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(28 November - 7 December 2002)
7 December 2002
-Well, I'm glad I checked with the team at Marin
before I let the situation fester. I'm essentially done there, & accordingly back in the hunt for 16-24 more hours
of labor, on Friday, Sunday, or mornings. Was fun while it lasted though. Just wish people would be upfront
before you force them to be.
-Dude, flak (or flack) is my middle name.
6 December 2002
-I really miss the MIT tournament. Last year
I got very frustrated with how the tourney ended, but it was still generally a really great time. & it's snowing
in Beantown, which I must admit I miss greatly as well. Ah well. Life moves on & you couldn't pay me to be
back on the east coast right now.
5 December 2002
-You would think that
half of the current 4th place TOTY would want to come to Nats. Guess not. Of course,
you'd also think he'd want to be a decent human being...
-I'm glad today's Thursday.
-It
makes me sad to think of people seeing a decline in enthusiasm on the 'Deis team. I hope
it's not as bad as some have reported. There're always ups & downs, though, &
looking back, I don't think we had any Fall semesters that were nearly as good as the following
Springs.
-Em got a job!! She's working for CALPIRG, following in the footsteps (at
least with some branch of PIRG) of so many of my friends before her. They say they
anticipate a quick rise through the ranks for her, but for now she's giving a standard rap &
making me think of days gone by.
-Starting at the end of next month, Chapman is bumping me up
to 24 hours weekly from 16, & splitting my time between two campuses. I'll be working
here too then. Now if only I can
resolve this hours-shortage-debacle in Marin, I'll really have something going.
-I've been
reading a fair bit of Adam Duritz's update page &
it's cracking me up. He's so defensive, which is understandable, but too bad in a way.
It's so hard for someone famous to maintain the image of their work or themselves that
they want. No matter how consistent someone is, the outside forces & sources will muck
it up a fair bit. Goes with the territory. Ah well... 12 days out now.
4 December 2002
-As promised (more or
less), just revamped the BP People page to include (& italicize) some folks.
-Beth assumes
that all pacbell.net visitors are Emily & myself. Not so. I bet there's a few
PacBell-usin' locals who're following the same links over to that page that we are.
-I had
something I really wanted to update about, but I can't remember what it is. That's very
rare, but I hate it the few times it does happen.
-"History's Mysteries" on the
beloved History Channel is probably my current favorite show. It's just awesome, combining
everything I like about history with my slight fascination for ooky stuff that led me to watch
"Sightings" with my Dad in the old days. One of the few reasons to have a
TV.
3 December 2002
-Pando had a visit to
the vet today that she was pretty darn sure was actually a return to the Humane Society.
She sat through a shot pretty well, had an oil slick dumped on her back to remove fleas
(apparently tapeworms come from eating fleas... so kids at home, don't eat your fleas!), &
even got her nails clipped. She took the shot the best of these. Then she was quite
relieved to actually come home.
-I've become a really sarcastic driver with my hand motions.
There's so many things people do on I-80 that convince me they want nothing more than to
wreck their car. I like throwing them a big thumbs-up for that. Woo.
-A phenomenal
field of weekly searches came through, proving that people go online on Thanksgiving, except to
Beth's page. People wanted to raise your own mushrooms & wondered "why
americans vote". But randomness won out over politics this week as you can see
on the main SOTW page.
-As I've often said, sometimes it really does hurt to plan in
advance.
-It is COLD at work. Very very cold. I know the thermostat thingy tells
me it's 69.8 degrees (Fahrenheit), but that should be a negative number. & I can't
really adjust the settings, just watch the digits exaggerate greatly. Brrr.
-Phil Larochelle's blog has been interesting me
lately, so it might show up on BP People pretty soon.
-Mesco has linked another find-a-place quiz (that isn't so high
on Hartford & Providence), but I like it much less. I clicked "Ignore" on about 2/3rds of the questions
because they were all these lame-o economic statistics that don't matter to me at all. Boo. I got Beantown
& NYC as 1-2 & that's just flat-out wrong. Even with SF as #3, most-hated cities (besides NYC) Chicago &
LA were in the top 6. Wrong, wrong, wrong. & I could see it coming a mile away with an econ-centric
test.
-In a final note on this matter, Sha Sha of Academy fame has reaffirmed my
faith in the initial quiz. She got 24 cities no one else got (NO Hartford, NO Providence!!), proving that the quiz has
a larger database than I was suspecting & that my friends & I who'd taken it so far all just put really darned
similar answers. I was pretty sure that Seattle & Denver weren't in the system, but I'm quite wrong & so I
recommend FindYourSpot again above the competitors.
2 December 2002
-Got home with about an hour to spare before going
back out to work. That was more time than I thought I'd have, though, so this is pretty heartening. Even if I
have to administer a test once I get there. Pando was not that happy to see us because she's pretty upset that we were
gone so long. While she didn't tear up the place, she did deem her catbox full & seek other means of bodily relief.
This course also revealed that she's got tapeworms, which aren't supposed to be that harmful, but seem like the
migraines of the cat world for how much they understand about them. Though they are much more treatable than human
headaches. So it's all good. Good to be home, but it will be much better after work, which I'm about to leave
for now.
1 December 2002
[from Clovis,
California]
-Yesterday was quite eventful. Today the main event has been making
a calendar for the upcoming year. It's gone amazingly well, resulting in twelve great shots of friends, family, &
ourselves (some of them are combo-shots however). It's going to be a very good year.
-To beat the traffic game,
we're returning to our city of liberalism tomorrow morning. Hopefully Pandora's kept the place in as many pieces as we
left it in.
-So Find Your Spot (via Mesco, linked above) is in fact the coolest thing ever.
Even if they use a dog in their theme. Seriously. Go take it now & let me know what you get. I
might print my whole 24-city list here at some point, because it's so much fun. But notable results are as follow... my
top 3 are (& I'm not making this up) ALBUQUERQUE, Portland (Oregon of course), & Las Vegas (Nevada). Then I
will let Mesco know that I think the test is rigged in favor of Hartford & Providence, since those were my #4 & #5,
even though I (obviously) didn't support New England. No less than six (6) of the 24 (25%) are in Oregon, including
Eugene (#7), Corvallis (#8), Medford (#13), Salem (#18), & Bend (#19). Beantown checks in at #9, which cracks me
up. Baltimore, my actual favorite east-coast town, is #11. Carson City, of where-I-was-born fame, makes the list
at #21. Reno, meanwhile, rounds out Nevada's 3 at #12. Sacramento (#14) & San Jose (#24) are the only Cal
cities to make it. One-time-visited towns New Orleans (#15) & Honolulu (#16) are on board, as well as one
place I've spent lots of time (#17 Santa Fe), one place I used to live (#22 DC), & one place I've never been to
(#23 Sheboygan, Wisconsin). See, that's not the whole list! I left out Little Rock (#6), New Haven (#10), &
Milwaukee (#20). Oops. I'm still stunned that Albuquerque was number one.
30 November 2002
[from Clovis,
California]
-Sometimes couples argue. I don't think a couple's healthy if they
don't argue. It means that no one's thinking differently, or thinking at all. Or cares that much. It's bad
if the arguments fester unresolved, but worse if there's no arguments at all.
-More trains. This time the land was
flatter & the air much colder, combining to make a worse overall experience. I really want to go to Train Mountain.
But they're getting started nonetheless. & the place is called Turtle Post Ranch, which is pretty sweet.
Even some real excitement, when middle Paul (IV) jumped from the train or when I was in the hot seat on a super-fast
roll-back.
-Picked up my second all-time pull-over today, this time for another technicality. Em's left headlight
is out (well, the bulb works, but the flip-up mode is broken... silly Probes & their fancy flip-up lights). The
cop pulling me over thought I might not have noticed that it's not working. So the lights came on & the subject of
about 33% of my nightmares these days (at least as a component) took place. Without the torture that usually ensues in
said nightmares at least. It was a simple pull-over... no registration/insurance check, no detailed conversation, just
a recommendation that I fix said item & a run of the brand-new plates. Still not as fun as the previous lifetime
pull-over when I deliberately got pulled over for expired plates (the real ones remaining in the back) so I wouldn't freak
out in my first real pull-over, which was apparently tonight, about five years later.
-College basketball has a very
different feel in Fresno than in the Pit. But the game couldn't've been much more exciting, ending 67-65 with a
foot-on-the-line shot from Fresno State with half a second (literally) left. Very fun, even with a migraine.
29 November 2002
[from Clovis,
California]
-I was sort of hoping that forgiveness, like a
small but sneakily persistent rodent, would come up & bite me when I wasn't looking. & then I wouldn't have
to keep mulling the potential in my head, over & over, & could close the whole book, shelve it, & maybe even
misshelve it if I were really lucky. Forgiveness doesn't seem to work that way. Or maybe, to overextend the
metaphor, it's found a big block of cheese somewhere far from here. Regardless, I guess that's been a lot of my delay,
that & the things that reminded me of the past. I guess it's hard for people not to backslide into old patterns.
At least a little. But I'm facing a situation where I just don't have that gut-feeling that says "I can
forgive". There are logical little facts that make me think "Maybe I should forgive", but the
fact that I can't do it throws a damper on those. I'm still hurting other people because of her. How can I watch
her use me to hurt those I care about & offer forgiveness?
-I'm actually sorta relaxedish around here. In most
cases. A good sign, since I plan on doing some relaxing the next couple days.
-Utterly abysmal dreams last night.
A word that I don't use lightly. Abysmal. Back-to-back nights now, but last night was worse. I feel
like there's something hanging over that room that's not assisting my sleep.
28 November 2002
[from Clovis,
California]
-I have a ridiculous amount to be thankful for
today. So many things this past year have put my mind at ease. Well, more at ease. Let's not go crazy or
anything.
-Still, some people can manage to make me angry. At some point, I won't be able to keep holding back the
way I feel I have to. & then lots of things change.
-Dinner went remarkably well, as I was very hungry when it
started (so hard to time well) & there were many many items (corn, green beans, macaroni, mashed potatoes, stuffing,
& crescent rolls) that I not only can eat but truly love. Usually it's a good meal to have two or three of those,
let alone all six. Yum. Though I didn't have the fried rice that made Thanksgiving '99 so good.
-It's amazing
how much noise comes standard with a house with children. It's not like it bothers me so much as amazes me. I
don't think I could have a child while I still had migraines in my life. Conclusion...
-Foosball is also noisy,
but very fun. Especially when Paul (IV)'s on your side.
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