Red Breast.

well, hopefully that got you excited! or if you've been running long distances without proper nipple protection it could just bring back shivering memories of chaffing. in any case - I saw the first* robin of the spring today~! it's official! no more winter**! yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I snapped a picture^ of this little bugger outside my kitchen window this morning, as I was making some ginger tea. mmmmmm. ginger tea with milk and a dollop of honey - I've had about three cups so far this morning, it's just that good. plus I think I'm right at the circumventing disaster stage with some kind of ear infection. it's been really cold and wet every day for almost two weeks, and I bike everywhere*** which makes me realllllly glad that it's sunny today and I'm heading off on a little MUCH deserved Vaca time.

^if you click on it ... it gets way too big for your screen.
*my first visible robin. I've heard the little suckers around - but they're like ninjas...
**now I'm off to VT to check there. the prospects don't look good folks.
***plus the going into a 70 degree classroom, completely disrobing, and then back out into the cold rain, six times a day can't be healthy.

You Know That Time

between sitting down to do something on the computer, and the feature length span of time later when you actually get around to doing it? The, while these pictures for the project that I have to put together and send without exception by this evening at the latest are loading, I'll just check my email. oh yeah - and that link at the top of the page to my RSS reader - I guess i'll just hop over to that and see if there's anything new good. which there isn't really ... but it's good enough that you spend about the length of an episode of House scrolling through blogger updates like this back when I knew her she was just another struggling youth - and now one of the top 50 unique blog designers of our times. I suppose I could link to more of the ones that I enjoy reading, but they're sometimes just comics, or too numerous to post ... and the more I link to, the more you'll stay sedentary. I'll stop. thought - can one bring a laptop into the gym and read blogs while running? because ... if you can ... holy crap. think of all the workout time that I've been wasting simply sitting around! do I need to buy a Kindle for that? because ... I just might. for real. the glory of varying !greyscale! images ... oooooh. what technology has showered upon us shall remain in the glory of weathering shadows!

recently I've been waxing poetic for no good reason. I'm not sure if it means that I'm passing into a realm of nuttiness, or acute observation. but if I'm going to be a prophet ... I'd like to be one of the ones that gets old and a huge beard and wanders around on boxes of soap. not one of the ones that gets martyred in a public stoning. I don't want to be stoned at all actually ... especially not in public.

now - for important news.*

there is this guy. named Bo Burnham. and he. is hilarious. whether you are interested in math or not - you have to listen. there are a few lines like the 'domain domain range' bit that you might miss, and the part about underage women and perfect squares might make you cringe just a tad bit; but it's a SONG about MATH! this hasn't happened since the famous set math song of '06 !! "I'm living in a kernel of a rank one path!" hahaha - the math nerd in me rolls on the floor laughing. oh. wait. that's the real me. and the real me cracked the explicative up watching mr Burnham's piece as well. you will be a better person from it. and don't we all want to be better people?**


*if you still have time to read this after checking out those other sites.
**even though the realism of the situation would make you want to say 'be a better person', the grammar of parallelism can only be satisfied with a secondary plural. Unless I said 'each be a better person' - in which case it's assumptive and requires an infinite poll to prove.

Is Anybody Out There?

Well well well. It's been some time now, hasn't it? Something has brought me back. Something ... mysterious ... something ... revelationary. But I can't think of it right now. Maybe it was just that so many people have been asking me what's going on - in the past, present, future, gerund, and indicative sense. More on that later. So - it must be time to update.

However - I'm not really interested in updating on what's transpired - because that's 10 months of biking, moving, schooling, dinners, vacations, working, friends, family, games, books, and tea.

Also - currently it's a lot of school, bike, pie, tea, plant, mushroom, book, sniffle, rain, blossom - way too much detail to go into at this current juncture.

Hence - this update is just to say hi.

And to say that I was just sitting around today thinking about vacuum. what a cool word. a double u! which incidentally is not the letter double-u. that's just a misnomer. what we call a double u is really a double-v. but nobody takes the time to understand the difference ... which is why I use a soft, looped double-u for English, and a double-v when writing in other languages. it's only fitting. what fools these linguistics be. really ... it should either be pronounced 'vack-you-um' or 'vack-wm' ... but certainly not 'vack-yoom'. the other word I came up with off hand was continuum - which IS pronounced with the double u. Then - if you're chemistry savvy you've got menstruum (ew ... not that. it's a solvent used in solutions for infusion, decoction, distillation, etc.) and residuum (yeah - it's what it sounds like). hehe ... decoction. apparently there are also triduum, and the distinctly rare duumvir and duumvirate ... but really ... if I don't use them ... does anyone? i thought not. now - if you were paying attention - we had a double v word in there !! now don't get me started on those! or else I'll have you in your skivvies divvying up navvies in civvies into revving flivvers!

and on that note. a dios vais.

This Is It.

The real thing.

leaving tomorrow morning at 9 am. driving to VA beach. getting on a bike for the next 2.5 months and biking like a fiend.

I played Apples-to-Apples tonight and the only word that i won was courageous. so - I guess that's kind of fitting. biking more than I ever thought I would bike - ever - and building houses for people that i don't know with other people that I've never met, and volunteering all of the time and money for it. yeah. pretty wild.

and it should be a long time to think. without much to do but push my body to keep going and let my mind wander. hopefully to good places. i'm bringing a sketch book, and journal, and going to try to post here whenever I can - and upload pics to picasa if we ever get high-speed on a day off, or some such. I'm not sure how well that will work out - but the blogging should be fine since I have a bluetooth keyboard to hook up to any computer. :)

bienvenido! to me!

Last Dart.

Mouth.

okay. last day at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. finally. I love Hanover, but it's a 2 hour drive (stop for gas in there necessarily) each way for usually 2-4 hours tutoring. so, I work less than half the total time I'm away from the apt. kinda ridiculous. and if it weren't for the fact that I care about the students actually getting tutored (because no-one else could take on the extra tutees) I would prolly have just said f-that and NOT had to drive at least once a week across state lines.

but it gives me a good reason to say that I'm not biking today (unless I go out at night) - bad though that might be - I can't really see making an intense thrust this late in the game really paying off all that much. I don't have any problem going 20+ miles (besides the sunburn ... ouch) and I can't see 50 being that horrendous (especially since we'll prolly have to go slowly and be with the main group the first few days). and my bike is decked out. like - 4 water bottle cages decked out. like camera holster, gps, cadence, HR, seat pack, frame pack, blinky things and reflector things, and pumps - oh yeah. I look pro.

I had a bus full of little kids wave and yell out the window at me the other day when I was in full regalia. I gave them a huge thumbs up - and they went crazy. screaming, yelling, throwing hands outside the windows (now kids, that's against the rules). it was awesome. and then within about 200 yards I ran over a tiny speck of glass and punctured my tube. luckily the kids were passed by then, and lucky I had all my fixit stuff with me, and I thought that I had patched it well enough ... but the sad puddle of tire yesterday (three days later) attests to something not being quite right. I really just want to use the vulcanizing solution - because it says vulcanizing - and redo the whole thing. otherwise why bring an already punctured tube on the trip??

okay. gotta shower. rental arrives soon.

4 Days.

Yeah.

and then I drive down to VA with my newly anointed cousin and her schoolmate - to bike across the continental US. hot damn. this is going to be amazing. I just got the Cliff Bars in the mail - and I now am in possession of 15 boxes of 100 sample bars, in chocolate mint and banana nut. yeah. 15 boxes. of 100. over 120 pounds of cliff bars. thank you again to Cliff Bars for their huge donation and generosity!!!

I've also been trying to think of good games to bring for the group that you won't get sick of before the end ... basically I'm thinking cards and trying to figure out what else doesn't need a board, can pack easily, and won't get totally destroyed by 30 people over the course of two months.

yeah.

that's what I thought. cards. but keep thinking for me.
can't have a lot of little pieces, scrabble is totally out, and anything with only a few cards or trivia points will probably get memorized by the end. and if you say charades - that's totally not helpful. :)

Man Babies. Photoshop at its best.

GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

Vocab and Hunger.

Manliest.

Someone had fun compiling these.

9 manliest names.

I love it.

Post.

so apparently that post where I confirmed that this last one was just for April Fool never got posted.

yeah.

not moving to Canada. while it could be pretty sweet. I'm thinking CA coast. for a year or so to feel it out. it's time to actually do that - and I deserve a little warm weather and continuous vacation. Plus I can play volleyball all the time - yes? no? is there a verdict on that? do I have to be tan first ... because at this point that could take a little while.

Canada though .... it could take us .... no-one expects it. and it's so close .... too close. like Belgium. can you say Maginot line? yeah. think about it.