Spent an hour today sitting in my car with Hippo and Katie in the parking lot of the apartment. Sure, you are saying, you just wanted to listen to the radio or something. Nope. Wasn’t even enjoying the spring air that was in the area of 30 degrees this afternoon. We were outside because some total douche decided to attempt to burn our house down. Not kidding. Somebody lit a fire in our laundry room. Thank god they sucked at it and that we were home to get safely to the car before anything but a plastic-y burning smell. We had a fire truck, 3-4 supplementary fire vehicles and two cop cars in the parking lot, in addition to the 20 or so people smoking outside the building. Two guys, who you normally would not have thought to be upright citizens taking the public good into their own hands to assist the forces of law, followed some d00d who ran from the building and took some pictures of him. Good job by those guys. The cops will hopefully track him down so I don’t spend every weekend that I am out of town worried about the well being of the apartment. Anyway, that was what I did with the end of my workday.
Back to the weekend: Saturday was free for me most of the afternoon, but Katie spent all her time getting her makeup and hair done all pretty style. She, and all the other ladies involved, looked very very nice, which I know since I drove a couple over to Forepaugh’s for pictures. Afterwards I went back to watch the minute amount of basketball that this wedding/job interview/plane flight allowed me to watch and get ready for the festivities. The wedding was nice, small, and tasty (if I had to use three adjectives to describe it…which I do). I hadn’t been in the restaurant for years (though, as I may have mentioned, I went to prom there) but since it hasn’t changed much since the early 1900s, its no surprise that it was fundamentally the same since mid 1998. The service was well written and performed, the appetizers uber-nummy (among my favorite new adjectives), and dinner was great. I didn’t get to eat the best thing on the menu, seeing as the wedding was smack dab in the middle of the Lenten no-red meat season, but thankfully I have had it before. Cake, which I was initially suspicious of given the word “raspberry” in its description, turned out to be fabulous. It was more of a pinkish butter cream inside with white butter cream outside. Yum. This is not even to mention the good times and good fun. Got to see Pete and Meg, talk to Dave and Amy. Natalie and Matt both looked great, seemed to have fun, and had nice things to say. Katie gave a quality toast as well, I believe the only one that did not mention either someone falling off a bike or drinking to excess.
We leave for the NDT tomorrow, so maybe I will cut some cards or something rather than just blog. Hippo sez I should scratch both card cutting and blogging and instead concentrate on waving feathers, bubbles, or ribbons in various intriguing ways. Persians always win, I guess.
Peace,
MB-K
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
I Remember All My Life, Raining Down as Cold as Butt
I really only get the legitimate chance to blog when I’m watching Idol these days. At least that’s my excuse, given as I was legitimately sick last week when doing so. Doesn’t explain it away I suppose, but it’s a reason enough to not have updated in many days. Katie left on a flight that was delayed by the extraordinarily rapidly declining quality of service on Northwest Airlines. By delayed I mean she got bumped to a U.S. Airways flight because the Northwest one was cancelled due to a lack of hours for the crew. That is freaking insane, notably, that you are just not doing an entire day of flights cuz your management is so poor that you cannot pay even a skeleton crew to get the bags up. It doesn’t get much better when you are dismissed by their gate agents and left hungry or poor (since the freaking “Fruit and Nut” snack costs a dollar, seriously, I know we could potentially say this about anything, but the dude(tte)s at the top can’t afford a couple bucks a year to get me the 2 cents per package pretzels). It’s just sad to see an airline I associate so strongly with Minnesota business and have so many friends/family members employed with, take such a nosedive. NWA makes Delta look like Eos.
Between that point and my own departure Thursday morning, I got really sick, rested, wrote 5-6 pages, watched the season premiere of The Sopranos, caught up on all my non-reality TV, prepared a lesson plan for a job interview, and got at least somewhat better again. Renee came to stay with Hippo for the weekend, so at least she can pretend there is a streak of continuity in her family’s travel schedule. I, meanwhile, arrived to the first real snow I have seen on the ground all year and was awaited by Katie, who herself had spent 35 odd minutes in the “return to terminal” driveway.
I watched shockingly little basketball this weekend, which was painful considering my usual track record with regard to opening weekends of the NCAA tournament. I didn’t lose any of my final four picks in the first round, but it doesn’t mean very much to me since I saw at best 12-14 games all weekend. Thursday was running around doing Katie related stuff for the most part, including shopping for a ridiculous concoction of items at the grocery store, and setting up for a bridal shower thing I was not technically involved in.
Spent that night chilling with a good part of the old crew, though I had to get up early for a job interview. Did that thing, nailed it, if I do say so myself (more later if it ever pans out) and went to pick Tom up at the Humphrey Terminal of the MSP International Airport.
Some context: the Humphrey Terminal is like the bastard stepchild to the Lindbergh Terminal. I had not been there in years; it was essentially the storehouse for ridiculous little airlines which had like 2 flights a day. I have picked people up there when they fly in on the regional thingies like Midwest Express and I flew out of there when I went on the cruise with my fam. It used to look far more like a bus terminal than an airport, there was one baggage claim, maybe two, the parking lot was just a big fenced in area past the building, and I think the snack bar was on par with what you might find at a Rosemount JV Hockey game, minus the SuperRopes. It is now, essentially, a miniature version of the Lindbergh Terminal, with enormously oversized parking structure and, without question, the absolute worst “Return to Terminal” system in history. If you exit the pick up area, which you freaking have to of course, cuz the damn airport cops force you (seriously, airport cops are arguably now the worst abusers of their miniscule “move it along” authority that exist, even the robocops in my high school exaggerated their power to a smaller degree than these pricks. What, exactly, is the need to make me drive around the building? If I seriously wanted to do something negative to the airport, how long do you think I would need to do it. “I have this device here, it does something very dangerous, but it needs to be parked against the curb for 53 seconds to activate…” I understand that if you let people freaking park there at 5 on a Friday it becomes unusable, but when there are giant 40 foot gaps of space between the 4-5 cars that are waiting to pick people up at 9:30 pm on a lazy Sunday night, do you have to give me this Federal Aviation Guidelines bullshit), in that situation you have to cross literally 3 stoplights, including at least one that seems to serve approximately 2 cars per decade. That’s not even to mention that each of your 3 merges is from the most awkward angle possible and you have to go over the light rail track. It takes 10 minutes in all seriousness. You would be better off parking at Ikea.
We had dinner with my dad and it was prolly the best dinner he has ever cooked. It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all, and if the Irish can’t belt out some corned beef and cabbage what can they do. The cabbage mixture had potatoes, onions, cabbage, and bacon, all braised to perfection. That’s actually a really simple thing to mess up, cuz overcooked cabbage will sulfur up your house as hard as the day is long. The being out and about portion of our day ended with a stop at the rehearsal party, where Katie got some hella glam gifts and good times were shared by all. I, for my part, most enjoyed playing with the kitties which wandered in triplicate throughout the festivities. Just when one cat was sick of your shtick, you could count on another one to wander by who might think that a stick tapped against the window is the awesomest thing ever. It’s a hard opinion to dispute, when you really get down to it. Three hella cute cats would just be too much for me, I wouldn’t know who to meow at or when to do it. For one evening though it’s the perfect amount.
I will pick up at Saturday morning when I return, with all luck, sometime before this weekend’s NDT. In the meantime Hippo insists that I spend more time tapping sticks against windows for her than I do discussing doing so for hypothetical cats.
Peace,
MB-K
Between that point and my own departure Thursday morning, I got really sick, rested, wrote 5-6 pages, watched the season premiere of The Sopranos, caught up on all my non-reality TV, prepared a lesson plan for a job interview, and got at least somewhat better again. Renee came to stay with Hippo for the weekend, so at least she can pretend there is a streak of continuity in her family’s travel schedule. I, meanwhile, arrived to the first real snow I have seen on the ground all year and was awaited by Katie, who herself had spent 35 odd minutes in the “return to terminal” driveway.
I watched shockingly little basketball this weekend, which was painful considering my usual track record with regard to opening weekends of the NCAA tournament. I didn’t lose any of my final four picks in the first round, but it doesn’t mean very much to me since I saw at best 12-14 games all weekend. Thursday was running around doing Katie related stuff for the most part, including shopping for a ridiculous concoction of items at the grocery store, and setting up for a bridal shower thing I was not technically involved in.
Spent that night chilling with a good part of the old crew, though I had to get up early for a job interview. Did that thing, nailed it, if I do say so myself (more later if it ever pans out) and went to pick Tom up at the Humphrey Terminal of the MSP International Airport.
Some context: the Humphrey Terminal is like the bastard stepchild to the Lindbergh Terminal. I had not been there in years; it was essentially the storehouse for ridiculous little airlines which had like 2 flights a day. I have picked people up there when they fly in on the regional thingies like Midwest Express and I flew out of there when I went on the cruise with my fam. It used to look far more like a bus terminal than an airport, there was one baggage claim, maybe two, the parking lot was just a big fenced in area past the building, and I think the snack bar was on par with what you might find at a Rosemount JV Hockey game, minus the SuperRopes. It is now, essentially, a miniature version of the Lindbergh Terminal, with enormously oversized parking structure and, without question, the absolute worst “Return to Terminal” system in history. If you exit the pick up area, which you freaking have to of course, cuz the damn airport cops force you (seriously, airport cops are arguably now the worst abusers of their miniscule “move it along” authority that exist, even the robocops in my high school exaggerated their power to a smaller degree than these pricks. What, exactly, is the need to make me drive around the building? If I seriously wanted to do something negative to the airport, how long do you think I would need to do it. “I have this device here, it does something very dangerous, but it needs to be parked against the curb for 53 seconds to activate…” I understand that if you let people freaking park there at 5 on a Friday it becomes unusable, but when there are giant 40 foot gaps of space between the 4-5 cars that are waiting to pick people up at 9:30 pm on a lazy Sunday night, do you have to give me this Federal Aviation Guidelines bullshit), in that situation you have to cross literally 3 stoplights, including at least one that seems to serve approximately 2 cars per decade. That’s not even to mention that each of your 3 merges is from the most awkward angle possible and you have to go over the light rail track. It takes 10 minutes in all seriousness. You would be better off parking at Ikea.
We had dinner with my dad and it was prolly the best dinner he has ever cooked. It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all, and if the Irish can’t belt out some corned beef and cabbage what can they do. The cabbage mixture had potatoes, onions, cabbage, and bacon, all braised to perfection. That’s actually a really simple thing to mess up, cuz overcooked cabbage will sulfur up your house as hard as the day is long. The being out and about portion of our day ended with a stop at the rehearsal party, where Katie got some hella glam gifts and good times were shared by all. I, for my part, most enjoyed playing with the kitties which wandered in triplicate throughout the festivities. Just when one cat was sick of your shtick, you could count on another one to wander by who might think that a stick tapped against the window is the awesomest thing ever. It’s a hard opinion to dispute, when you really get down to it. Three hella cute cats would just be too much for me, I wouldn’t know who to meow at or when to do it. For one evening though it’s the perfect amount.
I will pick up at Saturday morning when I return, with all luck, sometime before this weekend’s NDT. In the meantime Hippo insists that I spend more time tapping sticks against windows for her than I do discussing doing so for hypothetical cats.
Peace,
MB-K
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Its Inevitable, Its a Fact That We're Gonna Get Down To It, So Tell Me, Why Can't I Breathe, Whenever I Think About Butt
We went to the Men’s Warehouse yesterday to buy a suit. Suits are expensive, though admittedly, they are also pretty cool. I don’t have any intention of going all Barney on the bit and wearing suits everywhere I go, but I suppose it is useful to have around, since I believe I will have two opportunities to wear it just this weekend.
I feel, in at least a couple respects, free as a parrot. That is, its not like I don’t have things to do, I’m still on a perch in somebody’s house, but at least I’ve got the freedom to fly, or just squawk for crackers or peanuts or something. This analogy sucks. Point is, its Spring Break, I have taken the period until we return from Spring Break off of debate work, and we are returning to Minnesota this weekend. I still have writing to do, papers to grade, and a job interview this upcoming Friday. Nonetheless, just not having to go into class on Tuesday and Thursday adds a couple hours sleep and a couple hours work time to my week. Katie has like 5 days in the TC but I will only be in town for 3. I’m a little worried that I won’t have the chance to see everyone in my family, much less all my friends, but I think the schedule is falling into place. It kills me that I won’t always have the time to accommodate the schedule of the first rounds of the tournament, but I guess I will get by. My flight should arrive at MSP before the games begin, so I will get most of Thursday’s action and a large part of the later Friday schedule.
I have been caught up in the past couple of days in what I would like to call a “Wikipedia hole.” Apparently some wad named Jcroker beat me to the use of the term, but I think I lost 10 minutes in the middle of a sentence on Friday progressing from OK Soda, to Surge, to urban legends, to urban legends about sharks, to an article about sharks. Between YouTube and Wikipedia, my non-blog reading leisure time is pretty well full up.
Anyway, I went to my Wiki friend this afternoon in an attempt to explain a reference on Numb3rs to the “P Versus NP” problem. I had heard of it before, at least I thought I had, but my guess is that it was simply based on prior references to the same thing on the show. Still, I think that crazy math stuff makes for good reading, so I did so. Another thing I could put on the list of things I could potentially do if I were ridiculously rich and bored is learn some serious math, cuz even though it was back in high school I was hella good at the mathematicos. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t solve one of the Millennium Problems, but its something to do. Interesting article about this problem as embodied in Minesweeper and an explanation that made no sense to me whatsoever about “simply connected bodies.” Thank God that someone could finally explain why an apple was different from a doughnut.
My guess is I’ve mentioned the fact that I don’t get the whole regional differences in Girl Scout cookie naming. Nonetheless, even if you called them Crappidy-Crappidos I would love Samoas more than life itself. I mean, I think Samoa is objectively a better name than Caramel deLites, especially with that horrible capitalization work. We picked up a box yesterday at the mall, so I will no longer be reliant on debate tournaments and other people’s rents for my fix. At least for a couple days.
Hippo does not understand what the big deal is about the cookies or P vs. NP, insofar as neither one is likely to result in her getting a dish of kitty chow any faster. She suggests instead that we focus on the problem of developing an algorithm which predicts how much tuna she wants and when she wants it. A Meow-lennium Problem perhaps?
Peace,
MB-K
I feel, in at least a couple respects, free as a parrot. That is, its not like I don’t have things to do, I’m still on a perch in somebody’s house, but at least I’ve got the freedom to fly, or just squawk for crackers or peanuts or something. This analogy sucks. Point is, its Spring Break, I have taken the period until we return from Spring Break off of debate work, and we are returning to Minnesota this weekend. I still have writing to do, papers to grade, and a job interview this upcoming Friday. Nonetheless, just not having to go into class on Tuesday and Thursday adds a couple hours sleep and a couple hours work time to my week. Katie has like 5 days in the TC but I will only be in town for 3. I’m a little worried that I won’t have the chance to see everyone in my family, much less all my friends, but I think the schedule is falling into place. It kills me that I won’t always have the time to accommodate the schedule of the first rounds of the tournament, but I guess I will get by. My flight should arrive at MSP before the games begin, so I will get most of Thursday’s action and a large part of the later Friday schedule.
I have been caught up in the past couple of days in what I would like to call a “Wikipedia hole.” Apparently some wad named Jcroker beat me to the use of the term, but I think I lost 10 minutes in the middle of a sentence on Friday progressing from OK Soda, to Surge, to urban legends, to urban legends about sharks, to an article about sharks. Between YouTube and Wikipedia, my non-blog reading leisure time is pretty well full up.
Anyway, I went to my Wiki friend this afternoon in an attempt to explain a reference on Numb3rs to the “P Versus NP” problem. I had heard of it before, at least I thought I had, but my guess is that it was simply based on prior references to the same thing on the show. Still, I think that crazy math stuff makes for good reading, so I did so. Another thing I could put on the list of things I could potentially do if I were ridiculously rich and bored is learn some serious math, cuz even though it was back in high school I was hella good at the mathematicos. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t solve one of the Millennium Problems, but its something to do. Interesting article about this problem as embodied in Minesweeper and an explanation that made no sense to me whatsoever about “simply connected bodies.” Thank God that someone could finally explain why an apple was different from a doughnut.
My guess is I’ve mentioned the fact that I don’t get the whole regional differences in Girl Scout cookie naming. Nonetheless, even if you called them Crappidy-Crappidos I would love Samoas more than life itself. I mean, I think Samoa is objectively a better name than Caramel deLites, especially with that horrible capitalization work. We picked up a box yesterday at the mall, so I will no longer be reliant on debate tournaments and other people’s rents for my fix. At least for a couple days.
Hippo does not understand what the big deal is about the cookies or P vs. NP, insofar as neither one is likely to result in her getting a dish of kitty chow any faster. She suggests instead that we focus on the problem of developing an algorithm which predicts how much tuna she wants and when she wants it. A Meow-lennium Problem perhaps?
Peace,
MB-K
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
A Dime's A Nickel and a Nickel's None, I Throw Myself Into the Sunday Butt
We are finally catching up, in all the respects which one can catch up. We are regaining some space on the DVR, we are progressing towards cooking and eating real food again, and we have gotten some rest and back to work. We were so busy over this last weekend, winning the JV national tournament and judging 10 debates in 56 hours or so. The tournament was in West Virginia, the drive down there kinda sucked, it went a little too late on Friday night, but I got a couple debates off on Saturday at least. I also won the Butt Award, which is so awesome I cannot even convey it. Its not that I particularly care about awards, but more so that I just really want an excuse to put butt on my resume. We had some really strong performances and we had some tough weekends as well, but a good performance overall that jacked us up to the top 5 in CEDA and NDT rankings. Too many stairs on the Mountaineer campus and I didn’t get to meet Pittsnogle, but I did have dinner at Qdoba. I believe it was the first time I have ever eaten at Qdoba sober (feel free to read that as “at Qdoba, soba” if it makes you happy) since most of my experiences were at the State Street branch in Madison.
On the way to West Virginia we got off the highway in the early part of Pennsylvania and turned in the direction which, or so the sign informed us at least, contained a McDonald’s, Wendys, Burger King, etc. I didn’t just guess this, it was on the freaking official highway sign of food available off that exit. It took us at least 5 minutes to get to that Burger King and I was pissed. There needs to some sort of regulation as to what counts as close enough to the highway to be listed on the exit sign. I’m sure that its just whoever is willing to cough up the highway sponsorship money, but I felt deceived. If you are ever driving through Edinboro, PA, I do not suggest trying to find the Burger King, unless you are trying to grab a late night bite after a long evening at Nick’s Place or are staying at the Season’s Inn.
One of the girls on ANTM was from Buffalo and graduated from the University of Rochester. I say this because they showed a picture of her from graduation with the sign from Bausch and Lomb hall obviously in the background. She didn’t make the cut of course, but it was a good kick off for this season. No one from Minnesota though, so I’m not sure who my favorite is yet. Maybe one of them will be gay or become Shanthrax/Norelle-ish after the makeover, cuz that would be hawt. Janice Dickinson was awesome tonight, the show is just not as good without her every week. Still, tonight was a great day for reality TV, cuz the d00ds performed an especially good batch of tunes on Idol. I keep going back and forth as to whether I like Taylor Hicks or Chris Daughtry better. I’m all about Mandisa as far as the ladies go, though Katharine McPhee(ver) isn’t far behind. I think, unfortunately, that Mandisa is prolly too big to get even as far as Kimberly Locke did, though the same could be said of Taylor’s age. I hope I’m wrong about what people will or will not vote for. With the exception of Reuben Studdard no one of any size has really gone anywhere on Idol, so its only marginally better than ANTM itself. Both of them get smoked by The Biggest Loser, since it seems like the show starts off everytime with almost all enormously fat people but only the skinniest ones make it through. Judging must be atrocious.
How the hell do I change the banner thing at the top of my blog? I want a cool photo one like Frankie or Ex-Millenial Girl. Hippo would prolly get one too, but I have no idea where this goes in the code. Hopefully the “off-season” that is so fast approaching will give me some time to develop stuff like that. Hippo says that if we would just leave our computers home while we were out of town she would figure it out, but she’s not gonna stay up all night when we’re actually here. Meow-standable.
Peace,
MB-K
On the way to West Virginia we got off the highway in the early part of Pennsylvania and turned in the direction which, or so the sign informed us at least, contained a McDonald’s, Wendys, Burger King, etc. I didn’t just guess this, it was on the freaking official highway sign of food available off that exit. It took us at least 5 minutes to get to that Burger King and I was pissed. There needs to some sort of regulation as to what counts as close enough to the highway to be listed on the exit sign. I’m sure that its just whoever is willing to cough up the highway sponsorship money, but I felt deceived. If you are ever driving through Edinboro, PA, I do not suggest trying to find the Burger King, unless you are trying to grab a late night bite after a long evening at Nick’s Place or are staying at the Season’s Inn.
One of the girls on ANTM was from Buffalo and graduated from the University of Rochester. I say this because they showed a picture of her from graduation with the sign from Bausch and Lomb hall obviously in the background. She didn’t make the cut of course, but it was a good kick off for this season. No one from Minnesota though, so I’m not sure who my favorite is yet. Maybe one of them will be gay or become Shanthrax/Norelle-ish after the makeover, cuz that would be hawt. Janice Dickinson was awesome tonight, the show is just not as good without her every week. Still, tonight was a great day for reality TV, cuz the d00ds performed an especially good batch of tunes on Idol. I keep going back and forth as to whether I like Taylor Hicks or Chris Daughtry better. I’m all about Mandisa as far as the ladies go, though Katharine McPhee(ver) isn’t far behind. I think, unfortunately, that Mandisa is prolly too big to get even as far as Kimberly Locke did, though the same could be said of Taylor’s age. I hope I’m wrong about what people will or will not vote for. With the exception of Reuben Studdard no one of any size has really gone anywhere on Idol, so its only marginally better than ANTM itself. Both of them get smoked by The Biggest Loser, since it seems like the show starts off everytime with almost all enormously fat people but only the skinniest ones make it through. Judging must be atrocious.
How the hell do I change the banner thing at the top of my blog? I want a cool photo one like Frankie or Ex-Millenial Girl. Hippo would prolly get one too, but I have no idea where this goes in the code. Hopefully the “off-season” that is so fast approaching will give me some time to develop stuff like that. Hippo says that if we would just leave our computers home while we were out of town she would figure it out, but she’s not gonna stay up all night when we’re actually here. Meow-standable.
Peace,
MB-K
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)