-We're poets & we don't even know it!
-Exit Heinbergs, stage north. But not before we went to Pollo's for burritos that thoroughly defeated us. We also wanted to climb Sather Tower, but it's closed & possibly has been for 2 years. So we climbed a tree instead & that was more comfortable, despite the lacking view.
15 January 2003
-Hanging out a lot with
the Heinbergs as they've arrived, separately, into the Bay Area. Sconehenge & the
Claremont Diner have been visited, though neither of them are the Waffle House. Today we
also went down to the Marina area & walked out on a pier that seems like it takes you halfway
to Alcatraz. With Sep & Mesco both incoming this weekend, it's going to be some
non-stop craziness around here.
-I wish there were a U-turn signal light to go with the
conventional left & right. It could be a flashing "U" in between the two
headlights & taillights, or really anywhere that an extra light could go. This would
prevent more accidents, like the one that almost happened to me today. It wasn't that
close, but this car turning right really wanted to hit me & I think the main fault is that
there's no difference between a left turn signal & a U-turn signal.
-I'm working on
designing a quiz that will launch the era of BluePyramid InterActive! After a full year of
me having the only source of input on this site, you the visitor will finally have some say
about what happens here. Or at least be able to interact. Or at least take a quiz.
We'll see how far this goes, but I promise the quiz will be fun.
14 January 2003
-Today's been pretty
uneventful so far... Stina's back in town & reports that the Heinbergs will be around for a
bit as well. I've been realizing that I've been eating very little lately & have been
feeling sick ever since trying to correct that issue. Maybe I should go back to the 1.5
meal/day program. Did more evaluations; getting close to halfway done with those.
That's about it.
13 January 2003
-It's certainly
Monday.
-A check of the big stat-tracker in the sky reveals that this week broke all records
for number of visitors at the BP, in the one-year anniversary week of being here. 366 days
ago, or a year before yesterday, everything moved to the Blue Pyramid. Last week broke the
record set in the first week of December '02, so it hadn't exactly been a long time. My
guess is that you all liked the new sections of 2002 in Review & concerts I've been to.
In other words, content is good.
-In more meta news, apparently I got so many hits
because people think this site is an authority on things like grow your own silly mushrooms,
sneaker keepers, & (of course) planning a mormon wedding. However,
someone was right to think of me as a good source of information about "storey" "toe".
The winners beat all of these to be on the Search of the Week! page.
12 January 2003
-When I was much younger, like a few weeks ago, I
really believed that one nail would immediately flatten one's tire. I thought tires were pretty much air surrounded by
rubber & once that rubber was punctured, boom!, you had 30 seconds or so to get off the road before you were driving around
on three tires & a grinding metal wheel. In the words of Deep Blue Something, "I guess I was wrong."
On the same day, in two different states, my Dad & I both noticed flat left rear tires in our respective cars.
His was repaired recently, & I tried to repair mine today, about a month after the tire first went low.
Imagine my surprise when Sears automotive department informed me that no less than 4 (four) nails were in my tire!!
This apparently (by a solitary nail) makes the tire beyond salvation, & so I now have two new tires on the back
of ye young Kia. So here's a tip... if your tire is going flat & you have to refill the air once a week, you
probably have 5-6 nails in it.
11 January 2003
[from Tracy,
California]
-Natalie is very young & very small. She is the youngest
person I have ever met, by almost a year, replacing her older brother, who was almost a year old when I met him.
The world must look very new to her, & I'm quite sure that I don't really register.
-The young PVGV sure does
love him some trains.
-I am very sick. But now I have antibiotics, which should make me better, or at least think
I have reason to be better. We shall see.
10 January 2003
-Feeling really sick... the worst in a week or so.
Today ended up being just about a wasted day. Em did very well at PIRG, so it wasn't a waste overall, but I felt
like a lump most of the time.
9 January 2003
-There's new good stuff
over at the 'Deis team site (though for some reason
it still says it hasn't been updated since 3 September last year). Of special interest
are the Debate cards for
last year, as well as some new photos
featuring the novii I have yet to meet this year. Go Spurling!
-I have run into my first
moral objection to the work I do. Today I was asked to spray the ant invasion in Room 1.
Last time this happened, I passed the buck to Pat, but this time my boss made it clear that
this fell within "other duties as assigned". Now, I don't believe that it's
never under any circumstances okay to kill animals... I think that in self-defense of a human
being, it's probably okay, if it's really self-defense. & ants are certainly the
bottom tier of animals... many vegetarians (not me, but many friends) justify eating fish because
they're not as sentient/feeling/thinking as other more developed creatures. Though sometimes
they wind up eating dolphin too, which just doesn't wash with me... cetaceans being more advanced
than probably any land-bound animal. & fish are way way more advanced than ants.
Regardless, I don't believe in killing ants out of
convenience, & I really like the cinammon option we discovered a few days ago. But my
work doesn't believe in cinammon, it believes in heavy-duty Raid, & so I find myself throwing
internal arguments around like "following orders". Bluck. I just feel like
I committed an atrocity in Room 1... there's lots of little shriveled ant corpses. I know
this must sound like parody to those of you munching a burger right now, but I really feel bad
about it. What harm were the ants going to do? They'd keep to themselves & go
away when the rain stopped. Sigh. Unfortunately, one really does have to pick one's
battles... I guess this is what I get for saying I did nothing at work yesterday.
8 January 2003
-This year I'll be doing birthdays a little
differently on the site (you'll see), but I guess one birthday can have a more conventional discussion, since it's a 0th.
Yesterday, Natalie Garin (not positive on the spelling; it's a name that can vary a lot) joined the family & will
become my niece in about seven months. She's Paul & Colleen's second child (first daughter) & is doing well.
So welcome to the world, kid.
-I've stayed up wayyyy the heck too late working on a new project for this site, so
you better all go check it out & like it! It really shouldn't have been that much work, but I hand-coded it all
because it was easy to do & it ended up being 11 setlists, which was more than I thought I had stored up. Anyway,
check out The Concert List & any setlists linked there that you might like.
-I
did nothing (of significance) at work today. Don't get me wrong, that's not a complaint...
I enjoy my job & on both busy & slow days, it's a wonderful job, especially for the pay.
But it's weird to come out to Fairfield & have a day where I don't feel like I did much for
anyone. Sure, people were reminded of the class they were going to by the signs I put up,
one of our teachers can do her power-point presentations because I hauled the LCD cart over there,
& a few people came in to use the computers & print stuff out (though this is vaguely
redundant with the unsupervised computer lab). I guess all this means is that I did a good
job the first 7 weeks of the term... people don't need the computer system & research skills
explained to them now because they've learned it before. Or more likely, they're cramming
work into the next 2 weeks, which will be swamped. Either way, I feel a little strange
coming to work, making money, but not making an impact. I want to be clear (I've been
disclaiming a lot lately for some reason... maybe it's the inexplicable intuitive nerves) that
I am not complaining about anything... things are great & I'm very lucky to have this kind of
work. I've even been able to do some writing. But it feels weird to do nothing for
something today.
7 January 2003
-Late yesterday, I
started getting another one of those sourceless nervous bouts that I associate with foretelling
something negative, either personal or at-large. Em suspects that it's about oncoming war,
& she may well be right. It feels somewhat more global than local, but these things
being sourceless, I can never really be sure. & sometimes they're nothing, or nothing
apparent or obvious or actually soon. But they always feel notable, & so I take
note.
-I've actually now written an entire chapter of ADO at work, which is a positive
sign for the new year. Nevertheless, I must be cautious about getting too excited lest I
just feel bad about myself & my motivation. The thing about writing at work is that it's
a very top-priority thing that has to be 2nd-priority because I must drop everything to
help someone or do an errand for a colleague. So it's a little risky writing at work, since
I could lose things or frustrate myself greatly. But I've just worked past a long block
with an inspiration I got on the way to work, so for now, I'm 2-2 on good writing sessions at
CU-Fairfield.
-I went over to NoWarBlog for a bit... Amy
& Julian had both recommended it (their pages are part of the "right-wing" of the
so-called Left-Right Anti-War movement there). I became engrossed in a 45-strand chain of
comments, then offered #46 & #47 in my horrified realization that the people commenting say
they are anti-war, but pro-draft. If that's the anti-war movement's core (& it was even
mentioned in the latest This Modern World strip!), I'm highly concerned. Sure, talk is
cheap & comments are cheaper, but it hurts me to see so many be pro-military, & especially
pro-the-US-military.
-Meanwhile, North Korea continues to lead the anti-US-military movement.
They'd be a lot more fun to root for if they didn't have nukes. Sometimes I feel like
they're cool for calling us on hypocrisy, though... although they of course are just as hypocritical.
I certainly don't support North Korea & if I lived there I'd be even more frustrated
with that country than I am with the US, but heck, it's nice to see someone with some kind of
authority point out that the US is the big threat with weapons of mass-destruction.
-Okay,
reconsidering that above post, I want to be even more clear... North Korea is bad. I think
I got a little too angry for a second or something. The US is bad, NK is bad, most governments
the way they operate are bad. Lots of badness everywhere. I'm not rooting for NK to
go take down SK or the US or anyone to take down anyone. I just like it when NK says that
mass-destruction means enough plutonium to blow up seven planet Earths, not just a couple of
poorly-wired bombs in a mountainside shed.
-Graphic updated today, two months after the
reign of the 1,000 day commemoration. If you like the old one, it's still somewhere around here. Not sure how long this one will last, as it's
not much of a change, but it'll do for now.
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