Friday, July 29, 2005
Terror, terror
The most bizarre, self-questioning game of Wednesday Spades ever:
You did not just lay down a spade on my ace of hearts.
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It's official, I'm going to California in about two weks! I'm excited, as I've never been to any of the sites on my list: we arrive in Berkeley, spend a few days bouncing between there and San Francisco, go camping in the Redwoods, hit Highway 1 for a two-day drive along the coast, meet people in Riverside and Santa Cruz, kick it in San Diego for a few days, then fly back home to Arkansas with a glorious tan (hopefully) to celebrate the setting of summer. From there, all will be distilled into visiting friends, swimming at Heber Springs, cooling out with my folks (and helping dad with his occupational and physical therapy), all before helping Megan finalize her move to Richmond with a two day drive back out east. Glory be, an actual vacation.
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You did not just lay down a spade on my ace of hearts.
---
It's official, I'm going to California in about two weks! I'm excited, as I've never been to any of the sites on my list: we arrive in Berkeley, spend a few days bouncing between there and San Francisco, go camping in the Redwoods, hit Highway 1 for a two-day drive along the coast, meet people in Riverside and Santa Cruz, kick it in San Diego for a few days, then fly back home to Arkansas with a glorious tan (hopefully) to celebrate the setting of summer. From there, all will be distilled into visiting friends, swimming at Heber Springs, cooling out with my folks (and helping dad with his occupational and physical therapy), all before helping Megan finalize her move to Richmond with a two day drive back out east. Glory be, an actual vacation.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Howdy, neighbor
As I was preparing to meet up with folks at Pharmacy Bar last Saturday, I glanced out the window to take in the view of the city shrouded in crisp orange dusk. Instead I caught a neighbor in the act of what is putatively the most obviously incorrect approach toward dealing with a post-storm electrical hazard. This guy couldn't have strung together more conductors if he tried (a copper sawblade and ladder?), and he did it all at a ground clearance that would guarantee an excessively fatal fiasco given the detonation that results from heating a 140 pound sack of electrolytic solution to vaporization with a thousand megawatts of direct current in 1/1,000 of a second (ever seen or heard an oil-insulated transformer trip a circuit? Compare). If one could somehow direct all that explosive energy downward instead of outward in all directions, I figure he'd have enough velocity to rocket a fair 400 meters into the stratosphere, bizarrely violating airspace regulations for the district (I wonder if they'd flash him with the warning laser?). I started shouting at the genius when I noticed the teeth of the sawblade raggedly catching the insulation of the line, but he didn't budge. Guy, that loud humming sound isn't a pleasant invitation to come touch, it's an anthropomorphized manifestation of death gleefully skipping towards you. Today I notice that, though the branch is gone, the ladder is still up (and I'm afraid to peek over his fence). The moral of the story: call your friendly local electric utility or fire department to handle shit that might raise your body temperature to greater than that of the surface of the sun.
On a lighter note, I've got up the images from both Charles' farewell bash and Grass' public transport barathon. I wish I'd taken more on both occasions.
Said photos are horridly compressed without any metering modification (including every damn picture of Charles); I'll gladly provide full-res corrected versions of any you happen to want. Dig in, y'all!
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On a lighter note, I've got up the images from both Charles' farewell bash and Grass' public transport barathon. I wish I'd taken more on both occasions.
Said photos are horridly compressed without any metering modification (including every damn picture of Charles); I'll gladly provide full-res corrected versions of any you happen to want. Dig in, y'all!
Monday, July 25, 2005
Weekending
The sun has set on one of the most beautiful weekends that the district has seen in weeks, and I think it's fair to say that everyone is (deservedly) exhausted. Apologies for not being quick to post; I have an absurd amount of work backed up from having, um, completely ignored it for the past several days (not something that most would reccommend during midterm). Ah, hell with it, the weekend was a blast, well worth the procrastinorgy. Unfortunately, a portion of the weekend was celebrating the imminent departure of young Charles, intent on abandoning the realm of DCSOBitchery for JDSOBitchery. He threw a hell of a rooftop party, perfectly timed to end with a cooling, electrified, tumble-prone storm freak out. I also got to pal around with a few drunk folks on the bus to help wish fond-of-green-shirts Mike a happy 26 years on the face of the beer-drinking planet: prieka!
Pictures to follow, settle for this lousy montage for the moment.
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Pictures to follow, settle for this lousy montage for the moment.
