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I was keeping a tally of the number of passwords/numbers I have to remember to function in my life. Let’s start with the most imporant ones … I have my bank member number, my account pin number, the phone number for the TellerNet service, my credit card pin number, another miscellaneous pin number, and my social security number. To change courses at St. Thomas I have a pin number matched to my social security number. To access email I have three passwords (at least). AIM has four passwords (no I won’t tell you my other screen names). This website has four passwords (admin file, the server control panel, the mySQL password, and the FTP password) to make this all work. My St. Thomas account has (thankfully) one password for email, blackboard, and the fileserver, but that has to be changed every 120 days. Oh and then there’s my snail mail box has a three digit combination. Ah, my VoiceMail has a pin number, too. My gym locker has a lovely combination as well. Oh, the service I used to register this domain also has a password. What else … the Outlook Express account at home has a password as well and this computer has a password. As for the websites, here’s a list of websites I have an account at (that’s username and password to remember): waferbaby.com, phpfreaks.com, audiokarma.org, fool.com, sparknotes.com, and audioasylum.com - ok well what’s the total? counting Ok, I can conclude that to function in this world I need 31 passwords. Just to function! That’s terrible. But it’s secure.
Moving on, I stapled my finger while messing with this girl’s stapler. Now, being a guy and wanting to make a good impression, I had to hide the fact that a.) I had been stupid enough to staple my finger and b.) it hurt a lot. Thus, I quietly pulled the staple from my finger and began making it bleed to get the germs out. All while continuing the conversation. Reminds me of those “smooth” ads for beer. Except, I don’t drink. Hmm. What would you think if someone you had recently met stapled their own finger right in front of you with your stapler? I hope you all don’t judge too harshly.
Shayla, Matt, and me (that violates so many English rules, I’m not even going to try to fix it) were in Probe Deutsch and concluded that making a running motion with your arms while looking out the windshield at the moving road you feel like you are “running at an incredible rate of speed!” Yes, that’s from a movie. Yes, it really does work and yes is is unbelievably awesome!
In a complete and random change of pace, I want to share some lines from “The Spirit Level” by Seamus Heaney.
The ones we learned to love by waving back at
Or coming towards again in different clothes
They were slightly shy of.
Who never once forgot
A name of a face, nor looked down suddenly
As the plane was reaching cruising altitude
To realize that the house they’d just passed over-
Too far back now to see - was the same house
They’d left an hour before, still kissing, kissing,
As the taxi driver loaded up the cases.
That’s from “The Flight Path” which is an excellent poem. Part of the reason I enjoy these poems so much is their ability to exist on so many levels so elegantly and flawlessly. But here is another excellent line from the same poem:
Skies change, not cares, for those who cross the seas.
The End is a New Beginning.