I could never imagine living in Southern California, but this region of the world has pretty much always served the same role for me. It’s basically the exact role in my life that it pitches to everyone everywhere at all times with carefully spent marketing dollars. Southern California is a place to come and relax and leave your cares behind.

It’s not something that SoCal would be for me if I didn’t have a continual stream of friends in La Jolla or Pasadena or Beverly Hills or other vacationland sounding destinations with their sun and smog and beaches. And what I end up doing in SoCal is usually a lot longer on video games and all-night conversation than anything beachy. And yet, when I think of SoCal, it’s exactly like watching some minds-eye palm-tree laden commercial, knowing that days or weeks spent in this area will recharge me and get me through whatever obligatory nonsense I feel I need to complete (college, work, etc.) or emotional wreckage I’m in the wake of (see, for instance, May 2000). If only I’d had friends in SoCal in the summer of ‘97. Or ‘90 for that matter.

It makes me wonder if, long after all my friends have left LA, I’ll still feel this emotional attachment to the area as the place to go to rest up and regroup. Not that there’s anything particularly daunting facing me now, beyond another April/May that will hopefully be my last two months of day jobbing for at least two years. Maybe I’ll always have friends in this area. But I attach such emotional significance to place that this association will probably transcend the scale of whoever ends up living here. Would I still come here in the aftermath of something really trying even if there was no one to see? I guess it’s unlikely, since in the end, truly, people are home to me and place is just association.

For the purposes of chronicling, highlights from this particular incarnation so far have included Denmark beating FIFA on the second hardest level after just a day and a half, actually filming crazy celebrations of same for possible YouTube clip-show purposes (stay tuned), epic chess matches of an hour of calculated brilliance usually coming down to some tremendous blunder, buying Russ a coffee maker because it’s cheaper than going to Starbucks for a week, the inevitable revisiting of the year where every move we made held the universe in the balance (quadfecta, etc.), and watching our most recent YouTube creations conquer the Internet.

We’re gonna ride it till we just can’t ride it no more.

If you need me, I’ll be at Russ’ for the next nine days. If you’re David Kunkel, please respond to my e-mails because I’d really like to break the streak of years where we’ve just missed seeing each other.

Possible posting from the road, depending on how much time I can spare from sun, video games, and cards.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Here’s your close-to-final score:

6.5/7 (+C, +H, /++O, +P, +Y)

The / indicates a wait-listing from one of the one-year programs at Oxford, which technically isn’t even a full wait-listing so much as deferring consideration of the application into a second round of sorting. But Em got word yesterday at the same time that she’s in to the two-year IR program that is the true equivalent of the stateside programs she’s applied to. Equivalent, though probably not peer.

Given that decision, the lack of funding from the one-year African Studies program at Oxford, and same from Columbia, I think we have our Final Four: Harvard & Oxford’s two-year program (pending funding information) and Princeton & Yale (with full rides).

Harvard is going to have to pony up to stay in the running, which we won’t know about for at least a week (probably). Oxford will probably be in contention regardless, since it’s cheaper to begin with (though the pound is making a bit of a comeback) and it’s Oxford. And obviously Princeton & Yale have a slight edge with that whole low-low price of free thing.

Emily’s running a triple-crown of getting sick, working on key legislation at work, and worrying about this decision. So now that we know most of the info, don’t hold your breath for a decision. This one will probably come down to the wire (which, incidentally, is Tax Day).

I really couldn’t be much prouder of my wife.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

This is the old straight-up appeal to the masses – if you’re involved in the Digg thing (or can easily sign up), please help us get our new AIG March Madness commercial (Youtube, previously posted about):

Digg It!

Also, the final new (spoof) video we created finally uploaded properly:

Tell your friends!

(+C, +H, ??+O, +P, +Y)

Still waiting to hear from two Oxford programs, but Em applied to five schools and was admitted to five schools. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. Harvard surprised us with an earlier decision than expected, but the money info won’t be in till the end of the month-ish. (Though they said that’s when we’d have a decision, so who knows at this point.)

Em will be heading back to tour at least Yale & Princeton (and now maybe Harvard) in about two weeks’ time. As suspected, she won’t be able to join me in LA next week, so we’ll be spending a fair amount of time apart in about a week. Given that we’re preparing to have two pretty solid years of not being pulled apart by work, though, I think I can handle it.

Em’s also been joking about having other people make this decision for her, because it’s hard to break ties. So if you have a vote (based on something other than regional/proximity) favoritism, send it our way.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Russ and I have spent the better part of the last 24 hours at it again. We unearthed secret archived videos from the good old days of AIG and are sharing them with the world. Better yet, we are spoofing some of our favorites directly. For example:

Before:

After:

Here’s another spoof we didn’t include the new one of:

And a whole bunch of old ones:

Enjoy.

Ditching my advice at least somewhat, I’m going back to work today while still sick. But so much less sick than I have been – turns out that taking off more than a full day in a row really does a body good. If only I’d thought that through on Wednesday.

Anyway, to update the code:

4/4 (+C, ?H, ??+O, +P, +Y)

HOWever, as the title suggests, Columbia easily removed itself from contention by offering no financial support. When up against the twin facts of being the most expensive program applied to and Emily’s least favorite match, this is finally an easy choice to make. We are not going to New York!

(…and there was much rejoicing.)

Harvard’s planning on notifying sometime during baseball season and Oxford is utterly unpredictable, so we probably have a bit of a lull in news for now. Princeton and Yale may have to be separated by an actual visit (better decision mechanism than a coin toss), which may keep Emily from joining me on the first leg of the West Coast Farewell Tour, that starting in eight days in Los Angeles. While I will be eternally grateful that I didn’t visit colleges prior to deciding my own undergraduate destination, pretty much no one else agrees with me about this. That was probably a pretty special circumstance, to be fair.

Meanwhile, in the other collegiate news of these times, my bracket is 12/16, losing only one major pick (Butler in the Elite Eight). I feel confident I will recoup those points vs. the field, however, when LSU (rather than Butler) trounces UNC in Round 2. I probably have a lot more at stake today, with Sweet 16 teams like Wisconsin and Utah State needing to start their upset trains.

I really should not be this tired at 7:00 AM. But knowing I can sleep after one day of work is pretty nifty.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

We can put a + next to the O in our CHOPY algorithm, but it should be noted that there are a whopping 3 total programs within Oxford and Em only got into one today, the one-year Masters in African Studies. So if you’re scoring at home, it should really look like this:

3/3 (?C, ?H, ??+O, +P, +Y)

No word on money from Oxford’s one-year program, though it does put on the table a possible 9-month jaunt across the pond, with a return to one of the stateside two-year programs. The possibilities are multiplying.

In other news, it’s a really bad idea for me to go back to work when I’m still sick. It only took me 4.5 hours to realize how bad and return home. Odds of returning tomorrow (because I’ve already proven I love pushing bad metaphors tonight with my continued use of the code above) are something more like a Panama-USA WBC final in 2012, which is significantly better than Italy-Chinese Taipei. But a quick check with Vegas should tell you where I’m spending the day tomorrow. I mean, come on.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

I’m sick and exhausted and about to fall asleep on the couch by the heater with a pile of blankets. Barring a miraculous recovery, my odds of trudging to work in the rain tomorrow are somewhere below an Italy-Chinese Taipei World Baseball Classic final in 2012.

But I wanted to let you all know that Emily was offered a full ride plus nominal stipend from Princeton, squarely putting us back in the dilemma zone. In the best possible way.

With three schools to hear from, it looks like we may see more lead changes yet. Stay tuned…

I’m riding BART and worried about getting all my things off the train so I can go into work. I have with me my backpack, a jacket, Emily’s laptop (out of its bag), and a large piece of luggage in the center aisle. I’m in the window seat and at one stop that I’m worried is mine, the person next to me leaves.

I get up to start gathering my things, including the luggage. When I turn back around, a very portly gentleman has sat in the recently vacated seat next to my collected stuff. The jacket, backpack, and laptop are next to him. There’s really no way to reach my stuff, so I have to ask him to get up briefly so I can gather my things, but he seems very bent out of shape about this and grumbles while he stumbles out of the seat.

Suddenly I realize it’s my stop and have to grab everything hurriedly and rush (ambling under the weight of all the stuff) to the doors. Just as I set foot on the platform, I realize Emily’s laptop is out of its bag and I have to retrieve the bag. I run back into the train car, grab the first laptop bag I see, and run back to the doors. The doors start closing in front of me, but I stick the laptop bag between them, the doors jam, reopen, and I stuff myself through them.

I’m standing on the platform of Macarthur BART when I realize that the laptop bag in my hand is blue and isn’t mine (or Emily’s). The train is pulling away with the actual bag, while I have someone else’s. I wonder briefly whether it will even matter that much, but I soon realize that Emily’s actual bag is much nicer and probably has some of her other things in it.

I start trudging down the steps of Macarthur BART and out toward a nondescript part of town when a couple of not unfriendly police start gently ferrying me toward a gargantuan police station that looks like a very nice high school/courthouse combination. I’m vaguely ushered without actually being escorted and suddenly my shoes are gone. The police ask what I’m doing with that bag and I can’t tell whether the implication is that I’ve stolen it or that I shouldn’t have jammed the BART doors with it. I’m wary of telling them too much, but they ask me to go see someone in the office. I look at the office doors and they’re clearly the well-guarded entrance to the cells in the basement and I look back and say “No one intelligent would go in there voluntarily.”

They smile and do nothing to compel me, so I start subtly half-running for the exit, seemingly content to leave all my stuff behind for the time being. As I get outside, there’s a rolling lawn that’s even more school than courthouse and I think they’re going to let me go (albeit in sock-feet), when suddenly a casually dressed man emerges from the courthouse and then is suddenly ahead of me inexplicably. He starts launching a small remote-control helicopter and flying it in my direction. He is making lots of jokes that seem somewhere between good-natured and sinister and I catch the first helicopter and break it in half, flinging it aside. I feel enraged by these helicopters and I want to send a message. He sends three more helicopters my way, each meeting a similar fate before I wake up.

If nothing else, I think my subconscious wants me to realize that I have too much stuff.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

So I wrote the post earlier today and took a shower and got dressed and walked up to my train, my mind awash with thoughts of the workday to come, Emily’s offer, the parts of my teeth I would soon be without. Made the train with two minutes to spare and found an inside seat.

It was uneven. One part of the cushion was outrageously higher than the other. Didn’t make it unbearable to sit, but less than optimal. I figured this was something that could be easily tamped down, so I investigated and discovered there was something under the seat.

Protruding just the slightest bit from the seat cushion was the neck of a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. Presumably empty, though as I was about to investigate further, I imagined how it would look to be pulling out a vodka bottle on the morning commute. Probably what the purchaser of said bottle was thinking about the time (s)he stuffed it into its present location.

I decided to switch seats to one across the way since I suddenly felt less comfortable being that closely tied to this glass container. And then the second explanation possibility hit me, sending me suddenly walking toward the other end of the train to take a seat (an evenly cushioned one, no less) a full car-length distant.

What if the bottle were stuffed with explosives, then set inconspicuously beneath the seat?

Now, this probably wouldn’t have occurred to me at all were it not for the recent “Mack Truck Time” consciousness I’d expressed at the conclusion of my previous post. The hallmark of Mack Truck Time is much like Morality Day – a time of being extra vigilant and aware of the potential hazards of the world. These little paranoid interludes are probably good preparation for being a parent someday. Or, perhaps, really awful preparation for same.

Regardless, it didn’t take much time for me to talk myself off the ledge of the ridiculous mental assertion that the bottle of Grey Goose was the first act of terrorism on US soil since 9/11. And yet, once one has a thought like that, it festers. It’s hard to just shrug it off and settle into Willa Cather’s wilds of New Mexico and calm mental focus. One keeps looking up at the call button for the train operator and imagining how one would feel if the next noise one heard was not the interminable screeching of metal wheels on metal track, but a thunderous boom followed by screaming horror.

Of course, there’s the sanity-inducing countervailing imagery. The panicky looks of those near the call button, eavesdropping with burgeoning fear. The train stopping at the station, holding up the commute for 30-40 minutes while uniformed men with dogs board and search. The inevitable rolling of eyes that lead to questioning the long-haired guy with anti-American blog posts who called this thing in in the first place.

Ultimately, though, none of these potential pitfalls were what persuaded me. Nor was it the fact that it was a bottle of alcohol that was hidden, which was about the most harmlessly explicable thing ever. (Though of course, that’s exactly what a terrorist would use to make it look otherwise explicable and usual, right?) No one would go to that length to hide a Coke can (also technically disallowed on BART). Still, this didn’t carry the day for me.

What convinced me was the same thing that I posted about in November ‘07 and holds true today. There are functionally no terrorists who are going to strike civilians in the domestic United States. Certainly not on the scale of what you could fit in a vodka bottle. Just ain’t happening. If it were happening, it would’ve happened all over, lots of times, in the last eight years. It was not going to start today.

I’m not saying there will never be another incident called terrorism on US soil again. Though I have to believe it’s possible, if for no other reason than the US may not be the label for this soil too much longer. But the odds are greater that it’s Tim McVeigh II than an allegedly Middle Eastern group, and the odds of the former are greatly reduced by the propaganda about the latter. If there’s one thing that wingnut Montana militia members hate more than what they’d blow up, it’s being associated with the people currently being considered as potential terrorists.

So I went on reading about a doomed Archbishop, confident in the fact that my brief paranoia was just that. There were no explosions, no screaming, no news stories that followed. Sometimes a bottle of Grey Goose is just a bottle of Grey Goose.