No SHOUT-OUTS!
(with apologies to the classic movie "friday")
Super Happy "Where You Been?!!" Shout-out to the ever lovely Stacy H. of Washington, DC. the good friend from freshman year is still co'chillin' in the foreign service gig and thanks to super-frosh friend Nara W. of Los Angeles, CA, got her back in touch. couldn't be more thrilled. especially b/c i haven't had a good giggle from thinking about the PhiPsi formal where she was totally determined to snag my big brother (and frat president). who was gay. though maybe not out at the time. anyhow, they're both super excellent people in that story and as he was nominated for a Tony (how could Stacy not know?!!!) and she's still mingling with Mancunians, i'd say we all turned out allright.
Big Ups to My Ipod. No, really. I've been listening to Pandora.com for quite a while now (try it and you'll see the OCD come through) but nothing can compare to what was, until i switched over to Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, nearly 37 uninteruppted hours of Beatles. I had forgotten the love.
Special Peace and Love out to Jason V. of Los Angeles, CA. Senior roommate and someone who I can always remember from any Trojan Knight Party, gave me the shout-out to invite me to a little party he's having tonight. Too bad I'm not near Bridgeport, CT. But if you are, and wouldn't mind seeing him film some segments for Girls Gone Wild, let me know and i'll hook you up. Seriously. Though I didn't have it in my heart to tell him that the girls of Bridgeport might not make it off the cutting room floor. No, seriously.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE PROUD UPS! to my boy the good Dr. Carr of Guam and clan. passing the boards in st.louis was just the start of it! the girls are looking grander by the day and it seems the island life is passing muster. which i knew.
HAPPY PEACE OUT TO THE LOCAL JUSTICES OF THE PEACE! today i was supposed to do jury duty in connecticut. but in fortunates of fortunates, my notice arrived on the same day as my excused note. NICE!
happy weekend! beat the cougars! --goose
Friday, September 29, 2006
numerology, OCD, and the need for a second wal-mart
dearest all-
like the final box needing unpacking or the last book needing shelving, i can (almost) declare that i have moved in to my graduate life in toto. those dark early days in late august where i slept on a futon matress on the floor and had no place for anything except the pockets of floorspace around said futon are long gone. the unpacking should be done this weekend (i still have a box of books and my piano to get in place) amid the shouts and murmurs of the usc game, two big GIS projects, and one HUGE methodological paper that i have promised will be ready monday. and in the even greater scheme of displaying my permanence to college station, i've gone and gotten texas plates for my car, claus.
a quick backstory: my car is claus. he is a 2003 ocean blue bmw 325xi with nice leather interior and has been the sundance kid to my butch cassidy for my 2 big cross-country jaunts in 2003 and 2004. he is claus (rhymes with house) because he purrs like the little kitten claus i semi-adopted when i lived in the turks and caicos islands who would sleep on my chest every so often. here in the land of american-made and big trucks (and i mean BIG as in: the djork's truck is so big that it hangs over every boundary of their parking space; both lines and out into traffic - which of course leads to the corrolary known by several of my peers as "The Mickey Mouse Corollary". it might actually be more of a scientifically-tested Theory (as opposed to how nutjob "scientific creationists" belittle Darwin by using the other, less concrete definition of theory to try and push their child's education back into the 18th century) or it might even be a Law. But we call it a Corollary, mainly because a Corollary is defined to be "a natural consequence, or result." we dont' know if the large truck is the impetus of the MMC or if something in the owner's physiology predisposes them to purchase outlandishly large vehicles. we do know that the MMC is as true as the premise that you'll only spill red wine on fancy white clothes. and, before i pull back to the story as writ, i'd like to point out to the nay-noobers out there that claus was only discovered from a newspaper profile and i discovered the sticker price of a claus was the same (actually a tad less) than the two other cars i was considering - a chevy impala (yo yo yo! y'allz!) and a subaru wrx. yep, that's right. i almost bought an impala. and given that in the two years i drove claus exclusively, i managed to pile on 41,000 miles, i think that i have demostrated the appropriateness of the vehicle with the owner...
anyhow, not much of a quick backstory, but i got in a tad deeper than i thought i would. it's friday. what can you do? so... today i was determined to get claus registered as a bonafide vehicle in the state of texas. this requires 2 things: getting an emissions testing, and turning over your connecticut registration for a texas one. the third item (drivers' license) was ultimately a monumental failure, and i won't bore you with the details save the delicious note that i couldn't get a texas license because i had no proof of my social security number. my dog, rowan, ate the card way back in like january of 2005. seriously. was my passport a viable alternative? nope. how about my student id? nope. how about my virgin islands' health card (for bartending) that actually has my SSN on it? nope. stupid republicans are disenfranchising the masses, i swear.
so at 8am, i headed over to school to print out my texas insurance cards. return trip home was about an hour. i call the emissions people and, using maps.com or maybe the ridiculously bad excite.maps page (and you know this people!) i wrote out directions. which were wrong. long story short: it took 1.5 hours and 48 miles to get to the emissions test. to diagram a tale of lostness that really can't be described with the local landmarks (since noone knows them), instead, here's a mental image. draw a rectangle. we'll call each side by compass names: north, east, south, west. place a star on the northwest corner (the emissions testing center). place a circle midway up the east side. that's home. how does one get there quickly? well, that should be obvious.
here's what i did. drove down the east line towards the southeast nexus. made another square below square 1 (you may want to number your squares), and drove down that east line too. at that southeast corner, turn and drive along the south line towards the west line of square 2. turn up and drive the west line ALMOST all the way to where the west line of square 2 meets the southwest corner of square 1. turn around after calling the guy and he says his place is near the walmart (let's place a W on square 3 somewhere near the northeast corner, which lies adjacent and in line with the eastern edge of square 2.) drive back West-2 and turn left and drive along the South-2 towards East-2 (where square 2 meets Square 3). continue driving along South into square 3. get to the W where the walmart is represented. you should now be in square 3 at the northeast corner. look for a Napa Auto Parts while driving on North-3 towards W3/E2. don't find a Napa. Give up. Head back to home. Now draw a Square 4, which lies above and to the right of the northeast corner of square 1 (think of how squares line up along diagonals if you're a bishop in chess). pretend there's a short-cut through that empty space between Sq1 and Sq4. drive through it. You're now on the south line of Sq4. drive towards East4. Realize that you're in the wrong direction. Turn around at GREAT PERIL since texas likes highways that aren't really highways, but have streetlights and stuff and merging lanes that disappear and suddenly on-coming traffic lanes when you take an exit ramp. how i was in the wrong lane of traffic, i'll never figure out. it was amazing. take exit. go up offramp. come to stop at light. while waiting to turn left (and go over neo-highway and get back on and head the other direction), discover a trucker is honking at you to get back on the right side of the road...
anyhow, accident avoided, get back on Sq4 and head towards W4 along S4. When you get there, realize that you're RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED (well, like 3 blocks from home). Draw Square 5, which sits ontop of Sq.1 and to the west of Sq.4. You'll now notice that, if you continue driving west along Sq5, that the SW corner of Sq5 just happens to match the little star in the NW corner of Sq.1.
congratulations! you've made it. now pay the man $13.50 for the test that took 1 minute. and notice on your way out that there's a second wal-mart in town.
the rest of the day was pretty unspectacular. apart from the wrong turn after i got my car registered that took me through Da'Hood and by the local penitentary (sorry, claus!), i'm now a texas driver. which brings me to the point:
my license plate sucks. MLPSUX.
i can't be any more clear in this: texas plate 436-PFF needs to go. and that is where you come in.
there's an ability to "post comment" on my ramblings. i'm looking for voters.
now, i've done this in the past, specifically when i first got claus, but now i need to do it. i can't drive around with a car that reads "puff" or "piff". how can i establish MMC on other drivers? i have no authority in 436-PFF.
for those who know my inner workings in slightly more detail than i'd like to divulge, you know my nearly OCD with numbers. i'm the boy that counted the 1840 steps from my house to fred's shanty. i'm the one who would only walk on gray tiles at school on test days. i don't step on cracks but know that, when i'm late for class (this was at USC) that it was exactly 4 steps on each concrete slab down trousdale, and then 4 alternating with 3 when i got close to mudd chemistry building. my phone numbers are memorized in the most bizzare manner ever (take, for example, my brother's: the year before dad graduated highschool-how many more years it took to graduate - the class of submarine that the hg rickover is - the year shamus graduated highschool, the year before my dad's graduation again. and my ct license plate was similarly understood by this framework: 757-RXU. a 757 is a big plane that goes fast. RX is medicine. U is You. so claus could be read as "going far and fast is good for you." 436-PFF is???
so here are the potentials for a plate. the winning plate will be chosen (at only $30!!!) and will replace the hideousness that is 436-PFF. its a 6-letter max her ein texass. explanations follow:
PLOTOR - "P. lotor"- the original and still a fave. it's the genus/species of my favorite animal: the raccoon.
LUTJNS - "Lutjanus" - the genus for snapper fish, supposedly something i'm studying. hard to get the "janus" sound though, and definitely can't have ANUS anywhere...
SRRNID - "Serranid" - the family name for groupers.
GO2USC - "Go To USC" - clear enough.
USC4ME - "USC For Me" - clear enough.
SCYALE - "SC - Yale" - if it was 7 letters, it'd be SC2Yale, but there you go. disenfranchisement, man. disenfranchisement.
CRUXAN - "Crucian" - from St. Croix. like it, but cops might not? or people'd go "CRUX?" i never said texans were smart.
STX4ME - "St.Croix for me". doubt anyone beyond T3 and other pilots would get the airport code. and as it turns out, i don't want people thinking i like sticks. or their equivalents.
CLAUS - "Claus". like it, but would people pronounce it "clause"? poor poor claus.
ROWAN - "Rowan". like it, but my dog is already named. and my car is named after a cat...
DEALER'SCHOICE - "you make one up". i think that those are best.
ok: it's friday night, nearly 8pm here, we get paid in a few days, so HURRAY! HURRAY FOR BEER!
--goose
Bonus Thought: the best i got for 436-PFF is that a size 36 is 4 sizes bigger than i would ever want to be (though the 33 is okay since it seems to be holding steady these days), and that, should i gain 4 size to a 36, i'd make a nice PFF noise when i sat.
like the final box needing unpacking or the last book needing shelving, i can (almost) declare that i have moved in to my graduate life in toto. those dark early days in late august where i slept on a futon matress on the floor and had no place for anything except the pockets of floorspace around said futon are long gone. the unpacking should be done this weekend (i still have a box of books and my piano to get in place) amid the shouts and murmurs of the usc game, two big GIS projects, and one HUGE methodological paper that i have promised will be ready monday. and in the even greater scheme of displaying my permanence to college station, i've gone and gotten texas plates for my car, claus.
a quick backstory: my car is claus. he is a 2003 ocean blue bmw 325xi with nice leather interior and has been the sundance kid to my butch cassidy for my 2 big cross-country jaunts in 2003 and 2004. he is claus (rhymes with house) because he purrs like the little kitten claus i semi-adopted when i lived in the turks and caicos islands who would sleep on my chest every so often. here in the land of american-made and big trucks (and i mean BIG as in: the djork's truck is so big that it hangs over every boundary of their parking space; both lines and out into traffic - which of course leads to the corrolary known by several of my peers as "The Mickey Mouse Corollary". it might actually be more of a scientifically-tested Theory (as opposed to how nutjob "scientific creationists" belittle Darwin by using the other, less concrete definition of theory to try and push their child's education back into the 18th century) or it might even be a Law. But we call it a Corollary, mainly because a Corollary is defined to be "a natural consequence, or result." we dont' know if the large truck is the impetus of the MMC or if something in the owner's physiology predisposes them to purchase outlandishly large vehicles. we do know that the MMC is as true as the premise that you'll only spill red wine on fancy white clothes. and, before i pull back to the story as writ, i'd like to point out to the nay-noobers out there that claus was only discovered from a newspaper profile and i discovered the sticker price of a claus was the same (actually a tad less) than the two other cars i was considering - a chevy impala (yo yo yo! y'allz!) and a subaru wrx. yep, that's right. i almost bought an impala. and given that in the two years i drove claus exclusively, i managed to pile on 41,000 miles, i think that i have demostrated the appropriateness of the vehicle with the owner...
anyhow, not much of a quick backstory, but i got in a tad deeper than i thought i would. it's friday. what can you do? so... today i was determined to get claus registered as a bonafide vehicle in the state of texas. this requires 2 things: getting an emissions testing, and turning over your connecticut registration for a texas one. the third item (drivers' license) was ultimately a monumental failure, and i won't bore you with the details save the delicious note that i couldn't get a texas license because i had no proof of my social security number. my dog, rowan, ate the card way back in like january of 2005. seriously. was my passport a viable alternative? nope. how about my student id? nope. how about my virgin islands' health card (for bartending) that actually has my SSN on it? nope. stupid republicans are disenfranchising the masses, i swear.
so at 8am, i headed over to school to print out my texas insurance cards. return trip home was about an hour. i call the emissions people and, using maps.com or maybe the ridiculously bad excite.maps page (and you know this people!) i wrote out directions. which were wrong. long story short: it took 1.5 hours and 48 miles to get to the emissions test. to diagram a tale of lostness that really can't be described with the local landmarks (since noone knows them), instead, here's a mental image. draw a rectangle. we'll call each side by compass names: north, east, south, west. place a star on the northwest corner (the emissions testing center). place a circle midway up the east side. that's home. how does one get there quickly? well, that should be obvious.
here's what i did. drove down the east line towards the southeast nexus. made another square below square 1 (you may want to number your squares), and drove down that east line too. at that southeast corner, turn and drive along the south line towards the west line of square 2. turn up and drive the west line ALMOST all the way to where the west line of square 2 meets the southwest corner of square 1. turn around after calling the guy and he says his place is near the walmart (let's place a W on square 3 somewhere near the northeast corner, which lies adjacent and in line with the eastern edge of square 2.) drive back West-2 and turn left and drive along the South-2 towards East-2 (where square 2 meets Square 3). continue driving along South into square 3. get to the W where the walmart is represented. you should now be in square 3 at the northeast corner. look for a Napa Auto Parts while driving on North-3 towards W3/E2. don't find a Napa. Give up. Head back to home. Now draw a Square 4, which lies above and to the right of the northeast corner of square 1 (think of how squares line up along diagonals if you're a bishop in chess). pretend there's a short-cut through that empty space between Sq1 and Sq4. drive through it. You're now on the south line of Sq4. drive towards East4. Realize that you're in the wrong direction. Turn around at GREAT PERIL since texas likes highways that aren't really highways, but have streetlights and stuff and merging lanes that disappear and suddenly on-coming traffic lanes when you take an exit ramp. how i was in the wrong lane of traffic, i'll never figure out. it was amazing. take exit. go up offramp. come to stop at light. while waiting to turn left (and go over neo-highway and get back on and head the other direction), discover a trucker is honking at you to get back on the right side of the road...
anyhow, accident avoided, get back on Sq4 and head towards W4 along S4. When you get there, realize that you're RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED (well, like 3 blocks from home). Draw Square 5, which sits ontop of Sq.1 and to the west of Sq.4. You'll now notice that, if you continue driving west along Sq5, that the SW corner of Sq5 just happens to match the little star in the NW corner of Sq.1.
congratulations! you've made it. now pay the man $13.50 for the test that took 1 minute. and notice on your way out that there's a second wal-mart in town.
the rest of the day was pretty unspectacular. apart from the wrong turn after i got my car registered that took me through Da'Hood and by the local penitentary (sorry, claus!), i'm now a texas driver. which brings me to the point:
my license plate sucks. MLPSUX.
i can't be any more clear in this: texas plate 436-PFF needs to go. and that is where you come in.
there's an ability to "post comment" on my ramblings. i'm looking for voters.
now, i've done this in the past, specifically when i first got claus, but now i need to do it. i can't drive around with a car that reads "puff" or "piff". how can i establish MMC on other drivers? i have no authority in 436-PFF.
for those who know my inner workings in slightly more detail than i'd like to divulge, you know my nearly OCD with numbers. i'm the boy that counted the 1840 steps from my house to fred's shanty. i'm the one who would only walk on gray tiles at school on test days. i don't step on cracks but know that, when i'm late for class (this was at USC) that it was exactly 4 steps on each concrete slab down trousdale, and then 4 alternating with 3 when i got close to mudd chemistry building. my phone numbers are memorized in the most bizzare manner ever (take, for example, my brother's: the year before dad graduated highschool-how many more years it took to graduate - the class of submarine that the hg rickover is - the year shamus graduated highschool, the year before my dad's graduation again. and my ct license plate was similarly understood by this framework: 757-RXU. a 757 is a big plane that goes fast. RX is medicine. U is You. so claus could be read as "going far and fast is good for you." 436-PFF is???
so here are the potentials for a plate. the winning plate will be chosen (at only $30!!!) and will replace the hideousness that is 436-PFF. its a 6-letter max her ein texass. explanations follow:
PLOTOR - "P. lotor"- the original and still a fave. it's the genus/species of my favorite animal: the raccoon.
LUTJNS - "Lutjanus" - the genus for snapper fish, supposedly something i'm studying. hard to get the "janus" sound though, and definitely can't have ANUS anywhere...
SRRNID - "Serranid" - the family name for groupers.
GO2USC - "Go To USC" - clear enough.
USC4ME - "USC For Me" - clear enough.
SCYALE - "SC - Yale" - if it was 7 letters, it'd be SC2Yale, but there you go. disenfranchisement, man. disenfranchisement.
CRUXAN - "Crucian" - from St. Croix. like it, but cops might not? or people'd go "CRUX?" i never said texans were smart.
STX4ME - "St.Croix for me". doubt anyone beyond T3 and other pilots would get the airport code. and as it turns out, i don't want people thinking i like sticks. or their equivalents.
CLAUS - "Claus". like it, but would people pronounce it "clause"? poor poor claus.
ROWAN - "Rowan". like it, but my dog is already named. and my car is named after a cat...
DEALER'SCHOICE - "you make one up". i think that those are best.
ok: it's friday night, nearly 8pm here, we get paid in a few days, so HURRAY! HURRAY FOR BEER!
--goose
Bonus Thought: the best i got for 436-PFF is that a size 36 is 4 sizes bigger than i would ever want to be (though the 33 is okay since it seems to be holding steady these days), and that, should i gain 4 size to a 36, i'd make a nice PFF noise when i sat.
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