7/22

I’ve not had a good run on the blogging for quite a while now, so I feel compelled to keep it up (I knocked on my desk as well; I think at least *part* of it is wood).

Had an unexpected and unfortunately short visit with Katie Mac and The Schrubbinator yesterday after work. I was turning on to Main Street when they were sauntering around the front of my building. Katie liked the apartment and I let them drink lemonade. I realized once again how desperately I need some furniture, as I had Dave sitting in the desk chair, Katie on the US Army folder, and me on my two-boxes-of-books chair. A couch would be awesome. And yes, I know I could’ve had my old bed/couch from Grandma’s house, but it just didn’t seem to fit in this place. I’ll come up with a viable solution to that problem soon enough.

Just a couple days left until Dev’s bachelor party, which will serve as the ultimate example to date of my social planning mettle. I was trying to think of the last time I coordinated a large group of people and met with success. I guess that first year that Miller Park was open and the Bocks all went to a game together would count. That went pretty well. The only concern that remains with this weekend’s event is lodging. I was only able to get the one room at the hotel, and if there are 7 or 8 people trying to sleep there, it could get dicey. When I reserved the room, I only knew about 5 people staying over, so…

Last night Siebers and I went out for dinner and then saw ‘I, Robot’ for a buck. The 2-for-1 happy hour beers at Friar Tuck’s were nice. Bryan is “just getting into beer,” so I was forced to drink both of mine and one of his. It was a good warm up for the movie. And speaking of the movie, oh… what can I say? It was somewhat entertaining, although not very ‘smart.’ I probably could’ve written this screenplay. And this is not to say that a movie has to be mind-blowingly complex or really intelligent in order to get a good review from me (see my reviews for the likes of American Pie, Old School, Starsky & Hutch), I just felt like this genre and Isaac Asimov’s concepts deserved better treatment than your meat-and-potatoes, lowest-common-denominator action flick. As those movies go, this one was decent. Probably worth a view on the big screen (cuz it is BIG), but you could certainly feel OK about waiting for budget time. God knows I did. I give it 2.5 out of 5.

I got home from the movie around 9:45 and got ready for bed immediately. I read HWOSG until about 25 after 10 and then fell asleep. I woke up first at around 5:35, I think it was, then I snoozed until the alarm went off at 6, snoozed again til 6:30, and finally got up at 6:50. Maybe it’s just a question of will power. I could use some of that. At least I made it to work on time this morning, thanks to a Carlin-style shower and complete not-careitude w/ regard to wardrobe. I needed clothes for the summer this year and I never could afford to really get any. Maybe I should swing through Goodwill later on just to see if there are any gems. You never know.

I haven’t gotten out my list yet today. I don’t know what I should be doing for sure. I don’t recall having written down anything pressing, though. Some of the things on the list are required purchases, etc, and that makes it tough when you’re short on cash but really want to feel like things are getting accomplished. I should probably be reading and writing with all that down time, but it seems like I end up here or someplace else in cyberspace pretty often.

When I first bought my PDA in MT, I remember shopping for some little accessories and whatnot at Staples. I couldn’t fathom why (provided you don’t abuse it, store it in the conveniently located little slot when not in use, and always only use it the way it’s intended) a person should ever need a replacement stylus. Then today, I was playing with it and broke it, so I’ll have to get another one. I don’t think you can buy them just one at a time, though, so there ya go: boned again.

I gave up the dream (for the foreseeable future) of buying a new phone. The phone I was all ramped up about in the spring turns out is only offered by US Cellular, so I’ll have to contend with having The Phone Everyone Has. I’m learning to deal.

Mom’s coming to see my apartment and hopefully drop off a bit of furniture on Friday while she’s en route to Milwaukee. I’m going to head down after that as well, since I have to pick up the van for the party on Saturday pretty early in the morning.

I can see Jim’s homepage just fine with Firefox here at work, but for some reason, on my laptop it’s a no-go. And I have exactly the same version of the browser on both. I should check plugins. I should check to see if I can see it on my desktop. That would be weird, I suppose.

I lament the thought of getting into the car at lunch today. I guess the humidity’s down to under 50%, though, so that’s something. I wonder if I should go to Staples and look at those plastic file drawers again. Filing is one of the principle tasks I could be completing at home tonight. It sure would be nice to get that crap out of the way.

Are you bored yet?

7/21

The big “project” that I’m working on in the office right now is to go over the Student Employment Guidelines with a fine-toothed comb, seeing as they have not been revised in quite a while, and the whole business model is changing for this fall – which I personally think is insane and will be a certifiable disaster, but that’s neither here nor there.

When you have a large proofing/revising project, I find that you need a good solid break every 20 minutes or so. The project simply isn’t enjoyable, interesting, or involved enough to really hunker down for longer than that.

This AM I chatted with Jen for a spell and told her about this new show on Bravo that I watched for a while last night. It was pretty funny. The woman was proven to be the most annoying in this relationship, and I anticipate that trend will continue for the foreseeable future.

I went over my pre-weekend list again, just in case I might’ve forgotten something, but alas: the party is “all systems go” at this point, and I have nothing left to do to prepare. Well maybe I could see if there are any more rooms available at the hotel…

But anyway, my phone got me up at 6 and 6:30 this morning, and then I finally got out of bed @ 6:45, and I made it to work by 7:47. I went to bed, though, at 10:15. I was actually planning on being awake a little longer to read, but I clunked out right away. When then, WHY couldn’t I just wake up after a solid 8? I just did NOT want to get out of bed. I’ve gotta figure something out with that, too.

While I was talking to Jen, I started thinking a little bit about buying a car again. I went on ebay and I found a dude from the UK who lives outside Atlanta and imports old Minis from England/Australia/New Zealand. Oh man, I wanna buy one. I don’t even know if you can get these things financed, like from a bank. I’m sure you could. It’s a car, for chrissakes. Yeah, still need to squeeze a few good months out of ol’ Willy for sure, though.

Later on, I’m gonna go with Siebers to see I, Robot. I gave him some Asimov to read a couple months back, he told me he was close to giving up on it. It *is* slow. As I recall, the payoff is at the end, though, so I hope he makes it through. I was close to going out by myself last night to see ‘Anchorman’ but then I realized I don’t have much in terms of disposable income, so…

I wonder if a 25-30 year old car would be easier (mechanically) to maintain? Like, maybe there would be things even I could figure out.

Best get back to the workin. After all, I’m gonna go to lunch in 20 minutes.

7/20

I am still reeling a little bit in terms of the atmosphere in my apartment.

I took a ride to the Poquettes’ last night for dinner and a bit o’ ‘Pop Culture’ Trivial Pursuit, and when I left my house @ 5:30, the temp was nice, the air was movin, it was cooler than the outdoors, and I said to myself, “Perfect! I think I’ve got this place figured out!”

Well, then I got home later and it was actually HOTTER in there than when I left. So I’ve still got some figuring to do. I ran the A/C again while I slept, and then I turned it off this morning. By the time I left, 50 minutes later, the temp was up 4 degrees. I dunno what the story is.

Sunday night I got home from E.R. and I pulled my car around to the street for unloading a dresser. I figured it would be easier in the front than the back, since my apartment door is closer to the street. Well, then I forgot all about moving the car back behind the building, and in the morning I had me a citation from the City of Oshkosh for being parked out there between the hours of 2 and 5 AM. I’ve never seen a sign for that myself, so on my way home from Fond du Lac on Monday, I looked hard for one.

There was one damn sign on Main Street between 6th and my building, which, if you live in Oshkosh or are familiar, you know means the only sign was literally ON THE BRIDGE, then not one for blocks upon blocks. Does this fact give me the ability to dispute the ticket, you think? Ten bucks. I could kind of use ten bucks.

Reminds me I should pay the 5-dollar ticket I still have laying around for being parked more than 90 minutes in the lot behind the building.

Thinking about all of this this morning got me ranting to myself about parking. Try to follow the logic here…
-OK, so the city wants 30 bucks a month basically just to be able to park in that lot behind the building all day, every day if you want, without fear of citation.
-One can *already* park there without getting cited for 15 of the 24 hours in a day, as well as all 24 of them on Sundays and holidays.
-Additionally, we’re talking about 90-minute parking here, without payment. That means if your car is in the space at 9AM, that’s when the clock starts running, and you’ve got until 10:30 to move it. On the flip side, 90-min parking ends at 6PM, so if you’re there at or after 4:30, your 90 minutes don’t expire until after enforcement ends. Hence, you’ve got an extra three hours, bringing the grand total to 18, and now if you think about it, you really only need to find someplace else for your car to be for 6 hours a day, excluding Sundays and holidays.
-Let’s break this down mathematically:
30 dollars a month, 12 months in a year. That means 360 dollars (about a whole month’s rent) to park the car.
365 days in a year, less 52 Sundays, when parking is essentially free, and we’ll forget about ‘holidays’ for now, since I’m not quite certain which ones they even mean. This leaves 313 days that you pay 360 dollars for, and it’s roughly $1.16 a day.
BUT: as we’ve already seen, the 1.16 is *not* even for a full day, it’s for 6 hours, since the other 18 each and every day are also free.
How much parking do we actually need to pay for? Well, 6 hours a day for 313 days a year means 1878 hours, and that breaks down to 78.25 days. We didn’t consider the holidays in our count of 313, so let’s round this number down to 78. SEVENTY-EIGHT DAYS out of the whole year that you actually need to pay to park the car.
We revise the equation a little, and suddenly that 1.16 per day for 313 days has turned into 4.62 per day for 78 days.
I could buy a very unhealthy lunch for two-and-a-half months for that. I could get a Quarter Pounder w/ cheese value meal @ McDonald’s? for 4.62. That’s 530 calories for the sandwich, another 540 for the fries, and 3 more in my Diet Coke, for a total of 1073 calories. Figure you do that 78 times, that’s 83,694 calories from McDonald’s?. And I’m not even going to talk about the fat! I don’t need that…
Conversely, if I’m home all day (i.e., not in class or at work or out of town) for 150 days a year, that would be a lot. Walking down the stairs, getting in the car, moving it, and walking back up the stairs takes me 3 minutes. Tops. Three minutes of walking leisurely for a person 190 lbs. is going to burn like 13 calories. I have to move the car at 10:30, noon, 1:30, and 4:30, so 4 trips x 3 minutes = 12 minutes x 13 calories, and I’ve burned 156 calories a day just moving the car! Multiply that 156 by 78 quarter pounders, suddenly the difference between moving the car and eating fast food is a whopping 95,862 calories!
BOTTOM LINE: The City of Oshkosh is conspiring to make me fat, and as long as I can get a commuter parking sticker from the University for less than 360 dollars a year, the City can eat me, I’ll move the damn car.

7/19

I was saying to Kevin during the course of one of our three phone conversations this morning, “I’m puttin’ out fires all over the place.” Such has been this Monday.

I got in this morning knowing full well that if a number of issues regarding Devin’s bachelor party (it can be discussed under ‘forums’) weren’t settled within 24-30 hours, the whole damn thing would come crashing down on itself, and my ill-scheduled planning would be exposed for all to see.

That being the case, I felt very good about myself considering that before 2 PM, the hotel, the restaurant, and both brewery tours were reserved and ready to go. Right now, I’m waiting on a call back from the auto rental joint, but I anticipate minimal problems there. I may have had to rush, but it’s just about all in order, and that’ll be one less thing on my mind.

Things that were burning at work today: really nothing. I guess that’s all I have on that topic.

I posed a question at Jeffry Willis’s board earlier today, feel free to weigh in on this one if you like: what’s with humanity not having evolved to where everyone’s got six senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, and telekinesis? Is telekinesis *really* asking that much? I don’t even really need it for big/dumb stuff, like lifting cars or flying or something (although the flying would be nice), just little things: that pen is out of reach? There, I’ve got it. I lost the remote? No big deal, I’ll push the buttons with my mind. I need to stir constantly while I’m also chopping on the other side of the kitchen? Taken care of. That’s all I’m asking for. What do you have to do to hook that up, y’know?

It’s been an hour and forty-five minutes since I sent a reservation request to Mayfair Rent-a-Car? in Waukesha. They are getting a call at 3 PM on the nose.

The weekend was fine and dandy; I went up north and helped Dad put in new windows in all the bedrooms. They look nice; that big one in the front is gonna be pretty neat, too. I figure that if those all get done and the Dad manages to finish the deck in the back of the house by the end of summer, you have to call it a successful one. Mom hooked me up with a dresser, too, and next weekend I guess I get a table and some chairs.

It sounds like something just hit the floor pretty hard in another part of the office.

Mayfair has eight minutes left.

If I’ve got anything else during the evening hours, you’ll be the first to know…

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.