Sloths etc.

     Let us consider, for a moment, the sloth. The motivation to do so will be revealed later, but for now: the sloth. A graceful creature that lives primarily in trees, with a top ground speed of 6.5 feet per minute (per wikipedia). Now imagine, for the purpose of this exercise, that some poor sloth had to have a limb amputated. Doesn't really matter which one, but luck handed this guy the short end of the stick, and now he's minus a limb. At 6.5 feet per minute, he can't exactly hop, or whatever an upside-down hop while hanging from a branch would be, because he can't move fast enough to grab the branch again before gravity presents its bill. This guy is in for some serious non-gracefulness while trying to move about in a world that is now hostile to general perambulation.

Name change... again...

An interesting fact to note, and one that is starting to become important in my life: The Social Security office has a limit on the number of cards they will issue you. You may only receive 3 within one year, or ten within your lifetime. Being as that I'm working on my fourth now, I need to watch out!

Almost a decade ago, I got my first name legally changed. As with (almost) all major life decisions, I took my time doing it to ensure I wouldn't regret it. After trying out different names to find one that fit me- a process that took over 2 years, actually- I insisted that everyone around me use the new name for a year or so, just to make sure it was the right one. I took my paperwork to the court, got my name changed, and went through all the usual processes: social security, driver's license, voter registration, and bills. At the time, it seemed a fairly easy process, probably because I lived in a town that had all of those offices at reasonable distances and locations.

Last year, I got married. Once again, I got my name changed, and had to go through the process of updating everyone else on the matter, but I had someone with me this time, and the waiting was easier. Also, the town into which I had moved had all the offices conveniently located close to each other again, so it was mostly easy drives out, medium wait times, and filing paperwork. There was a little bit of trouble with things like my passport (have you SEEN the prices for passports lately?!) and the fact that the court that had issued my carry

The temp job continues.

An opening note of caution: If you break into extravagant song and dance on a regular basis, perhaps slippers are not for you. Something, somewhere, is bound to get hit with a flying slipper.

Anyway! On to the main point!

The temp job that I've been at for what feels like a long time (but in actuality has only been the initial 3 weeks as well as this past one)... loves me. I'm not really sure I can say why, since the job is elementary at best, and tedious at worst. I am converting their filing system from one of papers stuffed into boxes in a warehouse and various people's offices to one online. As such, this requires that they give me papers, I sort them into year, name, category, vendor or whatever other criteria they desire, then scan them in. Thrilling, no?

As Eddie Izzard noted with grocery store clerks and their beeping (or non-beeping) scanners, the most excitement in my day comes when I put what appears to be a carefully de-stapled, de-paperclipped and generally loose collection of single pages into the scanner, and it decides it wants to scan them 10 at a time... or not at all. Then I get to take it all out, clear the jams, find where that particular file started, re-stack all the papers, and discover what went wrong. At first, I was very diligent in this job, however as I got through the HR department's paperwork and began on Accounting- most specifically, Accounts Payable, I began to run into something that baffled and seriously, seriously irritated me.

Reality and fantasy

When I was young, I knew I had pretty bad eyesight, but I did everything I could to get out of wearing glasses. Given that my last name starts with an A, I got lucky and was typically sitting in the front of the class, a fact that helped me cover up. I also got very good at reading the shapes of words, rather than letters themselves, a fact that still gets me into trouble now and then, especially with unusual names (example: it took me 10 years of reading the Oz books to realize the Gnome King's name was Ruggedo, not Rodrigo!). However, eventually I got caught- a teacher decided to sit the class by first names, not last, and my grades were terrible in that class until an optometrist caught me with one of those eye charts with lines instead of letters. I could tell that they were horizontal or vertical, but not where the single bar was, and failed horribly. (Also, by then, I had the letters chart memorized, but the lines one was new to me.)

Cycles

I have a bad tendency to need goals in my life. As a student, however, goals are pretty hard to come by when classes aren't in session, and while you can make random goals to get through, those don't last long around me. I made 'em, I can break 'em, because they're meaningless. And when I get to thinking like that, I fall into this pattern:



I know, I know, I'm still no artist, bear with. What makes this particular cycle a little more interesting is that I got the idea to draw this out, and that was enough to break me out. For now. It did what it was supposed to do, however, which is fill my time with something interesting. I started this at about 8pm, while staring, unmotivated, at my computer screen, and it is now 10pm.

I also, incidentally, have a desire to go Office Space on my scanner, as it decided it is smarter than I am, and I wanted only parts of that drawing scanned, rather than the whole thing. That alone took the better part of twenty minutes- trying to find what silly little setting in what drop-down was preventing me from getting the whole picture. In the end, I had to show details of the scan, and drag the selection of one small area to encompass the whole thing. It solved the problem, but also thought I wanted jpegs of the other little bits it particularly liked, so now I'm off to clean up my picture files before going to bed. Sorry for the mildly down tone of this post; blame it on a Monday and crummy scanner. Cheers!

Weather

I know I'm no artist, but here's my take on the recent weather patterns of Colorado.



Thanks, Colorado, thanks a lot. And if you intend to make beaches for yourself with all this rain... there's a good chance you'll do it, but I kind of like the rest of the US, I'd rather not have it all under water.

Update: For those of you who haven't' been there, it rains every afternoon in Hawaii. Unlike Colorado, it is usually a light rain rather than a deluge, however. I think Colorado got a little too enthusiastic.

I got a bike! (Part 2)

So I'd discovered this past month that parking near campus and walking could make for a very lengthy walk indeed, and this was without students moving back into said residential neighborhood, and the possibility of 2-6" of snow on the ground. Time to revise the plan a bit.

Being as that my college is in one of the most bike- and pedestrian-friendly cities in the US (or so I believe), I decided it was time to get a bike. Since new bikes these days start- for a cheap bike at a general store- at about $120, I decided to take my search to my old friend, Cragislist. If you don't use Craigslist, I highly, highly recommend it. Within a week, I had found a mountain bike (for snowy days on campus) for just $40. It wasn't particularly fancy, but it had the basics that I needed: two wheels, two pedals, steering and brake mechanisms and gears for going up and down hills. That's good enough for me.

I got a bike! (Part 1)

Yes, as the title explains, I have bought a bike- and that's a bicycle rather than a motorcycle this time. It is substantially cheaper that the motorcycle was, even without the whole crashing-on-the-first-drive-home thing. Anyhow! In case you don't know why I decided to do this, despite being about as athletic as a panda bear, read on. If you do know the story already, skip ahead to the next post where current events resume.

For the last two years, I have forked over $174.25 per semester for what I believed was the privilege of having a parking spot on campus, and even in the same zip code as my classes. True, it was typically on-the-street parking, I would have to drive in circles til someone pulled out or I decided yes I really could fit my Honda in that spot, and I had to walk uphill to campus just to then walk downhill to where my classes were, but still, it was fairly convenient parking. This past semester, however, taught me all I need to know about campus parking, and the process by which parking admin officials' hearts slowly turn into shriveled husks of coal rather than warm, loving flesh.