour ski down and then I have to drive back to Seattle, so it is going to be a very long day. I’m really excited! I haven’t been doing much cardio lately (eek!), but hopefully I’ll be able to handle it.

Ben and Leah did a great job in Getting Undressed, the dance show/play Leah created with a grant from the Melinda Gates Foundation. The show was basically about a couple in a city apartment and their interactions with each other, their neighbors, fashion and the city itself. Leah is a fairly talented dancer who moves with fluidity and grace. I have seen a couple of dance shows now and I think it might be fun to try one sometime myself, perhaps after I’ve continued to get better in my classes. I think it would really help me get better faster because practicing every day (and not having to pay for the practice) would help me tons. We’ll see.

Yesterday was a very successful day despite being sick in the morning. My friend Stephanie wanted me to go to Alki with her and was kind enough to let me drive her & her new Xterra all the way down to Ikea in southcenter to pick myself up a new desk and office chair and then further down to Highway 99 to get myself a new bicycle for commuting and fun trips. Alki was pretty fun, the weather was almost hot and the sky was pretty and clear. Later in the evening, we headed back to Mercer Island for a big barbeque (where I ate a ton of salmon stuffed with crab and other tasty dishes and drank a few Coronas).

The best part of the whole day came later… I SIGNED OFF THE LEASE OF MY OLD APARTMENT!!! No more putting up with messy, disgusting roommates! I am so happy about that! The relief was palpable and I couldn’t stop smiling. As a matter of fact, I’m still smiling. 🙂

I finished moving into my new condo yesterday and cleaned out my old apartment this morning. I am really excited about the new place. I still need to upgrade my furniture and decor to match the way the rest of the place looks though. As soon as I get my old computer up and running (I’m using my new laptop right now), I’ll upload some pictures of the new place for everyone to check out.

I think I’m going to steal some of Fletch’s eggs right now and make myself an omellette.

I just found a gorgeous new place to live on Eastlake. It is an enormous two bedroom, two bathroom condo with tons of amenities; hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, new washer and dryer. It has a huge outdoor patio with a very nice grill and patio furniture for relaxing and bbqing during the sumer months.

My bedroom is pretty big and has a walkthrough California closet that is almost as big as the room itself and a nice, private bathroom with a showerhead I don’t have to duck to get under (AMAZING!)

My roommate will be the man who owns the condo. I talked to him for about two hours last night and he’s a great guy who’s done some pretty cool stuff so far in his life. His name is Brent and he is a 31 y/o gay man who also attended UW (and was a student senator and was the guy who pushed through the $45 million IMA renovation). He has a law degree from Seattle U and currently works in business development for Fisher (ABCs local affiliate i think). He seemed like a really fun, social guy with a great sense of humor.

I just posted my old apartment on Craigslist and hopefully will be able to start moving in this weekend, so if you feel like helping out, give me a call.

Finding people who you really enjoy spending time with is one of the most difficult, but rewarding activities you can experience. Millions of people are out there, but only a few of them are a good match to you. Finding someone who likes to be with you as much as you like to be with them is rare. In the past, I think I’ve been fairly lucky in that I have been able to find a few people who match me almost perfectly. Some of these I have unfortunately lost contact with due to events or circumstances, but whenever our paths cross again we are able to instantly reconnect to each other. Right now I’ve come to another crossroads in my life and I am looking for more of these people… but it is extraordinairly hard. I have been doing everything I can; from talking to people in my dance classes to bars and even craigslist lol. I think it’s just one of those things where you have to befriend a hundred people to find the one special one. I have a million acquaintances, but few true friends and the true friends are all I want. So wish me luck in my search. 🙂

Anybody else having much luck in this area?

I went down to my grandparents house today and picked up my laptop. It is a monster with a screen larger than my desktop and the best available gear running it. I got a pretty good deal on it and the backpack to carry it. I am excited to go home and start to use it with all the cool software I’m currently downloading and installing. It’s going to be great to be able to go and do work at coffee shops and friends houses rather than just sitting at home.

Next on my list of upgrades is my apartment… I think I’m finally starting to close in on a new place.