Today was Adam's birthday. For some reason, he seemed to think it was hilarious for people to sing "Happy Birthday" to him. We missed the expression on his face when he opened the present that had the Diego tshirt in it, but he was very excited about it. If you ask him what else he wants for his birthday, he says a "doggie pillow pet". We have not been able to find any doggie pillow pets...
The other thing he really wants is cake and ice cream. The kid catches on fast. We got him some cake and ice cream, and after, went to the creamery to get some balloons. We got enough for him and the girls, and as I was putting the balloons in the car, I tried buckling them in the seatbelt, and the flew away. Adam still had his, but he seemed a bit shocked about the ones flying off into the clouds.
It reminded me of the time that we went to the Children's Hospital employee picnic, which was a gigantic thing, at least it seemed to me. (I must have been somewhere in the range of 6-10, I suppose.) At the end, we had balloons. It was a hot car, my dad was driving, and the windows were opened. We were told to hold our balloons, but I let mine go, and it immediately floated up right in front of my Dad's view. He was able to bat the thing out the window and kept driving. I watched the thing float away as we drove away...
Today was sort of like that, except that I was not in the driver's seat then, the van wasn't moving, and it was 5 balloons, not 1 balloon. Also, having been a driver all these years, and having the occasional 'distracted driver' problem, I think my Dad took the balloon in the line of vision problem really, really well.
Showing posts with label Flash to the Past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flash to the Past. Show all posts
Monday, June 13, 2011
Friday, May 21, 2010
Pac-Man
Today was the 30th anniversary of PAC-MAN. I saw lots of tweets about Google's playable banner today, but didn't get around to it until just now. Nicely done, Google.
When I was really little, and we were at my Grandma Oak's house, they pulled out an Atari. As far as I remember, this was my first exposure to video games. (We had a ColecoVision at our house a few years later. The games I member from that were Donkey Kong and Defender. I was good at both, but not Steve Weibe good. And then there were PC games... But I digress.) One of the games Grandma had was Pac-Man. I remember thinking how much fun it was.
A few years later, I had my first paper route. It was a short one, just went down our street. At the end of the street was a pizza place. The pizza place had two video game machines, Space Invaders and Mrs. Pac-man. The Mrs. Pac-Man machine called to me from time to time as I finish delivering papers. I played too much.
They also had that silly little Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon. I used to think it was hilarious that the ghosts had their suits at home hanging on the clothes line, for some reason...
Later, after a move a few miles North, I had another paper route, this one with a bowling alley at the end of it. Lot of pinball machines, and Pac-Man. I wasted a lot of time in that bowling alley. (They took the paper.) The owners used to call me the pinball wizard. I think my Mom was happy when I stopped that route.
Years later, I discovered there was a sit down head-to-head Mrs. Pac-Man machine. (My mission, I think.) Good times.
When I was a freshman in college, the bowling alley was right next to a giant games center, with lots and lots of video game machines. It's long gone now, but in it's day, it was sweet. PacMan/Mrs. Pacman shared time with Tetris. Lots of Tetris.
I liked playing PacMan on the arcade machine, because you only needed to use one hand. No endless mashing of buttons. Just up/down/right/left. When your right hand got tired, you could switch to you left hand. Or alternate between levels. Additionally, nearly half your body was free while you played the game, which allowed for doing a little dance as you played.
Anyhow. Happy birthday Pac-Man.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Return of the Rooster!
As an early teenager, I had a paper route. (Didn't everyone?) Somewhere along the way, as part of the paper route, I qualified for some sort of prize. The reason for this escapes me right now. The prize I chose was a very fine alarm clock.
What made this alarm clock nice was that it talked. It talked loud. When the alarm went off, it would tell you the time, in a very loud voice. You had the option of doing a 'beep-beep-beep' with this time announcement, or have it crow like a digital rooster. I choose the rooster as the default ring. (Of course.)
The drawback to this is that I slept right through the crowing and announcing of the time. The thing just kept going and going, hoping I would respond to it's incessant racket. It didn't bother me any, but it bothered people around me.
I am sure Drew could comment of the rooster, sharing a bedroom with me. (I don't think he reads this blog, otherwise he'd say something.) We were in a bedroom in the basement, the noise of the rooster wafted up to the second floor through the heating ducts. I am sure my family has not very nice things to say about the rooster...
Working summers at the local scout camp, I worked in the kitchen. This meant I was supposed to be up before the rest of the staff. The rooster lived out there as well. Having the rooster at the camp was helpful, because everyone around me was so willing to get me up out of my cot in the morning so that the alarm clock didn't keep going. Some of the camp staff had more colorful things to say about the rooster than my family might share.
I am sure the rooster made it to my Freshman year of college. Rob, do you remember the rooster? I had an 8am class. Made it to class three times. The rooster kept crowing and crowing, but Chem 113 went on without me.
The rooster went with me on my mission. This is where the line starts to blur. I wrote home in the middle of my mission to let them know that I augmented the rooster with a second alarm clock. This is the last place I can seem to track the thing down at. I'm not sure where it went past that.
Anyhow, things haven't changed much in 20+ years. I still sleep right through alarm clocks. Sometimes Tara lets me, other times she makes me get up and 'turn that thing off'. (I've used some pretty annoying ringtones on my phone in the past to try to get up in the mornings.)
Last night I set the alarm on my new phone for the first time, and what did I find? The phone has a rooster alarm setting! It came with the phone, honest. I woke up this morning before the alarm went off, and to be nice, disabled the thing before it started crowing. Tomorrow morning I have to be up at 6am to get to work early, I plan to let the rooster rip, bright and early...
What made this alarm clock nice was that it talked. It talked loud. When the alarm went off, it would tell you the time, in a very loud voice. You had the option of doing a 'beep-beep-beep' with this time announcement, or have it crow like a digital rooster. I choose the rooster as the default ring. (Of course.)
The drawback to this is that I slept right through the crowing and announcing of the time. The thing just kept going and going, hoping I would respond to it's incessant racket. It didn't bother me any, but it bothered people around me.
I am sure Drew could comment of the rooster, sharing a bedroom with me. (I don't think he reads this blog, otherwise he'd say something.) We were in a bedroom in the basement, the noise of the rooster wafted up to the second floor through the heating ducts. I am sure my family has not very nice things to say about the rooster...
Working summers at the local scout camp, I worked in the kitchen. This meant I was supposed to be up before the rest of the staff. The rooster lived out there as well. Having the rooster at the camp was helpful, because everyone around me was so willing to get me up out of my cot in the morning so that the alarm clock didn't keep going. Some of the camp staff had more colorful things to say about the rooster than my family might share.
I am sure the rooster made it to my Freshman year of college. Rob, do you remember the rooster? I had an 8am class. Made it to class three times. The rooster kept crowing and crowing, but Chem 113 went on without me.
The rooster went with me on my mission. This is where the line starts to blur. I wrote home in the middle of my mission to let them know that I augmented the rooster with a second alarm clock. This is the last place I can seem to track the thing down at. I'm not sure where it went past that.
Anyhow, things haven't changed much in 20+ years. I still sleep right through alarm clocks. Sometimes Tara lets me, other times she makes me get up and 'turn that thing off'. (I've used some pretty annoying ringtones on my phone in the past to try to get up in the mornings.)
Last night I set the alarm on my new phone for the first time, and what did I find? The phone has a rooster alarm setting! It came with the phone, honest. I woke up this morning before the alarm went off, and to be nice, disabled the thing before it started crowing. Tomorrow morning I have to be up at 6am to get to work early, I plan to let the rooster rip, bright and early...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Remembering Y2K
Hard to believe Y2K was 10 years ago. Back then, I was one of the computer room shift supervisors. Amy had done some work with Herb and Gordon getting us ready for the thing. The director, Ferrell, was a little off by then, I think. A couple of days before the 31st, he brought in some really long extension cords and some tarps for us to have on hand. He seemed to think we could just run the cords over to the next building and plug the servers in if we had to. I asked him what the tarp was for, he thought it would be useful if water started coming in from the ceiling. I still don't know what he thought would happen to the structural integrity of the roof... At around 10pm, one of the campus police officers came over, Ferrell had him over just in case we needed him. (We didn't, but I think he enjoyed sitting there all night eating snacks just as much as we did.)
Anyhow, at the time, I was still an hourly employee. I hit 40 hours before the 31st, and worked about 14 hours or something that day. We were incredibly bored the entire day, watching New Year's celebrations on TV from around the world, and watching the reports of nothing else happening.
No worldwide computer meltdown, no alien invasion, no natural disaster. Just a very big paycheck from all the overtime...
Happy new year everyone.
Anyhow, at the time, I was still an hourly employee. I hit 40 hours before the 31st, and worked about 14 hours or something that day. We were incredibly bored the entire day, watching New Year's celebrations on TV from around the world, and watching the reports of nothing else happening.
No worldwide computer meltdown, no alien invasion, no natural disaster. Just a very big paycheck from all the overtime...
Happy new year everyone.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Printing
15 years ago at work, we were still running things primarily on a single mainframe, and had a giant Xerox printer that printed all kinds of reports, student hire/fire/raise sheets, paychecks, and all kinds of other things. We also had a microfiche copier, you would have to sit there for hours on end making 50 copies of 50 sheets, silly stuff like that.
The student hire/fire/raise sheets were interesting, because you would print on yellow, blue or green paper, depending on what action was being taken. (I can't remember which color was hire, which was fire, and which was a pay raise. I am sure I have it written down in a notebook on the shelf in my office.) After the stuff for student employment was printed, you had to cut them down into 4x6 sheets. This made for a lot of 7x8.5 sized pieces of paper when you were done, these were just recycled. I was stocked for years with squares of yellow, green, and blue paper. I used to use it for all my Math homework back in the days.
The checks were interesting to do. Someone from the Treasurers office came over, would watch while you pulled the checks out of a locked cage, he also had a disk with the signature on it. Then you would print for a very long time. For a while, we also had to stuff the checks into envelopes, our stuffing machine always managed to mangle a few checks every time. I was glad to see the University go to direct deposit whenever possible, and the payroll office printed the checks on their own.
The other thing we printed was reports. All kinds of reports. We had a bunch of cubbies the reports would go into. Karl had about 4 or 5 of them, and would never take his reports. Some reports ended up getting stuffed into peper boxes and would be several boxes worth of printed paper. When I worked at night, I actually liked printing these reports, because I could fill the printer with 2000 sheets of paper, start printing, get up on top of the printer, which was warm, and take a little half nap, and only have to move when the printer stopped because the tray was full or the thing ran out of paper.
The printer sometimes would jam, you would have to take the thing nearly completely apart to get to the jam sometimes. I spent plenty of time half buried in the thing trying to get papers out of it. The printer also used toner, which came in little quart sized containers, you had a little hose like thing that you hooked the container to, and shook the toner out into the printer. One time I didn't get the thing sealed right, and the thing came apart while I was shaking. Toner went everywhere. The blue carpet was completely black, except for 2 blue shoe prints. My sneakers were black. My blue jeans were completely black. I feel sorry for whoever used the washing machine after me, I think I did the load twice to try to get the toner out.
In the morning, there were all kind of reports to deliver all over campus. This was nice to do, except in the Winter. I would get to the offices where the really big reports went, and you would see the last 2 sets of printouts sitting there on a desk, stacked four feet high. I wondered if anyone really read those things at all.
When we moved from the mainframe to HPUX servers, much of the printing was farmed out to the departments that had HP printers. We would send the print job from our servers to them, and we wouldn't give them another thought.
For a while, we were printing to the IP address for these remote printers. I eventually got tired of having them give one of these printers a new IP address, and having to have to go change 30 servers so they would all print. I started making them put these printers in DNS so I could point the print queues to the DNS names. About 5 years ago, someone somewhere in our department had a great idea, they would have all printers on campus renamed to indicate the model and location of the printer. This meant I would need to change upwards of 50 printer queues on about 50 machines. (We were up to 60 HPUX machines at one point.) It took about two weeks of users screaming at us about printing to figure out what was going on, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to tell us in advance that the printer DNS name was changing.
About 3 years ago, I finally got smart. I set up one server as a print gateway, and pointed all other servers at this gateway server. If they ended up moving the printer, or getting a new one, they would change the DNS name, and this way, I only had to make the change in one place.
It didn't change the problem that they would never tell us before hand a printer was changing, they would just change the printer, and it would suddenly be an emergency that the print queue be fixed. For the last three years, any time a print queue modification was needed, I would go on a tirade asking why we were still printing directly. I don't see why most of this isn't a web service yet, letting the end user pick a printer configured on their local machine, but we are not fully there yet. I think we are slowly getting there.
On the second day of school, I got an email that a printer had been replaced, and they needed the print queue fixed, or no one on campus would get their W-2s. I love the requests that have some sort of thinly veiled threat attached to them. As if that would get it done sooner. I had red salmon from a pouch that day for lunch, it wasn't all that good, and I refused to make the change. I had planned to wait it out for a while, just to see what happens, until my boss told me to just do it and stop whining. After I made the change, I tried to get them to test and let me know, they never got back to me. The W-2s came yesterday in campus mail, so I am assuming the printer queue is working...
Last week, I discovered that my laptop would not let me add a new printer. I fiddled with it for a while, updated CUPS, and fiddled some more until I got it working. This past Tuesday, I discovered that I couldn't print anything at all. I really haven't had time to fiddle with it a lot, I did get it to print some stuff on Wednesday, but I haven't done anything else to make sure it works.
Long story short - I am not really a fan of printing, at least not at work. It's not because if all the trees cut down for the paper, now you know the real reason.
The student hire/fire/raise sheets were interesting, because you would print on yellow, blue or green paper, depending on what action was being taken. (I can't remember which color was hire, which was fire, and which was a pay raise. I am sure I have it written down in a notebook on the shelf in my office.) After the stuff for student employment was printed, you had to cut them down into 4x6 sheets. This made for a lot of 7x8.5 sized pieces of paper when you were done, these were just recycled. I was stocked for years with squares of yellow, green, and blue paper. I used to use it for all my Math homework back in the days.
The checks were interesting to do. Someone from the Treasurers office came over, would watch while you pulled the checks out of a locked cage, he also had a disk with the signature on it. Then you would print for a very long time. For a while, we also had to stuff the checks into envelopes, our stuffing machine always managed to mangle a few checks every time. I was glad to see the University go to direct deposit whenever possible, and the payroll office printed the checks on their own.
The other thing we printed was reports. All kinds of reports. We had a bunch of cubbies the reports would go into. Karl had about 4 or 5 of them, and would never take his reports. Some reports ended up getting stuffed into peper boxes and would be several boxes worth of printed paper. When I worked at night, I actually liked printing these reports, because I could fill the printer with 2000 sheets of paper, start printing, get up on top of the printer, which was warm, and take a little half nap, and only have to move when the printer stopped because the tray was full or the thing ran out of paper.
The printer sometimes would jam, you would have to take the thing nearly completely apart to get to the jam sometimes. I spent plenty of time half buried in the thing trying to get papers out of it. The printer also used toner, which came in little quart sized containers, you had a little hose like thing that you hooked the container to, and shook the toner out into the printer. One time I didn't get the thing sealed right, and the thing came apart while I was shaking. Toner went everywhere. The blue carpet was completely black, except for 2 blue shoe prints. My sneakers were black. My blue jeans were completely black. I feel sorry for whoever used the washing machine after me, I think I did the load twice to try to get the toner out.
In the morning, there were all kind of reports to deliver all over campus. This was nice to do, except in the Winter. I would get to the offices where the really big reports went, and you would see the last 2 sets of printouts sitting there on a desk, stacked four feet high. I wondered if anyone really read those things at all.
When we moved from the mainframe to HPUX servers, much of the printing was farmed out to the departments that had HP printers. We would send the print job from our servers to them, and we wouldn't give them another thought.
For a while, we were printing to the IP address for these remote printers. I eventually got tired of having them give one of these printers a new IP address, and having to have to go change 30 servers so they would all print. I started making them put these printers in DNS so I could point the print queues to the DNS names. About 5 years ago, someone somewhere in our department had a great idea, they would have all printers on campus renamed to indicate the model and location of the printer. This meant I would need to change upwards of 50 printer queues on about 50 machines. (We were up to 60 HPUX machines at one point.) It took about two weeks of users screaming at us about printing to figure out what was going on, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to tell us in advance that the printer DNS name was changing.
About 3 years ago, I finally got smart. I set up one server as a print gateway, and pointed all other servers at this gateway server. If they ended up moving the printer, or getting a new one, they would change the DNS name, and this way, I only had to make the change in one place.
It didn't change the problem that they would never tell us before hand a printer was changing, they would just change the printer, and it would suddenly be an emergency that the print queue be fixed. For the last three years, any time a print queue modification was needed, I would go on a tirade asking why we were still printing directly. I don't see why most of this isn't a web service yet, letting the end user pick a printer configured on their local machine, but we are not fully there yet. I think we are slowly getting there.
On the second day of school, I got an email that a printer had been replaced, and they needed the print queue fixed, or no one on campus would get their W-2s. I love the requests that have some sort of thinly veiled threat attached to them. As if that would get it done sooner. I had red salmon from a pouch that day for lunch, it wasn't all that good, and I refused to make the change. I had planned to wait it out for a while, just to see what happens, until my boss told me to just do it and stop whining. After I made the change, I tried to get them to test and let me know, they never got back to me. The W-2s came yesterday in campus mail, so I am assuming the printer queue is working...
Last week, I discovered that my laptop would not let me add a new printer. I fiddled with it for a while, updated CUPS, and fiddled some more until I got it working. This past Tuesday, I discovered that I couldn't print anything at all. I really haven't had time to fiddle with it a lot, I did get it to print some stuff on Wednesday, but I haven't done anything else to make sure it works.
Long story short - I am not really a fan of printing, at least not at work. It's not because if all the trees cut down for the paper, now you know the real reason.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Way, way, way off Broadway
Tonight we went to see a play. When we got our tickets at the beginning of the season, it was called "Playing Fields". A few weeks ago we got a letter saying the name of the play had been changed to "Roofsliding".
I once did a little roof sliding myself. When I graduated High School, I started painting the house. The house has a little roof over the front room, and the day of our graduation practice, I nearly slid off the roof. I had a rescue rope, and used it, but had slid half off the roof. After this, it was time to go up to the school, I didn't change or anything, I figured they were just showing us how to walk properly, and it wasn't worth my time anyway. I was in the front row of the class, and the walk through was fine, for being pointless. When I got home, my Mom asked me if I went up to the school in those clothes. I told her yes, she told me to look at the back of my pants. The rear end of the pair of shorts I had been wearing had completely worn off when I slid off the roof. What was left of my shorts, and the boxer underneath were covered in tar from the shingles. My Mom was embarrassed for me, since I wasn't really. I asked the girl behind me during the actual graduation why she didn't say anything, I think she was embarrassed also. A week or two later, I was up on an extension ladder painting the eaves. The ladder slipped out, I fell straight into some bushes, staring straight into a can of white paint. I had white paint over my entire head, up my nose, in my ears, in my mouth. My little brother Adam was out there painting the shutters, all he could do was laugh at me.
Anyhow, the name of the play was "Roofsliding." This has something to do with some sort of tradition someone knew about from Scotland, where men get up on a roof, and slide down it, and try to stop themselves at the gutter. The only thing "roofsliding" had to do with this play is that the play is set in Scotland, and everyone spoke with an accent. The origional title of the play was "cake", which had a little more to do with the play, "Playing Fields" was somewhere between the 2.
The play was kind of odd. It really didn't seem to have a point. I think the problem was that the thing was originally a 10 minute play, written by a student. This student eventually decided to try to take that 10 minutes and make it last 2 hours. The play had maybe 10 minutes of content, and 110 minutes of filler.
There were some laughs. There was 'sort of' a plot, but not really. If I had to sum up this play very quickly, I would have to use the phrase "...so anyway..." (I know I've done this before with a play I saw, but this one really deserves that response.) If I were pinned down to explain what the message of the play was supposed to be, I would have to say the message was "Scottish people are completely insane." I can't say more, it's more of an experienced thing, really.
The actors did a really good job with what thy had, and the scenery was interesting, but if I were given the choice between putting on this play and doing something else, I'd do something else. (Even if it meant *gasp* doing more than one Shakespeare in a year...) I'm not sure what the thought process was to get this play on the schedule. Maybe it made more sense in a earlier revision.
To top it off, we had bought season tickets for the first Thursday of the season. (The first Thursday of each play's run....) So far, we had exchanged each set of tickets for a different day. I took our tickets in yesterday to exchange them. Normally, they change a fee to exchange tickets, the other times this season I exchanged tickets, I got away with no exchange fee. Not so this time. I got rung up for another $6.40 for this play. It's a good thing I saved a little money on dinner with a gift certificate I had...
We got into the the theater, and there were maybe 30 people in the audience. The place was maybe 1/3 to 1/2 full by the time the thing started. I'd say 40% of the people left at the intermission. We stayed until the end.
One thing about going to these plays, is that it always seems to give Tara and me a chance to mock people. It's not that we are mean, it's just that some of our fellow audience members just naturally inspire that sort of thing. You hear some pretty funny things waiting for an on campus play to star. Tonight, the girl behind us was explaining to the guy she was with about how the shoes you wear tell all about your personality and stuff. She started explaining what her shoes said about her, and followed it up by psycho analyzing the guy based on the shoes he was wearing. The guy just kept saying "That's true, that's true." The only thing I could think was "say what you want, I'm wearing these shoes because they fit my feet."
Anyhow, I'd say pass on this one. Unless you are related to one of the actors, have an affinity for Scottish accents, already bought your tickets and can't get out of it. The Evans will be going on Tuesday, we don't plan to warn them, we know they will leave at intermission, and we really want to hear their take on it when we see them Wednesday evening. We don't want to temper their reaction at all...
I once did a little roof sliding myself. When I graduated High School, I started painting the house. The house has a little roof over the front room, and the day of our graduation practice, I nearly slid off the roof. I had a rescue rope, and used it, but had slid half off the roof. After this, it was time to go up to the school, I didn't change or anything, I figured they were just showing us how to walk properly, and it wasn't worth my time anyway. I was in the front row of the class, and the walk through was fine, for being pointless. When I got home, my Mom asked me if I went up to the school in those clothes. I told her yes, she told me to look at the back of my pants. The rear end of the pair of shorts I had been wearing had completely worn off when I slid off the roof. What was left of my shorts, and the boxer underneath were covered in tar from the shingles. My Mom was embarrassed for me, since I wasn't really. I asked the girl behind me during the actual graduation why she didn't say anything, I think she was embarrassed also. A week or two later, I was up on an extension ladder painting the eaves. The ladder slipped out, I fell straight into some bushes, staring straight into a can of white paint. I had white paint over my entire head, up my nose, in my ears, in my mouth. My little brother Adam was out there painting the shutters, all he could do was laugh at me.
Anyhow, the name of the play was "Roofsliding." This has something to do with some sort of tradition someone knew about from Scotland, where men get up on a roof, and slide down it, and try to stop themselves at the gutter. The only thing "roofsliding" had to do with this play is that the play is set in Scotland, and everyone spoke with an accent. The origional title of the play was "cake", which had a little more to do with the play, "Playing Fields" was somewhere between the 2.
The play was kind of odd. It really didn't seem to have a point. I think the problem was that the thing was originally a 10 minute play, written by a student. This student eventually decided to try to take that 10 minutes and make it last 2 hours. The play had maybe 10 minutes of content, and 110 minutes of filler.
There were some laughs. There was 'sort of' a plot, but not really. If I had to sum up this play very quickly, I would have to use the phrase "...so anyway..." (I know I've done this before with a play I saw, but this one really deserves that response.) If I were pinned down to explain what the message of the play was supposed to be, I would have to say the message was "Scottish people are completely insane." I can't say more, it's more of an experienced thing, really.
The actors did a really good job with what thy had, and the scenery was interesting, but if I were given the choice between putting on this play and doing something else, I'd do something else. (Even if it meant *gasp* doing more than one Shakespeare in a year...) I'm not sure what the thought process was to get this play on the schedule. Maybe it made more sense in a earlier revision.
To top it off, we had bought season tickets for the first Thursday of the season. (The first Thursday of each play's run....) So far, we had exchanged each set of tickets for a different day. I took our tickets in yesterday to exchange them. Normally, they change a fee to exchange tickets, the other times this season I exchanged tickets, I got away with no exchange fee. Not so this time. I got rung up for another $6.40 for this play. It's a good thing I saved a little money on dinner with a gift certificate I had...
We got into the the theater, and there were maybe 30 people in the audience. The place was maybe 1/3 to 1/2 full by the time the thing started. I'd say 40% of the people left at the intermission. We stayed until the end.
One thing about going to these plays, is that it always seems to give Tara and me a chance to mock people. It's not that we are mean, it's just that some of our fellow audience members just naturally inspire that sort of thing. You hear some pretty funny things waiting for an on campus play to star. Tonight, the girl behind us was explaining to the guy she was with about how the shoes you wear tell all about your personality and stuff. She started explaining what her shoes said about her, and followed it up by psycho analyzing the guy based on the shoes he was wearing. The guy just kept saying "That's true, that's true." The only thing I could think was "say what you want, I'm wearing these shoes because they fit my feet."
Anyhow, I'd say pass on this one. Unless you are related to one of the actors, have an affinity for Scottish accents, already bought your tickets and can't get out of it. The Evans will be going on Tuesday, we don't plan to warn them, we know they will leave at intermission, and we really want to hear their take on it when we see them Wednesday evening. We don't want to temper their reaction at all...
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Not necessarily paying full attention to the Sunday School lesson
Someone in Sunday School today said something about dragging our sins along behind us. This made me think about something.
Back in the day, I went to join the high school track team. I told them I wanted to throw shot put and discus. Mister Barnard, the track coach, told me I could, but everyone had to run for the first week. (I think it was so that they didn't send someone to the field events that should also be running.)
The first week of track practice involved the following: A warmup run around the track once, followed by stretching. Then anyone that was not new got to go where ever they were supposed to be. The hurdle guys went to dig out the hurdles. The cross country and long distance runners took off. Jumpers went to the jump area, that sort of thing. Us new guys got tires harnessed to us and we were set to running. For a weeks worth of practices.
Looking back on it, I think there were 3 main reasons they did this to us, from the least likely to the most likely:
Also, a little story about those 2 football player/discus throwers. When I was a freshman, one day near the start of the school year, I was walking near the back of the school towards the front with my Baritone Sax case, and these 2 guys were running down the hall towards me. For some reason I don't fully understand, I made a move toward them with the case, I think to juke them out. The one guy flinched out of the way, they both got tangled up together and fell on the floor. Since they were running, they actually went sprawling all over the place. When I saw what I did, I got scared and took off running. (They had a foot and 50 pounds on me.) They chased me to the front of the school, but I had a head start, even with the Sax, and I had booked out the front doors. By the time they got to the front doors, I was at the little parking lot at the street hiding behind a car. They came out, looked around, didn't see me, and went back in. When the coast was clear, I went home. These guys never brought the thing up after I was on the track team the next year, they likely had long forgotten, and I wasn't brave enough to say a word about it...
Back in the day, I went to join the high school track team. I told them I wanted to throw shot put and discus. Mister Barnard, the track coach, told me I could, but everyone had to run for the first week. (I think it was so that they didn't send someone to the field events that should also be running.)
The first week of track practice involved the following: A warmup run around the track once, followed by stretching. Then anyone that was not new got to go where ever they were supposed to be. The hurdle guys went to dig out the hurdles. The cross country and long distance runners took off. Jumpers went to the jump area, that sort of thing. Us new guys got tires harnessed to us and we were set to running. For a weeks worth of practices.
Looking back on it, I think there were 3 main reasons they did this to us, from the least likely to the most likely:
- They figured that running with a big truck tire harnessed behind you would make it so that you ran faster and more explosively when the tire wasn't there.
- Mister Barnard thought it would be funny to make a bunch of kids run for a week with tires harnessed to them
- The track was a soot/gravel track, and they needed to have it groomed. The easiest way to groom the track at the start of the season must have been to drag tires across it. In hindsight, I think that's the real reason they made us do this.
Also, a little story about those 2 football player/discus throwers. When I was a freshman, one day near the start of the school year, I was walking near the back of the school towards the front with my Baritone Sax case, and these 2 guys were running down the hall towards me. For some reason I don't fully understand, I made a move toward them with the case, I think to juke them out. The one guy flinched out of the way, they both got tangled up together and fell on the floor. Since they were running, they actually went sprawling all over the place. When I saw what I did, I got scared and took off running. (They had a foot and 50 pounds on me.) They chased me to the front of the school, but I had a head start, even with the Sax, and I had booked out the front doors. By the time they got to the front doors, I was at the little parking lot at the street hiding behind a car. They came out, looked around, didn't see me, and went back in. When the coast was clear, I went home. These guys never brought the thing up after I was on the track team the next year, they likely had long forgotten, and I wasn't brave enough to say a word about it...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
An oldie but a goodie
On Saturday morning, I woke up from a dream of the type I hadn't had in a while. I dreamt that I was enrolled in a class, but I hadn't been in a while, came in late one day, had to sit in the middle of the classroom, by the time I got settled, I realized I hadn't done any work in the class in weeks, had missed a test, and really had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Boom, the alarm went off. (I don't use the alarm all that much anymore...)
I haven't had this type of dream in a long time. It took about 6 months or so after I graduated to stop having these types of dreams. They were bad back in the day, because I would have the dream, and I would wake up not really knowing at first if that was something that just happened to me, something that was about to happen, or just a warning. The problem was that this happened to me a lot when I was in school. Maybe not the part about missing tests, but pretty much the rest of it. I did miss tests from time to time, but not all that much. It seemed like every semester, about 1/2 way in, I was trying to figure out what I had missed so far, if there was some project I should have done, and trying to figure out if the professor would let me turn all the homework in late. (Math professors usually did... I think it was from all the graduate students that didn't do any work in their classes until the last 2 weeks. By graduate students, I mean Earl.)
For a long time, I had a dream that I had been in a class for the first couple of classes, then didn't come back for a month, when I did, they were talking about the big projects they turned in the week before, and how much of their grade it was worth. I wouldn't remember the big project being on the syllabus. Occasionally, they would be reviewing the test from the week before, which I would have missed.
I guess I deserve it. I was not a good student. I don't think getting a full time job and going down to 1 class at a time helped any. Last week, while working monitoring the performance of the registration system, I loaded my transcript. There I am, still on academic probation. I don't think too many people pull off graduating on probation, but I did.
Things I pulled, which I don't necessarily endorse for the girls when they get to college:
I haven't had this type of dream in a long time. It took about 6 months or so after I graduated to stop having these types of dreams. They were bad back in the day, because I would have the dream, and I would wake up not really knowing at first if that was something that just happened to me, something that was about to happen, or just a warning. The problem was that this happened to me a lot when I was in school. Maybe not the part about missing tests, but pretty much the rest of it. I did miss tests from time to time, but not all that much. It seemed like every semester, about 1/2 way in, I was trying to figure out what I had missed so far, if there was some project I should have done, and trying to figure out if the professor would let me turn all the homework in late. (Math professors usually did... I think it was from all the graduate students that didn't do any work in their classes until the last 2 weeks. By graduate students, I mean Earl.)
For a long time, I had a dream that I had been in a class for the first couple of classes, then didn't come back for a month, when I did, they were talking about the big projects they turned in the week before, and how much of their grade it was worth. I wouldn't remember the big project being on the syllabus. Occasionally, they would be reviewing the test from the week before, which I would have missed.
I guess I deserve it. I was not a good student. I don't think getting a full time job and going down to 1 class at a time helped any. Last week, while working monitoring the performance of the registration system, I loaded my transcript. There I am, still on academic probation. I don't think too many people pull off graduating on probation, but I did.
Things I pulled, which I don't necessarily endorse for the girls when they get to college:
- Took a final 3 weeks into the next semester - this was my Freshman year, when I had hand surgery. By the time I got around to taking the final, the questions on it were vaguely familiar, but slightly foreign. I got a C in that class.
- Sent homework in by proxy. My freshman year I had a bunch of classes as other people in the dorms. I sent my Chemistry homework in with the guy across the hall. (This is a class I missed an exam in.) Got a D in that class, but it counted. I enrolled in an American Heritage class with Rob that year, I think I went twice. Rob used to get frustrated that I wouldn't go to class, or read the assignments, or do the work, I think. I got a D in that one also, which counted, but I'm not really sure how I got the D. The final was essay style, there were several questions I just completely and totally made stuff up on. Maybe the D came from humoring the tutors who were grading the thing. If it's a consolation to Rob, I did read a bunch of the stuff later in life...
- Took an exam from Indiana. This was when Grandpa Oaks died. I somehow talked the professor into giving me the exam sealed in an envelope, and letting me take it from Indiana, and fax it back to him. This was a Math professor. I don't remember exactly which calls this was, but I got all C's and C+'s in my Math classes (that counted) but 3 of them. (A 'D', a 'B+', and a 'B')
- Doing just enough work to get the C, and no more. This probably caused the frequency of those dreams to occur. If I had been doing everything, it wouldn't have pricked my subconscious nearly as bad.
- Getting kicked out of school. They don't like it so much when you have multiple really bad semesters in a row...
- Taking classes in the spring or summer terms. This should get you done sooner, but I always wished I was outside instead of in class. Then I would be outside instead of in class.
- Graduating on a horse trade. I took a Number Theory class for my last class. This was ok, I got bored with it when they took 5 days to explain cryptography because half the class just wasn't getting it. This class was during the spring term, which I've already talked about. We were also trying to get moved from the old computer room to the new Data Center at night, so I was moonlighting at work. This was the semester I broke my ankle and ended up in a wheelchair. (It was at the very end of the semester. I actually did it just at the end of the semester.) I found myself trying to get done with the Data Center move, the Math department was getting our old Data Center for a Math lab. Sorrel brought the head of the Math department in one day, while I was still in the wheelchair and explained that I was working day and night as hard as I could to maneuver our move so they could have their math lab open for the start of the Fall semester. He then started talking about how I had a problem, I got a D in the Number Theory class, and I didn't really have enough time to finish the Data Center move and take the class over during the Summer term. The head of the math department asked me if I had counted any other Math classes as D's for graduation, which I hadn't, so he said he would take care of it for me. I graduated, they got their math lab in time for Fall semester, everyone was happy all around. It was nice, but you don't always have that kind of leverage to use.
- I'm sure there are plenty of other points, I'm also sure that Rob will point them out.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Babe of Peace
Last year, I talked at this time of year about how I was looking for an old friend, Dan, to play him a little tune. Dan called me this morning, we reminisced a little about old times, new times, that sort of thing.
Dan lamented missing the traditional Christmas song, so for his (and your) listening enjoyment, click the link below.
This song takes me back to the Christmases of my early adulthood. Frolicking in the snow. Focusing all efforts on winning "Ward Marshmallow Tag". Trying (and succeeding, at least for one date) to get that one girl to go for a Homer, not a Bart. (I wasn't the Homer...) Playing Warcraft2 until all hours of the night, or at least having Hesiuki play all night while I fell asleep in the banana chair. You know, that sort of thing. (There's lots, lots more, but those are stories for another day...)
Dan lamented missing the traditional Christmas song, so for his (and your) listening enjoyment, click the link below.
This song takes me back to the Christmases of my early adulthood. Frolicking in the snow. Focusing all efforts on winning "Ward Marshmallow Tag". Trying (and succeeding, at least for one date) to get that one girl to go for a Homer, not a Bart. (I wasn't the Homer...) Playing Warcraft2 until all hours of the night, or at least having Hesiuki play all night while I fell asleep in the banana chair. You know, that sort of thing. (There's lots, lots more, but those are stories for another day...)
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Youth Interviews
We were talking about Youth interviews tonight at Bishopric training meeting. The Stake Presidency was talking about some of the things that should be talked about in Youth interviews, I was reminded of the interview I had with the Bishop when I turned twelve.
The Bishop asked if I lived the Law of Chastity. My answer was no. The Bishop responded "No? Really?" I said "Um, Yes?" I didn't even know what the question meant at the time.
We then talked about what the law of chastity was about. My answer ended up being yes... It amused me, at least this evening, I have no idea if it amused the Bishop at the time.
The Bishop asked if I lived the Law of Chastity. My answer was no. The Bishop responded "No? Really?" I said "Um, Yes?" I didn't even know what the question meant at the time.
We then talked about what the law of chastity was about. My answer ended up being yes... It amused me, at least this evening, I have no idea if it amused the Bishop at the time.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Creative navigating for the 4th of July
Back in the day, on the 4th of July, we would always have the bright idea to go get doughnuts from the store. We would all pile into Russ's car, and proceed to immediately get stuck in traffic.
On the 4th here, there is a 6:30am balloon festival. There is a 7am foot race. There is a 9am parade. (The parade is on a fairly large scale for this city. 2 off the main streets in town become unusable until about 1pm. This makes it very difficult to get from this side of the city to the doughnuts.)
Anyway, it takes some creative driving to get anywhere. I seem to nearly always get caught in it. Last year I avoided it by staying home. This year, I wanted to go to the new alumni building on campus for the balloons, but couldn't get onto campus. The end of our street was partially blocked off. I turned right, and saw that it was totally blocked off ahead for the race, which hadn't yet started. I drove up and around Kate's school, thinking I could get through onto campus that way. By the time I got there, the race was going, and the only choice the officer gave me was to turn right. (Going straight was the preferred method.) This is the way it goes on the morning of the 4th. I saw plenty of people walking over to the parade route. The mile or mile and a half walk is preferable to trying to get a car down there and parked.
Anyway, the urge to drive out on the 4th to get doughnuts is mostly, but not totally, watered down these days. It's just not worth the hassle. (Maybe I should call Drew.)
On the 4th here, there is a 6:30am balloon festival. There is a 7am foot race. There is a 9am parade. (The parade is on a fairly large scale for this city. 2 off the main streets in town become unusable until about 1pm. This makes it very difficult to get from this side of the city to the doughnuts.)
Anyway, it takes some creative driving to get anywhere. I seem to nearly always get caught in it. Last year I avoided it by staying home. This year, I wanted to go to the new alumni building on campus for the balloons, but couldn't get onto campus. The end of our street was partially blocked off. I turned right, and saw that it was totally blocked off ahead for the race, which hadn't yet started. I drove up and around Kate's school, thinking I could get through onto campus that way. By the time I got there, the race was going, and the only choice the officer gave me was to turn right. (Going straight was the preferred method.) This is the way it goes on the morning of the 4th. I saw plenty of people walking over to the parade route. The mile or mile and a half walk is preferable to trying to get a car down there and parked.
Anyway, the urge to drive out on the 4th to get doughnuts is mostly, but not totally, watered down these days. It's just not worth the hassle. (Maybe I should call Drew.)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
22 years ago today...
I was siting in the front room of the house playing Defender and Donkey Kong on our old (it's old now, at least) ColecoVison. We had that front sun room in the house in Buffalo. It was ki nd of nice sometimes, when the screens were in and you could sit out there. It was kind of cold sometimes when it was the middle of the winter. (But the freezing temperature didn't stop me from sitting there before school playing a round of Donkey Kong...)
There was also the time I dropped the bowling ball down the front steps and took a chuck out of the bottom step. And the time I accidentally flung the bottom of a clarinet and hit Amy square in the head with it. And the time I was being tormented by Drew on the other side of the large plate glass window and put my fist through it.Maybe the front room wasn't all that fun after all...
There was that crawl space in the basement with the treasures from the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's...
Tara, Mom, and Rob called today to wish me a happy birthday. They all seemed to call at bad times. I feel kind of bad, I really didn't have time to talk to anyone. Work had my blood pressure up, and Rob caught me in the 2 minute break between stake meetings. Rob promised to whip me in Age of Empires tomorrow night, which I'm more than happy to oblige him in.
Tomorrow I start annoying my coworkers with one of the birthday presents Tara got me. More on that later. The girls got me just what I wanted - new dress socks.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Textbook Buyback
I had to go over to the bookstore again today - this time to work on a server. It's finals week here, that means textbook buyback for students. They have signs up all over showing 4 classes where they need a number of books and the price they are offering. "Human Anatomy - 250 needed - $75!"
Back in the day, I rarely got much out of my textbooks. I don't know if the Math professors back then were just bored with the books, or were writing their own for the next semester, or what was going on, but I never appreciated the $5 offer they would give for the textbook I paid $80 for at the beginning of the semester. (and hardly used at all...)
After a while I started scheduling my classes around when the schedule for finals was. I tried to lump all the finals into the first couple of days. This had 2 reasons - I wanted to be done as soon as possible, and I wanted to be done with the finals early so I could beat other people to the textbook buyback. My results were mixed. One semester I walked away with $250.
After I started working full time, I got back at the whole "textbook cartel" business. Being a full time employee, I am able to check books out of the library for 6 months at a time. I think I only bought 1 textbook in all the time I was going to school trying to finish up while working full time.
Back in the day, I rarely got much out of my textbooks. I don't know if the Math professors back then were just bored with the books, or were writing their own for the next semester, or what was going on, but I never appreciated the $5 offer they would give for the textbook I paid $80 for at the beginning of the semester. (and hardly used at all...)
After a while I started scheduling my classes around when the schedule for finals was. I tried to lump all the finals into the first couple of days. This had 2 reasons - I wanted to be done as soon as possible, and I wanted to be done with the finals early so I could beat other people to the textbook buyback. My results were mixed. One semester I walked away with $250.
After I started working full time, I got back at the whole "textbook cartel" business. Being a full time employee, I am able to check books out of the library for 6 months at a time. I think I only bought 1 textbook in all the time I was going to school trying to finish up while working full time.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Easter Bunny
Seeing a number of people in large mascot costumes today, I was reminded of the time I was the Easter Bunny in a mall. I was 14 or 15, I can't remember, but I was talked into it. I think I made $4.50 an hour. This was good at the time for me, the non-paper route job I had before that was the A/V person for the school district Evening program. They paid me $2 an hour to push around TVs and make copies.
Anyway, this easter bunny costume was like 120 degrees inside it. It had mesh in the mouth for me to see through, but the head did not have any openings for a straw to fit through. I spent the entire time sweating out every ounce of liquid in my body.
Sometimes, lots of people would be there to get pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. I was at one of those booth things they do for Santa, but there were no elves and no candy for the people. Purely a money making, get 'em on the spur of the moment type outfit. This wasn't the best fun, between the scared kids screaming all the time, and the need to get out of there to get something to drink. (We would take a walk every hour to go to the back room so I could drick as much water as possible before going back out.)
One time, two fully grown women decided they needed to sit in the Easter Bunnies lap to get their picture taken. This was after at least an hour of sweating, I'm sure they would have thought twice had they known there was a waterlogged teenage kid under the suit.
The heaviest piece of that costume was the head. My eyes were level with the mouth, the rest of the head went even higher. (Making me look like a grownup in there, I guess) With the head and the ears, that thing was heavy. You had to make sure you didn't look up or down too much, the movement was magnified on the big head, and there was the risk of the thing coming off.
I have no ending statement.
Anyway, this easter bunny costume was like 120 degrees inside it. It had mesh in the mouth for me to see through, but the head did not have any openings for a straw to fit through. I spent the entire time sweating out every ounce of liquid in my body.
Sometimes, lots of people would be there to get pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. I was at one of those booth things they do for Santa, but there were no elves and no candy for the people. Purely a money making, get 'em on the spur of the moment type outfit. This wasn't the best fun, between the scared kids screaming all the time, and the need to get out of there to get something to drink. (We would take a walk every hour to go to the back room so I could drick as much water as possible before going back out.)
One time, two fully grown women decided they needed to sit in the Easter Bunnies lap to get their picture taken. This was after at least an hour of sweating, I'm sure they would have thought twice had they known there was a waterlogged teenage kid under the suit.
The heaviest piece of that costume was the head. My eyes were level with the mouth, the rest of the head went even higher. (Making me look like a grownup in there, I guess) With the head and the ears, that thing was heavy. You had to make sure you didn't look up or down too much, the movement was magnified on the big head, and there was the risk of the thing coming off.
I have no ending statement.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Mud Maggots
They've been working on a new building just outside our office window. There are also several fairly large construction projects going on around campus these days. There have been plenty of cement pump trucks around, which for the last 5 years, make me think of one thing when I see them.
5 years ago, they were building us a new Data Center. Having to deal with students still needing to get to class and building between existing buildings, the construction guys didn't have a lot to work with. There was a fence put up right to the edge of the giant hole they dug, and when cement trucks came, they had to pump it fairly far, because the building is underground and was quite large. They would bring the really big pump trucks in.
One day, I was in Karl's office talking to him. Karl's office then had a window that looked out onto where the pump truck sat. I was talking to Karl, and the pump truck fell over on it's side and bounced across the sidewalk next to it. There was a student walking and was 6 feet shy of getting killed. Karl saw the look on my face before he heard the crashing noise.
I ran out to the thing, and grabbed the kid that nearly got hit. He was just standing there shocked. I asked him if anyone was under the thing, he didn't respond until I started shaking him a little. (No one was under the truck.) Then the pump truck operator jumped up out of the cab and started running. Other people were running our way. Diesel fuel was spilling everywhere. Within just a few minutes, everything was chaos.
We ended up having a HAZMAT team show up, to clean the diesel up, they started cutting up the pump, and all kinds of stuff. After things got crowded, we went up on the roof of the North side of the Talmage building to watch. (No crowd there...)
It turns out that the pump truck had only put it's 2 right stabilization booms out, the other side had none out because of the fence near the sidewalk where people were walking, the pump operator had been swinging his rig over to the right to clean out the pump. He got too far over and the weight pulled the thing down.
I'll never think of anything else when I see a cement pumper truck. It's the biggest thing I have ever seen tip over and bounce before or since.
5 years ago, they were building us a new Data Center. Having to deal with students still needing to get to class and building between existing buildings, the construction guys didn't have a lot to work with. There was a fence put up right to the edge of the giant hole they dug, and when cement trucks came, they had to pump it fairly far, because the building is underground and was quite large. They would bring the really big pump trucks in.
One day, I was in Karl's office talking to him. Karl's office then had a window that looked out onto where the pump truck sat. I was talking to Karl, and the pump truck fell over on it's side and bounced across the sidewalk next to it. There was a student walking and was 6 feet shy of getting killed. Karl saw the look on my face before he heard the crashing noise.
I ran out to the thing, and grabbed the kid that nearly got hit. He was just standing there shocked. I asked him if anyone was under the thing, he didn't respond until I started shaking him a little. (No one was under the truck.) Then the pump truck operator jumped up out of the cab and started running. Other people were running our way. Diesel fuel was spilling everywhere. Within just a few minutes, everything was chaos.We ended up having a HAZMAT team show up, to clean the diesel up, they started cutting up the pump, and all kinds of stuff. After things got crowded, we went up on the roof of the North side of the Talmage building to watch. (No crowd there...)
It turns out that the pump truck had only put it's 2 right stabilization booms out, the other side had none out because of the fence near the sidewalk where people were walking, the pump operator had been swinging his rig over to the right to clean out the pump. He got too far over and the weight pulled the thing down.I'll never think of anything else when I see a cement pumper truck. It's the biggest thing I have ever seen tip over and bounce before or since.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Construction glue is not a toy
Back in the day, Rob and I were both working for Rob's brother-in-law, Kevin. We were framing houses. (This was before Rob fell down from a 2nd floor to a first floor and broke his arm...)
One day that summer, we were putting down a floor. I don't remember how things escalated (I think it started with an accidental swipe with the glue gun.), really, but at some point, I ended up getting (not on accident) construction glue all over Rob's legs. (Rob has (or had) kind of hairy legs, by the way.) Shortly after, I was not paying attention, and Rob got the glue in the back of my shorts and let loose on it. Having a large glob of construction cement is not a good feeling, by the way.
Well, it felt quite funny, and we decided that we needed to get cleaned up before things solidified. (Especially for me, I didn't want to be wearing the same pair of shorts for the next month...) We drove home and headed for the bathrooms. (Luckily Jamestown 21 had 2 bathrooms) It was a little easier for me to get cleaned up, while I had a larger dose, there was less hair involved. Rob sat in the bath for a very long time. I think I was peeling construction glue off of various parts of myself for about a week...
One day that summer, we were putting down a floor. I don't remember how things escalated (I think it started with an accidental swipe with the glue gun.), really, but at some point, I ended up getting (not on accident) construction glue all over Rob's legs. (Rob has (or had) kind of hairy legs, by the way.) Shortly after, I was not paying attention, and Rob got the glue in the back of my shorts and let loose on it. Having a large glob of construction cement is not a good feeling, by the way.
Well, it felt quite funny, and we decided that we needed to get cleaned up before things solidified. (Especially for me, I didn't want to be wearing the same pair of shorts for the next month...) We drove home and headed for the bathrooms. (Luckily Jamestown 21 had 2 bathrooms) It was a little easier for me to get cleaned up, while I had a larger dose, there was less hair involved. Rob sat in the bath for a very long time. I think I was peeling construction glue off of various parts of myself for about a week...
Monday, February 26, 2007
High School AP Biology
I don't know why I was thinking about this today...
My Senior year of High School I took AP Biology. Amy was a Junior then, she was also in that class. (A number of Juniors were. They have no idea that I was a trend setter for them, breaking the "No Junior has taken an AP class here before" barrier in my Junior year I signed up and took AP Math. The guidance councilor was really upset, but I think he was more upset when I passed the thing with flying colors. That's a topic for another day.)
The Biology class was immediately after lunch, which wasn't all that great for me. First off, I worked nearly every night until late, and woke up early for seminary. I would get some lunch in me, and be ready for a nap right as the class was starting. This was ok for me, because I had taken the High School level biology 2 years before, and it wasn't all that different, really. I didn't bother studying anything in the class, I had sort of listened in class, and this kind of behavior really ticked Amy off, so I hear. (It didn't help any that she would study all the time, and I would end up with the higher grade on the tests.) When we did labs, I was always will to be her lab partner at least, you'd think she'd give me some credit for being the one with the scalpel.
(On a side note, we wanted to dissect a cat. The cat the teacher had wasn't preserved properly, and was solid as a rock. We pulled it out, and it was no good, so I took it downstairs to get rid of it. That same day, it was really nice outside, and the principal was on a rampage about people leaving the school for lunch. (It was a closed campus) He had even gotten on the loudspeaker to say that anyone caught leaving the school would get detentions. I walked by the office with my cat-in-a-box, and headed for the door. He stopped me, and asked me where I thought I was going. My response was that I had a dead cat, I was going to throw it in the dumpster. He didn't believe me, I had to show him my dead cat. I don't think it helped that just a couple of days before that, I was walking by the office with an unpeeled banana in my ear. (This was just for his benefit, really, I was trying to bait him.) He came out and asked why I had a banana in my ear.
My response: "What's that?" He asked a little louder why I had a banana in my ear. I said "I can't hear you, there's a banana in my ear." Then I smiled and walked off. This is the influence Sesame Street had on my life...)
Anyway, there were a couple of thing to note about the Biology Teacher, Mr. Hemmer. (And Amy should appreciate this.) Mr. Hemmer got excited when he taught. His big bushy eyebrows would start creeping higher and higher on his forehead until you thought they might pop right off and hit the ceiling. His eyes also got wide and bulged out a little. If he caught your direct eyesight, he would stand there staring at you until you looked away. (Sometimes this would be a fun game. Get his eyesight honed in on you, then see how long you could go without either of you blinking. As you can see, I payed lots of attention to the subject matter.) When he said the words "too", "to", or "2", it would last lots longer than it should have. (As in "Toooooooooooo")
The only class is distinctly remember well was the day that for some reason he was talking about enemas. It seems that he enjoyed them. I mean really enjoyed them. He was telling us about how nice they were, and I was thinking to myself that he was a little too excited about the subject really. He went on and on with this funny smile on his face. It was kind of odd.
He retired a few years later. He sent Tara and I a glass candy dish with a Buffalo on it for our wedding. Maybe I stayed awake long enough to make some sort of impression on him.
I got a "4" on the AP exam. Amy got a "3". I don't think she has yet forgiven me for that. It's not like it was my fault, I wasn't really putting any effort into getting a better score, it just happened...
My Senior year of High School I took AP Biology. Amy was a Junior then, she was also in that class. (A number of Juniors were. They have no idea that I was a trend setter for them, breaking the "No Junior has taken an AP class here before" barrier in my Junior year I signed up and took AP Math. The guidance councilor was really upset, but I think he was more upset when I passed the thing with flying colors. That's a topic for another day.)
The Biology class was immediately after lunch, which wasn't all that great for me. First off, I worked nearly every night until late, and woke up early for seminary. I would get some lunch in me, and be ready for a nap right as the class was starting. This was ok for me, because I had taken the High School level biology 2 years before, and it wasn't all that different, really. I didn't bother studying anything in the class, I had sort of listened in class, and this kind of behavior really ticked Amy off, so I hear. (It didn't help any that she would study all the time, and I would end up with the higher grade on the tests.) When we did labs, I was always will to be her lab partner at least, you'd think she'd give me some credit for being the one with the scalpel.
(On a side note, we wanted to dissect a cat. The cat the teacher had wasn't preserved properly, and was solid as a rock. We pulled it out, and it was no good, so I took it downstairs to get rid of it. That same day, it was really nice outside, and the principal was on a rampage about people leaving the school for lunch. (It was a closed campus) He had even gotten on the loudspeaker to say that anyone caught leaving the school would get detentions. I walked by the office with my cat-in-a-box, and headed for the door. He stopped me, and asked me where I thought I was going. My response was that I had a dead cat, I was going to throw it in the dumpster. He didn't believe me, I had to show him my dead cat. I don't think it helped that just a couple of days before that, I was walking by the office with an unpeeled banana in my ear. (This was just for his benefit, really, I was trying to bait him.) He came out and asked why I had a banana in my ear.
My response: "What's that?" He asked a little louder why I had a banana in my ear. I said "I can't hear you, there's a banana in my ear." Then I smiled and walked off. This is the influence Sesame Street had on my life...)Anyway, there were a couple of thing to note about the Biology Teacher, Mr. Hemmer. (And Amy should appreciate this.) Mr. Hemmer got excited when he taught. His big bushy eyebrows would start creeping higher and higher on his forehead until you thought they might pop right off and hit the ceiling. His eyes also got wide and bulged out a little. If he caught your direct eyesight, he would stand there staring at you until you looked away. (Sometimes this would be a fun game. Get his eyesight honed in on you, then see how long you could go without either of you blinking. As you can see, I payed lots of attention to the subject matter.) When he said the words "too", "to", or "2", it would last lots longer than it should have. (As in "Toooooooooooo")
The only class is distinctly remember well was the day that for some reason he was talking about enemas. It seems that he enjoyed them. I mean really enjoyed them. He was telling us about how nice they were, and I was thinking to myself that he was a little too excited about the subject really. He went on and on with this funny smile on his face. It was kind of odd.
He retired a few years later. He sent Tara and I a glass candy dish with a Buffalo on it for our wedding. Maybe I stayed awake long enough to make some sort of impression on him.
I got a "4" on the AP exam. Amy got a "3". I don't think she has yet forgiven me for that. It's not like it was my fault, I wasn't really putting any effort into getting a better score, it just happened...
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Marshmallow Tag
Back in our old BYU 73rd ward, (Moon Apartments, Single life) one Spring the activities committee of the ward set up a game of Marshmallow tag. (This is something I remembered because I just found a Ward picture directory Tara had stored away in her chest with some other stuff.)
The object of the game was to not get hit by an opposing player's marshmallow. Church, bathrooms, and bedrooms were off limits. Each person in the ward got a name of someone else in the ward. That was their target. If they successfully tagged someone, they got that person's name, the tagee was out, and the tagger moved on. There were prizes for the end of the game.
Well, this gave me something to do. Something I could dig my teeth into. I started being up on campus more often. I kept a little notebook. If I saw anyone from our ward, I wrote down where I saw them, when I saw them, and what they were doing. I figured it could come in handy if I got that person's name, and it would help if I found out who had me.
I started putting feelers out to figure out who had me. I wanted to avoid that person at all costs. It took me several days work to figure out who had me (including a near miss ambush), but after that, it was easier to avoid them. I kept tabs on the person to see when they were out of the game, then hit them up to find out who knocked them out.
I started climbing out the bathroom window to get out of my apartment. One girl whose name I had worked at the store. I went to the store "to pick up some groceries". I convienently ended up in her lane, kept my hat low on my head, and kept my nose in a magazine. I got up to the checkout, lowered the magazine, and showed her the marshmallow that was in my hand. She had actively been playing the game, the look of disappointment was priceless. I didn't have the same problem at my work, the Data Center was a secured environment, if they walked in the foyer, a bell dinged.
Anyway, having devoted much of my time, efforts, and paranoia to the game, I did fairly well. My roommate Dan eventually got the name of the girl that had my name. I had been very into the game, Dan didn't want to ruin it for me, so he sat on her name. (We agreed to eventually share the prize, he wasn't into the game that much.)
Anyhow, I eventually got Dan's name. By that time, there was only a couple of people in the game. I figured speed was of the essence by that time because there were little pockets of people helping their favorite players. (Mostly roommates.) I figured I needed to get the rest of the players all in the same day. I somehow got a crockpot for the girl whose name I had. (I don't remember how.) I went over and took her out. The next name was an easy target. By the end of the night, I ended up with Dan's name, he let me take the final player besides me, and I went and got her.
Having won the game, it was time for prizes. The prize for winning was an Olive Garden gift certificate. The prize for having the most 'kills' (I had gotten something like 1/3 of all people in the ward) was an Olive Garden gift certificate. Dan and I took 2 girls from the ward to dinner on them.
The object of the game was to not get hit by an opposing player's marshmallow. Church, bathrooms, and bedrooms were off limits. Each person in the ward got a name of someone else in the ward. That was their target. If they successfully tagged someone, they got that person's name, the tagee was out, and the tagger moved on. There were prizes for the end of the game.
Well, this gave me something to do. Something I could dig my teeth into. I started being up on campus more often. I kept a little notebook. If I saw anyone from our ward, I wrote down where I saw them, when I saw them, and what they were doing. I figured it could come in handy if I got that person's name, and it would help if I found out who had me.
I started putting feelers out to figure out who had me. I wanted to avoid that person at all costs. It took me several days work to figure out who had me (including a near miss ambush), but after that, it was easier to avoid them. I kept tabs on the person to see when they were out of the game, then hit them up to find out who knocked them out.
I started climbing out the bathroom window to get out of my apartment. One girl whose name I had worked at the store. I went to the store "to pick up some groceries". I convienently ended up in her lane, kept my hat low on my head, and kept my nose in a magazine. I got up to the checkout, lowered the magazine, and showed her the marshmallow that was in my hand. She had actively been playing the game, the look of disappointment was priceless. I didn't have the same problem at my work, the Data Center was a secured environment, if they walked in the foyer, a bell dinged.
Anyway, having devoted much of my time, efforts, and paranoia to the game, I did fairly well. My roommate Dan eventually got the name of the girl that had my name. I had been very into the game, Dan didn't want to ruin it for me, so he sat on her name. (We agreed to eventually share the prize, he wasn't into the game that much.)
Anyhow, I eventually got Dan's name. By that time, there was only a couple of people in the game. I figured speed was of the essence by that time because there were little pockets of people helping their favorite players. (Mostly roommates.) I figured I needed to get the rest of the players all in the same day. I somehow got a crockpot for the girl whose name I had. (I don't remember how.) I went over and took her out. The next name was an easy target. By the end of the night, I ended up with Dan's name, he let me take the final player besides me, and I went and got her.
Having won the game, it was time for prizes. The prize for winning was an Olive Garden gift certificate. The prize for having the most 'kills' (I had gotten something like 1/3 of all people in the ward) was an Olive Garden gift certificate. Dan and I took 2 girls from the ward to dinner on them.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Eating at Wendy's
I had a Spicy Chicken combo with fries and a Dr. Pepper. On first bite, I was reminded of all the times in the past that I've eaten Spicy Chicken sandwiches. I really like the Spicy Chicken sandwich. I remember when it first came out...
It was back in High School, I was working at Wendy's at the time. I used to work the night shift, which they liked I think because when I was working, they could have one less person there. When my friend Jamison and I were there together, they could have less people and we would get done closing the place up faster.
Anyhow, I generally did the grill, sandwich station, and fryers all night. We closed the store at 10pm, at which time I closed down the grill, sandwich station and fryers. Usually we had chicken and fries left over. I would make a baseball to softball sized "fry ball". (Think about it - but those things sure were good.) I would also have a chicken sandwich. It was always a bonus if it was a spicy chicken sandwich. I think our managers never minded this behavior because this food was waste after the store was closed, and we got out early, which got the manager home early...
Occasionally I got to take home a piece of hamburger home for the dog...
At least now when I eat at Wendy's, I don't come home soaked in grease.
It was back in High School, I was working at Wendy's at the time. I used to work the night shift, which they liked I think because when I was working, they could have one less person there. When my friend Jamison and I were there together, they could have less people and we would get done closing the place up faster.
Anyhow, I generally did the grill, sandwich station, and fryers all night. We closed the store at 10pm, at which time I closed down the grill, sandwich station and fryers. Usually we had chicken and fries left over. I would make a baseball to softball sized "fry ball". (Think about it - but those things sure were good.) I would also have a chicken sandwich. It was always a bonus if it was a spicy chicken sandwich. I think our managers never minded this behavior because this food was waste after the store was closed, and we got out early, which got the manager home early...
Occasionally I got to take home a piece of hamburger home for the dog...
At least now when I eat at Wendy's, I don't come home soaked in grease.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Flash to the Past
***New feature - where I talk about something had happened to me once***
At the end of my Freshman year of High School, the band teacher moved me from clarinet to Baritone Saxophone. This didn't really have anything in particular to do with my proficency at clarinet, or my rigorous practice schedule. (read: non-existant) I think possibly the biggest factor was that I was big enough to handle the thing.
Anyway, I carried that thing back and forth the school all the time. I guess this was in the hope that I might practice. Early on in my sophmore year, I was walking down the hall with the case, 2 Senior Football players, about a foot taller than me, and twice my size, were coming the other way. The case was kind of big and awkward, and they tried to dodge to get out of the way of it, and they both fell in a heap. (They were in kind of a hurry.) I laughed at them, it was kind of funny, but this seemed to be the wrong thing to do, because I found myself being chased.
After running for my life, I ran out the front door of the school, down the front path to a semi circular drive, and hid behind a car. Luckily, I got behind the car before they came out, they looked around, didn't see me anywhere, and I avoided getting the crap beat out of me. I considered it a positive experience at the time.
Later in the school year, I found myself throwing shotput and discus with these 2 guys on the track team. They seemed to not remember the encounter, and I never brought it up...
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