1 Corinthians 13:11

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”

I would like to know when Paul considered himself to have become a man. I mean, I know about the Bar Mitzvah and all that, but I wonder if he was talking about something different, something more sudden and drastic. Something to do with his experience on the road to Damascus.

Thinking about the switch from reasoning like a child to reasoning like a man, what if it’s something much more substantial and basic?

So, in three days time Pharoah will kill David Hyde Pierce? Also, boobies?

Uh oh, hopefully this isn’t going the way of Shanga. I promise I’ll do better, and think of interesting things to post.

Until that time though, you get to read about two strange dreams I had last night. Now, compared to some other dreams I’ve had I guess these were actually mild, but there were some genuinely strange bits to each of them. Both of them also seem to be school related.

Dream #1

In this dream I’m a student, and one of my teachers is David Hyde Pierce, the actor best known for portraying Dr. Niles Crane on the sitcom Frasier. And I really really don’t like him. I don’t like him to the point that I want to kill him. I remember that actually creeping me out in dream, that I wanted to off the guy. Anyway, I’m in the dream and I’ve just been to Pierce’s office (I guess I must have been at least an undergrad student in the dream since the office seemed to be the office of a college professor) and I’m furious with him and thinking bloody murder. Then, all of the sudden, it was like there was a burst of static, or a glitch, in my dream, and I suddenly couldn’t remember if I had just wanted to kill David Hyde Pierce or if I actually had. I started to panic. I got so panicked that I woke myself up, still freaking out, over whether or not I’d actually done something terrible. Thankfully, to my knowledge, DHP remains unharmed.

Dream #2

In this dream I was back at A&M, but not as a student. Instead, I was on campus, and I had to talk to a bunch of undergrad students for one of their classes. I had to talk to them about mattresses. Apparently they were taking a class on mattresses, and I was a mattress expert. I think they had to talk to me for extra credit.

The first student I talked to was a guy in the Corp. I was trying to tell him what he needed to know, but at the same time a Corp parade was going by and my guy was having a lot of fun trying to mess with and distract his buddies as they marched. Eventually the commanding officer got really upset and chased him into a dorm. I waited outside the dorm for him to come back out and finish the mattress lesson but he never did, and eventually I felt bad about neglecting the other students who were waiting so I left. I met with the next group of students in their dorm. Immediately after starting to talk, one of the guys came up to me and said he had to go to church and wanted to know if I’d just sign the piece of paper saying he’d heard my talk. So I did. Seriously, who needs to learn about mattresses anyway?

I did think it was interesting though, I’ve heard that you can’t read in dreams, that if you try to read a sign or book that it will just look blurry. I was though able to write my name and then read it.

Anyway, back to teaching about mattresses! After signing the guy’s note I turned  back to the other two students, both girls, and realized that they now had their tops off. I know what you’re thinking, “Wooooo! Sex dream!”, but nope, I just finished giving my lecture on mattresses and then woke up. No hanky panky what so ever. I woke up after finishing my lecture. Hopefully the two of them put their tops back on and got a good grade in their dream mattresses class.

So there you have it, two somewhat odd dreams. Interpretable? Perhaps, I’d be interested to hear what you think.

Multi-tasking

My tortoise likes to warm himself on my laptop’s power converter.

I’m a Really Lucky Guy

Fall semester ‘09 is officially under way. I’ve been to the first meeting of both my classes, as well as the first meeting with my major professor and research group. My Nuclear Safety and Security class should be interesting, I haven’t really had many classes in that area of the industry so at least a lot of it will be new. My design class is going to be a semester long project in a team with some other grad students, most of whom I’ve worked with before. So that should be good.

And Dr. Schneider thinks I should be able to write up my MS thesis (quasi-paper option) and get started on my doctoral topic before the end of the semester. So that would be awesome.

This past weekend I drove to Angleton to go with Amy to one of her high school friend’s weddings, and also meet some of her good friends from home and high school. Overall it was a good time. Early Sunday we drove back up to College Station, as Amy’s semester started today. From all I hear, that has gone well. I shall return to College Station at the end of the week to go to the first A&M game vs. New Mexico. I hope we win this one, otherwise it’s going to be a long cold season. I also hope I make progress at getting to know Amy’s Dad and brother. We’re all kind of quiet and reserved types, so it’s been slow going for the past year and a half. *fingerscrossed*

Finally, upon arriving back in Austin this morning, I found a package addressed to me waiting on the doorstep. The coming of this package had been foretold in a call from my Oma, but I was unprepared for what was inside the box. An absolutely beautiful quilt made by my Tante Jon. Here’s a few pictures:

Yeah, I was stunned when I took the quilt out. I don’t know much about quilting, but I can only imagine how much skill it must take to make something like this. I feel very special to have it.

Eeeeep.

It’s been quite a while since I updated. Sorry about that.

After riding around Albuquerque I had one more week of work at Sandia, then drove back to Texas, bypassing Austin, and arrived in College Station late on the 6th. The next couple of days saw lots of boxing, packing, shifting, hauling, and other general moving related verbs. At last, Amy was into her new apartment. It’s a pretty cool place, and I know she was super excited to have two large closets all to herself.

After that, I headed to Austin. It was really good to see everyone, and my room was pretty much exactly as I’d left it.

But after a few days stay, it was time to pick up Amy, hop on an airplane, and fly up to Kansas. We met my mom at KCI and picked up a rental car. I’d been hoping for a Ford Fusion or Chevy Malibu, but we got stuck with an unholy piece of shit Dodge Journey. I also got a speeding ticket about 10 minutes away from the airport in Missouri. I hate that car.

Anyway, the stay in Kansas was awesome. We got to see Miriah and Russ’s new house (which is fantastic, it even has an actual secret room!) We also saw a lot of the family on both my Mom and Dad’s side which was a lot of fun. And finally, after keeping us all in suspense, we got to meet baby Bea on Monday. Amy and I had fun taking care of Everett prior to her arrival. He didn’t seem too excited about his new sister, but I’m sure the two of them are going to hit it off eventually. Two beautiful little kids, I’m proud to be their uncle.

Alas, the time in Kansas quickly came to an end, and Amy and I headed back to Texas. We had a couple more days together, hiked around Brazos Bend state park, and enjoyed the last lazy days of summer. Once back in Austin, I helped prepare for Maldon IV, which turned out to be a house party of epic success and failure that has already been recounted elsewhere on the web far better than I can think to.

In about an hour I’ll have my first meeting of the semester with my advisor, Dr. Schneider, hopefully I can get back on track to get my MS by December. All in all, it looks like it’s going to be a very difficult semester, but that’s pretty much par for the course at this point.

Gus sends his love.

I did it!

Today I rode the whole way around Albuquerque, for a total of 50 miles including the little bit that I added on at the south west corner. I’m very happy, especially considering at the beginning of the summer I was worried about the 10 mile ride to work and back.

I’ve posted pictures from the ride on Facebook, I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this has access to my profile, but just in case you can always leave a comment and I”ll send you the link.

I know what day it is. . .

Up until about a week a go I was riding my bike wearing standard gym shorts. At times, especially after long rides or rides up and down hills, I was left pretty sore and uncomfortable. I finally broke down and bought a pair of the padded cycling shorts. Sweet Jesus what a difference!

I will note that I bought the mountain biking style of shorts, which look basically like normal cargo shorts but just have interior padded undies rather than the lyrca road shorts.

Speaking of those interior padded undies; they definitely work, riding is much more comfortable, but you can’t really wear other underwear with them when you go cycling. This isn’t really a problem, except when you’re commuting to work and change clothes once you get there. When you pack that change of clothes you need to remember that you don’t have boxers on underneath your cycling shorts. I think you know where this is going.

So, bringing us back to the title of this post, today is Inadvertent Free-Ball Friday.

Last Ride in Albuquerque

OK guys, here’s the plan. Next weekend is my last weekend in Albuquerque for Summer 2009. As a fitting punctuation mark for the summer, I am going to ride all the way around the city.

I’ve been really impressed with the bike routes here, looking at the map it should  be about 46 miles, 99% of which will be on bike-only paths or in bike lanes.

View Larger Map

Wish me luck!

I present to you . . .

. . . the name for my bike.

Now the name for Amy’s bike came very naturally. First off, her (the bike is obviously a girl) previous owner named her Betty, which seemed like a close but not quite natural fit. And since Amy likes Bianchi bicycles, the name Bianca was perfect.

However it wasn’t until today that I came upon the name for my bike, and when it hit me, it made me smile. First off, it should be noted that my bike’s frame color is called “Beef Gravy” by its manufacturer, but has also been called “poop” by several people who have seen it. This is fair. However, that’s not the only stuff with a rich brown patina. You read right, I just referred to poop’s patina.

Anyway, I was riding home from work, traffic was good, the weather was pleasant, and I was looking down at the brown frame, with my black taped handlebars and black rims, and it hit me.

My bike is The Black & Tan.

An awesome bicycle, and my favorite draught based method of achieving shit-facedness.

Apologies if you’re Irish and touchy.

PedalPedalPedal

Today I went for a nice long bike ride: about 40 miles in 2:45, which means I averaged about 14.5 mph. I’ll take that. Unfortunately, I also got a bit roasted on my arms and legs. I’m going to have a major farmer’s tan.

The ride was fun, I went again along the banks of the Rio Grande, but this time also included a loop at the south end of the trail system that goes in and among the river’s spillway. That was cool, wherever you have a large amount of smooth concrete far away from authority figures you’re going to get some interesting graffiti. The best I saw looked like a face of a henchmen from the Batman cartoon that was on when I was a kid, except it was about 25 feet tall and done entirely with spray paint. If I go on that ride again I’ll bring my cellphone and take a picture of it.

Wildlife was out in force also, I passed by several group of baby ducks who were chilling on the bike path, as well as lots of little gecko type lizards scampering about. Also out on the bike paths were downright strange people. One guy appeared to be wearing the hood from a beekeeper’s costume as he biked along. As I passed by another woman I called out, “On your left” as a courtesy, she responded with 3 or 4 seconds of duck quacks. Finally one guy I saw looked like he was wearing a tri-corner hat.

Actually, the guy wearing the tri-corner hat might just have a brilliant idea, especially when riding in traffic. The fact is that bicycle helmets are good protection if you fall off your bike, but won’t do a lot if you’re in a collision with an automobile. In fact, some research has shown that drivers will pull closer when passing cyclists wearing helmets because they feel they are “protected.” So, the best way to actually be safer when riding among vehicles is to make them slow down, I bet that hat does the trick.