After all, that is what one does with a blog. I've let it lapse too long.
-Something that happened here was that we played some poker. Just Hold 'Em, because they weren't gutsy enough for dealer's choice. It was just Jay, Ben, and me, with a three-dollar buy-in. I joined in late when I came by and saw them playing. Jay knocked Ben out shortly after I got in, and then I proceeded to beat Jay. Thus, I won six dollars. Jay thought he only had to give me the three that he won from Ben, but I eventually convinced him that he owed me three too. I'm still not sure what I told him to convince him made sense, but it was in response to what he'd said, which definitely made no sense, so it worked out in the end somehow at least. Later we had a poker study break, and I stuck around to the last hand, but lost it to Ben. This time there was no cash buy-in, so all Ben did was win Departed the DVD.
-Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I got a ride with a different guy this time, whose name really is Dan Malarkey. In Ohio, he lives in the same neighborhood as Dave Chappelle. It was snowing pretty good as we left Grinnell, but we came out of that by about Illinois. So, we talked awhile as he drove me to his house. He's interested in film and stuff. Senior, French major. Then Mom picked me up and drove me to Cincinnati.
-We had Thanksgiving at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Nice to get back home again and remember all these people that I'm still related to. And I get to come back yet again, for quite a while, in just three to four weeks! Thanksgiving made me happy. I ate far too much, but it didn't seem like enough. As always, we had wildly inappropriate dinner conversation, which we always try not to do, but it happens anyhow. That's us. Then I ate more - pumpkin pie and a black cow - and watched Ratatouille with Sierra, and she made me pretend I was that rat in the movie and had to lead her everywhere. I lost a pool game, which was too bad, but I still played a pool game. In sadder news, we're toning down Christmas this year. Each adult is only buying one present; we did a drawing to see who's buying for whom. (But it's a secret, so I can't tell who I'm buying for.) It makes things simpler and saves some money, but it seems like it'll take the spirit out of the present-opening part. I like there to be lots of presents and a long time opening them all and wondering if there are any more for you. This year, we'll just get one present, and there'll only be one surprise in store for us. We'll be in front of the tree for maybe ten minutes. I guess most of the participants are pretty jaded as regards the surprise element, having done this stuff for decades, but for me it's still something special. I guess I'm still a kid, even if I wasn't allowed to be one in the drawing (kids don't have to buy, and get presents from everyone), and Christmas still gives me that something to look forward to. This year it's less to be looked forward to. Seems like we're regarding it more as a chore, like, "Ahh, Christmas is coming again. Snorrre." I still like it. The other argument for it was, "Who needs that much stuff?" Well, I'm as Thoreauvian as* the next guy, but even if you like to "Simplify, simplify," it's still really nice to get presents, and I mean, it only comes once a year. Maybe I'll buy presents for everyone. Maybe I won't, because I don't have much money or a car or a mall, but maybe I will. I guess I'll continue considering it.
-We wrapped up Turkey Day with a Scrabble game, and drove off to our respective homes feeling full and happy.
-On Saturday night, I had a little fun. I called up A----** and we completed a plan we'd devised earlier, to go out on a midnight run to ihop. ("Did you know ihop is pohi backwards? POHI!!" --Keith, last year) He drove by and picked me up at about 0145. We collected another friend of his, S----, and went about trying to find gas, which was a complete fiasco. S---- had to call up one of her friends, who told her where a station was. We weren't on fumes getting there, but not too far away. Then he drove us to the ihop on Colerain and we had some breakfast. I wasn't particularly hungry, but got pancakes. A---- got a full-sized breakfast and S---- said she'd have my third pancake if I wasn't hungry enough. They both mainly had coffee. A---- tried to drink his normally, but S---- kept putting sugar packets in it. Like, five of them. And creamers, too. And he drank it anyhow. She also kept throwing stuff at him. She was pretty slap-happy. A---- threw stuff too. Heck, I joined in the fun. S---- made a cootie catcher, and I drew a creepy splitting face on it. We ate our pancakes; I gave S---- my last one because there was no way I was going to eat it. They were both broke, and I'd known from the beginning that I was financing the venture, but it was worth it, and anyhow it was only about twelve dollars, plus tip, plus I paid for that gas. A----'s going to pay me back, though. We left ihop and, at S----'s behest, moved along to the Colerain Historical Cemetery. She'd been there before, though not by night. It took us ten or fifteen minutes to get to it, down a long and winding road. It's marked by an old wooden sign, and after that there's a lengthy gravel path through some tall grass. At 0350, it was decidedly weird. We came to a sunken field surrounded by a low fence, with a scattering of headstones in it. The moon illuminated streaky clouds and accentuated the frozen air. There weren't many headstones, so the tour was short. Some of them had been broken down by vandals. I only read one, which marked about four graves in a family, dated around the 1890s. There was a section in a corner sunken a little farther than the rest of the cemetery, which was apparently the children's section, but we didn't go to it. I wanted to get home at a kind of reasonable time, so we didn't linger forever. A---- drove us back down the gravel path, this time avoiding the giant pothole. Then he dropped me off at my house, around 0430. We need to do that again! ...Maybe without S----. She basically served to make a huge mess, and give us a few chuckles by throwing stuff at A----.
*more Thoreauvian than
**name redacted just in case, because his parents are kinda strict, even though we didn't do anything bad
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Short Blog
This won't be very long, but here are a few things.
-I made a couple new YouTube videos. One, Two. Total time about 5½ minutes.
-Grandma has broken her ankle. Grandma, I'm sorry that you broke your ankle. Hope you feel better soon. Have you got a cast, or what?
-Yesterday, Jordan and I had some spare time, so he took me to Sugar Creek, which is a nature preserve nearby. He'd told me about it, but I didn't know where it was, so he showed me. It was way better than I'd anticipated. First off, it wasn't just some trees given space at the edge of a field. It was a proper forest, with full-size trees and a real live ecosystem. It's way better than Warder. It even looks like excellent krokay grounds. We walked through the leaves downhill to the creek. It runs through a gully about four feet deep with sheer walls, and its banks are deep thick mud, which was fun to walk in [neither of us bothered with shoes]. We waded through the cold water to the other side, and walked around a little more, then crossed back over and leisurely navigated back up the hill to his car. Now I'm imagining having a wicket on the other side of the gully, so that you have to jump your krokay ball over the wide chasm. That would be awesome. I wish I knew a plastic manufacturer that could do the machining I need in-house. If anyone knows a company that can sell and machine 3"-diameter nylon 6,6 rods, give me a shout.
-I made a couple new YouTube videos. One, Two. Total time about 5½ minutes.
-Grandma has broken her ankle. Grandma, I'm sorry that you broke your ankle. Hope you feel better soon. Have you got a cast, or what?
-Yesterday, Jordan and I had some spare time, so he took me to Sugar Creek, which is a nature preserve nearby. He'd told me about it, but I didn't know where it was, so he showed me. It was way better than I'd anticipated. First off, it wasn't just some trees given space at the edge of a field. It was a proper forest, with full-size trees and a real live ecosystem. It's way better than Warder. It even looks like excellent krokay grounds. We walked through the leaves downhill to the creek. It runs through a gully about four feet deep with sheer walls, and its banks are deep thick mud, which was fun to walk in [neither of us bothered with shoes]. We waded through the cold water to the other side, and walked around a little more, then crossed back over and leisurely navigated back up the hill to his car. Now I'm imagining having a wicket on the other side of the gully, so that you have to jump your krokay ball over the wide chasm. That would be awesome. I wish I knew a plastic manufacturer that could do the machining I need in-house. If anyone knows a company that can sell and machine 3"-diameter nylon 6,6 rods, give me a shout.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Trackwalking
I got a banana and my water bottle and met Jordan at the grade crossing by the gym at 1330. We started walking.
-I had never really done an appreciable walking journey without shoes before, nor had I yet trackwalked barefoot. I didn't have much in the way of strategy at first. I walked on ties, but when they had rocks on them, I balanced on the rail itself. The rails are actually really thin, thinner than my foot. It doesn't seem like a train ought to be able to travel on them, especially not for hundreds of miles. Pretty soon, the structures of the town and the college petered out from both sides, giving way to small trees and brown bushes. We didn't talk overly much, because the journey spoke for itself. But we did talk. Jordan told me about other times he'd come this way. He does a lot of trackwalking, often with camping equipment and food. He just walks off and then comes back later that day, or sometime on the next. The bushes stopped along with the ground they were on, leaving the railroad on top of a ridge flanked on either side by farms. He pointed out a creek that crossed under the railroad and continued off in a squiggle across the field on the left - he creekwalked down it once. I'm not sure where it ends up going. After a while, he slid down the ballast rocks onto the grass margin, then skied down about fifteen feet to the field at the side. I followed, but a little slower. This place was the grove we were walking to. On a warm day last year, he had come this way and found it, and ended up just falling asleep under it for a few hours. There were a bunch of young oaks, planted in rows and standing up straight. That was the grove, a stand of trees at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by an expanse of field on its other three sides. The grass underfoot grew fluffy and wild. One kind of oak had deep red leaves for fall; the other had brown ones. There were also a few other trees - a spruce, a juniper, a short ash enclosed by chicken wire. We found a lean-to, made of branches scattered over a wire framework. It might've been for hunting; it didn't provide good cover, but maybe it was meant to have something draped over it. We walked through it slowly, and when we came out the other side back into field we had come halfway back up to the level of the railroad. We found a barbed-wire fence and climbed over it back to the tracks, and kept walking.
-Mostly it was farms on the side of us now, but they seemed remote, because we were at the top of the ridge on the railroad, the farms below us at the bottom of a hill of ballast and grass. We walked over a couple private grade crossings and one bridge over a highway. We could see forever, usually. We were headed for a tree that Jordan had been to. He spotted it a couple times; only on the last time was he actually spotting the correct tree. To get to it, we cut through a harvested cornfield, full of dry stocks and spent, empty cobs, with a distinct smell of cow manure. At the edge of that was a field of green grass with a runnel filtering through it, keeping the ground squishy for me. The tree had situated itself to take full advantage of this squish. I climbed up into it. It was a world-class climbing tree, a field maple that had spread out to take up all the sun there was to be had. Within four feet from the bottom, it splits into about nine smaller trees, each of which is the size of a full-grown tree. There are several absolutely perfect perches. Mine took a rash leap of faith to get to. We sat and relaxed in the tree for a good while. But we eventually had to turn back to the tracks.
-It seemed shorter on the way back. Jordan told me about how he once walked all the way to the next town, and then it started storming, so he ate in a restaurant for a while. But then it didn't stop, so he headed back toward the college in the rain. Halfway there he stopped and camped out in the rain; his sleeping bag got wet, but it kept him somewhat dry, and he strolled into the college the next day. I recommended a few things for him to check out on the internet and such, and he told me about some comedy troupes he's seen on TV, and other stuff. I mostly walked on the rail, and at one point we both balanced on it for probably upwards of half a mile, which took some focusing. We came back into the campus shortly before 1700. Then I went and had dinner.
A band called The Mountain Goats came here on Friday. They were pretty cool. I got their CD called Get Lonely. The guy's lyrics are very sophisticated, not just words. If I seem a bit distracted, it's because I'm listening to music.
-I had never really done an appreciable walking journey without shoes before, nor had I yet trackwalked barefoot. I didn't have much in the way of strategy at first. I walked on ties, but when they had rocks on them, I balanced on the rail itself. The rails are actually really thin, thinner than my foot. It doesn't seem like a train ought to be able to travel on them, especially not for hundreds of miles. Pretty soon, the structures of the town and the college petered out from both sides, giving way to small trees and brown bushes. We didn't talk overly much, because the journey spoke for itself. But we did talk. Jordan told me about other times he'd come this way. He does a lot of trackwalking, often with camping equipment and food. He just walks off and then comes back later that day, or sometime on the next. The bushes stopped along with the ground they were on, leaving the railroad on top of a ridge flanked on either side by farms. He pointed out a creek that crossed under the railroad and continued off in a squiggle across the field on the left - he creekwalked down it once. I'm not sure where it ends up going. After a while, he slid down the ballast rocks onto the grass margin, then skied down about fifteen feet to the field at the side. I followed, but a little slower. This place was the grove we were walking to. On a warm day last year, he had come this way and found it, and ended up just falling asleep under it for a few hours. There were a bunch of young oaks, planted in rows and standing up straight. That was the grove, a stand of trees at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by an expanse of field on its other three sides. The grass underfoot grew fluffy and wild. One kind of oak had deep red leaves for fall; the other had brown ones. There were also a few other trees - a spruce, a juniper, a short ash enclosed by chicken wire. We found a lean-to, made of branches scattered over a wire framework. It might've been for hunting; it didn't provide good cover, but maybe it was meant to have something draped over it. We walked through it slowly, and when we came out the other side back into field we had come halfway back up to the level of the railroad. We found a barbed-wire fence and climbed over it back to the tracks, and kept walking.
-Mostly it was farms on the side of us now, but they seemed remote, because we were at the top of the ridge on the railroad, the farms below us at the bottom of a hill of ballast and grass. We walked over a couple private grade crossings and one bridge over a highway. We could see forever, usually. We were headed for a tree that Jordan had been to. He spotted it a couple times; only on the last time was he actually spotting the correct tree. To get to it, we cut through a harvested cornfield, full of dry stocks and spent, empty cobs, with a distinct smell of cow manure. At the edge of that was a field of green grass with a runnel filtering through it, keeping the ground squishy for me. The tree had situated itself to take full advantage of this squish. I climbed up into it. It was a world-class climbing tree, a field maple that had spread out to take up all the sun there was to be had. Within four feet from the bottom, it splits into about nine smaller trees, each of which is the size of a full-grown tree. There are several absolutely perfect perches. Mine took a rash leap of faith to get to. We sat and relaxed in the tree for a good while. But we eventually had to turn back to the tracks.
-It seemed shorter on the way back. Jordan told me about how he once walked all the way to the next town, and then it started storming, so he ate in a restaurant for a while. But then it didn't stop, so he headed back toward the college in the rain. Halfway there he stopped and camped out in the rain; his sleeping bag got wet, but it kept him somewhat dry, and he strolled into the college the next day. I recommended a few things for him to check out on the internet and such, and he told me about some comedy troupes he's seen on TV, and other stuff. I mostly walked on the rail, and at one point we both balanced on it for probably upwards of half a mile, which took some focusing. We came back into the campus shortly before 1700. Then I went and had dinner.
A band called The Mountain Goats came here on Friday. They were pretty cool. I got their CD called Get Lonely. The guy's lyrics are very sophisticated, not just words. If I seem a bit distracted, it's because I'm listening to music.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
And not the funny Monty Python kind
I just got a barrage of spam, so I enabled word verification for comments ("Type the letters you see in this image"). All the spam was on old posts, and the authors' names were URLS to cheap pharma sites. There were about four different comments they used: "Magnific!" "Please write anything else!" "Thanks to author." "actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass this on to a couple of people." Why am I writing about spam? I don't know. Maybe I'll write a real post later tonight. Actually, probably tomorrow. I hope I didn't get your hopes up.
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