You'd think it would be easy, ha you'd think. Well actually in a way it was, but it was amazing not the French bureaucratic system that won the day but their road system and their love to never label anything other than what town you'll get to if you keep following it (even in the middle of a frickin city) Lesson learned, google maps with loads of road names and number mean essentially nothing when your navigating France.
Right so why did I even need to bother with this. Well somehow even after a year of more or less total neglect and CERN site surveillance dragging it across a few parking lots, my BMW actually still runs and not very bad all things considered. The rear rubber edge around the chrome bumper got pulled out but after looking at it, it's not a hard thing to adjust and one of my front tires apparently had a slow leak leading it to flatness, and the battery was at some point (ahem) left connected and totally drained. Thankfully because it was pretty new, it revived itself within a day after snuggling up with a 5 amp charger. Seriously I was expecting much worse, but after driving it around for awhile it basically behaves just like it did a year ago. A true testament to german engineering, as in it still runs even after being left out in an open parking lot for a year.
For now reasons which I can't fully justify either, I've also decided to drop even more cash into it. See I can tell you right now this can only horribly backfire on me and it's more or less the equivalent to just lighting money on fire.... but I'm getting to live out in a way something I've wanted to really do since I was pretty young, being rebuilding an old car. So with this idea firmly jammed into my brain after many years plus the fact that CERN has a pretty bitchin auto repair club, I can assuredly say that I'm not thinking clearly when it comes to what I should do with the car. Alright long story short, the parts are on the way so I can rebuild the rear brakes, part of the front suspension, and more firmly affix the exhaust system to the underbody. I also have delusions of replacing all the hoses in the engine compartment and rebuilding the shifter though I still haven't exactly figured out what that will end up costing.
But this is all just rambling about stuff that in reality is only interesting to me. So the real fun today came when I decided that I should probably get you know some car insurance for this thing, might you know make it kinda well legal. I thought about this a lot the past few days while I've been driving it around un-insured.
Lesson learned from last year, never get car insurance from your bank especially if that Bank if Credit Agricole. Fuck I was paying like 200 a month for that shit, well partially because they did accept any of my american issuance records that show my clean driving record and the fact that they probably sold me a bunch of mongoose coverage to go along with the glass and fire damage and such. Let me tell you I was just kinda pissed when I found out that this isn't what other people were paying, and of course this only became realized right at the end when I started working for IU. Anyhew MAIF is the way to go, they like CERN people and give us reduced rates. Shit I'm paying like 300 now for the whole fucking year. That's it and from the looks of it, I think it has just about the same coverage as I was getting before.
This was all great but the thing was getting to the damn insurance place literally took the whole f-in day. Their office is in Annemasse which is like right next to Geneva which is right next to CERN, but the road to Geneva is totally whacked out from all this new tram line construction, downtown Geneva traffic was just as I remembered it, and well what really got me was at the very end trying to find the place when I got into the town. I had my handy printed out google maps, but with no avail. Usually I'm pretty good at this kinda stuff but today was just a kick in the teeth. I literally spent over 2 hours driving more or less in circles in crazy French traffic in an un insured car mind you trying to find the insurance building. I will say that did get the frustration and anger levels pretty damned elevated. Heh but in the end it worked out, I ended up getting to the place at like 5:15 and thank god they felt like dealing with me because they closed at 5:30. Alas the out of control hot, French, and did I mention that she was like unreal hot, it's like I didn't know figures like that existed in reality, insurance girl was leaving so I spent the next hours going over the paperwork with well not her. Well, the guy I ended up talking to was very friendly and didn't mind my horribly broken French so the actual getting of insurance went without a hitch.
Yay I got to drive back home legally in the end and for cheap! I guess this lets me afford all the "repair" work I'm planning on attempting. I celebrated with a healthy amount of beer at the CERN restaurant before picking up my things and going home.
Ah other double plus good things recently, AT&T unlocked my phone with very little hassle and because IU rocks the new office space we got is like 3x bigger than any of the other new offices being opened up to people. Right now we've got like well 3 people myself included in there and well right next door Yale had to cram in like 8 grad students into what more or less looks like a closet. I also think, but am not totally sure that our office is also bigger than U Penn. But who cares, in the end I've got a window desk seat in a pretty convenient location.
Oh ok now this was great, as I was driving back to CERN I hit the standard Geneva end of the workday traffic and everything was backed up to hell. So in this mess along the way I end up getting in front of a pretty hot woman who was pretty much spending all of her time checking her makeup in the rear view mirror, leading to hear ramming into my rear bumper when traffic stopped. Actually it really didn't damage my car at all and it ended up breaking off her front license plate, but I just kinda had to bite my lip and appreciate the irony that Europe had dealt me. I returned a friendly it's no big deal wave and surprisingly not the middle finger as she apologetically waved and proceeded to speed away on the nearest side road. You gotta pick and chose your battles here, you really have to, and even thought it took the whole day I got my insurance which was enough for me.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
I've kinda gone off the radar
Well lets see there was end parties in Bloomington, adventures in Washington D.C, a stay at home in the Bing, some time out in Boston town and well now I'm back at CERN. Pretty much that's what's happened this past month where I've been really lazy and not written a damned thing on here. Not good, not good at all but I'm working to remedy this so I figured writing something would be better than continuing to write nothing. I should fill in the details more, and I will but not tonight because it's late as hell and I've got work tomorrow.
Things that totally rock though
1) End of M7 BBQ = lots of free edibles and drinkables + many purloined supplies for this weeks TRT BBQ
2) My BMW still running (and not that bad all things considered) after total neglect for a year
3) Super protein bean and rice lunch diet that I've gotten back on
CERN site surveillance has also now surpassed St. Genis kebab guy as my supreme European nemesis. Trying to have my car impounded and crushed is just a touch more infuriating than not being allowed to have fries with my kebab.
The weather has totally sucked. Since I got back to this part of the world it's pretty much been steady rain, well ok there was one sunny day, but yet I still haven't been able to see Mount Blanc or well any of the alps infact. There are a lot of clouds.
Things that totally rock though
1) End of M7 BBQ = lots of free edibles and drinkables + many purloined supplies for this weeks TRT BBQ
2) My BMW still running (and not that bad all things considered) after total neglect for a year
3) Super protein bean and rice lunch diet that I've gotten back on
CERN site surveillance has also now surpassed St. Genis kebab guy as my supreme European nemesis. Trying to have my car impounded and crushed is just a touch more infuriating than not being allowed to have fries with my kebab.
The weather has totally sucked. Since I got back to this part of the world it's pretty much been steady rain, well ok there was one sunny day, but yet I still haven't been able to see Mount Blanc or well any of the alps infact. There are a lot of clouds.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
I've been doing so little it's absolutely amazing
No classes, no worries, no nothing.... yeah maybe been doing a bit to much of that nothing category. Actually well lets see, Saturday was mostly spent wallowing in hangover and aimlessly cleaning the place up. That went alright I guess. Yeah that was about it for Saturday. Sunday I pretty much also stayed in the house watching anime. So fantastic, slothed out with no hw due the next day all I had to do was eat food to stay alive, that was it, the only thing I really had to do. Mostly pizza, even lazier I know, screw making food I just have to call the magic number and it comes right to my door! It's a pretty pathetic state I know, but I loved it. Was able to get through all of Code Geass which is an alright show. Its well drawn and there were some good plot twists so I would say I was quite entertained. Even got a hold of all the second season episodes that people have gotten around to subing.
Ok I didn't spend the entire weekend watching anime. I did go to the driving range on Sunday. Yeah that went pretty bad, nothing felt quite right so I pretty much just blew 6 bucks on a whole bucket of balls and looked silly. Monday I was thinking about going into work but well hmmmm, just kinda dicked around the house getting stuff picked up and "organized" in terms of what stuff I want to leave / take with me for the summer. I also decided to revisit the driving rage, that went better than sunday. I got into my typical grove of hitting great with my irons then doing abysmal with the woods and any alternations between the two that you want to make. Hmmmm oh yeah and I watched the Red Sox, gotta throw that in there. Today didn't see anything else very exciting. Went into work for a little bit then pretty much repeated the laziness of the weekend.
Tomorrow though I've got a bit to do, well really later today. Wanna hit up the driving range again (not exactly sure why I'm so compelled to do that recently), would be nice to drop by the art museum, gotta raid my office for stuff to take with me, hmmm need to organize this second BBQ and well I think that's about it. Oh yeah and pack up stuff for the summer. Heh, minor detail and in all reality probably one that will be left for Thursday morning.
Ahhhh how great it is to be done with classes. At some point though I need to motivate and start studying for the quals, but that point is not right now.
Ok I didn't spend the entire weekend watching anime. I did go to the driving range on Sunday. Yeah that went pretty bad, nothing felt quite right so I pretty much just blew 6 bucks on a whole bucket of balls and looked silly. Monday I was thinking about going into work but well hmmmm, just kinda dicked around the house getting stuff picked up and "organized" in terms of what stuff I want to leave / take with me for the summer. I also decided to revisit the driving rage, that went better than sunday. I got into my typical grove of hitting great with my irons then doing abysmal with the woods and any alternations between the two that you want to make. Hmmmm oh yeah and I watched the Red Sox, gotta throw that in there. Today didn't see anything else very exciting. Went into work for a little bit then pretty much repeated the laziness of the weekend.
Tomorrow though I've got a bit to do, well really later today. Wanna hit up the driving range again (not exactly sure why I'm so compelled to do that recently), would be nice to drop by the art museum, gotta raid my office for stuff to take with me, hmmm need to organize this second BBQ and well I think that's about it. Oh yeah and pack up stuff for the summer. Heh, minor detail and in all reality probably one that will be left for Thursday morning.
Ahhhh how great it is to be done with classes. At some point though I need to motivate and start studying for the quals, but that point is not right now.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
The first year
It's over, kinda hard to believe and to be honest I'm sure I really even do at this point. Sinking in slowly, but yeah definitely there's been the realization since 12:15pm (right after I turned in the Stat Mech final) that damn the first year of grad school is over. It's a pretty damn good feeling and in an odd way even though it's been a frickin long and sleep deprived year, I look back and it still seems like I just got into Bloomington. Eh, but I get that feeling all the time. Looking back it always seems like everything just happened yesterday in an odd way even when that's not the case at all. I'm not sure if that's true for other people or not, well yeah it probably is. Right, where was I going with this?
It's been an interesting year to say the least. Bloomington has been a lot of what I expected (things stemming from that first and very brief visit here) and also a lot of stuff I didn't expect. This town isn't to bad, for being not that large and in the mid-west. That doesn't sound very positive now does it, but then again I still compare everything now to living in Boston and that's just such a damned hard thing to beat that heck if something isn't to bad compared to being in Boston in all reality is actually pretty damn nice. Do I like the change of venue though, yeah in a lot of ways I do because it's good to live in different places but I still can't let go of the fact that I used to live right next to Fenway park, ride around on the T all the time, blow money away on great food in the north end (and at IQ), and I donno just be in a large city. I'm coming to terms that even 2 years after the fact, I'm still suffering from Boston withdrawal. Ah there's no hope now is there.
But I do like being in Bloomington. Shit I can live in a house here, like a real house with a yard and next year a basement! The campus is well actually a campus (and unless you've gone to BU you don't know where I'm coming from with this) but holy crap having a campus is cool. Our quad is a frickin forest, which has actually just started to turn that vibrant green that leaves tend to have when they first come out, so it's quite pretty at the moment. There are animals I see besides pigeons/cockroaches/and rats.... basically just change them to deer/rabbits/and I saw turtle once right next to our department and that owl sitting on my bike that one night.... so yeah I'll have to say Bloomington wins out on that front by a long shot. There's also a pretty damn descent amount of stuff to do around here too, especially for it's size. Bloomington reminds me a lot of being in Ithaca (both have excellent bagel shops among other things) ah but it lacks the lake. Well there are a few lakes nearby which are nice but not anything like Cayuga, but that's getting off topic. I guess I don't have that many specifics about Bloomington in mind, but I'm impressed with the overall feel of the town. I still think it's cool that they have both a national public radio station based here and a community run radio station. WFHB does rock indeed.
The department has been alright too. Still getting a feel for the research group, well ok no I definitely have a feel for them (that sounds dirty doens't it) but well they just operate so differently from what I'm used to that well I'm still adjusting. It's a very different mentality than the way the Super-K group was. They both have parts I like and dislike (won't get into that here) but that's good, that's why one should move around to different universities and work with different people. It's also why it's always a good idea to go listen to talks, because especially with those that after going to way to many for my own good I just have a much better feeling for what I want to do when I actually get the chance, and yeah who knows maybe someday I'll get to do the same with a research group.
I've been pretty satisfied with the classes, for awhile I wasn't to sure about them (in terms of them being as rigorous as other schools and such) but in the end I'd say I learned quite a bit. Mechanics was great, I've actually stopped hating that subject which believe me I never though I'd be saying. Didn't use Goldstien but I thought Fetter & Walecka was alright, I actually really like the way they treated normal modes, and it was a dover book so wonderfully cheap! E&M was of course Jackson, and not only Jackson but problem's of Schaich's own invention which would always leave me wishing we just had more Jackson problems. That class definitely had no lacking in rigor, shit more often than not we'd go into way more detail than Jackson about why things were the way they were, but then again that's what you get when you have a theorist who studies plasma resonances of materials. Quantum was good too. For awhile we didn't seem to be doing much at all, but we got through Sakurai cover to cover (actually we almost got through Jackson cover to cover, only cut out chapters 16 and 8) and we did Spherical tensors, which from what I've heard a lot of other people don't do but damned do they make problems easy. Stat-Mech would be the black sheep in this crowd though, alas it's just not to be that I'll ever get a good stat-mech course. Holy damn was that course useless, I think in the end I unlearned material. Ah, I won't get into that though.
In the end, I got through it, hell I even think I learned a thing or two. I was able to do it pretty much on my own, partially due to having a separate office from everyone else and partially by my own desire. I mean I could guarantee that if I worked with others I would of A) spent less time on hw and B) probably gotten a bit higher of a grade, but I had to prove to myself that I could do it. There was bit of doubt floating around in my mind you know after fucking up the GRE and getting as many rejections from graduate schools that I did, and the following doubt I ended up getting from some people in Boston. It was without question more stress on myself this year, but actually getting through it well is worth it. It lifts any doubt I had and yeah that was something that I couldn't have kicking around up there in my head. That actually more than just finishing the first year is what really feels good. There's still the quals, are those are no laughing matter, but the mindset is there now where I can sit down and study my ass off and that's important.
One causality, well aside from many including what little social life I like to think I've had in the past, I think was my hair. Oh the hairline is definitely further back than when the year started, not so thrilled about that. Eh, I guess there's still some coming to terms with the fact that hair loss is slowly but seemingly inevitably becoming a reality. It's been going on for awhile, but yeah it's on my dads side of the family that's for sure so really I just see it as holding out for as long as possible before I just go out and buzz it down to nothing. My line is when (hey lets be optimistic, if) there's any sign of patchiness, especially on top. It's mostly just been loosing ground in the front, which I've coped with but yeah I like my hair but I won't kid myself at all if it really goes south. Buzzing it down to the point where you really don't have it is far better than holding onto it and it looking like shit. Ah, I don't like this at all, but then again what can I really do.... besides cut down stress because that's never really going away.
Today I finally got the rest of my camera (pre actually receiving my tax refund + super stimulus checks but heck I want to buy it now while I'm out of sate) stuff. I like the 24mm lens, it's in great condition for being used and significantly cheaper than if I bought it brand new. I've got the filters now to do UV photography so I should try and play around with that in the next few days, and ah probably one of the coolest things ever is the Holga camera that I bought. Wow, it's so low tech that is just amazing. I can see why people love this piece of black plastic. I particularly like the fact that it uses 120 film (being of much higher quality than 35mm) it kinda is self contradictory because you use 120 film because it's so large and can produce amazing images but then use it in the most crude and utilitarian of cameras. This thing doesn't even has a glass lesn and at least from what I've read is guaranteed to have a light leak or two or three. It's taking a really lo-fi photo really well in outstanding resolution, that's what makes it great. I think tomorrow which really is latter today, I'm going to play around with it a bit. For as convenient and powerful as digital is, I still love film. Mostly in all the hand labor you have to put into making the photo, which unfortunately I don't have the resources to do anymore. That's actually what got me into photography the most in the first place, all the fun you get to do in taking a undeveloped negative to a finished photo. The various chemical concoctions you apply, hanging around in a room with a dim red light, playing around with the enlarger exposure, making fixes by dodging/burning parts of the image, it's just great. I spent way to much time in high-school doing that and I wish I still could.
But that was just supposed to be an aside from the real event this evening. The hey we're finally done with our first year BBQ. I tired to organize this thing early and for awhile it looked like quite a crowd would show up, but the weather was very much on the fritz so I think that scared people away. It actually turned out to be quite a lovely evening, a few spurts of some sprinkling but we dodged almost all the the major stuff that's been passing through the area. A lot of physics people actually showed up which was great because I don't think we've ever gotten this many people from our year all out at the same time, so that was great. Of course the food purchasing and beer procurement was overestimated, and now my kitchen is under siege by piles of buns, a watermelon, at least one 30 pack of beer, god only knows how much ground beef, and stuff I'm sure I'll remember when I wake up. Actually, there'll need to be another party to finish off the beer bought for this one, but that's ok. I burned my stat-mech book, oh that was great. Really it's like the only book I think I've ever come across that I've felt the need to destroy. Everyone else agreed, and you know I was perfectly alright for accepting the fact that I wasted 50 bucks on a worthless book and I could make peace with it as long as it warmed me for a brief moment with its burning glow..... so lovely, so very lovely. A pretty descent night all around though I would say my opinions towards a few people have shifted in various directions and after thinking about it for awhile, yeah I'm pretty certain I'm standing by my new thoughts. That sounds weird doesn't it, but whatever it's true.
However I must say I've been dicking around writing this for far to long and I must get to sleep before the sun rises up anymore than it already has.
It's been an interesting year to say the least. Bloomington has been a lot of what I expected (things stemming from that first and very brief visit here) and also a lot of stuff I didn't expect. This town isn't to bad, for being not that large and in the mid-west. That doesn't sound very positive now does it, but then again I still compare everything now to living in Boston and that's just such a damned hard thing to beat that heck if something isn't to bad compared to being in Boston in all reality is actually pretty damn nice. Do I like the change of venue though, yeah in a lot of ways I do because it's good to live in different places but I still can't let go of the fact that I used to live right next to Fenway park, ride around on the T all the time, blow money away on great food in the north end (and at IQ), and I donno just be in a large city. I'm coming to terms that even 2 years after the fact, I'm still suffering from Boston withdrawal. Ah there's no hope now is there.
But I do like being in Bloomington. Shit I can live in a house here, like a real house with a yard and next year a basement! The campus is well actually a campus (and unless you've gone to BU you don't know where I'm coming from with this) but holy crap having a campus is cool. Our quad is a frickin forest, which has actually just started to turn that vibrant green that leaves tend to have when they first come out, so it's quite pretty at the moment. There are animals I see besides pigeons/cockroaches/and rats.... basically just change them to deer/rabbits/and I saw turtle once right next to our department and that owl sitting on my bike that one night.... so yeah I'll have to say Bloomington wins out on that front by a long shot. There's also a pretty damn descent amount of stuff to do around here too, especially for it's size. Bloomington reminds me a lot of being in Ithaca (both have excellent bagel shops among other things) ah but it lacks the lake. Well there are a few lakes nearby which are nice but not anything like Cayuga, but that's getting off topic. I guess I don't have that many specifics about Bloomington in mind, but I'm impressed with the overall feel of the town. I still think it's cool that they have both a national public radio station based here and a community run radio station. WFHB does rock indeed.
The department has been alright too. Still getting a feel for the research group, well ok no I definitely have a feel for them (that sounds dirty doens't it) but well they just operate so differently from what I'm used to that well I'm still adjusting. It's a very different mentality than the way the Super-K group was. They both have parts I like and dislike (won't get into that here) but that's good, that's why one should move around to different universities and work with different people. It's also why it's always a good idea to go listen to talks, because especially with those that after going to way to many for my own good I just have a much better feeling for what I want to do when I actually get the chance, and yeah who knows maybe someday I'll get to do the same with a research group.
I've been pretty satisfied with the classes, for awhile I wasn't to sure about them (in terms of them being as rigorous as other schools and such) but in the end I'd say I learned quite a bit. Mechanics was great, I've actually stopped hating that subject which believe me I never though I'd be saying. Didn't use Goldstien but I thought Fetter & Walecka was alright, I actually really like the way they treated normal modes, and it was a dover book so wonderfully cheap! E&M was of course Jackson, and not only Jackson but problem's of Schaich's own invention which would always leave me wishing we just had more Jackson problems. That class definitely had no lacking in rigor, shit more often than not we'd go into way more detail than Jackson about why things were the way they were, but then again that's what you get when you have a theorist who studies plasma resonances of materials. Quantum was good too. For awhile we didn't seem to be doing much at all, but we got through Sakurai cover to cover (actually we almost got through Jackson cover to cover, only cut out chapters 16 and 8) and we did Spherical tensors, which from what I've heard a lot of other people don't do but damned do they make problems easy. Stat-Mech would be the black sheep in this crowd though, alas it's just not to be that I'll ever get a good stat-mech course. Holy damn was that course useless, I think in the end I unlearned material. Ah, I won't get into that though.
In the end, I got through it, hell I even think I learned a thing or two. I was able to do it pretty much on my own, partially due to having a separate office from everyone else and partially by my own desire. I mean I could guarantee that if I worked with others I would of A) spent less time on hw and B) probably gotten a bit higher of a grade, but I had to prove to myself that I could do it. There was bit of doubt floating around in my mind you know after fucking up the GRE and getting as many rejections from graduate schools that I did, and the following doubt I ended up getting from some people in Boston. It was without question more stress on myself this year, but actually getting through it well is worth it. It lifts any doubt I had and yeah that was something that I couldn't have kicking around up there in my head. That actually more than just finishing the first year is what really feels good. There's still the quals, are those are no laughing matter, but the mindset is there now where I can sit down and study my ass off and that's important.
One causality, well aside from many including what little social life I like to think I've had in the past, I think was my hair. Oh the hairline is definitely further back than when the year started, not so thrilled about that. Eh, I guess there's still some coming to terms with the fact that hair loss is slowly but seemingly inevitably becoming a reality. It's been going on for awhile, but yeah it's on my dads side of the family that's for sure so really I just see it as holding out for as long as possible before I just go out and buzz it down to nothing. My line is when (hey lets be optimistic, if) there's any sign of patchiness, especially on top. It's mostly just been loosing ground in the front, which I've coped with but yeah I like my hair but I won't kid myself at all if it really goes south. Buzzing it down to the point where you really don't have it is far better than holding onto it and it looking like shit. Ah, I don't like this at all, but then again what can I really do.... besides cut down stress because that's never really going away.
Today I finally got the rest of my camera (pre actually receiving my tax refund + super stimulus checks but heck I want to buy it now while I'm out of sate) stuff. I like the 24mm lens, it's in great condition for being used and significantly cheaper than if I bought it brand new. I've got the filters now to do UV photography so I should try and play around with that in the next few days, and ah probably one of the coolest things ever is the Holga camera that I bought. Wow, it's so low tech that is just amazing. I can see why people love this piece of black plastic. I particularly like the fact that it uses 120 film (being of much higher quality than 35mm) it kinda is self contradictory because you use 120 film because it's so large and can produce amazing images but then use it in the most crude and utilitarian of cameras. This thing doesn't even has a glass lesn and at least from what I've read is guaranteed to have a light leak or two or three. It's taking a really lo-fi photo really well in outstanding resolution, that's what makes it great. I think tomorrow which really is latter today, I'm going to play around with it a bit. For as convenient and powerful as digital is, I still love film. Mostly in all the hand labor you have to put into making the photo, which unfortunately I don't have the resources to do anymore. That's actually what got me into photography the most in the first place, all the fun you get to do in taking a undeveloped negative to a finished photo. The various chemical concoctions you apply, hanging around in a room with a dim red light, playing around with the enlarger exposure, making fixes by dodging/burning parts of the image, it's just great. I spent way to much time in high-school doing that and I wish I still could.
But that was just supposed to be an aside from the real event this evening. The hey we're finally done with our first year BBQ. I tired to organize this thing early and for awhile it looked like quite a crowd would show up, but the weather was very much on the fritz so I think that scared people away. It actually turned out to be quite a lovely evening, a few spurts of some sprinkling but we dodged almost all the the major stuff that's been passing through the area. A lot of physics people actually showed up which was great because I don't think we've ever gotten this many people from our year all out at the same time, so that was great. Of course the food purchasing and beer procurement was overestimated, and now my kitchen is under siege by piles of buns, a watermelon, at least one 30 pack of beer, god only knows how much ground beef, and stuff I'm sure I'll remember when I wake up. Actually, there'll need to be another party to finish off the beer bought for this one, but that's ok. I burned my stat-mech book, oh that was great. Really it's like the only book I think I've ever come across that I've felt the need to destroy. Everyone else agreed, and you know I was perfectly alright for accepting the fact that I wasted 50 bucks on a worthless book and I could make peace with it as long as it warmed me for a brief moment with its burning glow..... so lovely, so very lovely. A pretty descent night all around though I would say my opinions towards a few people have shifted in various directions and after thinking about it for awhile, yeah I'm pretty certain I'm standing by my new thoughts. That sounds weird doesn't it, but whatever it's true.
However I must say I've been dicking around writing this for far to long and I must get to sleep before the sun rises up anymore than it already has.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Down in the trenches of finals
One down and ugh, two more to go. Today was Quantum, and that went well eh alright enough. The test was entirely on scattering which I found a bit strange because we've only done scattering in the last few weeks of lecture and we never had really any homework on it. However, well I guess we did know ahead of time that this is what the test would cover exclusively so the two balance out in a way. Downside, this past month I haven't exactly been making it to class on a frequent basis (50/50 me just being a lazy piece of crap and the other half actually very annoyingly bouts of mono resurgence, it's very odd because for the most part I feel totally fine but every couple weeks I'll still have a day or two where I wake up and have that same feeling like I just got smashed in the head with a bag of bricks.... so I guess it's still in me oh joy) Right so in any case I haven't really been there for well enough scattering lectures to make studying for this test a total bitch. It also didn't help much that this past weekend I found myself highly demotivated to do much of anything.
Ah once again I've lead myself to a one day (yesterday actually) study marathon, and actually managed to cram more than enough scattering equations into my head to write passable answers on the exam. Well it actually went better than I though it would, for the most part I wasn't bull shitting any of my math but well we'll see. Guaranteed not on the high end of the grade spectrum but I rocked the two midterms so as a whole I'm not worried.
Right right, E&M though on Thrusday.... yeah now that's a different beast entirely and not for the better. I really should of started studying for that today, I just couldn't mange to pull it together though. Also, having a Red Sox game on didn't help. I could tell when I clicked buy that MLBtv would be the ruin of me. Ah but it's all good, Lester pitched a fantastic 8 innings and Papelbon came in to shut down the 9th where things were still scoreless and with 2 outs Ortiz and Manny both get singles and set it up for Youk to drive one into shallow center and with a bit of fielder bobbling Papi managed to cross home. Not exactly how you'd picture Papi getting the winning run but hey it's a game ender none the less.
You know it's totally amazing how something so little and for the most part inconsequential can bring up such strong memories that are all in the past... and not good ones either, no no much on the other end of the emotional spectrum. That happened the other day and I just had to catch myself and kinda take a step aside and look in awe at how amazingly powerful, pervasive, and just down right sneaky hard rooted emotions can be. Such is life though, an aspect inescapable but still I think I'm allowed to stand back gawk sometimes at how utterly over the top it can be. Thankfully, fleeting would be the proper way to describe it in the and that I'm most happy about.
I'm finding more anime that looks good to watch, this is bad because I shouldn't spend so much time watching anime series. That and I already have too many series queued up already that need watching. Damn you Japan, damn you.
I've discovered this new, well at least I didn't know about it at all but it's probably not that new in reality, blogging type of thingy called twitter. Actually it sounds kinda neat, you can only give it short updates, 150 characters max and the idea is you randomly throw things up there about what your doing throughout the day and in theory your friends do the same thing providing another endless source of wasted time internet time poking through mundane details about what everyone you know is up to. You have to be pretty committed to updating it though, which I could easily see myself not doing, but in theory I like the idea because I would totally waste my time on that seeing what things people are doing. It would be the new facebook, the embodiment of my daily procrastination. Eh, actually I more like the idea how easy it is to update (you can text messages from your phone that will show up on your page) and well that was enough to get this one guy out of jail when he was arrested in Egypt because he was able to throw up a message on twitter that his friends could see which eventually lead to the American Embassy sparing him from the Egyptian justice system. It was something really silly, like he was doing some photojournalism at a demonstration and he got hauled in by the police when they saw him. I guess I could easily envision something like that happening to me when I'm back in Europe and venturing about, I totally would break out a camera if I could at something like that, so the idea is appealing.
You know it's funny how a totally stupid misspelling years ago has propagated itself to this very day. Back when I was much younger and first got the internet and came up with the oh so amazingly misspelled screen name Rumbelbass (I was shooting for Rumblebass, which was the name of an all tube totally bad ass Fender bass amp, pretty retarded for a screen name but back then I thought something like that was the total shit enough so to use it as an identifier) but I stuck with the name because by the time I realized my spelling biff I already went through the process of switching screen names and getting the new one out to people and such, so for reasons out of sheer laziness I stuck with it. Fast forward to today and it's still there, and propagated through the internet as a username for all sorts of other things. I find it funny, because there's no way at this point that I'd ever change it, but still the letter switch remains hmmmmm probably close to 9 years.
My quest to find shooting ranges around here, especially a trap or hell any type of clay range would be frickin sweet but alas my search has still proved to be fruitless. I say boo to that, actually I'd probably have better luck finding rifle ranges or heck indoor pistol ranges (they almost always have groups that shoot .22 sporter rifle competitions) That would also be pretty fun, I'm not sure why I've been recently so obsessed about getting back into trap shooting. In actuality for the amount I used to shoot, clay shooting was only a small fraction. I pretty much only did sporter rifle, well that and prone/three position shooting for the Empire Games. Actually that would be pretty fun to get back into, but the cost of buying a good 22 target rifle and the other equipment (shit you need the body constricting canvas jacket, shooting glove, sling, spotting scope, mat at the minimum.... the constricting canvas pants and true flat shoes aren't really necessary but do help significantly) on top of a rifle that costs $1300+ In short it's amazing expensive in the end. At times I'm really annoyed that I happen to shoot left handed, because god if a company even makes a dedicated left handed gun it's always in the higher end of the spectrum. Eh I guess that's why I'm thinking a nice over/under for clay shooting, there aren't really any extras you need to on top of the gun and of course shells to go out and do it.
Today I stopped by The Pour House again and again the coffee shop girl is nowhere to be seen. You know I'm getting really sick of this, this is actually the 3rd girl who fits this pattern. There was also art museum girl (holy crap was here accent hot too) and liquor store girl. In all cases I go to said place and seriously it's was in each case like only two times spaced a good bit of time apart and apparently I'm memorable enough where I'm recognized the second time and they get pretty chatty and actually called me a regular at the respective places. So it's after these encounters that alright it clicks that hey there's really no good reason why they should remember me and I'm not a regular, gonna venture a guess that there's could be some interest lurking around and it's probably worthwhile to ask them out, plus they were all pretty damn hot so it's really a no-brainer. Then it's right after that point, they disappear never to be seen again. Seriously, I've gone back at the same time on the same day the following week, tired different times on different days, and no they've vanished. Suffice it to say, John is very very very (continue this chain of very for as long as you like) annoyed.
This link is amazing, I totally want of these things to follow me around and well I donno just float and look cool.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/28/festo-airjelly-flies-through-the-air-with-the-greatest-of-ease/
Ah once again I've lead myself to a one day (yesterday actually) study marathon, and actually managed to cram more than enough scattering equations into my head to write passable answers on the exam. Well it actually went better than I though it would, for the most part I wasn't bull shitting any of my math but well we'll see. Guaranteed not on the high end of the grade spectrum but I rocked the two midterms so as a whole I'm not worried.
Right right, E&M though on Thrusday.... yeah now that's a different beast entirely and not for the better. I really should of started studying for that today, I just couldn't mange to pull it together though. Also, having a Red Sox game on didn't help. I could tell when I clicked buy that MLBtv would be the ruin of me. Ah but it's all good, Lester pitched a fantastic 8 innings and Papelbon came in to shut down the 9th where things were still scoreless and with 2 outs Ortiz and Manny both get singles and set it up for Youk to drive one into shallow center and with a bit of fielder bobbling Papi managed to cross home. Not exactly how you'd picture Papi getting the winning run but hey it's a game ender none the less.
You know it's totally amazing how something so little and for the most part inconsequential can bring up such strong memories that are all in the past... and not good ones either, no no much on the other end of the emotional spectrum. That happened the other day and I just had to catch myself and kinda take a step aside and look in awe at how amazingly powerful, pervasive, and just down right sneaky hard rooted emotions can be. Such is life though, an aspect inescapable but still I think I'm allowed to stand back gawk sometimes at how utterly over the top it can be. Thankfully, fleeting would be the proper way to describe it in the and that I'm most happy about.
I'm finding more anime that looks good to watch, this is bad because I shouldn't spend so much time watching anime series. That and I already have too many series queued up already that need watching. Damn you Japan, damn you.
I've discovered this new, well at least I didn't know about it at all but it's probably not that new in reality, blogging type of thingy called twitter. Actually it sounds kinda neat, you can only give it short updates, 150 characters max and the idea is you randomly throw things up there about what your doing throughout the day and in theory your friends do the same thing providing another endless source of wasted time internet time poking through mundane details about what everyone you know is up to. You have to be pretty committed to updating it though, which I could easily see myself not doing, but in theory I like the idea because I would totally waste my time on that seeing what things people are doing. It would be the new facebook, the embodiment of my daily procrastination. Eh, actually I more like the idea how easy it is to update (you can text messages from your phone that will show up on your page) and well that was enough to get this one guy out of jail when he was arrested in Egypt because he was able to throw up a message on twitter that his friends could see which eventually lead to the American Embassy sparing him from the Egyptian justice system. It was something really silly, like he was doing some photojournalism at a demonstration and he got hauled in by the police when they saw him. I guess I could easily envision something like that happening to me when I'm back in Europe and venturing about, I totally would break out a camera if I could at something like that, so the idea is appealing.
You know it's funny how a totally stupid misspelling years ago has propagated itself to this very day. Back when I was much younger and first got the internet and came up with the oh so amazingly misspelled screen name Rumbelbass (I was shooting for Rumblebass, which was the name of an all tube totally bad ass Fender bass amp, pretty retarded for a screen name but back then I thought something like that was the total shit enough so to use it as an identifier) but I stuck with the name because by the time I realized my spelling biff I already went through the process of switching screen names and getting the new one out to people and such, so for reasons out of sheer laziness I stuck with it. Fast forward to today and it's still there, and propagated through the internet as a username for all sorts of other things. I find it funny, because there's no way at this point that I'd ever change it, but still the letter switch remains hmmmmm probably close to 9 years.
My quest to find shooting ranges around here, especially a trap or hell any type of clay range would be frickin sweet but alas my search has still proved to be fruitless. I say boo to that, actually I'd probably have better luck finding rifle ranges or heck indoor pistol ranges (they almost always have groups that shoot .22 sporter rifle competitions) That would also be pretty fun, I'm not sure why I've been recently so obsessed about getting back into trap shooting. In actuality for the amount I used to shoot, clay shooting was only a small fraction. I pretty much only did sporter rifle, well that and prone/three position shooting for the Empire Games. Actually that would be pretty fun to get back into, but the cost of buying a good 22 target rifle and the other equipment (shit you need the body constricting canvas jacket, shooting glove, sling, spotting scope, mat at the minimum.... the constricting canvas pants and true flat shoes aren't really necessary but do help significantly) on top of a rifle that costs $1300+ In short it's amazing expensive in the end. At times I'm really annoyed that I happen to shoot left handed, because god if a company even makes a dedicated left handed gun it's always in the higher end of the spectrum. Eh I guess that's why I'm thinking a nice over/under for clay shooting, there aren't really any extras you need to on top of the gun and of course shells to go out and do it.
Today I stopped by The Pour House again and again the coffee shop girl is nowhere to be seen. You know I'm getting really sick of this, this is actually the 3rd girl who fits this pattern. There was also art museum girl (holy crap was here accent hot too) and liquor store girl. In all cases I go to said place and seriously it's was in each case like only two times spaced a good bit of time apart and apparently I'm memorable enough where I'm recognized the second time and they get pretty chatty and actually called me a regular at the respective places. So it's after these encounters that alright it clicks that hey there's really no good reason why they should remember me and I'm not a regular, gonna venture a guess that there's could be some interest lurking around and it's probably worthwhile to ask them out, plus they were all pretty damn hot so it's really a no-brainer. Then it's right after that point, they disappear never to be seen again. Seriously, I've gone back at the same time on the same day the following week, tired different times on different days, and no they've vanished. Suffice it to say, John is very very very (continue this chain of very for as long as you like) annoyed.
This link is amazing, I totally want of these things to follow me around and well I donno just float and look cool.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/28/festo-airjelly-flies-through-the-air-with-the-greatest-of-ease/
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Where did the weekend go?
I often ask myself this, and this weekend for sure was one that warrants this question. Depending on how you look at it, actually time and more precisely how the upcoming finals this week go will determine if it was either the best or worst way things could have been handled. On the studying front, I got shit for shit done, hell I probably managed to negative study because I probably ended up forgetting lots of that oh so important stuff that I will soon be asked to regurgitate on paper in a few very short and very soon days. Actually all and all I did very little and in a way that feels so amazingly wonderful. I usually have a let down period like this after the semester wraps up, but usually not until the finals are over so well this next week might prove to be a little dicey. Eh, I'm already in a pretty relaxed frame of mind though, so I doubt even the worst of the worst that Schaich could think up would phase me very much. Wheatear this will work its way to my advantage or my utter defeat I can't say as of now.
So in the wonderfully very little that I did do, what was it that I did? First of all I didn't do a single damn social thing, again along with the period of laziness something that's usually reserved until after finals and when I get back home. I always have a decompression weekend like that, not really sure why but I do and it's nice I like it quite a bit, this semester it just came a week to early. In any case I believe, though I kinda forget what exactly I occupied myself with on Friday, but I'm pretty sure I blew off a lot of time watching the end of Death Note. The ending of the second to last episode, fricking out of control with amount they leave hanging, I really don't know what I would of done if I was actually forced to wait an entire week to send the conclusion. Actually I have some mixed feelings about how it ended, in one way I almost wanted Light to win just because the entire series is focused on him outwitting everyone against him, just overlook the minor detail that he's a total psychopathic manipulative mass murderer. I donno, I just think how it all went down didn't seem like a fitting way to finish things. The setup didn't feel like it was really crafty enough where Light would just utterly fail as bad as he did, that and I really hate Near (to much of a carbon copy of L, but lacking) But it was a pretty spectacular ending, I'll give it that, though it was a very standard anime ending where there's a conclusion but yet so many elements of the story aren't even addressed and left open ended which always annoys the shit out of me. Good show, something worth watching.
Hmmm so that brings us to saturday, and you know I'll retract my earlier statement because I did get a lot done. First, I did some thawcking at the driving range where I became very satisfied with my swing using my irons but still utterly at a loss when it comes to hitting with any of my drivers consistently. I guess that's what hybrid clubs are for, it would be nice to give one of those a try sometime. Going to the driving range is always great though, especially when the weather is nice, because all you really have to do is take your time working on your swing with enjoying the nice weather. Ah and they had the grass open, so much nicer than hitting off those damned nylon turf mats. I really don't understand why I was like one of three people hitting off the equally large grass area while the mats were almost entirely filed. Seriously, why the hell would you ever want to hit off a mat when you can just as easily actually tee off real grass. I'm at a loss on that one, but not complaining to much because you end up with pretty much all the grass to yourself. Easily blew off a few hours there.
Then I did the patriotic thing and voted. Indiana is pretty cool because they have the polls open for early voting like 2 weeks ahead of the actual primary date, and you don't need to have any reason or excuse for showing up early, you can just do it. Got to try out one of these new fanged electronic voting machines for the first time, I miss the good ol' switch and lever voting boxes we have in NY, but really what can I do. Hell I probably ended up voting for Pat Buchanan somehow, but as far as I could tell the machines weren't made by Diebold so that made me feel a little better about using them. I feel bad for the local politicians though, see really all I went there to do was vote for the presidential primary but then it's like demanding me to cast votes for local primaries for stuff like mayor and blah blah blah.... yeah I don't know shit about that so I figured random selection would just count as statistical background noise. Eh, all in all it only took like 30 mins so I was pretty happy about that.
Ah speaking of candidate stuff I was a little ticked because Hillary actually came to IU to speak on friday, which I thought would have been interesting to hear, heh then I could say I saw their entire family give speeches in less than a months time + see the back of Obama's head. But no, instead it turned out the head of the DOE science division, ie the guy whose in charge of the entire arm of the DOE science funding business came to IU and wanted to meet DOE funded students = I had to attend that instead. Not only was that lame, but also the fact that the numerous women they got from like the bio and chem departments were all good looking and all had fucking large rock engagement rings. It was pretty clear early on that this would be a total waste of my time, especially when the guy came in and only wanted to talk about alternative energy topics... yeah like the physics department does tons of that here (or actually not) In the end I was very confused what the whole point of this was, so I just decided to raise my hand at the end and ask him why funding was cut for ITER especially after he came in talking about all the great things happening with new energy research. Heh, I felt pretty damn good about that, it's fun calling out top ranking people on all this whole FY08 funding business. But yeah overall that was pretty damn boring, but I did steal like 10 cookies walking out the door which were enjoyed throughout the rest of the day.
Right back to saturday, so yeah I golfed, I voted, ah then the fun part I went to the gun store. In tossing things around in my head about what to do with all this fun rebate + stimulus cash I was first thinking a super fancy lens or two, but then it also hit me that I've always wanted an over-under shotgun. Actually either of those choice I don't mind throwing money at because shit they'd maintain their value without question while saved money in the bank.... well not so sure about that. Invest in useful high quality material goods, that's my thinking at the moment, so yeah an O/U shotgun would most certainly fit in that category. And thus began the adventure of my first visit to a midwestern gun shop, and hell did they have guns. Not just like normal guns, no no, I mean they have a very nice selection of O/U that I looked at for the most part, and various hunting rifles, and you know also that rack of frickin assault rifles. Didn't expect that, though I am used to looking at guns in NY where the regulations are just a "touch" more strict. Didn't expect to be playing around with an automatic shot gun, I can tell you that much, and also who the fuck needs and automatic shot gun. Or a sawed off "pistol version" of a tried and true kalashnikov. Jebus, did they have a lot of unnecessarily weapons there. I donno, I'm all for people having gun but you know really I just don't think people need full auto shot guns. 50 caliber sniper rifles, well maybe, you know sometimes you just really need to kill a deer from 2 miles... or a light truck (which was what those damned things were designed for)
So suffice it to say I was a bit taken back by the lets say thoroughness of their selection but ok fine I did have a fun time checking out all of the above mentioned items. I discovered that AR-15s just feel really cheap, well that and I'm still a sucker for anything that's made out of wood and not plastic regardless of the greater practically of the latter. I also discovered that Browning doesn't make a single damned gun in Belgium anymore, there all Japanese! I donno, Brownings are so nice but I don't know if I could handle dropping a few thousand on a gun with a big made in Japan banding on the barrel. My cameras and optics, yes those should all be made in either Japan or Germany. Can't really say why I don't feel right about them making guns too, but well yeah I donno. Now a German gun, well that you don't even have to ask the question but I can think of any company that makes an O/U from germany that is remotely affordable (I alas don't have 10 grand to buy a Merkel). Dammit I want my Belgian! Ah but I did discover that Winchesters are now made by FN (well known belgian company for their military rifles) in the same factory that the old Brownings used to be made in. Ahhhh that right there is enough for me to rethink my attitude about Winchester. Turns out Remmington's are made in Russia of all places, yeah that's just a little off the beaten path from Ilion NY (pretty much learned that there's no such thing as an american gun company anymore which was kinda disheartening) Well I guess Ruger still is, but eh I just don't like the action on those at all. Hmmmm, so pretty much that takes me back to Europe and anything out of Italy is to rich for my blood or well I should say wallet, I have heard really good things about Lanbers which are made in Spain but I've never seen one in person. Right So I guess I pretty much want a true Belgian made Winchester or maybe a Lanber if they live up to their internet reputation.
Then the only other minor detail in this whole plan is to find a place to shoot well at least trap, though something with skeet and sporting clays would be fantastic. As usual here I am getting all excited about this when there's a chance it's not even possible to go clay shooting around here. Heh and actually in all practically I could just keep using the A5, though not exactly the best gun, it definitely scores the cool points when I've brought that to shooting ranges. Hell the people with 10,000+ O/U think the A5 is cool, which it is of course, it's only like 80 years old, works just as well as when it was bought, and the ah here the cool part, the entire barrel kicks back like a Howitzer when you fire it. Just believe me that it's cool, because it totally is.
Alright enough gun talk, ah what else came of Saturday. Chatted with the folks for quite some time and I think that led to it getting late enough where I just called the evening a wash and watched more anime and the like. Ah I should of kept reading Moby Dick, I've been slacking on that in the past few days which isn't good.
One point of particular interest, while talking with the folks I could tel dicked l someone was trying to call me but I ignored it until I got done talking but upon inspection of the number well it came as a bit of shock because even thought it's not a number I have or could find easily on the internet I for various reasons have 60% confidence in who exactly it was that tried to call me which well hmmmmm lets just say if it is who I think it is, interesting to say the least. Not exactly sure how to approach that. It would have been nice if they left a message, but ah well most people get scared away from my voicemail when my French ranting kicks in, heh but I love it, keeps people on their toes.
Ah, but again more fun things to keep my mind occupied. Today though was a total waste. I did so little, shit I barely even left the house, I slept in, slacked off, didn't even get my room cleaned, or study or well do anything productive, just around on the internet watching more online TV and looking up reviews for things I probably in all reality can't afford in the immediate future, but I've researched them to death none the less. Oh well, not much I can do about it now. Ha it's even ungodly late, which means tomorrow will not get an early start and really tomorrow must solely be dedicated to studying, and I'm super serial about that (Evidence of too much South Park right there)
Fun fun, fun fun, well at least it was relaxing. I'm pretty damned relaxed right now which is nice.
Ah and you know I forgot to write about the Earthquake, or at least I think I did, but yeah the other week we had and Earthqake! Ha that was fun, it woke me up at 5:40 am and it was funny because I heard the windows rattling, kinda like the sound windows make if a house is close to train tracks and train comes by, so my half conscious mind says oh it's just a train.... then thinking kicks in, oh there's no trains around here and why is my bed jiggling back and forth to? So I sat there for awhile because I wanted to think oh Earthquake, but then again I'm in Indiana there shouldn't be an earthquake! I stopped soon enough though, so I went back to sleep to later confirm I did in fact live through the great Bloomington earthquake of 2008! Well really it was in Illinois, but we were only like 100 miles from the epicenter and it was apparently a 5.2
Eh, this town just keeps having all sorts of surprises.
So in the wonderfully very little that I did do, what was it that I did? First of all I didn't do a single damn social thing, again along with the period of laziness something that's usually reserved until after finals and when I get back home. I always have a decompression weekend like that, not really sure why but I do and it's nice I like it quite a bit, this semester it just came a week to early. In any case I believe, though I kinda forget what exactly I occupied myself with on Friday, but I'm pretty sure I blew off a lot of time watching the end of Death Note. The ending of the second to last episode, fricking out of control with amount they leave hanging, I really don't know what I would of done if I was actually forced to wait an entire week to send the conclusion. Actually I have some mixed feelings about how it ended, in one way I almost wanted Light to win just because the entire series is focused on him outwitting everyone against him, just overlook the minor detail that he's a total psychopathic manipulative mass murderer. I donno, I just think how it all went down didn't seem like a fitting way to finish things. The setup didn't feel like it was really crafty enough where Light would just utterly fail as bad as he did, that and I really hate Near (to much of a carbon copy of L, but lacking) But it was a pretty spectacular ending, I'll give it that, though it was a very standard anime ending where there's a conclusion but yet so many elements of the story aren't even addressed and left open ended which always annoys the shit out of me. Good show, something worth watching.
Hmmm so that brings us to saturday, and you know I'll retract my earlier statement because I did get a lot done. First, I did some thawcking at the driving range where I became very satisfied with my swing using my irons but still utterly at a loss when it comes to hitting with any of my drivers consistently. I guess that's what hybrid clubs are for, it would be nice to give one of those a try sometime. Going to the driving range is always great though, especially when the weather is nice, because all you really have to do is take your time working on your swing with enjoying the nice weather. Ah and they had the grass open, so much nicer than hitting off those damned nylon turf mats. I really don't understand why I was like one of three people hitting off the equally large grass area while the mats were almost entirely filed. Seriously, why the hell would you ever want to hit off a mat when you can just as easily actually tee off real grass. I'm at a loss on that one, but not complaining to much because you end up with pretty much all the grass to yourself. Easily blew off a few hours there.
Then I did the patriotic thing and voted. Indiana is pretty cool because they have the polls open for early voting like 2 weeks ahead of the actual primary date, and you don't need to have any reason or excuse for showing up early, you can just do it. Got to try out one of these new fanged electronic voting machines for the first time, I miss the good ol' switch and lever voting boxes we have in NY, but really what can I do. Hell I probably ended up voting for Pat Buchanan somehow, but as far as I could tell the machines weren't made by Diebold so that made me feel a little better about using them. I feel bad for the local politicians though, see really all I went there to do was vote for the presidential primary but then it's like demanding me to cast votes for local primaries for stuff like mayor and blah blah blah.... yeah I don't know shit about that so I figured random selection would just count as statistical background noise. Eh, all in all it only took like 30 mins so I was pretty happy about that.
Ah speaking of candidate stuff I was a little ticked because Hillary actually came to IU to speak on friday, which I thought would have been interesting to hear, heh then I could say I saw their entire family give speeches in less than a months time + see the back of Obama's head. But no, instead it turned out the head of the DOE science division, ie the guy whose in charge of the entire arm of the DOE science funding business came to IU and wanted to meet DOE funded students = I had to attend that instead. Not only was that lame, but also the fact that the numerous women they got from like the bio and chem departments were all good looking and all had fucking large rock engagement rings. It was pretty clear early on that this would be a total waste of my time, especially when the guy came in and only wanted to talk about alternative energy topics... yeah like the physics department does tons of that here (or actually not) In the end I was very confused what the whole point of this was, so I just decided to raise my hand at the end and ask him why funding was cut for ITER especially after he came in talking about all the great things happening with new energy research. Heh, I felt pretty damn good about that, it's fun calling out top ranking people on all this whole FY08 funding business. But yeah overall that was pretty damn boring, but I did steal like 10 cookies walking out the door which were enjoyed throughout the rest of the day.
Right back to saturday, so yeah I golfed, I voted, ah then the fun part I went to the gun store. In tossing things around in my head about what to do with all this fun rebate + stimulus cash I was first thinking a super fancy lens or two, but then it also hit me that I've always wanted an over-under shotgun. Actually either of those choice I don't mind throwing money at because shit they'd maintain their value without question while saved money in the bank.... well not so sure about that. Invest in useful high quality material goods, that's my thinking at the moment, so yeah an O/U shotgun would most certainly fit in that category. And thus began the adventure of my first visit to a midwestern gun shop, and hell did they have guns. Not just like normal guns, no no, I mean they have a very nice selection of O/U that I looked at for the most part, and various hunting rifles, and you know also that rack of frickin assault rifles. Didn't expect that, though I am used to looking at guns in NY where the regulations are just a "touch" more strict. Didn't expect to be playing around with an automatic shot gun, I can tell you that much, and also who the fuck needs and automatic shot gun. Or a sawed off "pistol version" of a tried and true kalashnikov. Jebus, did they have a lot of unnecessarily weapons there. I donno, I'm all for people having gun but you know really I just don't think people need full auto shot guns. 50 caliber sniper rifles, well maybe, you know sometimes you just really need to kill a deer from 2 miles... or a light truck (which was what those damned things were designed for)
So suffice it to say I was a bit taken back by the lets say thoroughness of their selection but ok fine I did have a fun time checking out all of the above mentioned items. I discovered that AR-15s just feel really cheap, well that and I'm still a sucker for anything that's made out of wood and not plastic regardless of the greater practically of the latter. I also discovered that Browning doesn't make a single damned gun in Belgium anymore, there all Japanese! I donno, Brownings are so nice but I don't know if I could handle dropping a few thousand on a gun with a big made in Japan banding on the barrel. My cameras and optics, yes those should all be made in either Japan or Germany. Can't really say why I don't feel right about them making guns too, but well yeah I donno. Now a German gun, well that you don't even have to ask the question but I can think of any company that makes an O/U from germany that is remotely affordable (I alas don't have 10 grand to buy a Merkel). Dammit I want my Belgian! Ah but I did discover that Winchesters are now made by FN (well known belgian company for their military rifles) in the same factory that the old Brownings used to be made in. Ahhhh that right there is enough for me to rethink my attitude about Winchester. Turns out Remmington's are made in Russia of all places, yeah that's just a little off the beaten path from Ilion NY (pretty much learned that there's no such thing as an american gun company anymore which was kinda disheartening) Well I guess Ruger still is, but eh I just don't like the action on those at all. Hmmmm, so pretty much that takes me back to Europe and anything out of Italy is to rich for my blood or well I should say wallet, I have heard really good things about Lanbers which are made in Spain but I've never seen one in person. Right So I guess I pretty much want a true Belgian made Winchester or maybe a Lanber if they live up to their internet reputation.
Then the only other minor detail in this whole plan is to find a place to shoot well at least trap, though something with skeet and sporting clays would be fantastic. As usual here I am getting all excited about this when there's a chance it's not even possible to go clay shooting around here. Heh and actually in all practically I could just keep using the A5, though not exactly the best gun, it definitely scores the cool points when I've brought that to shooting ranges. Hell the people with 10,000+ O/U think the A5 is cool, which it is of course, it's only like 80 years old, works just as well as when it was bought, and the ah here the cool part, the entire barrel kicks back like a Howitzer when you fire it. Just believe me that it's cool, because it totally is.
Alright enough gun talk, ah what else came of Saturday. Chatted with the folks for quite some time and I think that led to it getting late enough where I just called the evening a wash and watched more anime and the like. Ah I should of kept reading Moby Dick, I've been slacking on that in the past few days which isn't good.
One point of particular interest, while talking with the folks I could tel dicked l someone was trying to call me but I ignored it until I got done talking but upon inspection of the number well it came as a bit of shock because even thought it's not a number I have or could find easily on the internet I for various reasons have 60% confidence in who exactly it was that tried to call me which well hmmmmm lets just say if it is who I think it is, interesting to say the least. Not exactly sure how to approach that. It would have been nice if they left a message, but ah well most people get scared away from my voicemail when my French ranting kicks in, heh but I love it, keeps people on their toes.
Ah, but again more fun things to keep my mind occupied. Today though was a total waste. I did so little, shit I barely even left the house, I slept in, slacked off, didn't even get my room cleaned, or study or well do anything productive, just around on the internet watching more online TV and looking up reviews for things I probably in all reality can't afford in the immediate future, but I've researched them to death none the less. Oh well, not much I can do about it now. Ha it's even ungodly late, which means tomorrow will not get an early start and really tomorrow must solely be dedicated to studying, and I'm super serial about that (Evidence of too much South Park right there)
Fun fun, fun fun, well at least it was relaxing. I'm pretty damned relaxed right now which is nice.
Ah and you know I forgot to write about the Earthquake, or at least I think I did, but yeah the other week we had and Earthqake! Ha that was fun, it woke me up at 5:40 am and it was funny because I heard the windows rattling, kinda like the sound windows make if a house is close to train tracks and train comes by, so my half conscious mind says oh it's just a train.... then thinking kicks in, oh there's no trains around here and why is my bed jiggling back and forth to? So I sat there for awhile because I wanted to think oh Earthquake, but then again I'm in Indiana there shouldn't be an earthquake! I stopped soon enough though, so I went back to sleep to later confirm I did in fact live through the great Bloomington earthquake of 2008! Well really it was in Illinois, but we were only like 100 miles from the epicenter and it was apparently a 5.2
Eh, this town just keeps having all sorts of surprises.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
I have not written in awhile
Not that I have a really good reason either, can't say I've really been doing that much. Pretty much just winding down the year with a whole pile of "I'm sick and frickin tired of doing HW" Thankfully, that's all over with. What isn't over with though is finals, being next week, being yeah not something I'm looking forward too. Ah but that impeding super-fun time aside, what has really been going on.
Hmmm, that's a good question. Been watching a lot of Red Sox games, A LOT of Red Sox games. Maybe, wait no there is no such thing as too many Red Sox games, but after getting MLB TV so I could watch the opening games in Japan and for when I head over to CERN this summer well damn you know it's right there every night and why not watch it? So yeah there's been a lot of Red Sox, and a lot of me realizing there aren't many red sox fans around here. Well that's not true I do know of at least one, but yeah I think I've already ranted about that before.
So Red Sox, and uhhhh Death Note yeah thats something else I've been watching a lot of recently. That anime got surprisingly good as it went on, still not finished (like 3 more episodes to go) but that's the problem, so close to the end it's like oh yeah I can watch just another episode no problem. Then I realize like 2 hours have gone by and then bitch about where the time goes. All standard stuff, but yeah it's a pretty good show.
Aside from mind numbing video entertainment, I do other things too believe it or not, I've also gotten halfway through Moby Dick. It's pretty good, part of my self prescribed novels that I figure I should read for just general being well readness. I do kinda like the idea of reading the classics, though that is just a pretty vague statement, but still I think it has a certain romanticized aspect to it (That and the fact that a good number of the things I've been reading we're written in the romantic period but that's besides the point) Actually what I really want to do is get through the Three Musketeer series, though I'm only on the 3rd book and of the last three it's something like 2,400 pages of swashbuckeling action set within the historical events of 17th century Europe, that's what happens when you pay the writer by the line, ah but it's good stuff. Though taking a break from the adventures D'Aretegnan, Arthos, Porthos and Aramis (see and if I was really on top of things I'd remember what their actual names are) is good. Moby Dick is pretty far from the streets of Paris. I've been going through that book fairly quickly though, kinda surprised myself, but that book really gets you with it's fairly short chapters so again its often the case where hey the next chapter is only 5 pages, sure I can read that too, and before you know it well a couple hours go by and yeah that's been going on fairly regularly these past few weeks.
Enough with the literature though, it's only good for so much, hmmmmm ah I found a place to habbitate next year. Not that I really couldn't just keep living where I am, but yeah I realized I do kinda have this weird thing about staying in any one place for more than a year. I actually haven't lived in anyone spot for more than a year since leaving home for college. So yeah, after thinking about that I decided why break the trend, and yeah I'm moving across town next August. The house is pretty badass, it's brick, but it's like the only brick house in an area surrounded by the more standard wood and metal siding jobs. It looks very out of place, but then again that adds character. Rooms are smaller than where I am right now, but hell it's like right down the street from Swain which would be kinda nice. Not that I don't mind doing the bike ride back and forth, hell I've been pretty good all year about doing that every day, but it does put me in a position where if I go home then I'm home and not going back to Swain to work = I don't really ever make dinner = spending lots of cash on tasty yet more expensive than self prepared food. The house also rocks as it has an enormous and sketchy unfinished basement that parities will most certainly be held in, so that's cool and the yard is big enough to grill on. Very important things indeed.
Hmmm what else, I've decided that I'm going to start getting into Infrared and UV photography. Not really sure why, but I started reading about it and hey it looks cool as hell and only requires the acquisition of a few fancy but fairly expensive filters. 90 bucks for a 52mm filter is a bit much, especially when you look at how much glass is in a 52mm filter, but then again the pictures you can get I think are worth it. Though for the UV it gets a little tricky because it turns out well pretty much all lenses suck at dealing with it as lens designers have gone very much out of their way to make sure the most UV light gets filtered out even before you get that far into the lens what with fancy super coatings and such. There are two solutions to this problem, one being loaded with cash and just going out and buying a very rare Nikon quartz crystal lens designed to work exclusively in the UV range or do what I just did buy a really cheap and wonderfully simple lens and strip off all the glass coating. I actually just got the candidate lens in the mail today being found and bought on Ebay for $60. It's a nice little lens though, a Nikon E series which they made in the 70s using plastic! god forbid, with a mostly metal body, oh heavens how horrible. See it's funny people got really ticked by that because Nikon was shooting to make them as affordable, lightweight, and compact as possible so the use of plastic made them for the most part un-bought.
Hurah for peoples pickiness back then because now I can get a damn sharp and small, and mostly metal (shit lens bodies are almost entirely plastic today even on the the nice ones, you have to really be in the 1000+ dollar range before your guaranteed a mostly metal construction) lens for cheap. Which is great because I'm totally ripping this thing apart and having at the glass coating when I get back to my parents house in a few weeks. Yeah that has been distracting me a good bit too in the past few days now that I start to think about it. But come on it's UV photography, I donno it just seems cool. Taking pictures of the world in the spectrum just outside of human vision. Flowers apparently look really cool, but so do people wearing sun screen, and I'm sure there's more.
Another fun do it myself project, and aside from the laptop battery rebuild debacle (the damned pice of crap didn't work, the laptop refused to charge it for reasons totally beyond me) and so yeah that was 50 bucks down the drain in an effort to be cheap and save 50 bucks and not by a straight up new battery..... which I did in the end anyways and it works quite well. Right where was I going with this, ah yes so aside from the battery failure most of my do it myself hack jobs have turned out quite well. Fixing the leak and clock in the Subaru, ah and defretting my bass. That actually went way better than I thought it would. The lens, well..... yeah that's a crap shot, only time will tell how good my skills are at stripping the finish off a precision ground piece of glass without totally fucking up the shape. But that's what some jewelers rouge, a polishing cloth and a lot of time to kill at home are good for.
Alright once again it's late as hell, I'm still up, not sleeping, need to get up early tomorrow, but it's late so I'll feel like shit when I do have to get up, still writing after fucking off for most of the evening when I could have been doing just this, but come on why kill a wonderfully well established routine at this stage in the game. It's John's sure fire prescription for first year grad school fun. But I wrote stuff here, yay, and I can feel good that at least my blog I'm not totally ignoring, unlike well pretty much everything else in life, but that's another issue entirely.
Hmmm, that's a good question. Been watching a lot of Red Sox games, A LOT of Red Sox games. Maybe, wait no there is no such thing as too many Red Sox games, but after getting MLB TV so I could watch the opening games in Japan and for when I head over to CERN this summer well damn you know it's right there every night and why not watch it? So yeah there's been a lot of Red Sox, and a lot of me realizing there aren't many red sox fans around here. Well that's not true I do know of at least one, but yeah I think I've already ranted about that before.
So Red Sox, and uhhhh Death Note yeah thats something else I've been watching a lot of recently. That anime got surprisingly good as it went on, still not finished (like 3 more episodes to go) but that's the problem, so close to the end it's like oh yeah I can watch just another episode no problem. Then I realize like 2 hours have gone by and then bitch about where the time goes. All standard stuff, but yeah it's a pretty good show.
Aside from mind numbing video entertainment, I do other things too believe it or not, I've also gotten halfway through Moby Dick. It's pretty good, part of my self prescribed novels that I figure I should read for just general being well readness. I do kinda like the idea of reading the classics, though that is just a pretty vague statement, but still I think it has a certain romanticized aspect to it (That and the fact that a good number of the things I've been reading we're written in the romantic period but that's besides the point) Actually what I really want to do is get through the Three Musketeer series, though I'm only on the 3rd book and of the last three it's something like 2,400 pages of swashbuckeling action set within the historical events of 17th century Europe, that's what happens when you pay the writer by the line, ah but it's good stuff. Though taking a break from the adventures D'Aretegnan, Arthos, Porthos and Aramis (see and if I was really on top of things I'd remember what their actual names are) is good. Moby Dick is pretty far from the streets of Paris. I've been going through that book fairly quickly though, kinda surprised myself, but that book really gets you with it's fairly short chapters so again its often the case where hey the next chapter is only 5 pages, sure I can read that too, and before you know it well a couple hours go by and yeah that's been going on fairly regularly these past few weeks.
Enough with the literature though, it's only good for so much, hmmmmm ah I found a place to habbitate next year. Not that I really couldn't just keep living where I am, but yeah I realized I do kinda have this weird thing about staying in any one place for more than a year. I actually haven't lived in anyone spot for more than a year since leaving home for college. So yeah, after thinking about that I decided why break the trend, and yeah I'm moving across town next August. The house is pretty badass, it's brick, but it's like the only brick house in an area surrounded by the more standard wood and metal siding jobs. It looks very out of place, but then again that adds character. Rooms are smaller than where I am right now, but hell it's like right down the street from Swain which would be kinda nice. Not that I don't mind doing the bike ride back and forth, hell I've been pretty good all year about doing that every day, but it does put me in a position where if I go home then I'm home and not going back to Swain to work = I don't really ever make dinner = spending lots of cash on tasty yet more expensive than self prepared food. The house also rocks as it has an enormous and sketchy unfinished basement that parities will most certainly be held in, so that's cool and the yard is big enough to grill on. Very important things indeed.
Hmmm what else, I've decided that I'm going to start getting into Infrared and UV photography. Not really sure why, but I started reading about it and hey it looks cool as hell and only requires the acquisition of a few fancy but fairly expensive filters. 90 bucks for a 52mm filter is a bit much, especially when you look at how much glass is in a 52mm filter, but then again the pictures you can get I think are worth it. Though for the UV it gets a little tricky because it turns out well pretty much all lenses suck at dealing with it as lens designers have gone very much out of their way to make sure the most UV light gets filtered out even before you get that far into the lens what with fancy super coatings and such. There are two solutions to this problem, one being loaded with cash and just going out and buying a very rare Nikon quartz crystal lens designed to work exclusively in the UV range or do what I just did buy a really cheap and wonderfully simple lens and strip off all the glass coating. I actually just got the candidate lens in the mail today being found and bought on Ebay for $60. It's a nice little lens though, a Nikon E series which they made in the 70s using plastic! god forbid, with a mostly metal body, oh heavens how horrible. See it's funny people got really ticked by that because Nikon was shooting to make them as affordable, lightweight, and compact as possible so the use of plastic made them for the most part un-bought.
Hurah for peoples pickiness back then because now I can get a damn sharp and small, and mostly metal (shit lens bodies are almost entirely plastic today even on the the nice ones, you have to really be in the 1000+ dollar range before your guaranteed a mostly metal construction) lens for cheap. Which is great because I'm totally ripping this thing apart and having at the glass coating when I get back to my parents house in a few weeks. Yeah that has been distracting me a good bit too in the past few days now that I start to think about it. But come on it's UV photography, I donno it just seems cool. Taking pictures of the world in the spectrum just outside of human vision. Flowers apparently look really cool, but so do people wearing sun screen, and I'm sure there's more.
Another fun do it myself project, and aside from the laptop battery rebuild debacle (the damned pice of crap didn't work, the laptop refused to charge it for reasons totally beyond me) and so yeah that was 50 bucks down the drain in an effort to be cheap and save 50 bucks and not by a straight up new battery..... which I did in the end anyways and it works quite well. Right where was I going with this, ah yes so aside from the battery failure most of my do it myself hack jobs have turned out quite well. Fixing the leak and clock in the Subaru, ah and defretting my bass. That actually went way better than I thought it would. The lens, well..... yeah that's a crap shot, only time will tell how good my skills are at stripping the finish off a precision ground piece of glass without totally fucking up the shape. But that's what some jewelers rouge, a polishing cloth and a lot of time to kill at home are good for.
Alright once again it's late as hell, I'm still up, not sleeping, need to get up early tomorrow, but it's late so I'll feel like shit when I do have to get up, still writing after fucking off for most of the evening when I could have been doing just this, but come on why kill a wonderfully well established routine at this stage in the game. It's John's sure fire prescription for first year grad school fun. But I wrote stuff here, yay, and I can feel good that at least my blog I'm not totally ignoring, unlike well pretty much everything else in life, but that's another issue entirely.
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