My budgeting system

My budget system, though greatly improved, is still an imperfect entity. Here's the basics of how it works. I begin each school/work week by going to the atm and taking out 20 dollars in cash. This is my "discretionary/U of M" spending allowance. I use this money for breakfast and lunch over the course of the week. I leave my card at home during these times. However, when I want something after school and during the weekend, I generally will use my card. I need to keep a careful watch over how much I actually spend with my card for things like groceries and eating out.

One thing to change, that could make my 20 dollar discretionary budget stretch further would be to buy my breakfast from the supermarket. This would require going to the supermarket sunday or early monday and purchasing a week's worth of bananas. I imagine that paying by the pound, rather than by the piece of fruit, I will come out ahead of the ludicrous 96 cents per banana that the university of Minnesota charges. This will help me to afford more luxuries such as full lunch or coffee.

Beautiful, what a beautiful life.

Post-Mugging

I've mostly been posting to Twitter lately. However, this blog deserves attention, not abandonment.

I've mostly sorted out replacing various cards, etc. from my mugging. What remains is getting a new social security card. Last night I went to Marshall's in Richfield and purchased a decent wallet for 10 dollars, it's Perry Ellis, made of soft leather. I've replaced my phone as well, with a slightly smaller and more "hip" model. I like it, particularly since it works. Another major change since the incident is that I hardly carry my check card with me anymore. I generally carry small ammounts of cash. An interesting side effect is that I've been managing my budget far more effectively. This is perhaps a result of not having the ability to fulfil any whim I have with my check card.

Another interesting thing is that the men responsible for the mugging have been charged with 2nd degree aggravated robbery, because they implied the possession of a deadly weapon. (In fact, they threatened the use of deadly force) This crime has a fairly long maximum sentence of 15 years, and I believe is a felony, so if these men are convicted, they will never be able to vote again.

On the voting front, I'm pleased to see that Barack Obama is currently winning handidly in the election. The vast majority of people seem to believe that he is the next president of the United States, and I would certainly like to believe them. Palin frightens me, and McCain's willingness to associate with a religious extremist, far right psychopath of her caliber makes me question his judgement and honor. I believe he has been corrupted in his path for ultimate power, and that his experience in the 2000 primary against Bush taught him harsh lessons.

I've been spending a large ammount of time doing schoolwork, studying, working out, working, and watching various high-quality TV shows with Shane and Vanessa. I heartily approve of True Blood and Dexter, and have really enjoyed Twin Peaks and Rome. Also, I've been reading some Lovecraft.

I'm currently participating in clinical research regarding lipids. Also, I just completed my first runway show on Saturday, dressed as a robot.

Here's a link to a site with photos.

I'm going to attempt to return to a 2x per week posting schedule, with more regular updates on Twitter.

For the Future

I think that sometime in the near future I would like to do a number of things.

The first is make an autumnal trip to Duluth, one of these weekends in October, if it's at all possible. (and it might not be with the utter craziness of my schedule) I love the drive and watching as changing leaves give way to completely dead and empty trees, finally ceding to evergreens.

The second is to make a trip to Chicago. I would take the "Megabus" to Chicago from Minneapolis for a small price, and use cheap public transit to get around, eating food and seeing whatever catches my interest. Chicago is a famously interesting city.

Also, I plan to vote in the near future.

Mugging

I just got mugged outside my house, what the fuck, I've lost my phone, check card, bus pass, etc.

This is a bad day.

Car Window: Hint... Crime

Someone decided to destroy the window of my car, a 1990 toyota camry, sometime between sunday and 4:30 today. I'm a bit pissed off about the damage and the minor injuries I sustained as a result of it . However, I can't help but not being all that angry, and rationalizing it as being basically not important.

I'm filling out a police report with the city right now, and Shane was generous enough to give me some duct tape that he helped me seal up the window with.

So that's alright.

What isn't alright is my feeling toward schoolwork. My laziness is growing, and I need to nip it in the bud.

Kind of horrifying

ja..... mit Henry Kissinger...

Also appearing on:

Twitter: Vernacularshift

Also on october the 18th you will be able to see me in my first runway show. Hint: it has to do with Robots. (Also it's on my birthday, so one can possibly help me celebrate afterwards)

cleaning out the cupboard

I recently noticed a number of expired items in my cupboard. This is grotesque, some of the things have been expired since before I moved in here. I don't know who gave them to me, as I didn't buy them.

This has put me in a sour mood.

Horrible Buzzing Sound

I'm in a computer lab between classes. That is between phonology 2 and syntax 2. I'm extremely tired and having some sinus/nasal passage issues due to presumably fall related allergies. There's been a horrible, loud buzzing sound in the lab for the past 4 or 5 minutes.

I'm here mostly to staple together my reason for being so tired, the first syntax assignment, which I finished last night and printed today. I got it after quite a lot of work, but I fear my answer may seem a bit too unpolished or strange. I think I got the concepts just right and the phrase structure trees appear alright to me. Now that it's stapled and printed I feel that it's "out of my hands," and not worth thinking about again until I get the assignment back.

I've had class since 9:45 this morning, and work since 7:30. I went to sleep around two in the morning after working on syntax for quite a while, and woke up sometime around 6:45, getting about 5 hours of sleep. I'm tired, dirty and unwashed. My hair is greasy, as it almost always is after just one day of not showering. As far as I can remember, I haven't eaten anything today.

Someone sent me a promotional, or spam email. This isn't strange, as it happens all the time. I use a relatively shitty free personal email service (yahoo,) and there is quite a bit of spam, even in spite of their rather robust spam filter. However, this spam was different, the subject line read: كل ما تتمناه من عالم الإنترنت

In fact, the whole thing is in arabic. So, my goal now is to make a half-hearted translation, and find out what the hell I'm being spammed about. Or if perhaps it isn't spam, but something more interesting.

As Promised

Here I am to talk in more detail about classes and the like.

Also, topics of note to touch on; Spore, New Job, New Eno/Byrne and TV on the Radio Albums.

So, first, my new classes.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have a class with Douglas Margolis which concerns learning the basic linguistic structures of English with a focus on teaching these things. It's basically, "learn English grammar/pronunciation with the express goal of teaching it to ESL" I've had Doug Margolis before, and the first thing that I noticed about him was that he looks vaguely like Jeffrey Tambor, the actor who played George Bluth in the sitcom "Arrested Development" He also talks with a slight lisp, which makes some descriptions of pronunciation a little awkward, though it generally doesn't lead to him being unintelligible.

Tuesday and Thursday is the home of the remainder of my classes. I'm taking a class about language learning in general. I'm taking a TESL class with Andrew Cohen, Pragmatics with Brian Reese, Phonology II with Daniel Karvonnen and Syntax II with Hoo Ling Soh. This is a moderately heavy load, with some difficult and esoteric concepts thrown in. I can survive though.

Of particular note is Dr. Andrew Cohen, who I will mention is a place and name-dropper. He likes to pepper the class with anecdotes, which are generally enjoyable, but can get a bit long-winded. It's the mere result of being 60ish, extroverted and having lots of life experience and little restraint. So, it's acceptable, just occasionally annoying (in an envy twinged way) to hear so much about conferences in Marseilles or the Hague or Kyoto. Cohen is an ideal professor for a class about learning language, an enthusiastic polyglot with years of language learning experience (he's taught for 17 years in L2)

My new job is ridiculously simple. I walk around an extremely wealthy neighborhood (compared to mine) and put promo slips on doors. This is morally abhorrent, as I'm probably just adding to the general litter of the city, still I feel that I'm not just doing evil. I am offering a free month of a decent wireless network. It's interesting the rush of fear that runs through me when I go through someone's yard. I get this feeling that people will ask me all sorts of uncomfortable questions regarding my activities, so I generally avoid any house with people outside of it.

So, Spore is pretty amazing. It's a new toy/game put out by the legendary creator of the sims, and it fulfills basically all of my childhood wishes for a game. That's not to say that it's perfect, but it allows a certain epic arc of time to pass that I could never really see in other games. The combination of beautifully presented but ultimately shallow mini-games makes for a wonderful whole. The game takes a life-form from it's beginnings in the primordial soup, to it's eventual landfall, rise to sentience, domination of it's planet and ecosystem, to the exploration of the immense galaxy. It allows for an incredible degree of freedom to basically do what one wants, which is what I love about it. This is because the kid inside me sometimes would rather have a sandbox to play in than a set of goals and story.

I'm excited for a couple of Albums that are basically out or out, the first "Dear Science," is by one of my favorite bands TV on the Radio. I've been listening to songs online, and I'm liking it so far, particularly the songs "Stork and Owl," and "DLZ." They present really inventive music in general, and from what I've heard so far, this spirit of real creativity hasn't faded at all.

Also interesting is the new effort by Brian Eno and David Byrne.Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is there first collaborative album in 27 years. The songs I've heard so far are pretty interesting, and I've always enjoyed David Byrne's voice. Odds are I will pick up both albums within a week or two.

A new Semester: Fall 08

So, I've started classes for fall 2008, and after a little more than a week, I think I can give a general overview, followed by more in depth analysis of my first impressions regarding my instructors.

I am taking a total of 5 classes, or 16 credits. They are all in the linguistics or Teaching English as a second language program.

All of my classes on Tuesday and Thursdays (4 of them) are in Folwell hall, in fact I have two classes in the same classroom with a mere 15 minutes of break in between.

On MWF, I work until 1, then go to a class at about 1:25 in Rapson hall, the architecture building, which is about a block from Folwell.

I have 2 repeat professors I've had before, and many familiar students. This is not surprising as I've mentioned before that Linguistics is a rather small program at the U of M.

A major change to my daily life is that I get done with all obligations at 3 or 3:45, meaning that I can be home by 4 or 4:30 if I simply take the bus home. This gives me more time to do class readings at a relaxed pace.

News for me:

1. I'm sort of interviewing for a 2nd job today, something about promoting the Minneapolis city Wireless network.

2. The game/toy Spore came out on Sunday, and I have plans to buy it sooner than later.

3. I plan to continue my 'about 8 posts a month' strategy with this blog, so expect something like bi-weekly updates.

Emergency Preparedness.

I was walking down one of the main concrete tunnels beneath the academic health center, delivering a package to the shipping dock, when I looked down to see a small case of bottled water. The case has been there for at least a week now, and I'm starting to think it's been forgotten. I'm happy that it's been forgotten though, because looking at the water I got to thinking about something that concerns me, and I think in a post-Katrina, post-9/11, post-35W Collapse society, there is a certain feeling that, "terrible things can happen at any minute."

Suppose for instance, as the trope says, that Zombies finally did rise to feed upon the living. We would need access to clean and safe water, as to avoid potentially catching whatever disease the creatures had, as well as to deal with the potential water-system shutoffs that could happen with alarming ease. I can imagine a group of rag-tag survivors coming upon the bottled water with hope, then tension as they figure out how to ration it.

I strongly hope that the case of water remains to help us survive any possible eventuality.

The Androy Hotel

First off, some perspective, or placing for those of you who don't know the Duluth and Superior area. The Androy hotel is an old building from the 30s or so, and is a mix between a residence and guest hotel. The rooms are tiny and ancient, and compared to the terrifyingly high prices in Duluth in the summer, maintain at a pretty constantly cheap rate, in the 50is dollar range.

I know the Androy primarily because it's a popular (and cheap) destination for people in the late hours of the night. It's popular because there is a very divey, but cheap and apparently decent tasting cafe down at the bottom floor.

I've never stayed at the Hotel though.

Have any of my readers stayed at the Hotel?

One of my coworkers will be staying there over the weekend with her daughter, and I guess I'm just curious. Also, is the area loud enough on weekends (from bar-crowd, etc.) to keep people awake who go to sleep at decent hours?

Michael Wiener. (Or Savage)

"I'll tell you what autism is: In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

Hmmmm...

I imagine most kids with Autism have been told to "Cut the act out" dozens, if not hundreds of times, probably to the point of having major problems stemming from it. Really, this holds for all sorts of people with disorders that change their behavior in ways that others find annoying.

I'm not surprised he would say such a thing, as it's inflammatory, and balls-out assholish, but still one would think that with his background in the sciences, he would have some sort of understanding.

Michael Savage is a man who makes Bill O'Reilly seem perfectly reasonable, thoughtful and pleasant.

Good to see psychotic extremists with millions of fans. Also good to see that after insulting the Autistic, their ad dollars get pulled to some degree.

Further bad news

Myrtle, the cat mentioned in yesterday's post, has deteriorated noticably further.Her behavior has become erratic, strange and has no appearance of being happy or interested in life. She's been trying to escape to the outdoors, presumably to hide somewhere and die.

It seems she'll be taken to the vet this week and put to sleep.

Too bad.

Dandelion Jelly

I'm at my parents house in Duluth right now. I decided, basically on friday or late thursday to make the trip, because I found out that Winnie, the dog my parents got when I was nine, is rapidly deteriorating in health. She's dying really, and will be dead within a week or two, the result of generally failing health, and some sort of grotesque, horribly painful looking tumor in her mouth.

Winnie is a St. Bernard and Black Lab mix from a farm in what could be called the outskirts of the Duluth Metro area. One of her littermates was picked up by an eagle and presumably eaten when she was a puppy. Winnie is a stubborn, athletic "water dog," and very big hearted, with a penchant for picking up and carrying rocks.

Other sad news, our cat Myrtle, who my parents have had since I was too young to remember otherwise seems to be wasting away mentally and physically. When I came into my parents' house, she was sitting in the front hall, dirty from head to toe, as she's stopped cleaning herself, either from apathy or lack of ability. She just walks around the house, meowing mournfully. Her normally trim and athletic form is now simply skinny and unhealthy looking.

Needless to say, it's a bit of an emotionally trying trip.

This is why I haven't called any of my Duluth friends.

There is Dandelion Jelly in the fridge though, and the weather is absolutely beautiful. The lake is amazing, it's gorgeous, majestic and powerful. There's an island of craggy rock some 10-15 miles out of town to the NorthEast along the shore, and I will visit it's gullshit covered face before I turn 25.

This Concerns Me

So,as of right now I have a couple of major concerns or worries.

The first is the impending death of Winnie, or Winnifred, a Labrador/St. Bernard mix that I've known since I was nine years old. She's my parents dog officially, but as she grew up with me, and I grew up with her, it's important that I try to see her.

This means an unscheduled trip to Duluth, probably on Saturday.

My other concern is my teeth. My teeth are having issues, and I need to see a Dentist soon, hopefully sometime next week. It shouldn't be too big of a thing to deal with, and once it's done I'll be fine, but until then, aleve, ibuprofen and aspirin are my friends on a rotating schedule.

These are my issues.

Motorcycle

So, I'm manifesting several boxes full of these old "Amalgamators" in the office today, (basically machines that mix the stuff that they fill teeth with, which means they are mercury contaminated.). The boxes were right next to Mickey's desk, so as I worked I got to listen in and lightly participate in discussions going on around me.

The main topic of discussion was Motorcycles, showing off photos of harley's, etc.

One of the guys from Facilities, a painter, just got a motorcycle recently, and they went on and on talking about mods for it. (It's a Harley Davidson, so it's kind of a big deal.)

When the topic of seats came up, it was mentioned that he bought a really expensive comfortable seat, but that most women would ride a Harley regardless of the seat.

His response was that he didn't want them to get sore like that.

Everyone knew what he meant and feigned disgust, but in reality they all wanted to be exactly like him.

Dentistry in Pictures

Today my boss is meeting with a woman who works for the Coen brothers, directors from Minnesota made famous by movies like Fargo, No Country for Old Men and the Big Lebowski.

Apparently they are seeking old Dental equipment, specifically old X-ray units. This excites me, as it lets me think of Joyce as a person in power. She usually projects power, but in all reality is a coordinator, getting things done not for herself, but to accomplish the goals of others.

People throughout the school act as though she's a power-hungry control freak, seeking to seriously effect them. Earlier this morning I heard a couple of accountants talking about some move with the overtones of, "If Joyce wants something, (to happen or whatever), it will be.


BTW: I have little patience for kids who come to the biomedical library's computers. I don't care if they want to use the web, but it seems like as of late, they are constantly playing music without headphones. It may be quiet, but I have good enough hearing that it's still fairly distracting.

Fish

I'm a person who admittedly has a slight fear of fish biting at my feet and hurting me. The thought of fish harming me disgusts me for whatever reason, and it's the biggest problem I have with swimming in lakes and rivers. I can put away the fear normally and force myself to swim, but it does occasionally pop up once I'm in the water.

Interestingly enough, a salon now offers a treatment involving exactly what I fear. A person immerses their feet in a tub of water in which fish swim about and nibble. The fish then go about eating off dead skin, creating something of a bio-pedicure. Pretty interesting I suppose, and bizarre enough to be newsworthy.

Why I love the internet

Scribd.com is my prime reason for loving the web right now, and I hope it never dies. It's like a virtual library of human knowledge, any book I could think of was there.

I can browse anything. Its like wikipedia but with access to seemingly limitless primary sources. The day of sitting at the computer and having access to basically whatever you want for basically free appears to be here, and it's a beautiful dream that I know will one day die.

But, please, don't stop, believing. Hold onto that feeeeling.

New CD of Some sort

I'm considering building a new "in-car" summer heat sort of album.

I want to have Will Smith's "Miami", but I also want the Hold Steady's "Cattle and the Creeping things" How can I work them together? Should they be on opposite ends of the album and build into bleeding together in mood?

Also, I need to get these songs in MP3 format.

What else to improve?

Oh the Changes

Another sign that I've been working for the School of Dentistry for too long is the number of times that I've had the solemn duty of changing locker combinations, and then removing crap people leave in their lockers. This is normally a duty I utterly hate, as it's mind numbing and occasionally a little difficult and painful (from a physical perspective).

I didn't mind it so much this time. It's still just as draining to walk several feet at a time, spin the dial on a combo lock to test that the old combo is there, then insert a key, zero the dial and hold a button as you turn it a few numbers, and then test the new combo (for like 3-4 hours at a time) but I've gotten better at it, so there are fewer issues, and when issues do arise, I know generally how to fix them.

This confidence is probably a big part of my boredom. Most things I do at work have no air of adventure to them anymore. I can fix things without anywhere near the fear that used to accompany such jobs. Fear isn't always good, but it does keep me on my toes.

Side note: I came into the computer lab today to write this blog, and saw a computer that was labeled "Out of Order." on it's screen. It turns out it was not out of order, but instead in use by a very deceptive man. He just used powerpoint to make a big and attractive page sized image saying "Out of Order" on a blank white screen, so that he could keep his computer going while he went off to do something.

Logging in and logging out again are pretty tough, they take entire 20 second intervals of time, so I can completely understand.

Boredom leads to job search

I've spent a fair ammount of time recently tweaking my resume and idly browsing craigslist looking for some kind of other job. I don't necessarily want to quit at the Dental school, but I guess I'm used to having more stress in my life than the current level. Because of that, I feel bored just working an adult schedule (7:30-4:30), 5 days a week. I'm also bored because my work doesn't generally require much higher thinking, or really any higher thinking. I truly enjoy my position in the School of Dentistry, I just worry that continuing here will not help me to advance in the world.

I've been thinking alot about my position in society and the world at large lately. I'm curious as to what kind of work I'll be doing once I actually finish my schooling at the U this year. Eventually I'd like to leave the country and teach English, as it seems like an eye-opening experience, but for now I imagine I will find something to do in the Twin Cities (I don't want to break my lease immediately upon graduating or anything)

So, I have an open question for the sporadic readership of a sporadically updated web log.


What should my other job be? (Remember when answering this, I'm not done with my bachelors degree, also note that I have some customer service skills, some phone skills, I know the basics of the Office Suite, I'm moderately handy, and lastly I'm decent at teaching English as a Second language (one on one at least)

An overwhelming sense of dread

Yesterday I was driving home, when all of a sudden a wave of dread washed over me. It hit me hard. I was in South Minneapolis, maybe a mile from my house when it hit. It had a feeling somewhat like a minor panic attack, increased heartrate, irregular breathing, crazy jumpy thoughts, and a general feeling of being on edge. The worst part of it was that I had no clear idea of why I felt that way.
I did get home alright though, to find a couple of my neighbors outside with a dog. I got out of the car and approached them. We chatted amicably and pet the dog, and the dread somewhat dissapeared.

On a mostly unrelated note, there is a rabbit slaying maniac with at least 30 kills (unless there are copycat killers) in a couple of small german towns. The killer leaves the bodies, but collects the head and drains the blood. The worst incident was at a school, where children discovered several corpses together. The story.

song of the day: Language City- Wolf Parade

Cleaning!

I'm several months late in my spring cleaning. The good news though, is that once again I can see the floor in basically every part of my room, and that I am proud of my room again. In all honesty, aside from the terrible winter's chill, my room is pretty amazing. It's big enough to fit most of my things, and it's very open, with windows taking up about 2/3 of the wall space. I filled up quite a few garbage bags in the process and truly enjoyed the cleaning process. It was a catharsis, and it also allowed me to find a number of things that I've been missing.

After doing the main cleaning in my room, I worked with my roommate Shane to clean up the rest of the house. I did a lot of dusting, some dishes, some bathroom and kitchen scrubbing and some general organizing. Shane did a lot of organizing, some sweeping and some dusting as well. It's nice to have the house look a bit more presentable, and it still looks 'lived in'.

The reason we are doing all this cleaning is this; we have a potential new roommate coming to look at the apartment today, and more later in the week. It's exciting to think of a total stranger looking at our place and seeing with eyes unclouded by familiarity. I'm certainly excited.

Worthless, Petty, Condescending...

"Can you afford deodorant?" is not a respectful way to begin a conversation with another person. It reeks of assholitude far more than the small degree of completely natural and human B.O. that I put off on a hot and muggy day. It's hot and humid, and my job requires me to move around a lot. It doesn't surprise me then that I will occasionally have some B.O., in fact I've just come to accept it. I also don't feel the need to hide B.O. with applied chemical treatments like deodorant, as most of the time it isn't 'offensive' or strong.

A dental assistant on the 9th floor, an aging solidly built woman with cropped silver hair, glasses and a mean face, pulled me aside today while I was working in the 9th floor north clinic. She began a conversation with me that started with "Can I ask you a question?" which led into "Can you afford deodorant." Anything else she said after that is meaningless, any kind of apology goes unheard. She's now anathema, below human in my eyes. If she was offended by my smell, she could have either kept it to herself, or politely mentioned that it was strong. But, by opening the conversation with the audacious "Can you afford" line, it's like she's asking me if I can afford to be a part of human society.

Needless to say, since I have had problems with her in the past, this incident has nailed the lid in the coffin. I will no longer speak to her anymore than is absolutely necessary for my job duties, and I will avoid her in any situation that I can. This woman is not worth my time or any other thought.

Valium or Cake?

People never seem to be quite happy enough. Everyone complains everyday, and if one were to just listen to the chatter of most humans, you would get the impression that life, for the most part, sucks. It's not my point to argue whether or not life sucks, or to tell people that they shouldn't complain, as it's a sign of poor character. Obviously, people have to live life as they choose, which means dealing with their own problems as they see fit. That often does include complaining. But, it can also be done by way of self-medicating. Millions, well probably billions of people turn to various substances and addictions to make their lives easier.

Personally, I often turn to food, poorly argued internet polemics (just browse various news sites and look for their commentary section and you will see what I mean) and to a lesser extent, video games. When it comes to food, I like many others end up really going for sweets. Sweets are simply amazing. I can't get over how simply enjoyable sweets are. There is no complexity, no argument, no problem at all. This is why cakes and candy do so well, as they are simply agreeable and pleasant without question.

Illegal and semi-legal drugs taken for recreational purposes are another common way for people to refocus and make life more livable. Things like Valium calm people down, and various other drugs work their own magics on the brain. They work simply and do what they ought to for the most part, so in a way they are like sweets, a simple trick to produce the desired effect and make the person taking them happy.

Today I've been taking a big box of expired pharmaceuticals from a long-dead clinical project (think 1994, when I was 9 years old and finishing up third grade.) This is a very nasty little project, as it contains a number of highly controlled substances, specifically Valium, Adrenaline, etc. These things, even when expired require a certain degree of extra-effort and know-how to properly process, and are really a bit of a hassle. That said, it's been somewhat grueling work, due to the nature of the Haz-Mat room that I'm working in, it's cramped and I'm not using proper body mechanics.

In the box I've found more Valium than was reported on the manifest. The strange thing about it is that all of the bottles for Valium are not originally Valium bottles, but instead are originally from several other kinds of slightly less controlled substances, just with a Valium label slapped onto them. This concerns me, but I can't do anything about it until I bring it up with my health and safety officer, who is more or less my second boss at the Dental School.

So, while I was looking through the big box of controlled substances, I came upon a bottle of "Cake Mate." Cake Mate is a sort of prepackaged icing for cakes, meant to make decoration easier, and comes in small, several ounce tubes that look like travel sized toothpaste tubes. This little bottle, not hazardous at all, is still completely wasted, rendered as useless as the 13 year old Valium by the ravages of time. So, I guess in this situation, I don't even get to make the choice between Valium or Cake. The choice has already been ruined for me.

Life in hell

Lifting things is never really the best. Sometimes it feels like a good bit of accomplishment, which I guess it did today, but it also seems to lead to shame and pain.

Today, I lifted a table and ripped open my pants, crotch to knee. I fixed the main part with judicious application of staples, but the duct tape I've been using to hold my crotch together is failing, and I fear I need to descend into a bathroom to try and fix it.

I'm aware that it won't work.

I should just go home, but I'd have to explain why, which would be even worse.

Death and Crap

Tim Russert just died. Kind of strange and unexpected, but everyone knows that it's possible for any one of us to die at any second. Shocking celebrity death has become increasingly common as of late though, and I don't have the slightest idea why. I made no comment on the Death of Heath Ledger at the time, but it came as quite a shock to me as well. Don't get me wrong, I feel no sympathy for these people, no emotional trauma, just surprise at the death of modern gods. I know that the rate of "famous" death probably isn't any higher lately than the background level, but in general it seems as if people are dropping all over the place.

I understand that statistically, with more people in the world, more will be dying at any moment. But, famous "big death" news events have been coming at us with a strange intensity in the past 6 months. In fact, the past few years in general have been pretty gory due to mostly natural disaster, accident and war. Probably though, nature has taken the most lives of all. I think climate change is partially to blame for this upswing.

What does it mean to live in a world so saturated with constant death. Personally I don't see anyone dying in my vicinity, but I'm aware that it's happening every day. The intense degree of mass death on the news in far-off and sometimes not so far-off places must really affect us somehow, I just don't quite understand how.

Remarkable, pulsating creature

I really enjoy artificial life. Simulcra, robots, golems, androids, AI, etc., they are all pretty amazing to me. The more of a decent simulation of life, the better.

At work this week I got to see a pretty amazing life-faker. I was underground, pushing a cart of delicate equipment from one sun-forsaken godless place to another, when I ran into Dennis. He needed help with a dental chair, so I accompanied him to the basement level of the Phillips Wangensteen building. We took an elevator further down than I've ever had to professionally and then got out, walking a short distance to an unassuming door with a buzzer.

We waited for what seemed like a long time before being let into a very sterile and quiet clinical research area, with a long hallway adjoined with a big and comfortable waiting room. We were led in by a tall and lanky woman with something of a patrician's demeanor. She led us a short distance down the hall, to the first of some 8 identical operating theatres. The first thing that struck me as odd about the room was it's enormous size, with tons of extra room, not like any surgical suite I've seen.

The second, and most interesting thing was this remarkable, pulsating creature laying on an operating table wearing human clothing. It was breathing, and it appeared to have a heartbeat, blood-pressure, and all the other "vitals" of a regular human being. In fact, it was attached to machines that gave constant readouts of it's "vitals." The breathing was a steady, comforting noise, and definitely made me think of a real living thing, or kind of a Darth Vaderish breathing apparatus at least.

The creature had skin made of a dark beige or dark khaki rubber. It had no discernible eyes, simply light recessions in it's mask of rubber. It's mouth opened and closed slightly with it's regular breathing. The clothing it wore looked like a patient's gown to me, and it's vital monitors were attached in all of the right places. The researcher instructed us on where to place the Dental Chair, which we set down efficiently, right next to this remarkable simulcra.

On our way out of this ultra-modern world, I noticed that on either side of the operating theater were big bay mirrors. They were clearly one-way mirrors, the sort that people watch through secretively. Dennis told me about a show he saw on the Discovery Channel regarding the simulations using these things, and I have to admit I was in awe of the whole process and the whole world. I'm amazed by human ingenuity.

Song of the Day: "FTW"-Xiu Xiu

You call that a letter opener?

I couldn't take the express bus to my house last night, because of teaching obligations that kept me busy at the school until about 6 pm.

So, I got on the number 16 bus, took it downtown and got off at the library. That went off without a hitch, the city was pretty in the rain, and I somewhat enjoy seeing a different bus crowd. Getting off the bus in front of the downtown Minneapolis library I crossed the street to wait for a number 6 bus, a bus that goes south from Downtown into Uptown and Southtown. As I live in Uptown, I wouldn't have terribly far to go on the bus.

Anyhow, the bus eventually came, and I sat near the back in one of the kind of gallery seats facing out the windows.

I sat there, reading the paper and hardly taking notice of my surroundings, until an odd sort of fellow sat down, with a large rounded face, piercing blue eyes, straw colored hair and skin that looked like sparsely hair sandpaper. He was dressed like some kind of dark Jedi, with a satiny black shirt and jacket. Along with plain black slacks and some kind of cloth belt.

He seemed extremely confused about where the bus was going, and was asking frantically if it would go to southtown. He asked apologetically and angrily at the same time, suggesting that he can't read the map that the bus company supplies. He unfurled the map and pointed at it, making it out like it was written in Sumerian. Of course it wasn't, and eventually people around me helped this confused Sith.

So, I didn't pay him any heed for the next 15 minutes or so, until azround the point that I got to 27th street, when I looked up to look at the streets. He was sitting there with a slightly crazed look and a pile of what looked like junk mail lying on his lap, his satchel bag sitting next to him. What was more disturbing to me was the small tactical folding knife he was holding in his right hand. He was using it as some kind of a crude and intimidating letter opener, taking the deady 3 inch blade of carbon steel to open various credit card offers, his bank statement and other random mail.

He showed no sign of guilt or awareness of the fact that he was actually endagering everyone around him by first having a deadly weapon open on the bus. Second, by having the knife open, using it casually on the bus, he endagered us because of the potential for accidents that goes up when inside a moving vehicle. It's no doubt that motion gets transferred, which is why it's not safe to walk around while a bus is in motion.

Imagine this man losing grip of that deadly blade on a sharp turn. The light and deadly little blade would fly in whatever direction centrifigul force would take it, perhaps into a waiting neck, eye or baby.

song of the day: "Here Come The Warm Jets"-Eno

Morning Rains and a Strange Bus Driver

We have a strange bus driver.

My roommate Shane and I generally take the same bus to work in the morning, and lately, one of the bus-drivers has proven to be a bizarre person to be around. This upswing in weirdness came with an unwelcome upswing in familiarity that coincided with my broken foot. He took pity on me because of my foot and gave me a certain degree of "special attention," namely making fun of me for moving more slowly than other people, and asking how the foot was.

Now that I don't wear a crutch anymore or walk more slowly than others, that leaves him with less to say. Instead, this bus driver just heartily greets me with the sickening "Buddy," which I assure you he did not earn. A few days ago he promised a present for everyone on the bus, and I recoiled in terror, thinking he was planning on giving out rufied snack cakes or something. Instead, the present was much less frightening, useful even, a new bus schedule.

This morning, the clouds are flirting with the concept of rain. It smells like it and the sky is perfectly gray. It's nice out though slightly warm and humid, and it smells like rain, one of my favorite smells.

Getting off the bus, Shane and I were drizzled on, but not drenched by rain.

New Indiana Jones

On Monday afternoon I went to see the new Indiana Jones Film with my parents in a Multiplex in Roseville. I guess I agree with the general consensus of the film, that it was a little too "Star Wars Prequelly," in that it spent far too much time with ridiculous CGI set-pieces that detracted from any sense of real danger or suspense. The CGI also didn't allow for any of the sort of dirty charm of the old films.

The plot was also a bit crazy, far-fetched and such, but acceptable.

I enjoyed myself, but would prefer Raiders of the Lost Ark any day.

I did get to eat popcorn, candy and not have to pay for any of it, so there's no real grounds for complaint.



song of the day : "Young Americans"- David Bowie

Pets I've had Part I (Terry)

Since moving out of my parents house I've entertained the idea of keeping strange pets. This is not just because I'm interested in exotic animals, in fact it has more to do with my situation. I live in an apartment with hardwood floors and somewhat uptight ownership, so anything that would endanger hardwood (particularly dogs, cats and fishes) are not allowed in my abode. It's just how the ownership rolls.

When I still lived with my parents I got along quite well with their dogs and cats. We even had fish for a long time. This instilled in me a certain "pet-thing" that I still haven't been able to shake, where I simply enjoy keeping pets. Being that I'm not able to keep the most popular and fun American pets, I had to get creative. At first I gave serious consideration to the idea of keeping a pet rodent, perhaps a rat, gerbil, etc.
This is an idea I shot down myself, due to my disastrous experience keeping pet mice in High School. (I don't particularly like having to use triple-antibiotic ointment on a wound)

So, being that I'm not a bird guy, I decided to head the route of cold-blooded animals, particularly reptiles. I had a huge thing for turtles, and did hours and hours worth of research into what species of turtle made good pets, what sort of housing needs they had, and what sort of ethical considerations went into the whole deal. From my research I came to the conclusion that the perfect pet for me was an Eastern Box turtle. Box Turtles live in forests and occasionally bogs in the Southeastern United States, and are for the most part terrestrial.

By terrestrial I mean that they live on land. Box turtles spend much of their time tooling around the woods or bog, searching for food be it grubs, plant matter, fish, bugs, etc. They are omnivorous, and require a balanced, almost human-like diet. Also, as terrestrial scavengers, they have far better than average eye-sight and visual memory. This allows Box turtles to eventually learn to recognize their master on sight, and to come to them exclusively when hungry. I was enthralled by the creatures and eventually broke down and bought one from a supposedly reputable dealer in Florida who assured me that their shipping system was top-notch and safe.

Suffice to say that the shipping was not safe. My turtle, who I had named Tarquin, was dead on arrival at my house. But strangely enough, there was another living thing inside the parcel. Inside the parcel was also a tiny, brilliantly green turtle with webbed toes and a red stripe on the face near the eyes. This was a surprise, and I didn't have proper facilities to care for the creature, so I did my best at first, which was not ideal care for the animal. Within a short time, I managed to get a small semi-aquatic tank set up for the creature, with a decent filtration system and live plants. I named the turtle Terry, due to it's gender neutrality.

When UPS attempted to deliver a mysterious package at my door shortly after, I thought they had sent me a replacement to Tarquin, and without thinking, I ruined a date that I was on to go to the UPS center in North-East to try and pick up the poor animal. When it turned out to be a T-Shirt, I was devastated, and wished that UPS would label *who* attempted deliveries were for, as it would make for an easier life.

For a time, Terry was happy apparrently. He or She would chase after pellets of turtle food (and the occasional live food) and impress guests to my room, as well as occasionally going on walks outside of his cage on carpet or other warm surfaces like beds or human hands and arms. About a month into Terry's time, I got a snail to live wth him, a snail I think that was named Selma, though I'm not sure. Selma kept the cage clean, and was interesting to watch move about the tank. The occasional interactions that the two animals had were generally pretty funny, showing fear and ignorance. (Imagine a tiny turtle crashing into a snail and retreating across to the other side of the tank in terror. )

Terry survived even the cold, which I fought with a number of different heating systems. It survived until a trip to Duluth for the Christmas holiday. I visited my parents, and on the last day of the trip, when I was preparing Terry for the ride home, it managed to wriggle loose from my hands, falling a good 6 feet to the floor. It was hard to tell what condition Terry was in, outside of being alive and slightly slow or off, and avoiding the use of one arm. So, I drove back to Duluth with Terry secure in a tupperware container.

We arrived back in Minneapolis, and I set up Terry's cage again, with nice warm water from the tub, with toys how I imagined Terry liked them. I then set Terry back in the cage. Terry jumped off it's basking rock into the water, and I thought all was well, and left the room briefly. When I came back, Terry was on the bottom of the tank, mouth open in a terrifying display, with bubbles quickly jetting out.

Needless to say, this worried me, as it was behaviour I had never seen before. I ran over to the tank and reached in, lifting the turtle out of the water, and attempting to drain the water that had filled it's lungs. It had a frantic look in its eyes, and rather quickly went limp. I tried moving it's throat to get at any obstruction, but had no luck. There was nothing that I could do to save it, so I sat down and truly cried, like I hadn't done for months. I broke down in uncontrollable tears and spasms, ended up calling people, and then got to the grisly business of getting rid of the corpse.

I took Terry's body, wrapped it in a shroud of plastic, and due to the abnormally warm and wet december, was able to go out into the back yard, by the garage, and buried it using a spork to dig through the pebbly ground. Fitting, in that one of Terry's strongest interests was digging holes in various surfaces. When held in hands, Terry would even try to dig through hands, usually pushing feebly with it's hands at the massive human fingers. I would allow him the triumph of getting through by loosening my grip.

George is getting married.

George Takei is finally getting married to his longterm partner Brad.

This is exciting. I like it. California has managed to impress me, and I'm happy.

Who can say that allowing people to marry is in any way evil.

Not I.

Readers!

There are none of you.


I will not post for several days.


No reason.

Broken Foot!

I've managed my first broken bone. I was at work with my mind in gutter-like pit of anger and despair at not having enough time to complete a job. So, I hurried, pushed my way through, and got done putting up a bunch of tables in about 8 minutes. Mind you, these are fucking hideously heavy tables.

Imagine if you will, a wooden table that is 8 feet long, perhaps 3 or four feet across (just far enough across to make it really awkward. My idea of how to set them up involved using my feet and kicking them up, a tactic that works quite well on most small tables (these smaller tables tend to be made from plastic). So, the first one that I kicked, I didn't kick hard enough, and it came down hard, hitting the surface of my right foot. I thought it hit the toe, cause immediately my toes hurt like hell. 

I cursed in front of professors, but having learnt my lesson about necessary force, I took the next table and sent it into the air with more than enough momentum for the job, getting it into position perfectly with a good kick and some hand control. Then I walked over to set up the remaining three. I had to negotiate my way through the door, which was difficult enough, but it worked fine. The other 3 tables easily caved to the might of my legs. By this point though, my right foot was starting to hurt like a son-a-bitch.

So, I did what I always do. Ignore the problem til it turns huge. I finished up my shift, walked to Historical linguistics, called Vanessa and then tried to work on my Syntax. I didn't have my book with me, so I was going inefficiently off class notes. Needless to say, I didn't get enough done.

I noticed while I was working on Syntax that my foot was getting progressively worse. The swelling was bad and walking on it was pretty painful. My assumption though, was that it couldn't be broken, cause "a break should hurt more than a sprain" This is often the case, but microfractures are different, just a little crack in the bone.  Walking from class to the student health service though was painful. I limped the whole way, getting a relief from the pain when my advil kicked in.

Then came the interminable wait at Boynton, first for the triage nurse, then to get a room open, and then upwards of a half hour in my examining room waiting for the doctor to send me down to get an X-ray. After that I was wheeled back up, and waited another 10ish minutes for the doctor. She arrived and repeated a "poke test" I had done earlier. This showed what was damaged and was correlated with her x-rays.  She left quickly and was replaced by a nurse who wrapped it up and gave me a sort of break shoe, a shoelike thing that would more or less hold me together, prevent me from twisting the foot stupidly.

Nonetheless, I'm still alive.

Song of the day: Still Alive-GladOs

More Excitement

In the dental school this morning. I got here early, ate yogurt as I stared across the city in morning light. I ate yogurt because I thought it would be cheap. It actually wasn't, but it wasn't prohibitively expensive either. I've gotten a fair amount of preventative maintenance done. Usually preventative work in the labs doesn't draw much attention, but today I was asked what I was doing by about 5 people, maybe because I'm dressed down today in just a t-shirt and ratty old jeans. Nonetheless, it's a bit annoying to explain why these constantly used machines occasionally need replacement parts. I think it's self-explanatory.

What was actually interesting was hazardous waste. I had to manifest a bunch, maybe 15-25 pounds of human teeth that sit in cups of dried plaster with amalgam (heavy metal fillings) in the teeth. They were in a large bucket supplied to us without a top. Normal procedure for such things is to send them out in whatever container they arrive in, but without the bucket top, that's not exactly possible. Instead, I ended up having to package them in a cardboard box.

So, first I determined that putting their bucket in the box wouldn't really work. This meant I had to find a suitable replacement, so I ended up finding a plastic garbage bag to line the box with. I do this to prevent hazardous material(the heavy metals) from seeping out easily in transit. So, the next step was to actually get the teeth from the bucket and into their shipping container. I did this the most crude and easy way possible, that is, I ended up lifting up the bucket and pouring.

The bucket being not prohibitively heavy, this seemed like the easiest option. One thing I forgot was the tendency for weight to shift weirdly when being turned and moved violently. After a bit of thought I managed to lift the bucket above the cart, and with a little bit of apprehension, to pour the teeth into their shipping box. The teeth slid slowly at first, but then proceeded to tumble at an alarming rate into the box. Teeth hit other teeth hard, sending shards of human tooth flying into my safety goggles. It made me happy to have safety goggles.

Within a minute the ordeal was over, the box was properly labeled for pickup and sealed. It felt good to have the bucket empty and no longer a threat to me.

After that I walked around with the song "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry stuck in my head. I didn't mean for that to happen.I heard it not with their singers voice, but rather Jamie Stewart, the lead singer of Xiu Xiu's

Spurning UDS

My decision to spurn University Dining Services and all associated snack shops, has proven to be far easier to deal with than expected. Their deal with Aramark and Coca-cola is vaguely evil and stupid, leads to low quality food and disenfranchised workers. Because of that, I've given up on them.

So, if I really want something to eat while at school, I have to walk to a non-UDS affiliated restaurant. I thought this basically meant Dinkytown, or the fast-food nexus of stadium village. Luckily, I was wrong. In fact, I've found a place that beats UDS on quality, price and view.

I work in the Academic Health Center, the School of Dentistry specifically at the U of M. Connected to the AHC is a Fairview Hospital. On the 8th floor of this hospital is a cafeteria, with ridiculously good prices. I spent 1.50 on a salad and drink this afternoon, and was completely, utterly satisfied with it . The view is amazing as well, since it's situate so high up above the river, one can see much of the city, St. Paul and Minneapolis.


I suggest going to this place.


Song of the Day: None.

A new truth

I will no longer buy any snacks from the University of Minnesota. My decision is due to their continued (12 year) relationship with Aramark. Also, it has to do with the fact that I waste too much money on disposables.

Internet Meme Overload

Heaven and Hell...

If only a lolcat was also involved.


Tay Zonday...

Chez Robot

I'm wasting a bit of time before work, browsing my various news sites, checking basically anything, everything that catches my eye today, when I learn about an interesting new restaurant.

It unsurprisingly comes from the same nation that produced the hit pop song "Die Roboter" or "The Robots" back in the 70s, a nation renowned for it's high-tech innovation. Of course, the nation in question is Germany.

But, you really ought to read the article, so here it is.

Robot Restaurant BBC story on a robot-run restaurant
this Web site.

Rain!

Well, it appears that I just got rained on for the first time in 2008. It's April 4th. The first April shower has arrived. I love it. What I don't love is the potential for snow that it brings. I don't want to see any more snow. I don't care for it anymore. It's bored the crap out of me for weeks. The snow feels like the leftovers that no one has the guts to get rid of. A good rainstorm will do exactly that, it will get rid of the god-awful white mess on people's dead lawns, in our streets and on our sidewalks.

I like that kind of cleansing. It's my favorite. I don't mind at all that it leaves behind all sorts of nastiness. Decayed plant matter, chaotic arrangements of things and the like are simply to expected. Imagine dropping tons of chopped up leaves on the ground, then covering them with something cold and wet for several months. Whatever emerges from that experience is bound to be different from it's beginning.

The smell of pre-rain is intoxicating to me. Of all weather phenomena, pre-rain jumps at me. It's hot. I like it. It makes me happy for a ton of reasons. Mostly the aforementioned clean feeling. But the smell itself is indescribably amazing. I can't explain exactly why I like the taste of raspberry iced tea, nor can I explain why I like tearing apart gummy snacks with my teeth, so there is no way that I can clearly explain why I like the smell of pre-rain. And then the experience of the beginning of a rainfall. The instant bonding of strangers to the idea of shelter.

I think the possibility of instant bonding between people is why, in spite of the clear ability to wipe out all life on the planet, humans still make their way. Homo Sapiens have yet to outgrow our use, as Homo Superior is not here for us to make way for.

Song of the Day: "Oh you pretty things"-David Bowie

Or...

"Chasing Eden"-Tay Zonday (New song, not terribly funny but pretty interesting, moving a bit)

Hello bloody piece of gum

Yesterday I finally dealt with something that had been bothering and frightening me for months. See, I had a little lump on the ventral side of my right fore-arm. I figured it was nothing, but over the past few months it's steadily grown. It grew large enough to occasionally see rather than just feel, and had an almost chewy, gumlike (but not hard) consistency. It was annoying, tender to the touch, and worrisome.

I didn't think it felt like cancer should, but nonetheless, the growing worried me. Odd lumps in your arm shouldn't exist in the first place, and having them grow is an even worse sign. So, last week I played Racquetball with one of my coworkers. I've never played before, and I tended to use my right hand. Needless to say, afterward the arm was sore. The rest of my fatigued muscles returned to normal within a day, but the soreness and weakness in that arm remained til Sunday.

My father, a nurse at St. Mary's Duluth Clinic, told me that I should go to the doctor after he felt it. So, on Monday, upon my return to Minneapolis I called and made an appointment. I saw a doctor at about 4:30 on Monday, and she felt the lump. She told me not to worry, but to make another appointment for a couple days later (Wednesday). I left after this 20 minute check up, made an appointment and worried slightly til Wednesday.

I had to fast, then go in to the doctor at 4:30. Dr. Kim came into the room after my basic check with a nurse. He was maybe 34 or 36, acne pitted, pleasant to be around and bespectacled. He made a few jokes before grabbing my arm, feeling the lump and reassuring me that it wasn't cancer. After that he gave me two options, leave it alone, or take it out.

I opted to take it out, so he led me to a greenish room with an operating table. There was no armrest on the table, so I simply held my arm in place. He then had a nurse grab several tools, injected my arm with lidocaine, and began to work. He made deeper and deeper cuts into my arm, trying to squeeze the thing out. At one point he cut something more important, caused a fair bit of bleeding and cauterized the wound with something I would have mistaken for an electric fountain pen.

The smell of my burning flesh, coupled with me lacking any ability to feel the burn was strange. It prefaced the stranger experience of watching Dr. Kim pull out what looked to be a bloodied wad of chewing gum out of my arm with some sort of fancy tweezer, perhaps forceps.
He then cut whatever was holding with with surgical scissors and closed me up.

The wad of gum was apparently fatty tissue.

I lost enough blood to find "Horton hears a Who" to be touching.

MeloDrama: Cheeseburgers in Hades

I'm fasting until my doctors appointment today. Just water, no coffee, juice, food etc. I also have an exam today. The exam is before the appointment. I will be answering a bunch of questions about historical linguistics, methods of language change, etc. I generally eat breakfast and lunch by this time in the day. Every food smell is a temptation. Also, I recently heard Jimmy Buffet's "Cheeseburgers in Paradise," and somehow managed to get it stuck in my head.

My big hope is that on my test I don't end up writing about wanting mine with lettuce and tomatoes, heinz 57 and french fried potatoes, big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer...

I don't care for Jimmy Buffet's music, so this is all the more foul.

Hussy!!!

Remember Goody Proctor from The Crucible ? I didn't know where it came from. And I imagine most people don't. Goody comes from a contracted form of the old term "Good-Wife,"
a term totally archaic by our standards, but just kind of archaic in the 17th century.

I imagine you can guess what this is leading to.

Think, Good-wife, subtract wife, add "y" ending, what do you get?


Goody.

Think House-Wife, once a term of venerated respect (as it meant someone was the wife of a free landowner in a feudal society), eventually being familiarized in the same manner.

So,

House-Wife.

-Wife

House

+Y

Housey

, Then, accounting for how people said house back in the 17th, 18th centuries, you need to mess up the vowel slightly.

Housey

ou --> U / C_C

Husy

Then, for the sake of spelling conventions,
+s

Hussy!!!

This used to be a neutral or pleasant word for a wife. Many words for women in power or respect suffer a similar phenomenon of pejoration, becoming negative.

Thus, today Hussy means some kind of sexually loose woman, in a bad way maybe.

Thus, in order to avoid this negative connotation, the term "House-wife" is restored to it's former use! Only, it's less prestigious.

Cat's away!

My boss is gone on vacation today, Easter monday I think. This means that laziness, love, good feelings and happiness generally permeate the Dental Engineering Shop today. This has little to do with her actions, with her personality or skill as a boss. It's more justa celebration of perceived freedom from her eye. Without her, there is no fear of anyone with authority telling me things to do, and the same goes for the real technicians as well. This allows us to set our own priorities moreso than before, and generally live as we choose to, not as is chosen for us.

What this translates to is that people are a bit more relaxed and chatty than normal. I was manifesting hazrdous waste in the shop when I listened to Rex and Dennis, two of my co-workers (one of whom I just played Racquetball with) talking about various things. They somehow traveled from talking about an actress they thought was in "Goodfellows," to talk of plot points from the third season of the Sopranos, and unsurprisingly ended up on Ashley Alexandra Dupré, the young woman who slept with Eliot Spitzer for copious sums of money.

They strayed into how she was a good looking girl, or at least "good-looking enough," and how she could continue to "make the big bucks." This led to a brief friendly tiff regarding her tenure as a "hooker, " with the eventual suggestion that in fact, her days of hookering are over. That means of course that she will be approached by Hustler. I don't know why Hustler came up, as there are many other magazines that would potentially pay better and be less sleazy, but Hustler came up nonetheless.

As to what I will do, I'm unsure, but it would appear that there must be a filter in need of me somewhere!

Forgot to mention Gygax

Gary Gygax died sometime last week. I meant to write about him, then forgot, but this cat says it all.

I learned quite a bit as a result of his work, so I guess it's fitting to mention him.

It's a beautiful day

Really it is. The sky is like some kind of blue crystal, maybe a sapphire or blue diamond. The only cloud I've seen is the long trail of exhaust from a jet. It's warm too. I brought a hat and a jacket to school today, and have barely used either of them. It smells good out there, and snow is melting. It brings joy to my heart to see it like this.

I am starting to lose my Minnesota-born hardiness for winter. I just don't care for it. I find it to be pretty, definitely, sometimes exhilarating, but it lasts longer than I care to deal with. If this makes me a baby, I don't really care. Whatever label people choose to affix to me is fine.

So far I've gone to Syntax, which was pretty easy, just a review for a test I feel fairly prepared for. After Syntax I ran into a largish man who used to work in the dental school. He and I would talk occasionally, so we caught up. All the while, my former French teacher kept looking at me, and started to approach, but stopped half-stock. It was awkward. I should have gone and said hi, but I needed to get to the gym.

Then I worked out for about an hour, trying to work through a problem of reconstructing the proto-form of a number of words in some Basque dialects. It comes down to looking at the dialects, seeing what sounds are different, and trying to use what I know about naturalness and sound change to make a decent hypothesis as to the proto-languages inventory of sounds, as well as what the words were in their old form.

I then ate lunch, chicken cellophane soup, while continuing to work on the problem. I followed up lunch with Bubble tea, and here I am.

song of the day: Beautiful Day-U2

Cleaning Duties of Strangers

This document was saved on the desktop of the computer I'm posting from. It appears to be a roster of house-cleaning duties for a Sorority or other gigantic house filled with women.


Yay!



House Cleaning Duties Spring 2008


Attic – Sheila, Marie
• Sweep the floors
• Throw away old stuff
• Organize boxes and skit clothes
• Take down cobwebs

Hallways/Walls – Missy, Ellie
• Wash the walls (Don’t Use Pine-sol)
• Sweep/vacuum stairs & entryway carpets
• Clean/organize the front closet
• Organize/Clean the mailboxes
• Wash the rugs
• Mop the floors
• Clean the bulletin boards

Upstairs Bathroom/Kitchen Bathroom – Niqi, Kristine
• Mop the floors
• Clean the toilet
• Wash the showers
• Wash mirrors/sink
• Dust
• Organize the cupboards in upstairs bathroom
• Fill the soap dispenser/toilet paper/paper towels
• Wash the windows

Kitchen – Vanessa, Kelsey, Janelle
• Clean the oven
• Organize/clean cupboards
• Clean and wash out the fridge
• Clean behind the fridge
• Clean the stove/microwave
• Throw out old food
• Mop the floor
• Wash rugs and towels
• Throw away recycling and garbage
• Wash the garbage and recycling bins
• Clean the breakfast nook
• Wash the windows
• Clean/wipe/organize the pantry

Windows – Laura, Brianna
• Wash all the common/personal windows
• If they pull down, then wash the outside also.

T.V. Room – Jess A, Jill D, Theresa
• Wash all the windows
• Vacuum the floor and the couches
• Dust everything
• Wash the blankets
• Organize the T.V. stand/phone stand
• Empty the garbage
• Wash the linoleum floor
• Wash and polish the walls

Dining Room – Karin, Emily, Katie J
• Clean out/organize the buffet
• Clean/organize dish shelves and cupboards
• Wash windows
• Vacuum curtains
• Clean the radiator
• Dust the lights/dining table/benches

Chapter Room – A-Tab, Cassie, Ashley L.
• Dust everything (pictures, plaques, shelves, awards, mantle, piano)
• Vacuum the curtains
• Clean the mirror
• Clean/organize the President’s closet
• Wash the walls/windows
• Clean the fireplace
• Vacuum the floor
• Clean the piano/side tables/little and big lamps
• Vacuum the window seats


Laundry Room – Brittany, Steiny
• Wash the floors
• Clean the fridges/throw away old food
• Get rid of cobwebs
• Clean the washer/dryer
• Clean/organize the detergent shelf
• Wash the rugs
• Combine items, if possible
• Throw away the garbage


Study Room/Storage Room – Megan, Mal
• Throw away the garbage
• Recycle the paper
• Clean non-LDPhi documents off of the computer
• Dust the countertops
• Vacuum the floor
• Put new tests in the test file
• Dust the shelves
• Organize and neatly label filing cabinets
• Sweep/mop storage room floor

Garage –.Katie O, Kato
• Organize the freezer
• Organize the tables/cupboards/shelves
• Sweep the floor


Outside Duty – Amanda E, Amanda O.
*Due date TBA*
• Pick up cigarette butts/garbage around the WHOLE house
• Weed and clean out the rocks and “landscaping”
• Sweep the cement/sidewalk
• Clean the leaves out of any window pit

Remember to:
 Dust above all the windows.
 Change any burnt out light bulbs.
 Add repairs to list on top of mailboxes.
 When you are done, help someone else, otherwise House Managers will find something for you to do.

Pain and Grotesquerie!

I've been into the gym for a while. I have an interested in getting a bit more fit, developing a more lean and muscular shape, and keeping my heart healthy. Also, lowering of stress helped quite a bit during my most recent semester of hell. Going to the gym is generally pleasant. It's funny, it shoots endorphins through the body and is generally good news.

The problem is that it causes physical discomfort, and exposes a man to depths of depravity that none should see. I've seen grown (and nude) men talking to each-other about how they feel like golden gods.

"Yeah, I fucking love the steam room, I lift for like a half hour, then get all sweaty, I come out looking like some kind of god!"

There's a guy that always is in the steam room, who goes in and shaves his head. He probably does this every day. It's part of his routine, but to me, shaving in a public, germy environment is fucking disgusting. He's exposing his head to god knows what. Also, he's probably giving himself small bleeding wounds (unless he has a smooth head), and that blood is probably being carried in the steam. So, in a way, we get to breathe him in. Well, more-so than normal at least.


song of the day: None

Goals for a longer term

I'm looking forward now at a large span of time. About a year. So, it's apt to set a few goals. I think this will help me in the long run, as otherwise I tend to walk through Jello. By that I simply mean that I tend to do more reactive thinking and useless thinking than proactive thinking. I think that with a list of goals, I will make some steps towards the completion of some of them. So, here is my list. Feel free to offer critique!

1. Learn Enough Spanish to "Get by," This is a goal I'm already working haphazardly on, with Rosetta Stone
2. Improve my Arabic speaking, reading, writing, listening : Not sure how to go about this
3. Improve my German skills
4. Learn the basics of C++ programming
5. Lose about 10 pounds of fat, continue to develop musculature, tone. (Working out 4-5 times a week and not overeating could help this, but I need to be sure the workouts are effective.)
6. Go to/Cover The Republican National Convention, I'm slightly obsessed with this goal of meeting my political enemies in the flesh. Plus, for whatever foolish reason, it's in St. Paul, a place I do not associate at all with Republicans.
7. Vote for my hopes rather than my fears in November (Note: This doesn't necessarily mean I will go green)
8. Clean Up slightly. I need to develop better habits regarding personal hygiene, the cleanliness of my car, living space, etc. No more fear of the basement.
9. Move into a place that I like and can afford.
10. Improve Cashflow slightly. (I made all of 12 thousand dollars last year, only slightly above median world income)
11. Budget a little better.
12. Visit Duluth Several Times
13. Take a couple other trips at least one with Vanessa
14. Learn to bake.

This must be the place

Three videos, one singer, one song.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BG2NL72DhqA
David Byrne on BBC four, with orchestral backup in Holland, 2004.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=u50KlJxCWpg&feature=related
David Byrne backed up by the Arcade fire. Terrible sound quality, good energy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=68KLZCVFDQI
More or less original video. Famous scene of David Byrne dancing with a lamp near the end.

I don't have a favorite of the three. Excellent song though.

Sick as Hell!

I'm lethargic, prone to extreme cold and heat, and generally uncomfortable. I stayed home from school and work today.

Sick! Angry! Laughing!!!

I'm sick. I'm going to the doctor this afternoon to hopefully deal with this cold-like thing thats been on me for days. I fear bronchitis and the flu. I feel like their is a tough slime guarding the back of my throat. Also I feel minor chills, minor aches, and a sense of crappiness. Plus, a nyquil hangover.

I'm angry, as someone decided to smash the mirror on my car while it was parked on the street. This sucks, as it makes turning more difficult. I can see out the mirror still, but only half of it works as well as I need.

I'm laughing, as I saw Bush dance awkwardly on BBC today.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jZnpCzitmUA

Here he is dancing in Liberia. Clapping, shaking, etc. Pretty sweet.

Life's a test Paula

Many people will tell you that life, in general is a test. Its a test of our ability to cope, our reasoning, our ability to get on with others, and a number of other, definitely important factors.That said, I've had a number of tests in the past couple of weeks. Not just regular academic tests, but also tests of communication and clarity.

For instance, I've been trying to begin tutoring an international grad student with their English. One thing I've learned from the experience is that emailing must be done at the first oppurtunity. If it isn't, valuable time is wasted. When time is wasted, projects fall out of schedule, and life careens off it's simple tracks. Wei and I had very flawed communication, and when I eventually found out that we would not be able to work together, it was already crunch time. So, I'm now scrambling to set something else up, sending a bunch of emails, and generally fretting.

Waking up with one's alarm and going to class is another important test. It's a test of caring. "Do I really care enough to go to school and endure this minor boredom for some time so that I can succeed?" It's also a test of ambition and endurance. I failed that test twice this week, sleeping in and missing Syntax. This puts me in a worrying position with the course, and makes me feel lazy and out of it. I was feeling quite ill though.

Also, I've had two real academic tests. One in Historical linguistics, and one in Teaching English as a Second Language. Both of them I prepared for moderately. Both of them I did well on until the essay portion. Essays are normally my best part of any given test, as I have fair talent for putting shit together into something coherent and lovely. That falls apart completely when I have major gaps in my knowledge of the subject matter. I feel that on both essays I showed a bit of understanding, but just not enough.

My understanding of the Germanic Consonant Shift is lacking. I think I'm also a bit mixed up on the various names of theories of language teaching.

Tevs

song of the day: Y-control- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Graduation

I'm in a good mood right now. I'm listening to pleasant music, and know when I will graduate from the University of Minnesota. I just spoke to my academic advisor about it. I've been working on Semantics in a computer lab, trying to establish that sentences that are necessarily true are all equivalent (because they are meaningless and give no new information)

I have class shortly. Syntax. Boredom, people asking questions that are profoundly stupid, and the professor humoring them by spending 1/4 of class time trying to answer them. This is all in good fun though, and it's a great little bond that you can build with who-ever is sitting nearby.

Also, I saw a student who looked vaguely porcine (not because of being fat, but because of his nose and boarish stubble) walking along the mall. He was wearing a t-shirt in spite of the fairly cold weather. People who were walking near him kept their distance, like he was rabid. I saw looks of concern and bemusement, and a glare of disgust. And then I watched him dissapear


Song of the day: "Cape Cod Kwassa"- Vampire Weekend

Yiddish!!

I'm at the Dental school today. I'm at work until noon or a bit before. I've been sniffly, slightly lazy and tired, as I had trouble getting to sleep, and my allergies are flaring up. So, as of a half hour ago, I was wading through jello being awake. I was bored, worried about class, and generally irritable. I was thinking alot about people who I don't like in the dental school. For instance, certain Dental assistants seem to think the world revolves around them, will call in things that need not be called in, and are of the opinion that whatever issue they notice should be highest priority. I hate to generalize, but these people are like clucking chickens, gossiping meanly, hating anyone in power over them, without any sort of big-picture view of the world.

I tend to lie to them when they give me these supposedly urgent tasks, telling them I will deal with it soon, and usually waiting upwards of 2 hours at least, or until another day. But that's not really the reason I'm posting. My petty dislikes of people are only slightly funny.

Even better was my experience with Yiddish today. I had to go to the 4th floor, the newest of the new the training grounds for the pre-clinical students. The lab uses many cameras, computer screens, ergonomic chairs, and is generally thought of as the Dean's gem. It gets shown off pretty often.

Today when I was up there it was in the process of being shown off. There were Dental professionals from all over the (mostly affluent) world. There was a lady from Dubai, a group of Russians, a woman from Belgium and a group of three people I immediately assumed were German. I came to this assumption because I heard many German words, but thought their accent was quite strange. Also, every sentence or two there was a word that felt distinctly not-german.

I took more time than I needed to changing out a machine part near them, and listened/looked upon their badges. They were from Israel. This came as a surprise to me because I had forgotten that Yiddish would be spoken at all in Israel. This is of course because of the official languages not including Yiddish. But how stupid to forget that many many Israelis are Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe and Germany who fled during the Holocaust (or if they were lucky, before) or after. The lingua franca of European Jews is Yiddish, and thusly it must be spoken in Israel as colloquial by some.

What this makes me wonder is, what sort of semantic shifts have their been in the Israeli Yiddish dialect. Would it be difficult for an Israeli Jew to speak Yiddish with a New-Yorker? How bout a Berliner? Hmmm

Magical thinking!

Waiting for the elevator at work today I thought about something that has been plaguing my thoughts lately. I've been playing a guessing game with myself regarding the elevators. Every time I wait for the elevators outside our office, I wait a little bit, and then stare at one of the elevators. There are three elevators, so it stands to reason that I would guess correctly maybe one third of the time or slightly less. I've been guessing correctly 4 out of 5 times or so. Of course, the first thing that jumps into mind with such a streak of guessing is ESP. (or at least for anyone who's listened to a lot of coast to coast am and read a fair amount on ESP studies) So, thinking at the elevator, I realized that as a person generally opposed to magical thinking, this was not the simplest or most feasible hypothesis.
So, the fallacy of magical thinking put to the side I began to consider other alternatives. The first and probably most likely possibility seems to be measurement error, erring on the side of the fantastic and interesting. It could easily be that I have selectively not paid attention to the many many times that my elevator staring has come up dead-wrong, and that any that were correct were completely normal based on simple statistics. Also, it's possible that I could be a lucky guesser. It's completely possible for someone to guess correctly dozens of times in a row, as each time I guess there is a 1 in 3 chance of success. It's not the most likely, but it certainly is more likely than any kind of solution that calls for the blatantly supernatural or quasi-supernatural, like ESP phenomenon. If there was more causative proof or biological backing to ESP, it would not be fallacious to posit this, but without a solid physical backing, the chances are infinitely less than a good stream of guesses.
The last possibility that came to mind is by no means extra-sensory perception, but depends on the idea of subconscious perception. A person experiences far more in any given day or moment of time than they ever are aware of on the surface. Suppose I could actually hear the elevator, but it was below the threshold of conscious knowledge? Then I would be bound to guess better than if I had no cues at all. This is the solution that makes the most sense to me.

song of the day: "Kapitulation"-Tocotronic

On edge

At work today, and for some part of the weekend I've been on edge. It's like I'm on high-alert, full of piss and full of vinegar. Every little annoyance that I would normally shrug off at work is becoming a mountain of anger and hate. I'm irritated over minor things from my house, like the fact that my ethernet cable can not be plugged in at the same time that my door is closed. Internet or privacy, just like the days of using my family's computer as a teenager.

I'm a private person, and any assault to that privacy is an affront to me in general. I'm annoyed at work because one of my coworkers insists on annoying me with minor jobs he thinks I ought to do. Since he is not my boss, I don't mind finding out things that I should look at from him, but his view that when he brings something to my attention it should automatically become top-priority is at best idiotic, controlling and single-minded, and at worst the kind of thing a developmentally disabled toddler might do regarding special things they show their parents.

So, when he had the gall to, only an hour after mentioning this problem, ask me if I had completed it yet, (I had dealt with it already,) I decided not to talk to him for the rest of the day, and maybe all day tomorrow as well. I don't need to deal with nearly retired bullies.

I want to deal with myself though. Obviously I'm being belligerent, irritable and stupid. But why?

Witness to a Break-Up

I've been at work for a few hours now. Nothing special about that, but what's interesting is what happened on my brief chicken sandwich and soy milk break. That's what I'm here to briefly describe. (And briefly, cause I'm still at work)

I went to Outside In, the University Hospital's main cafeteria at about 10:55 today. I waited behind two girls in line until I could pick up a grilled chicken sandwich. (very basic, a gross old bun with a small chicken breast or part of a chicken breast on it, no frills.) I then picked out a small bottle of soy milk to drink and went to check out. Checking out, I ended up behind the two girls again, as they cut in front of me. I avoided sitting near them, as I figured they would talk about irritating things, and I'm a natural eavesdropper.

This natural eavesdropping is a result of two characteristics I have. One, is my above normal hearing, which allows me to pick up quiet sounds with clarity from a distance. This can't be turned off, as it's a part of my being. The second is my tendency for gawking, which is part of my too-curious about things package. I've learned to mostly avoid turning and looking at people even though it's all I want to do some of the time. I try not to stare or look too much at people because I know that for many, eye-contact is awkward and too personal. So, when I can't gawk with the eyes, I gawk with the ears.

I sat as far as possible from the girls, near a youngish (28 or so) couple. I think they were medical students due to their clothes and stance. They were sitting next to one-another on the same table, facing the cafeteria instead of each other. They talked in bursts, quiet, but as loud and forceful as they could at that decibel level. The man was breaking up with his girlfriend. He talked about how he couldn't be himself around her. She accused him of mocking her. He talked about eye contact, and they slowly fell apart.

Then I ran away.

song of the day: "Dead Finks Don't Talk" - Eno

Der Schule=Die Nostalgie?

I'm writing an email right now, as I write this blog. It's to an old friend of mine from across the sea, Matthias Emmer. Matthias is one of the more human people I've ever met. The same sort of general humanity that makes a character like Homer Simpson somehow acceptable. Only, in addition to these human frailties (gluttony, lust, etc.) Matthias is extremely intelligent, likable, kindish, funny, confident, and mildly attractive. He and I are returning to email contact after more than a year of silence.

Jon sitze auf ein stuhl. Er schriebst ein E-mail nach der Matthias. Matthias ist ein altes Freund von Deustchland. Matthias hat ein qualitat wie Homer Simpson, aber nicht so faul und dumm, mehr intelligent.

I'm listening to the Libertines, a band I never really listen to. I'm in a mood of sorts, and it's hard to place. It has some nostalgie, and other feelings, the sort of thing that is woken by contact with a past that seemed lost to the mists. Matthias is moving temporarily to Spain to study there for this semester. I'm really happy to hear from him. Also I've heard news about another former major influence in my life, Hisham Khalek.

Hisham is the man who shepherded me through two solid years of Arabic Instruction. He taught me the beauty of the Fus'ha (modern standard Arabic), the poetry of Ancient songs, and the haunting voice of Umm Kul'thum. He's a great professor, who truly knows how to teach, and sees the value in cultural connections.

My news of Hisham came today in my Teaching English as a Second Language class. One of the activities that we had was one of those hideous fake networking things. So, I wandered about the class, asking people what language teaching experience they had, what their L2s were, and their contact information. One of the guys, Nick I think, mentioned taking Arabic. So, I immediately wanted to know if he had taken it in the Twin Cities.

He had, and we proceeded to talk about Hisham. Nick was among the few students to travel with Hisham to his native Lebanon this summer. He lived there at the American University in Beirut, but traveled throughout the country with Hisham. He went from the fundamentalist controlled areas in the North to the Druze mountain villages of Hisham's home, then heading south to view the devastation wrought by the recent wave of Israeli bombing.

This kind of story is the sort to make one jealous. But, that kind of jealousy had little place or time in my heart. The second bit of news about Hisham was significantly more interesting. Hisham Khalek is apparently a virile or quite lucky man. He and his wife conceived another child (at least their 3rd, I know of a high school age daughter and a young son). Conceiving and having a child when in your late 30s or 40s is difficult enough. What makes this more interesting to me, is that his wife had actually just had her tubes tied. He still managed a hat trick though.

School has been pretty amazing so far though. No problems. No alarms, no surprises.

Yeah



song of the day: "Last Post on The Bugle"-The Libertines

Orange you glad...

So I've started class again. Big whoop. Jon now has more places to walk to then previously. He's only gone to two of them so far though. Insofar as actual class is concerned, Syntax and Semantics were rather easy, with big blocks of time for breaks. Semantics is taught by a professor I've had before, who I previously disliked, but with new subject matter I think he's pretty decent. Syntax is less clear, but it's a very intro-ish course, so I don't have much in the way of worries.

Bizarrely enough my back hurts. I don't know what the cause actually is, but I suspect my poor posture when sitting around at home on a wooden chair could do part of it. (Wooden chair is very spare, simple straight out of Ikea) I sat around looking stuff up on Flickr, pretending to read for class, painting, playing with opensource photoshop and writing for hours. I paused to watch King of The Hill, to eat, to read, etc. But I was monumentally unproductive, because I had no source for productivity.

At 12:20 today I have Historical linguistics, which should prove at least moderately interesting. (Learning about sound shifts, how we know about them, etc.) This is followed up by my externship/class in Teaching English as a Second Language, which I hold considerable anxiety towards.. I think though that my only real anxiety is about what it really means to teach, along with a fear of breaking out of the ordinary half-brained class routine. I have this imagined idea that for this course I will need to travel far and wide to various parts of the city and interact with a multitude of people. Plus, I fear that my classmates will all be teachers seeking their master's degrees. (a less likely fear, unless they are on sabbatical)

Also, I have REM's Orange Crush or at least part of it stuck in my head. It's a bit irritating, which is not to denigrate the song, but I only have a small part of the chorus stuck in my head, which is mostly lyrics I half understand, in a fake Michael Stipe voice (unless my mind can copy it perfectly) The problem here is simple, I wasn't even listening to REM.


huuuuuuh

1.5 hours

I wake up in bed. Vanessa is there, her dog Ramona is there. I'm wearing her sleep pants, too short for me, made of a black composite material. There are hearts on the legs. I look at the clock, see that it says 7:20, and freak out a bit. I head out to the kitchen, where most of my stuff is, and frantically start getting dressed. I can't find my underwear. I run to the bathroom, search the living room, and then check in the bedroom. All this time I'm running around wearing a jacket, button down shirt, socks and nothing else. Vanessa wakes up for a second, tries to help me by asking where I changed. I go into the kitchen again, and find my underwear bunched up down the leg of my pants. By this point it's 7:28. I quickly throw it on, kiss Vanessa goodbye (she's more or less asleep), and run out the door.

At this point I take out my phone to call metro-transit's hotline. Looking at my phone I realize that I'd forgotten Vanessa's clock is ten minutes fast. I calm down, look out into the darkness and see the express bus coming. It's hard to make out the numbers at first, but eventually my heart returns to a normal pace, and I stop cursing inside my head.

I get on the bus, and keep walking back, hoping for a seat of my own. This doesn't happen, so I end up sitting in the little gallery area, having to look across at a bearded man reading the Chicago Style manual. To my left is an unmemorable nothing, and to my right a pudgy woman with red hair that is clearly turning to gray or white, clutching one of those open top canvas bags. She glares at me when I make eye contact. The lights on the bus are too bright to allow for any sort of real half-sleep, so I just sit trying to ignore my surroundings.

We travel on 94 then 35 briefly, looking out at the city. The bus stops at Anderson Hall, then Coffman union, and finally in front of Moos tower. I hurry off the bus to find that I'm arriving at work at 7:35, ten minutes before my shift. I walk down into the shop, find Dennis and Rex there. I say hi to both of them, then read the onion until the phone rings at about 7:43.

On the phone is Rose somethingorother, one of the clinic supervisors. She tells me about a sterilizer door that is somehow off kilter, and how it needs to be fixed. I write down the information and try to bring it to Rex. But, he and Dennis are embroiled in a discussion about Randy Moss (how he can apparently get away with anything because he's that good) For a while, I listen to this, then Dennis leaves to his workspace.

Apparently, there is no sterilizer in the room that I was told about. So, the three of us go up to the clinic in question (8S), and ask around. Apparently it's the window gate to the dispensing station. The three of us gather around the thing trying to figure out what is wrong with it. Rex runs his finger along his white mustache, Dennis twists his finger around his dark brown curls. I see the problem immediately, but feel no need to mention it, as I assume they have it covered. It's a simple but not possible for us to fix sort of issue.

Next, I get Dennis' advice on fixing a nasty machine that I've never worked on before, a leaky grinding wheel doodle. I go downstairs, grab tools, head up and have it fixed in maybe 10 minutes following his advice to the letter. When I get back downstairs I'm full of triumph, pride, and am congratulated by Dennis for my accomplishment. Even my boss Joyce appears happy enough to see me as I cheerfully take a work order from her hand.

I go up with the intent of picking up this hazardous waste, but realize it can wait for me to quick grab a cup of coffee from the neurology clinic on the first floor of the adjoining tower, Phillips Wangensteen. I take the elevator down after sneaking onto the skybridge between the two buildings and taking a minute to gaze out to the west, at downtown Minneapolis. (The view from this bridge is amazing) And then descend to the depths. In the waiting room of the neurology clinic lies my goal, a gruesome coffee machine with Styrofoam cups and shakers of non-dairy artificial creamer (powder) and sugar. I take my cup of coffee as a trophy, and maneuver out of the room.

On my way out I pass a liver-spotted man with a countenance much like an elderly, Hmong version of the comedian Gilbert Gottfried. He looks at me for a second as I pass by, and I can't help but imagining him speaking in Gottfried's shrill voice. But then he disappears, and I do too.