Cran or Crayon?

Last weekend I headed over to Indi and picked up my first laptop. I can't tell you why I decided I needed one all of a sudden, but I had been doing a lot of research on them and finally decided to make the plunge. Maybe a part of it was peer pressure. For example, for a long while I slept on an air mattress that I was perfectly happy with. Then when it got a few holes I slept on the floor until I figured out a good way to plug them up. And I was fine with it, but everyone kept yelling at me that I needed a proper bed. In the end, at the end of last year, I broke down and got one. I figured I should have one for my parents, when they come to visit, and while I didn't have a girlfriend then or now, I suppose not having a bed to girls is almost on the same level as being my age and calling my parents "roommates".

So I got the laptop, mostly because everyone said I needed to have one. I went with a Sony Vaio, which is why I drove to Indi because that's where the closest Sony store is located. The computer is pretty impressive spec wise. It's got a 16.4 inch monitor with 1080p resolution, 6 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive at 7200 rpm, a 1 GB dedicated video card, the Intel i7 hyper-threaded quad core processor (you're welcome Gurney), and a Blu-Ray player/burner. There are 3 small problems with it. First I have a dead pixel, but I can only see it when there is a black background behind it. So I'm living with it, I don't think it warrants a return. The next is that the screen is glossy and not back lit which means that it's both very reflective and hard to see in very bright areas. Finally the screen is about an inch bigger than I would have really liked but at the same time the computer isn't so overbearing that I can still take it anywhere.

Right away I installed Matlab and the Adobe Master Collection (old readers may remember). I'm just now getting around to installing it because I was told that I can only install the software onto one computer, so I was waiting to get a workhorse that should last me several years before installing it. The Adobe suite is pretty cool and runs great. Lately I've been working on a new Flash movie. I had started this a long while back but unfortunately my old computer's hard drive crashed on me and I lost all my work. The animation was made using 4 drawings that I did in crayon and then scanned into my computer.

Most of my flash projects are small studies that I like to do for fun and are not really meant to be shown off. My website, linked at the side of the blog, was made entirely in Flash. But that was about the biggest project I've done. So this crayon animation was also a small study. I wanted to see if I could bring that type of drawing to life. All that white space in my drawings had to be dealt with. For example, the inner area of the wheel spokes had to be specifically treated so that you could see through them rather than just see all white. And unfortunately Flash doesn't have a nice transparency feature like some more dedicated art programs. But here it is. Just click once on the tree. You may need to install the latest version of Flash to watch it. If nothing works you can go here and watch it just fine.

And just in case you're wondering, where I come from it's pronounced cran.

Mack

Last night I was at the library until it closed at 9:00. There weren't too many people around at that point, and so as I was walking to my car I overheard a man growling out loud about the cold. He was swearing and cursing pretty loud, and when I turned to look at him I saw he was homeless and was carrying a ton of bags and other doo-dads. Feeling sorry for him I kept walking to my car, and offering him up some Hail Marys I started driving back to my place.

I want to digress here for moment. Yesterday as I told this story to another friend, I got yelled at "what good is that going to do." Well it might not be much but the fact that I was going to take some time to turn off the radio and offer some prayers for the guy is certainly better than the alternative. And it is a bit frustrating to here another Christian complain about it. I could perfectly understand an atheist making that argument, but to here another Christian moan about the insignificance of prayer is terrible. I understand physical concrete actions are probably best, but when that option is not available prayer must be better than absolutely nothing at all.

But this was also not a case where physical concrete actions were not available. I had plenty of things I could do, and so after driving for a couple minutes and thinking about my warm luxury car and my palace on the pond that I was heading to, I turned the car and sought after that guy. I found him approaching downtown, and pulled into the parking lot of a nearby bar that he was going to be walking by. As fortune would have it, he actually turned into the bars parking lot. I thought at first that he was going to go inside but instead he kept walking towards the back of the parking lot. At this point he was on the driver's side of my car and I rolled down my window. I could here him mumbling about maybe being able to find some money in the dumpster that was just a short distance away. I said to him, "Sir, do you have a shelter to go to tonight?" "No." "Would you like me to take you to a motel?" "I don't have the money." "Yes, would you like me to get you a room at a motel?" "Oh, I'd really appreciate it. The cold has withered my left hand from hypothermia." "Well then hop on in."

This was a bit easier said than done. He had a ton of stuff he was carrying on him, and I had stuff in the front seat which needed to be moved. I didn't want him sitting behind me, because I've seen to many movies of drivers getting strangled from behind with shoe lace or some other lacy object. But I got him in and we proceeded towards the hotels. I noticed he was much more polite in person than from what I heard when he was talking under his breath. By that I mean he wasn't swearing like he had Tourette's anymore. And he also didn't smell which was nice. His name is Mack. And Mack would not stop talking. He basically spoke when spoken to, but he had a lot to say all at once if that makes sense. I was trying my best to pay attention, but I was also trying to think of where I was going to take him, deciding how to deal with the possibility that wherever I took him might not accept him, and of course keeping an eye out for any unfavorable behaviors such as pulling out a knife.

From what I heard, basically his entire family is dead. His Mom died, his Dad was killed(?), his Uncle was killed in a bar fight, his sister died of cancer, and his wife died (of an illness?). He has a son but I couldn't figure out that his situation.

I wound up taking him to La Quinta Inn. This got us quite a few looks but the help was polite and got us a room. I probably should have paid in cash, but I didn't want to start pulling out fifties in front of the guy so I paid with a credit card. As we walked to his room I asked him to please not destroy the place in the night since I would be billed for it. He said he doesn't like a lot of commotion and would be quiet.

When we got to his room he started shedding all those bags and doo-dads and the coat. Then I saw he was much thinner than he first looked. His arms and legs were thin. He had sort of long hair, a pretty length beard, and finger nails about an inch or two long. It makes me wonder how he got his gloves on, which were too thin for the weather. I shook his hand, wished him a good night, left $3 for a bus ride back into town, and went on my way.

First thing this morning I drove back to La Quinta and asked the lady at the front desk to let me know when room 158 was checked that everything was fine and no additional bills would be necessary. She asked whether Mack knew when he was supposed to leave, and I said I hope so. It wasn't meant to be a continual thing. She said she'd call. Well she didn't call, so I called back around 2:30 and I got word that when they went in to clean the room, Mack had already gone and the room was fine.

Today I was back at the library and I saw Mack again. I walked up and asked how the room was. He said he had difficulty getting to sleep because it had been so long since he had a warm place to sleep. But once he got to sleep he slept like the dead. I said I was glad to hear it and went on my way.

We do have shelters here in town. I should really learn where they are at. I've even made sandwiches before for them, but I never bothered to drive them over, someone else always did. I could have simply given him directions to the shelter had I known. But at the same time I'm not aware of their policies. There may be time limits to how long you can continue going, or maybe he had gotten in a fight and is no longer allowed back. Picking him up like I did was certainly dangerous, but I figure if I was just considering a week ago about going to Afghanistan to probe IEDs, then I can probably take a guy to a hotel.

Size 6 to 4 Can Be Painful

Growing up I had always been told not to eat a lot of salt. Mom never got too specific, she just said "that's enough." Maybe I had heard it wasn't good for the heart, and then later I think I was told it causes high blood pressure. Well just last week I heard a new thing that salt might cause, kidney stones. My sister decided, after much loving guidance from myself, to go on the Jenny Craig diet. For those of you who aren't familiar with the diet, essentially you weigh yourself, give the contents of your wallet to Jenny, weigh yourself again, and magically your lighter. Depending of course on how much money you had to begin with in your wallet. So that money buys you prepared Jenny meals. And these meals are high in sodium. They aren't the highest ones out there, but they're still not healthy in that department. And my sister had been eating them every day every meal of the day for several months.

Then she started noticing some problems when she needed to use the bathroom. Since I only like to embarass her in person I'll skip the details. At one point things were so messed up down there that she felt it would be prudent to see a doctor. This decision of hers was suggested to her by the worst pain she ever felt in her life at 4 in the morning.

The doctor found she had kidney stones and E coli. A few months went by and nothing really changed. And now we come to the present. After going back to the doctor, she was told the likely cause of her kidney stones was all the Jenny meals. The doctor was actually quite impressed. He said typically he only sees old people who have kidney stones, and it's usually like 1 or 2. She has 4! One of which that was rather large and was causing most of her problems down there.

Today she went into surgery to get the big one removed. The doctor said it was completely embedded in her urethra, and there was no way it was coming out on its own. So he broke it apart and got the big chunks out. The remaining 3 are still in there and hopefully they'll come out on there own.

Fortunately today's surgery went well, and the doctor didn't have to make any new holes in her to get to the kidney stones. The ones God gave her worked just fine. Apparently she's in some serious pain, but Mom's there doing her thing.

Having A Blast

Early last Friday afternoon I received an e-mail request for resumes. Every now and then we'll get requests from different divisions located throughout the company looking for people who might be interested working on some task. While I do have a set job, my managers are open to the possibility that I might find greater satisfaction doing another task for another division.

The job posting is looking for people to perform forensic analysis on IEDs that have been rendered safe. IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are essentially modern landmines and are the cause of a great number of our troops' injuries and deaths. From what I understand, the bomb squads find these IEDs and disarm them. Then they'll be given to me and I'll be tasked with the analysis. Most likely I would be trying to determine who made the IEDs or where they came from. Plus I would be on the look out for any new improvements to the technology that might make them more lethal or harder to detect. This task would be performed 'in theater'. That puts me in Afghanistan. The job is for 6 months, working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. After the first 3 months, I would be given a 2 week vacation. With hazard pay I would probably make a little over 4 times what I would make here for that 6 month period.

On Friday this seemed like a terrific idea. I really want to at least post my resume to see if I'd get accepted. I could always say 'no' if I change my mind. After all it's not like I've got anything major happening for the next 6 months. The task sounds awesome, it's a once in a life time opportunity (and quite possibly the last one if I were to get blowed up), and the pay isn't too shabby either. But ultimately I don't think I could go. It wouldn't be right to put such a great amount of stress on my family. Mom has already said she would prefer if I didn't go. And Mom's not the worrier. Dad is. Right now he's over in Israel doing some work, so I haven't mentioned it to him, but I could imagine his response. The thing is though that about a year ago I was offered work in Iraq. They were perfectly fine with that, even encouraging, but unfortunately Afghanistan is just a bit too rough right now. It's a shame though, I would have had some great blog material for 6 months.

Salsa Not To Eat

This weekend I asked a friend of mine out for salsa dancing. I actually got a yes. Even more amazing, she was actually willing to skip out on some out of town guests for an hour or so to go with me. We were supposed to go around 11:00, and I was going to check in with her at 10 to see if she was still willing to bail on her guests. She didn't pick up at 10. That was a bad sign. At 11 she called me, saying she just got back. She and her guests had gone out to dinner and it took a very long time. In fact they were still out, and she decided to leave them to get back home. By this point, it was quite late and we were too tired to just then be going out. Nevertheless, I still think this turned out pretty well. We did talk for awhile on the phone, but the problem is I didn't think to setup another outing. I haven't decided yet how I want to handle that. My plan for now is to just try asking her again next Friday with the hopes that she'll speak up before then.

Tickers

Today is Financial Friday. Earlier this week Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway B split for 50:1. It was trading around $3,400 and each of those shares was split into about 50 new shares around $70. There are two main stocks maintained by Berkshire Hathaway. B and A. B has always been the cheaper of the two, with A trading in the low hundred thousand dollar range. A has never split, and over the decades has become quite profitable which is why it trades for such a high price. Most of us will likely never be able to dream of even owning one share of A. B was also not exactly affordable for many of us. But this recent split made it much more reasonable and I ended up buying some shares yesterday.

The idea behind the split, according to the press, was really due to a bit of charity by Mr. Buffet. Recently he bought Burlington Northern, the nation's largest railroad operator. In order to give the employees a chance at owning some company stock the members of the board in charge of the stock approved of the split.

What's interesting is why Mr. Buffet decided to buy the railroad at all. He called it "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." I think that's a bit rosy. In reality he's probably waging on the price of fuel. Oil isn't getting any cheaper. And I'm pretty sure automotive sales in China just passed us, with them becoming the largest buying market in the world. What this means is that the cost of fuel is going to increase. It makes sense, there's only so much fuel out there and it's not going to last forever. But as the cost of fuel increases, so will the cost to ship products. So things shipped by trucks and airplanes are going to see their prices increased. As a result this will make railroads more lucrative because of the cheaper shipping rates that they offer.

After I bought the shares, at first things were great. The stock rose about 75 cents per share in a short time. My other stocks were doing fantastic too, possibly being fueled by Scott Brown winning the Senate seat in Massachusetts. But then things took a turn. Yesterday afternoon President Obama decided to attack the banks, and just like that I am now down over $400 on the market. For the first time in over a year I had actually been in the clear and was up a few hundred dollars. But I guess if things can't be good on Main Street, the government has decided things shouldn't be good on Wall Street either. Sigh, now I'm just losing twice.

Dealing With Rejection

A possible by-product of our relativistic culture is that people have lost all sense of the truly beautiful. I suppose it's true to an extent that 'beauty lies in the eye of the beholder', but for example, while you may not particularly care for one type of flower, surely there's at least one you can appreciate.

Music and art are other such categories. How anyone could possibly look upon the fresco's of the Sistine Chapel and not be filled with awe is beyond me. Foods too have the universal ability to be fondly viewed by all.

All of us have felt that need within us to share those things we find truly beautiful with others. But now in this silly culture we live in, some of us may feel it would be impolite or intrusive to share our joy with others. Not only might not all appreciate what we are so fond of, but they might be downright offended by it. And the result of this, is that the joy we have built up inside of us is diminished and saddened. Only in this crazy culture could something that brings tears of joy at the same time bring us heartache.

So, I am quite positive that it is due to this relativistic culture that can no longer even appreciate the beautiful, that I was rejected from that new site I joined. Either I am not beautiful and I am deluding myself, or everyone of the opposite sex on that site is wrong. Well considering that this site has already established my sensationalism in all aspects of life, I have to conclude that girls simply do not know a good thing when it's sitting right in front of them.

Access Pending

Yesterday I said I was going to sign up on the new more selective website to see what it's all about. After I wrote the post I went ahead and created an account. It's interesting, during the evaluation process, you have full access to the site. So with that in mind I looked around.

The site is essentially Facebook. You can friend people, join groups and discussions. It's made to look very futuristic and there are some interesting features about the site that I wished others made use of. It's like the site is it's own small web browser.

Since the site is so new, there isn't a whole lot of people that have joined. For example, apparently I'm the first one to have signed up where I live. And this site shouldn't be confused with a dating site. It isn't set up for that, or at least not in any meaningful way. The only personal question the site asks about you is whether or not you smoke. The site does allow you to type up some stuff about you, but I've found most people do not bother. Which makes this site seem more like a test ground for people seeing if they can even get accepted rather than a seriously considered area for meeting new people.

The people themselves are all right. Only a few are real knockouts. The most are no different than what you're going to find on the other sites, with the exception that there are indeed no people who are devoid of any redeeming physical qualities.

I still have yet to be officially accepted. So far one person has rated my profile pic (the one I use for this blog), and she gave it a 5.13. According to my sister that's about right, perhaps a bit generous, as I'm somewhere between a 4.5 and a 5.

Christina Can Sing Elsewhere

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail yesterday about a relatively new dating website that caters to the sensationally beautiful like myself. It has recently gotten some press because a lot of people suddenly found themselves kicked off the site after the holiday season. Here's how the founder explained the deleted accounts: Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which our website was founded.

Consequently, I will be signing up. First I'm curious if I will even get in as their is a screening process by the opposite sex. After getting constantly rejected, I need to feed my excessive vanity by being objectified and turned into a piece of meat. Second I'm curious about the people who are members. Clearly this site is devoted to the disgustingly shallow, and it will make for a great social science study. For example, I'm curious if the people on this site are actually as vain and shallow as we all assume them to be. For the initial process, I guess what I'm supposed to do is sign up and attach a pic. To make this simple for all of us, I'm just going to use the profile pic I use for this blog. I think it's a great one because both my eyes are open which is a major problem for me.

Now as terrible as this site may be in principle, I can see some redeeming qualities in it and I've mentioned this before. The problem with dating sites is that they don't work the way people do. If someone is going to go and start talking to a stranger in the hopes of possibly starting a relationship, they are naturally going to try to talk to someone they are at least remotely attracted to. You just aren't going up to an a stranger you are not attracted to (beauty is in the eyes of the beholder) and try to start something up. But this needs to be qualified. That stranger we may not be attracted to at first, could become beautiful to you if you become friends through some activity such as volunteering. I've seen that happen all the time. And it's great, and I think is the ideal way of meeting people. But when you use these sites the ideal has been thrown out the window and now you are simply looking at strangers and their profiles. If they aren't attractive you won't click on the profile, unless you want a cruel laugh, and then based on the profile you will decide whether or not to pursue the person further. This new site might simply be trying to revolve around that fact. By having the screening process, the girls are already going to decide whether or not I'm someone they would even be interested in seeing my profile. Unfortunately for me this is probably shooting myself twice. The chances I'm going to get in based on my looks is unlikely, and the chance of me then attracting someone based on my personality is nil. But this will be fun, and should tide me over until the students come back and I can restart working on this the good ole fashioned way.

You've Got Mail

Today, for the first time, I wrote my Congressmen. Never having written them before, I felt pretty good after doing it. It sort of feels empowering that I used one of my basic civic rights. I wanted to write to them about some of my feelings on the health care reform bill. Not having written them before I tried to find a quick and painless way of doing it, because while I was willing to write a letter, I didn't want to spend any time addressing it and figuring out where to send it.

In my searches I found a link usccb.org/action which will automatically direct you to a page with two form letters, one for the House and another for the Senate. The form letter can be completely edited which enables you to write on any topic you choose. At the bottom of the page it asks for your information about who you are and where you live. Based on that the site automatically sends out the letter to everyone who represents you. There's nothing to lookup, it couldn't be easier.

I encourage you to use this site and write letters if you never have before.

Prizes

In Columbus, Ohio there is a science museum called COSI. It used to be located right in the middle of downtown but many years ago it moved to another location. I have not been to the new location but I had been there before it moved. We are talking at least 10 years ago maybe closer to 15. Anyway, at the museum there was a hallway exhibit that lead to the planetarium. The hallway exhibit was a collection of old Cracker Jack prizes.

Thinking on that old exhibit, I did a quick google search for it and found a couple hits. Then I did another search and found this amazing iron-on transfer.

Never having heard the term 'gloryosky' I did a google search on this and found it's Little Annie Rooney's phrase, although possibly misspelled for 'gloriosky'. Little Annie Rooney is a direct blatant rip-off of Little Orphan Annie, the famous red-head Annie we all know from that marvelous movie staring the wonderful Carol Burnett. Back in the 1924 when Orphan Annie came out, it was just a comic strip. But it was such a hit that in 1927 some people thought they could have similar success with their own orphan and so Little Annie Rooney was created. She too is an orphan but she lives with her dog Zero. You'd think something so derivative would have been destroyed, but instead the cartoon strip was published up to 1966!

At this point I get a bit confused. Even though the cartoon strip was introduced in 1927, apparently a silent film about Little Annie Rooney was released in 1925. Now in 1890 a song was introduced in England that referred to Annie Rooney, and so Little Annie Rooney was probably around before the cartoon strip came out. But similiarly Little Orphan Annie comes from a poem written in 1885. This poem was American, so it's possible the two orphans were created independently. But the Little Annie Rooney comic strip was a direct rip-off.

The move stared Mary Prickford as Annie Rooney. In the movie Annie is 12, Mary was 32! But apparently the movie was very successful, because Mary was 'America's Sweetheart'. She was only 5 feet tall, so maybe this helped her pull of the 12 year old image.

The song, being written in 1890 had some interesting language that we've all but lost. In particular is the word 'twixt'. I would like to bring this word back into common usage. For example, 'Today I came into work twixt eight and nine.' I even save a syllable by not using 'between'. That's just efficient.

Honey and Dates

Should I ever get a honey and go on a date with her, I have the perfect dessert for the occassion, honey date cake. Last night I felt experimental and I combined two different cake recipes in an attempt to make the cake. I made it from scratch and used a few special ingredients. For example, I splurged and got special free trade sugar made from evaporated cane juice. And I used King Arthur flour. But after making it I found the flour had too much of it's own flavor and it masked all my other ingredients. So the cake is very tasty but I don't taste the honey and the dates.

Some of the called for ingredients were a bit strange. For example, the recipe I was following called for orange or lemon rinds. Well short of buying an orange or lemon, I was unsure where in the grocery store to find these rinds. They certainly were not in the baking isle. And unfortunately not too many Moms are walking around the store the time of night I was in there.

In the end I didn't want those fancy things anyway. I mainly wanted to only use the honey and dates. Things like ginger, and cinnamon were left out.

Frosting is difficult for me. I never seem to get it right. I use powder sugar, milk and butter. Maybe I should throw and egg white in or something, because the frosting always turns out to be more like icing. It comes out runny, instead of more like a paste.

Speaking of food, after 3 years of grocery shopping at the same store I discovered its deli section. In particular I found their already cooked rotissere chicken. This is fantastic. For 5 dollars I can have an already cooked whole chicken ready to serve. I love finding new ways to get out of cooking.

Found Some Words to Say

Dan Brown's latest work is pretty good. For the most part I thought it was a good thriller that was hard to put down. There are those moments when it becomes a bit encyclopedic but otherwise it's fairly entertaining. In all I only had a few gripes with it, which I think are interesting enough to warrant a post on.

In the book Brown promotes that the Bible is true. In fact he goes so far as to essentially say that anyone who believes the Bible is historical fiction is stupid. In addition he is in favor that all the various religions in the world share some fundamental truths. But then he goes and belittles the parts of those religions that make them unique. Typically he belittles some of the practices in Christianity, probably because that's his reader base and they know the most about this religion. Specifcally praying infront of the god-man hanging on the Cross (Catholic-centric), and eating his 'figurative' body and drinking his blood (probably not Catholic-centric as we see nothing 'figurative' about it). Brown likes to show how pagen these practices are. So I want to clear this up a bit. Even though Brown doesn't make this claim, I want to clarify that we do not pray to Jesus on the Cross. Rather we pray to Jesus in Heaven, and use the icon of the Cross for meditation and reflection. Catholics typically like to focus on the sacrifice Jesus made, and use it to inspire our own actions. Many of the other denominations focus on the empty Cross (possibly because of 'faith alone') which signifies Jesus' victory. Both approaches are fine, and it's not like one is better than the other. In fact we should probably focus on both, if Jesus didn't die on the Cross we wouldn't be saved, and if He didn't get off that Cross we wouldn't care. As for the bit about figuratively eating God, alright that one sounds crazy. If I was an outsider looking in I would probably be getting away from those people right quick. But at the same time if Brown is promoting the Bible as truth, then Jesus is God and we should probably do what He says. And so if He says we need to eat Him, then that's what we need to do crazy sounding or not.

But that's just a minor gripe. The next thing I want to talk about isn't so much of a gripe as I just thought it was interesting having been in Theology. During the last 5 pages of the book, Brown presents his Theology. He claims that we are made in God's image, but puts the 'twist' on it that it's not our physical bodies that are in the image of God but our mind. I found it amusing that his 'twist' was the physical body, because that's certainly not the Catholic understanding of being made in His image. Actually, it would be closer to our minds, but not quite. God is the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. By very definition, God is relational. We too, being made in His image are made for relations, with each other and with God. There's other things too, but my point is that it's certainly not something so basic as just our minds that is made in the image of God.

The other bit of Theology Brown wanted to push is the word 'Elohim' which is the Old Testament word for God. The special thing about that word is that it's plural. Brown's point is that in essence it meant that all of us are god, and we just haven't taped into our full potential yet. In reality we need to remember that during the Old Testament, God was revealing Himself to humanity. And much of humanity believed in many gods. The God of Israel, wasn't the only god around according to the citizens back then. In fact He wasn't even very high on the totem-pole. But also the plural, as found in Genesis during the creation (check it out, you'll find the language has God as plural), points to the reality of the Trinity which was later introduced by Jesus.

Anyway, I'm not writing this to make a big case here, or to change your convictions. I just thought Brown's ideas were amusing and it'll be interesting to hear how people react once they get a hold of the book.

Sledding

According to the weather report, tonight and tomorrow we may be getting 8 inches of snow. Unfortunately this is not exciting since work does not allow snow days. Instead, if we cannot make it into work, for any reason whatsoever, that is due to weather problems, we have to make it up. So if there is a week long hurricane, we are expected to make up that week of work. I can understand not getting paid for the time I didn't work, but being asked to make it up seems a bit rough. I wonder if taking the time off without pay is okay. But in any event, not going into work due to a little snow fall is wimpy so these rules don't apply to me anyway.

Nevertheless, the prospect of getting the snow had me thinking about sledding and how I don't get to do it anymore. Back home I used to go all the time. Being on the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range had its perks. And the sledding was great. Not only did I already live at the top of a large hill, but there were also plenty of other good places to go. In particular was the hill by the community college, Harvard on the hill. This one was a bit of beast, because it was fairly steep. It was a blast to go down, but no fun walking up.

One year a new type of sled was brought to the market. It was essentially a hard rectangular plastic sheet with two rectangular holes cut out on one end for your hands. This sled had you ride on your belly face in front. It was pretty great and you could get lots of speed. The major problem with this design though was the face first on your belly part. First off it was near impossible to turn since your hands were holding the holes. Second the tremendous speed and the fact that your head was pointed towards the ground made it difficult to see objects up ahead.

In particular it was quite difficult to see fallen logs, especially when they were covered up with snow. So when my sled went off the track and headed towards the woods I didn't see the log that I was quickly approaching. Not that it would have mattered much, as it's hard to change direction when you are airborne after going off a small ramp.

All in all it was pretty impressive. I didn't black out, but I did lay there for quite sometime. I wasn't in a great deal of pain but the whole incident was impressive enough that the other sledders took notice and someone ran to grab Dad. I think it was my sister who got him. At any rate no one wanted to look at me. My right eye had gotten clobbered by the log and was quickly swelling up. By the time I trekked up the hill and made it to the van with Dad and my sister, Dad said I looked like a Star Trek character. That night it swelled up considerably and the following days I had great trouble opening it up in the morning because of the pus and mucus that had solidified over my eyelashes during the night.

This was back in the 5th grade, just before I got glasses. I remember going to the Indian doctor, that was a rare treat back then since we have so few of them back home, and after it was determined that my eye would be all right after sometime I shortly had to go back for glasses. Also during that time I had a book assignment due and as part of it I was supposed to make a paper-mache bird with feathers stuck on. I was not looking forward to doing this, but in the end I got lucky. Being right after Christmas, we had gotten 'Free Willy' from Aunt Sandy as a Christmas present. Even back then I didn't want to watch this movie and thought it was for littlier kids, but my Mom popped it in and had me lay down on the couch. Turned out the movie was actually pretty good, it was just that stupid overly dramatic scene in the end with the Whale jumping over the kid's hand that ruined it all. I didn't want to watch that sissy stuff. Turns out I didn't, I wound up falling asleep and when I woke up, completely disoriented after having had such a long nap, my Mom suprised me with the bird all done. She did it while I was sleeping and I got out of the assignment. I still have that bird. Mom hates it, calling it a 'dust-collector' and she's right it is, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it.

Red Eye

Last week I set a new record for the amount of time I wore my contacts in one sitting, putting the time at just under 30 hours. My right eye was fine, however I think I infected my left eye. It got terribly bloodshot, hurt a lot, and kept wanting to close. And so for the next several days, my left eye made me look like a tired druggie, because I could barely keep my eyes open and when they were open the left was bloodshot. I was also not around any sort of real drug store, so to fix the problem I bought a small bottle of 'Cleareyes'. Just as Ben Stein claims, ther redness went away quickly. The pain was still there but even that was slowly starting to ebb away as the days went on.

The reason I had my contacts on for so long was because I bussed on down to a conference in Orlando this past week, and I was entirely too vain to put on my glasses. Afterall, there were going to ladies around and I wanted to look good. So instead, I wound up looking even more creepy than usual and I had to wear my glasses anyway. Oh well.

The conference itself was great. It was put on by a group called FOCUS, which is a Catholic affliated campus missionary group. About 4000 participants attended. The conference hosted a wide variety of talks put on by some pretty big names. For example Archbishop Caput, who has been in the news a lot lately due to Senator Kennedy, gave a talk. Each night of the conference for 1 hour they had free swing dance lessons and on the final night of the conference a swing band came and played for us and there was a big dance. That was a blast. It was funny watching the Friars dance in their robes, and they were really good. Sort of 'Sister Act'ish.