Steve Roper and Mike Nomad Ended
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad Ended - This strip ran for over 50 years; I guess its readership was declining. The original author passed it on to his son, who died a year ago, and now the strip is done. I’ll miss it.
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad Ended - This strip ran for over 50 years; I guess its readership was declining. The original author passed it on to his son, who died a year ago, and now the strip is done. I’ll miss it.
It took me an eternity to find the Hawaiian bedding I was looking for. Anyhow, for those of you searching for hibiscus print duvet covers with matching shams, I would suggest you check out Dean Miller Surf Bedding for all your surf-themed bedding needs. Perhaps I will get these print-type sheets I passed up in the first place; we threw away one heck of a lot of fire-sprinkler-soaked bedding - the dark colors of it all looked so good on paper, but stunningly bad in my dorm room. But no matter, I get a second shot at it!
Tonight is our first winter “storm,” featuring poor driving conditions encompassing freezing rain, rain, thunder, and snow. This prevented me from doing anything outside of the home. Nevertheless, important things happened inside these four walls, and I am a strong believer in the value of phone lines for staying sane on evenings like these. Cheers to you, modern communication.
One another interesting thing I think I will drop in here and leave out of the “Visits” sidebar is the sixth Harry Potter book. You can read the release from J.K. Rowling here … that’s the text only version, but if you have a fast connection, visit the full version - it’s a very very well designed website.
Happy 2005, the Chinese year of the Green Wood Chicken … or something.
So this is the last day of 2004. Incidentally, tomorrow I get to see if the code I wrote for showing how many days ago posts occur works across years … considering the amount of time I spent on that, I sure hope so. But honestly, the flip to 2005 is more exciting than that. It’s another run at the four seasons, school, and life. While any day can be a fresh start, it is always nice to think of a fresh year. At the very least, one slows down to think more deeply about the passage of time … what really has happened this past year, how fast did it really go, were we the people we see ourselves as, the people we want to be? I think about tonight and the high winds outside, how cozy I feel in my own room, safe from the gales and crosswinds of the unpredictable world. But it’s when I hear those winds, know how turbulent it is outside my haven, that I really value the four walls around me. I want to avoid taking anything, anybody for granted.
I could have lost so many things in that flooded room, and as it is I lost a fair amount - but it put the ‘value’ of those things back in the right place on a hierarchy: low. It is lessons like that that I want to take into the New Year.
As you may have noticed, I am behind on my 140 post goal for the year, this means 2004 slips behind 2003 as a less prolific year of posts. Either way, the 130’s works out to a post every 2.7 days … not bad.
While I am it, I might as well do a little of the “year in review” that everyone tries so hard to avoid on their personal journals. Traffic here is up, significantly up. We are currently averaging 100-130 hits per day, with a continuing trend north of 3000 hits per month. I do hope, that with the announcement of this redesign I have been talking about (who knows when it will get done), I can spike up again as with last redesign, and hold more people, breaking 200 hits a day. Other things that happened this year include me deciding on my major (Biochem), and my life plan for the next, oh, 7 years or so. Not the limiting experience you would think, but quite liberating. I met a girl this year, her name is Mykala. A Google search for her name turns up this site on page four: I have no idea what this indicates. I learned the layout of the U of M, and what taking a summer class is like. I took up rollerblading again thanks to John. I got my first mostly real job. I broke and fixed my computer in two major separate incidences … neither required losing all my data, but simultaneously increased my knowledge of and disapointment in Windows XP. I found out about a lot of music arists: Keane, 4 Strings, Marc Broussard, Ari Hest, Keri Noble, Telecast, Death Cab for Cutie, Jem, The Postal Service, Alter Bridge, Snow Patrol, and Fugazi … I’m leaving out so many.
I will probably end up posting later today with more things I remember from this past year. If not, take care and have a happy New Year.
Donate to Tsunami Cause Via Amazon.com - Donate donate donate donate.
Amazon Says 700,000 Shoppers in One Hour - Amazon averaged selling 32 things per second during one day of the holiday shopping season. It’s other peaks are equally astounding. (Yahoo! News)
Tsunami Damage - Interesting presentation of damage throughout the world due to the recent massive tsunami.
Zeitgeist 2004 - Google’s yearly summary of what was searched for - iPod’s number 1 ranking is not a big surprise.
Ummm, well on Christmas Day evening, my dorm room was flooded with a couple of inches of water. I really do not believe that it was a couple of inches, but that is how the report reads. A sprinkler head messed up, broke, and sprayed water all over. It is possible that the sprinkler froze, and when it thawed, burst, and started the flow of water. I do not recall if I left one or no radiators on, but I do know one of my windows leaks air pretty badly - the strong winds a bit over a week ago may have been enough to get the room below freezing in temperature, but I really do not know if that is what happened. That raises the question: why did the other sprinkler in the room not freeze? I heard about this when I was up in St. Cloud on Sunday, and drove back half-dazed, wondering how bad the damage would be.
Because of this incident, we spent four and a half hours on Monday cleaning up the wetness. See, the water that initially comes out of these pipes is a rank black sludge; so, I lost all the bedding, an oak frame upholstered chair, another chair, and a king sized Cordaroy’s chair affectionately called the “sack of foam.” While the water running along the floor did reach my lovely vintage SX-850, one of the refurbished [HPM-60’s][2], and my year old Gateway, they didn’t get too soaked, and should still work. However, I do not really know, and it will be a while before I get to test them out. Ok, so I will probably test the computer out tomorrow, but I have to make absolutely sure the speaker cones are dry before doing anything with those - otherwise they will literally tear themselves apart. I lost a bunch of textbooks, too. I really liked my Shakespeare book, and that is gone. Goodness. It could have been a lot worse, though: my clothes were all cleaned up off the floor and safe inside a dresser and an armoire. Also, the room next to mine is vacant, so I moved all my valuables into it, locked the door to let them dry, and left the room open with a fan on to get all the humidity out - it was like a tropical jungle in there before. So, hopefully soon the carpet will be dry and it will not smell or have grown any friendly colonies of mold and infestation.
[2]: (Pioneer HPM-60 Information) Quick addition; the operations manager was there, helping us piece together what happened - when I was out in the hall and my parents were in my room he dropped his voice and said in a conspiratorial tone, “You know, if there is anything in there you don’t want them to see, we can figure something out; there isn’t anything I haven’t seen in my 30 years here …” I laughed and declined his offer of help, saying that no, I did not have anything to hide. It was a funny, thoughtful gesture, though.
Today was substantially less wet than yesterday. I caught up a tiny bit with Steve at Lifetime and journeyed to the Mall of America to spend holiday gift dollars with Mykala. We were out for about 6 hours, and shopped ‘til we dropped. I have a new outfit! She has, possibly more than a new outfit. Anyhow, spending a day at the mall is substantially better (though equally tiring) as sloshing through wet ruined books and bed clothes. Variety, though, is the spice of life.
This much can be said for break so far: my dreams are getting more interesting. Just this Christmas morning I dreamt I was the leader of an archeological team in the 1930s which was excavating an unopened tomb; we were attempting to remove all the precious objects before being killed by a rebel team. Let me tell you, you think the insides of an Egyptian tomb are creepy in pictures - try being pursued by villains through the columned rooms of the darkest, scariest, most randomly shifting burial ruins that your mind can come up with. Suffice to say, I really was quite awake this morning even though all our presents were opened the evening before.
I got running shoes! Also, a warm heart was received, too. I am, therefore, happy. Get this, we got these big fluffy flakes of snow falling in a most wonderful slow way - it was the perfect sight over the noon hour - a weak winter sun illuminating these big bright flakes. We admired them for their beauty, and for their transience.
Quick chat excerpts for humor:
Mykala (11:49:09 PM): i might have to give you your christmas present tomorrow
Mykala (11:49:14 PM): unless you really would rather i wait
Me (11:49:25 PM): oh my
Me (11:49:29 PM): no, i’d Love to know
Me (11:49:33 PM): to get it
Me (11:49:36 PM): him.
Mykala (11:49:48 PM): her.
Me (11:50:09 PM): sorry
Mykala (11:50:25 PM): you didn’t know
Me (12:10:10 AM): and, given my abysmall knowledge of the culenary arts, i never like to be too confident
Me (12:10:14 AM): *abysmal
Mykala (12:11:15 AM): *culinary
Mykala (11:46:48 PM): maybe eskimos don’t know how to love
Mykala (11:47:01 PM): maybe, since all they can do is rub noses, they can’t fall in love
It makes sense to lump my life update into this post entitled “Christmas,” because my events as of late center around this. My most surprising present came from Mykala. On Tuesday the 21st, she declared that she could not wait to give me my present any longer, and that I should come up north to see what it was. Eager to know what this present was, but a little apprehensive (I guess I get nervous too easily), I wrapped her presents and headed up north. I was greeted with a bright pink Victoria’s Secret box, inside which I was told my present was hiding. Since women’s underwear did not seem like a gift I will ever receive, my brain raced through things that could fit in the box. I slowly parted the pink tissue paper, and then did a double-take in shock: looking back at me was the blue face of a Motorola V551 Videophone. Because I am on her plan, I can talk to Mykala as much as I want (which is quite a bit) from any place, anytime, anywhere. This is such a cool gift. I have been spending the last few days constantly fiddling and learning this phone, I almost have a custom song written to ring on calls (adapted from a piano song).
In between all this, I caught up with some folks at Lifetime. One of the people I know is the dad of a kid a grade below me; nice guy. Not long ago, he came up to me and said he and some friends started to call this one exercise I do “the Alex” - I thought this was great, and I think I will refer to it by that name from now on. I will spare you the details of this exercise, but they call it such because they haven’t seen anyone else do it. Points for … something, I’m not sure. I also caught up with Marcus, whom I talk with once every 7 months or so. It is always interesting to talk to old friends and see what they are doing with their lives; its fun to see people going out into the world and succeeding.
On the 23rd, we went ice skating at The Depot in Minneapolis. This was a grand time, but some muscles in my back continue to recover from a spill I took face first. I learned the basic rules of the robot dance moves from Mykala, and we taught ourselves to skate backwards … sort of. We returned to the house to a lovely lasagna dinner; dessert was spritz, fudge, and the sugar cookies. The camel cookies provide the most “bang for your cookie buck,” although I was able to fashion a snowman cookie out of leftover dough, and that was pretty cool looking. Our sugar cookies have the unfortunate tendency to swell up an unusual amount, so most cookies looked rather bloated (the angels wings were stuck to the back of her head, ditto with Santa’s bag and his head). Anyhow, I can not think of a better way to spend a winter evening than to skate around an oval at the historic depot (where my mom had picked up her grandma many years ago when trains still ran through it), listening to music, and enjoying wonderfully wonderful holiday company and good cheer. It is not an evening I will soon forget.
Inidentally, the 24th of December of this year is not a day I will soon forget, either. I drove up north for a little while so Mykala could open her present. I had completely mislead her as to the gift (showing her the massive box it came in, wrapping it in a fairly large box, dropping hints that I was “still shopping” after we had looked at the item), so I was quite excited for her to open it. Anyhow, she looks stunning in her new necklace, and I was very pleased that she had mentioned before opening it that she was “sure she would not be opening any jewelry today.” Mission accomplished? I would say so. From her family, I received the wrist belt I have been wanting so much (I really do not know what to call it - leather bracelet would be a better term) and a gift certificate: I was surprised myself! (I thought my tagging along on their cell plan was certainly gift enough, but it was a wonderful surprise.)
You know, though, let me be honest: it is sharing in good company that makes the holidays so special, and that is what I will remember most from yesterday. I wish all of you a Merry Christmas, and I hope to stay in touch via the comments, QuickMail, email, IM, phone, or in person - technology is great when it does what we designed it to do: bring people together. God bless and have a happy Christmas day.
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