I dislike text messages. Not in and of themselves, but because I get charged $.02 per message.
One or two critical ones here and there, fine.
But some people send me stuff like, “Hey, ’sup man?”
Now even I can afford $.02, but don’t make me pay for your laziness, y’know?
I haven’t said a word to any of them, though, b/c it’s petty and unnecessary.
But recently, the number of spam messages has skyrocketed. I got 2 all last year. So far this calendar year, 4. And after the two I received this morning before I’d had breakfast, I’d had enough.
So I finally registered my number on my service provider’s text messaging site, and set prefs such that only people who know my cell phone nickname can send me messages. And I’m not giving out my nick (which is only semi-obvious). :P
And no one can send messages via e-mail or web. If the sender’s at a computer anyway, send e-mail. If it’s time critical, call. When I finish class or my current appointment, I’ll check back.
And to complement that, I’m being more conscientious about checking my voicemail. :P New voicemail greeting, hopefully no more full inboxes going forward, etc.
..The hell? My subconscious of late has been cheesing me off. As in Limberger-type cheese. Two nights in a row, it might as well have hung up a sign for me to read: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
And then last night, to add insult to injury… I randomly check myself on the scale every few weeks, when I remember to. So I’d been holding steady at 195 for a while. Last night, 185. I was like, “woo hoo,” though some of that was probably dehydration at fault, b/c I didn’t drink enough all day.
So just before I wake up today, I have a little dream vignette where I see my weight hit a new high of 197.
Sheesh.
If my own mind isn’t in my corner, then maybe I’ll just stick to my swords and hammers. And whatever work I can find.
This is me, flipping Morpheus the bird. Tuppin’ liberty.
Despite listening to Irish bubblegum pop last night and minimalist classical all this morning, the last thing I had playing through my head last night and the first thing upon waking today was Queen.
Time waits for nobody
Time waits for nobody
We all must plan our hopes together
Or we’ll have no more future at all
Time waits for nobody
That’s all I can remember, and it just keeps playing on infinite loop. Well, it could be worse — like Portishead at 260 bpm.
Or maybe not so much.
I’ve known the security guard at one of the places I frequent for probably 2 years now. Every week, regular as clockwork.
So her older daughter is getting married in March, and they can’t find a photographer to suit. So she asked me if I could suggest anyone in the $500-$1000 range, me being a student and connected with other students and all. I said well, I could mention it to a couple people. She asked, wait, don’t you take pictures too? And I replied, well, yes, a little — I enjoy candid photography. I’ve never officially done a wedding, and I said so. Family and friend type things often enough, as one of the familial paparazzi.
So I was quick enough on the uptake to recognize an opportunity. I said, why don’t I show you some of my past pics, and if you like what you see, I could do it for her / you. So I got her daughter’s e-mail address, and I’ll be sending along some pics by Monday.
Having hung around enough weddings, I have a vague inkling of offerings and pricing. These folks are pretty working class, and I got the understanding that what they really want is just the goods — a set of nice keepsake photos to trot out every few years for friends and family.
Report on Monday.
Couple nights ago I was hungry after a workout, and the peanut butter crackers I cribbed from work didn’t cut it by 1 a.m. So I stopped by the usual Kroger Signature for some ingredients. Now, they say that one should never go grocery shopping when hungry. That was definitely true, as I browsed for ideas. In the end, I spent just into the teens, b/c I splurged on a jar of olives steeped in olive oil with herbs.
[Random synapse firings remind me that I’ll likely never buy anything but the cheapest dark rum when cooking. Recent taste tests suggest it just doesn’t flippin’ matter. At least to me. Gif, who I once observed finishing a bottle of Mount Gay — on the rocks and without help — in an evening of casual chatting, may have a different opinion. Which will never manifest here, since he doesn’t read this.]
So as I wended my way to and fro amongst the aisles, I crossed through a group of folks hanging out in one of the aisles. I figured 1+ worked there and had just gotten off-shift. One of them asked if sir needed help finding anything. Sir replied that he didn’t merit a “sir” and was just browsing for late-night munchies. We exchanged some light banter, then I moved on.
Halfway across the store, at the olives, it hit me — caprese! Mark and I had just talked about them a few weeks ago. That required passing back by the earlier group, and I was so excited I shook my olives at them and said I had gotten it — caprese!
When I came back that way again, the girl in the group asked me what I’d told them b/c she’d missed it. I repeated myself, and she asked what it was. So I laid it out briefly, and 5 minutes later was talking about parkour with one of the guys. 5 minutes after that, the girl grabbed another guy who wasn’t paying attention, and said, “Honey, he makes swords!”
“Well, a falchion and some knives so far,” I demurred. Close enough, for their purposes. They were gaming geeks, and could identify falchions well enough.
Another of the guys wants to get into kung fu so hard, he’s like Seann William Scott in Bulletproof Monk, even though we both aren’t fond of that movie. And he has a friend who is ex-HACA/ARMA. There seem to be a lot of those around.
An hour and a half later, after a conversation spanning AD&D 2nd through 4th ed, the pope and the Hitlerjugend, art school, leatherworking, yoga, bodyweight conditioning, environmentalism, and spiritual centering (none of which I brought up first), we exchanged e-mail addresses.
Tonight, one of the guys came out to the shop, and proved to be a very able and enthusiastic assistant in the shop. He used to be a Boy Scout, and seems like a do-it-yourselfer, so score one for the shop. We’ll see how Pat turns out in the long run. Initial impressions of long-term qualities are favorable.
In a productive 12 heats or so, we forged the beginnings of some prototype scentstopper pommels out of a 50-lb bar of steel. Pat’s stout forearms were trembling, but he declared our choice of work to be the shit. 15 minutes after he left, I got a call from him asking me if it’d be OK to bring a very interested friend out with him the next time. I said we could meet someplace (for me to vet the guy), and go from there.
OK, so 1st checkpoint passed with honors. Next are the 2nd-visit, 1-month, and 3-month checkpoints. If he passes those, we’re probably set for the 6- and 12-month marks.
And while we were monkeying with the fullering tool (at Mark’s pointed suggestion), Mark was doing round 2 on his first raised copper work. He took the slightly complex four-lobed bowl from last time, and peend out the larger imperfections with his new raising hammers. It looked awesome, though he was less than pleased. I said something less elegant than but along the lines of: You’re seeing it as the sum of 9 hours and probably at least 15,000 imperfect hammer strokes; I’m seeing an intentionally hammer-rough (we’d have used the English wheel in the later stages if a rough texture hadn’t been intended), hand-crafted bowl with some nice curves and lines. He liked the discoloration induced by the annealing heats and quenches, but ended up scrubbing them off.
And every time I see him, he has a new knife or two or three to show, it seems. Plus he’s managing to be a real trooper with work — shut up and soldier, as it is said. Mark is a huge inspiration.
In work news, my Kaplan hours are steadily increasing as things come up — more than I’d thought I’d get. First classes went alright. I think I’ll get into the groove by 2 or 3 or so.
And in further work news, I’m starting to hit the PPAs in hopes that maybe they can get me an in where I’ve been unable under my own sails. :/ Rather not talk about it until I have something to show for it. Grr.
Longsword practices have been really satisfying, though we still have about 5 folks (split between the two practices) missing in action post-holidays. Not too worried about most of them, though have to check on 2.
Even the security guard’s giving me crap about it.
Whatever.
And I won’t be making New Year’s in Austin this year. :/ It’s been an anchor, a tradition since Dawn and Mel started throwing New Year’s parties in … 2001 or thereabouts. Happy New Year’s, Gumbies. I’ll probably see at least some of you in the intervening year between New Years’.
So I have a little dish of raisins sitting in some dark rum. Not sure what I’ll do with them, since I’m not a baker type. Maybe I’ll wedge them up my nose, get completely arseholed, and make omelettes at 3 a.m. completely naked.
In actual news, I did up a leg of lamb roast in 20 mins inc. prep time. Due to the constraints imposed by my mother’s control of the kitchen, I was forced to shoehorn the roast in between rounds of oven-roasted rock cornish hens. So, when a certain amount of energy input is required, limited by time, what do we do?
We violate every meat-grilling cook’s rule about sealing the juices in!
I diced the roast into large cubes. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle kosher salt, cracked pepper, basil, and fresh orange zest. Knead with chopped garlic bits. 4 mins, turn, and 4 mins again under the broiler.
I can’t help but feel a little smug when my mother always goes nuts on me about, “How come you bought groceries!” “How are we going to fit all this in?” “I don’t have enough time / space in this kitchen to fit you in!” when most weekdays, it’s, “How come you never go grocery shopping with me?” “Why won’t you help more?”
And every time I’ve comandeered a corner of the kitchen, it’s worked out OK ranging from “passable” to “aw, you didn’t make enough for 3rds?”
(Previous efforts aren’t many, but include most of my signature mid-brow entrees — salmon in white wine, poached pears, chicken marsala, caprese, and the current incarnation of that crazy pasta thing that started in 2001 with Doug and me and some oregano and olive oil. I apologize to anyone who’s had to endure these dishes in their beta-testing phase, and offer to make them now that I know which side of the skillet holds in the green beans.)
And three of my sisters went for more, two of them going for 3rds.
To be fair, my mother and sisters made a lot of good food too — the orange zest was left over from a really good rum cake thing Linh Dan made and served with ice cream and caramel-drizzled pecans.
But this ain’t their blog, so nyah.
Thu invited over a friend of hers, Rouslan (sp?), for dinner. His brother was supposed to come too, but was working that evening. She kind of demanded that my parents let her bring him, on the pretext that she wanted to have a holiday family dinner for all her friends w/o family in town. I thought it was either A) rather presumptuous of her to impose that on my parents, and / or B) a flimsy pretext to introduce a guy she likes.
Whatever the case, he turned out to be pretty nice. Reserved, Russian, pretty old-fashioned. Passed the bar exam with her. Used to be on the national Belarus wrestling team. He brought a dish of cabbage stuffed with ground beef (served with sour cream) and another of vegetable-stuffed eggplant wraps. Both were pretty good, the cabbage more so.
Finally, what post of mine of late would be complete if I didn’t mention a workout? My wrists and shoulders are pretty sore from a boxing / kung fu workout. Basic stuff, but intense: jab, jab-jab; cross; uppercut; pass, deflect, hook, knee strike; moving footwork; foot sweep. Music? The Cars and Pulp, with a little Ofra Haza.
[Read on at your own peril.] (more…)
While that title could apply to the seasonably idiotic driving I observed today to and from Intergalactic AH, that’s not the main theme here.
[Though on a tangential note, I’m pretty proud of sticking to my 70-or-under rule, for reasons of more efficient highway driving. Guess I don’t need the radar detector anymore. It may take me 3+ hrs instead of 2.5 to get to Austin this year, but I’ll get there. :P I won’t consider 55 mph, though, b/c anyone going that slow is a menace to traffic, given usual local driving conditions. Didn’t stop some git from blockading me for two exits at 40 mph the other night, though. Sheesh.]
Worked on basic jumps and warm-ups for vaults today, plus some wall run-ups. Quadrapeding, etc. We did this one variation where you crabwalk with your feet on a low wall or railing and hands on the ground. My upper body has a lot of room for improvement. Abs too. :P
But I’m slowly improving the run-ups. I’m not running smack into the wall anymore — I actually push off and up most of the time. I still tend to push back off the wall instead of a sprinter-style push up the wall. slicknic gets some serious altitude, by comparison. We were going for touches on bricks on a wall, and he consistently got about 15 inches higher. Aardvark and I poked around the same height.
I think I yoinked something muscular in my groin during my jumps, though. Not badly. Just enough that I’ll be sore and hobbling tomorrow. :)
Usually, it takes me about 4-5 jumps to warm up and relax the posterior chain, so that I lessen the sapping effect of its eccentric contraction on my jumps. Going up stairs, I start off at 3-4 steps, and can get 5 by the time I’m loosened up. Kind of like the Kipping pull-up is for pull-ups, jumping that high (or about 7 feet in broad precision jumps) really stretches the body out into a hang position — briefly, before hitting the apex, after which one has to contract into the landing position (knees tucked up, feet forward). It’s a pretty full-body sort of workout.
Hrm.. According to Top End Sports, I am below average, at 7 ft. Well, except that I usually jump onto a low bench about 18″ off the ground. Not sure how that works out to level ground, but I doubt I’d get even another full foot out of it. 8′4″ is considered excellent; with skill level increments every 4″ below that.
Sitting here, doing work, I heard some cool instrumentals with a fairly complicated chord progression. Then this seductive voice whispered, “Share your dreams with someone you love.”
Quick check revealed that Beautiful Voices (episode 006) was playing. Usually frustrating, b/c these mixes can go on for an hour or so. But I said, “Google don’t fails me now!” Found the mix track listing for once. This one has 16 songs in it, and the one I wanted was Jason Tyrello, “Share Your Dreams” (Dreamzone Mix). I would have sworn it was Blank & Jones, but they’re playing now — 3 songs later in the mix.
Check out the “server virtualization” and “fight standby” items on wecandothis.com.
This is a year old now, but I stumbled across it on another search on costing: Total costs of the war in Iraq may be between $1 to $2 trillion. We want smaller government programs, but I don’t think we’ll get it long-term from the current government or its supporters. I was going to link http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm as supporting evidence, but a Google check indicates that they have a spotty track record (an $13m annual budget being nonindicative of reputability). The link seems to read sensibly and knowledgeably, but I’m a n00b at this kind of numbers-juggling. I include it here unlinked FYI, but you’re forewarned.
For perspective, note that the presidential hopefuls are all bagging on Hillary Clinton’s health care plan with a proposed cost of $110 billion (per year?). Considering costs of the war incurred to date (something like $500 billion), her plan is on par with Bush’s annual war spending, and I suspect that more people would benefit from her health plan than from the war.
Note that I’m not blaming Republicans or Democrats. Chuck Hagel is against the war, for sensible reasons of monetary and human cost. Note that I’m linking a fun but fair assessment of him; the reader can check more official sources for a complete picture of the guy.
Zooming in from that orbital view, here’s something interesting regarding quality of soldiers and their costs. Not to mention the increased danger that comes with working alongside incompetent people.
Other random weblinks of interest:
Combat lasers + battlefield robots = Terminators! Global Security’s director, John Pike, makes a provocative comment at the bottom on just the robot aspect — “This opens up great vistas, some quite pleasant, others quite nightmarish. On the one hand, this could make our flesh-and-blood soldiers so hard to get to that traditional war — a match of relatively evenly matched peers — could become a thing of the past,” he said. “But this might also rob us of our humanity. We could be the ones that wind up looking like Terminators, in the world’s eyes.”
On a different note, we were talking in the commencement line about costs of living and business. One guy next to me said that Indonesian labor costs his company $1500 / mo, but you fly a few hours to Bangladesh, and it’s $60 / mo.
It reminds me of how real estate in Hanoi (capital city of Vietnam) is on par with New York City and Tokyo, despite GDP per capita of … <searching CIA World Factbook>
!!!
‘Scuse me whilst I go peel my eyebrows off the ceiling…
<minutes later>
OK, so Vietnam’s GDP / capita in 2002 when I went was $325 (2000 data). But as of 2006, it was $3100!
Still makes Hanoi’s real estate flippin’ expensive, but .. wow. Well, there you go. Go, little SE Asian Tigers.
And on another unrelated note, Nicole told me yesterday how she went out on a Habitat for Humanity thing, and how that gave her a new appreciation for my metalworking. They were putting nails in pressure-treated wood, and a lot of the hammering had to be done parallel to the ground rather than down into the ground. The old hands could drive the big, 6″ nails in with 5-6 hammer strokes, but she took something like 20 strokes per. Plus the usual initial wiffs and bent nails. But she figured it out fairly quickly, and the veterans were praising the accuracy of her work by the end of the day. The lesson: hammerwork is hard work!
<shrugs>
Eh, a little, maybe. But I said I figure she’s more able than I at calculating fluid dynamics and thrust output from rocket engines, so we’re more than square. She’s more marketable, after all. :) (pun intended)
Didn’t want to say anything until I’d proven to myself I could do it. So given what my car is (’96 Chevy Blazer), I’m not exactly high up on the green list. I try to switch off with my parents’ old ‘94 Toyota Previa as much as I can (4-cyl, gets 23 mpg vs. my 19 mpg). My latest microvictory has been to retrain my driving style. Being impatient and high-strung, I tend to carry it over into my driving. Only when I’m agitated, though. My car redlines at 5500 rpm, matches 18-wheelers at 1500 rpm, and seems to be most efficient between 1700-2100 rpm. It’s really easy to go to 2500 rpm, though.
So in an effort to moderate my excesses, all throughout this past finals period, I managed to keep it to 2100 rpm or under, except for a couple times one day when I was looking to beat some lights and make it to a meeting on time. I used to play the coasting game all the time when I first started driving, and I’ve started it up again.
Late at night, I can often coast for an entire block or two and time several of the lights on Richmond or Westpark. They have a couple intersections (notably Briarpark) that are completely retarded and out of sync, but everything else lets me get through at +/- 10 mph of the speed limit. Voss isn’t so kind — there’s a light where I have to either aggressively reach 45 mph (10 mph over), or more sedately hit 50 mph. And on the downside, I have to go about 22 mph to time it on the green light (which causes a different kind of driving hazard given other Houston drivers).
But who cares about all that shite? Those who know probably want to hear about commencement. Back when I finished undergrad, I promised myself I’d work for several years, figure out what I wanted to do, then get an MBA. My uncles and some other people all warned me that it’s easy to get distracted in those working years with a significant other, a house, marriage, kids, and etc. I told them and my parents at the time that I do what I say I’ll do. The universal response I got was, “Yeah, sure. (We’ll believe it when we see it.)”
Well, sometimes we experience project setbacks, the timetable gets pushed back, etc. I started getting a clue only this past year and a half, but I’m done now. Took 3.5 yrs and some time off, but it got done — and done right. I learned things during the course of things that changed what I had initially planned. But market research and sustainable / green business practices are both things that I want to remain involved with and learn more about, going forward in life.
The next big step, of course, is to spend 5-7 years building that career track.
[speaking of things I will do, I still have plans to run a playing of the prize, but where / when / how remain TBD.]
Graduation itself was fairly painless — barely an hour from start to finish. Knew a few people, but I’ve never really stuck with anyone other than Brockmeier and Jen, and they graduated a couple years ago.
Welcome Wilson, Sr., the chairman of the board of regents, was pretty fun. He was a much older man — related a story about how he stayed in some Army housing dorms on the site of the current business school, back in ‘47, and it was a good place, except for the latrines being a block away. He acknowledged we’d all be successful, but emphasized that we need to regularly take stock of what’s important, and always remember to pay attention to our families.
The keynote speaker was from Spectra Energy. He was all over the map, hitting business ethics, building the community, constantly improving, helping make the world a better place through socially responsible capitalism, etc. Basically, a capitalist spin on the Wiccan notion of “do what ye will, an’ it harm none.” Which, when you think about it, is a *very* challenging rule to live by. Me, I like that wording better than the Golden Rule — “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — though the two are definitely related.
Anyway, it’s done, and I think I’m even going to get away with Dean’s List by the skin of my teeth. I had a couple rough weeks in one of my classes, but one of my profs seemed to be hinting tonight that one of the other guys and I (who thought that we two would be feeling the B or C stick on our hides) had done a fine job. He usually shoots pretty straight, so I don’t think it was just to spare our feelings on this particular night.
Speaking of which, my parents and sisters got their shot at pictures, then we left. I skipped out on the reception in favor of working out at Rice. I had been pretty morose going into commencement, but a couple hours of light working out cleared things up. Didn’t want to push too hard, b/c I’ll be meeting the PK crew at Tranquility Park tomorrow after I do an observation for Kaplan.
Otherwise, late dinner from the fridge, a little reading, and the usual evening at home. Just the way it should be. :)
The triangle’s still a little leaden, but I can’t complain, considering we were fo’c’sle and bowsprit below water just two weeks ago.
I admit I haven’t been great with my group, but it’s gone both ways. Even back when I was on top of things earlier in the semester, I’d be putting out ideas that kept getting shot down. Obviously, I was biased in thinking that they were straightforward and the correct course of action… But dammit, if you’re gonna put holes in my suggestions, then let’s see you put some of your own up in the shooting gallery.
Oh, whatever. I had this long diatribe about people who tell you to do one thing, then ream you out for not doing another.
I don’t know if any of my work in the past two weeks hasn’t been totally redone.
So I stopped by Rice and worked my way around campus pretty thoroughly for about 2.5 hrs. My grips are so sore I can barely hold a glass to drink right now. And my quads and whatever’s on the insides of the thighs are all wobbly. Mmm. :)
And I still can’t imagine myself jumping any railings. I’ve tested the approaches to a couple tables and walls and such, and … whoo-ee. :) I don’t need to try it to know I won’t clear it. Gonna be a couple more months’ crazy workouts before I’ll try killing myself by concrete faceplant.
And by midnight, most things were right with the world again. It was a damp, cool night. Gorgeous for working out. Also a bit ripe for melancholy as well, but one manages.
Visibility was down to about 300 feet on the way home, due to fog. All the world was rubbed out, swallowed up by the haze. The powerful, amber glow of Houston’s excessive streetlights seemed muted for once, and quickly faded to black overhead.
Very tranquil. Good for introspection.
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