My So-Called Life

[flwyd]

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go
I'm filling the cracks that ran though the door
and kept my mind from wandering
where it will go

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right where I belong
I'm right where I belong
See the people standing there
who disagree and never win
and wonder why they don't get in my door

I'm painting my room in a colorful way,
and when my mind is wandering
there I will go

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right where I belong
I'm right where I belong
Silly people run around
they worry me and never ask me
why they don't get past my door

I'm taking my time for a number of things
that weren't important yesterday
and I still go

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go
where it will go
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go

-- The Beatles, "Fixing A Hole"

You know the drill. You don't update for a while, so the eventual update gets longer, so you need an ever-larger block of time to write it down. And then when you do, everything happened so long ago that it's no longer important. Let's see how this version does.

First off, a tip of the hat to blazingsun for the new icon. Believe it or not, that bearded fellow is the same person as that staring blond boy that usually graces your friends page.

You might want to check under your bumper. Three Boulder activists found GPS receivers hooked to cellular modems under their cars. Who knows how they got there. I heard about this before it hit press, since I work with the guy from GPS Solutions, and it's legit. Big Brother may not be watching you, but someone is. Small Uncle, perhaps?

Work's been really neat. After spinning my wheels trying to remember what I learned in Calc III about coordinate system transforms I finally figured out how map projection works and have been working on algorithms for delineating overlapping map regions. The results should be public soon, and I'll be sure to share a URL and extended math-geek explanation.

Our refrigerator is on its last elbows. Yesterday morning, most of the contents were not very cold. We cleared most of the contents out, including some ground beef that expired several months before the infamous terrorist attacks. Yum.

I bought a unicycle in early June, in large part because it seemed like the sort of thing I'd do. I've spent a couple hours a week going up and down a fence at Centennial Middle School. It's a lot of fun if you can look past ankle bruises, sweaty wrist guards, and racking yourself regularly. I'm surprised it's a male-dominated activity, really. The first day was a real good upper-body workout, as I gripped really hard and moved really slow. Today I travelled the length of the fence without grabbing on or falling off, which I consider a major accomplishment. An even more impressive accomplishment is the fact that I haven't landed on anything but my feet. I have the balance of a cat. My next goal is to mount the device and start riding without holding on to anything. I'm able to get both feet on the pedals, but I'm having trouble pedaling once I do so. By the time school's back in session I should be terrorizing the dismount zones. This is the first skill I've picked up since I learned how to drive and it seems to overcome my general aversion to repetitive practice. It's a good thing my balance has always been so good.

On the music front, I went to one of the Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival. They had a section of Brazilian music that was pretty happenin'. I need to listen to more Brazilian tunes. I also got a chance to chat with some of the ragtimers my dad's recorded. I talked to David Thomas Roberts for a while about geography and maps, a shared interest. Scott Kirby will be Barnstorming Montana next month. If you should find yourself in the nation's fourth largest state, check him out. I bought a ticket to Afro Celt Sound System at the Gothic Theatre on Tuesday, opting for a transportation adventure, dance floor, and bar to soft seats at the base of the Flatirons. Chatauqua just doesn't seem like the right venue to see those folks. I've also got an extra ticket to Björk I should find a recipient for.

I'm ostensibly play testing the new D&D setting with Keith Baker, owner of a $100,000 oversized novelty check. His ideas are pretty neat, though some of them come out pretty strange once they've passed through WotC's hands. The one adventure we managed to playtest was a bit odd, because he'd say "There's going to be a puzzle here, but I'm not sure what, so if you have any ideas you can share them with me. But we'll say you guys solve the puzzle and move on." I'm not at liberty to say a whole lot more, but I think it's a neat world.

I'm part way through Design Patterns, Mind of the Raven, Don Quixote, Dracula, The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka, and Cymbeline. More than anything, though, I've been reading Rand McNally's Road Atlas of the United States. I've been more focused on cinema than literature, which is the subject of a future post, but fortunately I should have time to read during the semester this year.

It's been a fairly laid-back summer on the Pagan front. Thanks to shadowpryde for inviting me to play a Hare at this past Open Full Moon, I had lots of fun. Two circle-mates and I are planning a Math and Science ritual for D-Fest that should be lots of fun. I've always wanted to create a human finite state machine. I also need to do a little planning for my nonverbal workshop, though it's mostly about spontaneity.

I got skin checked by the Kaiser the other day. I somehow discovered a black spot on the underside of my elboy a while ago, but the doc said it's benign, but I should keep an eye on it in case it changes. None of the spots on my back look malign, but I have no idea if they've changed at all. I suppose that's one advantage of having a girlfriend. "Hey babe. Want to regularly check the size of my moles?" Don't try that one, kids.

The rest of this entry is rather long and possibly more interesting to Boulderites, though if you're looking at an excuse to laugh at me, this is a good chance.

It's July, so it's pretty hot. I was invited to a Barbecue/going-away party for a guy I used to roleplay with before I became an RA. I decided to bike there, figuring a north Boulder to Lafayette ride would be fun, but not unbearable. I looked at my bike trail map and found what looked like the most direct route from my house to east Arapahoe. It involved taking a dirt road along the runway for the Boulder airport, then turning right after the end and going over a creek. After a couple wrong turns along some bike paths, I got out to the airport and found the dirt road going east. I followed it until the main road turned left and then the dirt road became a cactus and thistle field. I plowed through that, hoping to find more dirt road ahead, but eventually got discouraged. I looked at my map and figured I'd try to pick the road up at the east end of the runway, so I walked around in the 98 degree sun in a dry field of thistles with airplanes taking off over my head. I got to the end of the runway and discovered that, rather than a dirt road, I was standing at the edge of a 50-foot cliff. Roight.

I saw something that looked like a bike trail several hundred yards away, so I figured I'd head north and take a right to get there. After two dead ends, I ended up on Jay road, 35 blocks due East of my house. I made it over to 61st, where I found a bike path that led to an open gate with a "No Trespassing" sign for the dump. I didn't think that was a throughway, so I went along the street until I passed the West end of the Valmont Dyke and met up with the East Boulder bike path, which took me to about 63rd and Arapahoe. If I'd followed the route that goes past my work and then meets up with the Boulder Creek path, it would've taken me about 25 to 30 minutes to get to that point on Arapahoe. As it was, it took me about 75 minutes and I was quite bushed. I plopped myself down (in the sun, natch) to wait for the Jump. The driver kindly let me take my bike on, since there were already two in the front, and I basked in the air conditioning for a while.

I've been to Sean's house before, and had looked at a Mapquest map for the area around his house, so I was familiar with the route. As I recalled, it's just off 287 and Arapahoe. So when I recognized a familiar landmark on a corner and didn't recognize the suburban sprawl development just past it, I figured we'd just crossed 287 and disembarked. I biked a few blocks to the intersection and realized it was just 95th. Sigh. Fortunately, I'd gained enough energy back so that the 10 blocks weren't too bad.

So I turned right on 287, then took the first left on Lucerne. To get to the house once turning right from Arapahoe, one takes the first several left turns. However, I found no acceptable left turns. Huh? I cycled around the neighborhood a bit until I found a helpful couple to ask for directions. They hadn't heard of any of the streets I mentioned. I said "I think it's just off Lucerne." "Well, there's another Lucerne off 111th," they replied. Oh. Smegging suburbia. I followed their directions and turned at 111th and Lucerne where, sure enough, there's a Jump stop. Sigh. So, two hours and fifteen minutes after I left my house, I arrived at the party. And the thorns I'd picked up didn't even cause the tire to go flat for a couple days. Of course, I've patched it three times since then...

The barbecue itself was pretty good. I got to see a bunch of geeks I hadn't seen in a while, have some real good watermelon juice, and went home with about 600 ml of rum they didn't want to take back to New York. (I was smart and took the Jump all the way back.)

Comments

[blazingsun.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you used that photo for an icon . . . it's such a cool looking one!

If you check out the August 2003 issue of Discover magazine and read 'Can You Take It Out Now,' I bet you'll start checking your own back . . . or at least start asking anyone willing to do so for you. This article also gives decent instructions on how to identify a melanoma in the making.

That sounded like quite an adventure you took on your bike. I wish I could see Björk with you. I'd love to see her in concert someday . . . that is, if I could also avoiding getting flashbacks of nausea like I did when I heard her music in the weeks following my viewing of Dancer in the Dark. The movie itself made me sick for two days (I guess I experience motion sickness fairly easily!). I really do like her music, though.