October 2004 Archives

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Halloween's always been an interesting holiday for me. I used to be totally into it as a kid. When I was really young, my parents would go all-out to make these elaborate costumes for me. On year (Kindergarten, maybe?) I was Luke Skywalker from Jedi. It was awesome, my parents made this brilliantly cool costume for me. I really need to digitize those pictures. . .they even made me little boots out of vinyl.

Somewhere along the line, though. . .probably at IMSA. . .I kinda just fell out of the practice of getting dressed up.

Freshman year at Carleton I was in the big orchestra concert on Halloween and the best I could come up with for that was to borrow Holger's hockey mask. Yeah, I was kinda lame. Junior year I dressed up as a lightsaber-wielding Silent Bob; that kicked ass. Hassett and I got in this great lightsaber duel on the steps of the Chapel. It must have been some sight to see Qui-Gon Jinn get impaled by Silent Bob.

Nena's worse than me. She's never really been into Halloween, at all. She has her reasons, all of which are really good ones. Though, not Phobe Cates in Gremlins good, but good nonetheless.

So while I'm remotely thinking of what to be should I get invited to a Halloween party. . .Nena's not even thinking that far ahead. Which, of course, meant that we'd get invited to a party and I'd have to come up with costumes for both of us using my cardinal rules of halloween costume design.

1) Use your personality/body type to your advantage
2) Use what you have around the house to the best of your abilities
3) Finish off the costume cheaply buying finishing but reusable touches
4) Don't try to outcute yourself
5) Pretend there's a fifth reason cuz things always look better in threes or fives.

True to form, Lilyblack, Alabama_Grrrl and Ulli were having a Halloween party and Ulli decided to throw a monkey wrench in my plans by not letting me go as Silent Bob. Cuz, yknow. . .I was that last year (again) and she didn't want to let me recycle my costume.

Right, so I scrambled to come up with something for both of us. I was pretty easy. . .I hadn't been Jake Blues before and I *finally* own a black suit that isn't made of cashmere. . .so that was kind of a no-brainer. Nena, though. . .there were thoughts of making her Elwood, but that'd just be too weird.

Then, it dawned on me. . .what's the best thing EVER? PIRATES!!!! Yup, Nena the Siren Wench made her smashing debut last night. . .yknow, I may have to keep that costume together. . .

The party was cool and I think Nena's starting to come around on this whole Halloween thing. So yeah, I guess it was a good night. . .and a lame story. Oh well. . .all these entries can't be brilliant. As for the rest of the weekend, Will needs some work done on him so we're taking him out to Topeka for that and I have a shitton of grading to do and the KJHK Election Night Special to get ready for. That's right, kidz, I'm doing 5 hours of election night coverage on KJ. Everyone should listen in. . .it'll be brilliant, yo.

In other news. . .if you're interested in seeing the new Eminem video about voting against Bush. . .you can download/see it here.

And the new Social Distortion album? It's brilliant, yo.

Ugh. I know I've been really lax in blogging as of late, but really. . .it's been kinda hectic 'round these parts.

Fall Break was last weekend, a rather nice departure from Midterm Break as an undergrad. Here, we get TWO days off instead of just one. Yeah, I'm really living la vida mocha these days.

Fall Break was rather uneventful. . .which is exactly the way I needed it to be. I sat around on Thursday, went to a few meetings, watched too much TV and cleaned the house for Nena. She got home on Friday to a relatively organized and normal house, which is the least I can do for her. She's on the road for work from Sunday-Friday. I can only imagine how draining it is to go from hotel room to hotel room on the other end of the state. She travels Liberal to Wichita; Hutchinson to OKC on a weekly basis, yo. To help relieve the soul-sucking I make sure the dishes are clean and the floors vacuumed when she does get home. Give her something to come home to other than her own bed. . .and a lack of room service. Yknow, maybe life on the road a'int so bad.

Weekend went by too quickly. I really need to remember how to do work on the weekends. As it is right now, I work so hard all week that I want to check out for a few days by the time Friday afternoon rolls around. Add in the fact that Nena's actually home and you have a really unproductive slump that ends when Nena's out the door on Sunday afternoon. I know I'd have to work less during the week if I managed to work during the weekends, but it's just a hard thing to do.

Saturday, Nena wanted to by a TiVo so I dragged her down to DAS ’ļBERB’ļY as quickly as I could. I mean, when the wife decides she wants a TiVo, it's my obligation as a guy to get her one before she changes her mind, right? In addition to Artoo (yes, I named it before Nena could. . .I suck) we also bought Nena a new cellie. Her Sprint plan is FINALLY up and so she's switched back to Verizon. Yes, I know it's my fault she switched from Sprint to Verizon (and now back) but it really did make sense at the time.

Dear lord, how much does Sprint's cell coverage suck? SOOOO much. Fewer dropped calls my ASS. If I ever run into that Sprint PCS guy I'm SO kicking his trenchcoat-wearing ass. Ugh. Not that Verizon is mindblowingly amazing. . .but it's a whole lot better than the crap service we used to have.

The week rolled on and apparently my dad bought himself a new car. He'd been talking/threatening to do so for a really long time and I'm glad he finally did. The man hasn't had a new car in 30 years (if ever, now that I think about it) and he deserves it. As far back as I can remember he's sacrificed himself to provide for the rest of us, and now he gets a chance to actually reap the benefits of all his hard work for himself. Whenever there was a new car in the house, it always went to Mom, while he drove her old car around. . .yeah, the big guy deserves this one.

He bought a 2004 Nissan Murano, fully loaded. Thing has heated fucking seats, yo. I'm really happy for him, it had 6 miles when he took it for the test drive and 10 when he drove it off the lot. Yeah, it's a big, gas guzzling SUV (It gets 20mpg- city 24mpg-highway) and for some reason the 2005s aren't out yet. . .but it's a hellasweet car, something Papo deserves. . .and it's got a really cute nickname. They've been calling it the Cruz ZaMurano. Enough of you will get that, I hope, to make it worth mentioning. (I'm looking at you Robert and Azu. . .)

That's really the rest of the week. Nena and I are off to a wedding in NC in a few hours, and I'll be back to the grind on Sunday. I'm taking a load of papers to grade (WHOO!) with me. Someone remind me to blog about TiVo ownership at some point. It's. . .interesting.

And now, with a few days left until election day. . .I present to y'all two different websites.

Electoral Vote.com
These guys have taken state by state polling data to predict how the Electoral Votes are stacking up. Their methodology seems a bit shaky to me. Someone want to actually do the work to verify this for me? It's not the way the compile their data, but rather who they get their data from. . .

The next one I stole from CK. . .or was it OZ? I dunno, it comes to me via kVo but I'm sure they'd be happy that I'm spreading the word.

Votergasm.com (Really not terribly work friendly.)
Basic premise? Don't vote on Nov 2nd, no sex for you. I signed up as an American Hero. :)

Nothing really methodologically sketchy here. Maybe kinda raunchy. . .but a bit entertaining. Someone remind me to buy a Republicans for Voldemort shirt one of these days. . .when I have the money for such frivolity.

I get internet forwards all the time. I have been since receiving my first email addy (good old nevarro) in 1994 and I suspect I'll be getting them long after I've left this world.

Last spring I had "President Bush's resume" sent to me so many times I started to actually believe that someone, somewhere had hired me to be the guy that reviews applications that come in off of Monster.

Then, after a summer off from the resume circuit I was rehired a few weeks ago. Only, the resume had grown. Clearly this kid had dug up more work experience in an attempt to get rehired. . .After talking with Cody about it, we figured that between all the versions we'd received we must actually have every iteration of the resume that must be out there, which gave us an idea. . .one that Cody somehow had time to make a reality.

And os now, I present to you. . .the complete resume of George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America. . .if there is anything to add, let me know.

What can I say about Vegas that hasn't already been said?

Nothing, but that isn't going to stop me from trying.

I very well may be the first person to have a life-affirming moment while sober in Las Vegas and for this moment of clarity, I am thankful.

I'd been rather down on myself and my life as of late. For the first time, a bout of depression wasn't being caused by the walls crashing down on me from all directions. No, this time it was coming from one identifiable source- school. As strange as it may be to explain or believe, for the first time since elementary school I didn't want to go anymore. I was sick of it, it was making me sick. I was losing sleep over going to a class and it was driving me crazy.

I'd started second guessing myself, I started to actually believe that I COULD be stressed out. All sorts of things were racing through my mind that my mind was unaccustomed to dealing with. Not the least of which was the idea that maybe I didn't belong in grad school. Maybe I couldn't hack it here and it was time to pack it in and go home. . .only there was nowhere to go but here. This was the life I'd carved out for myself and for the first time in my life I felt trapped and the only thing saving me was a wife who was always away on business.

It's not a great feeling, I assure you.

This is where I was at when I left for Vegas on Friday. Big fun, let me tell you. I was going to Vegas for the first time, by myself, to a conference where I'd know no one save for one of Almejor's old professors from Carleton. Yeah, I was SO not looking forward to this trip. I was also sure that my paper was going to suck and I was going to be laughed out of the conference. To add insult to injury, I KNOW I'm more self-confident like that. I normally storm these things with my normal take no prisoners attitude. . .and being so out of my game was pissing me off.

That's it really, I felt as if lately I'd been taken COMPLETELY out of my game. And that was because, for the most part, I actually had.

I landed in Vegas on Friday afternoon around 1p and was immediately struck by how amazingly bizarre this place is. There's a scale to the place that's just staggering to me. Everything is a game there. Unlike at other airports, the tram feels like an amusement park ride, something to speed you along towards your actual purpose for being there, whatever that may be. Soon after this tram ride, you're deposited in a cavernous pit of a baggage claim area. It's a bit like the new baggage claim at Midway, only this one is. . .amazing. Seriously, you're in this big, airy pit that is lined along the top with ads for all the different ways you can spend your money in Vegas. A large TV broadcasts even MORE ways to lose your money. . .and as I walked through it all, I just wanted to go to the Star Trek Experience. That was my first clue to how big a geek I am. . .but that's for another day.

After collecting my bags and waiting way too long for my shuttle to my hotel. For various reasons that have everything to do with the general malaise I've been dealing with as of late, I broke my usual rules and was staying at the official conference hotel- The Riviera. After and hour and a half of standing in line, I was finally able to check in and get to my room. Shit was I underwhelmed. Seriously, the Super Eight in Keokuk, IA has better rooms that this place. The room was seriously depressing. The only saving grace was the view, which was thankfully not of the vacant lots on either side of the hotel, but of the pool. Man, THAT was Vegas, baby. . .and something that started to improve my mood at bit.

By the time I managed to get to my room and get settled, the day's conference proceedings had pretty much come to a close, so I decided to call it a wash and only managed to register for the conference on day one of my trip. After getting my registration materials and pouring over them in my hotel room, I hit the hotel buffet at Nena's telephonic suggestion. (Brief digression. BOO to Nena's boss for not letting her have SUNDAY off so she could go to Vegas with me.)

My attempts to get out to Vegas had clued me into this, but my trip to the buffet totally sealed the deal for me. The myth of Vegas as hellacheap is just that, a myth. Not only was my airfare reCOCKulously expensive, my hotel room was sickly overpriced and then, the buffet that I'd expected to be ridiculously cheap? $17, at least it came with free champagne. An hour later I was pleasantly drunk and watching the debate up in my depressing room. (Seriously, would some interior lighting hurt them? They spend so much on exterior lighting. . .) After watching Kerry blow the election I hit the strip.

Holy mother of shit. The Vegas Strip is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I know I must sound like an idiot to anyone who's actually ever been there but DAMN. It's just an amazingly impressive thing. I wandered south from my hotel and hit most of the big names between me and the Bellagio. Circus Circus, Stardust, Frontier, Treasure Island, Paris, The Venetian. . .shit, The Venetian, I really need to go back there. It's the most amazing smelling casino ever. Like soft lavender, just beautiful. I watched the pirate battle at Treasure Island (What's better than pirates? Pirates losing a battle with scantily clad Sirens. "Yarr, Cap'n. There by a boat off the port bow and it be loaded with more booty than I've ever seen.") as well as a few fountain shows at the Bellagio before deciding that it was really time for me to head home and get a good night's sleep, I mean, I had to present my craptacular paper in the morning.

Morning came pretty soon (but not too soon) and I got up, showered, stretched, went over my paper, ironed, wandered the hotel and went out to lunch with the rest of my panel. Two of the other four presenters had bailed and not told our moderator until a few days before the conference so the mod (who was also presenting) and I had a nice lunch and talked about our papers for a while before heading up to the room to present.

By then I was warmed up, I was rocking, I was rolling and I FUCKING KICKED THE SHIT OUT OF THAT TALK. It was amazing, I was brilliant, funny, articulate, in short, I was Nenie again. I was back, I was on my game. Holy shit, it was incredible. I'd forgotten how good I am at what I do, I'd forgotten that I actually do have decent insight into some of the questions of my field. I'd forgotten that I belong in grad school. But right there, in 30 minutes of ass kicking, I'd rediscovered it all. I really wish I had taped what I was saying, because it was a truly out of body experience. I know I went way off script, but damn that ad-libbing made for a WAY better paper than I'd written. It was amazing. People laughed at the funny parts, nodded at the theoretical parts, and had questions for me after my talk. This presentation was everything these sorts of things are supposed to be but never are. WHOO!

To celebrate I decided to treat myself to a really nice dinner somewhere on the far south end of the strip. I went to my room, called Nena, changed and took a bus to the Bellagio where I started my march towards Mandalay Bay. By the time I hit the MGM Grand, I was starving. I ran in to find something to eat and came up empty. Yes, there are some amazing restaurants in that hotel, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat at any of them by myself. They were just all too beautiful to walk into alone and that's when it hit me. I'm such a geek/loser that I was alone in Vegas, and pining for my wife.

After striking out there, I ran across the street to the ESPNZone. . .one hour wait. Fuck that. I took crossed the street to Excalibur and took the tram to Mandalay Bay (the far southern edge of the strip). I went to the House of Blues and tried to get dinner at the bar. . .yeah, not happening. By now, I was starving. It'd been 8 hours since my pre-talk lunch (light and meant to get me through the next 3 hours, not 8) and I was dying. I wandered the hotel looking for something, anything. . .then I stumbled upon it. A freaking Chicago-style Greek family restaurant right there in the middle of Vegas. It ruled.

After Dinner I went back up the strip towards my hotel. Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York and then the walk was on. I was trying to catch a bus back north to my hotel so I could get some sleep before my 4a wake up call to catch a 5a shuttle to the airport for my 7a flight. Only, all the northbound buses were full. By the time I ran across a bus that would take me on it I was at Treasure Island again. . .and really, that's just too close to the Riviera to take a bus, so I walked the rest of it and was ridiculously thankful to be back in my depressing room by the time I got there.

I crashed hard and was sad to hear my phone ringing at 4a. Next thing you know I'm talking to more conference-goers at the shuttle stop and I'm at the airport and now back in Kansas. It was an amazing trip, and I only gambled $12 on assorted slots. I really need to go back. And next time with as motley an assortment of rogues as I can dig up. Who wants in?

While wandering that first night I called Chas to ask him why the hell we'd never just up and gone to Vegas while we were at Carleton. . .and reflecting on it, I now know. It was because we wouldn't have appreciated it. It wasn't time for that trip, I had to save it until now, when I needed to be alone in a strange city to sort out my issues and remind myself of who I am.

Ever have one of those trips that affirms you and your life choices and who you are and what your doing. . .

. . .yeah, but how many of you had them in VEGAS, BABY?

I think I may be only sober person to have ever had a life-affirming moment in that town, but it was a good thing.

Updates and stories and the like are forthcoming. Right now I'm just trying to get caught up. Amazing how much stuff piles up when you're gone for a few days.

I've been thinking a lot lately. With Nena gone and the house empty and way too much work to do and not enough time to do it in, I've had a lot of time to procrastinate by thinking about life and things and stuff.

Yknow, all in all, I have it really good. Yes, this one class is threatening to kill me and my cohort. Yes, I'm actually not happy to be in school for the first time in my life and I'm actually craving the kind of life I always dreaded. . .but all in all, I have it pretty fucking good.

Seriously. All this stuff that has me tired and down and wanting out is really pretty insignificant when you think about it. There are other people in my life who have real problems and real issues and real mountains to climb.

This is me sucking it up. This is me DOING something about the issues and taking care of myself and getting through it. Because, there are some bigger hurdles in the decades ahead and all in all. I've got it pretty fucking good.

Once I have more time I'll expound on what's up 'round here that's sucking. But feel free to ask. But for now, the large, long post on what's going down is going to have to wait.

In other news, I've become one of those guys that I always thought were pretty lame. I listen to British Top 40 radio cuz I kinda like it better than American Top 40 right now. I've discovered the wonders of Virgin UK Radio and its sweet, poppy sounds are making my day a lot brighter.

Seriously. . .I think I need help.

Got this link in my email today. So brilliant, thought I'd share it with folks.

Florida Ballot

Yeah, Nothing much else going on- other than finishing this conference paper and surviving the class of DOOM!

Amazing how fast two years goes by.

It was two years ago today that Nena and I started "dating." Two years since the fateful night I walked into that laundry room in Northfield and became reacquainted with the woman I'd been infatuated with for years. Seriously, who knew that laundry, wine and cheese curds could be so romantic?

It's amazing really, I've been trying to figure out what to post here for a while now and I've realized that nothing I say here will ever really explain how I feel about this woman. . .So why even try? Because to not try seems like a bigger failure than trying and coming up short.

She's amazing, and every day of the last two years I've been blessed to have her in my life. I honestly don't know what I'd do without her.

And there you have it. The Cubs have proven, yet again, that the only thing left to invent- is new ways to choke.