October 2007

Make It Interesting.

It’s midterms week at my fine educational institution and as a student I am double blessed, for I am trying to get ahead on my schoolwork so Earl and I can go to Ireland next week without my worrying about homework that may have been left behind.

I’ve griped about school quite a bit this semester, and I believe much of my griping is justified. However, in order for me to stick with my studies and to obtain that golden nugget called a degree, I have decided that I need to just make the whole affair interesting for me.

I am currently writing a research paper on the novel I chose to read for my English Literature class, “My Antonia” by Willa Cather. I’ve decided to focus on Cather’s suspected lesbianism and the subsequent undertones of her sexuality in Jim, the lead male character of the novel.

If I can talk about sex, I’m totally there.

Today when we had a pop quiz in Surveying (which we were allowed to use our book), I heard the student behind me struggling with the quiz because she had neglected to bring her book to class and was trying to find answers to formulas that required referencing the book. Since I tend to fly through quizzes at hyperspeed, I finished my quiz early so I tossed the book in her direction and let her keep it through the end of class. Later in the day at our outdoor surveying lab, she thanked me profusely and said she appreciated the gesture. Helping her made me more interested in what was going on in school.

In our afternoon lab we had to simulate a construction site and plot out the land for a large building. Divided up into four man crews, I watched my three crewmates spin the plans around in several directions and look off into the distance as they tried to line up point A with point B. I decided to take the bull by the horns and piped up, walking them through the layout of the building and where we should be setting up our surveying equipment, just as the professor walked over. He simply said, “guys, listen to J.P.” I’m old enough to be the father of the guys, they should trust the old man.

I’m often remarking to Earl that I respect self assured people that are uninhibited. I guess it’s time for me to start expressing myself. It keeps life interesting.

15 October 2007 by College Kid. Deep. Ponderings and Musings 2

Rebuild.

I’ve spent the entire day doing homework and wiping out my beloved PowerBook and rebuilding all the software from scratch. I wish I had something more exciting to talk about, but that’s I’ve got, homework and geeking. Not much more.

It’s all good but I’m looking forward to the fact that tomorrow is another day.

14 October 2007 by Geek 0

Foley.

hockey

Earl and I spent the evening in the Capital city of Albany for the Albany River Rats hockey game. I’m not much of a hockey fan, but I always enjoy going to a game for several reasons, the least of which is the actual game itself. It’s not that I don’t enjoy watching the game, but I’m always so fascinated by the people at the game.

First of all, hockey stands out in my head because it’s the only team sport I can think of that encourages unsportsmanlike behavior. (That cringing you hear is my sister’s boyfriend, a professional hockey player. They call him The Instigator.) The crowd goes wild when two or more hockey players start throwing down their equipment and beat the hell out of each other. What’s up with that?

One of my favorite activities at a game is to make as many odd noises as possible. The Jumbotron and the announcer both encourage everyone to get loud, so I go through a whole selection of loud noises, including the traditional sportsfan chants, bear-like ‘woofs’, Xena war cries and blood curling screams. If the encouragement for noise continues through this selection, I then resort to yelling “kitty” as if I was beckoning the cat from 50 acres away.

The neighboring fans just love me.

When our team makes a goal, I like to hold my popcorn and jump up in the air so that I send a shower of popcorn to celebrate. I feel it’s a fan thing to do.

Tonight’s game was a bit of a bummer, in that we had to go through various overtime exercises before finally losing the game, but what I found more disturbing was the rendition of “God Bless America” and our National Anthem. A bunch of elementary school kids were herded out onto the ice (on carpet pieces), where the music teacher grabbed the mic and croaked out some weird verse of the former that I had never heard of. To keep it interesting, she consistently ignored the key and avoided any sort of tempo. Her students then joined in behind her. Since she was playing random with the pitch, the students had no hope of keeping up with her and it was, in my opinion, probably the worst rendition of “God Bless America” I have heard in my 39 years on this planet.

But they had spirit.

This was quickly followed up with a junior high chorus, also herded out on the ice, who promptly sang our National Anthem, again in random keys that changed throughout the song. Deciding enough was enough, I joined a drunk man several rows back by singing the National Anthem as strongly as I could and I chose to remain in the key that the group was in when I decided to join them. If I’m going to be proud of this country, I’m going to do it out loud.

Now you’re probably thinking I’m throwing some cheap shots out and let’s see me do any better. Tell you what, I’ve sang the National Anthem in sports arenas on several occasions (solo and a cappella) so I feel like I can be a bit of a critique on the subject. I’m just saying. I would welcome the chance to do it again.

All in all it was a fun night.

13 October 2007 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Trying.

Last year the world was introduced to the television show “Heroes”, and it was good. Through creative writing and acceptable special effects, we were taken through the twists and turns of ordinary people with extraordinary powers who came together to try to save the world.

And it was good.

It is now season 2. And I really hate to say this, but “Heroes” ain’t doin’ it for me. I’m not enjoying the Mexican story arc, I’m not liking the Peter in Ireland story arc and now we have Niki back on the screen whining and crying. The week’s episode, the third of the season, didn’t make it to the TiVo in it’s complete form due to a wild thunderstorm during the original airing. Luckily, the screen stayed stable enough to reveal Uhura in New Orleans. Other than that, it was a mosh posh of dancing pixelated images that abbreviated the episode to 30 minutes. Normally I’d be freaked out about the interruption and trying to download the episode in it’s entirety, but I’m finding that I just don’t give a damn.

Oddly enough, I’m interested in only two shows thus far: “Las Vegas”, because it’s like television Cheese in a Can and it knows it, and “Private Practice”, because it has a good ensemble cast and what seems to be good writing, plus it has my babe Amy Brenneman on it. I am interested in “Pushing Daisies” and will be adding that to the TiVo as well.

I must be getting old, because I’m also contemplating adding the new “Price Is Right” onto our viewing schedule. For the first time in the 35 year history of the show, they rerecorded the theme song in stereo.

12 October 2007 by Everyone's A Critic. 2

Weekend Prep.

In late 1999 I found this import CD in a record store in Albany. I was program director of Wow FM, “The Beat of Central New York” at the time and it somehow ended up in a fairly heavy rotation on the playlist (ooh, the powers I had with the title of Program Director.) The track was never released in the United States and it predates “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by two years.

Here’s Kylie Minogue with “Spinning Around.” Kudos to those that can name the sample in the track.

12 October 2007 by DJ 0

Introspective.



Rain.
Originally uploaded by iMachias.

I’ve been kind of low key on the blog lately. I guess I haven’t been in the mood to write. My schedule has been crazy, my school deadlines are demanding and I feel like I’ve been white knuckling it a little bit for the past few days.

My complaint of professors that don’t care continues. On Friday we were given a multiple choice exam in my math class. The idea of a multiple choice exam in math is nothing new; you figure out the equation or whatever and select your answer from one of the four given. Here’s the kicker. About a quarter of the way into the exam the professor announced that he had made several typos in the exam and there were questions where none of the answers to choose from were correct, so we were to write in our answer and give justification. He geniunely made the errors, it wasn’t some tricky subplot to a continuing story arc.

It’s hard to care when the professor doesn’t seem to care. Nevertheless, I got an 82 on the exam. I thought I had done worse.

It has been unseasonably warm in these parts this week. I heard another citizen remark on the street to her friend, “I just love this global warming. It’s so balmy.” Meanwhile, the reservoir that provides our drinking water is 11 feet below it’s normal level and now they’re draining the canal to provide more water to the city by sending it back to the reservoir, the same city that dumps raw sewage into the canal because the sewer treatment plant is a mess.

Viva la poo poo.

Meanwhile I’ve been tinkering with photography. I find few suitable to share but I enjoy the escapism nonetheless.

11 October 2007 by Flickr 0

Shadow.



Shadow.
Originally uploaded by iMachias.

I’m not a photographer. I don’t pretend to be. I thank the Universe for digital cameras, because I’m able to take a thousand shots of one scene and pick out the one that looks just right without having to purchase stock in Kodak.

I was inspired by the sunlight coming in the patio window. This is the shot I liked. My iPhoto has many near misses.

10 October 2007 by Flickr 2

Trigonometry.

Trig

With today being observed as Columbus Day here in the states I didn’t have school today. I figured it would be the perfect day to catch up on my homework and get my scholarly affairs in order. Tomorrow we pretend it’s Monday at school to make up for the day off. It’s all very scholarly.

I really chose a sucky schedule this semester. Actually, I’m hoping that I chose a sucky schedule because the alternative would be that I’m not cut out for what I’m studying for and I’m not prepared to make that judgment yet.

Anyway, the professor gave us a handout entitled “Trigonometry” with the simple instructions, read it and do these exercises: 2, 28, 44, 194, 30, 36, 61 and 202. You think they’d be in numeric order but no, there they are in a seemingly random order, which works well with the handout, as the exercises are numbered equally as randomly.

I figured two hours would be enough to get this assignment done. I’m such a fool. I didn’t factor into the equation another variable: said handout is a print out of a webpage and he printed it out in color, and then photocopied everything in black and white, so highlighted phrases and all the figures and diagrams are missing from the packet.

How long ago did I accuse my professors for not giving a flip as to what their handouts contained? Chalk this up to the “they don’t give a damn” column.

Luckily, he used Internet Exploder Explorer to print out this lesson, so I was able to see the address of the site and look up the diagrams and key phrases he conveniently left off of the paper.

I feel bad for my fellow students that might not have a computer at home.

I should have become a porn star. Then I would just have to worry about inches.

8 October 2007 by College Kid. 1

BFF.

So Earl and I spent last night in Buffalo. It was their annual bear run, fittingly called “Bear Trap” and it had been nearly a year since we were in Buffalo last.

It’s amazing how time flies when you’re not even thinking about it.

Having arrived too late to join the crowd of bears for the dinner at Century Grill, we opted to go it alone at the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery. Earl had been there before and knew that the place was right up my alley and he was absolutely right. I have to admit that I had a few fleeting moments of worry as we were driving to the restaurant, as I have recently decided to give up drinking alcohol completely. I’ve never been much of a drinker, in fact, I really only started drinking beer and such when I started at the telephone company a couple of years ago. However, the experience of going back and reading a couple of blog entries I had written while drunk and a conversation that Earl and I had while driving home from a dinner in which I was going to be the designated driver, and then ended up drinking, persuaded me that I definitely don’t need to incorporate alcohol into my future social plans. All the heavy stuff aside, the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery is a great place to go if you’re in the Buffalo area. Like so many other buildings in Downtown Buffalo, it’s an old brick building with that feeling of the industrial revolution of the early 20th century. So many cities have opted to tear these places down and build something in stunning concrete in their place; I admire when a business takes an existing space and turns it into something special. I wish more places would learn to do this.

The food is great too.

After dinner we freshened up a bit at the hotel and headed to the Town Ballroom for the evening’s festivities. All of the Buffalo Bears were gracious as always as we shared many hugs and kisses with those we hadn’t seen in so long. Earl and I both got a little tearful when we saw the two guys we consider to be our closest friends walk into the club. Here’s a picture from a camping excursion from a couple years ago of our friends Tim and Steve.

We used to see Tim and Steve quite a bit when Earl was traveling to Buffalo on a weekly basis, but now that his work locations have moved around, coupled with my school responsibilities and general life chaos, it’s been entirely too long since we’ve seen these guys. God bless them both, it was like we had seen them just yesterday.

The Buffalo Bears traditionally held all of their events at a local club, first Buddies and then it’s successor Buddies II. However, Buddies II recently closed so they were forced to the Town Ballroom, which is an absolutely fabulous space. It has had several incarnations; a casino, a dinner club (think Ricky Ricardo), a gay bar and now an entertainment venue. The Bears utilized a couple of the rooms well; one room was the dance floor (and Karl the DJ [skabear] played the extended disco mix of the theme from “Wonder Woman”!), the “Leopard Lounge” was used as a quieter space for conversation and in the middle lobby was a huge circular bar. Again, this is another old space in Buffalo that they continue to breathe life in.

Afterwards we went to the after hours party where we stayed until the closing of the room at 4 a.m. There was a lot of giggling in the hallway; it’s a good thing that we had the whole floor of the hotel.

This morning we joined our friends for brunch before heading out. Again, more tears and hugs as we made our way to the door.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend in many ways for us, and it was great to reconnect with our friends. We’ve always found the boys in Buffalo to be quite hospitable and this weekend was no exception. We look forward to going out there again soon.

7 October 2007 by Bears. Fun and Games Dept Gayish. Woof. 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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