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.

Sick.

like a dog. or at least like a sick dog. but without all of the extraneous hair. because - that's bothersome.

so - I've been taking Nyquil all day - and let me tell you - it's awesome. I don't know why people get addicted to it, but I think I could take it every day to help sleep without thinking twice. oh. wait. I see. and between that and the other cocktail of drugs and vitamins, I should be well enough to drive down to Dartmouth again and not have my eyes bug out because they stopped focusing. not good. I wonder if that was because of all of the Dayquil on an empty stomach ... ?

Also - I've decided to move to Canada after Bike and Build this summer. Possibly change citizenship so that I can go to Grad school - but I think that I like being an American too much for that. A friend of mine from high school has a house on the Georgian lakes that she said I can live at and upkeep while they don't use it (they only use it for like 2 months out of the summer) and as long as I pay utilities and heat and such for anything that I use - the house is free! There was some talk of it not being very well insulated .... and on the map it looks like it's north of Vermont .... which troubles me a little .... but a free house on a lake all to myself? even if it's a touch cold - it's Canada. the Mounties will come and rescue me! I've been thinking about Canada for some time now ... healthcare really cheap, scholls pretty good, and they pay their teachers crazy well! high school teachers making 80,000 a year. yeah ... I could take a piece of that. The only thing is that if I want to teach at a school I have to get resumes and stuff in now - because it'll be too close when I get back in the fall. But - there are always Kaplan offices!! I wonder if the conversion rates are better over there than here ... will I be making more money in Canada?

Updated.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

The only thing worse than someone who feels the need to put even more rubbish on the internet through a blog is someone with a blog that doesn't update it regularly. Thanks grandma. no - not really - she didn't say that. but you were all thinking it.

So - the deal is : I've been fanatic busy again.

DAT classes - yay for dentists! they're so polite!
MCAT classes - seems like we have more and more every day ....
I drive to Hanover, NH tomorrow for tutoring and classes - and the time in-between is for grading more essays.
Essays - they get their own blog days sometimes.
Bikram - trying to go twice a week - but I got sick.

here's what happened.

I did an MCAT class on Sat afternoon - and then went to the late Bikram Yoga class. For those of you out there that haven't already Googled it - Bikram is like a mix between yoga and Tae-Bo in a room heated to 100+ with 90+ humidity for 90 minutes to 2 hours non-stop. one 10 second drink break every half hour - is all. heat. sweat. heat. sweat. stretch. sweat. move. sweat. it's pretty ridiculous - but it's actually getting me used to the idea of being super hot and still moving and giving the extra effort when I think I'm about to fall over. So - that's awesome prep for the bike trip (not to mention that I am getting way more flexible). But then I thought that I was going to go to Auri's for dinner .... except that there was a miscommunication - and she had plans. So I thought I'd take the bus back. But this is now later in the day - and apparently the bus stopped running barely 1 MINUTE before I walked out of the Yoga studio. I waited like 10 minutes after everyone had left - because I could not -no matter what I did - stop sweating. I did cold water, stood in the hall, my heartbeat was relaxed, just pouring sweat all over though. So - I had to leave to get home - but didn't know that i had missed the last bus. Waited like 15 minutes in the bitter (20 degree) cold - sweating like a fool and freezing (like a fool) because I didn't want to bother my roommates to come pick me up (that's kind of lame). Finally decided that the bus wasn't going to come (which was correct) and walked the hour back to my apartment - constantly changing hands that were carrying my bag and gear because after about 2 minutes holding it in the cold my fingers would freeze up. yeah. stupid. so now I have a horrific sore throat and cough and feel sick like a dog - or at least a sick dog - and my head hurts. all bad things. somehow I must have thought that I could stay warm by walking back? wrong. ick. I hate being sick. and I had to teach for over 3 hours today and try not to rasp the whole time. what a bother. I hope I'm better by tomorrow - because I don't want to start off a new class with a cold - that's bad form.

anywho - glad to be back in the swing! more updates to come! training is getting even more underweigh - and I have new shoes - more on that later!

Just in Case.

you need to know whether it was farther down the road, or further behind schedule.

http://www.lessontutor.com/eesfarther.html

check yourself before you wreck yourself.

OMG Essays.

So.

Basically for the past week I have been actively grading essays in my free time online
cough cough cough or playing scrabulous cough cough
... somehow the coughs didn't really work in covering that up in text nearly as well as I'd hoped.

but really. massive amounts of essay grading. almost too much.
three MCAT classes - and for some reason they keep sending them. one class has even built up a decent enough backlog that they have stopped sending them this week out of sympathy for the number that I already have!

hence - in homage to the ones that I have already read through - here are excerpts of text that amused me most when reading through them. Some are obviously typos, misspellings, and a few just plain odd. enjoy. I did.

- 'This will go down in the anals of history' ... sounds like a not-so-fun time to be alive to me.
- 'J. Edgar Hoover was a man known for his reign of terror among Americans' ... you mean the vacuum guy?
- 'great leaders can be made if they expose themselves' ... I thought it went just the opposite.
- 'complex tissues' ... are there easy tissues?
- 'leonidas was king from 1300 - 1237, and then led the army of 300 in 1233 against the Persians' ... so - let's do some math here .... even assuming that he was just 14 when he became king (right of manhood at a young age) then he would have been king till he was 77 - then somehow stopped being king for 4 years - then leads the 300 at the virile age of 81!
- 'in some instances a great leader can be mad' ... so can everyone else.
- 'doubtless this casts doubt' ... wait - surely this brings surety?
- 'sometimes a student needs to be castrated in order to improve' ... I'm pretty sure they meant castigated - I hope ...
- 'your sure their are to many' ... I almost choked.

and I leave you with those. I will try to keep better track as I attack the next bunch - and see what shows up!

Some Interesting Facts:

It is impossible to lick your own elbow. (don't try this)
A crocodile can't stick its tongue out. (neener-neener!)
In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80years,
   no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried it's head in the sand. (unless it's dead...)
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. (even if they are flying)
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. (or just preggos)
Rats and horses can't vomit. (what about pigs?)
Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. (how about techno?)
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. (movie film was developed before b&w prints)
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why. (because ducks are not real)
A quarter of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and
   photocopying their buttocks. (this explains so much about office life)
In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders. (and one iguana)
Most lipstick contains fish scales. (cigarettes are still worse)
Cat's urine glows under a black-light. (did someone find this out at a rave?)
Everyone's tongue print is different. (tasty ID scanners at CIA?)
I bet you tried to lick your elbow!

Music Illusions.

I like visual illusions so much that when I stumbled on this, I couldn't help but post it!

There are a bunch more - at least one of which I successfully linked Google Reader to - but such a cool concept ... your brain can just as easily screw up what you are hearing as what you are seeing ... yes! so cool.

enjoy the link.

btw - you might want a pair of really good headphones on hand to get the full effect (I used Bose noise reduction!).

My Brain Just Shut Off.

Yeah.

back in Vermont ... but the real crux is: at the homestead. You got it. 56kbs modem at its best - more like 8kbs download, 4kbs upload averages. Hence the reason that I no longer need to pay attention to what pages I have loading in the background. I can throw up six new tabs of news, or feeds, or pages that I want to visit - and then go take a nice relaxing bath while I wait for the full load.

... say what? you sent me a sweet picture attached to that email. heh. don't be silly. I'm only here for a few days, that's not nearly enough time. I feel like I must be making a 'your mama' joke here but here's the stark reality.

-This internet is so slow that the auto-save feature on ALL of the Google/Gmail apps takes three tries to contact the server and actually push trough a save.
-This internet is so slow that Gmail asked if I wanted to load in plaintype, not regular html.
-This internet is so slow that I got up, found some cookies, BREWED TEA, and then came back and scrabulous still hadn't loaded my games.
-This internet is so slow that I've been browsing facebook simply because the pages contain so little raw data they actually load in under a minute.
-This internet is so slow I now have a child in grade school.
-This internet is so slow I forgot what pages I was loading and just shut them down, in the hopes that the one page I remember wanting to load might actually use the strength from its fallen comrades and pull through.
-This internet is so slow, Google Reader won't even mark feeds as read, because it doesn't yet know that I've scrolled over them.

yeah.

btw - the feeds at the right side are from Google Reader - they show the recent pages, links, pics, that I've been JUST browsing online - and change every day. check 'em out! usually I find decent stuff for everyone!

Ice Storm Upgrade

I upgraded the links at the side of the page to show 20 items, and posted a few new YouTube links as well. It's an ice storm in VT today ... so I figure that everyone will stay home, drink hot cocoa, and browse the internet for hours on end (certainly what I intend to do, while using the Oxford comma uncharacteristically consistently).

Oh yeah - and i'm making a huge vat of split pea soup. Delicious. I guess that I don't really have to say 'huge vat' anymore ... if you know my cooking at all, you know that I can't help but make way more food than personal or guest consumption could ever validate! Hurray for cooking in excess. It's all training for when I decide to have a huge family of ten kids. Not mine of course. just I'll have them around on occasion to cook for. And then send them away to annoy someone else. Maybe I should do a summer camp! oooooh ... what a concept. I've always wanted to do an artist retreat, bed and breakfast, teach someone something and cook, and get paid for it type of thing.


rain rain ice ice freeze
scrambling pedestrians
I lounge warm inside

In Response.

The chili I made
both spicy and bountiful
sits cold in the fridge


three mile walk tonight
was colder than expected
so I made cookies


cartoons have a way
of drawing me in for more
procrastination


the essays from my
med class continuously
fail to grade themselves

Chili.

I made chili.

it is delicious.

I may have made enough for about 4 days.

yep.

that's all for now.

55:8

I woke up this morning, in that only partially awake sense of the word awake - where you know that you should be lucid soon in the near future but the alarm hasn't gone off yet, so you've still got time to sleep - and your brain isn't quite ready to do anything constructive, because it still plans on going back to sleep as soon as you've checked the time.

so I did. and the time said 55:8.

and in a rather distracted haze, I watched my brain deal with that input. first I tried adding the two fives together, to get 10:08, but that seemed a little late - so was I supposed to wake up? Or maybe the colon had somehow jumped ship and moved over a space from where it usually sits - so it's far too early to wake up at 5:58 then. plus, I thought that I had just looked over a bit before when it was 8:05. what happened? what is this weird time?

oh. wait.

I'm upside down.

and the part of my brain that was watching me do all of this figuring just laid back and chuckled at my expense.

Essays!

GaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahHhhhhhh!

what happened!

every MCAT class is submitting essays!! who would have thought that after all of these years of telling them to do the essays, they would finally listen to me?? If only I'd known. how do TA's deal with it? grading dozens of essays, and more coming in every day!

anyone certified to scare AAMC style essays and want to do a little extra work on the side?

Microcosm.

I was told today that I live in my own little microchasm.

And I think that the spelling was supposed to be microcosm. But the choice was so fitting, that I actually like it better. Because chasm could be a cleft, or gorge, or rift, or abyss. But it can also be a separation or division. And I like them both.

Either it's a tiny abyss that I have created around myself, or a miniature separation from reality. But neither has a necessarily positive connotation when viewed as a chasm. So, I think: fitting. And really, it's just me, so the more micro and focussed that it can be, the better. I certainly am not ready, or of the inclination, to accept the responsibility of subjecting many others to this self-styled diminutive fjord.

Just interesting that the misspelling adds a better connotation than even the original ward.

Sleep.

The crazy part about going to sleep is that you assume that you will wake up in the morning. You put aside those projects for another day, procrastinate a workout, decide to start reading more tomorrow, plan on doing the crosswords puzzle. But what if your chance was just that night. right now. and you'll never actually get the chance to do it again.

I'm not saying that you die tonight in your sleep. but not necessarily any less morbid. you put it off for tonight. plan on doing it tomorrow. but that day comes, and you think, well, I just put it off for a day, what can one more hurt. but then it does. and the thing that you meant to do that night comes back ten-fold later in the week, in repercussions. And maybe it doesn't right away. like your plan to eat more vegetables. so you buy some V8 and put it in the fridge. running on all 8 cylinders and all. But you don't drink it. because just having it in the fridge made you feel good enough, was just the right level of commitment to the cause to placate your will to continue, and the V8 sits and sits. and you open it one day and have a glass - just reassuring yourself that, yes, you are eating more veggies. because, if it hadn't been in the fridge, well, you wouldn't have drunk it, right? but then, because it was open, it rots in there. and the next time that you want some it's a tangy sludge that smells like rotting cabbage. So you don't buy it again, and decide to try eating more grains by buying Slim Pockets with whole grain. the name has slim in it after all.

so. when I go to bed, and think - hey, there's still some stuff that I really think that I should just get done right now, and not sleep yet. I like to do it. but then I find it is 4am, and I really should sleep, because it will impact this hypothetical, future day that I think I will have. what if that day is totally different than I expect? what if by doing that work, completing that project, having that serious conversation, the day that I expect is irrevocably changed? and instead of putting it off again and again, I just move forward. so. what I'm getting at. is - isn't sleep just another fancy way of saying procrastination? why do I wake up early and try to get things done? is it out of motivation? or just fear that it will pile up, and I will be forcing there to be a reckoning somewhere at the end?

and how did I get into debt? that's stressful.

English Elucidations.

I was having a little fun looking around online for Englishy stuff. and I found a couple that were neat - and might come up at a cocktail party to make you look just a touch more educated. then again ...

- There is no continuation in the series of continuation words past three! Once, Twice, Thrice. that's it. four times doesn't exist. nothing past three at ALL actually. apparently there was never a need to mention that something happened more than three times?? Quince, while cute, is not five times in a row - but a little fruit tree in the rose family.

- However, we do care about series in longer order. The sequence continues after Primary, Secondary, Tertiary; with quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary ... and a few others sprinkled further out in the mix.

- pangrams are sentences that contain all of the letters of the alphabet, at least once. the most famous is the one we used to do for typing: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. there is no sentence using english words (there is a Hebrew one) that only uses each letter once, but there is a 28-letter example that uses the letters "i" and "u" twice: Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox ... but only because they are all real words ... umm ... not sure that it makes any sense though.

- Unisex means having to do with both sexes ... but the combining form uni- does indeed normally mean 'one', coming as it does from Latin unus 'one'. And the dictionary entries for unisexual and unisexuality, which are older than unisex, have the meanings one would expect ... what were they thinking?

- Similarly, alcoholic is a person who has a preternatural disposition to alcohol ... hence the ic suffix. So ... someone who works far too much and can't seem to stop their addiction would be a workic ... not a workaholic. are they addicted to workahol?

- A contranym is a word that has it's own opposite meaning when used in different context. For example: cleave. To cleave to someone that you love, is to stick to them, or adhere closely. But to cleave from someone that you hate, is to split from, or break away. one word - totally opposite meanings - sweet!

- Speaking of opposites:
The opposite of nocturnal is diurnal. animals that come out at twilight are crepuscular ...
The opposite of hibernation is aestivation. rather - dormancy in the summer.
There is no recognized opposite to the word exceed.

- In an interesting turn of phrase, biweekly means BOTH twice a week AND once every two weeks. Similarly with bimonthly, and biyearly. ... so that magazine subscription/prescription that you just got ...

- The only word in the English language that ends in 'mt' is dreamt.

nothing mind blowing per se. except maybe those last three bullets. Just a compilation for y'all.

For a Dreamer, Night's the Only Time of Day.

I woke up a few nights ago. knowing that something in my dream was important. and was going to write it down to remember it. but I was so tired. that I went back to sleep. but the dream was like a vision. a task. or a recommendation for me to follow. and so clear. not a vague, random dream where you are at a table with friends and when you look it up in a dream book it asks 'was there bread on the table?' to determine whether this is a prosperous omen, or just tell you that it's random and you should sleep more. so I figured - so clear - I'll easily remember it. I went to sleep. woke up TWICE more that night. each time with a dream that had a clear message. 3 times. three messages. each one so clear that I had no worries about writing them down.

so then.

I woke up.

and didn't really remember much, except that they were so clear that I hadn't written them down.

great.

now I have to stay in bed as much as possible during the day in the hopes that I figure out what they were .... unless one of those recommendations was to get up and out of bed ...

The Boondocks.

What a good show.

how come it's only on late at night ... oh wait ... because that's the only time of day it can be aired without the dialog being reduced to a series of bleeps. but seriously. great social commentary. good point of view. fun characters.

good show.

... in addition ... some of the best commercials come on late at night ...
amp

Raffle Success!

Thanks go out to All of the local contributers who made the raffle possible in the first place!! In no particular order:

Birnn Chocolates (down on Kimball Ave) donated a 1 pound truffle assortment gift box! Thank you Debbie.
Cynthea Day Spa (Church Street) donated a 1 hour massage package! Thank you Cynthea.
Lindt Chocolates (Church St) donated 2 lindor crystal heart truffle tins! double thanks to Becca.
Lake Champlain Chocolates (Pine St) donated a 15 piece selection gift box! Thank you Blythe.
Yankee Candle (Church St) donated a home candle gift set! Thank you Robin.
and I donated 4 pieces of glass - 2 rings, and 2 pendants, to be chosen by the 4 winners from a set of 5 rings and 5 pendants possible.
A special thanks goes out to Tamara, who managed to somehow rouse the Norwich University populous, and garner the majority of the tickets sold overall!

Overall, $247 raised - and this was simply by going around town, no radio ads, no tickets in stores, nothing. Which only tells me that I need to have another raffle, and this time actually plan it out with local businesses - so that they can help sell tickets too! People are much more willing to collect money for you, then to donate money themselves .... so I'm thinking that might just be the route to go on for a bit here! thanks again to the sponsors, the ticket sellers, and to you all the bought them! Fundraiser success!

Scrabulous.

Not just Scrabble.
and simply Fabulous.
hence: Scrabulous.

I would say that on average, it occupies 4 hours of my day. now, note that I have been staying up later than average, in order to fit this in. It's not that it takes the place, per se, of my other useless internet browsing allocation, nor the time displacing techniques that I strive to perfect throughout the day. It's more that it takes on the time when I would otherwise be getting up and slogging around the house, making food, or cleaning the dishes that somehow accumulate only for me; and that time at night that most people reserve for sleeping, or getting those last few productive projects in.

It has become an addiction.
and for good reason. I have been trying to figure out why I like these odd video games, these applications, the mind numbing stimulation of tetrical, or scrabulous, or scramble (boggle). and I think it's because it gives me zone out time. sure, I'm thinking, and processing, and for the most part far outscoring my opponents - but there's little real attention payed. drifting. almost in a zen state. I really noticed it today with scrabulous. I could actually keep playing in amidst the phone calls and tutoring arrangements that came up - and while being a good secretary, I kept up all of the 27 games that I have running simultaneously to keep me occupied. and I could feel the haze in my mind. A light overlay of scrabulous that didn't penetrate any other ideas, didn't overlay, or fog the rest, but was like a transparency or sketch or whisper constantly humming to itself, and waiting for me to be free enough to give in to its wiles. and I have not yet entirely decided whether this is a good thing, and it's keeping me from picking up bad habits, and doing other self destructive things, and being worse off than feeling slightly zoned for a small part of the day; or if it's just plain old bad, and keeping me from my potential, and making me forget to do things that are on my list, and scrapping time that could be spent with real people doing real things. on the one hand, is my feeling that it's saving part of my sanity by giving it some out - and on the other is the fear that I'm actually slipping into a dislocated madness and only by wrenching myself back can this be reversed.

anyway. it's 2 am, and I still have a dozen live games running. I should finish those up before bed. gnight.

On My Mind / In My Box.

There is a lot of stuff.

Hung out with the sis most of the evening, had dinner out, and looked at pictures and played a bit.

And then checked my overflowing inbox.

There were a few emails.

Some much more significant than others.

Usually I get a bunch of Kaplan and student questions, or classes to schedule, or tutoring kids.

Candid remarks aside - an Ultimatum has been set.

Know what comes next?

Something.

Walk.

walked 3.5 miles back from class tonight, because I forgot that the CCTA bus line doesn't run on Sundays. good thing it wasn't really snowing, or that I wasn't in dress shoes, or that I hadn't brought my whole satchel of books and gear with me, or that I wasn't dead tired from teaching all day. oh. wait. I have that backwards. silly me.

but it was actually a really nice walk ... and I am considering doing it again next week. The other option is to bring a bike and a change of clothes ... but it was as pleasant surprise to get a little walking in at the end of the day!

and then I came home and ate a cookie and a few pieces of brownie and drank a liter of water. much better. now I don't have to fear losing weight, or getting toned, by this evening excursion. pfew! close call!

A-Kaplaning-We-Will-Go ...

early.

far too early.

did you know that there was a 6 oclock in the a.m.? I had forgotten. you know why? because the human eye is not designed to function at that hour.

scientifically proven actually.

I mean - suppose that upon waking at this ungodly hour (literally - g_d does not exist at this hour - ecclesiastically proven ... discussion for another date though) - your body takes it as an attack of some sort. perhaps you are being ravaged, perhaps there is an emergency situation, perhaps you stayed up late drinking wine and watching movies and didn't get enough sleep on the couch as you had anticipated. Your body goes into survival mode. a little hit of adrenaline, some extra blood flow, increase of heat rate, and transference of the frequency of brainwaves from pleasant dreaming to startled franticness.

now - suppose that your choroid and iris arteries get a burst of blood flow through the opthalmic and internal carotid, because your body is sending impulses to your face and eyes to get stimulus responses - and then, because it can't really push out the sclera or expand latterly to relieve pressure, it distorts in the z axial direction, changing the base lens configuration and possibly even maxing out the amount that your ciliary muscles can adjust the accommodation factors. Hence, you might experience an advanced, and premature form of presbyopia, resulting in your inability to clearly focus and interpret the information impulses from your optical nerve as anything other than fuzzy amoeba's jogging.

I'm just saying. if you're up that early, you might be putting yourself in danger of entering into a situation where sight would have rejected the very notion of leaving the house. You might know beer goggles ... but have you fully appreciated morning goggles? gone out of the house with the pants that have that huge stain, that you wore to the same class several days before? left the one bag that you actually needed right by the door, because your peripheral vision wasn't yet up and running? poured the milk into your cereal, not seeing the chunks fall out, and not capable of reading such small text as a printed date yet? yeah. you know about morning goggles. be ware. be very ware.

there you go. science at it's explicative exemplar.

q.e.d.

Washer and Drier!

And so, on the eve of the day that I had resolutely decided to go out and finally get a roll of quarters - the heavens parted. and out popped a free, full sized, new-to-us, stand alone washer and drier set. From a guy who only lives one floor down in our same building! how crazy is that. yeah for craigslist! Considering that I was on my last ironed dress shirt, last pair of clean undergarments, and while there was still a pile of socks in a box that I moved in with .... I don't think that any pairs currently exist therein.

Basically, this is tho best thing that could possibly have happened to my in terms of general room cleanliness, incentive to do laundry, and ability to follow through on the motivation for Bounty-ful fresh, warm-straight-from-the-drier clothes. Because, the bathroom is right next to my room (bathroom is huge) and the wash/dry were put there (b/c of the hugeness of the bathroomness). hence .... no more excuses. laundry will be vanquished.

I usually like to wait until I have either an all white load, or a load of mixed racial background, before sending it down the dirt gantlet. but the amount of room on my floor that this will free up is awe inspiring.

I, of course, won the debate over who would get to do the first load(s) of laundry. my simple technique of subterfuge was taken exactly as planned. I offered it to whomever would like to do laundry first. Jim accepted the bait. and I congratulated him on his choice to go first. that way, if the person getting rid of the washer had just done a load of carpets, or dirty sneakers, or whatever you put into a washer for the last run when you know you'll never see it again, HE would get to find out for the rest of the apartment on HIS first load. subsequently, I got to do the first three loads through our new laundry facility! :) hurray for seeds of doubt.

on another note - 46 netters are going out to lacal businesses and restaurants today, asking for donations ... think good thoughts about them wanting to help out and donate, and send me food at drop points along the trip so that I eat more than just peanut butter!

security envelopes: $1.79
postage stamps: $18.86
addressing/folding: 3 hours
one good donation: priceless

$1,000.00

This week.

I will raise $1000.00 towards Bike and Build.

I need to in order to get my bike ordered and start training on it. Please help me in any way possible - through donations, letters, grants, or letting me know of people that I should contact to ask for funds!!

thank you!

Waterfall Pics.

Hey - got some of the pics of my waterfall edited. The color ones are pretty darn blue - but there was no sun out yet that morning, and it's ice ... so that makes sense. Personally, the black and white ones I like the tone change a little better ... but I leave that to you!

Enjoy!

waterfall

btw - some of you may know this waterfall and think that it's not just mine, but a common waterfall known as Pikes Falls.

nope. mine. but thanks for checking.

Frigid.

in case you were thinking about coming up to the lovely winter wonderland that is the outer Burlington/Shelbourne limits, and visit for a spell to walk around and watch the sunset over the lake with your significant other while sipping from a warm cup of hot chocolate or huddling around a bowl of New England clam chowder made fresh from the Bay Market - think again.

that may sound great, but it's too cold.

and windy.

it was 10 degrees out the other day, with the sun shining, and an 18 degree wind chill, measured from the airport station ... which is not near the lake. The inside of my nose froze. the knuckles of my hands inside my jacket with gloves on started drying out and freezing. not fun.

pretty. maybe.
frigid. definitely.
outside. foolish.

Food in The Woods.

always tastes a little better if you have to hike out, build a fire, sharpen sticks to cook it on, and then eat it still sizzling with steam shooting out of your mouth. Landgrove - several pounds of chipotle marinated pork cubes, sechuan barbecue beef cubes, and lime garlic chicken cubes were skewered, roasted, and consumed with delight - after a peaceful drive out to the middle of nowhere, a nice hike up to the top of the hill, and a fire that somehow made enough smoke to incapacitate everyone on each side of the pit.

delicious.

oh yeah - and there was a loaf of bread and sharp cheddar cheese. grilled cheese sandwiches were attempted with the roasting sticks ... but with little real victory. perhaps on the next trip! corn on the cob would have been delicious as well ... mmmm. and a longer hike.

yes. vermont winter is lovely - but it could stand to be a little bit warmer in the finger area.

Obscene.

I have apparently become obsessed with Tetrical. I can easily get over 7000 without much considerable effort ... and if I get a really amazing high score (like double my last one) then I may post it ... just because I keep playing ... but otherwise, just know that I have become a zombie for 3D tetris. who would have thought. the controls are intuitive, the concept easily understood, the lack of a camera rotation angle is slightly hindersome - but could be distracting to a novice player - so I understand the choice to not include et.
anyway. got to get back in. messed up at 8000 and was heading for a potential new high. wish me luck!

.......... oh yeah ..... and I just ate a pint of Vermonty Python ..... so much for eating along a training schedule.

Eating.

I think the hardest part of training to remember is the eating.

You've got a schedule for working out, know what vitamins to eat, can even work out at night or do a harder workout if you miss one. But what if you forget to eat all day? I mean ... I bring food with me, power bars, drinks, etc. The intent is there ... but then I get caught up in the day, or what I'm currently doing, or playing on the computer and don't want to have food on it, etc. and half the day may go by before I remember that I haven't eaten.

Even the little zone bars and a bottle of electrolyte water. no go. forgotten. perhaps I need a slightly better day schedule that includes food times. but eating takes so much time!!

no real revelations here. just saying. eating takes a lot of time. and I forget about it. but apparently it's a big part of training. so somehow I have to get that part together! just eating at night doesn't cut it.

update.

tetrical : 4060.


* re update : 7396.

Umm .... Cold.

The weather channel says that it's 22 degrees out and 'feels like 10'.

no. it's worse.

it feels much colder when you have decided that today is just as good a day as any to get back outside on the bike and really start getting in shape for Bike and Build. because - hey - why not - it's sunny and nice and the air feels crisp and enjoyable - and you've got an a thermal and tweed jacket and long pants and it wasn't that cold walking to work this morning.

no. it's cold.

I had to stop at Brooks, which may or may not have recently been bought up by Rite Aide - but I refuse to call it that, because for at least the 6 years that I have been living in Burlington, it has been a Brooks - and I can't let that piece of nostalgia get left behind in this sweep of corporate franchise bulldozing. Hence - if I ever give you directions to turn at the Brooks - just turn at the Rite Aide. Because it's only a Brooks in my heart now. Anyways. Stopped at the Brooks to get a second pair of gloves (which - incidentally makes sense - because there are two gloves in a pair, whereas a pair of pants - there is only one pant. sure - there are two legs - but would you ever where one leg without the other? no. you'd look very short-bus if you did - so why the pair?hmm?) and a hat ... yeah ... went out without a hat. I know. but it looked so sunny. ...and I couldn't find my hat. the truth comes out. my room in an inconsolable mess right now ... and an earwarmer layer because those seem to get cold all the time no matter what.

yeah. cold biking.

so I did a nice mild 6 mile loop, just to test things out, do some sharp uphill sections, a little flat biking, but really - nothing even felt stretched out except that my throat hurt from the cold more than anything, and the bike needs a serious professional tune-up. and probably a new bottom bracket. so I have to make some new bike shop friends and see what I can do for parts. fun fun. and where did my studded winter tires go?? geez. falling apart here.

no. not literally.

and in the meantime I am going to go make and eat delicious chinese food over at Pete's place on Spear street! dumprings anyone?

Tetrical ...

2 hours later.

high score so far : 1814.

TETRICAL

ridiculous.

Mushrooms.

Are somehow delicious.

I can't stop eating them.

I bought a bag of fresh picked white button mushrooms yesterday ... and by bag, I mean 2.5 pounds of succulent, pale, large capped, expectant fungi - and have devoured easily half the bag already. They're like potato chips ... except not made with oil, not fried or baked, not potato, not salty, not crunchy, not grown below the soil, not mass produced in little snack bags, and definitely not good with salsa ... so perhaps not at all like potato chips. But I eat them in prodigious handfuls nonetheless!

As I bite in, the flavors of the rich earth and supple hints of mold rise up to my waiting palate - a thin layer of mushroom pulp envelopes my tongue with a cool, refreshing, bitterness that strikes an oaky chord - as I finish the bite, and reach for another, there is a clean, yet soft aftertaste, like the tiny droplets of water on fresh green grass in a spring field overlooked by apple trees and willows over a garrulous stream after a mild rain.

yes.

mushrooms.

I have a 6 pound bag full of every kind of chocolate snack that Hershey, Nestle, and M&M make sitting next to me (Costco business expense thanks to Kaplan ... 'student incentives') and I am instead munching contentedly on the spore bearing fruiting body of a fungus.

it has indeed come to this.

Aaaaaaaand We're Back ...

First of all.

Thank you to everyone that actually looks at this amalgamation of text that I try to pass off as intelligent ramblings. With rarity - I may even spout something worth commenting on!

There has been a bout of silence - or rather blankness - even lackness - on this site, because I have been lazy. Hopefully no more. In the meantime - I will NOT attempt to update everyone yet on what has occurred recently in my life. Instead, I will leave you with a series of images that I found on cards in an antique shop in Texas. Yes. Austin. Which explains why they're actually funny - and not something about the war or being american and proud.

enjoy.

Austin Cards