I say? What is this "Internet" of which you speak?

So I here I sit at a Panera bread with wireless access, because I still don't have my cable or cable modem working. Supposedly, they've been by twice to turn it on at the outside hookup, but I saw no evidence of today's visit and Wednesday's, when I was told to be home (although I wasn't expecting to have to be, and yesterday's tech-on-the-other-end-of-the-line was surprised they told me back) only produced a scribbled-on receipt in my door (something like "bay di dooo" was written on it. I have no idea what the intent was, and they didn't knock, b/c I didn't get farther than my bedroom.)

Anyway, the battery life should hold long enough for me to get caught up here.

I am in my place, and my stuff arrived successfully on Friday. I think the only things left to unpack are things I don't know quite what to do with, and things that I may be buying more furniture for. For example, I want another bookcase, and I figured I can leave all the books in boxes until I get it. Also, I want to be damn sure the bookcases are where I want them.

If you look at my floor plan, I've currently got the living room and dining room reversed. The (nonfunctional) cable connection is over on a wall near the kitchen, and the window on the "top" end of the living room is a floor-to-almost-ceiling deal. So I currently think that's a nice place for the dining room table, to encourage me to eat on it instead of in front of the tv. (Well, that's not a problem right now, but...) There's also the place's only ceiling fan in what is now the living room area, and the circulation is nice while playing Madden (busted about $200 at Best Buy yesterday, getting that, the B5 movies, REM and Mary Chapin Carpenter CD's I'd missed, and various cables. Paychecks are cool.)

The "living room" is somewhat cramped, but I can get the love seat in there while still leaving a walking corridor past the kitchen. I don't know what happens when I invest in a couch so I can watch football horizontally the way God intended, but nothing is so heavy it can't be rearranged.

There's no medicine cabinet, which astounds me. How can you omit this basic unit of bathroom storage? I have no idea where to put my band-aids.


What else have I been itching to blog about...I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't tell what compass direction my windows were facing until I saw my neighbor's satellite dish. (It was cloudy, but still....) I think my commute will be about 20-30 minutes, and so far I scoff at anyone who calls this "traffic". They tell me I will eventually be caught in a true jam for no rhyme or reason, but I just moved from a town where you could get caught in unmoving traffic for an hour on a Saturday afternoon. If I can leave work at 5:30 and have a 20 minute commute home, over a supposedly bottleneck bridge which is under construction to widen it, it ain't that bad.

Work...they left the 75 gallon tank full of water for 3 months while no one was working on it. If you've ever owned fish, you know that's not going to look pleasant. Just for kicks someone stopped pumping it through the UV sterilizer. Now to be fair, it wasn't green, but a layer of slime/ectoplasm of visible thickness (a few hundred microns) had developed. So I've spent a week scraping that off. I think it's pretty clean now. Actually, this turned out to be a decent first thing to have to do, since it allowed me to get settled in and no one exactly expects results from it. Next step is probably to design some precision into the test tank, since the previous postdoc was only in the "see-if-this-works" stage.

I can faithfully report that not all experience with movers are bad. This actually went pretty well, with people being confident and working reasonably quickly. They still brought a huge semi to this end, but fortunately my "street" is a long drive with a straight entrance that they could fit in. And cars were actually not parked there during working hours on Friday (when they came) so it wasn't so imperative to make sure no one was blocked in.

I did discover however they used way too much paper to wrap things. It actually makes it less secure, because I have no idea what I'm trying to unwrap or where I should be holding it. Also it slows me up, and I just want to finish so I can get back to playing Madden.

All right, I really don't intend to only update my life in this space, but when connection requires the purchase of a $1.49 pop I'm not anxious to email everyone individually. With better access will come more personal communication, I swear.

Edited immediately thereafter:

Of course, I totally forgot my cool Wed. night. First night in the apartment, I drag my lawn chair, my walkman, and a beer (until the security guy waved that off) out to sit and watch the eclipse whilst listening to the World Series end. Cloud cover came in, but not until about 1/2-3/4 of the way through totality. So it was a pretty cool way to spend a fall evening.

Homeless Now

Well, here I am in DC, ready to start work tomorrow. This will be my fourth bed in four nights (my own, air mattress in my apartment, Pete Ganeff's spare bed, Brad Andresen's couch.) I will be ensconced here until Wed., and if my stuff isn't here it will be back to the air mattress.

The drive out was as cool as 13 hours in 2 days can be. Coming from Morgantown, W. Va. through Western Maryland on 68 was really beautiful. I know it took me longer to get out here than I wanted, but it resulted in me coming through the Appalachians in beautiful fall color. It was perfect except for the 2 mile fogbank, and the westbound accident that apparently caused. Oops. I didn't stop to gawk.

To commute to work from Brad's place near Georgetown, I have to cross to Virginia, then back, then damn near back again. But it's only three work days.

More later.

Congratulations I'm Sorry

I haven’t blogged in a while, but it’s been a crazy October.

My grandmother passed away and I defended my thesis in close proximity to each other.

When I went home to the funeral services, I got a bizarre dose of the above headline. I understand everyone’s sentiments, but it really added the worst elements of a graduation party (“Where are you going next? What are you doing now? I don’t understand that…”) to the already depressing aspects of a funeral.

All this has delayed my move to DC, as it took me away from beating at bureaucrats for a while. But I’ll be there soon enough. At least my new advisor is understanding.

I may not blog much in the near term, either, as I try to get packed up and out to D.C. After that it may get a little more journal-like as a way of keeping tabs with people, but I’ll still try to find good stuff to rant about.

You Have Got to Be Kidding Me

Wal-mart was was selling the long-dismissed as hoax anti-Semetic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Wal-mart.

F'ing Wal-mart. F'ing Middle-America Wal-mart. And not as some document of historical interest, but as "this might be true".

I weep for this nation. It turns my stomach. I mean, I first heard of the Protocols from playing Illuminati: New World Order, a tounge-in-cheek trading card game spoof of conspiracy theory and paranoia from Steve Jackson games.

And people are taking this seriously? Does Wal-mart know they now have something in common with Islamic extremists?

And Wal-mart doesn't even seem to care what immoral morons they've been; only that they're taking flak. Sad. Just sad.

Wow

I think most people were alerted by email, but here goes anyway:

I sent my dissertation to my committee yesterday. I defend on Oct. 5, 2004, at 2:30 p.m. CDT.

Brian Wilhite defended yesterday , and that coupled with the finale of The Amazing Race made it a momentous occasion for beer consumption. I'm proud to report that beat Wilhite back to the blogging world, but then again he had to drive to scenic Champaign-Urbana today.

Hopefully all will be well. I don't anticipate trouble writing the defense talk, but I anticipate all kinds of trouble actually defending the thesis, which everyone assures me is crazy and paranoid. But I find a healthy dose of paranoia about these things makes one more prepared for what does come. Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

Take a good look to the right...

I'll have to change it soon, as I am no longer "Jackass Firstbaseman." My softball team, "A Bunch of Jackasses", lost out of the playoffs today. And with many of us graduating, it's quite the passage. Like the Cubs, 5 outs to go was the point we didn't get through. But it was a much better bouncing than last year, although it was the last swings and the last slides and the last post-game "spread" at Jimmy's and the last Washington Park dirt to be washed off in the shower. Wilhite's blog may eventually have more details when he's done with thesis draft and moving. I should mention that Will and Jon sacrificed hamstring and knee, respectively, for this game. I salute both of you!

This may not seem like too big a deal, but softbal really has been a (too) big part of my time here in grad school. I'll definitely miss playing with everyone. Thanks to all of you.

More Hockey Lockout Coverage

No movement. The Players Association is supposed to make a counterproposal soon; I can't see NHL hockey be played in calendar year 2004 at all now, and only optimism that both sides aren't this stupid would lead me to suspect a January start date.

Shane passes along this article speculating that a pan-European league could spring up if the NHL shoots itself in the foot with a hard salary cap. It would be closer to home for the European players, played on bigger rinks where obstruction is actually called, and that could be a draw even for North American natives.