Tree Surfing

Hello again my tiny internet audience. I thought I’d take a moment and share a few thoughts with you. Mainly about the projects I’m working on and my plans for this blog.

As some of you already know I recently started this blog after writing with Live Journal for almost a year. I’m attempting to focus more on quality posts and avoid the “dear diary” writings that plague far to many amateur blogs these days.

One of the main things I’m working on in regards to this site is establishing a solid base of profile, or “get-to-know the author” posts. You’ll see these sorts of post being linked to in my rather sparse Love/Hate List. I feel that it’s important for my internet readers to get a good feel of my opinions and have the option to find out what kinds of things interest me.

My movies and songs pages are defiantly not as fleshed-out and organized as I’d like. In the coming weeks I will be adding to these posts. I also plan on adding a great deal of information to my favorite books and authors page.

Some rather large posts being worked on at the moment also include:
*My detailed blogroll; a listing and description of the numerous sites that I enjoy reading extensively.
*My thoughts on illegal immigration.
*More inspirational quotes and commentary.
*A tiny introduction to RSS and ATOM readers.
*Several other minor posts.

Obviously my life doesn’t revolve solely around this blog. I’m also working on a number of projects offline. An epic poem, a fantasy/science fiction (aka Sci-Fan) novel, a survival horror story, and dabbling in many other areas. All this in addition to working the graveyard shift at a shipping warehouse and attempting to be a good husband and father. Quite the busy guy I am lately.

As always suggestions and questions are encouraged, even begged for! Feel free to leave me some feedback. I’m a rather easy-going guy who loves comments and commenting on other’s sites. Hurray for internet interaction!

“You’ve misunderstood the American character. We’re instinctive isolationists at bottom. We don’t want to rule the world — we want to be able to ignore it.”

It’s hard to argue with this quote. I’ve found another must read blog. (Clicking on the quote will take you to the blog.)
Armed and Dangerous
Sex, software, politics, and firearms. Life’s simple pleasures…

I’ve seen a lot of movies in the last few years. My wife is addicted to the video store, and will seemingly watch almost anything. Ok, she’s really more picky than I let on, but it seems she has some more… girly tastes. Anywho this is a list of movies that I like enough to watch more than once. In no particular order:

Bicentennial Man
One of the few movies that makes me cry. *sniff*

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
The little UFO song was stuck in my head for the longest time.

*batteries not included
Another story dealing with friendly aliens, although this time their much smaller. If you’ve never seen this movie you should. It’s very family friendly and cute.

Underworld
I love the concepts in this movie. Or maybe I just like a good action flick with Vampires and Zombies.

The Blade Series
Killing Vampires for my amusement.

The Resident Evil Series
Zombies! I’m a big fan of killing zombies.

Night, Dawn, and Day of the Dead
All three are classic zombie movies. I’m annoyed by the rampant stupidity, but they are a must watch for all zombie fans.

Like everything else this page is always being updated.

Here’s a list of songs that I enjoy listening to. Some of these are not appropriate for all ages so I make no claim as to the political correctness of their content.

Genres I particularly like include Techno, Electronica, and Rock: although I listen to almost every type of music. However, despite being born in Wisconsin, I can only take so much polka. Jazz and Hip Hop are also two categories that I think are highly overrated, I still like certain songs, but in general you won’t find too much in my Cd collection.

By no means an exhaustive list.
In no particular order (But at least a tiny attempt to group songs from the same Artist.):

Don’t Fear the Reaper ~ Blue Oyster Cult
Putting on the Ritz ~ Taco
Once in a Lifetime ~ Wolfsheim
The World Is Not Enough ~ Garbage
Push It ~ Garbage
Push It ~Static X
Cold ~ Static X
I’m With Stupid ~ Static X
Loser ~ Beck
Hold the Line ~ Toto
Undone ~ Weezer
Fingertips ~ They Might Be Giants (Flash Animation)
Tribute to the Greatest Song in the World ~ Tenacious D
Not Gonna Get Us ~ Tatu
Message In A Bottle ~ Sting & The Police
I’m Your Boogie Man ~ Rob White Zombie
Major Tom ~ Peter Schilling
Deep ~ Nine Inch Nails
Closer ~ Nine Inch Nails
Social Enemies ~ Nine Inch Nails
Hurt ~ Johnny Cash (Even Johnny Cash likes a little NIN!)
Ghost Riders In The Sky ~ Johnny Cash
Disposable Teens ~ Marilyn Manson
Immigrant Song ~ Led Zeppelin
Wherever You Are ~ Laava
I Gotta Get Through This ~ Daniel Bedingfield
The End of Heartache ~ Killswitch Engage
San Francisco ~ Mamas & Papas
Cows with Guns ~ Dana Lyons ( Flash Animation.)

This page will be updated a lot and probably become quite long.

I’ve been called by many different names in my life. Here’s a partial listing of the more appropriate, non-bully-instigated ones.

Jeremy Steingraber ~ My honest to gosh birth name. Stalker and Spammers beware I know how to operate firearms. And I bought my wife swords for our anniversary… Take that how you will, but even I won’t wake her up in the morning without good reason.

Graber ~ Ignoring the unintended sexual innuendo; this is what 80% of the people in High School knew me by. I gained the nickname during Freshman football when the coach decided that Steingraber was much to long and riped the Stein off my helmet. It’s stuck with me for so long that I’ve often wondered if some people even know my real name.

Philosopher Poet ~ During college someone, I forget who, classified me a philosopher poet after reading some of my writings. Being the prideful, self-loving, sinful man that I am, I greedily took it for my pseudonym. My first LJ blog was based off of this: The Philosopher Poet’s Tome.

Flying Squirrel ~ Also during college I started the wonderful sport of tree surfing (incidentally also where this blog gets it’s name). Some crazy writer-friends dubbed me the Flying Squirrel, and in certain circles, the moniker has failed to fade away into history. So I adopted it for myself and now respond to far to many aliases.

I’ve been interested in survival for a long time. Here I will post my thoughts and links to various survival resources.

General Survival:
Be Prepared ~ A nice web resource where you can order survival supplies. It also has some interesting and useful articles here.

Books:
When Technology Fails
by Matthew Stein
# Paperback: 424 pages
# Publisher: Clear Light Books (December 1, 2000)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 1574160478
You can view the book’s website here.
I personally own this book and find it to be a very nice reference. It even gives me ideas for things I wouldn’t normally have thought of just for everyday living. Some of the material you have to take with a little skepticism, as it also touches on a few “unorthodox” or “Unscientific” topics such Spiritual healing. Although it doesn’t make any claim that certain healing practices may work, it advises you to be open-minded but not stupid.

As much as I’d like to post an individual review of every book I read, it’s just not feasible. I’ve already turned into an internet creature and if I hope to maintain some semblance of a life outside of my computer I must draw the line somewhere.
But I’ll continually update this page with Books and Authors I think are worth your time to read. Of course this is my own terribly biased opinion so use your discretion.

Authors:
John Ringo ~ Military Science Fiction writer.

Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins) ~ Credited with the invention of parallel-universe stories.

Clifford A. Pickover Writes on a variety of intellectually stimulating topics.

Books: