coffee grossness

So I'm currently at work (on break, of course) and just got back from getting a hot beverage from Monroe st. This week, all food-related places are closed on campus. This is considerable since we have a full-service coffee shop right in my library building. I eventually found my way to a Dutch Bros. where there was a line of 9 people and 1 barista. This wasn't too bad, since the barista was pretty fast. However, the barista did sneeze violently (not directly on his hand, but I'm sure some contact was made..) once, and then touched his face or nose 5 more times before preparing my beverage. Perhaps it's just me, but the last time I took the food handler's test it was recommended that you wash your hands after any touching-of-self or bodily expulsion. Carefully watching him prepare my beverage, I observed that he did not come into direct contact with any surfaces that liquid or my lips would touch. I can't say the same for others, but I lucked out. Would it have been rude for me to ask him to wash his hands? The line was long when I got there, and people kept coming in so it stayed at around 9 people in queue the entire time I was there so he was very busy and people were in a hurry...but still?

mood: lethargic and slightly grossed out

christmas: joy and lies?

It's the night before christmas and I can't help feeling a little jaded by the way our society has turned this holy holiday into a commercial enterprise. I am staying at my parents' house along with my sister and 11 year old niece. My niece still believes in santa claus. Yes, she's convinced that all of the children at school are liars and the christmas shows on TV are irrefutible proof of his existence. Tonight the traditional cookies, milk, letter, and vegetable tray (for the reindeer) were left out when she went to bed. Before bed, my father and I took turns munching on the cookies, veggies, and milk. After that, I wrote a carefully composed response to her letter, especially from santa himself.

As our children are growing up, they're supposed to trust us, right? So why do we spend years reinforcing this outright lie and then pull it out from under them? I caught on to the gig when I was 7 and my parents were relieved to finally give up the hoax.

So now I'm a 26 year old man that lies to and manipulates children. I'm not sure I really feel very good about that. There are some very grown-up things that children don't really need to know the whole story about and I am comfortable throwing around a white-lie or vague response now and again, but an out-and-out useless and manipulating lie kind of bothers me. So when they're 15 and we tell them that smoking is bad for them, why should they believe us? Perhaps once they hit 30 we unveil the truth about that too; it actually tastes great and makes you live longer, gotcha! We're so clever.

Would christmas be such a large holiday in the US if we discontinued the lies to children? I believe that parents would still get presents for the children, that stockings would still be filled, and candy canes and carols would overwhelm and sicken everyone for the entire month of December.

On the more joyous side of things, today I spent time with an old friend that had drifted considerably, a mutual drifting really. We were both friends during an awkward and often confusing and unhappy time in our lives. Now he is incredibly happy and fortunate in his life and I am very glad for him. I hadn't realized how much I missed him and his friendship, it meant more than I had remembered, as relatively brief as it was.

Tomorrow after opening gifts and being lazy and eating an early dinner I have to drive back to Corvallis. I'm not especially fond of the traffic I'm likely to encounter. My typical 1.5 hour drive is probably going to turn into at least 3. I'm definitely going to have to stop so Gus can sretch his legs and take a potty break.

Everyone else has finally gone to bed and here I am, the last up, which has been typical for about 15 years. I am still excited and have trouble getting to sleep, even though I'm fully aware that santa will not be visiting our house tonight. That damned childhood programming, I've been brainwashed.

The semester is over

So I finally wrapped up my semester...a few days after everyone else did. I had completely forgotten to turn in one assignment for the last class, it never made it onto my calendar. Not the best of plans really. My professor was nice enough to send an e-mail, prodding me to get it done and turned in so I could potentially get an A- instead of a C+. It's done and now I have an A-. What a nice lady.

Gus is doing very well, we went for a walk last night at around 8 pm and ended up having to cut it a bit short from the ice. The path we normally go walking on has a lot of water runoff on it which in turn has frozen over. Too bad I didn't have ice skates, then I could just hold onto Gus's leash and zoom down the 2-mile path! Actually, he wasn't doing so hot on the ice either, he didn't seem to "get" that any vigorous activity resulted in him slipping and nearly falling. Sometimes I wonder about his intelligence... [photo of said path shown below...]

From Snow Day 2

Christmas is going to be here in a week. Can anyone believe it? I can't. I still have three gifts to buy before then and I'm still completely confused what to get. Any ideas? I need something for the mother, the father, and the sister. I think I'm going to get the sister a dvd box set, but as for the other two I'm clueless.

On Saturday night Kim and I went to Gresham for the "annual caroling party" which was pretty fun. We actually got some decent caroling in this year, though I have had *enough* of "Angels We Have Heard on High," the chorus is mildly mellismatic and timing is very very important. Apparently no one else realized these two things while singing it. It was fun though, this year there were boys other than myself which was a welcome change, and one of them could even part sing! Hurray!

In closing, there will be a few moments of silence for the hard drive of my desktop computer... it died this last Friday. [ ] <--- Silence. It just turned 2 years old last month, which means it is now beyond the Dell warranty. The other crappy part is the manufacturer (Maxtell) typically carries a 3-year warranty, but on OEM products, the warranty is only honored by the system manufacturer (Dell) who does not honor the standard warranty of 3 years, only their own 2 year warranty. Shitty? Yes. Oh well, it did give me a good excuse to order a new Western Digital 300 GB hard drive that is significantly faster. I got a super rebate on it, plus used Google Checkout for another $20 off and came in under $100, yay for me! Now we'll see if I can manage to get any old stuff off the dead hard drive...