7/15

Yesterday I jotted down some notes about things I’ve found out about/in my apartment. I seem to think of the most random shit when I’m here at home.

1. Maybe one of the reasons I prefer this living alone is literally more time alone with my thoughts. The long stretches of silence seem to suit me. I’ve had a few in the last couple weeks, and during one of them I reflected on whether or not I felt the same about Bozeville. I did.

2. I can’t effectively regulate the temperature in my apartment with the windows. Places I’ve lived before, you can usually crack a window, get that air movin, and pretty soon the atmosphere inside your dwelling will sort of syncronize with the outdoors. Not so up here. I’m not sure if it attributable to the high ceilings, the tallerish buildings that line Main Street (limiting air movement), or if the damn thermostat is just full of crap. But in any case, there was one day earlier this week when the daytime temp did NOT get above 75, and in my apartment, it started out at 73 and topped out at 80.

3. Diced cheese? Just as good as shredded, but more work.

4. Could the reason that the site is better (in terms of content, etc) when I live by myself is directly related to the diminished opportunity to spew these innane ramblings at a roommate? If so, y’all’ll regret it if I ever get a girlfriend.

Take a look at the pictures if you’ve got some time; they are SOOO much easier to browse now!

7/14

Our Assoc. Director of Fin Aid retired earlier this month, and stopped back in this afternoon with a nice gift of a potted ‘peace lilly’ for everyone here. Pretty neat.

Unfortunately, I am horrible with plants and welcome you all to start a pool on how long it will be until I kill it. By mistake, of course.

7/14

I realized earlier this morning that the spring semester ended eight weeks ago last Friday. Today being Wednesday, I have about 7.5 weeks to go in the summer. Time for an assessment of my List of Projects for Summer 2004. (I’ll try not to get into too many unnecessary details.)

PURCHASES. I made a list of six significant purchases that I would, hopefully, get accomplished during the summer. As it stands, I have actually made one of those purchases (batting glove) and received a no-cost solution from Joe on another (USB cable for PDA). One of them (a digital camera) will probably need to be postponed indefinitely, so that leaves three still active and half the summer to go.
% COMPLETED: 33.333
% DISMISSED: 16.6666
% REMAINING: 50

DAY PROJECTS. There is also the segment of the list that has items I feel it should take no more than a day to complete, and some of them, much less than that. But the rub is that they are often inconsequential things that one requires a level of personal motivation to work on. Motivation, when I have weeks and weeks to do something, is one of my greatest personal problems. This list has NOT, however, been growing with each day’s errands or time-sensitive tasks, etc. The “DP” list is identical to what it was when I first wrote the list. Reading three of my MT friends’ theses is in this segment, and I don’t know if that’s ambitious or not. I guess it probably is.
% COMPLETED: 35.714
% DISMISSED: 14.286
% REMAINING: 50

ONGOING PROJECTS. This is the most nebulous category, by its nature. “Ongoing” signifies projects that either display no discernable complete status (i.e., they are lifestyle changes, snippets of advice, etc) or they are actually repeating tasks – things that need to/should be done daily, weekly, what have you. A couple of them (like moving) were long-term projects with multiple steps. With all this in mind, the judgment of “completion” is relatively subjective.
% COMPLETED: 15
% DISMISSED: 15
% IN-PROGRESS: 30
% NOT STARTED: 40
% of “NOT STARTED” THAT I FEEL GUILTY ABOUT: 50

So there you have it. Overall, if you look at the list and say, OK, 38 total items, and 6 of them I’ve taken off the list, that leaves 32, and I’ve completed 10 of those, I’m at 31.25% complete. But I also have 6 more in progress with completion likely before the 1st of August, that’ll be 50% definitely completed by then. And probably more! I’m gonna go home tonight and really get to work on this mofo.

Outside of that, I do have a few other things for you today.

This “I Love the 90’s” series on VH1 is absolutely ridiculous. 1999 was FIVE BLOODY YEARS AGO. We’ve really not waited near long enough for a nostalgia show about the 1990’s. I don’t understand why the hell VH1 feels the need to keep producing them.

That being said, I’ve been riveted the past two nights, even taped all four hours thus far so that my cable-less friends can share in the hilarity. I am VH1’s target demo. I am a disgusting, consuming fool. I am thinking about how I mean to drive up north on Friday and I’ll totally need to tape 98 & 99 that night. Things like this are why my Summer List is 31.25% complete.

Yes, as I said, planning to go up north and help Dad with the windows this weekend, I guess. My ulterior motive is the acquisition of furniture. My new apartment desperately requires furniture. I hope to return on Sunday with a kitchen/dining table and some chairs. I don’t know how many chairs will fit in the Festiva, since the legs of the table don’t come off. I really need a bigger vehicle for furniture transport.

I also need to try to remember to consult with Dad this weekend on the construction of the Giant Shelf Unit (or GSU) that I have now told everyone that’s visited the apartment about, and now I’ve told everyone in cyberspace, so I absolutely must complete it. A couple of problems:
– I have no design skills whatsoever other than to imagine what the GSU will look like when it’s completed, and then I start picturing myself happily putting things on the shelves, or taking things down, and then after that, I start picturing myself easily and joyfully constructing this behemoth in my apartment, despite the fact that no building project I’ve ever undertaken has transpired so smoothly.
– Related to my lack of design skills, I have relatively little contact/knowledge with non-theoretical physics. Consequently, I maybe be imagining a project (a shelving unit made of wood that will measure 10 feet across and 12 feet high) that is physically impossible given Earth’s natural limitations in regard to gravity, inertia, weight ratios, etc.
– From an economic standpoint, I have no idea what lumber costs. Fortunately I have my father as a resource in this department.
These limitations will likely prove to be a significant stumbling block, but one way or another, I will overcome. Either the GSU will be constructed, or I will surrender.

For those of that are resilient, unshakable, and consistent visitors, I commend you. Those that are not, I totally understand. You will both be receiving a new newsletter soon, with the announcement of a video.

At this point, that is all.

7/13

This was actually a fairly productive work day, so that’s good. I don’t feel bad about blogging with the last few minutes.

After calling in sick yesterday in order to get some post-paper sleep, I got out of bed around 3pm and promptly got on the apt-cleanin’ train. I have the whole place pretty clean and clear now, all I need is some furniture.

… And a vehicle with which to transport furniture. Anybody wanna take a ride up north this weekend?

Yeah, so the place is pretty clean, I’m hoping to get some people over to the house to play cards some time this week, although it’s looking bleak. Maybe we should get together online or something. The Poquettes said that I could borrow their card table and chairs until I get something more permanent, table&chair-wise.

More to come later…

7/9
A blog with that title just can’t start well.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when I don’t have coffee in the morning, it’s very easy for myself and for others to tell. I am more or less usefullless and wordify badly.

I got up and poured myself a cup, although I think this pot’s been close to boilerating for about an hour. It doesn’t taste good. I better check to make sure I turned off the burner.

So yesterday was our last class day for the summer. I think that the course went pretty well. I’m still not *totally* sure of what grade to expect, but I feel like I’ll be between A and AB, if that makes sense. Being in between there kind of sucks, because the difference is a whole half grade point. Having minuses and pluses is better, I think. But I still have to finish writing the paper for the class, and that’s due on Monday at around 6. I do have to work all day on Monday, so I’ll definitely need to finish up the day before. I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.

How do you like this blog format? The thing I enjoy is how simple it is to just log in to the site and post. Of course, some of the fun stuff that the blog used to have (like the movie quote, stuff like that) is gone. I bet you didn’t know that some of the older versions of the80srewind.net are in the Internet archive now. http://www.archive.org But one of the cool things is that if you’re registered on top-v.net, you can post responses to the entries now. So there’s that.

Christy’s coming to town for the weekend, and I also suddenly have a baseball engagement both tonight and tomorrow. These things on top of the paper that needs finishing. Probably means that I’ll drink as little as possible and try to read a bit during the “down” times.

That’s about all I’ve got; I’m going to make like I’m doing stuff.

7/7

I’m up watching Conan, and they just did a “celebrity survey” bit, where they have half a sentence fictionally completed by a celebrity.

The second to last one was “My guilty pleasure is…” and for OJ Simpson they completed it with “killing my ex-wife.”

I couldn’t decide what was worse: that they said that on TV, or that everyone in audience laughed their asses off at the cold-blooded murderer that walks free on golf courses across America.