christmas eve, twittering

Today is an amazingly beautiful day. The sun has been out all morning. There has been a little bit of rain, but nothing too bad. Snow is forecast at some point... hopefully it'll happen late this afternoon and stick a bit. Snow on Christmas would be absolutely heavenly.

The last two nights I haven't slept the best. My parents got a new bed for the small guest room at their house. It's really comfy, but it is in the wrong direction. I like to lay on my right side facing "out." Tonight I think I'm swapping the sheets and blankets to orient on the other end. Grrrrr.

Right now I'm leaning up against Gus, who is wonderfully warm, catching up on some holiday e-mails and facebook messages before the family events get fully under way. More to come once the gifts have arrived!

ruby, what to do with

Has anyone ever gotten a keg for a party and was then unable to empty it? I recently did, this past friday, in fact. It was full of McMenamin's "Ruby" ale which is just lovely lovely lovely to drink.

Anyone ever have a "kill the keg" party or similar thing? Our party ended with a keg containing roughly 5 gallons of beer left over. I don't know about you, but this is something that I really can't handle in just a few days. Not and remain moderately sober for the rest of the week (goodness I'm getting old). It's a good thing I'm on vacation.

Anyway, I just wanted a post for the week and this seemed just as good a thing as any.

Any creative ideas for dealing with the remaining brew?

emu, try roasting one

Ever had emu? I hadn't, not until tonight. I have to say that it is one of the most delicious protein sources I have ever experienced. If any of you ever get a chance to go through Corvallis, Oregon and are able to have a fairly expensive meal, check out Magenta, an excellent restaurant.

I hadn't really ever considered emu as a food option. On reflection, tasty, I'll do it again. Let's roast one!

RDC for mac on the VPN, woah!

Did that make any sense? Well, I'm really really really proud of myself.

A few days ago I learned that the folks at Windows had made a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client for us mac folks. Don't know what RDC is? Basically, it's a neat program that lets you connect to another computer and use it as if you were sitting in front of it, all of your files, programs, etc. are accessible just like normal. So, just like it sounds, RDC. Anyway, connecting to this with a mac has been a bit problematic, there are a few freebie programs that do it, but usually the graphics are fuzzy/pixelated or they are just super slow and laggy. I didn't have time to mess with it when I found out about it, but today I finally had the time, whee!

I installed RDC and was attempting to connect to my computer at work. I had gotten the IP address and knew I needed to log in to a specific network to validate myself. However, I kept getting errors. Then it donned on me, since I'm not on campus there are extra security measures to go through. I was able to locate the Virtual Private Network (VPN) info on the OSU website, install the appropriate version for mac, look through the config instructions and set it up properly. After this, RDC for mac connected just fine.

The only real tricky part with this was trying to get the display settings set up in a friendly way. After trying to match resolution types, I finally noticed at the bottom of the list in RDC (Full Screen) ... DUH. Now RDC displays my work desktop beautifully! This means I can check my work e-mail from home using Outlook 2003 on our Microsoft Exchange server, aka happy meeting requests approval/denial and calendaring central. Previously, I would have to connect to the Outlook web interface which blows CHUNKS. It doesn't even have a message search function. This means scrolling through the over 2000 messages in my inbox, manually. Eww.

It's so sad how happy this makes me. Uber geek? Maybe. This might be the first time I've ever said this, but... Thank You, Microsoft! 2 kudos!

boredom and cinnamon

Remind me to never work on the Thursday of finals week. In a 4 hour shift at the desk I have had 4 questions. I sent my student employee home so she could escape the torture. Unfortunately, I'm not so flexible.

On the optimistic side of things, this extra time has given me sufficient time to carefully consider the new brand of gum I am trying. It is a very nice cinnamon that has a slightly musky scent to it when removed from the wrapper. Long after most of the flavor is done the gum continues to provide a warming sensation in your mouth. I'm not sure if this is legal, but I kind of enjoy it. Now that you're all chomping at the bit to run to your nearest 7-11 and buy yourself a pack, the gum is called 5 and is made by the folks at Wrigley's. How presumptuous can you get? 5. They just got their website up and running, check it out, it promises to delight the senses. When you first see the package you have a moment of "are these cigarettes?" or maybe "über manly sexy condoms?" or possibly even "trashy trendy chocolate bar for yuppies." Nope. Gum.

I have to give it to them. It's sugarfree, the flavor is nice, the warming sensation is pleasant, and you get 15 sticks in a pack. It costs no more than Orbitz or any of the others and has a much higher cool factor.

subscribers, apologies to

Hi all, apologies if you received a slew of old posts as "new" in your aggregator. I did some tweaking around on the backend of the blog and it seems some readers are viewing this as a total "reset" of my blog. It shouldn't hurt anything otherwise. Thanks for reading!

natural products, aren't all they could be?

So lately I have begun a quest for living a more natural and less chemically-enhanced life. In most areas it is going pretty well: reusable stainless steel water containers, biodegradable laundry detergent and fabric softener, etc. However, there are a few areas I'm not quite satisfied with. Personal hygiene. There's a really amazing website that simply lays out the potential health risks for personal products. It's a good way to see the problems with what you currently use and get ideas for products to use that are less likely to give you cancer in the next 10 years. It's called Skin Deep, you'll find it at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.

For those of you with sensitive constitutions or an unwillingness to delve into my personal hygiene, disregard the following paragraph and come back later for my next post (right, like you're going to turn back now).

Since all of the hype about aluminum in deoderant, I got a little nervous about using my regular kind of deoderant/anti-perspirant. I'm currently trying out the Tom's of Maine Natural Original Deoderant Stick. It contains hops, yeah, as in hops that make beer. Tom's claims that hops are a natural anti-bacterial solution. It's been about 6 hours since application and I'm starting to smell myself a bit. Some days it seems to last longer, but today I did a lot of walking around with a jacket on which heated things up. Not so fresh and I have 2.5 hours left of work. Eww. I just discovered that Tom's has a long-lasting formula, I might give that one a try. Anyone have any favorites that don't contain aluminum derivatives? I really don't want my armpits to rot away. They're sort of necessary to keep my arms attached to my body. I do enjoy my arms.

night time

DSC_1985.JPG
Originally uploaded by mikey mikey mikey

A few days ago I borrowed a tripod from a friend. I recently bought a very nice digital SLR camera and have been itching to try it out with some night time shots. The trick with this is that a very slow shutter speed requires a completely still camera. So tonight after I got home from work (~1:45 am mind you) I toted everything outside (~30 degrees F mind you) and set it up. I wanted to play around with different settings and see what the camera was capable of. Night photography is still a little confusing for me and I wanted to do some playing.

This is the first pic I took. The light source is a street lamp behind the trees. I thought it was kind of neat.

After about 30 minutes of shooting, I started to get more than a little cold and decided to pack everything back up and go inside. Then it hit me. How nice it is to be very cold then come inside and be warm and comfortable with rosy cheeks. This really is a very great feeling, something I haven't fully been aware of for quite awhile.

orange-skinned, of being

I can sympathize with people who want to be more tan. Really, I can. I often think it would be great to have a super dark complexion. But, I'm not really such a fan of those harmful UV rays so suck it up and stay moderately pale. Well, there's an entirely new breed of individuals out there. Who are they? You might ask. They're oompa loompas.

I don't lie. They range in age somewhere between 17 and 28 and have an unnatural orangey glow to them. It's as though they are using luminescent pumpkin foundation. I've been told that this is a completely self-imposed phenomena that is a direct result of topical sunless tanning products. Instead of becoming tan, they get dark orange. Way to win the beauty contest, sweetheart.

worthless, skunks are

So tonight my dog Gus was sprayed for the second time in as many weeks by a skunk. I let him outside in the backyard after dark and ba-boom, it's suddenly this absolutely horrible eye-watering stench that permeates the entire house. It's not even that "stinky" smell that most folks associate with skunks, this is kind of a stomach-turning burnt-rubber that makes your eye water smell. I'm not sure I can think of anything worse.

The first incident, I tried the tomato product rinse. This was moderately effective, the true ripeness was removed, though you were still instantly aware whenever he would enter the room for the next few days. I made a comment about it on my facebook account and a college friend of mine gave me the MAGICAL recipe:

32 oz. hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 Tbsp Dawn degreasing dish soap (the original "regular" or concentrated formula)

Mix and pour over, or use in a spray bottle, or even dump in your afflicted laundry. You can also spray it on indoor or outdoor surfaces that may have also been savaged by the skunk ick.

Seriously, this recipe saved my life. Oh, and did I mention that on the way to the store I hit a deer? I wouldn't even really consider it an accident, my car wasn't damaged too much, though the deer didn't make it through. Ugh. Just another bit of stress, right? It's enough damage that I will have to file an insurance claim on it. Damnit.

What a crazy night. Oh yeah. This all happened between 1:30 and 2:30 am.

islam, best producer of granola bars?

Has anyone tried the absolutely delectable granola bars produced by the 2nd largest US non-franchise coffee chain Caribou Coffee? If you haven't, you might want to try them, seriously, they're amazing. I believe the flavors are Mocha, Vanilla Latte, and Mocha Mint. Vanilla Latte is my fav, closely followed by Mocha Mint. They have virtually no caffeine, similar to decaf coffee (which does actually contain a very small, if useless, amount of caffeine).

The funny bit? I just found a news article that said the Caribou Coffee company had a majority portion sold to the First Islamic Investment Bank in 2000. So, one of our favorite and "natural" American granola bar snacks is really funded and supported by Islam? Crazy shakes. Either way, the bars are damned yummy and I will continue to eat them. :-)

cancelled, amy winehouse

So I had tickets to see the Amy Winehouse concert on 9/25 in Seattle. On Wednesday it was announced that her North American tour has been canceled. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. This will definitely make things a lot easier, since I will not need to take off time from work at a really inconvenient time....but I was really really really wanting to go. And, I'll get a refund for the outrageous amount I had dished out for the tix.

Damn Amy Winehouse. Well, I guess not damn her, it appears thats she has legitimate health concerns, in which case I hope she gets to feeling better. I'm still a little disappointed though.

stupid, cell phones being

Cell phones really are stupid. This morning I found out that my grandmother passed away and that my mom was unable to reach my sister. Her cell service gave a dumb message saying she could not be reached, but did not offer to allow me to leave a voicemail. Damn technology.

Right now I'm not really sure what to do. My parents are on their way home to get some rest after being up all night. If I go in to work I probably won't get anything done except just sit around with my mind wandering. I don't feel particularly sad or upset which irritates me. I feel like the appropriate thing to do is get emotional, but I just don't feel like it. So what, do I watch a movie now? Who knows. Maybe I'll go and get good and liquored up, I have a good excuse at any rate.

Once it's a little later I'm going to mow my lawn. I don't want to be that jerk that mows it first thing in the morning and wakes people up. I've hated that jerk for years. At my new place I'm completely responsible for yard care, ugh, that's something new to me. :-)

scared, rain: nothing of which to be

We've been having really unusual weather here in Oregon. Typically we have a rain-free summer with at least a few weeks in the high 90s/low 100s. About a month ago we had a week of rain and beginning yesterday, rain again! Temperatures have also been quite mild, only a few days of low 90s and that's all.

Does this imply an extremely wet and harsh winter? I hope not. Well, and by harsh I mean maybe 6 inches of snow in the valley and temperatures actually dipping below freezing for more than 2 days at a time.

I picked up Gus from the kennel this morning (I had class in Portland for the weekend) and when we got home he guzzled a ton of water. A few hours later I was leaving for work, and since I moved, I won't be going home on my lunch breaks to let him out. I tried to get him to go out and go potty, but he would not stray from the dry safety right beside the house. I even attempted pushing him out into the rain and he reacted by glaring at me, then running behind me where it was dry. When I get home we'll see if he was able to hold a whole bowl of water for 9 hours...

building announcements, worrisome

Our building manager just sent out a brief list of general housekeeping stuff. You know, cleaning out the staff lounge, don't leave your food in the refrigerator for months so it can rot. Oh, and to beware of the rats and cats in the landscaping! Yes, rats and cats. Apparently the rats really enjoy our landscaping and some neighboring buildings have some adopted outdoor cats who do their part in reducing the pest population. Now that I'm aware of this, I will attempt not to be alarmed as rats scurry beneath my feet. Eeeeeeeeeek!

god, message from

To: People of Earth
From: God
Date: 08/13/2007
Subject: stop

knock it off, all of you

seriously, what the hell?

-- God


I received this as a MySpace bulletin and it made me laugh really hard. I had to share. I'd say I'm about halfway done moving. All of the furniture and heavy stuff is moved. I still need to do my kitchen and clothes and random stuff that has been shoved in closets... Nearly there! Gus absolutely ADORES the backyard, whee! We played ball twice this morning already. :-)

Rogue beer, yumminess of

Last night I took a little detour to downtown Corvallis and had a good night of beer drinking with my friend Markis, an art major friend from WOU that I haven't seen in... about a year. It doesn't seem like it has been nearly so long.

I kept myself to drinking Rogue Brewery beer for the evening. For those of you who are not from the Pacific Northwest, I highly recommend you track down some of this goodness and give it a try. They specialize in ales and do a bit of everything, from the lighter side to the very dark.

Needless to say, I got a bit drunk and had a very good time. :-) This morning... not quite such a good time, but I'm at least functional. Is it me or does tolerance to alcohol continue to take a dip as you age? 5 years ago I would've laughed at my now self.

good day, having a

I don't specifically have anything to write about today, but I just woke up feeling really really good. This hasn't happened in just about forever so is definitely cause for jubilation.

A quirky thought for the day. I just got out of a meeting with some librarians regarding a project we're collaborating on. A few of them are very much "theory" thinkers and put together this gigantic mind map to be the architecture of our project. When I received it in e-mail I couldn't even figure out how to read the darned thing. What turned out to be an excel document of 12 printed pages would have taken me all of 8 lines to write down. God I love librarians. :-)

writing, missing my

I just finished looking at the date of my last entry. June 9, 2007. I've been on hiatus for nearly two months. I refuse to let this blog die, I will stick with it to the end. I promise.

You might ask why I've been on hiatus? Good question. If you haven't asked, well, you'll find out anyway.

There's this little thing called work and school and life. I've been having a more active social life which has greatly impacted my virtual presence. Who knew, right? School has been busy, but that's been done for about a week now, so there is no excuse there any longer.

Mostly, I just didn't feel like writing. The more I am away from it, the harder it was to bring myself to get into it again. Why are people always so scared to get back into any sort of groove? Be it piano practicing or dieting or working out or focused reading... whatever it is, we do it.

I'm staying home from work today. I don't think I'm sick, but I'm not at the top of my game either. I haven't taken a sick day in quite awhile, so figure just staying home and doing some cleaning and whatnot might be a good mental health day. Speaking of mental health, I axed the happy pills and have been great ever since. I've found that I actually feel pretty good when I make a point to eat full servings of fruits/vegetables on a daily and regular basis. Amazing, eh?

Time to get busy...but, for those of you who still check in on this blog now and again, thanks for reading and I promise to be much more regular for awhile.

too, bless you

And thanks to the super cute guy sitting beside me at Starbucks who said "bless you" to me after I sneezed. Sadly, I saw you blow your nose into a cloth hanky and put it back into your pocket. You aren't very cute anymore. Ewww.

overrated, sleep is

So this is a class weekend, my one and only class weekend for "Global Information Infrastructure"--whatever the hell that means. I've only done about half of the required readings and was definitely feeling it last night in class. Perhaps they'll talk about something today that I feel I might be able to positively contribute to in class discussion.

Anyone notice this is being posted BEFORE 8 am? Yes, I've already been up for hours. I went to bed at around midnight, hoping for a lovely 7 hours of sleep. My body said "NO WAY!" and loudly woke me up at 3 am with a "I'm not tired at all, oh, and I'm hungry." Normally I go to bed around 3 am... so this probably had something to do with it. So I got up, watched Ritchie Rich (yes, the Mcaulay Culkin (however you spell his name) one), played some online games, read some for class, and at about 5 am tried going back to sleep. Nope, not gonna work.

On top of that, my knees feel really weird. You know if you kneel on the floor, on your knees, for a long time and your knees can get kind of sore? The feeling is like that, but I didn't do anything like that at all. I suspect some sort of faulty sleep position as the culprit. It's almost like there is fluid on my knees, how the heck would that happen? I took an 800 iu ibuprofin just to be sure, not to mention, my ears could probably use a little of that anti-inflammatory goodness anyway.

Speaking of the ears, they are doing really good today. I managed to mostly sleep on my back last night and not irritate them any, huzzah! I'm going to let them go for a few days before I "do" anything to them (i.e. antibacterial soap washing in the shower, seasalt soaks, etc.). I really really really like them at this size. Scratch that. I heart them.

For once I am finally using up the space at Starbucks that I pay for with every drink I've ever purchased. I figure they probably owe me a week or two of free loitering at this point. Luckily, I'm close enough to the PSU campus to steal wireless internet from them, even though it IS a smidgen spotty. For free, I can live with that.

Piercing pictures!

Masterful, yes?

The ears are redone!

This afternoon I went in to have my ears repierced. It's been about two months since I took the plugs out and I was ready to have it done again. First I want to say GOOD FREAKING LORD IT HURT this time. I kind of liked it, but damn it hurt SO much more than the first time. It doesn't help that I got them pierced a LOT bigger to start out too, a 4 gauge this time. It's been a bit over an hour and they're still throbbing like crazy. I want to take a nap.

This commemorates the beginning of another semester. At the beginning of grad school I decided that I would treat myself to a piercing or tattoo for each semester finished. Though I've already had my ears done once, I still count this as "new."

I'll throw up some pictures in a few days.. I got black glass plugs to start with. At the end of Summer semester I'll squeeze into a 2g, then at the end of Fall I'll squeeze into a 0. Then... it'll be time for some tattoos. ;-)

model, my friend the

A friend of mine is in a competition to become a model for Smashbox Cosmetics. She has to stay in the top 25 to keep in the running and she's currently hovering around 23/24. Please take a moment and vote for her. All you have to do is click on her picture, then go to a webpage that will make you enter a number to verify you're a real person. Thanks!!!

sweatpants, appeal of?

Since I came to work at my current place of employment -- (a PAC-10 major research university) I have noticed one peculiar form of dress for the men. Can anyone say sweatpants? For several days I've been trying to decide what the appeal is. There are definitely two factions: the jock, and the geeky guy who would've worn sweatpants even if they weren't en vogue. I've come up with two scenarios:

1) Practicality/comfort - Sweatpants are easy to put on, they have an elastic waist, they don't really get "wrinkled" so don't require ironing or a "refresher" in the dryer. Typically they're made from cotton so clean easily too. While these are fairly convincing reasons, please read on.

2) Appeal (could it be?) - Initially this didn't even come to mind. Sweatpants always seem like they're bulky and shapeless and really just .. well, unattractive. But then, I started to pay attention to detail. These things can reveal more than the tightest jeans in your dresser. I didn't think I'd ever see such well-defined packages anywhere other than underwear models in catalogs. I'm wrong! You also get some pretty amazing definition of the rear-end too. The different types of sweatpants come into play here, the lightweight and somewhat "clingy" fabric, all the way to the thick and bulky fabric.

It's definitely not just athletes that are wearing them, all types of guys are wearing them...some with more success than others. An interesting phenomena, I wonder how much longer it will last before this crop of men try to assimilate into the girl jean fad.

blog usage statistics, eye opening!

I recently got curious about who my blog readers were and signed up with http://www.statcounter.com to monitor my usage. Don't get worried, there isn't any personally identifable information provided to me. Just general stuff, like your ISP, general region, or if you clicked a link to get to my page, where that link was located.

I had a most interesting one. If your search comes up in a search engine, it will include the search terms used. I really wanted to post this one, it made me laugh so hard! Here is the exact search "which ear do girls get their cartilage pierce and not be consider gay" Definitely something I hadn't thought about. It resulted in this posting of mine that made #21 in Google's results. Is it wrong that I feel a little pride over that? ;-)

roofing

This morning I woke up at about 8 am to the sound of roofers using several nail guns at the same time. Bear in mind, I work until 1 am and didn't end up going to bed until around 4 am. Really, is this necessary? Couldn't they have waited until this summer and I had moved out? Honestly. Around 10 am I tried going back to sleep, only to just doze off and then have Gus start whining at me from the couch. So I had to get up and go in to the living room and keep him company. Good lord he's needy. I suppose it has something to do with him not feeling well (still not doing so great..) but gee whiz.

Now it's 10:30 pm and I'm tired and a little crabby. Can you believe it, I'm actually crabby? My customer service isn't at its best today. Tomorrow I get to drive down to my parents house so I can see my physician for the 1-month follow-up for my happy pills. Wheee! I'm getting tired of driving so much.

i hate blonde valley girls

Are they even called valley girls anymore? Well, if not, you can understand the type of girl I am describing. I had a run-in tonight with one of my favorites. She is the most selfish and self-centered individual I have ever met. She truly believes that the rest of the world is there to provide for her convenience. Tonight she walks up to the ref desk, slams down her assignment, points to a numbered bullet and says "You need to find this for me" then proceeds to make a call on her cell phone while acting impatient. I sit calmly and wait for her to end her call, since I'll be darned if I do her work for her while she's on the phone. The least she can do is pay attention and possibly learn something. Then she tells me that she doesn't have all night and that I'm wasting her time. I responded that I am here to instruct, as well as assist and will be more than happy to teach her how to find what she needs. She then gives a half-laugh and responds "whatever, just get me my article, okay?" To which I respond "I'll be happy to show you how to find it." Then she gets a phone call, lets out a big sigh, then just walks away. I'm crossing my fingers that she won't come back...or that cell phones really do cause brain cancer...

observed, stranger things

Earlier today I took my dog, Gus, for a walk and saw a bit of a contradiction. There was a middle-aged woman running toward us on the sidewalk and she kept making weird hand motions. At first I thought she was trying to wave Gus and I off of the sidewalk. Once she got close enough so I could see what she was doing it became evident that she was smoking a cigarette. Yes, puffing away on a cigarette while running. iPod nano attached to her upper arm, spandex runner garb. She was in great shape...but smoking. I've never seen anyone do this.

Also related to smoking, I've seen a couple young university guys smoking while skateboarding. This is a bit easier to reconcile with, but still.

And lastly. Just a few minutes ago while I was sitting at the ref desk, bored out of my mind, I watched a guy walk up behind a girl working on a computer. This girl was working at a bank of computers that are elevated and have tall stools to sit on. So the guy walks up quietly and then proceeds to squeeze the girl's butt. Not once, but three times. She was startled at first, then realized it was him, and was back to her typing by second squeeze. Hmmm... inappropriate anyone?

men, it's spring, shave your legs!

So I'm wondering if there has been an announcement sent to all men that I haven't received? Perhaps mine was simply sent to the wrong e-mail address or lost in the mail? I began tallying the number of men with shorn limbs after three sets of glistening calves moved past my peripheral vision.

How many did I see over the course of the evening? Nine men with shaved legs! There are a few reasons I would find it acceptable for men to shave their legs: swimmers, it cuts down on drag; drag queens/female impersonators, ya gotta keep it smooth so it doesn't poke through the hose; and ballet dancers, again, the poking through hose issue.

I was once dared to shave my legs, this was about 4 years ago. I thought it would be funny and proceeded to prepare for the grand event. I'm a pretty hairy guy so instead of beginning immediately with a razor, I started with a pair of electric clippers. It was like shearing a sheep. Yes, I've done that too, don't ask. Once finished with that, I began the razor work. It was mildly therapeutic, starting from the ankle and working my way up. Eventually I got to a point where I had to ask my friend "at what point do I stop?" We decided that mid-thigh was acceptable for this experiment. What an unusual feeling! My jeans felt like I was wearing salt-crusted canvas. Given my personal experience, I don't understand the appeal and still cannot find a good reason for this activity.

I have to admit that my status as a gay male doesn't lend me authority to make a blanketed judgement on this subject. I can only give my own opinion: what the hell?

removed, getting wisdom teeth

So the worst part about this so far is that i can't really talk yet because of the local numbing stuff and the gauze. Also, i have to use an ice pack which is forcing me to type one-handed and that irritates the hell out of me. I swear i must be down to 30-40 wpm at this point.

My bottom lip feels like it's flipping 50 sizes too big. Is this what collagen feels like? Oh, speaking of, I DID get some collagen. But, it was just to act as a coagulent in the socket of the extraction because of my bleeding disorder. I think I can still say I got collagen though. :-)

One thing I realized during the extraction. It's so easy to pop teeth out of your mouth. It's really a wonder that your teeth stay in your mouth at all if you're eating something moderately chewy or sticky. Seriously. It kind of weirds me out.

Anywho, the Percocet is starting to kick in (huzzah!!) so I'm going to go chill with a movie and change my gauze.

desk, strange things on my

So yesterday I come in to work and find a green "W.W.J.D." bracelet on my desk. I'm not really sure how I should take this. It could be a joke from one of my student employees, but it could also be some sort of helpful "message." Really folks, I'm beyond the help of a W.W.J.D. bracelet.

Today I come in and find a gallon-sized ziploc bag of....pasty-looking goo on my desk. I was very confused. At first again, I thought this was a joke. Then realized it was a starter for one of those Amish Friendship Bread social experiments from hell. The instructions and recipe were underneath it. (my desk is more than a bit cluttered, so it was difficult to realize that there was a new piece of paper).

I'm curious if tomorrow will bring a new bit of something waiting on my desk. Perhaps it'll be a bloody horse head.

podcasting, topics for consideration

So I'm considering the production of a weekly podcast. Right, I know that my free time is already squished completely, but I am feeling an urge to be creative, and since I do not have regular access to a piano, I might as well make my efforts public to the entire world.

I'm thinking of doing a 15-minute talk about a topic, sort of an expert discussion through my perspective. I'll select something that seems interesting that I want to know more about, do some research, then do an ad lib informational talk about it.

Ideas? Comments? Suggestions?

personals, responding to?

Anyone else out there ever reply to a personal ad? I never had before. I'm a bit of a people-watcher so have a pretty good time also reading folks' personal ads. I finally run across one that makes me go "wow, I think I would really like to get to know this person." This alone seemed really strange. Writing to a stranger on a personal level is very intimidating. We write to strangers in a professional way often: letters of introduction, letters of reference, inquiries to technical support, admissions essays, etc. Suddenly, you are writing to a specific individual for the sole purpose of exploring the potential of a relationship. Frightening. What do I do if they don't reply? What do I do if they do reply? Why am I worried about the rejection of someone I have never met?

I had a very unusual experience, well, to me it seems unusual, it might be common when compared to others. The first few exchanges of e-mail went very well, which progressed to phonecalls and instant messaging and text messaging. This went on for several weeks. Even though I hadn't met them, I felt a connection to this person and really enjoyed interacting with them.

Then. We met. It was like meeting a complete stranger all over again. Nothing that had occurred over the last few weeks seemed to affect this interaction at all. It was immediately clear that there was no chemistry, clear for both of us. We proceeded to have a cordial time together for a few hours, but it wasn't particularly exciting for either, and mostly just a little awkward.

Such an unusual experience, I'm definitely hesitant to repeat it.

strange, things that are

Between yesterday and today I happened to see two very unusual and unrelated things. Sometimes this kind of randomness really sticks me in a philosophical sort of mood...

1) Yesterday, I was driving around, trying to find a place to park near the library where I work. There is a metered parking lot just across the street, it's quite close and I usually try and find a space there (free after 5 pm). As I'm looping around, what do I see on the ground between two parked cars? A wooden pepper mill. Yes, the really tall kind, roughly 18-20 inches. Strange? yep.

2) Today, I was walking in to work and was passing several people on their way out of the library building. Walking toward me was a younger man, somewhere between 18-22 I would guess. He was wearing a long black coat. So far, so good. Then I noticed something strange about his right hand. He had a rubber dinosaur puppet on his right hand. He wasn't doing anything at all with the puppet, he was just walking along, swinging his arms a bit like most people do when they walk. Really, why? Strange? yes!

e-mail, going out the door too?

Has anyone lately noticed that aside from work, you don't use e-mail very much? I just realized that I very rarely use e-mail for personal communications any more. I post comments on MySpace pages, or send private messages there too, or post comments on a blog, or send a text-message to a phone, or just call the person on the phone.

Is e-mail going to go the same way as the usps letter? Is it now becoming dated? I have a friend who podcasts her blogs instead of writing them out. This digital age of ours is so rapidly changing.

On the more mundane side of things. I have discovered (for me) the most wonderful pen in the world. It's a Pilot Permaball. Yep, a Pilot-brand pen that has permanent ink--that comes out of a rollerball! It's acid-free, archival safe, blah blah blah too. And, it writes like a dream. I love mine, in black, medium tip.

sun, basking in

The sun is here!!!!!! Finally! Spring? Well, it was here a few days ago, but was only in the 50s. Right now it is 72 degrees F outside!!! Luckily, I didn't have to be in to work until 4 pm so could spend a few hours enjoying the weather. The Daylight Savings Time has kicked in last night, so this means we'll get an extra hour of this fantastic weather. Lovely! I'm a sunny weather sort of person, so long and dark winters really start to get to me after awhile, conversely, the sun makes me smile stupidly from ear to ear for hours on end.

Hopefully everyone else has some sun visiting them today!!

glasses, getting new

So it's time for me to get some new glasses. For the last 3 years I've exclusively worn contacts and my eyes are starting to pay the price. The blood vessels are rising to the surface in a search for oxygen. Poor things. So, I am getting new glasses (with a current prescription, unlike my old ones..) to remedy this problem. However, I'm having trouble choosing. Here are my top 3 choices, ranging from conservative to edgy:


Please leave a comment, voting for 1, 2, or 3. If you aren't a gmail/blogger/blogspot person, you can leave an anonymous comment with your choice. :-)

clarity, having some

So I have realized, anew, how great it feels to just get things done. Lately I've been spending a lot of time whining about how much stuff I have to do (which is a considerable amount) but not really try so much to do anything about it.

The largest bane of my existence is the conference I'm working on planning. Last night I grabbed it by the horns and spent 2 hours just sending e-mails. Today I got to work and had over 50 related responses. I've since spent 3 hours replying and organizing and planning. I've gotten more done for this conference in the past 2 days than in the past 2 months. It feels really good.

Through this process over yesterday and today, a lot of things just clicked into place, mentally. I guess we sometimes need to remind ourselves to shut up and just get some shit done. Like eating our vegetables, we usually feel better about it once it's done. :-)

days, really long

I've had many very long days over the last few weeks. Preparation for my NY trip made things crazy for a few days before my departure, the trip in NY made for long days since I needed to utilize all available time. Now that I'm back it's pretty nuts. I did 5 hours of grading yesterday (technically, my last day of vacation) and about 8 hours of grading today, plus taught 2 classes, created curriculum for the classes from scratch, and prepared a comprehensive cheat-sheet-handout for each of those classes. Right now I'm at work hour 12 for today and I have 2 more to go. Yippie!

In a few days when I have more time, I'll post a real NYC posting with some pictures and a link to an online gallery (which I have to upload still..). I have class this weekend, and next weekend too, so free time will be at a bit of a premium. Maybe while I'm at the hotel after class on Friday...which depends on if I go out with Thomas. Or, during class, if it turns out to be really boring. ;-)

dell, getting tired of

So you all may have heard that I had to replace my hard drive that went wonky. Apparently it suddenly developed some bad things on it (or so the diagnostics told me) so I ended up having to replace it which turned out to be alright. This made me slightly bitter because the HD manufacturer has a standard 3-year warranty, but since it's OEM in a dell product, the manufacturer wouldn't touch it. At the time, the system was *just* over the 2 year dell warranty cut-off, and they won't honor the standard 3-year manufacturer warranty. Thanks, dell.

So I thought my problems were over, right? Nope! I now have the infamous "flashing amber light of death." My system will NOT even attempt to boot up, the power button just flashes this lovely amber light. After a bit of online research, it seems that a simple replacement of the power supply isn't always the solution to this issue. I really can't afford to replace the power supply in hopes that it fixes everything. What gives, dell??? This computer is 2.5 years old and now has had a second *major* problem. Aside from this, I've been marvelously happy with the system, it has never done anything weird or buggy.

This amber light thing sounds more like a defect in their systems...the dozens of forum posts I've been finding are indicative of a larger issue than a few power users simply overtaxing their systems. I used mine on a pretty average basis for the first year, but in the second year, I had my laptop and hardly ever used the desktop system but a few times per week.

The computers I had while growing up all made it to a good 4-5 years old before we tired of their incompatibility and slowness, however, they continued to keep trucking on even at point of disposal.

So, dell, what gives? I'm not likely to be a customer of yours again.

pierced, things you should get

Below you'll find a handy picture of my new lip piercing. I'm pretty damn stoked about it. I don't have much else to write about, other than that I love it. This picture is from my camera phone, so isn't the greatest, but you get the idea.

It was a pretty fun process. My friend Kim wanted to get a few tattoos before she leaves on her international journey and I have been wanting to do my lip for awhile....so I recommended that we go to the place where I had my ears done, they also do tattoos. It turns out that the piercing folks split to a new location and still do tattoos too, but the old location has the original tattoo folks. Confusing, I know. So she went ahead and got her tattoos there and then we went to the new place and I got my lip done. [High Priestess Piercing and Tatoos] We were both immensely satisfied with our body modifications of the afternoon. I wasn't sure how the lip was going to hurt, the ears were virtually painless. The best way I can describe it is having someone else pop a really gnarly zit on your face. There really is almost a "pop" sensation when it pokes through. Exhilerating!!!

Hurray for us! :-)

Purpose?

One thing I've noticed lately, especially at the university library where I work, is that people walk slowly and aimlessly. Almost exclusively. Do they understand just how much time they're wasting by lolly-gagging. Come on people, walk with purpose! Yes, with purpose! Act like you have somewhere to go because, guess what, you inevitably do! Each step is a new destination. Own it. So get out of my way because I am walking with purpose.

birthdays?

It's my sister's birthday in a few days. I am at a bit of a loss of what to get her. I believe I posted a similar sentiment last month when I was trying to figure out her christmas presents. Unfortuantely, her birthday is just 3 weeks after Christmas and my creative juices are all sucked out by then. She doesn't need any more clutter, or really even clothes for that matter. What she could probably use most is an economy-sized bottle of Pine Sol with an accompanying stock of cleaning cloths and disinfectant wipes. By comparison, I would probably be considered both a clean and neat freak.

Given the snow and ice that will appear tomorrow, I'm a bit hesistant about trudging through it to find that "perfect gift." Maybe she'd be happy with a gift certificate? Say... for food? Then she can't keep it and contribute to clutter? My god, I'm a genius!

snow...snow...snow...snow...snow!

"They say it won't be long before we'll all be there with snow..." -- A short quote from my most favorite winter / christmas song ever "Snow" from White Christmas.

One marvelous advantage to working swing shift, I'm able to be at home all day and watch the snow come down. I think we are approaching 2" for the day which is fairly significant for the Corvallis area. There were winters in Oregon when it wouldn't even snow at all (at the lower elevations).

This time we got an official-looking announcement from the university asking to take all sorts of precautions, like unplugging major electronics before leaving work for the day, etc. Apparently it's supposed to dip below freezing for a few days (15-20 F) which means our town will be covered in sheets of ice. Wheee!

I also received the monthly "newsletter" from my apartment complex. One blurb in this "newsletter" cautioned against walking under trees during inclement weather. To give a little perspective, my complex has the words "hill" and "oak" in its name. Yes, it is COVERED in oak trees and various evergreens, literally! You cannot leave your apartment in some cases without going under a tree. It's impossible to leave the complex without walking and driving under them. In the last wind storm and snow storm we had a LOT of fallen limbs and branches, some on power lines. Did they come through and trim anything afterward? Nope. These kids are smart.

My dirty dishes are CLEAN, hurray! I had a few pots that have been sitting (conveniently hidden in the oven) since new year's eve celebratory food preparation. Yep. Cheese fondue. Amazingly, it didn't look ANY different than when I prepared it...

My goodness the snow is pretty. Time for some hot chocolate and a little reading before I have to get ready for work...