Dancing Hinderance

There were a lot of new people at salsa last night. This was the second to last lesson of the year, but for whatever reason a lot of people decided to show up. Many of them seemed to have a Latino or Spanish background. Because of the many new faces the instructor did a lot of reviewing which was fine by me. But soon enough he decided it was time to move on for the sake of us who had been loyally coming.

Last night we learned several new moves, and each one built on the previous one, so by the end we were really moving around. Near the end one of the regular girls rotated to me as the one I was with rotated to the next guy. She asked if the girl speaks Spanish. I said that I only heard her speaking English. Then she asked if I speak Spanish, and I said not a word. She said that she thinks I'm the only one in this class that doesn't know Spanish. Then jokingly she said, that considering how many people in the class seem to have Spanish as their first language, that I was hindering the class's progress because everyone had to slowly speak English. I smiled and responded it isn't my skill at speaking Spanish that is hindering the class.

Safety Dance

This Saturday is the big dance. I was invited on Monday. Apparently my friends, who I typically see once a week, completely forgot to tell me about it. One thought I already knew, and the other apologized profusely that he had gotten lost in his upcoming wedding plans. Okay, I can understand that, but it certainly put a damper on things.

First asking a girl to go at this point is pointless. I'm not taking 'just a friend' because I'm not in the 8th grade, and no self-respecting girl should want to go after being asked four days before. When I explained this to my friends they both asked if I had wanted to take anyone. I told them I had no one to take, regardless if I wanted to, but I could have spent a good deal of time stressing over it the past couple weeks as is proper. Then they said they did me a favor.

Maybe I won't go in the first place. There are many reasons why, but to choose only one I would have to go with the music which is generally dreadful. The stress of seeing a bunch of people I know, many who go to this single and then feeling obligated to dance with the ones who aren't dancing with anyone is also something I don't relish. What sounds like more fun would be leaving those friends behind, pulling out Dance Dance Revolution and having at it. I get to stay in my palace, play awesome music, and dance in my undies.

Still I'll probably show up anyway. While I do have things I wanted to do that night, all of them involved me in my apartment so I suppose getting out would be best. Additionally I ran into Stacy the same day I got my invite and she asked if I was going. When I told her that I hadn't yet decided because there are several things I had wanted to do that night, she said she wanted me to go. Of course she doesn't want me going with her, but if the two of us should happen to bonk into each other there that would be acceptable. Had I any pride I might be upset, but I'll take whatever pleasant bonkings I can get (there has to be a better way to phrase that).

I guess this means I'll be paying particularly close attention during salsa dancing tonight.

Popcorn Time

‘Synecdoche, New York’ is a 2 hour movie about rejection, loneliness, and death. On Friday night my friend Chris, who was visiting me from out of town, thought it would be a wonderful way to spend our evening. This week past the annual Ebert Film Festival was going on. The film festival is what it sounds like. Once a year our oldest theater in town, sort of like the Majestic in Ohio, screens a number of movies picked by Ebert. After the movies there is a discussion session with people who were involved with the movie. My friend Chris is a huge movie buff, and really wanted to see Synecdoche because he considers the movie a masterpiece and wanted to hear what the director, who was going to be a part of the discussion panel, had to say about it. The writer and director is Charlie Kaufman. He has written a number of movies, like Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich. Roger Ebert has said that Synecdoche is the best movie of the decade.

I had not seen the movie before, and likewise had never been to the festival before, so I figured it would be a great time. And for the most part it was. We had to stand outside in a long line of people who didn't already have tickets. Chris said we should get there about 30 - 45 minutes a head of time, but since he got in about an hour before the movie started we didn't have much time. So we ran over to Steak and Shake, apparently Ebert's favorite restaurant, and got our food to go. Then we stood in line eating our food and people watching until it was time to get in.

Our seats were terrible. They were in the balcony on the far right. But we could see the screen and remarkably got to sit together. Plus is was cool being up there anyway. Before the movie started Ebert came out and talked to us a little bit about the movie. Since he cannot talk anymore he had his computer helping him out. It was a little funny because at one point his computer repeated the same text twice, and Ebert shook his fist at it in mock anger. Ebert also asked a question during the discussion panel which was nice because it was clear he wasn't allowing his loss of speech to mean a loss of voice.

The movie was alright but I found it to be terribly depressing. The beginning was great, being funny and light-hearted, but the story takes a sad turn quickly and from there on out things get progressively worse. Throughout Kaufman is throwing in humor and I think the movie is meant to be enjoyable but for me those glimmers didn’t mask the sad nature of the story itself. At the end though, around a peak of despair, this Catholic Priest comes along and basically rips everyone up and down, slapping us all in the face, with a very inspirational speech that’s probably directed at the audience as much as the characters. The audience clapped after the speech.

A neat part about the movie is that it is very deep. You can find all sorts of little meanings going on. The story is rather confusing at first and generally will require multiple viewings for a good understanding. I cheated a bit and read some reviews ahead of time, and they greatly helped me understand what was going on. I’m not so sure it’s the story and plot that’s confusing as it is trying to figure out what the little details mean. It’s like a great painting that has an easy enough illustration to understand but maybe an odd color choice that is meant to convey a deeper meaning. Kaufman won’t talk about these little aspects because he wants them to the audience to take whatever they want from them. For example, in the movie there is a burning house that people live in. Kaufman refuses to talk about the meaning of this house. At first I thought that it was a fire sale. When we first see the house, it is for sale and one of the characters is being taken through on a tour by a realtor.

After the movie, I happened to run into both Ebert and Kaufman, and I got them both to sign my movie pass.

Dayton or Lottery Tickets

Today I was asked if I would like to move to Dayton for at least 5 years. I had 20 minutes to make the decision.

More and more I have been thinking about getting out of dodge. A part of this is self-preservation because in about a year and a half I really may have no choice on the matter due to some changes that will be occurring with my work. There are several unknowns that may or may not happen, but very few of them look promising. As a result I've taken on a similar mindset to the one I had during my last years in school both undergrad and grad. At those time I had to consider what was next in life and make all of those big decisions like where to live and what to do.

Moving away from here wouldn't be all that bad, in fact I'd probably welcome the idea because I don't care much to be here. I like my job, the Church I go to, and where I live, that's about it. And all of those are things I can find elsewhere. I suppose what's really holding me back is that I still had a few things I had really hoped to do here. The difficulty would not lie with moving away but with moving on. So until I really feel the pressure that things are coming to an end, moving to Dayton for 5 years on a whim just isn't going to happen.

Nevertheless, at some point I need to realize that those things that keep me here may never come to fruit, and I should start making decisions now while I have plenty of time rather than later.

Right now I have a few ideas in mind. One is a radically different career path. I'm not the brightest crayon in the box so sticking with my current occupation probably won't lead me very far. I'll reach a peak, if I'm not there already, but will still be able to see way up the mountain where I won't be able to reach. So maybe I can explore elsewhere. One idea would be opening a store of some sort. That requires a lot of work though for uncertain payoffs. Both of those don't fit well with my decadent lazy lifestyle where I get paid insane wages to sit and think, sometimes even to think about what I want to do. Or maybe I could go get an MBA and work my way up the corporate ladder. But I have misgivings about that too. Pretty much all of the white collars I know are miserable, over-worked, and have bad family lives. Maybe it's the economy but in reality it's probably that it's just awful unrewarding work that pays a lot. Therefore I think my best option may be to play the lottery and get rich off a multimillion dollar jackpot. That by definition would be rewarding, pays a lot, and allows me to continue to sit around and daydream.

Grains of Canada's Banner

In the shower this morning I was thinking about this post. The topic and the points of discussion came quickly, so I moved on to what the title should be. Titles are sometime tricky for me to come up with, but this morning it came right away. 'Soft and Hard Woods'. A few seconds later I realized my title would not do. And hence the title you currently see headlining this article.

Continuing from yesterday I wanted to talk about the differences between soft and hard maple woods. Hard maple, as the name suggests, is much denser than soft maple. The grain is packed very close together and has little variation. As a result if you start walking away from the wood, it will start to appear to be of one solid color very quickly. Everything starts blending together and it looks like a smooth solid colored surface. There will likely be some variation and spirals present but not much.

Soft maple on the other hand has a great deal of variation. In fact, to my eye it looks like a light cherry wood. When you start walking away from it, you can still see all the swirls and patterns in the grain.

And there you have it, the differences in the grain between soft and hard maple woods.

A Place for Books

Furnishing my apartment has been a very slow process, and today I finally purchased a book shelf which is the last major piece I wanted for my living area. Next up I have to get working on the bedroom, but today I thought I'd speak on the book shelf and all the considerations that went into it. Now I do not want this to sound too braggy, like 'hey look at me and new bookshelf'. These things I share are meant to be beneficial. For example, a lot of things I'm going to talk about were new to me and a lot of learning resulted from it. Besides if you think I'm getting too high and mighty, pretty much flip to any page here and find at least one article for a change of perspective.

First I had to decide where to put the bookshelf so that I knew what size to start looking for. The location was fairly straightforward but the size was not. 48 inches wide is a standard size, but my chosen spot is 58 inches wide. While 48 inches would fit great in that location, in the future if I move that might look too small. Instead I decided to try and fill up that area as much as I could, and went with 54 inches wide and 80 inches tall. 80 inches was chosen because at barely over 80 inches I have a giant fire alarm jutting out of my wall that I can't do anything about. I'm hoping the bookshelf will sit into the carpet a bit and give me an extra centimeter or so of wiggle room.

Good, dimensions were set. Next I had to figure out a style. That too was fairly simple. I have a sofa table that was made by the Amish, and I could just get my bookshelf made in the same style and wood type and stain. But again I started thinking about the future. If I move, my bookshelf may be no where near my sofa table and the style may not look right. My sofa table is in soft maple which I really like, but I also adore cherry. And the price for both happened to be the same. In the end I decided cherry was going to be a bit too dark for a book shelf. I think I will do my bedroom in cherry, making it look formal. But the bookshelf will be in soft maple with a lighter stain on it. When it comes to wood the main type I don't like is oak. For me the problem with oak is the grain which is too heavy and doesn't make pretty patterns. Cherry has an amazing grain but it's dark and the wood itself tends to be expensive. Maple is a pretty good in between with a very nice grain, lighter color and is typically a little less in price than cherry. I decided to go with the soft maple in the same style as my sofa table. I like the style, and saw no reason to change it and try to predict what new style I may prefer if I were to move.

Next up I had to deal with the construction. Nowadays furniture tends to be made with veneers. Veneers are when they take plywood and tack on a very thin sheet of solid wood on top. Good furniture uses a special furniture grade plywood, and it's used for two main reasons. First it's cheaper and lighter. Second, and more practically, it tends not to warp. Solid wood can warp and completely ruin a piece of furniture. However storing the piece in a well controlled humidity free environment will prevent warping from occurring. I also was not happy about paying so much for a bunch of nice looking plywood. I wanted solid wood. I found my bookshelf was going to have a veneer back and veneer shelves. The shelves were veneer because if they warp they can get stuck. I asked them to make the shelves out of solid wood anyway, but let them keep the back veneer. No one sees it, would add a ton of weight, probably significantly increase my cost, and a veneer back is pretty typical even on high end furniture.

Dimensions, wood and stain, wood construction check. Now the tricky part. The style I chose has room for three doors which are about 2 feet tall at the bottom. My main concern is that I felt three wood doors might look a bit hokey for two reasons. First, I thought the bookshelf would look a bit closed off, and make the piece more imposing than open. Second, I was concerned about the handles which would have two on the right and one on the left or vice versa. I could go with the magnetic style where you push it in and it pops out, but I think that lacks class. Another option would be to have a glass door in the middle. That option intrigued me because the glass would open the book shelf up a bit. Of course I could just remove the door entirely and have three open shelves in the middle. That would extend the book case a bit and be a very similar style to my sofa table which also has two doors and shelves in the middle. But the option I went with is two doors on the sides and three drawers in the middle. The drawers are going to be constructed with the smart-glide technology. It is so cool, you can't slam them shut. Instead no matter how hard who push it in, at a certain point the technology takes over and gently closes it the rest of the way. I think the only way the drawers could be better is if they had the small liners in between. In really old furniture the makers would put in small sheets of wood in between the drawers, like miniature shelves that aren't used. I'm not sure what the purpose of them was. Mom said it was to keep things from falling from one drawer into another, but I've never in my life had such a scenario occur. Anyway, I'm going with the drawer option.

Finally I had to decide what to do about the knobs and handles. My sofa table has the same handles on the drawers (three drawers above the doors and open shelf) and doors, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted the doors on the side to have handles (the kind were you put your fingers underneath) going up and down and then have knobs of the same family as the handles on the three drawers. I think that will give a good variation.

The piece will be done in about 7 weeks, and I'm excited for it. I have too many books right now scattered all over my apartment, on the floor and stacked on my furniture. The cool thing about the Amish, who are going to be making it, is that the constructor will sign it like a piece of art.

Lesson on Cam

Yesterday started like most weekend days, with Dad annoying me. I was sound asleep when I heard my phone beeping with a text message. For some reason I thought it might be an out of towner wanting to meet up, so I bounded out of my cozy to bed to see the message. The day before, my family had a bit of a fiasco over in Cincinnati involving faulty plumbing construction work. My Dad was not a happy camper. So yesterday morning I get a text from him saying, "I slept like a rock, how about you?" I responded "not anymore." It was 7:00 and I decided to stay up and get the day going. It was a productive day for me. I got a lot done, but the big thing was that I fixed two problems with my car. First I fixed the antenna that was no longer going up and down when I turned on the radio on and off. That wasn’t too bad, it just needed some WD-40 and a bit of twisting. It’s not perfect yet, but things are better.

The second project was fixing my car door. Recently, I had the weather strip on the driver’s side door replaced. But when I got the car back I found the driver’s door to be very tight. By tight I mean that when I pulled the handle the door didn’t want to open. It was too tight on the latch that connects the door to the car. Now they said that for a couple days it would be tight, because the rubber that makes up the weather strip had to get a bit worn in. I drove the car for about two weeks and the problem didn’t go away. In fact there were three times that I couldn’t open the door from the inside, and I had to crawl out the passenger side. This was fairly embarrassing, but thankfully I think I was able to get out undetected. Anyway, I took the car back to the body shop and told them that I thought the current tightness I was experiencing was a bit exaggerated from their description. The owner of the shop looked at it, agreed with me, and had a worker fix it up. A few minutes later the staff member pulled the car around to the front of the shop and showed me how the door was all fixed up. Fantastic, the door open and closed just fine.

But the next day I noticed that the door was now not fully shut. Before it was too shut, and now it wasn’t shut enough. The result was that there was an air gap between the door and the car. So much so that if I was standing outside, I could look directly into the car. This worried me, because that meant rain could get inside. Also when I was driving there was a constant draft noise. Before I left the shop the staff member showed me what he had done to fix the problem. There is a part on the car that the door latches onto. All cars have some variation of this part. Supposedly when they put the new weather strip on, this part got moved back, more inwards to the car, and it caused the car door to latch with a much tighter seal that usual, and that was what was causing my difficulties with opening the door. I do not know why they had to move this part, it is connected to the car, not the door. It shouldn’t have had anything to do with the weather strip. But they moved it and apparently it had been moved too much.

With that in mind, I decided that instead of taking the car back a second time, that I would try to fix the problem myself. The part that is connected to the car is fastened on by two screws. The problem with the screws is that they are star shaped. A Phillips head screw has four grooves, these screws had 6. These types of screws are called torx screws, and I had no idea where to get the right type of screw driver for them.

Today is not tutorial Tuesday but I think now is a fine time for a lesson on screws. Phillip head screws are purposely made to cam out when they are screwed in all the way. Cam out is that frustration you experience when you're sitting their nicely screwing in the screw and all of a sudden your screwdriver pops out. Apparently that is meant to happen. This was because way back when automatic torque sensing instruments did not exist. If you were using an automatic screwdriver it was possible that you'd screw in the screw too tight and potentially damage the piece the screw was being twisted into. Phillip's heads were developed to purposely cause the screwdriver to get dislodged from the screw once it was twisted in to a particularly set tightness. The fancy language is torque. At a certain amount of torque the screw cams out. Torque = force * distance, and relates to rotational force. Torque explains why it's much harder to screw in a screw with a regular screwdriver (just a long metal stick with a pointy end), than a ratchet (which is beant and has a long arm). In the first case you have to apply almost all the force to screw the screw in because you don't have any distance. You're hand is only a few inches from the screw and your arm has to do all the turning. With a ratchet, the arm is nice and long and it does all the turning. So you only have to generate just a little bit of force to get the same effect as a straight screw driver.

But despite the benefit of developing a screw that cannot be turned too tight, many of us have experienced the drawback of cam out. When the screw gets tight enough and cams out the screw driver, frequently we'll either strip the screw, ruin the screw driver, or slip and jam the screw driver into ourselves or the piece we're working on. With the advent of torque sensing screw drivers, a new type of screw was developed to prevent cam out. This was the torx screw. Like any screw, torx screws can be twisted too tightly, potentially damaging the piece, but they are typically used with automatic screw drivers that automatically shut off once the torque meets a certain threshold. Since distance remains the same, these screw drivers will shut off once the amount of force required to further screw in the screw gets too great.

In the end I went to Auto Zone picked up a socket ratchet and a T40 torx screw head, and adjusted the screws just fine. I was able to get my door to shut more tightly but not nearly so hard as before, and that air gap which would have let in the rain is now sealed off.

Keep on Running

Growing up it was always difficult for me to throw away old pairs of shoes. After having worn them nearly everyday for a couple years it was like they had become a part of who I was. It's a completely inappropriate sense of attachment. And even still today, I find it hard to throw away shoes even long after their usefulness has past.

This morning I woke up nice and early, and went out for a jog. I did this last weekend too. Around 8:00 I grag myself outside and run a lap around the complex. Well this morning I jogged two laps. I'm not exactly sure why I do this. It certainly is not for the enjoyment, or good burn everyone seems to adore. I don't feel any sort of sense of accomplishment, and wind up hot with a fast beating heart, and incredibly sore legs. And when I finish the first thing I want to do is sit around and do nothing for about an hour. I think the reason I did this the past two weeks is out of guilt, so that I can say at the end of the day I did at least one thing to improve my physical health. That lasts a week, and justifies all the ice-cream and other junk food I eat.

After about the first 10 seconds I noticed my shoes were hurting me. The shoes I was wearing I got sometime in my undergrad years, so they are probably about 5 - 8 years old. The padding has long been rubbed off, and I don't untie them anymore for fear they'd fall to pieces in my hands. But they're clean and the soles are in decent condition so I stick with them. Also I'm stubborn. I don't want to spend money on new running shoes, if I only will use them about 10 times a year at most. So I make do with the ones I have.

Now as I mentioned right away they started hurting me. But I had just started and didn't want to go making excuses to myself for stopping just as soon as I had started, so I sort of changed the way I picked up and put down my feet and kept going. After the first lap I was a bit tired but thought I could pull off another. By the end of the 2nd lap I was definitely ready to quit. Actually about half way through the 2nd lap I was done, but I pushed myself on. Again I have no idea why, probably just sheer stubborness. By this time I was just tired. My feet weren't hurting anymore, although my legs were legitmately tired.

When I made it back up to my apartment I went to take a shower and noticed my socks were stained red in sections. Apparently I had rubbed the skin down to open sores. And both feet had blisters forming on the bottom. These were added to my sores from earlier in the week when I had walked around for too long in my flip flops.

Running is the worst. Maybe all the ice-cream I eat tonight will help me feel better.

HGTV Taught Me Everything I Know About Business

My salsa lesson was incredible last night. We had it on the roof of the building the class is held in, which is right in the heart of downtown campus. The view was great, enhanced by the sunset, and the weather was amazing.

What's not so incredible is how finicky some people are with money. I know a particular set of people who have 2.65 million dollars to spend in 6 months. Currently they've spent .25 million of that. And it took them 6 months to just do that. Because they have so much and I have so little I try to get them to share some of that wealth with me. And because they are so generous they are willing to give some to me.

Here is the process I need to follow to get them to share it with me. I come up with an idea, go and tell them all about it and why they can't live without it, and how much I want to make their dreams come true. They take my fantastic ideas, chew on them for a bit and then hopefully say "alright go ahead, we'll pay for that". In short I pitch them an idea, and they decide whether or not to fund it.

Some of you may think that is a great logical process. But some of you are also wrong. Here's the problem with this process. I'm sensational. Every idea I come up with is fantastic. An idealic dream that they never dared to hope could be a reality. As a result, I don't want to waste time explaining myself to them. Just give me the money and I'll do utterly amazing things with it.

If you think that's insane and no one would do it, I see it happen all the time. Just flip on HGTV. This is the premise for every show on that channel. Someone has a budget. An expert comes in, takes the money, throws the people giving them that money out of their house, and then completely changes everything about the place those people called home. At the end of the episode the people are invited back in, and then burst into joyful tears at the amazing transformation that has occurred. That is how I want to do business. Tell me how much you've got and I'll make you happy, and if I don't make you happy then just don't hire me again.

Not A Narrator Anytime Soon

Some people think I am obsessively clean. However you readers know this to be wrong, because I am sensational and therefore cannot be ‘too much’ of anything. Take the following example, my apartment has a bug problem. Every so many weeks or months I find bugs running all over my apartment. I call them water bugs, but really have no idea what they are. They have about a two centimeter long and thin body, with two long antennas, and a few feet. They don’t do anything other than run around. And I have no idea where these creatures come from. Typically I find them in my bathroom with a high percentage in the tub, hence the name water bug. I’ll get rid of them, and won’t see any for a stretch of time, and then out of the blue I’ll find a bunch. Such as last night, when I found two running around on the floor in different locations. So clearly I am not too clean.

But what really bugs me (like fingernails on a chalk board that transition is) are answering machines. The reason I don’t like them is because I hate the sound of my voice. In my head it is fine, when I hear it recorded, and apparently the way everyone else hears it, it sounds terrible. Fortunately we live in an age where there are all sorts of other ways to leave messages. For example, there are text messages, e-mail, and Facebook messages. I’m not a huge fan of text messages, because I’m very wordy and they take too long to type or simply don’t fit in the allotted space. So usually I resort to Facebook or e-mails if I find myself needing to get a message to someone that I can’t talk to over the phone. If those two avenues are not available then I hope the person checks their caller ID. Usually what I have to say is not worth the pain of leaving a voice message. I want no audio recording of my voice.

Whenever I need to make a call that seems worthy of leaving a voice message, without fail it will go to the message client. There are all sorts of reasons why I may feel a message is needed. Last night I was just checking up on a friend I thought might want a call. Whereas on Sunday I called Stacy to go out for ice-cream. In the first case a text message would have been too long. And in the second Stacy doesn’t seem to receive texts.

Both times I very begrudgingly I left a message. Now in the good ole days, you had one shot and that was it. But nowadays you’ve got the ability to play it back and re-record. And not only that you can send it urgently or regularly. It’s enough to make me have a heart attack. We’ll forget the message itself. I’m sure you’re imaginative enough to understand why I hate it. But just think of the two ways to send the message. For example, suppose I was trying to call a girl to go out for dinner. If I send it urgently then I might come off as desperate. But if I send it regularly I have no idea when it will get over there and maybe we’ll have missed out on the opening. Now mix that with the message. Maybe I think the message sounds desperate. Then in that case maybe I should send it regularly to offset the desperate nature of the message. But maybe the girl I’m calling sees it’s me calling and doesn’t pick up because my charms make her all a flutter and she can’t ready herself in the 30 seconds she has before it goes to the message client. Well if I take forever re-recording my message, even if it doesn’t sound desperate and only nasally and mumbly (stupid voice of mine) and send it urgently then maybe she’ll be able to tell that I must have re-recorded it a bunch because it took too long to send it urgently if only 1 message had been recorded, but not long enough for it to have been delivered regularly. And in doing so, my attempts at hiding my anxiousness will have been foiled. Of course all of this could probably be determined by comparing the time-stamp on the caller ID to the time the voice message was received.

This is why I like writing things down. When I read it back to myself I get to use the voice I hear in my head which is cool, calm, and collected, not nasally, whiney, and mumbly.

Abstract Permutations

My cousin is getting married in late September, in Michigan. My family was invited and since my Mom handled the talking with my cousin's Mom, all the important details were worked out. Specifically my sister and I can bring dates.

On Friday I talked to my sister about this. She wanted to know if I am going to bring someone. That made me laugh pretty hard. Then she told me I had to bring someone. So I explained to her the unlikelihood of that happening. It's going to be right after summer break and that means I'll have had to find someone with all the students gone. There is a chance, Stacy will be here over the summer but she's not about to start dating me. Maybe someone else will come along, it's always possible I suppose. But I don't mind going alone. If I were legitimately in a relationship I would like to bring her to introduce her to everyone else. But otherwise I like the idea of being able to mingle and move around freely. But my sister would hear none of this. She wants me to bring someone. Apparently she thinks it'll look bad if we go alone and she finds these types of things important.

Then I explained to her the second problem with all of this. The wedding is in Michigan, 7 hours away for me and 8.5 hours away for her. So we'd have to spend the night. Rooms are $200. I don't know about her, but I don't feel like shelling out $400 for my room and my date's room. There's no way I'd be getting just one room and then having to put up with all the scowls from the rest of the family all weekend long. My sister said she has a solution to that. We can have a switch. And to that I said, "I suppose this could work, but I don't know. What if they fall in love and run off together. Then we'd be in the same situation and out $100 each." "What are you talking about?" "I was just joking. I doubt they'd hit it off and run away with each other if they stayed in the same room." "What?! No. You'd sleep with my date and I'd sleep with your date. Guy guy, girl girl." "Oooh, I didn't think of that combination."

I gotta hand it to her for thinking that up, she's a smartie. I taught her well.

Full of Hot Air

Okay, it took me 1o months but I finally made one of those updates that I said was coming. And what a pain it was. It required Photoshop, Flash, and a lot of trial and error. It's my own art, but to give proper credit the air-balloon is not from my own photo collection. I would like to give credit to the photographer but I found this back when I was still in Denver, cropped it out from the rest of the photo, stored it for future use, and can no longer find the original. Now that I think about it, the sky is the same way. Gracious this is starting to sound like a bunch of copy and pasting! The sun though, that's all me.

Afternoon Outing

Whew, three posts in one day. The last time I did that was when I just started this blog and still had a ton of good things to share. But I have a nice glass of Cherry Pepsi and a caramel chocolate bar I bought from a Cub Scout, and I'm trying to put this sugar rush to good use before I die later this evening.

At work, my cubicle next door neighbor decided that he wanted Bob Evans pancakes for lunch today. He hasn't been there since 2003, but remembers that they have this unique sweet taste to them which he believes comes from vanilla flavoring. I need to mention that this guy likes solitude. It is nearly with pride that he states he has no friends. It's not that he is unfriendly or even doesn't like people, he just prefers solitude.

Okay at this point I also have to pause for another second. A few days ago I talked about a piece of art I recently got. Well I had entirely forgotten that I had already chatted on the artist. Funny how I talked about the same things, but at least I'm consistent. Which I find important in things like art, because if you are not consistent then what you buy today you may not like tomorrow. Anyway, I wanted to reference that past chat, and the two others in this blog, because of what I spoke about Bob Evans. In this case that I don't speak about Bob Evans.

The guy at work with the sudden craving for those pancakes knows this as well. He also knows about my attitude on chicken pot pie. So out of the blue, he decides we need to go immediately to Bob Evans so he can get his pancakes and I can get the chicken pot pie. This was actually quite the occasion because this would be the first time in 4 years working there that anyone would ask me out to lunch, other than the one I had as a new hire requirement with my manager. He told me it would be therapeutic. Given some recent changes in my approach to these types of things, it wasn't a big deal for me, and so I went.

The chicken pot pie and two biscuits were tasty but just a bit too filling and of course the inside of the pot pie was magma which destroyed the roof of my mouth. Our conversation was very varied. First we talked about the smell of bathroom chemicals in the morning. Then he, a Mormon turned atheist, wanted to hear my opinions on the practical aspects of Trinitarian theology. Then we talked a bit about the nature of angels. And finally we talked about the last time I went to Bob Evans, which was probably in 2006 to buy a banana-cream pie for my Mom.

I guess because it was his idea that we went, he felt obliged to pay. Being a former Mormon he kept all there crazy high standards of ethics and morals. Anyway, he did let me drive because he doesn't like driving So I drove. As we were walking in he realized he left his wallet in his car. So I drove and paid. This doesn't sound too funny, but understanding his high ethical coda and if you were there to see how adamant he was about paying and how my driving apparently had balanced things out, you'd understand the laughter that ensued when he found he could neither pay nor drive.

So in the end, after four years I finally got to go out to lunch, by request from the most solitudal colleague where I work, to the last place I ever would have suggested. Maybe 2012 really is the end.

Bird Brained

Self-awareness in the animal kingdom is an interesting phenomenon. Other than humans, apparently there are a few animals that recognize themselves when they look into a mirror and not another animal of the same species. I wonder how old humans have to be before they realize this themselves. My theory is that we infer we are looking at ourselves. This is because as a youngster we are usually with at least one other person. So if we look into a mirror we can recognize that person looking back at us in the mirror and thereby infer the other individual must be ourself. Or if we are alone maybe we recongize the person in the mirror is wearing the same clothing and is mimicking our movements.

Today I saw an unfortunate bird who did not realize he was looking into a mirror. I arrived home early from work and the parking lot was a bit sparse. The spot I took was one spot away from another shiny black car that had parked close enough to the curb of the sidewalk that the front bumper was extending over and onto the curb. As I was getting out I saw the little bird furiously pecking at the bumper, and beating it with its wing. It took me a second but then I saw that he was drawn to his reflection. For several minutes he just kept pecking away and beating his wing at himself. Then another little bird of a different species or gender flew in and start chirping quite animatedly at the bird. It was like he was trying to tell him "Hey that's not another bird!" After a bit of this the chirping bird tried to fly into the other bird and started pecking him too. But it was to no avail, the little bird just would not budge. So the chirping bird chirped a bit more in vain and finally flew off.

At this point I took pity on the poor bird who didn't realize it wasn't another, and I got out of the car to spook him away. But he wouldn't fly away! Instead he just started hopping around and under the car trying to hide from me while still pecking at that reflection, until finally, after entirely too much effort on my part, he flew off.

Cut Throat World of Electromagnetics

The government's newly established health care reform policy has made many people worry that the government is becoming too big and controlling. There's many reasons for this. Personally I do not yet know how I feel about it, mainly because I haven't taken the time to fully understand what changes are going to happen and how they are going to be implemented. Right now I'd say I am both pleased and upset with what I do know. I am pleased that insurance companies will no longer be able to reject children with pre-existing conditions. Although I am displeased that apparently one of the revenue raising tactics is going to be an increased tax on investment income. Obviously forcing insurance companies to take on pre-existing conditions will raise prices. But raising taxes on investment incomes doesn't seem right. I'm not a politician but I say let's tax the stuffing (how's that for family friendly wording) out of alcohol and cigarettes. Let our main source of revenue for paying for health care come from the purchases of unhealthy products. That's health care reform. In fact positively this is already happening to some extent by the 10% increase placed on tanning bed services. And I realize that would mean a higher tax on my pop and junk food but I'd be happily willing to pay that tax before one on my investments. Especially with all this talk on needing to improve the economy. Putting higher taxes on investors doesn't seem like a good way to stimulate and encourage economic growth.

While I am still on the fence about health care reform and whether or not the government is overstepping it's bounds, there are also other areas that the government is trying to exert some control. And one of those hits very close to home.

About four years ago the government decided to create an inhouse program called CREATE. The purpose of CREATE is the development of a new electromagnetic solver. Electromagnetic solvers have a variety of purposes. Say for example you're a cell phone company seeking to bring coverage to a new city. Some EM solvers will let you model that city in 3D, and place towers at different locations. Then the solver will graphically show you the coverage region and strengths. The cell phone company can then use a bit of trial and error to decide where the best place to put a tower is to ensure the greatest amount of coverage. There are a ton of EM solvers out there, from those written by grad students to those that have been consistently developed for 20 years or more by some of the major US corporations like Boeing. Basically they all revolve around the same math, and the answers they give should be about the same. Differences come from what approximations are made. A full-wave solver for example will solve for Maxwell's Equations without any approximations. There are 5 Maxwell's Equations and they describe the behavior of electromagnetics. For example, cell phone signals obey Maxwell's Equations. A full-wave solver will produce results that are essentially exactly what the real-world scenario will exhibit. The only limitation is the accuracy of the models being simulated. For example, that town with the cell phone tower may be modeled by a few cubes representing buildings, or it could be represented with full architectural precision where even the material properties like glass, concrete and the leaves and trunks of trees are accounted for. But these full-wave solvers take forever to perform simulations. Typically only small canonical problems can be solved because the processing power and memory required to solve many problems of interest simply does not exist right now. So approximations are made to solve Maxwell's Equations. With these approximations, some problems that might take years to solve using a full-wave solver may be reduced to only minutes. And the answers will still usually look reasonably close to what we would observe in the real world.

You may be curious to know that these solvers can cost anywhere from nothing at all because they are freely distributed, to over one-hundred thousand dollars, to not even readily available because the government has deemed the need for them to be classified.

Since forever, the government has been using these programs developed by the major corporations to solve its electromagnetic problems of interest. But with CREATE the government is going to mandate that it is used by all corporations instead. Now in reality this is really just a dream, because CREATE is a full-wave solver and the technology to reasonably finish the government's problems of interest simply does not exist. Although in the next 8 years, the time period left for CREATE to be developed, maybe sufficient advances will be made. At any rate, one of the hats I wear is to help one of those EM solvers that the government is seeking to replace with CREATE. So in 8 years I may very well find myself with a cold head.

Sewings and Glass

What a day. It started this morning when I got in the back near my right kidney by a gang of thugs carrying shot guns who I was trying to run away from because I could neither hide from nor fight them. I’m lying there in my back yard, near the long needled pine trees, on my back looking up at the clouds and the sunshine coming through them. I noticed they looked very pretty and had a small disappointment that I hadn’t laid in the grass more often to look up at them. I was thinking about how odd it was that I never thought of death before, and that while it was quite depressing to know in a few minutes I would be dead, I was happy to have had a good run. Then I started wondering if the ambulance workers would manage to resuscitate me after I passed out from the blood loss, and maybe I’d have one of those after-life experiences. If anyone called the ambulance that is. At that point my phone rang, it was my sister. She wanted to talk about some movie, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying to be patient with her. I had wanted to tell her to leave me alone because I was trying to die here, but then I thought that might be selfish since this would probably be the last time she got to talk to me. At this point my alarm clock rang.

All day the weather was bleak, I had that dream, my stocks lost two hundred dollars, the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize” was stuck in my head which wasn’t helping the dream thing out one bit, and then to top it off at the end of the day as I was talking to a co-worker about the latest news regarding the Church scandal another co-worker came up and asked “Do they teach you in school how to molest children?” Gah! Still I’m pretty happy today. Or at least joyful, which I suppose isn’t quite the same thing. This is all very good suffering that I can offer up for some people I know who need some extra grace. Good stuff. And the weather got beautiful, and salsa was fun. One of the two pretty girls showed up which was nice too.

Moving on, I wanted to talk a bit more about art today. I like art, and I love sharing the art I appreciate with others who will also hopefully appreciate it. While I was home this weekend past I went to visit my friend’s - the friend who had the mushroom bread - Mom at her store. About three or four years ago she opened a shop that sells three main products, Avon, tapestries, and glass works. The Avon is basically what brings people to the store and is her main seller. The tapestries and glass are essentially her way of exposing others to the kinds of art she appreciates.

The tapestries she has are hand sewn by Italian seamstresses over in Italy. Her Mom is Italian and she works with her to place orders and import the products over here. They are kept simple in design and are useful things like table sheets and runners. Most of them have a very early 1900s European traditional flare to them. They would not look right in my apartment, but would be perfect for any very traditional home where the Mom is in charge of the household. However, as I was looking through them I found one that was perfect for my apartment. It was one of the few purchases I’ve made where I didn’t need to think. I saw it and bought it, the fit was just perfect. It has a bit of an African theme to it, which I sort of have going on here, and with my black furniture the colors were going to pop. I thought about using it as a runner for my sofa table, but didn’t really want to cover up the wood. My Mom had the suggestion, of draping it over my recliner. At home we have a very old runner, which we have draped over a chair. I liked that idea but the problem is my recliner is leather and the chair at home is cloth. My runner would likely slide down the chair. But it does look cool, and the colors look amazing against the black backdrop. However, because it isn’t practical there, Mom also had the idea of just hanging it up either framed or exposed. I’m probably going to frame it and hang it because some of the weaves use very long threads and I worry dust will be very difficult to remove from them, and I can’t wash this particular piece because of how it was constructed. Apparently, in order to support the long threads, there is a sheet of paper that runs down the middle and under all the weaves in a way that it remains hidden. Washing the runner would likely ruin the paper.

The next thing I paid attention to in her store was the glass. As you hopefully know, two of my friends are getting married in May and I had to get a wedding gift. Their registered at Kohl’s and Crate and Barrel, but both of those places don’t offer very unique gifts, and I thought it might be nice to get them a decorative piece for their new place. But in the end I decided to go with a set of 8 wine glasses. These were hand made in Sweden, probably in the 60s, by Kosta Boda. I like them because Kosta, Sweden is hand-etched into the bottom of them, although I couldn't get a clear picture of it. I hate wine but my friends like it from time to time, and I thought that even though wine glasses are a pretty typical gift, hopefully the uniqueness of them will give them some use from time to time. I figure maybe they can be used for special occasions. Or better yet, maybe they can be used to hold finer drinks, such as Mountain Dew or Coca-Cola.

A Few Stories and a Print

After this weekend, having received a boatload of candy and the ability to once again drink pop, I have found myself with superhuman energy and peppiness.

That's my own hand-dyed easter egg in there. Hopefully this will lead to a slightly increased frequency of posts. Easter was amazing. My family had it's own little Easter miracle in the form of none of us having a complete meltdown. I even didn't make my sister cry. Mass was better than I thought it would be too. I'm very spoiled here on campus by the quality of our Masses, but the one at home was great. Interestingly the Priest devoted his entire homily to the scandal currently going on, and it was generally felt he did a very good job addressing the situation.

A part of the reason I haven't been posting as frequently is because like Easter the rest of the past several days haven't been filled with many juicy fiascos. It's mostly all been chicken soup for the soul type stuff. For example, yesterday I heard from my undergrad friend who I haven't heard from in probably over a year. That was fantastic, and it made me so happy. Turns out he is going to be here for the Film Festival later this month and wants to meet up. So we're going to try and plan a mini-reunion with all our old friends. But for you readers this is probably all a yawn.

On Easter, once I got back into town, I got a hold of my salsa friend who wants to be a nun. Remember I haven't really considered her as a potential because of this, but she is fun to hang out with and since I hadn't talked with her in a few weeks I thought I'd call her up. I didn't really think she'd want to hang out that night being it was Easter and all, but surprisingly she did, so we went to one of the local pubs and chatted for a couple hours. It turns out she went and got herself a boyfriend! I wasn't exactly happy about this and asked what about the nun thing? She explained how she still is very much considering becoming a nun but decided that God must have put this guy who asked her out in her path for some reason so thought to go with it and see where it leads. They met each other through a Church group that I have not yet joined. Anyway, I wasn't heartbroken or anything, I wasn't even considering asking her out, but I'm going to be upset if I just lost my second and currently last dance partner because she needs to start spending more time with this new fella of hers.

That story isn't all that interesting either. So even though it's not yet tasteful Thursday, I thought I'd spend today talking about some art. One of my favorite artists is James Christensen. Ever since I was a little kid I've loved his paintings. They have a fantasy type quality to them, which appealed to the little kid in me, but even now they still do not fail to impress. At one point he wrote a picture book called the Voyage of the Basset. I think this was about when I was in the 8th grade so about 1996. Back in the 8th grade all of us Catholic children had to prepare for the sacrament of Confirmation, and one of the things we had to do was meet with our Priest (parents were present) to chat about some subject I cannot remember. Everyone in town loved that Priest. He was exceptionally smart, joyful, and simply fun to be around. He was one of the few adults who managed to retain their childlike nature and it was infectious. Well when I went in for my meeting I saw that book lying on his coffee table, and I was super excited to see that he too liked Mr. Christensen. That made me think I was cool because I had the same taste in art as my superstar Priest.

James is neat because he sometimes works as another artist. I can't think of the word but its like how Mark Twain's real name wasn't Mark Twain. Pen name or pseudonym maybe is the word I'm looking for. WAM help me out here, you are good with words. Anyway, you'll see in that link what I'm talking about. While most of his paintings are fantasy based, every now and then he'll paint a Renaissance like work that looks like it came right out of the 1400s.

A few weeks back I got my hands on one of his prints. It's called '6 Bird Hunters in Full Camouflage', and is signed and numbered by James. Now if you look closely you'll only see 5 of them. That's because the 6th is so good you can't see him! The neat thing about this painting is that it's divided into three sections. That allowed for some unique framing options. For example, I had considered putting them all in one massive frame but staggered. In the end I decided to frame them all separately and stagger them, which is what you see in the picture below.

Update: I've recently noticed that the photo looks incredibly different depending on the monitor it is displayed on. For example, on my laptop the background of this photo is white, and the details in the right panel are clearly visible. However, on my monitor at work the background is yellow and the details in the right panel are nearly indiscernably blackened out.