Thunder of Wade

I swam 30 laps today, despite being a bit tired and getting a late start. Felt pretty good and could have gone further, but ran out of time.

Had another bomb threat today on campus – someone wrote a warning on the wall of a bathroom stall. How lame can you get? I hope the bomb sniffing dogs are getting some good treats out of all of this – they’d be the only ones who might benefit from it.

It’s been a few weeks since I had my last coca-cola – I think I’ve finally gotten the addiction beat. Drinking a lot of water to make up for it, but that’s better anyway.

My Halloween costume is coming along nicely – had a make or break moment last evening and things went better than expected. No hints, so don’t even bother asking.

Played a little Final Fantasy again last night – and got my ass handed to me. I literally ran away screaming like a little girl. It was sad and pathetic.

Finally, I’ve been working on not biting my nails anymore. I’m making some progress, but it’s taking a lot of concentration.

6 random topics and I’m outta here. Later…

Went to a football game with my room-mate over the weekend – WVU in morgantown. The drive down was boring on Friday, as was much of the evening. I did a bit of folding and read a book.
On gameday, we head out early and then had some issues with the optimum route. My room-mate and his sister had different ideas on how to proceed and I sat in the back and wondered if we would ever get there.

Finally arrived and found a parking space – and waited for his other sister and her family to show up. They finally did, and we set out to find them in the lot where they said they had parked. He and his sister started out, I told them that I would catch up after visiting the port-o-let. They were long gone when I emerged, but I figured they wouldn’t be hard to find. I went to the correct lot and with a little logic, found his other sister and her family. A number of cell phone conversations and my room-mate and his now deeply cranky sister finally arrived. Apparently, they thought I had gone back to our car for some reason. Anyway, we split up once in the stadium and found our seats.

My room-mate’s niece had what they called “a meltdown” and the rest of his family left the game just before half-time. My room-mate started to overheat and needed to borrow my hat – though it was only a stop gap measure as he had to leave before the 4th quarter.

Ironically, I wasn’t really in favor of going to the game at all, but ended up being the only one who could have stuck it out – though I left with my room-mate since he was driving.

Once back at their homestead, his niece threw up due to her migraine and my room-mate pretty much passed out from the heat exhaustion. I ended up with a sunburn.

Oh, and WVU won the game. (we heard it on the radio as we left)

I had a headache most of the day and went to bed early. The next day I was ready to leave at 8:30 but we didn’t get on the road until around 12:30. I went into a low-power mode to help get though the intense boredom – it helped a little. And despite a relatively innocuous visit – there was a comment made right at the end that burned me up. I kept quiet about it, but I have to wonder what holding all this stuff back is going to do to me. Nothing good, I’m sure.

In other news… our university President did it again and gave a commencement speech that I enjoyed reading as I posted it on the web for him. This one was about Time and he quotes Penelope Corfield as she describes time as:

“one long never-ending Now.”

I like that – fits in well with my own personal philosophy.

On the flip side is a quote by Ariel from the video game Legacy of Kain – one of my personal favorites. I played through that section several times so I could write it down word for word:

‘All I can do is watch and remember.
Ceaselessly conscious as this wretched world’s history unfolds.
Ghastly past, insufferable future – Are they one in the same?
Am I always here?”

At the point in the game where she says this, she’s a prophetic ghost. So, it pretty much sucks to be her.

I can identify with that to an extent – in a way, she reminds me of cassandra from ancient greek myths. Blessed with visions of the future, cursed so that no one will ever believe her.

Man, I feel like that all the time. Things would work out so much better if everyone around me would just listen to me and then do exactly what I tell them to do. I’m seriously going to have to break out the mind control drugs one of these days.

Well, that’s it for now. Gotta get back to the grind.

later…

I got a bill a couple days ago for my credit card – the one that I’d thought I’d paid off and canceled. Apparently, I’m being charged interest on the amount before my check got to them. $2.83 cents. Wankers.

I also got a bill from the hospital for my stay back in February. For $50. Not bad. I suspect they’ll be more, but it looks like my insurance paid about $4000+, so I’m not complaining.

Got a call from the red cross, encouraging me to give blood. Which I’m not allowed to do anyway since I just gave within the past couple of weeks. Not sure what’s up with their records.

The strep throat has had one good side effect – I think I’ve broken my coca-cola addiction. It hurt far too much to swallow the carbonated soda, so I found myself not drinking it at all. It was rough going for a bit there, but I think I’ve gotten stopped at this point and I’m drinking a lot of water and a little bit of tea. We’ll see how it goes.

that’s it for now… later…

While still fighting my sore throat, I bought some grape flavored cloroceptic (sp?). It was the children’s strength, but still did the job and tasted better than the cherry flavored adult stuff I’d been chugging.

This is important to note since I have also gotten into the habit of using a spray cleaner that I got from my eye doctor for cleaning my glasses.

While in Illinois I grabbed the spray bottle and the lens cloth and hit my glasses, once per lens on each side. And even though the bottles are nothing alike other than that they spray liquid, I managed to grab the wrong one and doused my glasses with grape cough medicine. I even started to use the lens cloth to wipe off the grape liquid before the color and smell stopped me.

I got the lenses washed off with water and tried again. I also shared this incident with my family, who got a good laugh over this.

And I am very glad they didn’t get mixed up the other direction – otherwise, I might have poisoned myself.

That’s it for now… later…

Well, time to catch up a bit.

1. Went and gave blood recently. Went pretty smooth, except the woman that took the donation kept talking about how she wouldn’t take blood from another employee as they would be too critical of her work. Well, turns out there would be good reason to be critical – she didn’t do a very good job. Not the end of the world, but not really precise.

2. Went to a christening for the couple that stayed with us while waiting for their surrogate twins to be born. It was a nice service and the church would make a great place to hide from vampires as it was covered in crucifixes and had holy water on tap. Handy. The service made mention of an exorcism, but it was not as interesting as it would have seemed. I got to hold one of the twins afterwards and told her she was my buddy until she pooped. Instead, she spit up on me.

3. That same weekend, went to a pretty cool block party. Stayed late, talked to a lot of people, ate some good food and did a little dancing. Also participated in the potato race – which involved holding a potato between one’s legs and attempting to run. I wasn’t very good at that.

4. Went to a wedding late weekend for my cousin. She looked radiate, her groom was in a kilt and there were bagpipes playing. The service was outside and only lasted about 10 minutes – justice of the peace running the show. The food consisted of snacks and I hung out with some my extended family. Had a nice time – though the drive to Illinois and back was really long.

5. In and around all of this, I’d been fighting a sore throat. A bad one. I finally went to the doctor and got a prescription – which seems to have finally done the trick. I thought I was going to OD on menthol for a while there.

6. The middle son of my former room-mate contacted me recently – he’s college age and starting at UA. Which is pretty cool – I’m hoping we can get together for lunch one of these days.

7. I finally went to a chipolte recently – and that was some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. I ate a burrito that was the size and shape of a brick like it was nothing. Man, that was good stuff.

Guess that’s about it for now… back to the video games.

Went to an Aeros game last night with my friends – had a good time. We got half off for the tickets and I used my campus parking pass, so we save a little money and then blew it all on food and snacks.

The Aeros made three errors and ended up losing the game, but we still had a good time. I continue to be puzzled at the coaches that argue with the umpires. Like, has that ever worked? And the endless conferences on the mound that serve only to delay the game. We left with 1/2 an inning to go and it was still pretty late for me.

We also saw some wildlife. After the sun went down, the bats came out. They were flying high above the ballpark hunting insects and apparently interested in the pop-ups that occasionally went into their area. Pretty cool.

We were also joined by a preying mantis that landed on top of the first base dugout. The mantis apparently watched the game with us for a bit, then stared at the baby sitting in front of us. I think it was trying to decided if it could take the baby, but ultimately decided to risk the bats and fly off.

In other news, the red cross is after me again to give blood. I’ve gotten several letters and phone calls – I think the next step is a house visit and a non voluntary “donation”. Better call to make an appointment.

Classes started this week and we’ve been pretty busy – better get back to it. Later….

Got my new glasses yesterday, they are really nice. And I got magnetic clip on sunglasses, which are extra super cool. I’ll get a pick one of these days once my zit goes away and I can get my hair under control. Getting both of those things to happen at same time might be a challenge, but I’ll do my best.

Went for my swim today – half the pool was closed off for a water polo practice. I was in the “dangerous” part of the pool where only 2 days ago the lifeguards were concerned that the ceiling would collapse. Apparently, that’s no longer a concern and I was free to pick my lane.

More Final Fantasy last evening. I reached a new area and the local chief vouched for me and said I must be very brave to get there. Umm… not really. I mostly ran around like a crazy person trying to find a save point, but hey, if the chief wants to vouch for my bravery, who am I to argue?

Got a meeting in a few… later…

So, playing final fantasy xii this weekend – here’s how it went down.
1. Found myself at a village by the river, can’t cross because the barge is on the other side.
2. Need to cross to complete a quest and take out an evil chicken-thing.
3. Look for alternate route, find one (I think) but blocked by a sandstorm.

A little later on in the game, I go to the entrance to the dessert and meet a dude who is studying sandstorms (!) He suggests that I talk to man sitting at the fountain. Man at fountain says he used to stop sandstorms all the time with a device, but his buddy has half of it. Buddy is in the sewers.

I head to the sewers and find his buddy, who says he hid his half of the device out in the dessert under a giant cactus. He is a little vague as to where. I head out to the dessert and look under dozens of cacti until I find it. Back to the sewers – the buddy is gone. Back to the fountain – that guy is gone too. Find them both at the entrance to the dessert where the fountain dude does “something” to whatever it was I found under the cactus and tells me it will now work – whatever that means. The dude studying sandstorms says he can’t go because his funding was cut. He suggests that I go there on my own – if that’s what I really want to do.

After all that? Hell yeah I want to go. Dumbass….

So, I make my way back through the dessert to the sandstorm area. The device is working, apparently, since the sands open up and….

There’s a big freaking DINOSAUR! waiting for me. He’s apparently deeply pissed off and hungry. My characters swing into action and in a few moments, the three main characters are dead. I call up the reserves and they don’t last any longer. In less than 2 minutes, everyone is dead and the dinosaur is almost entirely unhurt. Game Over.

I then turned off the playstation and went to read a book.

In other news… went swimming today. I headed for the nearest open lane from the locker room and got in. I was about to put my goggles on when one of the life guards started talking to me. I couldn’t hear and got out to talk to them. Apparently, the two entirely unmarked lanes were closed since they were afraid that the ceiling would collapse.

Ummm… what?

So, I switched lanes to the deep end and started my swim. I was going along pretty well until guys got into lanes on either side of me and proceeded to lap the hell out of me. I felt… slow. Still, I comforted myself with the notion that I had already done 16 laps by the time they started, but it was still unpleasant. I nearly gave up at 18 since I was so tired, but struggled on to 27 somehow – putting me at 3/4 of a mile for the day. The ceiling never did collapse while I was there, may be interesting to see when I go back on Wednesday.

Finally, I’ve had a headache most of the day. And staring at a computer screen for 8 hours really hasn’t helped. I’m going home in a few and I think I may actually try to nap – which I’m not very good at.

that’s it for now… later….

I got my haircut on Wednesday. The stylist did a good job, but she was “too meticulous” – in a way that made me nervous. So much attention to detail and I felt like she was going to miss something anyway. The conversation was a bit strained – but the end result was a good hair cut.

Yesterday, I went to get my eyes checked and to order a new pair of glasses. The doctors assistant was excellent and very professional. The doctor was even better and was very through and professional – and made me feel at ease. The lady that helped me pick out my glasses was a hoot and a half. She really enjoyed her job and helped me pick some excellent frames – and worked the insurance to save me several hundred dollars. The girl that did the checkout, however, was flighty. She had to run my card twice since she didn’t include the glasses with my eye exam. And then she joked about using my card for online shopping. Eh, not really funny.

My new glasses should be here in about a week or so. I’m quite excited. After that, dentist and then investments. Not a good idea to have too many irons in the fire if I can avoid it.

I paid off a credit card last night and canceled the card. They sent me to a different department to do the process the cancellation and try and persuade me to keep the card. Suddenly, I was a valued customer. They could refund my interest for the past three months! They could lower my rate to 15%! And the more they offered me, the more resolute and pissed off I became. Where were they in the 8 years I’ve had the card? They resold my account several times, jacked up my interest rate to loan-shark territory, and sent me crap nearly constantly that I never needed. My room-mate told me that I could call my credit card company to get my rate lowered at any time. Great. Except that’s not the point. If I’m really a valued customer, waiting until I was pissed off enough to cancel the card is too late.

I may get a card later on – maintain a zero balance and use it just for emergencies. But it sure felt good to make that call and get out from under that chunk of debt.

that’s it for now… later

My usual swim trunks are in the wash, so I had to use an older pair that I have. They have the following properties:

1. Smooth material
2. A Velcro fly
3. A drawstring that closed, but does not tighten at the waist band.
4. Strings that do not hold a knot well.

5. Finally, it also does not fit me as well as it used to since I’ve been exercising.

Walking around does not present any problems when wearing the suit – and even the minor issues with relieving oneself are trivial and easily dismissed.

In the pool, however, the problems become substantial.

Things started out okay, though there was an increased bit of drag in the water and some looseness to the trunks even with everything securely fastened. As I progressed, however, the looseness increased and I began to get concerned.

Then suddenly, in the middle of the pool, disaster. The string, which had been loosening on it’s own without my knowledge, gave way entirely. Without that support the Velcro didn’t stand a chance against the forward motion through the water.

I was, in a word, exposed.

There were several factors that prevented a total FCC meltdown wardrobe malfunction.

1. I was in the middle of the pool
2. The lifeguards were not, thankfully, paying that close attention
3. The only other person in the pool was swimming in the opposite direction.
4. I have quick reflexes.

I quickly realized the problem, tucked everything back in where it needed to be, and refastened the Velcro. I modified my stroke to get me back to the side of the pool and reconfigured once there. I was worried that a double knot would lead to problems later, so I went with a single know again – though this time I monitored it more carefully.

I finished out my swim, certain that I was partially “mooning” the rest of the pool, but since no one said anything, I think it was okay.

The ironic bit? If given the opportunity, I would have gladly doffed my suit and gone without out. However, I’m fairly certain it’s against the rules…

Hmmm… maybe I should check that out…. hang on…

Well, technically there are no rules about that posted on the pools website.

However, I think I know what they would be and I’m certain to get into trouble – and perhaps even make the school paper, though not in a good way.

And as for the suit? Never again. I’d burn it if I was sure the fabric wouldn’t create a toxic cloud. So, it’s headed for the trash.

later…