Surreptitious Opinionation

I have a sublet, starting in July, though the lady from whom I would be subletting lost my sublet application form and made me fill it out. *checks calendar* As I was filling out the form for the second time, I noticed a picture on the kitchen counter, in which she was funneling. Her graduation was shortly after I filled out the first one. *shrug* The design guy who would be in the bedroom right next to mine is allll about my little wireless router. I haven’t had the heart to tell him yet that the wireless portion of it is craptacular.

I think I have my job stuff pretty much all in a row. Got my direct deposit today. My health insurance has been confirmed, and soon I will have my card, so I can go get my eyes examined and my teeth looked over for the first time in 3 years. I anticipate contacts and a filling. Yay nonmyopic shower/pool cruising 😉 Booo, nasty tasting oral pain.

I’ve also spent my non-work day time hours looking at housing and talking to realtors. Dad thinks he wants to invest in real estate, walking distance from the U, which I would then live in and manage (selecting tenants and what not). But, he wants to wait until he gets back from Iraq. I am not so keen on this plan. If he’s investing, it would make sense to do it now. Even without me contributing rent, rent pays for the mortgage on most of the properties near the U, assuming suitable tenants can be found. I’m willing to commit to staying in the same house for 3 years starting in August. I am not willing to move in the middle of winter, and I have no idea if I’d be willing to stay in minneapolis for 4 years, but I kinda doubt it. Not a bad town, mind you, but I’m not car crazy, and this is one car-loving town (relative to chicago, berkeley, squirrel hill, or say Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Toronto. =) I might even be in school here an extra year. After graduation, I’d rank chances as good that I’ll want to pursue even higher educational plans. So, 4 years, probably not. 3 years, *shrug* sure. Furthermore, they’d be spending the money to help support me through grad school anyway, if they do this, they probably wouldn’t have to pay anything to put me through.

Swim team is going alright. The workouts are less lengthy, both in terms of distance and in terms of time than I might like. For instance, today’s was warmup + 4x(2×100 kick on 2:00, 8×50 alternating pull and stroke on the 1:00). A total of a little more than 3000 yards in a little under an hour. Also, getting in requires a Y membership or guest passes. Guest passes are $5/day for students. Full membership would be cheaper, if I go regularly, but I’d prefer not to contemplate that expense at the moment, along with many others, have to do a full workup budget soon. Bleh. A gentleman from the tsunamis that I went on an abortive date with before moving to sf is also in grad school out here, and may be interested in joining.

Signed up to do a co-op training at the north country next week and will likely soon be getting 15% off there. The day after the co-op training, I sit in on a MnDOT meeting regarding the value pricing experiment I’m working on and take the minutes. Also due that day is the quarterly research report which I(!?) am supposed to write. Hello, I’ve been here less than a month.

I’ve been assigned to do some research on combining brt (bus rapid transit, ie, dedicated bus lanes, often with infrequent stops, and pre-pay stations) with value pricing (selling unused limited access lanes to drivers who would otherwise not be allowed to use them, at a price such that the buyers do not impede the use of the lane by the protected group. They’re thinking of setting up a conference in september. Lee, the prof I’m working for, is also considering taking me along to Utah for a transportation research conference.

Oh, and I met a cool guy on the bus on the way to saturday morning swim practice. Had lunch at a hippy restaurant with him. May be doing pride related things with him on friday. *dance of carefully controlled glee*.

Back to reading & report preparations.

But even a stopped clock is right every once in awhile

So the devil bunny* (aka Rex) chewed threw my laptop power supply cable, causing a short. Some sadness, some anger on my part. apologetically suggested that it could probably be patched somehow. After a few minutes of mournful looking at it, hoping it would repair itself, I unplugged it, cut out the worst-chewed segment, stripped the insulation, peeled back the outer wires, stripped a shorter segment of the inner insulation, taped the inner wires together, layered the outer wires over the electrical tape, and taped them back together as well. All told, the repair took less time than my blank stare of mourning.

This bears a vague resemblance to my problems of lcd screen flicker and my duct tape and pennies solution to the problem. But what I find both more interesting and more telling is that in both cases, I had the problem in front of me, and I bitched about it to a friend ( in the first case, in the second) They suggested a technical solution, which I at first did not take seriously, then, deciding I had nothing to lose, implemented, successfully.

Perhaps a lesson to be learned from this is to have a little more confidence in my own technical ability. Another is certainly to keep wires away from bunnies. =)

*=, if you want demon_bunny as a name for rex’s journal, as he clearly deserves one, if only to share his opinions of the comparative flavors of different sorts of cables he has experienced, you better get hopping, because , , and are all taken.

I rarely catch up to my friends list at all, so it’s ever rarer that I bother to check out my friendsfriends page. Other than some amusing phone chat log commentary, I can’t say I found much to recommend it. =)

Also, The North Country Co-op is cool. I noticed, though that they tended to put the meat and the tofu/fake meat close together. I didn’t think about it when I found the cheaper yogurt drink next to the cultured soy drink, I just assumed it was soy, bought it, and didn’t check the ingredients until after I’d made it half way through. Oops. I finished it anyway. It was pretty tasty, and my stomach hasn’t rebelled. I’m not likely to make that same mistake twice, but…

For those of you who criticize my dietary choices on a gustatory basis, it may please you to hear that I now acknowledge that I’m taking a flavor and texture hit on several different things*. But my veganism isn’t a choice I made for reasons of taste. And the reasons I don’t eat animal products trump the reasons I would.

* = I thought steak was nasty even when I ate meat regularly, but I had an inexplicable fondness for mcdonald’s hamburgers.

I pinned down one of those traits I admire in others and do not yet feel I have sufficiently in myself. That would be serenity.

Some of the words I would use to describe the concept I’m after are deliberate, calm, relaxed, poised, aware, balanced, acceptance. The one that I feel I lack in a big way is “relaxed”, at least in conjunction with awareness. “Acceptance” is another big part of it. To a lesser extent “deliberate” and “poised” are things that I want to work on.

And now on to value pricing.

Being lulled to sleep by the odd melodies of system shock 2 must have proved strangely rejuvenating, because I woke up before 5 am (having gone to bed after midnight) not feeling too tired. (I’m sure I’ll pay for it later). But this allowed me to go to settsimaksimin‘s gay swim team dealie. I enjoyed it. It was good. I did screw up the timing a bit, missed the optimal bus, then briefly got lost in downtown, and then spent a few minutes negotiating with the YMCA front desk people, so I didn’t catch the full workout; I must have been at least 15, if not 45 minutes late. It seemed all too brief.

Yesterday’s financial aid news left me very happy. Turns out if my parents and I manage to iron out the buying-real-estate-and-having-me-manage-it-plan, I will be able to pay all my expenses on loans, and shift a major portion of my consumer debt load (if not, in fact, all of it) to low/no interest student loans. Sweet.

I’m awake, hungry, and at my desk before 8am. Time to hit the north country co-op and pick up my bus pass. Yay! =)

I’m currently weighing a little less than I have in months. Somewhat concerning, that. Definitely not eating as much. But the sublet will have a more spacious, and somewhat less scary kitchen, so, I’ll likely be doing more tasty cooking, and less of the untasty heat & eat/expensive vegan unfriendly eating out.

today on narcicism theatre

I have a sublet that starts on July 1st. I have a student id, a gym membership, a contact on a local gay swim team, applications complete for bus pass and health insurance, a job. Fortunately the sublet is cheap enough so that I’ll be able to get back to CA for the wclbbq over the july 4th weekend. Kick ass.

is being a great host. He’s even introduced me to a new addiction (ff xi), and been very understanding of my terrorizing his bunny. Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m getting in the way, and leaving his home really short on space, and that it’s best that I were elsewhere.

He’s also been sick the past couple of days. He’s been getting better since sunday though, so that’s cool.

MN’s climate is great. I’m missing berkeley’s traffic control barrels already. Found some veggie chinese spots, but my budget doesn’t let me use them. =) My aversion to chains, particularly mcdonald’s based chains, also keeps me away from chipotle, the only mexican I’ve found. =) Still, grocery co-ops. And sleep. Sleep is good, too.