Look at your man...Now back at me.

We live in South Carolina. We live by the beach. The weather has been 75 degrees and clear skies for over a month. It's only April and I look tanner than a self-made millionaire having his mid-life crisis in the Caribbean. I look good.

Today was my first day of work. The first thing I did was take my new College of Charleston ID photo. I was dressed to impress and I was bronzed. I took a look at that picture and I laughed. I laughed at just how damn good I looked. I wish I could put that picture on this page here. But I can't because that would require effort and that's just not going to happen. I came home and showed my wife how good I looked in the picture. She rolled her eyes and said my head would not fit through the door because of my ego. I told her to shut her face and make me a sandwich. She kicked me in the nuts. But that's okay because my nuts are not my face and my face still looked good pressed against the floor. Then we went to Zaxby's. Zaxyby's is just like Raising Cane's in Louisiana. Someone will be sued because they are the same. I smiled, winked, and nodded at everyone I saw inside because I had that kind of day. The kind of day where I took the most epic picture of my life. I rule.

All In Due Time

Random thought: I occasionally listen to movie soundtracks and right now I have Gladiator on and I forgot how completely badass this thing is. That movie was a defining moment of the 2000's for me and this soundtrack really pumps me up. Check it out if you haven't done so.

As I've repeated ad nauseum, we had a few goals when we moved out here. I wanted to write, try voiceovers, and work in higher education. The first two are pretty much hobbies right now. I've been working part time in the sports department at the Charleston Post and Courier but it was just helping out and no writing to speak of. I continue to look for different avenues to explore voiceovers and have talked to a few successful voiceover artists so hopefully that takes me somewhere one day.

I'd interviewed for two positions at the College of Charleston in early March but had given up hope on landing one of them. Then last week, while I was at the Family Circle Cup (Charleston Professional Tennis Tournament) I got a call letting me know that the college wanted to hire me as their Transfer Credit Evaluation Coordinator. Needless to say I was beside myself as I'd started feeling pretty low being more or less unemployed. I talked it over with Kristen just to make sure we were both on the same page and then called the college back to accept. I start on Monday. The optimism is back and truly its a good feeling.

Our goal was to live for us and that's exactly what we're doing. Life is good and hopefully it will continue to only get better...

An Open Letter to the Princeton Review

Dear Princeton Review: My wife and I moved to Charleston with several goals in mind. One of those goals was for me to go back to school. Obviously, to get into graduate school I have to take the GRE again (my other scores are obsolete now) so I picked up your book in hopes that it would help me to prepare and get an acceptable score on this mother of all standardized tests for those of us without the foresight to get a business or science degree instead of a liberal arts education.

Thanks to your book, I had a stack of index cards six inches thick with hundreds of the "most used words on the GRE." I spent the last six months going over these words again and again and again. I now know that 'grandiloquent' means pompous. I am also not able to say that word without using a British accent but your book did not teach me that part, I came up with it all on my own. Yes, I learned 'grandiloquent' and many other words that I will most likely never use in every day speech. Kudos to you for helping me to broaden my horizons. Unfortunately though, that's all you did. I took the GRE and a grand total of THREE of those words were used. The even funnier part about that is that they weren't used until the experimental section that all test takers are required to complete. That section doesn't even count. Allow me if you will, to recap my test taking experience.

I pulled up to the testing center. Now, I'm not normally one to suffer from text anxiety, but I had some butterflies floating around in my stomach. To my surprise though, they weren't actually butterflies. My bowels were dancing and letting me know that I might need to take drastic action and break my rule of no public number twos. The irrational part of my brain assumed that since I'm in a fairly metropolitan area, this testing center is probably big and will have large restrooms with many stalls. Nope, I walked in and it was one door, one commode, one can of air spray. This would not happen, I could suffer through the test and maybe it would all go away so I walked back to the reception area. After signing in, I waited to be escorted into the actual testing room. It was my turn but before I could stand up, a fat girl with an attitude stepped in front of me. She was there to take some sort of educational exam that required three finger prints. So Large Marge got to go in before me but what can I do about it? I waited again and eventually was led to my station.

First up was the writing portion of the exam. As you know, this consists of two essays (as an aside, i'd like to point out that thanks to you, I know that essay not only means written prose, but also 'to experiment or try,' a form which as i stated above, I will never use). One topic I will agree or disagree with. The other is an argument that I have to attack. This part was pretty easy except that the first topic was whether or not I think professors should have practical experience in the real world before teaching college. Sometimes graduate professors read these apparently so I might be insulting the very people I'm trying to impress with my scores. Touche' GRE. The argument I had to attack was about video games. No problem there, I play those. However I find it quite presumptuous that the GRE test writers think that just because one takes this test, they must be quite nerdy and very familiar with video games. But presumptuousness be damned, I rocked it. This has nothing to do with you Princeton Review but I put up with your nonsense so you can put up with mine.

Next was verbal and I had 20 minutes or so to go through 30 questions. Holy Wow, I don't even know where to begin other than to say that you need one of those EPIC FAIL posters that gets forwarded to everyone's email once a month. Yours wouldn't be funny or ironic, it would just be a picture of your book. Like I mentioned above, there was not one single vocabulary word from your massive list on this section. Regarding the reading comprehension, your "helpful hints" section told me to read the first and last sentence of every paragraph instead of the entire entry. Then proceed to the questions. Newsflash hotshot, every single paragraph consisted of one VERY long sentence followed by a brief concluding sentence. So by reading the first and last sentence of every paragraph, I still had to read the whole damn thing and they are very very long. After going through these questions, I hit the next button that would bring up question 28 and I had a minute and a half left. My thought process at this point was that with two questions left, surely it will be a couple of antonym's or analogies or fill in the blanks. Absolutely not. It was the mother of all reading comprehension entries, longest one of the whole bunch. I'm already sweating and my heart is beating fast so this is the last thing I need. I don't even have time to read the entry let alone answer the questions. Against my better judgement, I guessed on the last few questions. I blindly clicked. Princeton Review Verbal Review equals a large bag of panic inducing suck.

Now we have math. Oh boy. 20 questions and 30 minutes. I got the first one with no problem and was feeling good. Then all of the sudden I was in full on I NEED XANAX mode. In the review book you talked about charts and in all of your examples you gave me one chart. The actual test gave me like six of them and I had to extrapolate (I know that word on my own and not with your help) information from all six of them. This took like a lot of minutes and I was only on question 2. At this point I'm scared. Then the next question is complicated also and takes a lot of time. I'm in full panic mode and start feeling high anxiety and I'm worried about a panic attack. Next think I know, I look up and I have two minutes left and I'm on question 15. I now wish to GOD that I broke my rule about number twos because my butt now feels like the Adventures of Frog and Toad. Again, I just have to randomly click answers just so I can finish.

Now, Princeton Review, I'm done and I'm worried. I fear that I didn't get the required score to get into my graduate program. I'm sweating, I have a surly scared sphincter, and I just want to know my score so I can go home. No, that would be too easy. I now have to complete the experimental section so the GRE people can practice future questions on me. I spend the next 20 minutes reading questions and debating whether or not I should just click through these stupid things or if I should actually try and get them right with some hope that the experimental part was a lie and I might be able to make up some ground. The twenty minutes went by very quickly and I was in a daze.

My test was finally complete and my scores popped up and I'll be up front with you Princeton Review. I rocked out Ninja style. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whom you ask, I seem to be an excellent guesser for the first time in my life. I can very honestly say that I did that on my own with ZERO help from you. I laugh in your face and so does my butt. I did okay in spite of all of the late nights trying to remember the definitions for words like antediluvian and impecunious. So here's to my guessing ability I suppose and now I shall do my best to get into my graduate program while doing my best to put an end to your lies of GRE preparation.

Yours in complete knarliness,

Chris R. Noland

Hanging in the Goondocks

I freely admit that getting older is really starting to hit me. Not from a mortality stand point or anything like that, yet, but more from a realization that some of my memories happened a very long time ago. I'm getting to the point that I accept this as a fact of life but it's still strange. We have Sirius-XM in our cars and sometimes I listen to Lithium which is 90's and early 00's alternative. Most of what they play is the soundtrack to my high school and college years. Listening to these songs on the radio again brings forth a severe sense of nostalgia in me and sometimes I love it while sometimes it gets kind of scary.

When I hear Green Day's Basket Case or Longview, Dave Matthews Band's Satellite or Ants Marching, Our Lady Peace's Starseed, or even freaking Lisa Loeb's Stay, I go straight back to 1994-95 driving to Showboat practice at Captain Shreve High School because those were the tapes and cd's that I played incessantly back then. This isn't just a fond memory, I literally feel the spring air blowing through the windows of my little five speed Honda Civic driving down East Kings Highway. Really weird sensation but cool none-the-less. I've found myself actively seeking out a lot of that music that sort of faded into obscurity, or were one-hit-wonders. I miss bands like Trippin' Daisy and the Toadies; Caroline Spine and Sponge; Seven Mary Three and Candlebox; Gin Blossoms and Toad The Wet Sprocket; the Wallflowers and Sublime; Silverchair and Smashing Pumpkins; etc. A lot of these bands are still around in one incarnation or another but man when you see them they look OLD. That's when it hits me a little bit because when I liked them, they were a lot younger than me. I'm not too far away from that whole middle age thing and its trippy. I really don't know if any of this is even making sense, this is sort of a mental vomit session.

The impetus behind this little diddy springs straight out of my nerdy side. I have the testicular fortitude to admit that Cinemagic, the movie soundtrack station is one of my presets on the Sirius-XM dial. I listen to it sometimes when Alt Nation is playing too much Silversun Pickup and Lithium spins a little too much Big Audio Dynamite and Jesus Jones. I hit a trifecta of 80's classic movie scores and they just really took me back in an outstandingly positive way. First up was the Goonies. Several cues were played and one second I was taking a leak in a cave in "The Men's Room," then I was Data being saved by the pinchers of power and then I was using a dagger to slide down the sail of One Eyed Willie's ship. You really start to realize how much these movies meant to our childhood and how much we watched them when just listening to the soundtrack immediately transports you to specific scenes.

The exact same thing happened with the Karate Kid. They played the finale music from the All Valley Tournament and I could picture Daniel Laruso in the Crane form kicking Johnny in the face and everyone going crazy. Even without the picture there, I still got the same exhilaration as I did watching it as a six year old. Movies don't do that anymore and it's a shame. Too many special effects and not enough Crane kicks to the face

Back to the Future was up next and the themes from that movie are just cool. Flux Capacitors, DeLoreans, life jackets, and Crispen Glover start showing up in your head when you hear that trumpet. I really wish I could articulate this better but it's just not meant to be. I didn't get emotional or anything listening to this stuff but man did it make me happy. I highly recommend checking the station out. Sometimes you get a real gem on there that will take you back to your childhood. I should admit that Hoosiers came on too and while that movie is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sports movies ever, there is just too much synthesizer stuff going on. But I digress.

An Open Letter to Tony Horton

Dear Tony Horton: Since I've moved to Charleston, SC, I haven't been in a gym. I tried desperately to make myself run but it's cold outside and I don't like running when it's cold. I caved and decided to try p90x. A neighbor let me borrow the dvd's so I got to work. First day I went out of order on accident and did arms and shoulders. Not a problem. However, the second day started something that I didn't enjoy. Plyometrics. Jump training is apparently not my friend. Before I left Shreveport two months ago, I was in pretty good shape. I was lifting weights regularly and running eight miles. Being 31 years old apparently means I lose my ability to rock much quicker. The non-enjoyment is two fold.

First, I felt like a male cheerleader. I don't meant that to say that I was doing back handsprings and lifting crap over my head. Instead, I was jumping and tucking my knees and then I was jumping and bringing my heels up behind my butt. I no longer felt masculine. I literally felt like a male version of a girl cheerleader. Then I had to get a chair and continuously swing my legs back and forth over it. That was cool until I completely lost my equilibrium and kicked the chair square into my three legged cat. The dude ran off again. Dick. So the process wasn't real enjoyable. Let me also point out that repeatedly telling me that there is a one legged guy doing these exercises with you and if he can do it then I should be able to also. This really demotivates me and it royally pisses off the cat because he certainly can't do it. My cat is missing his leg too and he can do most things that other cats can do but he doesn't get on tv and make others feel bad about it.

Second, I woke up the next day without the ability to walk. Unfortunately, I needed gas in my car so when I drove up to the gas station, I had to use the Oh Shit Bar to pry myself out of the car and then walk all bow legged and pigeon toed inside to pay. I hurt so bad that my wife refused to help me. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I was complaining or the fact that I kept crossing my arms into the giant X every I talked to her, bragging about how EXTREME I was even though I was immobile and propped up in the bed. The pain lasted for three days and I think you suck. I also think you're deceiving everyone. You have yet to finish an exercise. You start it and do like two reps then get up to make sure everyone else is doing it right. I call Shenanigans. I also think you should drink more water. Your veins aren't suppose to pop out that much and I shouldn't be seeing every single muscle fiber in your shoulders. You're one vein SOB. I rock with the puns too.

Awesomely (and by awesome I indeed mean totally sweet),



Chris R. Noland

Tripod's Buried In The Bushes

I admit it, I'm a LOST freak. I didn't mean to do it, it just sort of happened. I had no intentions of ever watching the show. Sometime during the second season though, I got bored and rented the first season on DVD. At 5:30 the next morning, I had it wrapped up and my fanaticism was locked and loaded. We're almost through the sixth and final season and I'm ready to figure out what it's all about. I browse the message boards and read through theory websites. Let's face it, LOST is the next Star Wars for my generation. I am married now so I can freely admit what a choad I am when it comes to nerdy things.

The lovely lady that I'm married to happens to be a veterinarian. That brings with it certain elements and by elements I mean retarded animals. We have a hurricane Katrina rescue dog with ears like an elephant and a penchant for daring yard escapes be it through tunneling, jumping, eating, or opening the door and walking his way out of our little homestead here. We have a pomeranian with missing teeth and a hair loss problem. We cut his hair and it didn't grow back. He looks like an underdeveloped lion with dental issues. Then we have a three legged cat. Let me try to draw you a picture here. Sometimes when he's giving his butt a bath, the one hind leg he has sticks straight up in the air and he has this look in his eye that just beckons you over. Seriously, it makes him look like a real Don Juan. This is the suavest three legged cat you've ever seen. What makes him even cooler is I gave him an accent like Dolph Lundgren, Rocky IV style.

Two extremely random thoughts that are about to converge like head-on locomotives. Stupid tripod ran away and I missed LOST while traipsing through the woods looking for my kitty. Make all the jokes you want. This animal knows the art of stealth. Remember, he's quieter than most animals because he has one less leg to make noise with. Dude is a straight up ninja. I scoured this place for an hour and a half. Looked in every bush and around every tree. I even freaked my neighbor out shining my maglite in her yard from over my fence. Kristen had the foresight to set a can of food out to entice him back in the yard. We were starting to give up hope but I figured I'd give it one last look out in the backyard. I open the door and there he was eating the food. He took one look at me and took off back into some bushes. I saw him this time though and followed him. He was probably in those bushes the whole time because even when I was looking directly at him, he was blending in perfectly, like Zartan.

We were glad to get him back and needless to say, he won't be going outside anymore. He's on my badlist for a while because I can't go scour LOST message boards tonight since I had to miss the stupid thing. That will wait for tomorrow. Being a nerd is awesome.

In A World...

I've had a crazy last ten days or so. Let me go ahead and reiterate why Kristen and I are out here. As I've repeated ad nauseam, we came out here for a do over. Not content with the daily grind and forced into jobs that make us miserable, we pledged that once we got out here, we would both find something that we enjoy. She's at an incredible veterinary hospital right now with bosses and a support staff that is more than she could have asked for. Kristen and job satisfaction/happiness: Check

The pebble in the pond for me so to speak started last week which I wrote about. I emailed Wright Thompson of ESPN and he responded and I was ultimately led to the Post and Courier. I have a foot in the door and now I help out with the sports page for the oldest newspaper in the south. This will hopefully lead towards a writing career for me. Chris on the way to job satisfaction/happiness: Check

As a small aside, I'd like to brag right here that I sent Wright Thompson a thank you email and that son of a bitch gmail chatted me. Yeah he's on my friends list. Eat it.

Most people who know me recognize that I have a fairly deep, articulate voice. When I meet people, I'm often told that I should try and do something with my voice. When we were in Shreveport, I tried and tried to get in touch with people regarding advice and possible ways to break into voice overs. NOBODY returned emails or phone calls. I got out here and made up my mind that I wasn't going to stop trying to make this happen until I exhausted every outlet I could find. I found different voice over artists and sent out email after email. Last week a guy promised me he'd call me and we could talk about it once he was finished with a huge project. I haven't heard from him yet but I'm looking forward to speaking with him.

I randomly sent an email to a man who goes by Zeus (no shit) and ten minutes later I had a reply asking me to call him. He included part of his demo reel and when I listened to it, my jaw hit the floor. He's one of the movie trailer guys, one of the IN A WORLD...guys. He does voice overs for the major networks too. I knew this dude's voice and he was willingto talk to me. I had an errand to run so I grabbed the number and planned on stopping in a parking lot to call (my phone doesn't work for crap here at the house). As I'm about to dial, this guy calls me. Unbelievable. To be frank, he told me the voice over world was almost impossible to break into. Vocally I had the type of voice that could be successful. Professionally, I do not have the background though. He told me that I should try to find some sort of position at a radio station just to get familiar with the environment. That's what I'm trying to do now. Ultimately I have to have a demo tape produced. Zeus told me that he would coach me for free and give me scripts to read and he'd help me make my demo. How awesome is this?

In my email I mentioned that he probably got this type of solicitation quite often. He told me he does but he called me because I mentioned we'd just relocated to Charleston and he lived nearby so he felt compelled to call this time. I explained to him that I'm not scared of the hurdles I've got to cross to get involved in this business. We just uprooted our family and moved out here on a whim. That took guts so I'm not afraid of a challenge. Things really are looking up here. I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to automatically succeed in a career in voice over but man, this is a fun ride. I've always wanted to write and I've always wanted to talk and I have a foot in the door to both. I'm doing my best to kick that damn door down. Rock on.