I like this airport for the following reasons:

1. The alcove of secret free WiFi. Which is barely functional at the moment, so maybe they figured out how to block it?

2. The paper airplanes in the tunnels :D

3. Banjoe’s Cafe. It’s not on everyone’s beaten path, but if you find it, it’s worth the walk. I’m currently enjoying their Thai chicken sandwich. Yum! And I think they gave me a whole by accident instead of a half. I should probably walk back over there and return it, but… I think not. They’d probably have to throw it away anyway. Or some such rationalization.

I haven’t seen my wif in holy cow a really long time (about 2 months? I’ll have to check), and now it’s time for the summer of togetherness that we tend to have every summer around this time. It’s like a tradition, at this point.

I’m currently leeching WiFi from Presidents Club in the Secret Alcove of Free WiFi, in Concourse C. I’ll make a map of it sometime, because it would be greedy to keep it to myself. It’s way awesome for three reasons: (1) free WiFi in an airport that charges for regular wireless (2) there’s an outlet right here for plugging in (3) it’s sneaky because it doesn’t look like you’re anywhere near a Presidents Club (I think the signal is coming through their back wall or somesuch).

Travel: Better than average. I shall count the ways:

1. I did not have to leave stupid early this time. 2 days after Memorial Day, apparently even the 10:40 a.m. flights are cheap.
2. Both of my monstrously heavy bags (bag A: clothes and whatnot; bag B: camping equipment) came in at just a pound or so under $50, so I only had the one bag charge. I can’t  believe I’m excited about this. How quickly we get used to oppression…
3. MFE-IAH flight –> Exit Row! At check-in, I used the kiosk to look at my seat assignments and was surprised to find previously-unavailable exit row seats! The ticket agent told me that they don’t let people have exit row seats until they’re physically present. I’ll be checking from now on.
4. In Houston, I had a sandwich. Did I pay $8 for it? Yes. Was it one of the best turkey-on-wheat sandwiches ever? Also yes. Tender, non-processed turkey, swiss cheese melted over it, delicious sliced high-quality yummy bread… I want another one.
5. Hidden Alcove of Secret Free Internet!
6. For the flight from here to BUF: Exit Row!

I realize things can turn ugly at a moment’s notice with any kind of travel; your hopes and expectations are focused and singular, and they are the reason for all aspects of your situation, at all points in time during the trip; maybe that’s why they’re so fragile. However, if things get crappy, I’ll try to remember the good times (i.e., now).

It has been a lovely few days for web joy.

1. If you only watch one video today, this should be it. Some sheep farmers strap LED vests to their sheep, then herd them all over a hillside at night, making awesome animated art! SQUEEEEE!

2. ….and a great picture of a boy holding a cat almost as big as him.

3. The recipe for the awesome (and pretty easy) whole wheat bread I made yesterday. It’s delicious.

4. An exam (I hope not fake) and the prof’s email (also I hope not fake, but who knows) wherein the student answered “C” to every test, apparently unaware that all questions were T/F.

5. This is nearly too ridiculous to believe, so I hope it’s fake, too.

6. A yearly festival in China, dating back 500 years to a time when the locals couldn’t afford fireworks, in which locals fling globs of molten metal at a high wall. If I ever get to tour China, I would love to see this in person. Seriously.

…and now to church.

What did I do today, you ask? I’ll tell you. I drove ten or twelve hours and took an exam that was kind of stressful. It really was. Now I feel tired and happy to be done, and fairly worried that I may have to do this again in six months.

I studied like mad yesterday (and like, um, frustrated? the day before), went to bed late, and got up this morning at 5. By 6, I was on the road with a full tank of gas and my tires properly inflated. With the glaring omission of healthy food, I packed everything I could possibly have needed. That glaring omission led to waaaaay too much snacking on junky stuff from convenience stores. Way too much. But look at it this way: Michael Phelps, you know how many calories he ate during the Olympics, right? Well, he only traveled, what, a few hundred meters? Me, I ate less than he did (somewhat), and I traveled hundreds of miles. Continue reading →

Today's awesome comic is from Sinfest (warning: frequent inappropriate content)

Le sigh. I am le tired of the handbasket thoughts, but the news is not likely to look much brighter (economically) anytime soon. So let’s post some links.

• The depression/recession (deepcession?) is gonna happen no matter what, so why not blame it on your opponent’s economic policies? If you win the election, who cares what you said during campaign time? And if you lose, you can blame the inevitable on the winner.
• Peter Schiff, a libertarian economist, gives his take on what caused the 1929 crash and the current depression. He predicts this depression will be even worse, and both candidates’ policies will exacerbate the situation.
• On to the politics of fear: an Atlantic Monthly columnist and awesome security agitator Bruce Schneier team up to point out how ridiculous, misdirected, and generally useless our post-9/11 airport “security theater” has always been.
• Now, for cheering up: a recipe for poutine made with sweet potato fries and mushroom gravy.

Edit: I almost forgot! An interactive timeline of ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE U.S. military interventions since the Republic was founded. Gak! (To be fair, some of them are like “sent a boat somewhere to make sure the marines got out safely” or something).

I decided to make something nummy. I have recipe book. I have ingredients. Let’s go! Somehow, the “cake brownie batter” looks like chocolate milk with flecks of pepper in it or something. I really don’t know what went wrong, except maybe the butter/margarine was too watery & runny? I should use real butter. So, to make the unholy concoction more cake-batter-like, I… well… I did things to it. Things I’m not  proud of. It’s in  the oven right now. I expect horrible results in 18 to 20 minutes.

In other news, you know how google’s newsfeed pairs hopefully-related photos with the summaries of news stories, sometimes with cute results? Well, here’s my giggle from yesterday. I suspect Alex may enjoy it.

Hey! Is that me, as a missionary in Mexico? No, wait. I wore white shirts.

Apparently some armed Canadian forces stormed a Dutch seal-hunt protest vessel and arrested people. The head of the organization behind the ship called this an “Act of War.” Just between you and me, I suspect the Dutch government might not back him up all the way on this.

In other news, I listened to audio study materials for the EPPP exam while I walked to the grocery store today, with my big backpack. Google says it’s 1.6 miles each way. I shopped too much. In the future, I should probably remember that a good rule of thumb seems to be: $1 = 1lb. $50 is too much.

 nom nom nom

So, this is what accomplishment looks like to me. This is External Funding. It is the single most impressive thing on my vita, besides the PhD itself. Maybe more impressive than that, to others.

Last Spring we submitted a proposal for this grant, as part of a 10-university (more or less) consortium. On my part, this involved a few crazy days and nights writing and rewriting a proposal, meeting and re-meeting with the two members of my research team (an ethnographer too busy to be in charge of our 3 projects and criminal justice professor too smart), and smashing our 3 barely-related proposals into an unnatural research beast condemned to walk the earth… whatever. Then we had to do a budget, which involved me wildly guessing at what it would cost to do a 6-year research project. I’m sure my budget will be ignored during this final budgeting phase which is, according to one person, “a group of universities gathering like coyotes to fight over the scraps of meat on a skeleton”.

In the past year we’ve invested many thousands of dollars in travel and faculty time in this thing. Maybe tens of thousands. And we got it! Sort of. There’s slightly more money, but we have to share it with the UTEP consortium. Grr.

In the academic research world,  external funding is food. And publications are sex¹. Me, I’m getting my first good academic meal… ever (I’ve subsisted on hors d’oeuvres until now). And sex² … well… let’s say I’m like the nerd who can’t figure out why his come-on lines about the differences between Unix and Linux always result in a lonely walk back to his nerdpad.

But the food is pretty great. Now to figure out how to eat it, and if I wanted it in the first place ;)

1. You have to tell interviewers how much sex you’ve had, if you want a job [↩]
2. You realize this is all in the metaphor of publications = sex, and that I would never publicly discuss my own sex life in this level of detail… except to say that it’s frickin’ great [↩]

is nonymus cept foar ears

So I watched the 1982 film “Tempest” last night. A surprisingly good movie. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Very worthwhile. Great cast, great acting, and very enjoyable writing & directing. Great release from the painful emotional tension built up throughout the movie.

Anyway, there’s a joke I misheard in there, with interesting implications for my psyche. The joke was actually this:

“What’s the definition of Jewish foreplay? Two hours of begging!”

As Alex mentioned, this is not necessarily a very ethnic-specific stereotype, as it seems men the world over might have similar complaints. But my version of the joke was much cooler, as I misheard the last word as “Baking.” :-)

Why yes, my dear, that is the smell of fresh cookies. This sweater must be so uncomfortable. Let’s take it off…

(me¹, smiling from the news²)

I have two words for you. Or two words and a letter. And a number. And a hyphen. And an octothorp. And a Now I’m confused, but I don’t care, because…

x-files movie #2!!!

1. Photo taken by Alex [↩]
2. or from a potbelly sandwich and IBC root beer [↩]

Do you know this bug?

Funny Things:

1. Craigslist – To the Drunk Hottie who Fell off my Motorcycle
2. Very brief story of a girlfriend who is a little… well, just read it. (warning: there’s a swear)

Not Funny Things:

1. Armed Forces Journal (a fairly conservative venue): “…waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition…”
2. Former Chief Prosecutor (for Guantánamo and similar trials) explains his resignation “it’s time to take the politics out of military commissions… and make the proceedings open and transparent.”
3. Interesting Newsweek article about how being poor and living far from grocery stores is really bad for your health (something I saw quite a lot of in rural Indiana).

If you do nothing else today (and I really hope that’s not true), you should check out a weird, hilarious form of emergent internet art. Or vandalism. Or something. It’s awesome. Where? Reviews for certain Amazon products, like this Bic ballpoint pen and This gallon of milk.

Excerpts from particularly fun pen reviews:

1 – As far as writing goes, this pen is serviceable… As a weapon, however, it is seriously lacking. When confronted with a sword, the sword was, once again, the clear winner… the Proverb Evaluation Committee will have no other choice than to look elsewhere for its pens.

2 – …But, when that quality carbide ball touched the surface of the paper, it was not ink that came out. From a distance I heard the screams of men and the cackling of innumerable ravens. I stopped, cold and sweating profusely. I looked down at the Bic Crystal black medium ballpoint pen which I held in my hand, only to see darkness. I dashed it against the wall, recoiling in horror. I saw in the corner of my eye my faithful notebook, which now lay on the ground. Once unmarred, I saw now the small mark which I had made with the devil’s own pen. It spread across the page like a plague, and looking at it I gazed upon true horrors. For, what I thought had been ink was in fact a portal to a dark, unforgiving dimension. A portal whose maw was now widening to engulf all hope and joy in the world.

And the milk:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately dairy-house decree: [etc. ]

Or:

…He was a good man, a wonderful husband who always brought the milk on Friday, Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz…

Â

Hi. This is what I saw when I looked out my window, Saturday morning. But that’s not the point. The point is that I read the sweetest Instructables ever. No, not the one about the lady who made a molded silicon replica of her right breast as a squishy stress reliever toy for her boyfriend. No, this one was much cooler. It’s supposed to be just about harvesting bananas, but I felt seriously touched when I read it. To me, it was a story of a girl and her mother. I’m serious. [how to harvest bananas]

Perhaps the squid-ink spaghetti (yesterdays’ post) broadened my mind a little. I just had a sandwich with leftover turkey, black beans, a bit of mayonnaise, and apricot preserves on some yummy whole wheat bread.

Before any of you judging judgers start to get all judgmental and judge me, let me say it was pretty good.

That is all.

Dead Chevy for Sale in Alamo

ONE: I was at Target today, and on the endcap, where they put the closeouts, there was some spaghetti. It was black. Pitch black. Pretty cool, no? After I got it home and started making dinner, I chanced to look at the ingredients (while I was chatting online with hot babes my hot babe, Alex). Let me reproduce for you the ingredients box on this package of spaghetti:

INGREDIENTS: SEMOLINA, SQUID INK, FERROUS LACTATE (IRON), NIACIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID.

Perhaps you didn’t notice the unexpected ingredient in there. Riboflavin?! <tgsvoice>That’s awesome!</tgsvoice>. No, seriously. It’s amazing how one single ingredient can make the whole list very, very weird. But it tasted fine with some sauce and cheese. I had seconds.

TWO: I have been avoiding booking my flight to see Alex, not because I don’t want to see her, but because I hate the expense and hassle of the entire process. Well, I got into the groove, and on a whim I checked the usually-insanely-restrictive continental.com rewards flight availability, and I found a flight! My travel for Christmas will cost me $10 instead of $500! So I celebrated by buying $75 worth of DVDs on amazon.com.

THREE: I have only committed one of the major sins today (not including Lust, cause I figure I get a bit of a free pass now, when it’s directed at my wife… what!? you knew what I was when you started reading this post). I have compensated for the lack of variety with frequency. Today I think I have committed about 3,000 separate instances of Sloth.

That is all.

The Virgina Tech shooter did something horrible. That’s his fault. But he existed in an environment in which he knew with a certainty that he would become famous for it. That’s the news media’s fault. That’s our fault. All of us.

The news media’s predictable vulture-like picking at the corpses of the victims is sickening. The most revolting thing about this, however, is the fact that the media are giving the killer everything he ever wanted. And, of course, this is because they’re giving us what we want. So, in the end, we are the problem. Continue reading →

Did I already post this photo?

Anyway, yesterday was a good day. Very social. ALH and I went to a Bulldogs game! This is courtesy of Amanda and her Christmas present to us. Then we ate at East Side Mario’s (here in Canada, “Mario” rhymes with “stereo;” however, strangely, ALH informs me that they do not also say Pedro like Peedro; inconsistent). It was a good day.

Before all of that, we went ice skating, for me to try out my new skates (these are also largely courtesy of Amanda; I wonder when she will ask me to kill someone for her….). I like the skates. They’re zippy. They’re also hockey skates. I had to practice the whole “stopping” thing, which I am not good at. Back in the day (age 13 or so), I had a pair of men’s figure skates (Montana). I learned to stop on those by flipping around backwards and standing on the toe picks of both skates. Very effective. This “hockey stop” business, however, is unfamiliar. Must practice.

So here I am. It’s odd, being back. It really has started to feel like home. A home, if not the home. I’ve been wandering around, snapping photos for the last few days, with my little Sony point-n-shoot, just because I don’t want to forget what it’s like around here. I seem to have gotten in the habit of posting my photos, about one per day. Today, however, I’ve decided to post two, because they’re related. You see, there was a white-type window, and a yellow-type window. See?

These glass block windows in some industrial building were lit up all pretty-like, the other night.

In other news, A and I (heh heh…. AI) went to dinner last night after a somewhat grueling shopping session (we’re not conditioned for this kind of shopping… out of shape). We went to Indian Garden. so yummy!!! This is how I know my wife loves me. She feeds me Indian food.

Today I made a pie. It’s apple. I followed a recipe on the internet (instead of my old standby, Cookie (Shadle) Hutto’s recipe. The main advantage of the internet recipe was that it included units, such as “cups” and “teaspoons.” This made it a much easier recipe to follow. Cookie always got good results from her pies, but I didn’t. I suppose it might have been a translation issue.

Anyway, here’s the pie.

Also, sweetie pie took a couple of pictures of my cat, with whom I’m as fascinated as a new dad. Here are pics that you may or may not care to see. She took a really great one of his freakish paw.

Sadly, Alex’s flight left on time this morning (stupid flight). So, I went back to sleep for a couple of hours (we got up at 4:15 a.m.), then got up and lounged about, whining to Dexter about Alex being gone. About lunchtime, I went shopping for a bunch of stuff I need. Here are the highlights: Continue reading →