So I’m a little hyper today.
[MEDIA=34]J.P.
Rejuvenation.
I know that springtime is all about rebirth and new life and all that, but as usual I don’t conform to popular belief. For me, the best season of the year is occurring right now in the Northern Hemisphere and that is autumn. Today is the perfect autumn day: clear skies, bright sunshine, 70 degrees or so and just a hint of that crispness in the air that I’m fond of. It seems the trend will continue through the weekend.
Being a night owl I feel like I live my life in perpetual jet lag. Many don’t get this, but though I’m up at 6:30, I’m not awake until 10:30 or so. I stumble through the first four hours, feeling like I just stepped off a plane in from someplace far, far away. When I worked full time, I would come in after lunch, and having completed half of my workday, and I would say “Good morning! So nice to see you!” My co-workers would understand that I have no comprehension of what occurred prior to lunchtime.
I think being out in the sunlight helps. I know it chases my blues away. When I wake up and it’s still dark outside, I feel all depressed. This new version of Daylight Saving Time has me cranky beyond belief, but we’ll save that for another blog entry.
Just know that today I’m out enjoying the sunshine and letting the wind whip through my hair (?!?) as I shuttle between classes, home and work.
Here’s a few photos I snapped in the back lawn just moments ago. Descriptions are on my flickr page.
Expectations.
I’m wondering if I’m expecting too much from this college experience. Today I had one class, Surveying I. I don’t plan on becoming a surveyor, however it’s a required course for all of us that wish to work in the civil engineering field. I might have to survey someday, and though we are being trained on equipment that became obsolete during Donna Summer’s “Last Dance”, by god we must take this course.
My Surveying class is compromised of 29 men and one woman. I’ve bonded with Jennifer to an extent, she’s very attractive, a little rough and what you might expect of a female civil engineer, not that I like stereotyping people, but she fits the image. Of my classmates, I’d say that I’m tied with another guy for being the oldest and many are in their mid or late 20s. There are a couple of freshmen as well. Some are stoned.
Today the professor handed out a 35 page packet on Trigonometry with the following instructions: read it, do the problems and turn in the homework next week. Now, I don’t expect him to teach us the fundamentals of trigonometry in 50 minutes, but for many of us in the class we haven’t had trig since high school. Heck, I was in the first round of students when New York State changed the traditional “Trigonometry” class to “Course III”, which was an advanced, unique blend of algebra, geometry, calculus and trigonometry that focused on the latter. I don’t know why the class of 1986 was selected to be the guinea pigs for the “mix it all together” approach but I think it kind of puts me at a disadvantage. I’m already suffering from the elementary school math experiment with the class of 1986: “let’s teach them only metric!” That went over so well when the U.S. converted to the metric system and all.
But I digress.
Now, I know that for every hour of class I should spend two hours studying and I try to adhere to that guideline to the best of my ability. But I think perhaps we should have spent some time in class talking about the contents of the packet. Instead he popped a quiz and told us we could leave when we finished that. I’m not a fan of the disinterest.
Boo.
Maybe I’m expecting too much. Perhaps I was spoiled when Miss Chontosh (high school math teacher) took time to walk us through problems and had after school tutoring sessions to coach us on the regents exams. It could be that I’m just putting too much pressure on myself and setting my personal expectations too high.
Sometimes I wonder if I should just bag it all and get a job that pays the bills and spend my free time in community theatre or something.
Crow.
Imagine my surprise when Time Warner sent a full cable crew, complete with bucket truck and hard hats, to our home only 45 minutes after the cross-eyed, twangy sounding tech and the four kids in the back of his truck left the premises.
Wow! Color me impressed.
The cable crew replaced everything aside from the cable that runs under the driveway (which is completely intact and passes all tests with flying colors), ripped out the booster that the tech installed three weeks ago, explained everything they did and gave me an internet experience that’s faster than passing gas after Burger King.
I am once again a happy geek and surfing at high speed, baby.
Bring on the porn news and family friendly entertainment.
Connect This.
I’m pretty dependent on the internet, especially when I’m in bachelor mode with Earl being away for work. The internet is my main source of entertainment. I chat with friends over iChat, I watch videos, I make videos, I read up on all things geekly and I get good sized dollops of news via the tubes we call the ‘net.
It’s not nice to fool with my internet connection.
A couple of weeks ago our high speed internet connection over cable (RoadRunner) died. The Fine Folks At Time Warner promptly sent a tech out to our home 72 hours later. Said tech had no testing equipment that worked with him, so he put a signal booster on our cable, said a prayer to the cable gods and viola, instant mediocrity which he said was the fastest experience they could provide. He was cute, but he was a liar.
Don’t mess with the geek.
On Sunday the internet started crapping out again (surprise!) so I made a call into Time Warner once again and made them adhere to my schedule; send someone out after my work hours. They promised a tech after 5 p.m. today. He called at 2:45 and wanted to know where I was.
It’s not nice to fool with my internet connection.
Slightly irritated but pleasant nonetheless, I coaxed him into coming after 5 p.m. He said he’d be here at 5. He arrived at 6:30.
“There’s nothing I can do”, said the cross-eyed, twangy sounding tech. He then ran out the front door to calm the four kids that were bouncing in the back of the service van. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
“Your tap runs under the driveway and you have your own private tap and we are not allowed past the tap.”
“There have been many techs here over the years and they’ve all climbed the poles. They used their ladders and everything.”, I retorted.
He threw a bit of a hissy fit, as only a cross-eyed twangy sounding tech can do. That’s when our sometimes working connection died completely.
He then packed up to leave.
“Uh, it’s not working at all, you need to undo what you just did.”
A few more hisses and fits and it was once again cooking with blazing mediocrity.
“I just called in to the dispatch center and they’re going to send a line crew. They’ll probably have to tear up your driveway but we’ll get your internet going right fast.”, he said.
Earl is simply going to kill me if there’s a ditch across the driveway when he gets home tomorrow night.
Groovy.
Diggin’ the 60s vibe of this song always puts me in a good mood.
From 1969, it’s “Grazin’ In The Grass” by The Friends of Distinction.
Rethinking.
Earl has been out of town for the past two nights. He was expected home this evening, but during last night’s call he let me know that he’ll have to spend tonight out of town as well.
This kind of has me bummed. It also has me thinking.
Since he’s out of town tonight and tomorrow night he has a sleep study for his sleep apnea and then on Thursday he’s out of town again, I’m rethinking out overnight plans we have for this coming weekend. We were going to go to Buffalo for the last half of a bear run but now I’m thinking that might be a bit much, especially for him.
Maybe I’m getting old.
I guess we’ll have to discuss it tonight.
I think I’m starting to kick into hibernation/homebody gear in tandem with the color change on the trees and the cooler temperatures. For the past 24 hours or so I’ve been really in the mood to bake a pie. I’m in the mood for stew. I want to eat some squash.
Interesting that my thoughts of autumn gravitate to food.
Bin.
I’m noticing an increasing trend in this area. While making an occasional fast food stop, whether it’s at Subway, Quizno’s or one of the burger places, I’m noticing more and more people aren’t picking up their garbage and putting it in the trash bin when they’re finished.
What’s up with that?
Are people becoming so arrogant that they think they can just leave their trash lying about? Have the fast food chains instituted some table-side service that I didn’t know existed?
The next time I see an ignoramus just leave their trash lying on the table in the middle of McBomb or whatever, I might be tempted to stand up and say “Hey! You forgot your trash!” I’ll leave the “asshole” off the end of the sentence so I can give an air of being polite.
I don’t know why I think I must be the manners police in these situations but this new trend is driving me crazy.
Hippychick.
Back in 1990 or so when I was first DJing this song was quite popular. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear samples of “How Soon Is Now” by the Smiths, which was also sung by the group Love Spit Love and featured in the opening credits of the television series “Charmed”.
Here’s “Hippychick”, by Soho.
Flashback.
Earl and I have been doing chores around the house, readying for something that hasn’t occurred here in a while. He’s going to be traveling for work most of the week. Always attentive to my needs, Earl went grocery shopping this morning to make sure that I would have enough food and water to last the next few days.
The cat and I have something in common.
While I’m naturally a loner, and as I was recently remarking to my friend Greg, I’m not that much of a “people person” (I think I said, “I don’t like people”, which may have been a little extreme), I don’t like being in the house alone without Earl.
Apparently, I like the use of commas, however.
It was just a few years ago that Earl would spend entire weeks in the fine state of Ohio, at least he’s only gone for a couple of days starting tomorrow afternoon. It’ll give me a good excuse to make sure my homework is up-to-date and to start the novel I have to do a research paper about: “My Antonia” by Willa Cather. If anyone wants to share their thoughts on this novel I’d love to hear them.
