Drinking at the zoo, round two

This 3-day weekend just past wasn't as relaxing as it could have been, and I'm not sure why. I did all the stuff one would usually do to relax (I drank, I slept, I saw a movie,) but for some reason it just didn't click and now I feel like I should take the rest of the week off too.

Saturday morning Tim and I went to help Karen move some china cabinets from her aunts house to her parents house. Barbara brought her Suburban and Tim, Karen's dad, and I hauled these cumbersome wood-and-glass boxes down some stairs and into the SUV. When we were unloading the heavy one we failed to notice that the rear gate of Barbara's Suburban wasn't straight on top (due to one of those center brake lights,) and this put a lot of pressure on the cabinet, breaking the mirror set in the back. Luckily it looks like it will be easy to replace. After this, Karen, Barbara, Tim and I went to Le Madeleine for lunch, then Tim and I drove back to the place in Laurel, picked up Kevin, and headed up to Baltimore to pick up Nina and go to the Baltimore Zoo. This was the second Brew at the Zoo I've been to, and the first trip was much more successful. I was worried that the weather would be bad, but we lucked out there. Unfortunately we got there a little late, so a lot of booths ran out of their beers before we could try them. This wouldn't have bothered me so much if we hadn't been waiting in line at two of these places when they ran out. We all came back to Laurel to hang out, and on the way there we saw Parker coming home from work. She honked, we flipped her off, then she somehow passed us. I blame Tim's driving. The five of us (Parker included) went to Olive Garden for dinner, then hung out at the house for a while before I drove Nina home.

Sunday I went to the gym, then took a nap. This somehow took up most of the day. At around 9 we headed up to Nina's for a party she was having. Now, I'm not saying the party sucked (because it didn't, really,) but for a while thefacebook.com and Nina's computer were jointly the most popular person there. Parker drank too much and passed out on the futon (at least she didn't vomit) and Tim dragged me out of there before I could make a huge mistake. I must learn to limit my alcohol consumption when I'm around former girlfriends.

Monday I went to the gym, then went to my parents for the afternoon to see my family and eat dinner. Jeremy and I talked Becky into coming out to see Star Wars III instead of working on her resume (res-um-AY, res-um-AY, it still sounds weird.) I wasn't impressed with the film. Sure, the graphics were cool, and Yoda and R2-D2 kicked ass, but the dialogue was horrible, and in the last 10 minutes of the movie it appears that they lost all the futuristic looking technology from episodes I, II and most of III, and decided instead to go with 1960s style British military uniforms and huge rectangular plastic buttons. I guess maybe the retro look was coming back into style.

So that's that. Maybe it sounds like a fun weekend, and maybe it actually was and I just had too much on my mind to appreciate that, but for whatever reason today feels like a Friday, or a Thursday at the earliest. Tonight I get to go to this Boxing club, so I guess I'll figure out if it's something I want to do all summer.

Codemill

Since it gets posts so rarely, I'm following Bens lead and posting an alert here. There's a new post on codemill.

New house

We've all moved in to the new place in Laurel. I've been sleeping in the guest room since my room had no bed, but my bed was delivered yesterday and I am quite happy with it. We're still in the process of unpacking our shit and figuring out where to put our various pieces of furniture, so the place is still in a state of disarray. Once the place is cleaned up and we're ready to trash the place again we'll have some sort of house warming party, probably in mid June. This will probably be the venue my brother and I use to decide who is stronger and, therefore, a better person.

On another note, Becky is living at home this summer, so I'll actually get to hang out with my sister from time to time. This is nice now that we get along; when we were teenagers I would have sold my left nut to get her out of state for a couple months. My whole family has the same insensitive, dark, sarcastic sense of humor now, so we all have been getting along quite well.

I've been talking to some people about going to grad school for meteorology and the general consensus is that I shouldn't go to UMD since their program has gone down the tubes, and should look to either Florida or California. Florida has the National Hurricane Center, which I think would be fun to work with, so that will probably be my first choice. I just signed on for another year at the department of astronomy so this is still another year off, and I may still decide to do linguistics instead; I'm having trouble deciding.

Man, I am not feeling this post. I guess that means I should stop wasting your time.

hit me

Friday afternoon after work I decided to go for a bike ride to prepare for a longer bike ride on Saturday. I rode on this trail I ran on a week or so ago when I was looking for the pullup bars I was told were on the trail. When I ran, I stopped just a little past Paint Branch Parkway, turned around, and ran back up Route 201. Had I gone a quarter mile further, I would have found what I was looking for. When I rode, however, I went way past that. I think I did about 15 miles all in all, stopping at the pullup bars and dip bars to mix things up. This was all, however, a poor decision because the next morning I was riding 31 miles for the American Diabetic Association and my legs could have used a day off. Either way, I finished the ride on Saturday with little soreness and got a free lunch from Outback Steakhouse. By free, I mean free once I paid $40 to register. I also got a water bottle and a star-shaped cookie cutter. What a weird goodie bag.

After the ride, Tim and Parker and I went back to Parkers place to shower, and Paul came up and we all went out to Frederick for the Maryland Brewers Festival. I don't know much about Frederick, but apparently there are a lot of hicks there. The beer was good, it rained a little but not so much that we couldn't enjoy ourselves, and I got a t-shirt from the DuClaw brewing company that says "drink naked" on the front. I thought Hey, what a novel idea: A shirt that advertises something you cannot do while wearing the shirt. How dumb, but apparently they brew a beer called Naked Fish, and the back of the shirt explains it all, thus destroying an otherwise ironic joke.

After that we came back down to the house in College park for a BBQ (I took a small detour to pick up Jeremy). It was raining, but we did it anyway, and a modest number of people showed up. This was good, because I really didn't want to deal with a ton of people in my house. I was tired, sore, and had already gotten drunk once that day. I was in no mood to party, and went to bed shortly after midnight.

Sunday I got up early: 9:00. I wasn't even aware that Sunday had nine o'clock in the ante meridiem. I drove Jeremy back home and we had breakfast with dad. Eggs I think. Then Jeremy and I went out to Seven Locks (near where 495 hits River Road) to pick up his uniform for his lifeguarding job this summer. I dropped him off at home, went to swim and lift weights. The last couple times I've gone to the gym I've run into Katrina, whom I know from S.S.D.P., and have been talking about joining the boxing club at Maryland (of which she is a member.) Fortunately she says the club doesn't have permission from the school to spar yet, so I won't get my ass beat quite yet. Still, I would like to learn how to throw a punch. After working out I went back and we went to Ricciuti's for dinner, then I came home and did laundry. That's right, I'm ending a blog entry with laundry. Deal with it.

Lying is fun

So we're having a BBQ on Saturday. Ben, Anna, whoever else reads this: you should all come. I know I said our last party would be the last, but either I was lying then, or am lying now, or some third thing, probably involving quantum mechanics. I'm not sure when this shindig will be, but it should be early evening/late afternoon. I'll post a time once I know it. Show up early and enter the drawing for a free BBQ 2005 t-shirt. Offer void where applicable.

This is why I need to post more often...

So it's been a while since my last post, and this has come to bite me in the ass since I have a lot to write about. I'll go chronologically because it beats alphabetically or longitudinally. Prepare yourselves for a Kaylaesque post.

Two weekends ago I went home and did some construction for the garden my brother and I are building for my mom for mothers day. Our back yard is a big hill, and the southwest corner was just dirt. No grass, no nothing. So we build some retaining walls out of railroad ties so we could create a stepped garden. Not having dirt or mulch to put in, however, meant we had to stop there.

Last Friday I went to Art Attack but missed the Gin Blossoms. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not, but Chevelle was better than I thought they would be and Guster was, if nothing else, better than that Bruce Willis CD I have. During Chevelle Tim and I hoisted Paul up to crowd surf after telling him that he should give us his glasses. He didn't, and he lost them. Luckily someone found them and held them up, and Tim saw that and got them back. Tim was the next to go up and had the foresight to give me all his crap first. I was the last to go up, and made it all the way to (and over) the front fence keeping the crowd a few feet back from the stage. Along the way I crossed paths with some girl who was also crowd surfing and she got dumped in my lap. We were carried as one big mass for a while, which was kindof weird. There were also some mosh pits breaking out, which was fun because I like to shove people.

Saturday there was a toga party, and rather than just don a bed sheet I did a little research and figured out how much fabric I would need to do it right. Turns out I needed a piece 18 feet (roughly 3x my height) by 4 or 5 feet, so I went out to the fabric store to get some. Paul came along because he didn't think he had a white bed sheet, but decided to just get 1.5x his height. Why he did that, I don't know; I told him he wanted three times his height but he didn't seem to think I was right. I also picked up 18 feet for Tim. I'm glad I didn't get less than I did, since when I was putting on my toga I had just enough to do it right. Paul was having some trouble putting his on, and when Tim got back he got his on fine. Parker did the whole bed-sheet thing. We got to the party (with the obligatory 40oz bottles of malt liquor) and there were so many red-necks, republicans, military personnel, and die-hard Christians that I had to finish my bottle quick and start a new one, or I wasn't going to be able to have a good time. I still got into a lot of arguments, but at least I was drunk. I lost my drivers license and the $20 bill it was wrapped in, but some nice person found them and returned both. We stumbled back to the house at around 5 and I went to sleep.

Sunday morning I got a call around 10am from my mom asking if I was coming home for breakfast, so I got up, took a shower, and headed home. When I got there my Dad's car was gone, and when I asked where he was my mom told me that he went up to New Jersey because my grandfather was having health trouble again. He had died earlier that morning. I was fairly close with all my grandparents, especially my dads parents (since not only would we see them when we went up to New Jersey where all my grandparents lived, but they would also came down to visit; my moms parents, on the other hand, didn't travel very much) and this all happened so fast that I didn't really know how to react. So my brother and I went to work in the backyard (after all, it still was mother's day) wheelbarrowing mulch and dirt from the huge piles on our driveway to the garden in the backyard, and trimmed some trees in our backyard. I think neither of us really shows our emotions that much, and we were keeping busy, so we didn't end up talking much about it. I think my dad took it pretty hard, and my sister took it even worse.

Monday, after work, I packed my bags and headed home. My sister had driven up from school in Virginia that afternoon, and she and my brother and I were driving up to NJ Tuesday morning. We got to my grandparents house early afternoon and got to visit with our cousins from California whom we rarely get to see. The service was later that afternoon, and a lot of people came, both family and those people who aren't blood related but may as well be. During the service my grandfathers business partner spoke, as did all three of his sons. I was surprised to hear my Dad talk about the McCarthy hearings; my grandfather was discharged from the military as a result of his investigations and wasn't reinstated, despite not actually *being* a communist. I think I understand my families political opinions a lot better now. After the service most of us went back to my grandparents house. It was nice to see so many people I rarely get to see, I just wish it was under better circumstances. I had a nice long conversation with my grandfather's friend Jack Okun about working out. This guy is almost 90 years old and is partially paralyzed from having polio as a child, but he has got to have the best outlook on life out of anybody I know. He's starting to get movement back in his leg which has been more or less dead for most of his life, and I think hearing him talk about lifting weights, considering his age and history, is going to help me keep exercising after my brother and I have this brawl in a month or so. So far I have just been exercising so that I don't wind up getting beat up by my him.

Wednesday afternoon I drive back with my brother and sister, drop them off at my parents house, and go home. I wasn't really in the mood to go out at first, but when it became obvious that I wasn't going to do anything else that evening, I met up with Karen and her friends from class at Cornerstone. Not much to speak of there; I drank some, I bumped into Laura (a girl from my art class), the place got real crowded, Karen's friend Kathleen (sp?) tried to freak dance with me but, as you all know, I do not dance. Paul drove me, Karen, and Kathleen back to our house some time between 1:00 and 2:00. Karen and Kathleen and I stayed up a little longer talking about stuff, then went to bed.

Today I went to my art class and found out that I got an A for the semester. I'm not that surprised, since the teacher liked all the work I did and was always commenting about how hard I worked. All my work is now sitting in my car.

Party

So, broadcasting this on the interweb may not be the smartest thing to do, what with anybody being able to see it, but whatever. Nobody reads my blog anyway. We're having a party Saturday night. If you read this blog regularly, and will be a reasonable distance from our place this weekend, you should come. This may be the last party we have at this house.

Yes, but are they networked

If you watched Minority Report and noticed the technological flaws instead of the plot, you may find this funny. Too bad I used my only good(?) joke about this in the title.

A Room with a View

Saturday morning I went to the Humane Society facility in Rockville to help build benches, mulch the area around some sidewalks, and do whatever else they needed done. It was for the community service project Jeremy needs in order to get his eagle badge. This is probably the first scout function I have been to in quite a while. I think the last time I did something with my old troop was when Tim and Kevin and I rode along with them for a while when they biked the C&O cannal a couple years ago. Before that your guess is about as good as mine. Saturday was a nice day to spend outside: a clear sky but not too hot, so I didn't notice the amount of sun I was getting. Since I was looking down most of the time, the back of my neck got a nice red hue by the end of the day. When I got back home I tried to combat it by sitting outside with no shirt on for a while, and it's starting to even out. The last thing I want is to have a beat-red neck and pasty white abdomen. I think I'm going to spend a lot of my weekends outside since I spend most of my time during the week inside an office with no windows.

Speaking of my office with no windows; I spoke with one of my bosses the other day and I will be staying on with the Department of Astronomy another year. Next year I am going to take classes that I hope will help me figure out what I should do about grad school. My current feeling is that I should go for meteorology, but not broadcast meteorology; I don't want to be a weatherman. As far as teaching, you all have made yourselves very clear as to your faith in my teaching ability, and it has finally sunk in. I would be a horrible teacher, so I have scrapped those plans. I may take another linguistics class, but I'm not sure I would be cut out to do that for grad school. I could see it being a hoby, but I can't see myself going for a career in it. Staring at clouds, on the other hand, would be an excelent way to fill both of my job requirements of 1) getting paid and 2) staring at clouds all day. I could do that now, if only my office had a window.

Alcoholistic Medicine

What a week. So many people died, and the only one I really cared about was Mitch Hedberg. The rest really didn't effect me. As far as the Pope goes, I'm betting that, like all U.S. Presidents, he will be another white Christian male. OK, so the Christian part is excusable.

I'm turning into an alcoholic, but at least I'm surrounded by friends whose drinking problems make mine look less raging. I've been to a bar 3 times in the past week. The same bar, too, so I'm a boring alcoholic. Wednesday we went to Santa Fe for cheap Yuengling and buffalo wings, but they were all out of buffalo wings so really it was just for the cheap beer. I met up with Laura from my art class there, and she seemed to get along well with all my friends, so that's cool. Friday night Karen, Nina, Paul and I all went to Santa Fe because we had nothing else to do. Then Saturday night after we got dinner Laura and I went to Santa Fe again with a bunch of her friends. I'm starting to recognize waiters there. Is that a bad thing? Also, Tuesday night Tim and I bottled the beer we're making (an Irish stout), so that should be ready for consumption tomorrow. At least some studies support the claim that drinking in moderation is good for you. I didn't get shitfaced any of the times at the bar, so really I'm just drinking for my health.

Sunday afternoon I went home to hang out with Jeremy for a while, then when our parents got back from NJ we went out to Red Lobster. I'd never been to a Red Lobster before and probably won't ever go again. The food wasn't horrible, but it wasn't particularly good either.

I've started lifting weights at the gym on campus, and it is pathetic. The first time I went I could hardly lift anything. I blame that on running since it purportedly decreases muscle mass. I couldn't even lift what I usually start out with after having not exercised in a while. I've gone a couple more times since then, once with Jeremy, and he can definitely lift more than I can. I'm still not worried about our post graduation brawl, but I am going to have to prepare for this. He's benching a good 40 pounds over me. I'm beginning to notice a slight difference in strength, and I think that within a month I should have caught up with him. I just need to stop running so much and maybe swim or something. I tried swimming Saturday morning, and did a 250 before deciding to quit. Anna, what do you know about combining swimming with weight training?

ramblings from the past week

My heath is improving, but I'm not entirely over this cold yet. I still have a sore throat and a cough, but no more swollen gums and I finally managed to pop my ears. All in all I'd give my current heath a solid B. I feel pretty good other than the throat, which I would give a C, independent of the rest of my body.

I took Monday and Tuesday off last week, and came in for a half day on Wednesday and Thursday. I spent most of the time I wasn't working either sleeping or eating. It was boring, but relaxing.

I played basketball with Kevin on Thursday last week. I started out horribly, and worked my way up to mildly miserable; basketball is not my thing. Friday night I went out to Santa Fe with Kevin, Karen, and Nina. It wasn't as weird going out to a bar with Kevin and our exes as I had originally thought it would be. Saturday Tim and Parker and I went up to see some more houses. I liked the first one more than the second, but everybody else liked the second more than the first and it looks like we're going to apply to the second house today. Oh well. Saturday evening a bunch of us went to a pool hall and played a few games. I want to get a pool table for our house when we move in. Skip the next paragraph if you don't care about computer crap.

That night my computer crashed, and wouldn't boot up normally (I kept on getting a kernel panic, if you know enough to be curious.) I first tried burning the install CDs for FC4 test release 1, but the 1st CD disabled IRQ#9, which meant my keyboard wouldn't work, then asked me to press enter to continue. I get the same problems whenever I try to use an updated kernel in FC3. So I re-burned the FC3 install CDs on my mac and tried doing a linux rescue, but it couldn't find my partition table; however, it found it fine doing a full install. So after a couple errors on disk 2, and some media checks (all coming back OK,) I re-burned the second disk and, after a few crashes during the install, I finally got FC3 reinstalled. By this point it was well into the morning. Once my system was booted it ran fsck, which kept on crashing and dumping me into a shell, which would restart the computer when it was exited. I ran fsck manually on / and /boot, which came back fine, and didn't feel like doing it on /home (my 200 gig drive) so I edited /etc/fstab to have /home not automounted and rebooted. I still got the same error and shell, so I ran fsck on /home which, after a couple dozen errors, finally finished. I restarted my computer and it booted up fine. So now I have to download a couple hundred updates from the RHN and reinstall all my custom packages, the sources/rpms of which I keep on /home so that when I format my 40 gig drive for a new OS I don't lose the install files for programs I install.) Skip the next paragraph/sentence/whatever if you read all that.

Summary for those who skipped over that last part: I stayed up all night fixing my computer.

I tried to get about an hour of sleep around 2 in the afternoon, but it didn't really catch, then went to my parents for dinner. Upon coming back to the house, I felt like going for a run. Now, it was raining outside, and I was sick and going on no sleep, but I still managed to run the whole 3 1/2 miles without stopping. I've found I'm getting much better at pushing myself lately, and I don't know why. I got back to the house and felt like I do every time I get back from running: tired. I expected to feel a lot worse, but I didn't. Maybe this is a sign that I should start running farther.

Sick of being sick

So it would appear that I've got the flu, or something like it. I spent all weekend sleeping, trying to sleep, or eating. I'm starting to feel better today but I'm not going to bet that will last. It also seems that this cold has gotten backed up into my inner ear because everything sounds like I'm underwater. For an ear infection, though, it doesn't hurt, so I've got that going for me. I think Nina had the same problem for a while, but I doubt I got it from her. The back of my mouth/throat is swelling up a little, which is bad news for my wisdom teeth. My mouth has just enough room for them, so with the slightest bit of swelling I start to chew gum. It hurts, but not too bad. Both Kevin and Jeremy tried to get me to drink pickle juice to help my cold. Both were doing it just to see if they could get me to drink pickle juice, and both came up with the idea independently. I almost did it when Kevin told me, since he has a bit of medical training. Man are my friends assholes.

Friday night a bunch of us went up to Craig's (of Maria and Craig) for a day-late St. Patty's Day party, which was nice. Craig's basement is set up well for parties, and his friends were cool. Not being able to speak very much (no voice) limited my enjoyment a little, but it was still fun. I also got to practice massaging with Parkers sister, who never complains when I do that.

On Saturday we went back to the house we were trying to rent but it doesn't look like we're going to get it. The landlord is being nice and is giving us a lot of other leads in the area. I slept the rest of the day and that night, and went to visit my family Sunday afternoon. I slept a lot there too. I did my taxes and it looks like The Man owes me a couple grand, so that's cool.

All in all, quite the uneventful weekend.

St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday we went up to an Irish pub near Nina's apartment in Baltimore. Nina was meeting a few friends there first and Tim, Parker, Paul, Kevin and I were going to meet her. Crystal wound up coming too. The bar was very crowded when we got there, so we couldn't find Nina. We got corned beef sandwiches because, I believe, none of us had anything to eat for dinner. Tim and Parker were coming up separately so we had to wait for them to find us too. Eventually we all met up. I have to admit that it felt weird to be around Nina in this environment. I try not to be a jealous person, and as long as I'm actually in a relationship I'm fine. It's when I'm out of one and see some guy talking to my ex that I get uncomfortable. So that sucked. Later on we all got a table in a quiet corner of the bar, and continued with the drinking. Nina seemed depressed but I didn't know what I could do to help her, or if I was even in a position to help. I think she's just been depressed in general, but I think it's possible that she also could have thought something is going on between me and Crystal (nothing is), which may have made things worse. Or, I could be way off. Either way, she didn't seem too crazy about Crystal. I'm beginning to see why dating friends is a bad idea, I hope Nina starts feeling better (if she actually is depressed), and I really want to stop feeling so weird about it all. Later on that evening Kevin and Crystal and I went to pick up Jillian, a girl we went to high school with, and came back to the bar to hang out for a little longer. Some time around midnight we left, dropped off Jilian and drove back to the D.C. area. We then dropped Crystal off and headed home.

This morning, I woke up and couldn't speak; it would appear my cold has taken a turn for the worse, so I'm not going to work today. I also haven't run in a few days, on account of my cold. I want so very much to be healthy again, so I'm going to sleep all day.

3 posts in 3 days? Don't get used to it.

Yesterday I went running after work. I have had a sore throat and an on again/off again mild headache, so running may not have been the best idea. I don't feel that much different today and I've been eating a lot of zinc cough drops which are supposed to help with colds, so I'll probably continue running until I really feel like crap. Running has been great incentive to not smoke. I tried to quit on New Years but that didn't last. It's funny; I managed to quit smoking pot but not tobacco. Anyway, it's been a while since I've had one and I'm feeling a lot better. Just in general, I feel more alert, articulate, happy, and in better shape than a few weeks ago. Now all I have to do is start eating better and going to the gym to lift weights, and my brother won't stand a chance when we fight this summer. For those of you whom I haven't told: my brother is taking weight training this year, and after he graduates he wants to "throw down." Now, I'm 5 years older than him and haven't had much trouble keeping him down in the past, but he is getting stronger and now I am starting to worry. Still, I think I'll have better technique than him. Plus I will be intimidating since I've always been able to beat him up. Either way, this should be interesting.

Closure

This is going to be another short post. I told Nina we needed to talk face to face and she came down tonight so we could do it. I had a lot I had planned to say, and said very little of it. It's what I expected to happen; I usually get nervous doing stuff like this and forget a lot of the things I had planned, so at least I remembered a little: the important stuff. We walked around the neighborhood because I didn't want to do it in the house. I wanted some place that was neutral, and wandering around felt good. I'm not getting into details because I honestly can't remember a lot of them, but the summary is: it just didn't work. No rebound, no deception, at least not in large portions. It just wasn't going anywhere. I agree that it wasn't really anything serious by the time she broke it off, but I would have been fine keeping at it. She didn't want to do that, which I guess is well in her right, and it's good she did it before I actually got attached. So it's back to being friends, only this time with a hint of awkwardness and uncertainty, with no hurt feelings. Hopefully something will happen to make things comfortable like they were before, but I'm not sure what that would be other than just the slowly passing time.

Weekend goodness

First, to wrap up old stuff. I'm not upset Nina left me. I'm pissed she ever dated me. I feel like she used me as a rebound, and that's not something you do to friends without at least telling them first.

Thursday night Kevin comes over to watch the softcore porn he got for his birthday: "The Kama Sutra." This thing is rated R and despite a little nudity, sucked both as a film and as porn. I learn some things from my friends later about theories as to what Nina thought was going on while we were "dating" or whatever, which pissed me off, but like I said above, I'm not upset. Just disappointed.

Friday night we all went out to Santa Fe. Tim, Parker, Paul, Kevin, Crystal, and Shari and I got a table near the entrance, opposite the stage, but the music was still so loud we had to lean in and yell to understand each other. Karen, Nina, and some of Karen's friends went to Corner Stone and everybody had a good time except Nina, who wanted to go to Santa Fe but was prevented by Karen. It sucks, but it happens. Turns out Crystal went to college (in the real Santa Fe) with a good friend of Karen's who comes to parties time to time. Small world. I learned a lot about what people actually though of me in high school, as opposed to what I thought they thought about me, particularly my ass, but also me as a person in general. No wonder my self esteem has had such a troubled history. People say bad things about me to me as a joke. I am not quick to pick up on these things. We left and went to Wawa to get food, because drunk people like food. While in line a couple barely dressed girls tried rubbing their breasts up against me and dropping things in front of me, but Crystal (and unintentionally Parker, who wasn't aware of this at the time) were giving them dirty looks and Crystal was pulling me away from them. I was hardly aware that any of this was happening, but not completely oblivious. We went back to the house and despite my previous rule that my bed not be used to host parties, everybody piled in. My bed is comfortable, they say. Eventually Tim and Parker go to bed, and I just lay in bed with Crystal and Shari with Kevin and Paul sitting at the foot. Karen comes home and hops in, and we all probably annoy the housemates across the hall with how loud we're being. No, nothing like that, just sitting around talking. Eventually Kevin sobers up and takes Crystal and Shari home, then comes back and goes to bed.

Saturday morning Tim, Parker, Kevin and I go up to Savage Mills to look at a townhouse. We liked it a lot, and want to move in this Summer very much. I hope we get it. Tim will probably post pictures of it eventually, if he hasn't already, but if we get it we will throw a party when we move in and all you can see it in real life. 3 stories, 3 and 1/2 baths, 4 bedrooms, a couple living areas, deck, woods/field/high-voltage-powerlines behind the house. It was well decorated when we saw it, but I'm sure our ugly furniture will detract from the architectural pleasantries of the place. We drive around the area a little, and it looks nice. Howard County, if you're curious, just south of where 32 hits 95. Later, after we get lunch and go back to the house and Kevin leaves to go do stuff, Tim and Paul and I go for a run. I've been running about 3 1/2 miles every day this week, walking for one stretch of road maybe an eighth of a mile long a couple miles in to cool off, and Tim didn't think he could do it. Motivated to not lag behind, or to prove he's a big man, or something, he kept up the whole time, even on the half mile hill at the end that gets steeper and steeper the closer you get to the top that usually kills me. So that's good. We hang out some before going up to Columbia Mall (yeah, I know, going to a mall on a Saturday Night is lame middle school stuff, but we were just getting dinner with Parker who works there for the time being. We go to Parkers house later that night and watch Donny Darko, which I had been wanting to see, and liked it very much. Kevin and Karen came up to watch too. Went back to the house in Karen's car, and we bitched about some stuff. Went to bed.

Got up this morning intending to run before going to my parents for breakfast, but decided to sleep in instead. I still got home before breakfast, and got to hang out with Becky who is almost always in another state/country going to school or working in some national park, and Jeremy, who is almost always there. We had bagels, salmon, and whitefish (whatever that is, i'm not sure, but I didn't have any so it's okay that I'm unclear as to it's source,) if you're curious. You're not, are you. Too late, you read it. I came home at around 2 and went for what is becoming my daily run to, around, and back from lake Artemisia (sp?). I then ripped my new Modest Mouse CD "Building Nothing Out Of Something" and listened to it. And it was good. Then, I decided to post to my blog, and actually write something. Now, I am finishing it, staring at the monitor, waiting to go up to Duclaw up in Arundel Mills with Paul, Tim, and Parker. I'll talk to you all later.

It's starting to feel like Spring, both in the weather and in my head. This makes me happy.

3 months gone

short post, Ninas gone. Apparently she wasn't ever there. I'll be fine eventually, it's just the shock from being rejected (you'd think I'd be used to this sort of thing by now) from a relationship I thought was going somewhere. I hope we manage to stay friends since most of our friends are the same people. For the time being, however, I am going to be hurt, bitter, and avoiding her so I don't act like a jerk. We all know it's in me.

Ski trip

On Sunday, Paul, Tim, and I went skiing at Liberty. I was worried that morning because it was snowing, and the road was already covered, but the major roads were fine and we got there a little before noon. Rather than renting skis, I borrowed Tims dads skis, which just barely fit. They were big enough to get on, but they were a little narrow at the balls of my feet. Uncomfortable, but not bad enough for me to want to pay to rent skis. I hadn't been skiing in about 6 or 7 years, and I've only been skiing twice before, so I wasn't a "competent" skier. Still, I managed to go down every slope that wasn't a black dimond or, god forbid, double-black dimond, and wasn't constantly falling down. Tim is a much better skier than I, but I was doing a little better than Paul, so that's good. I watched Tim go down a black dimond which was covered with moguls, and he made it look almost easy enough for me to try. I didn't. Chock that up to cowardace or knowing my limits, your pick. All in all, I fell down a lot, but I didn't hit anybody.

We're going to try to go on another trip sometime in February or March, so if you want to come along let us know so we can try to go when it's convinient. I may try snowboarding, or I may just stick to skiing and hone my skils, because girls only want to date guys who have great skills.

Luck ran out

Saturday morning started out well, then quickly deteriorated. I woke up at Ninas, and left to go help Ben and Anna move in, or so was the plan. I got to the parking garage and went to pay at the machine (before returning to my car.) The machine took my ticket but wasn't accepting cash. I tried to put my credit card into the machine, and it took it, but didn't register anything and refused to give me my card back. I tried to cancel the transaction and the LCD display would lead one to think that everything was fine, but nothing came out. No credit card, and no ticket to use to get out. So after calling every phone number in sight, I called Nina thinking I could get the credit card out if she brought down a pair of tweezers. No dice; the tweezers wouldn't fit in the slot I put my credit card in. We checked the whole garage to see if the attendant (who if there wasn't at the booth by the exit) but found nobody. We checked the lot next door, managed by the same company, but nobody was there either. Eventually Nina just let me use her pass to get out (she has one of those monthly passes you just have to wave near the reader to get out.) On the way home, I tried unsuccessfully to get in touch with Ben and Anna to figure out when/where we should meet them, but they were already down at their new place, and weren't answering their cells. Maybe we can help you next weekend if you still need it. I canceled my credit card when I got back to the house, and I should be receiving a new one in the mail shortly.

We went grocery shopping before the snow got really bad, and picked up some sleds from The Sports Authority in Beltway Plaza. Later, we went sledding on the hill outside the elementary school across the street. At some point, while I was running with Angel, I heard what sounded like keys falling out of a pocket. I checked, and my pockets were empty. After looking around a little and finding nothing, I figured what I heard was just Angels leash jingling while we ran. Upon getting back to the house, I found out that my keys weren't in my room, so they were somewhere in the field across the street. I went back later that night with a flashlight and spent about an hour wandering around, not finding anything. The next morning I went back, and was looking for about a half hour before asking our neighbors if they had a metal detector. Pauls dad suggested it earlier while I was leaving the house to go look, and I had thought about it earlier as well. I was in luck (this guy has everything) and after another half hour of digging through the snow only to discover that somewhere under a half dozen spots on the ground there were probably coins, or iron-rich rocks, I found my keys.

That afternoon we watched The Lord of The Rings, all three movies, extended edition. Got started around 1ish, and wasn't done until after midnight. I spent most of the time in the kitchen washing various pots, pans, cooking utensils, plates and bowls in a pot of hot soapy water on the stove and a rubbermaid bin of rinse water on the floor. The pipes in our kitchen have frozen, so this is how dishes must be done, with water taken from the faucet in my bathtub (but not bathwater, that would be gross.) It's like I'm camping or something. We ordered pizza and I sat down to watch the last movie. Tim cleaned any cups or silverware that needed washing at some point, so we now have clean dishes.

How was your weekend?

Dryer details you probably could live without

So, Tim broke the dryer the other day. His load had finished and he was taking his dry clothes out, but some articles were hanging on those shelf-like protrusions that help spin the clothes. He spun the cylinder manually (as so many of us do) and heard a loud snapping sound. Then, the cylinder wouldn't move when the dryer was on. Great.

Yesterday we disassembled the thing and found the problem: the belt that spins the cylinder wasn't connected to anything. We also found a pulley unattached, lending one to believe that this was somehow the problem. Here's the catch: The belt is, topologically, a donut. As is the pulley (with a slight fuzziness applied to forgive the fact that it's a wheel attached to a axle with a little space between, and probably some bearings. The point is, the axle forms a loop with the mounting bracket, so there's no way to get the belt to go around the pulley. It's like trying to do that magic trick where you take two separate rings and transform them to be interlocked, like links of a chain. Now, I know how that works, but this belt wasn't designed with magicians in mind. We figured out how it worked: and I will try to explain this without using pictures. Good luck understanding it. You can skip the rest if you don't care how our dryer works.

First, one should note that there was a motor near the cylinder (but not touching) with an extended drive shaft (connected to the motor at one end, but left free on the other so the belt could be attached.) It was clear that the belt should go around that. The belt should also go around the cylinder. So the only question is what the hell to do with the pulley.

There were holes near the motor, on the inner surface of the bottom of the dryer body (not the cylinder) to attach the pulleys' mounting bracket, and what you're supposed to do is push a loop of the belt through the space between the pulley and it's mounting bracket, and have that loop go around the drive shaft connected to the motor. Since the pulley is close to the motor this takes very little length from the belt. The rest of the belt (on the other side of the pulley) goes around the dryer cylinder, and the tension is enough that of the loop that got threaded through the pulley and it's mounting bracket, only one direction actually touches the pulley. So to clarify: imagine you're looking at the dryer from the front. You have a large circle (the cylinder you put clothes in), and outside it, below and to the right, there's a small circle (the drive shaft connected to the motor.) Closer to the bottom of the cylinder (to the left of the drive shaft) there's a pulley (a circle larger than the drive shaft but much smaller than the dryer cylinder.) The belt, starting from the top of the cylinder and going clockwise, goes around the right side of the cylinder until you get near the bottom Let's say 4:30. There, it departs on a tangent from the cylinder and wraps around the pulley, heading right again. This begins the loop that was pushed through that I mentioned earlier. The belt then goes around the drive shaft in a clockwise fashion (let's say from 11:00 to 6:00) and departs on a tangent from the drive shaft, now heading left. Now, this part goes through the loop formed by the pulley and its mounting bracket, but doesn't touch anything there, finishing the loop that was pushed through. It then continues to meet the dryer cylinder at around 6:00, and stays on the cylinder the rest of the way up.

Aren't you sorry you read all that?

Anyway, that fixed it, and the dryer now works. Plus, we somehow wound up with an extra screw after reassembling the dryer. That's probably not good, but I doubt one screw is going to make that much of a difference. Unless, you know, that screw was holding down the "do not randomly detonate" button.