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My Majik Trick

Hey everyone, watch this, I'm updating my website!

Anywho, my guess is you all are wondering what I have done since my last update, which was approximately 64 days ago. Since then I've done a lot of stuff, and most of it could have been made into an update, but I'm lazy.

So its Christmas break now and grades have come in, with me clocking a beautiful 3.65. It takes a whole lot of A's and a C giftwrapped in shiny ribbons to get a 3.65. The C was in Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, a class taught by an egomaniac and her know-nothing assistant Fritz. On one hand, I did not come anywhere close to earning a C, on the other hand, I never want to come that close to the sixth circle of hell again. I've gotten an F in a class that I learned more in than this one. But seriously, the bottom line is semester honors, yay!

I tried to get a job in town over break, but that failed, so I got immense amounts of free time, so if any of my friends still read this, give me a ring or email or something. Also, I hope to purdy up the site some, we'll see if that goes through or not. Maybe I'll even add a comment thing. Maybe.

Moving on, I went to Austin, TX the weekend of Nov 10th to present my EPICS team's project to a bunch of rich and/or important people. That was a pretty fun event, I'll upload pictures sometime soon with more details of stuff.

Alright, well thats all for now.

Violence in Sports

Today I played flag football, a rather nonviolent game generally devoid of contact and most injuries ..when the rules are followed.

As some of you know, I've been working out fairly intensely for the past year and change, and have gotten fairly big, contrary to my brother's opinion. Also over the past year and change, I have participated in virtually zero activities that involve hand-eye cordination or throwing, thus resulting in my inability to catch or throw a ball consistently. Therefore in flag football, I play on the line.

Today was the first playoff game in flag football. Our floor is full of guys who are very athletic, so any team our floor makes should be rather good. However, I think many have just worked out and not actually played any sports, therefore our football team hasn't been that great. (However our ultimate frisbee team is incredible and there is a strong chance we'll make it to the final game in that tourney.)

Anywho, early in the game while playing line it was pretty obvious that I was going to be in contact with one of the players who obviously hadn't heard of this no contact rule, and I was making him very upset by planting my feet as he tried to run through me. With every flag he got more upset, and more likely to pretend he wasn't 70 lbs. lighter than I was.

Anywho, as the game came down to the last couple minutes, this guy was royally pissed at me, as he had just charged me again and said I lowered my shoulder during the last charge. Well, when you been kicked in the head and bowled over by this guy going full steam a couple times, you're likely to try to avoid flying on your back, and lowering one's center of gravity is a very good way to do this. After this play, the guy said, according to my roommate as I was ignoring him by this point, "Try to lower your shoulder one more time, just see what happens." Something to that affect anyway. (Little did he know the ensuing plot would have a twist he prolly didn't expect.) Well two plays or so later, he happened to decide to rush again, and I prolly did lower my shoulder. This guy came in full steam and I basically accepted the fact I would be soon on my back. He came in, charged into me, and somehow ended up right behind me, with me falling backwards, as depicted in the following impeccable drawing:

As you can likely tell, this was a battle Pansy Arm wasn't about to win. As I fell backwards, I saw his arm perpendicular to the field and figured out my thigh of steel was not going to enjoy the ensuing events. I landed right on top of his arm and he let out a sort of yell/scream that I guess happens when a whole lot of incredible falls with significant velocity on a pansy arm perpendicular to a field that needs aerated.

Well the play was still going at this time, and I limped up to my feet, rubbing my recently acquired deep thigh bruise while telling him something to the effect of "Man, you really should avoid doing that in the future," while the ref threw a flag, obviously at the time in my favor. I have worked long and hard on my leg muscles, and I'm sure the refs realized that a deep bruise would hurt near-term further development of it. The play eventually ended, and the guy started whining about how he knows he broke his arm, and something about hearing it snap twice. He also claimed that I never had my feet planted on the other flags, so I wasn't liable to believe him. I believe it was at this point the refs decided to do a pity call against me. Twice broken arms apparently trump deep thigh bruises on me. I wonder who to talked to about that rule.

Well, the refs and such start talking on the radio and no less than 5 minutes later, an ambulance finally travels the less than 1/4 mile distance to the intramural field. Mr. Pansy-turned-broken-arm is still laying on the field, waiting patiently for the paramedics to stroll over to where he was.

Anywho, we finally finish up our game, and our incredible quarterback manages to throw two interceptions in the final three minutes to blow the game for us. Somehow, though, it still felt like a victory.

An Exploration of Responsibility

Some external reading for my readers. Humilation will lessen nation's obesity He makes a lot of points, none real valid, as obese people have a tendency to drown self-esteem issues in Ben & Jerry's. And I like the sentence "Enter our disgusting populace of walking zepplins." I found that humorous and poetic. Anywho, this guy seems to have a tendency to write inflammatory opins to the Exponent, and I figured there would eventually be a couple letters responding to it. I was not disappointed. (As a side note, I found it interesting the responses were more character attacks than content attacks.) Character Attack 1 and Character Attack 2, with a hint of Stalker

The basic idea of using humilation to get people to lose weight is flawed I do believe, much as the connection between humilation leading to a fall in cigarette use. Smoking fell due to higher prices, hardships finding places to smoke, and that whole cancer thing. In my few experiences with smokers, humiliating them tended to increase their smoking, and it seems humilation would also increase food consumption among obese people.

Anywho, I do agree the nation does need to reduce its obesity in a very bad way. I generally have a laiserre faire attitude toward most things; however certain things result in too many negative externalities for the people around those who cause the externalities. Obesity is one of these things. I pay for obesity, you pay for obesity, Lindsay Lohan pays for obesity, and I'm not talking about anorexia being a payment for obesity. Whether wider seats in stadiums, planes,etc which results in fewer customers to get the same revenue, Medicare/Medicaid payments, or the fact obese people make a disproportionate part of the population of hospital patients (higher demand = higher costs), we all pay for something we might not actually be causing.

So now that I've attacked content in the first letter, I'll move to the second one, where I must question his sources for his statements on this "epidemic" of assholes and dumbasses, but this article isn't really about that. After looking through his letter all the way through, it seems I have only two things to cover.

1) "Rampant success of the food industry in selling us fattening treats." - "The talking M&M's made me do it." You say that to the doctors after slashing your wrist, you'll be sent to that hospital in Logansport. You say that about why you're fat, your friends will laugh, and will look over your indiscrections and shift blame to Mars Co. Is not the consumer complicit in this? It was his money. If it came down to marketing, Jenny Craig needs to change her advertising agency.

2) "Capitalistic society means money is better than healthy business practices." - Actually I believe that a more capitalistic society would be more able to combat obesity. However, due to regulations reguarding health disclosures, lawsuits, and such, companies have trouble providing incentives. If you were significantly overweight and on a company's insurance policy, and the company said something like, "Lose 50lbs or we won't offer insurance to you anymore, or we'll charge you another $300/month to cover the extra expenses we expect you to incure relative to your lighter, healthier coworkers," you would have a very large incentive to lose weight, and keep it off. However, health disclosure laws (some of which aren't all bad) and lawsuits prevents a lot of this from happening. This would have a very significant effect on the financial success of companies that promote unhealthy foods.

Now to the MySpace stalker letter. After reading through it, she only mentions one point really, the some people are predisposed to become obese, even "if they eat pretty much decent most of the time." "Pretty much decent most of the time" - that kinda makes me laugh sort of. To me that sounds like, only one scoop of ice cream after dinner, usually. Society says I should be predisposed to open doors for girls. Whatever. Basically all our bodies are predisposed to become obese when exposed to buffet lines and 24hr fast food. In times when humans were hunter-gather types, when there was lots of food, our bodies stored up food for lean times. Given the chance and lack of willpower, our bodies will gladly take all the greasy fries we can eat and apply it to our guts and thighs.

I discussed the first letter with a couple friends, and the responses ranged from basically the guy is right (coming from my roommate who has lost about 40lbs from his H.S. peak and kept it off), to statements to the effect that its not that people like being fat. I wholeheartedly agree with that last statement. When I've gained (fat) weight before, I certainly didn't like it. However I decided I was going to lose it, even if it meant going to the gym. Complaining about being fat doesn't result in loss of weight, unless you complain very enthusiastically, and that is not permission to do so in my presence. The thing that bothers me about some people who complain about being overweight is their total lack of interest in losing weight. Go to the gym - most people won't mock you (the exceptional Brad aside), and most people would gladly help you figure out how to use equipment. Cut back on the junk food, no more "the talking M&Ms made me do it." Its the small things that make you gain weight, and it is the small things that will result in you losing weight.

An Exclusive Interview

I found G-Dubs words about the Geneva Conventions being confusing and annoying a bit bewildering, and perhaps even disturbing. Upon hearing this, I asked myself why our fearless leader would say such things. Perhaps it was the fact there isn't a Cliff Notes for the Geneva Conventions, maybe he missed the translated version, or maybe he thinks its a Dem fundraising event. I sent in a request to the White House press office asking for an interview, saying I was with Apathetic American News Network (AANN), and to my surprise, an interview was granted. Perhaps it was the the fake check I sent to the RNC from AANN yesterday. Who knows. Anywho, here's a transcript of my interview with the leader of the free world.

AANN: Mr. President, thank you for having an interview with me.

G-Dub: No prob, this is what friends do, they give interviews to each other. Then the interview gets published, and thousands of impres-, impers-, impresin-, uh, ..Play-Doh-like voters read about it.

AANN: Hehe, well Mr. President, actually this interview is going to be fabricated and put on a site that only my mom is gonna read.

G-Dub: Wait, what?

AANN: Hardly anyone is going to read this.

G-Dub:

AANN: Well, anyway, getting to what I wanted to talk to you about, your words about the Geneva Convention, well, they kinda scare some people. How will this make America anymore popular or win us friends in the Mideast?

G-Dub: Well, its just like my momma used to say, life isn't a popularity contest. Just look at the 2000 election for proof about that. Its the truth, but for some people, that's just an inconvient truth.

AANN: Pun intended?

G-Dub: Pun? What?

AANN: Nevermind, moving on. Many people have pointed out that by nullifying the Geneva Conventions, we become no better than our enemies in the war on terror, in that we don't follow any set guidelines that ensure everyone in war is treated humanely.

G-Dub: Well, why should we be any better than our enemies? Humane treatment of people isn't what my America is about, my America is about an SUV in every garage, $10,000 credit card balances, and unaffordable housing for everyone.

AANN: A lofty goal indeed

G-Dub: And one we have almost achieved, too!

AANN: Well, you know know, America is sort of built on a humane treatment of people, as the Eighth Amendment bans the use of "cruel and unusual punishment." How do you respond to that

G-Dub: Well, cruel is so ambiguous. I think its cruel that the Dems want me to do stuff through the U. N. Lucky for me, I don't have to listen to 'em. So really, all we need to be concerned with is unusual. All we got to do is do this torture stuff often. Then it won't be unusual anymore. The only thing that's stopping us is these pesky Geneva people. All we need to do is clear that out of the way, and then we can make it very usual. In fact, thanks to my friends in the C.I.A. and their nifty prisons on other planets like Sudanus and Kazakhastan, its happening enough secretly that its already not so unusual.

AANN: Incredibly comforting to know.

Simple realizations

Something amazing, and yet, sad happened today. I read the headline "Wall Street Awaits Corporate Earnings," and it was news to me. Sure, after thinking about it, I realized September is one of the four earnings seasons, butI had to be reminded of the fact. I feel so empty right now.

In other news, earlier this week an Asian girl walked into one of my Multidisciplinary Engineering classes very late. This was an occassion of excitement for two reasons. One, it cut the guy to girl ratio in half. She was an engineering girl, but beggars can't be chosers. Two, it added legitamacy to the program because she would be the first Asian in the class. Two minutes after she sat down, she left hurriedly. She was in the wrong classroom.

Summer 'n' Such

Well, here it is, days before September and I've been at school for a week and change now, so naturally, the question that comes to mind is "Don't you have something better to do right now?" The answers is a definite no. The other option is to answer your question with a question, "Don't you have something better to do right now?" That's what ... hey, now, don't hit that X.

This summer consisted of two main activities, working at the Goshen Street Dept. and retaking ECE201 to clear that F from my GPA (the one thing I got out of it the first time around is that A isn't for Apathy).

Anywho, first things first. My summer started with me arriving home on Saturday and heading off to work Monday morning. Stuff started out alright, mainly involving the crew of about 4 of us taking our 8 hours to install 3 signs. Ah, government work.

The initial crew included me, an almost 60 year old hard-core diabetic, a 19-year guy who was afraid of everything except a tattoo needle and getting bigger plugs, and a disabled Army vet who was incapable of maintaining silence for more that 5 minutes. To prevent angry emails and/or phone calls from my censor (a.k.a. mother), diabetic dude will be refered to as D, tattooed 19 year old will be Tat, and Army motormouth will be Beetle.

So during the very first week, on a relatively productive day, we were out putting up our second sign in as many hours. We were replacing an old street marker, which involves pulling out an old sign and putting a new, more reflective sign on a bigger post, so all 15 cars a day traveling down this subdivision road would know were they are. Anywho, D was pounding the post in while Beetle and me watched and Tat smoked a cigarette. The post was going into the exact same hole, and was pretty close to the mandated 30" in the ground when I thought I heard something. I was on the verge of saying something when D pounded it one last time, and dirt started flying up from the hole and the air filled with the aroma of rotten eggs. We hit a gas line.

Now, this was fairly new territory for me. I had never learned exactly what to do in case of hitting a gas in class, or anywhere else for that matter. However, common sense would dictate smoking a cigarette near a burst gas line is a bad idea. Upon hearing this, Tat agreed and promptly put his out. One other thing that concerned me was the big pickup truck running less then 10 ft away. D also agreed with me on that point and moved it down the road. Next D called the utility and within 10 minutes they showed up to with a small back hoe, much to the horror of the homeowner.

While we were watching the utility dig up this person's yard in seach for the gas line, we ponder how 1) the first sign was installed right over an old gas line, and 2) how come it got hit this time but not the first time. Lucky for us, Beetle, who works the evening shift at the Water Dept in town, knew. He told us that when the utilities come out to mark a property for underground utilities (required for us before we install a sign) that the markings can be up to 8" off of where the actual line is. D, however, quoted someone from the Water Dep't. that the markings can be up to 3 feet off of the actual utility. Not ten minutes later, Beetle retold the same story to the same people, incorporating this quote in his retelling. This came to be the formula for "conversation" with this guy:

Step 1: Tell an unlikely story, or one you have no real facts or basis to back it up
Step 2: Listen to feedback from audience.
Step 3: Retell the story, often to the same people, incorporating information gained from feedback in this retelling

Anywho, when all the dust settled, D got write-up No. 1.

Stuff went along pretty good for a while, with the crew spending most of the day driving around, Tat making fun of Beetle, D shooting insulin, and me wishing someone would change the radio station.

End of part 1, that's all I feel like typing for a day. Go pee or something.

OBITS

Pluto's Planetary Status (1930-2006)

Instead Pluto will now be a Dwarf Planet, one of two or so others, leading, no doubt to an identity crisis for it, and leaving it the butt of many jokes among the other planets.

Now the not-so-proud owner of this new distinction, some are crying foul. After all, what authority do a bunch of astronomers having a party in Prague have over the solar system we all in? What part of a greater worldwide government plot to reclassify everything we know and hold dear in our formerly arbitrarily contrived status quos will rear its ugly head next? Will Blue States become "Drawf States" simply because they don't follow the same path other, obviously more powerful states, follow? I for one believe this is a dangerous path we have been forced down by a bunch of nerds who claim there are "stars" out in that light-polluted night sky.

Pluto's Planetary Status is survived by Mercury's, Venus's, Earth's, Mar's, Jupiter's, Saturn's, Uranus's, and Neptune's. Concurrent with the death was Pluto's dignity.

Random Update

Well, I think maybe I'll write something for this site again. Enough with the gaping jaw.

The last semester went alright I guess. Failed one class that I'll be retaking soon enough, but passed everything else in an acceptable manner. Dropping the failure, I got a 3.1ish for the past semester. I like classes better the second time around anyway.

Anywho, as always, I just can't wait to get home from school and spend enormous amounts of time with my family. For example,just after I came home, my brother was working on an application on the internet for Meijers when he came across a question that was stumping him as to how he should answer it. The conversation follows:

CENSORED

I tried to explain to Evan that he just answered the question himself, but he didn't want to hear what I had to say.

I'm working 40hrs a weeks at the Goshen Street Department. Like the time I spend with my family, its a joy a minute. This is likely related to the fact the people I work with the most remind me a lot of certain members of my family. So as a result, I look forward to the days I work with very loud, other people's voice-drowning machinery.

Outside of that, I got a couple projects I'm working on over the summer. Hopefully one ends up being losing 20. I realized earlier this week I've gain 55lbs since senior year. I'm plenty healthy, in fact, probably healthier than I was then when I had issues benching triple digits and got two colds a year, October to May and again mid-June, but still, the government is calling me obese, and I'm not fond of that distinction. Another project (goal) is to be more creative. Looking over recent entries and such, the generally lack creativity and definitely are short on humour. Hopefully that will be fixed by early August, whenst Purdue Engineering takes its magical axe and again lops off the heads of Joviality and Creativity within 6,000 aspiring engineers.

Flippin' Retards

April 25, 2006
Sadly, mass stupidity has forced yet another update. I tried to hold out as long as I could, waiting for the floods to recede, but alas, the rains have only continued.

These days, stupid people have rushed to give their "thoughts" about the rising price of oil, in public forums, letters to the editor, and, shockingly enough, from their seats in the Congress. The general theme goes something like, "Prices are too high, producers are gouging consumers, let's invent a new tax to punish them, etc." I honestly don't know where to start sandbagging against this revolting flood.

I think I'll start with the article that I currently have open in another window. It has a high concentration of stupidity, so I think I'll try to neutralize some of it. This quote comes from an AP article, "Oil Industry May Face Tough Time in D.C."

The combined earnings expected from ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. will be 14 times greater than the combined first-quarter profits of Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and Oracle Corp.

"But, Eric," you're rebutal begins, "don't those tech titans do more for us, are more vital to our country's progress, etc and some other stuff you're already ignoring?" "Answer me this," my rebutal to your rebutal would begin, "can you live a day, a week, a month, without your Apple computer, your iPod, your Google search engine, and I'm very confident you have almost no idea what Oracle does, so you couldn't answer that question anyway." Almost all of you would have to answer yes, unless you do know what Oracle does, then maybe. "Now, imagine not having oil. Not having a car for a day, week, or month. No gas. Some may think they are able to live in such a way, walking to work, etc. But your bread doesn't walk to the store. You're steak didn't ride its bike into the plastic and styrofoam packaging (oil byproducts) and up into the frozen foods case. Food requires massive machinery that burns oil. Fertilizer comes from natural gas. Anything plastic would have issues being made." So, see, basically, the way you live now, you would have issues being alive without oil. You can't say that about not programming Oracle databases so much.

While Tyson Slocum, a consumer advocate and energy expert at Public Citizen, may say that "That level of profit is not justifiable," (from same article), I think I did a decent job of saying, "Shut the hell up."

Moving on, this being an election year, we have a double-edged sword. On the positive side, some airheads will lose their jobs. On the negative side, facing such a possibility of losing their jobs, they propose stuff that sounds almost good on paper, but actually hurts in the long run. Lately, the stab at saving their jobs involves a windfall tax.

The basic premise of this goes something like creating a tax, in addition to the ones these companies already pay, to punish them for profiting from doing stuff we could not live (very well, at least) without. Why would this be bad? Basic economic principles state that in the long run, economic profits in a commodity business, such as oil, will be 0. That's not to say it would be unprofitable, instead, it means that the rate at which profit is made, adjusting for intangible costs such as risk and such, will be just as much in oil, as in any other commidity-type industry. When there are times of economic profit, which, presumably, we are in right now, investments will occur in the industry until the rates fall. If their was a windfall tax, resulting in profits being lowered to a more common rate seen in similiar industries, their is no incentive to invest in the oil industry. Now, let's think how this can be bad.

Hopefully we all came up with that equation. Pat yourselves on the back for being smarter than the average Congressman.

But, alas, these Congressmen are talking about hauling in these executives so they can display their total lack of understanding of a market-based economy for all 7 of C-SPAN's viewers to see. They will hear about how oil companies don't set the price of oil or gas but rather it is supply and demand, that they don't drill for more oil in the U. S. because the easy stuff has already been drilled and the rest of it is protected by decree of Congress, and that they don't build or expand refineries due to the environmental regulations passed year after year by members of Congress. After this riveting display of spittle flying from angry Senators and the occassional slamming of fist, and the reading of prepared statements by CEOs, the oilmen will leave, and the Congressmen will demand a new tax that will lead to higher prices. Hopefully, true to form, nothing happens.

But anyway, what is driving the price of oil? Demand for one. Perhaps you've heard of India, or maybe China. There happens to be a lot of people there. One thing they don't have a lot of is cars. Guess what they are starting to by a lot of? If you guessed cars, among a lot of other things, correct! Cars that run on gas. No. 2: Iran. This one's a biggie. This is kinda another topic, but Iran is trying to produce nuclear technology. Only for peaceful purposes though, of course. But some people still question this. It may have to do something with the fact it has loads of cheap energy in the 4mil barrels or so of oil it exports right now that won't take years to develope, or its stated policy of working towards the destruction of Israel, or maybe its general history of dishonesty, but something makes some world leaders question the peacefulness of their research. Anyway, when people fear, they tend to act a bit more irrational, and one form of this is to pay more for something than they really need to. Currently, the world can produce around 87mil barrels of oil a day. Current demand is somewhere around 85mil barrels a day. People fear Iran's 4mil barrels may suddenly be taken off the market. Maybe you can see some issues arising from such a potential situation. We could also talk about Venezuala, but read about it on your own if you feel so compelled. Long story short, they are adding fear to the oil market. Feel free to do a search on Nigeria or Chad, too, while you're at it.

TD Waterhouse: Currently Hiring Liberal Arts Majors

I'm a pretty mellow dude for the most part. I guess I lack an inner activist. Or perhaps it is drowning under a flood of apathy, Coke products, and imported clothing. Either way, it takes something fairly significant to get me to speak up about anything. And apparently something significant involves tax day promotions and stupidity.

Exhibit 1: This is a screenshot of a T. D. Waterhouse ad, obviously from Yahoo! Finance.

I guess one should not expect much from a brokerage that hasn't had an original idea come from its advertising dept. in several years. After all, they have some old dude from Law and Order, who replaced the last spokesman from Law and Order. But there are two major errors with this ad that is obvious to anyone with a triple-digit I. Q.

No. 2. April 15th. What is the significance of April 15th, 2005? The biggest thing I could find was Holy Saturday, and only 5 days from 4/20. (Its a big holiday in these parts). Oh, and maybe 2 days from Tax Day. So I do not understand why T. D. Waterhouse felt the need to have a countdown to Saturday night. Ladies and Gents, your taxes for the year 2006 (excluding any requested extensions) are due on April 17th. Government workers have no desire to work on Saturday, therefore, rather than come in they just push off the due date to a Monday. So, one must question why T. D. Waterhouse bothered to have its oh so lucrative offer (1 year free of Money magazine, which by the way, SUCKS!!1) expire on a day that has no financial significance, something that one would hope a brokerage like T. D. Waterhouse would realize. But, this being the company that replaced their spokesman from Law & Order with an old dude from Law & Order, I guess its not too far out to assume they could just be recycling one of their old ads.

Anywho, this awakened something inside me, and I sent off a letter, something to the tune of:

I hope someone at TD Waterhouse knows that in order to display "millisecs" in your ad campaign would require three digits. I don't know what this displays more, your advertising department's ineptitude, or general insulting and presumption of ignorance of your potential customers.
Sincerely,
Eric ~

I sent that out around Saturday, and unfortunately they have yet to respond. I'm curious which one it is.

Anywho, later I found myself surfing Yahoo! Finance, (surprising, I know,) and saw this ad. Note even the accurate spelling of "milliseconds."

Proud of what the watchdog inside of me accomplished, I clicked the ad to see if everything was fixed. Alas, it seems to be only that single ad that was fixed, as the associated website that the ad links to still has a two-digit display of a three-digit number.

Anyway you look at it, it seems rather lazy of them to put out such a shoddy ad campaign, and personally, I demand more from advertisements of companies I'll never do business with. I suggest all three of my readers boycott T. D. Waterhouse until they display show some accurate understanding of time, or they at least hire a TV attorney that isn't collecting Social Security.

To the Second City

But alas, that is all you are going to hear about it on this site, for now anyway. Instead, you are going to get my customary bitching and moaning. Why? Because I have totalatarian control of this site, and besides, it just wouldn't be an entry on this site without it.

Me and my roomie and another guy were planning this trip since fairly early last week. Another guy was going to come along, but as best as we can tell, he was in some cornfield outside Delphi with a serious hangover with 3 or so more hours of being passed out when we left. No one seems to know for sure, but he hasn't returned any of our calls and we left for Chicago about 30hrs ago.

Anywho, my roomie's SUV, the vehicle we were taking has 5 seats, and we had only 4 filled. So, being the noble guy I am, I took it upon myself to find someone to fill the last seat, "someone" meaning a girl.

Now the plan was to head out to Chicago, go to a museum or two, roam downtown for a bit, and then go see the best comedy troupe in the history of best comedy troupes. So with this fantastic itinerary, I thoughts to myself, "Hey, even if this trip included 10 hours of me and my roommate, the rest of the trip would have people tripping over themselves to go with us."

Alas, I was wrong. Hardcore wrong. First off, if you don't know what Second City is, well, I don't know if we have enough common ground to continue our friendship.

Anywho, conversations went something like this:

Me: Hey, want to go to Chicago, go to museums and then see a Second City show?
She: What's Second City?
Translation: Crap, he's asking early this week, I don't have an excuse ready for him yet
Me: Second City? It's only the best comedy group ever. About half the cast from SNL has come from here.
She: Really? hmm..
Translation: Jeez, what excuse haven't I used yet, can't think..
Me: Yep, wanna come?
She: Sorry, I'd love to but I already have plans this weekend.
Translation: I enjoy spending a guy's money for him, but alas, you don't meet my arbitrary threshold for even that. You're ugly, boring, dull, and an engineer. That was pretty redundant, but it seems necessary as you apparently have to be told the same thing over and over again to get any clue.
Me: Alright, later.
Translation: Your excuse flat out sucks this week. Hope you have a better one next week.

I did eventually fill the seat, but it was rather discouraging to be repetively told that they weren't sure if their Friday hangover would be done in time to leave, that they had to attend the International Ferret Convention in Montreal Saturday, or that "For the 7th time, I have a boyfriend."

The obligatory letter home

January 27, 2006
(FYI there is a 20min spacing between this post and the previous one.)

Well, today is the last day of the third week at school. Time flies when you do absolutely nothing, and what you do end up doing you loathe with a burning passion.

Anywho, it is kinda warm here for January, which is total pissing me off. I want to go sledding. Now.

Okay, I think I'm done with that now. So this semester, I am taking 6 classes. They include Ma265, Ma266, MDE495A, MDE495B, EPICs, and ECE 201. Ma 265 is Linear Algebra. That's all the explanation you're getting on that one, since that's all I really know about that one. Ma 266 is differential equations, see the further description of Ma265. ECE201 is linear circuits. This involves a little chinese man confusing me for 3 50min lectures a week. MDE495B is a weird one, we have thus far discussed metaphors and analogies, along with a 45 or so minute monologue about the professor's deep distaste for grading students. Needless to say, its rather unusual for an engineering class. EPICs is "Engineering Projects in Community Service." I was in Boy Scouts, I've done my lifetime quota of community service. But no, I have to take something like 5 semsters of this for my major. Anywho, I think I'll save this for another day. MDE495A involves a large white dude confusing me for 2 75 minute lectures a week. The first week, we spent some time on thinking what problems a certain piece of artwork might have. Next week involved simple Free Body Diagrams. If you don't know what these are, nod your head knowingly and say, "That's not too bad." This week involved using Mathcad, a very confusing combination calculator/Excel program, to solve forces in more complex FBD, learnign about moments in space, and for next week we need to design a spill-proof kind of coffe mug and make a demonstration describing it. For that sentence, shake you head in mild disgust. Anywho, we're on track to have a doctorate-type thesis by week 8.

In other news, I need to figure out where to live next year. And get a job for this summer. And a lot of other stuff. Yay!

I've been going to the gym a lot lately. I'm finally getting up into the range where I don't mind people seeing how much I'm lifting. Its a good thing when you're after a big guy on a weight machine and you have to move the pin down.

I've lost my train of thought. I might get back to this later.

Hmm

January 26, 2006
I'm kinda down right now. Which I'm not fond of being. Some people seem to revel in their sadness. These people think it is their ticket to joining an emo band and becoming world-famous rockers. I have no musical talent, therefore, I have no incentive to be down. Although, international rocker-dom does have its perks and all, ...but still, no musical talent.

I enjoy making people smile, laugh, think, and otherwise enjoy themselves. That's basically why I have this site still. At first, I made this site to be a reference-like site where people could figure out how to go about using HTML and such to make their own web pages. However that never provided me enjoyment, and when something isn't enjoyable, I don't really do it a whole lot. That's basically why I rarely do my homework, which I ought to be doing right now. Oh well.

But as I wrote that last paragraph, I realized that approximately two years ago, I started the Teacher's Banned essays and such. So, had it not been for me breaking my arm, I'd probably be watching TV right now, and this site would be defunct. I typed up an essay late one night back in high school, got in trouble for being up past 11o'clock, printed it off, took my Vicodin, and went to bed. The next day I showed some friends it, and all of them thought it was hysterical. So, two days later, when my ban from the computer was lifted, I wrote another with my one good typing hand, and people throughly enjoyed that too. And there is something really uplifting about people telling you that you can write funny stories, people telling you that you are a good writer.

For at least recent history, I almost exclusively have written while I have been in a downer mood. Getting my thoughts written out more or less relieves this depressing "pressure." If I don't write one of these things, I'll talk to someone who isn't busy, and waste their evening basically saying something to the tune of the above: Talking about something I'm good at, have them agree, and feel better. I guess its like doing or talking about something I know I'm good at, and something other people have told me I'm good at, reaffirms that I am good at and for something. Being in a bad mood, and then thinking about how I have no musical talent to put my down mood to good use becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, one leading to another, with that going back to the former. So email me if you read this still.

Oh baby

December 21, 2005
So I just checked my grades, and it was resounding good news: 3.65. No, that's not the percentage on my thermo final, that there is last semester's GPA. And I won't have to retake any classes this semester. Woot!

Anywho, I'm back home now, enjoying sharing a bedroom with my two brothers. Oh, and dial-up internet, how I've missed you. As some of you know, my mom worked in the dining halls even after she graduated, so its like I'm on the 20 meal plan eating every day in Hillenbrand instead of the 15 meal plan. The symphony of my brothers fighting is quite a sound to behold. Basically, if you're doing anything, call me to get me away from here.

I went snowboarding yesterday. It was fun. I woke up today rather sore and stiff, that wasn't so fun. I woke up at noon, and haven't really done anything today. Its now 8:30. And I'm starting to get tired. I think I got this break stuff down pretty well. the tiredness may be related to the inaccessability of caffiene in this house, which led to a pretty wicked headache Saturday night into Sunday. But, I'm better now, the headaches are pretty much gone, as is the twitching. However, I definitely wouldn't mind a coke right now.

Hmm, that was pretty boring. Matches today pretty well.

I put the "stud" in studying

December 13, 2005
Hmm, its finals week. Oops.

Recently, I was contemplating what I had learned over the semester, and I was slightly disheartened by what I remembered. I had this sneaking suspicion that I hadn't learned much of anything. Thus far I've had two exams, which have more or less confirming this suspicion.

So I am now left with 3 more exams with which I can prove my worth to Purdue. One of these is Econ, another, Thermo. In the middle of these two extremes, MSE 230, Fundamentals of Something Engineering Stuff.

Naturally, I should be studying, but I needed a break from it for a little bit. Besides, I think I need to adjust my study habits a little bit. Laying down on my couch going in and out of consciousness with my book open doesn't seem to be doing it for me.

Also, my roommate hasn't been very helpful. He's been doing stuff at night, and sleeping all day. At least when I was on this schedule last year, I had the courtesy to sleep at most 4 hours a day, and was so tired I could sleep through things such as the jerk down the hall who felt it necessary to strike up loud conversations with my roommate and the occasional hallway hockey game. My roommate sleeps 10-12 hrs a day, wakes up to play poker online, eats, and repeats. When you sleep 12 hours, like he did today, you are rather sensitive to noises and light. I almost felt guilty playing my stereo and turning on all the lights. At the beginning of the semester, he razzed me for getting a 2.5 last semester. Guess what number he's shooting now? That's right, 2.5.

Anywho, hopefully the rest of this junk goes okay. Guess I'll go backing to napping, .. I mean studying.

Christmas Time

December 7, 2005
Rumor has it that we are in the Christmas Season. And during this Christmas Season, people are apparently supposed to be in the Christmas Spirit. It sounds like a crappy haunted house "ride" at the fair, but no, Christmas Spirit implies happiness, smiles, hell-(or heaven?)bent spending, and warm feelings. It was -1 (even less in Celsius!) when I went to class this morning, so I don't know where they get last part anyway.

But here I am, in early December, and I'm just not in that mood. This is hardly a carefree, happy time of year for me. Sure, its nothing compared to last year around this time when I was overloaded with work, had projects due, and was still trying to figure out Matlab (aka, Satan in a computational software package), all while having yet to discover the majik in a can that is Red Bull, Rockstar or Monster. However, I still have a paper to write and a lot of studying I should do for the finals coming up, and by golly, if I ever get around to doing it, it will surely wear me down. Believe it or not, I know this from experience.

I miss the Christmas seasons of years past. The ones that were not dogged by questions of if I could afford the presents I wanted to get for myself, let alone other people. The ones where finals were weeks away, after Christmas and New Years, and where doing well in classes wasn't yet a matter of onerous debt or carefree scholarship living. The ones where my biggest concern was whether or not we would be at grandma's house when a certain aunt arrived, and if we did happen to be there, figuring the odds that she would have an "incident" that would, in its aftermath, require a lot of Lysol.

But alas, high school has passed, and now I am in that special place where happy intelligent kids with free rides turn into debt-laden, socially awkward, balding 20 year-olds in a matter of months who wonder aloud where all the hot chicks disappeared to, known as Purdue Engineering. Oh well, I guess the killing of my Christmas Spirit for 4 years (or 5, or 6, ...) was self-inflicted. After all, one rarely enters engineering looking for a good time, unless one is looking for a widely-accepted excuse to become alcoholic.

Dude 1: Hey man, I'm cutting you off. Thats your 13th shot.
Dude 2: Uh? Ayem hin henjenearin.... *drool*
Dude 1: Oh man, dude, I'm so sorry. Here, have mine.
Dude 2: Anks, man. *drool*

Desired Update

December 4, 2005
I got an email today telling me to update my site:

Pati wrote:
> Need an update.... Don't you realize your site is
> the only way I can make sure that you are alright!!!
>
> Hope college is going VERY well!
>
> 'Garden Center- Pati
>
> Keep up the blogs!

Sorry, between slacking off, shirking duty, avoiding work, and spending down my savings, I just havent had time to get around to my web site. Ive just been so overwhelmed by all this (in)activity. For the most part, my creative energy has been put into conversations with people and making up stories to get extensions on my homework. There just hasn't been enough left over for a decent update.

College goes well. Thus far I've stayed out of jail.

Im still in engineering, for reasons unknown. In related news, I don't have a girlfriend. But thats ok, I've been surprisingly capable of spending money without one. Who knew that was possible? All in all, its been a surprisingly easy semester. I guess after Honors Engineering kicked me in the groin, (figuratively of course), this semester's gut-punch just doesn't feel that bad. I should make it out with a positive GPA, probably even over a 3.0(ish). Well, homework is beckoning, so I must go someplace where I can't hear it anymore. Talk to you later,
Eric

P.S. I updated my site

Want to play a game?

October 5, 2005
So the name of the game today is avoid work. I've done a very good job of it so far. Not nearly as good as my roommate has been for the past six and a half weeks, but pretty close. So far today, I've attended all my classes, which gets me a couple negative points, but they couldn't make me pay attention! But I did anyway, so I guess I get docked a couple more. However, since that point, I've read a couple news stories twice, read away messages, and went on a fountain run. After that strenuous effort, I came back to sit in my chair staring into my computer screen doing nothing again. Somewhere in there I had dinner too. See, nothing of importance. *Edit November 5: In fact I did so little I stopped writing midpost and forgot the track I was on.

I Hate Shaving

September 30, 2005
Every once in a while, I get to see a report on the news about how the Red Cross is in dire need of blood. Otherwise, klutzy daredevils and heart transplant patients won't be able to get their necessary blood transfusions. And they need not just any blood, they need your blood. It's kind of like how only you can prevent forest fires. And by every once in a while, I mean just about every day I get around to watching the news.

I gave blood once. It was an uncomfortable experience. First off, I had to convince the curt nurses that, among interestingly varied other things, I have not, in fact, had relations with a man in Africa in the past 30 years. Then of course, they finally get around to tapping into my arm, which is where I gushed out more than a pint in about 6 minutes. The average time is like 10-15 minutes. This is a minor change from the last time I had nurses dowsing for blood in my arm, where it took them 30 minutes to find a vein. Anywho, after they drained me, I was feeling a little light-headed, but I was allowed to stuff myself with mediocre cookies and drank blue-flavored (?) drinks, so it wasn't a total loss.

So, when I watch the news, one of the last things I want to see is people demanding my blood. I would much rather those couple minutes be spent on telling me about the really important stuff going on in the world. I want the latest two-day long celebrity marriage, reports on supermodel drug rehab progress, and more of Cindy Sheehan demanding U. S. troops pull out of "occupied New Orleans." Man, that last one still makes me laugh. She should be on Comedy Central, not CNN!

But, alas, unless someone finds a way to stock the Red Cross's blood banks to the same level their bank account is, I won't be able to hear more Sheehan stand-up. This is of course, where I come in with my world-changing plan.

I propose that the Red Cross make up a post-shaving rig of some sort for every teenage guy. Every two or three weeks, a combination of acne and peach fuzz combine to present the Red Cross with a vast untapped source of blood. Hundreds of thousands of nicks and minor cuts happen at fairly predictable times, that, while individually don't add up to much, combine to be a massive source which would likely just about overwhelm the Red Cross. They will probably have to encourage extreme sport growth or masochism to make sure none of it goes to waste. And this will allow the news to get back to its reguarly scheduled moronic celebrity coverage.

What does "dopi" spell backwards?

September 14, 2005
As I was walking home from class today, I almost got run into by someone staring intently into their iPod, probably changing the song from Kelly Clarkson to something from the Crazy Frog "album." Besides feeling sorry for them, it made me kind of upset someone would be so lost to the world around them. As I considered this, I thought about how this could possibly be the next epidemic, following the tragedies of drinking and walking, and cell phoning and walking.

Is cell phoning a word?

Anywho, as I thought it through, I realized that the iPod is the pinnacle of practical engineering for engineers. As an engineer, or at least one in training, one of the first things we were taught was to minimize eye contact and face-to-face communication with others. Thats why an engineer will be perpetually on AIM, but will never walk down the hall to say "hi" to the same person he's been chatting with for hours. The physical activity involved in walking and talking may also have a detrimental effect, but anywho. Just think of how often you arrived at class 3.4 seconds later than you wanted to because someone you knew went out of their way to say "Hello." First off, you probably don't like the person anyway, but you must now acknowledge the fact they passed within 10 ft of you. Stupid social norms.

If you bother someone with thin white wires mysteriously emanating from deep within their ear canal, they will roll their eyes, slowly pull the buds out of their ears, and stop the music. Rolling your eyes is one of the best ways to make people stop bothering you. People quickly pick up on the fact you don't want to be bothered by them when you roll your eyes at them. Just ask my mom.

And the above scenario happens only if the person with the iPod hears you! I can't even count the number of times that I have said "Hi" (I didn't do too well on the first few engineering lessons) to someone with the tell-tale white wires, and the person with the iPod would continue walking, totally ignoring me! For you engineers out there without iPods, if that doesn't have you salivating with envy at the thought of ignoring other people with an accepted excuse, well, you three may want to consider switching majors. No one will ever accuse you of being an antisocial hermit when you have an iPod. In fact, you may even be held in higher esteem by your peers, and your peers will likely reveal this in later AIM conversations, relating stories of how you ignored them as you walked by, and telling you how they heard Crazy Frog "songs" playing.

Man, I want an iPod so bad.

When Real Men Cry

September 4, 2005
I finally did something insanely insane, so I figure I ought to tell everyone about it.

So as many people know, I love hot sauce. I love hot peppers. I love hot sauce on hot peppers. I laugh when people call green peppers hot, and then make fun of them.

So naturally, when I saw that the West Lafayette Buffalo Wild Wings (finally) set up the Blazin' Wing Challenge, I was all in. 12 Blazin' Wings in 6 minutes or less. I was born for this.

If you never been to Buffalo Wild Wings, or never tried their Blazin' Sauce, I really can't describe it as anything besides hot. Of course, when I call something hot, that means, about 8 hours after you eat it, your colon is going to seem like a greased tube, rocketing out whatever you ate with the force of a grenade launcher. I got about 7 hours left till I detonate.

Anywho, these guys know its serious stuff, and if they think you can't handle it, they will try to talk you out of it. I told them I wanted in so they told me what I had to do and all that jazz. I gave them my money and went to my table. A little bit later, one of the workers comes out with a release form. They have you sign a liability release form before you take on the challenge.

Before this, I had engaged in a couple of pepper challenges, like the time I filled a cup up with peppers at the dining hall because they had nothing else edible, in addition to my breakfast, where my sausage patties and eggs take a dip in a shallow pool of Frank's RedHot. So, while their isn't much out there that can train you for Blazin' sauce, my taste buds were decently accustomed to the occasional fiery wrath.

So the rules. First, no drinking anything, and no blue cheese or ranch dressing. Basically, the wings must go in your mouth without any dilutive substances. Second, you must remove all the meat from the wings with your mouth. I thought it was a weird rule, but I followed it nevertheless. Along with that, an acceptable amount of meat must be removed from the wing for it to count. Third, it must all be swallowed. Vomiting, spit-up, etc., disqualifies you. And of course, all 12 wings must be consumed and swallowed in 6 minutes or less.

They cooked up my wings, and let them cool for about five minutes, which is part of the procedure I guess. Anywho, after she brought them out, she said I could start whenever I wanted. I took that as go, and began inhaling.

I took those first few wings with ease, barely even tasting them. I think in the first minute, I had 5 wings stripped of their meat. At this point, I hadn't done much swallowing, so I had a lot of meat with a lot of hot sauce getting chewed up. This proved detrimental as it sped up the process of imbedding the flavor in every corner of my mouth. Once those were out of the way, I started to feel the burn, but I was still doing good. I finished 4 more in stride, and hit the 2 minute mark. At this point, I had gotten quite a bit of wings on my face, and my cheeks started burning. Also, around 9 wings, everything else was begining to burn. I got No. ten down, and the tears were flowing. Number 11 was getting to be rough stuff as the flood gates opened and rivers of sweat and tears began streaming down my face. I got to No. 12, and it was looking much larger than those first couple. It took me a while to finish this one, partly because I knew I had it in the bag, and second, its hard to swallow when you have massive burping fits. Getting something down when air is coming up on a one way street is quite the challenge. Savoring the last bite longer than I should have, partly because I forgot about the "Wing must be swallowed before time stops" part, second to enjoy the agony of victory, I then get around to swallowing. Showing the timer person my now vacant mouth, she stops the timer.

3min 43 sec

Not top, but a lot better than most. I quickly drink the milk they provided and get about a half dozen Coke refills, and finally quell the fire. My stomach was groaning in agony, and it still is, about 2 hours later. I have an intense headache, almost certainly related to the above challenge. However, the worst part about this whole thing is, they ran out of T-shirts for the challenge. I have to go back next week and pick one up. Apparently I was the fourth one tonight to try it. Anywho, I'm going to bed now. I need to get some rest in before the ticking time bomb in me goes off.

Dream World

August 30, 2005
I had this dream again, and I'm trying to figure out what it means.

It starts out with me in a plane. Its kind of like watching a video of myself, as I view my self in my window seat staring down on the world below. I can clearly view the expression on my face, and it is clearly one of excitement, sadness, indifference and/or fear. Or I fell asleep with my eyes open. Anywho, the plane soon touches down and I hop off.

Soon my dream cuts to a get together of some sort, with lots of people all congregated together. I am now experiencing this in the first person, as opposed to the third-person video-watching type of experience.

We are all seated at our tables and I know no one around me. A hostess comes to my table and begins taking our orders for dinner. After going around the table, she asks me what I want. I was getting tired so I ask for a Pepsi or Coke. She stares at me with a look of confusion. I asked if they had Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper or anything like that. Continued confusion.

I continue to ask him about a variety of sodas, and even Monster or Rockstar, or, even, *GASP* Full Throttle, but the only thing I got out of the hostess was a full-fledged look of bewilderment. In desperation, I ask, "Do you have nothing that can be classified as a carbonated drink loaded with caffiene?"

Suddenly all the tables around mine fall silent, the jaws at my table drop with a clang, and the hostess is looking at me like I just said the most foul, string of words ever said. The expression remained constant as I proceeded to say the foulest thing I could think of, confirming my suspicions. As typically happens in situations like this in my dreams, I was suddenly seated very close to a set of doors leading outside that I don't remember being there, so I quickly excuse myself and take the cab parked right outside.

As I ride off in the cab, I realize I forgot my wallet, and watching the meter rapidly rise, I decided this was an appropriate time to end this little episode. Waking up sweating slightly, I ponder the meaning of it all, and this bizarre backward land. I think they called it Utah.

My Highly Anticipated Arrival/Update

August 27, 2005
So its been a while since I've updated my site, so I guess I got some 'splaining to do.

Currently I am at Purdue, enjoying the thrill-a-minute euphoria one experiences when studying thermodynamics, dot products, and materials science. Knowing the demands of my readers is the only thing that ripped me, kicking and screaming, from my books, which I estimate are valued around $67.83/lb.

I moved into Hillenbrand Hall last Saturday to meet my roommate. He is in actuarial science and explained that the reason he moved into actuarial whatever from electrical engineering was he didn't like all the math and physics in it. Something about his reasons struck me as odd, and asked him, "You don't like math?" He nods, so I procede to ask him, "And you moved into actuarial science?" He remains silent for a little bit, and says something about the physics math and such he didn't like. Later that night, he tells me how I got him really thinking about staying in actuarial whatever. So there you have it, it took me about twenty minutes of talking to him, and I've already ruined the semester for him. So that kept me busy for a little bit.

Also, I've had to go to the bookstore and get the aforementioned printed material. A new feature at Follett's bookstore this year, to enhance the customer experience there, is that all employees have gotten certified in CPR to help customers who have bouts with cardiac arrest when looking at the book prices.

So I just explained away approximately a week of the past 4 weeks. So what did I do before that? One word: work.

Week of July 31-Aug 6th: 69 paid hours of work
Week of Aug 7-13th: 72 hours
Week of Aug 14-20th: 46 hours.

So that wrapped up my summer where I averaged 50 hours of work a week. Basically, my schedule during those three weeks was work, sleep, and gripe about how sore I was.

Some other stuff that I did was I went to the Brickyard 400 Aug 7th (I think), where I was woken up by noisy cars passing my seat about 160 times by the end of the day. I'll have more on this in the near future.

And now a quick update on my doings and answering, "So how's Purdue?"

I went the entire week without either sleeping through a class or skipping a class. So I do believe I deserve mega-kudos for such an astounding accomplishment. In addition to this, I have done all my homework (the first math assignment doesn't count because I wasn't in the class when it was assigned) and am in fact working on getting ahead. In other signs of self-denial and control, I have yet to steal anything from the dining halls, I have yet to make it halfway through either my 24-pack of Pepsi, or the package of Oreos I came with, and yesterday was the first day I went to bed after 1 AM since I arrived.

Yesterday, I went to the first party of the year. Good fun as usual, so long as I ignore the fact the people I was with were kinda pissing me off a lot. While I'm on the topic, congratulations to Katie, who successfully drank more last night than the entire populace of Utah has drank since it achieved statehood. May I never have to take care of her drunk again.

Oh, yeah, and if your my mom, that last paragraph was a joke. I went to a fellowship thingy at church where we sat around a fire singing hymns and discussing passages from the Bible.

My Highly Successful Diet

July 30, 2005
In very pleasing news to many of my admirers, I got my hair cut today. I can now bang my head with the music, and not fear poking my eye out. Where there once was hair, there are now tanlines. While I could previously cover my eyes with my hair, it can no longer even reach my eyebrows. I was kind of sad to see it go, since I had been working on growing it since early April, and even that haircut was minor, leaving a lot still on my head.

However, sadness past when I weighed myself afterwards. In a matter of 30 minutes or so, I lost 4 lbs. If only it was always that easy.

With the Lights Out

July 27,2005
Last night the power went out at work for two hours and fifteen minutes. Normally, my job (counting to 25, taping boxes, putting stickers on boxes) doesn't require much concentration or mental capacity. However, last night, I discovered sitting in the dark watching the rain fall requires even less mental attention.

Naturally, when you don't occupy enough of my attention, my mind begins to drift. Something like, "17, 18, 19, I wonder if I have pants for tomorrow, .. 12, 13, 14, hmm, something smells like skunk and bagels again, ...16, 17, 18..." twelve hours a night. However, last night, I didn't even have to count between thoughts, so, while yawning till my jaw cramped up, I thought about two things: getting a different job for next summer, and a recent safety video I saw. And that's when it hit me that I can create a new nifty job for myself next summer.

The safety video I saw was about about an ExxonMobile refinery worker explaining how octane booster fumes and the catalytic converter of a running truck don't mix well. He tours the country talking to people in various industries, about getting his face charred off in a rather impressive sounding fireball, and making tapes of his talks to sell to cheapskate employers nationwide who don't want to pay his likely exhorborant appearance fees. He then tries to link his experience of not wearing safety equipment and fire-resistant clothing in a refinery while in the middle of a raging inferno, to, in this case, the railroad industry by talking about the effects his injury and 5 years of rehab had on his family and personal life. We plastic injection molding types must then link that connection to our business more or less on our own. Unless we take the paid hour that we sit in a dark room to take a nap. That seemed to be a popular choice. When the lights turned on and some woke up, they tried to make it look like they just blink for a really long time, but I knew better. I heard them snore.

Anywho, I realized that, if I injure myself in a way that is easily linked to many other industries, I could not only have a high paying job next summer, but travel too! I thought about previous work injuries I've had, like the four stitches I got when I was cutting a box at the garden center while not really paying attention to anything, to that time a part fell on my finger and pinched it between another part. It hurt a lot, but no one is going to pay me a lot for a pinched finger. I soon realized that I am going to have to create an injury to get my workplace safety talk tour off the ground.

As I thought about what I could do, I made a list of what my injury could not be. First, nothing life threatening. Second, all body parts must remain intact. Third, low to no downtime or recovery time. Fourth, something everyone can relate to or can easily understand.

What brilliant idea did I come up with? "Waxing your legs with packing tape: Workplace dares gone wrong. My horrific experience and long road to recovery looking like an Olympic swimmer." Sure its not as manly as inhaling a fireball as you race for safety, permanently scarring your lungs, but who said it had to be? I'll make sure not to wear safety glasses at the time.

Getting Dirty

July 23, 2005
Like all good kids who lose their acedemic scholarships and whose parents loaded their college fund with lottery tickets and coffee futures, I got a summer job at the factory where my dad worked. I say worked because, since I was hired on, my dad went postal. That's right, for some of you, you mail may be delivered by my dad. Anywho, last night was one of the roughest nights I've had at work.

To get the factory ready for an upcoming OSHA inspection, I was to work overtime cleaning machines. Before going in, however, a very large storm rolled through knocking out the power for a lot of people, except where I work. This is not fun when you need clothes dried, food cooked, and e-mail checked. As it blew through a bit after 4 in a rather noisy fashion, not only did it wake me up, but left little in terms of time to go back to bed when it was over since I start work at 7.

It turns out cleaning is a very dirty endeavour. When my supervisor said I picked the wrong clothes for the job, and I didn't change the shirt I wore to bed, and the pants I had on was one of my worst, I had cause for concern. It turns out that these concerns were well-grounded.

It turns out, for those who did not know, New Britian plastic injection molding machines leak more oil than the Exxon Valdez. I'd mop up a puddle of oil, take a break, and bam, deja vu, its like the I'm mopping the same puddle after break. After getting worn out vacuuming up plastic pellets, wiping machines down, and pulling parts out of places that really made you wonder, "How'd they get in there?," along with the fact I have my sleep significantly cut into, it was a very cruel experience to have to mop up oil puddles around machines that seems to be more prolific at making oil puddles than plastic parts.

In addition to that, one of the other supervisors asked if I got sprayed with water. I replied no, and asked why, to which he replied, oh, its that hot in between the machines. I look down at my sweat soaked shirt, and say, yeah, its warm.

Every Great Movement in the History of Mankind Started with a Diet High in Fiber

July 22, 2005
Yesterday, my brother demonstrated why he was not employed at the Garden Center, while I was.

Today is the opening day of the Elkhart County fair, and on the two days before the start of the fair, people from across the county are invited to exhibit plants, vegetables, and cut flowers they have grown, in the Horticulture Building. For the past couple years, I have wanted to, but have been unable to, enter, generally due to the fact I slept in after the 7-9 AM entry time window on Thursday. This year was different: If I was to miss the time window, it would be because I went to bed early. Those who know me are chuckling at the thought of this. So this year was my chance to enter and win the lucrative $2.50 grand prize for whatever class I decided to enter.

As soon as I got back home from work, I started looking for something to enter. This has been problem No. 2 for me, as most stuff I grow doesn't come in bloom until early August, or bear fruit until about the day before frost. So I turn to the few plants I have trouble killing. These are the toughest of the tough, the ones that survived 3 weeks of Christmas Break without water, and those that apparently only got watered when I came home during Christmas Break.

As I finally decided on the plant I would enter, a Madagascar Palm that has done really well since I got home, I worked to get it ready for showing. As two of the four qualities that are judged on during this heated competition deal with the pot it is in, I decided now would be the appropriate time to move it out of the translucently thin, tiny pot that greenhouse grew it in to a more appropriate sized pot that doesn't have cartoon flowers with greenhouse logos on it.

Taking my time to make sure that the pot was clean and the plant looked like it had been in it for more than 6 minutes, my brother, who was only awake because he failed to sleep, was impatiently hurrying me along so he could ride along with me and go to the bank. Earlier, I asked him what I should enter, and right before I'm ready to leave, he finally picks out a plant for entry.

"Hey Eric, why don't you enter this geranium?"

Wiping off the last bit of dirt off the pot and making sure the plant was straight, I ask, "What geranium?"

"This one, this geranium right here. Its already potted, its big, and has lots of flowers, why don't you enter it?"

"It won't do well in the geranium class, I don't think."

"Why, what's wrong with it?"

"That plant is commonly known as an 'impatien.'"

"... ... Oh."

Cat-Hoarding Hags

How does one solve this problem? I suggest a national hotline set up by the Humane Society, something memorable for emergency situtations, like 1-877-HOARDING-HAG (462-7346), to be used for tips. It would be one of those commercials on TV, the ones that end with, "Sponsored by the National Ad Council and This Station." It would urge viewers to call the number once you spot any cats with, near, or in the residence of an old, lonely, woman. Apparently, old women and cats are like cockroaches, once you spot one, you already have a problem.

Another method of prevention that may end up being very effective would be cat licensing. In many states, once you hit an age deemed old by the government, you must go in to the BMV and prove you can drive a car without killing anyone. At least that's how you pass the test in Indiana. I think that was the only thing I didn't accomplish during my driving test. Right along with this test, the BMV lady with the hair that hasn't moved in ten years would ask old ladies if they own a cat. If an affirmitive groan is given in response, they would have to take a cat license test. I've drawn up a couple questions to save the state money on consulting fees.

1. Owning a cat:
A. Makes me happy
B. Bring joy to my life
C. Why is "cat" singular?
D. Is disappointing.

2. The thought of owning 50 cats makes me:
A. Want to be allegic to cats
B. Wish I had listened to Bob Barker
C. Excited and stimulated.
D. Let me tell you, its a rush.

3. A dead cat:
A. Goes out with the rest of the trash Monday
B. Will be buried in the back yard
C. Will be given its deserved funeral, and will be buried at the pet cemetary
D. Goes with the other ones in my freezer.

4. A cat with a collar means:
A. It ain't mine so it had better get out of my garbage before I club it.
B. I'll give it some milk and call its owner.
C. Its mine in 30 days.
D. It's dressed up for its long and exciting stay with all his new inbred friends.

If any citizen, or resident alien, or illegal immigrant, should see an older woman with a cat, they could request to see picture I. D. and her cat license. Should she not have either, the consequences will be like those in similiar situations: depending on the percieved threat, punishment could range from a stern verbal warning to having her cat impounded.

306 cat, 87 dead in two homes in Virginia, Woman, age 82

General information about animal hoarders

123 cats, 13 more dead in Idaho, Woman, Age unknown, but likely half-past dead

30 cats, plus 12 rotten ones, Woman, also old

Dear God, a tag team of an 87 and a 61 year old woman, 22 cats, both previously arrested for having over 100 cats in 1992

193 cats, plus 64 dead, Woman, getting early start at 48.

Approximately 57 cats cats found, plus 2 dead, woman, old

Same person as above, but also general information about hoarding, , states 700 cat hoarding cases A YEAR

Tag team of women had dozens of dogs, cats, and two children.

And this is why men are never found hoarding cats