A Fun Moment

Anybody who asks me, and several of those who didn't, about school will hear me reply, "This is so much fun", and it is. For a living, my entire job is to read something, write about it, and talk about it in class. If I can figure out how to do this for the rest of my life, I'd be happy.

Several times in two of my classes, I have replied to an instructor with what I thought was the correct answer to their question, only to hear sounds of shock from the teenage girls in the room. I've overheard them whisper to their friend, which happens to be the only time they talk in class, "Did he really just say that? OMG!?"

Well, today I had one of those moments, only this time it was an instructor. He asked me a specific question about one of the characters from a short story we had to read for class, and I gave him my honest answer. My explanation took less than sixty seconds and tied in elements from several parts of the story, plus comments made by the teacher from several of the previous classes, plus my own personal insight on the world. As I was speaking, my instructor kept backing up, slowly, until his butt made contact with his desk. He neither interrupted nor made a comment until I had finished. (I think perhaps he was trying to see where I was going with my analysis before jumping in.) When I finished, he paused for a few seconds, used both hands to run them through his hair, looked up at the ceiling for a moment, back to me, and said, and I quote, "Wow. Ok. Interesting." It is so much fun to make the instructors do that. He did not disagree or tell me I was wrong, so perhaps I got a gold star today.

5 Second Rule

When is it ok to observe the five second rule and when should it be ignored? Drop a donut on anything but poop, and the five second rule applies. Drop homemade bread, thick with margarine and grape jelly on anything but poop, and the five second rule applies. Drop anything on poop and the five second rule is forgotten and replaced by the "Yuck" rule. Seriously. Yuck.

But how does the five second rule apply to a public laundromat? I'm drying clothes now, and had the errant sock make its attempted escape in transit from the washer to the wheeled basket. As I retrieved them and placed them in the basket, I wondered about the five second rule. The floor here is fairly clean. Well, clean-ish. Will putting the sock into a dryer and setting the heat gauge to the highest temperature kill any stray germs which may have been picked up from the floor? Do we have to worry about the five second rule as it applies to socks? I mean, really, as gross as my socks get at the end of the day from my stinky feet, do a few patrons germs really matter all that much? Perhaps the five second rule applies only to food? If you dropped a baby on the floor, do you have to pick it up within five seconds, or just pick it up before your spouse comes back into the room? If they're in the bathroom, you may have ten or fifteen minutes, so you'd be ok there.

If you drop an unopened beer on the ground, the last thing you want to do is open it within five seconds. In fact, the longer you wait to open that sucker, the better.

A surreal two weeks

Life has its own way of jumping up and biting you in the ass every now and then. It did so last week when Dad died. It is moments like that which cause the world to turn slower on its axis. Not the planet itself, but rather the six inches of space surrounding us. You can see through your personal fog that the world is progressing on its merry way, oblivious to your situation, however you feel as though time is slowing down as things approach your physical presence. Not only the hard-cast physical things, but the air molecules themselves seem to change. I continued to breathe normal, in, out, repeat as necessary, but I seemed be to short of breath and light-headed. Does one's aura affect matter? Hmmm. If there is a guru out there who makes enough to pay for internet access, let him speak now, or just think of the answer.

So, here I am, in the library, studying for a quiz for tomorrow. I am reading the textbook on my Kindle and taking notes on my laptop. I know I didn't study much in the 1980's, when I tried to do this a few decades past, but this struck me as another in a long line of surreal moments. So much digital as I sit in the library with hundreds of thousands of books. Certainly not as surreal as last week, but it is its own moment.

Creatures of habit

I'm finally dug out from the Christmas blizzard. Drifts shoulder high; blocked front door. I spoke with my next door neighbor, who has lived here since the early 1960's. He said that he's never seen snow drifts like we have today, except for the winter of 1966. We apparently had more snow and less wind than 1966. It kind of makes me wonder; I was born in 1965, in Grand Forks, and the worst blizzard, ever, strikes Grand Forks that winter. I return to live in Grand Forks and the worst blizzard, ever, strikes Grand Forks. It's as though my arrival is heralded by a serious earth event. Is there a hidden messianic message? Probably not. But, to the title of my posting. I have a small bit of ice on my back step. I got the tub-o-salt from the garage for its first use. The first thing I did; unscrewed the top so I could take off the safety seal. You know, all food containers have that safety seal under the lid. After I removed the lid and saw there was no seal, I said "duh". Why would there be a safety seal? It's not like we're going to eat the salt. Talk about a serious creature of habit.

I should have flown

Driving, nice. Driving FOREVER, not so much. I lost my driving chops in the last year. My personal best is 950-ish miles in a day. The last two days I top out at about 715 miles a day. Wednesday was Sacramento, California to Evanston, Wyoming. Today it was Evanston to Grand Island, Nebraska. Tomorrow it needs to be Grand Forks. Rather than try to navigate the interstate hell that is Omaha, I'm turning north from here, taking 281 to Mitchell, then I-20 east to I-29, and then north, again.

One thing I did notice yesterday was an exit in Nevada. There were signs for the "Deeth Starr Valley". Is the Empire trying to disguise its new building area by just misspelling it? Do they think that will throw off the rebels? Where is Luke when you need him?

Day something

I finally completed the outward leg of my journey, having arrived at my sisters place yesterday. It's great to see her and to be here. I'm as productive here as I was at home. Sleep, TV, web surfing, napping, eating; repeat as necessary.

I did notice something a bit odd on the drive. The other day, while driving through Nevada, I noticed a road sign for the exit for Independence Valley, which was immediately followed by a road sign telling us not to pick up hitch-hikers as this area had a local jail. I came around the corner to find the Independence Valley and a jail. How meanly named is this place? Hey, we're going to transfer you to the new jail? It's name? Independence. Psych. Enjoy the view, through the bars. We're going to take a break, but you've got to stay here. No independence for you. Could it be a more inappropriately named location? If it wasn't so odd, it'd be cruel.

Day 2 on the road

From Belle Fouche South Dakota to Evanston Wyoming in one day. I'm tired. I used to be able to drive further than this in one day. Maybe my driving stamina was diminished in my year-long removal from the ability to make long trips. The roads are good. I do miss being in the mountains. I don't miss driving through them at night, so you pull over and get some sleep. I went through some towns with interesting names; Chugwater and Wamsutter, both in Wyoming. They don't sound as though they were derived from Native American words, but what do I know? My best guess for Wamsutter is that somebody from the Bronx moved to this town, kept on saying "Was the matter" with that distinct New York accent, and nobody could understand him. He said it all the time, and they got used to it, so after they finally hung him for being from the Bronx, in his memory, they named the town for his favorite phrase, albeit misspelled.

Oh, I have made an amazing discovery. I guess this tool was invented while I was in Iraq, but I was lucky enough to find it shortly after my return. It is a cellularized telephonic device. It conveys the spoken word, typed word, and pictures through the air, apparently by magic. I think everybody should have one of these things. I forgot an alarm clock on this trip. What do you know, but my cellularized telephonic device has a built-in alarm clock. And as I moved further west, from one time zone to another, I attempted to reset the time on the device, only to find that somehow, more than likely by magic, the time had reset itself. The device is far too small for gremlins to live inside, so it must be magic.

On the road again

I have to admit that I do miss posting random comments on the blog. Not enough, apparently, to post regularly, but enough to re-visit every now and then.

I am on the road to California to spend Thanksgiving with my sister. I'm at Day 1 of the traveling. My plan was to drive as far as I could and then look for a hotel. I am in Belle Fouche, South Dakota at the local Motel 6. This is the first hotel with an empty room since I went through Dickinson. I forgot to figure in a few things; oil fields, hunters and Friday. I figured it must to time to stop as I was imagining deer stepping onto the road. Yeah; good time to stop. I had the opportunity to feel like I was driving a pickup again. The other day I was stopped at a red light behind a Mini Coup. Sitting up a little bit straighter in the drivers seat of my PT Cruiser, I could see over the top of this skateboard on wheels. I felt like a giant.

The drive is going fast. First off, I've driven about 4 hours after dark, and that's got to be the way to travel across the bland prairie; you can't see it, so you can't be bored by it. But more importantly, I tried something I've been telling others about for years. I downloaded several books from iTunes and have been listening to them on the drive. It really does make the trip go faster. It's good while you're on the open road, but trying to concentrate on John Hodgman reading from his new book, "More Information than you Require" and concentrating on finding a hotel in town just won't work. Push pause; find hotel. It'll be there in the morning to keep on reading.

If the Universe has a sense of humor,...

There are times where I have to ask myself if the universe has a sense of humor, and some of those times, I hope not. For those of you who have not yet heard, there is a memorial cruise of the voyage of the Titanic scheduled for April 2012. They will be taking the same number of passengers, leaving at the same day, the same time, following the same route, serving the same meals and having some of the same activities as the original Titanic. I checked out the website, and the cheapest cabin is about $3,000. They will stop over the site of the sunken original and at 2:20 AM on the 12th of April, have a memorial service, and then they plan on actually arriving in New York City. Does anybody else think this is a bad idea? I mean, there is tempting fate, and there's sticking your head into the alligators mouth, with your head slathered in chicken fat. What's next, a re-enactment of the Hindenburg disaster, complete with an airship, filled with Hydrogen? How about an 'all-you-can-eat' buffet at the Donner Party Memorial Dinner? A Hide-and-Go-Seek Airplane race for the Amelia Erhart memorial flight? Hopefully the universe is looking the other way that week in 2012. I hate it when its sense of irony rears its ugly head.

What IS it all about?

It's a good thing that we have the unlimited storage space of the digital world for me ask this question. It may take a lifetime to answer it. As I don't really know how to start, I'll attack this question with observations on life. Perhaps that's where the answer lies. The only way to find out where the road goes is to drive there. Well, drive, walk, crawl, stroll, pub-crawl, bus, cab and then back to driving.

Speaking of driving, the driving is getting easier. Thank goodness for cruise control. If I didn't have the ability to let the car keep the speed, I'd be moving down the highway at about 45 miles per hour. Whereas the driving is ok, the parking isn't. In the past two weeks, the number of times I have lost my car in a parking lot is becoming embarrasing. It was easier last month. There weren't all that many vehicles, and all of them were larger than my PT Cruiser. At least I have not been forced to use the "horn" button on the remote to locate it. Maybe I need a flag on the radio antenna, or a dirtier car?