Minor Accomplishments

Yesterday I didn’t leave the house for a very long time; I think I was gone a total of 40 minutes, but I felt good at the end, having gotten a ton of little stuff done.  I got my kitchen and bedroom cleaned up, did a ton of laundry, and I figured out two or three little nagging problems I was having with computers for quite a while.

It’s rare that I feel good enough about what I did during the day that I’m OK with just kicking back and relaxing in the evening, but Saturday was just such a day.  I think tackle another room or two and get some writing done today…

Just a Couple Weeks to Go!

Justin Roth is going to be playing that house concert at Jen & Joe’s in just two weeks.  If you can make it, shoot Jen an email to let her know…  It should be a lot of fun! Here’s another Justin tune from YouTube.

The Latest (Visually Speaking)

Jim Droste gave me a good idea the other day when he started posting some photos from his recent trip to the Dells– rather that upload a whole big mess of pics at the same time, he’s treating us to just a couple a day.  Easy for him, easy for you to not miss something.

So, yeah– stay tuned over the next few days for some updates to the photo galleries…

Added Benefits

In the process of working on some thesis-related paperwork, I had occasion to review a story that I wrote about three years ago for a fiction class.  I enjoyed most of it, and I did feel like I was able to give it a solid, honest critical assessment, having not even looked at it in such a long time.  I was saying to Wordy that I could probably clean up the ending a bit and try to send it out for publication.

Then just this afternoon, I was having a conversation with Ron Rindo, my thesis director, about a very similar thing: what a fabulous idea it is to finish a piece, set it aside, and don’t even think about it for a couple months so you can look at it with a fresh perspective.  That not something that I’ve always taken the time to do in my academic career, but where this thesis is concerned, I think it’s absolutely necessary.  It’s a shift of thinking to go away from a standard, stone-set academic calendar to the notion that this is MY project, that I get to do at MY pace.  Quality has to be most important thing, and I’m going to try to be mindful of that from here on out.

Call Off the Dogs

I believe that I found a new place to live.

I can’t say that with 100% certainty, since I haven’t heard back yet about the application that I filed on Wednesday, but I think it looks pretty good.  All things considered, I will be trading a lot of space and the free & available washer/dryer that I have now for a significantly shorter commute and slightly lower overall per-month living expenses.  I’m glad that I’ll now be able to focus on thesis work and getting packed in the short term.

I was told when I saw the apartment that I would have the opportunity to move in early, paying a pro-rated portion of a month’s rent.  I’ll probably shoot for a week ahead; I took a few days at the end of the month off for that very purpose.  I’ll now be just under 2 miles from work; an easily bike-able distance.  Maybe I’ll even get a chance to shed some of this doughy flab with the balance of my summer, too…

Been very busy at work, which is my excuse for the gap of several days between posts.  In the meantime, what’s happened?  The Brew Crew is on a tear— here’s hoping they can carry that momentum through the road trip.  Even if the Cubs haven’t gotten around to losing just yet, you know they’re not going to win out for the rest of the season.  Brewers just have to keep it up, and put the lengthy losing streaks behind them.  It’s a well-documented point that a season is going to have ups and downs, but Milwaukee has pretty much used up their allotment of “downs” already.

Also very glad to see the Democratic presedential primary season finally coming to a conclusion.  I was glad to deliver the news to Petters last night that Hillary is going to officially leave the race at the end of this week.  In the short term, that means that focus will shift to Obama selecting a VP.  I am NOT at all in favor of the Obama/Clinton ticket for one major reason: I would be concerned that Hillary was trying to run the show from the backseat all too often.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Clintons are really, really, REALLY pushy when it comes to politics, and that’s probably putting it lightly.  Barack needs her to be a valued campaign resource, and he definitely needs her endorsement, but he also needs to make this potential presidency his own.  I’m pretty sure that’s what we (his supporters) got on board for.

OK, back to it.  These phone calls aren’t going to ignore themselves…

Your Feedback Is Welcome

Had a couple unrelated thoughts this afternoon after discussing a point or two with different people– interested to hear from others on either or both:

  1. Why do you think it is that couples tend to hang out with other couples?  You don’t seem to see a couple with a “third wheel” that often, or, just for example, maybe a couple with a pair of un-coupled friends.  I mean, it happens, sure, but why do you think “another couple” would be a couple’s first choice for partners at a social engagement?  What makes that better than one of these other scenarios?
  2. The way that people get information seems to shift more and more toward non-traditional means within cyberspace (pseudo-reporting/opinion pieces through blogs being one example).  I wonder if there’s any verifiable evidence that average Internet users are shying away from traditional news mediums, and, if so, I wonder if and when there will ever be a backlash where someone starts saying, “What the hell does this guy know?  That’s just an opinion…”  Maybe it comes out of time and experience, or maybe there has been a slow and steady shift, but journalism seems to be more subjective than ever.  I’m wondering, when is the backlash due to happen, and is there any way we can speed it up?

Carry on with your weekend.  I have 64 minutes to go.

33 to Go

There are a lot of things that I will not miss at all about living in this apartment.  The astronomical energy costs during the winter are probably number one.  The water that takes at least 2 or 3 minutes to heat up (and sometimes quite a bit more) is another.  There’s also this ridiculous issue of hardware with my cable.

Back in February or March I started to notice a major upload-speed issue, and I had to have a tech come out to install some signal dampening device on the modem.  Then about 2 weeks ago, my connection went down, completely, and I was only able to get back online by removing that device.  Well, today it is virtually impossible to get connected to my house.  I waited around 4 minutes for my website to load, and retrieving email is more or less impossible.

Don’t know why I’m ranting about this, since no one is going to be able to read this entry today anyway.  But yeah, I’m looking forward to living somewhere where they’ve had cable before, and probably have the whole neighborhood network regulated a bit better.

Just 33 days left til moving day…

There Has Been No Excitement

Back to work after a long weekend.  Glad that I’m only in for a half-day today…

I’ve had some inquiries, and just wanted to let any curious parties know right off the bat– nothing particularly exciting happened over the weekend.  Had a pleasant time in the Apostle Islands region and that was it.  Madeline Island is nice.  The weather was pretty good.  It rained a bit on Sunday, but wasn’t too big of a deal.  Kayaking was fun.  I’d like to do it again.

Michelle and I are going to go to the Brewers game on Wednesday; they extended that $10 outfield loge special for an extra day and we managed to get 2 seats together.

Global Warming– Debatable?

I am enjoyed this New Scientist feed, and I have to thank David Q. Schrubbe for sending me its links a number of times and getting me keyed in there…

Anyway, I read a story today about a study to investigate how knowledge about global warming effects a person’s perception of the phenomenon. The finding was that more knowledgeable Democrats were more concerned, and more knowledgeable Republicans were less concerned.

I mention it just because this echoes my experience trying to talk about the subject to a T. What I don’t understand, and what I wish some conservative die-hard could tell me is: if climate change is, as you like to believe, some sort of liberal conspiracy invented by Al Gore (much like the Internet), then… what would be the POINT of that? All these scientists doing all this research, taking all these core samples, compiling all this data– how exactly does this advance some perceived liberal agenda to trash capitalism and take away everyone’s guns?

And I realize that I might’ve mentioned this before, but no one ever came back to me with an answer.

On a completely different side note, this will likely be the last post for me until after Memorial Day. Michelle and I are headed up to Bayfield and Madeline Island for a long weekend. Hope you enjoy yours; weather’s supposed to be phenomenal in Milwaukee…

Confirmation

So, after the average price of gas in the Milwaukee area topped 4 frakking dollars today, I said to myself, “hey, is that new Honda hybrid rumor I heard anywhere close to fruition?”

It is!

Still haven’t found any photos or drawings of this car, so what it’s gonna look like is a bit of a mystery– but they say it’s a “futuristic five-door hatchback,” for what it’s worth.  I’m excited.  I wonder if it’s too early to get on a waiting list?

firing from the hip since 2002