Every weekend, Emma and I go out to breakfast. In fact, we usually go out both Saturday and Sunday, and usually we go to the 43rd Street Deli on 13th Street. This morning we were out and were chatting with the manager, Rick, who casually asked if we had seen his new commercial. “Commercial?” we asked…
Heheheh. Isn’t that great? A little overdone on the “don’t let the name fool you” bit, but really, not too bad, eh?
S: i’ve been looking at some of the youtube spore creatures
S: there are tons of penises
me: hahaha, naturally
S: dancing creatures that are very well endowed
S: and some that are just dancing dongs
me: well, it’s important to cover both of the sides of teh issue
me: you can either have a huge wang, or just be one
S: -nods sagely-
S: i think you have summed up life
me: huh…guess that puts me in the second category
me: gonna have to be less friendly, then
Was chatting with my best friend earlier tonight — his 7th anniversary is today, don’t ask me why he was online — and he reminded me that he has been dating his now-wife for 17 years. Which is also the amount of time that I’ve known him. That’s really amazing to me. While his wedding feels like it just happened yesterday, I’m having a hard time believing that I’ve known him for 17 years now. 17 years! I feel a little like Jeremy Piven’s character in Grosse Pointe Blank, but…17 years!
Otherwise, all is quiet on the homefront. I have a Committee Meeting on Wednesday, where they will all hopefully say, “Yep, sounds good. You should be done by _______,” with the blank being either end of summer or mid-fall sometime. I’m getting nervous, as usual, because I never feel like I have enough data to present, but that’s the way it goes. I spent all afternoon playing with radioactivity and will have data on four Southern probes and two LMPCR probes by Wednesday morning. I’m hoping that the radioactivity will bring me a super power or two, but I’m not optimistic.
Today’s picture is the washcloth I’m making for Emma. I’m making it in the Swedish Block pattern, which is something like a basketweave, but not quite. I’m rather pleased with how it is turning out. It even looks like the picture in the book (a little)!
A funny thing happened on the way to get free ice cream this evening. The Saturn saw fit to die, or at least slip into a coma. Everybody’s okay and I got to have a fun (if embarrassing and frustrating) adventure with the totally awesome and resilient Shermi.
Today was Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry’s and — as any of you who know me can attest — I loves me some ice cream, especially if it’s free. And as Emma is working tonight and Shermi was the one to tell me about the Free Cone Day, I thought it’d be fun to go get some ice cream with her. Yay! Ice cream! Hanging out with Shermi! Doubleplusgood!
At the appointed hour I hopped in the Saturn and headed off to campus to get her and then get some ice cream. As I mentioned yesterday, the Saturn had been overheating but I thought I fixed the problem by topping off the antifreeze. At least, it seemed that way when I drove to and from work earlier. But, um…yeah. It turns out, not so much. By the time I got to the ARB, the car was on the bad side of the temperature gauge. A few minutes later, after being stuck behind an ambulance pulling out of the ER bay (stupid ambulance!) the engine was smoking. Change of plans: take Shermi home and get the car home before it asplodes.
We made it as far as 16th and Archer, maybe a mile down the road. We got stuck at a red light and the temperature was still rising, so I cut the engine off. Clearly there wasn’t any coolant circulating, so my best hope was that I could stop adding additional heat from the running engine until we could get moving again. It seemed like a good plan until I couldn’t restart the car again. Whoops. I tried a couple of more times but it became obvious that the Saturn wasn’t starting on her own.
Fortunately I have AAA (thanks, Mom and Dad!), so I called for a tow, but wasn’t sure what to do about Shermi. I didn’t want her to have to walk home, but I didn’t want to force her to wait with me in a potentially dangerous situation. Happily, she decided to stay and chose to see the whole thing as an adventure. We called our respective significant others and proceeded to have a very funny few minutes where we said essentially the same thing to both of them at the same time, using slightly different wordings. Maybe it wasn’t actually that funny, but it amused me at the time when I was pretty desperate for some amusement.
So at this point we’re stuck in the left-hand lane in front of the light. For those of you who don’t know, this is a Y-shaped intersection (well, more of a lambda, actually) where SW 16th joins Archer Road. Archer Road, which is busy at all hours, and is immediately in front of the stop light, with traffic going the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. Amazingly, even though I had the hazard lights blinking, cars would still pull up behind us and honk and yell when the light changed and we didn’t move. There was one lady so obnoxious that Shermi made me get out and check that the hazard lights were actually flashing (and they were). She was so obnoxious, in fact, that we decided to try and push the car up onto the median to our left after she sped away. I pushed and Shermi both pushed and navigated and we almost got it, when a kind stranger hopped out of his car and helped us finish pushing. Hurray for kind strangers!
Up on the intersection, I felt a little safer. At the very least we were no longer in traffic, which made things far less stressful. We waited and chatted and waited some more, marveling at the fact that we didn’t see anybody that we knew driving by. Gainesville’s not that big of a town, after all, and we were stranded near where we both work. At one point I suggested that we make out to pass the time, but she wasn’t interested (n.b.: I wasn’t actually serious. It just seemed like the most inappropriate thing to say and I needed a laugh.).
Eventually the tow truck driver showed up (it was only about a half hour wait…not bad!) and took us both to our respective homes. Shermi’s apartment was nearby so we dropped her off, then we took the car back to the house where it can sit next to the truck. Tomorrow I’ll start figuring out what to do next. Hopefully the problem isn’t too significant, and we can get it repaired relatively easily. I fear that won’t be the case but I can remain hopeful. At the very least there’s clearly a coolant leak somewhere. I’m hopeful that I got the car turned off before the overheating did too much damage. We’ll see. We’ll see.
On a personal note, I’d like to say thank you to Shermi. You are seriously awesome and I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to know you over the past few years. I’m proud to call you a friend. I’d tell you that I love you, but that might be getting too mushy, so I’ll just say thanks. And I’ll buy you an ice cream cone next time they’re free, but you’re driving.
And my last posts were how short? Uff da!
Life has been pretty good here in Heggestad/Caplan-land. We’re enjoying the company of our newest resident, Tiger the chinchilla, who is un-fucking-believably cute. I put some pictures up on my Flickr page and will get some more up probably later tonight. She’s so so cute I just can’t stand it sometimes. The cats have been remarkably tolerant, too, which has been nice. Although…I am a little worried that they’ve been *too* accepting and am starting to question their observational powers. Maybe they don’t care because their lives are not too significantly disrupted. The only resource that Tiger competes for is our attention, and, well, they’re cats. As long as they have food and comfortable places to sleep, they’re pretty much okay.
I’ve been playing a little less WoW than previously, but I’m still progressing nicely. Waradwen’s up to 51, so woo-hoo! I ran Zul’Farrak this weekend with some guildies and the lovely and talented hunter Linada which was totally a blast. I sort-of screwed up the timing of the run, though, because I missed the season premieres of The Simpsons and Family Guy. Sigh. Family Guy sounds like it was great enough to go look for online. Hmm…anyway. No real progression in my tradeskills recently. I’m at 300 herbalism and 295 alchemy and can’t go higher until I get to Outland, which isn’t for a little while. I know I could buy a port there, or beg my guild friends, but I’m not in a hurry. Then again, it’d be nice to progress in the skills…I’ve been lax in my Monday Morning Screenshots of late because there hasn’t been a whole lot of change. I took a picture yesterday afternoon with my new hat and it’s at the bottom of this post. Do you like my hat?
Work has been okay the past few weeks. Nothing terribly exciting. No significant data or anything. I’ve got a committee meeting a week from Friday and am freaking out to a minor degree given my recent dearth of data. Maybe…maybe it’ll have to get rescheduled for some unknown reason. That’d just be tragic, wouldn’t it? Maybe we can push it back to…like…November? I should have some data by then. Oh, probably not.
Enough rambling for now. More work, less goofing off. Yeah, right. 
A family portrait from our Orlando wife:
I’m working today! Really!
How amazing are these pants, worn by a friend’s avatar? I had a hysterical screenshot where she was dancing on top of a brazier, but managed to not save it ’cause I’m a spaz.
Real entry to follow later today.
Emma and I had a couple friends over last night to play Risk, one of whom had never played before. Guess who lost? Guess who got his ass completely handed to him? If you guessed that I did, you’re right!
I was pretty stupid in my original set-up. I gambled that I could quickly dominate Asia while Emma and Chris fought over the Americas and Deborah was bottled up in Australia. Yeah, not so much. In my first battle, my 10+ Chinese armies lost to Deborah’s 4 in India, and then it was downhill from there. If I had managed to win that battle, the outcome may have been different (but probably not). By losing that battle, I was suddenly too thinly spread out along my other borders to attack and only barely strong enough to defend some of the territories. Within three turns — not more than four — I was gone.
It was a small comfort that Emma was the next person out, because she usually wins when we play. Not much of a comfort, though, because I was already out. Deborah put up a decent battle for a while, but then Chris swarmed over Asia and routed her back to New Guinea, where he magnanimously offered her a truce. “Go live with the native tribes,” he offered. Heh.
Here are Deborah, Emma, and Chris (clockwise from left) just after Chris’ rampage through Asia. He is yellow (and green), she is red.
Then, on his next turn, poor Deborah had little chance.
Even though I got royally creamed, I had a good time. We’ll totally have to do this again in the future, and maybe then I’ll be a little better. Asia is just not something you can win early in the game. Focus on Australia, Africa, and South America first, then work northward. Lesson learned.
It’s the end of March and as good a time as any for a little navel-gazing. I thought I’d take a few minutes and review my resolutions and see how I’m doing and how I might be able to improve over the next three months.
1. Lose 40 pounds.
This is the one I’ve been struggling with the most. Since January I’ve been on a 10-pound yo-yo. Very frustrating. I tend to eat and exercise well on Monday through Wednesday or Thursday, then slack off the rest of the week.
I’m going to try and take up running. Well, jogging for the near future and walking for the immediate future. I figured out a nice two mile walk around the neighborhood earlier this week, but haven’t walked since Wednesday. I’ve been pretty good about riding my bike or walking to work, though, which makes me at least a little proud. I’ve only driven in or gotten a ride about five times this year so far.
2. Spend more time with my family.
If by family, I mean wife, I’m doing pretty well with this one. I’m trying to work hard in the lab when Emma is on a more time-intensive rotation and then spending more time at home when she’s not. Er, not on a time-intensive rotation, not not at home. You understand. I haven’t spent much time with my immediate (or extended) family but…so be it.
3. Make new friends and spend more time with old ones.
Yeah, this one is trying. I’m reasonably good at being social and amiable at work (I think), but I’m a total loner afterwards. Let’s work harder on this one, eh? Maybe I’ll get my happy ass to a Florida Free Culture or Alacloud meeting, given my desire of being that sort of geek. I should go flogging, too…that’s almost like exercise.
4. Drink good beer.
Check. I’ve been enjoying Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat and Sam Adams White Ale this season very much. I’ve been on a wheat beer kick for this last year or so but think these are really nice. I could always go check out the homebrew shop and learn to make my own. That might be social, too, but will probably work contrary to goal #1.
5. FINISH MY GODDAMNED DEGREE.
Getting there. I had a committee member tell me that I’m essentially ready to move on, other than having a coherent story that I can turn into a manuscript, a thesis, and a job talk. I’ve got a decent plan to get that story right now, so we’ll see what I can bang out in the next three months. I suspect I can get a lot of data if I can maintain my focus.
6. Take piano lessons.
Check.
7. Ride 1000 miles on my bike.
So far, I’m at approximately 178 miles for the year, so I’m a little off the thousand-mile pace. I can pick that up this next quarter.
8. Write something every day.
Meh. Not so good. I’m blogging more regularly, which is almost like writing, but I’m not doing the productive, work-related writing that I’d like to have done. Now that I have a good idea of my final project, I should start working on my thesis. I can do the Introduction, Relevance, and Materials and Methods sections now, and work on the rest as I get the data.
9. Get my happy ass organized (GTD).
Nope. Haven’t even read the book yet. I’m trying to write lists of what I need to do at the beginning of each day which helps, but I’m nowhere near organized yet.
10. Learn to use my camera well.
This one has been fun. I’m having a great time taking pictures with my new camera, as you’ve probably noticed. I should try and learn some of the features of the camera and see if I can’t take some more artistic pictures. That’d be nice. There are lots of great birds around the house right now, including a great blue heron in the pond up the hill, so I’ve got some good subject matter.
Okay…that’s enough navel-gazing for now. New petite protopodcast coming soon, I promise. I know you’re all on tenterhooks waiting for the next one. Go Gators!
One last question. What do you think: Haircut? Or no?
Recent Comments