accomplishments of the day

* read 50 more pages of math history (i.e. in the story of mathematics) -- i'm now up to galois theory (early 1800s), and the consequences of galois's and abel's work with respect to the quintic

* got a birthday present for g-ma p. i'm visiting her next, and her 80th birthday is june 7. there's supposed to be an 80th birthday dinner for her on sunday, june 5... i thought about coming but start work on june 6, so i'd need to leave for the airport by 6pm at her 4-7pm dinner if i wanted to make it back to jersey sunday night yet.... good thing i didn't buy tickets... she called last night and told my mom she needed to make it july instad even though invites already went out b/c her brother had surgery and she wants him there; she commented that she was sorry if she made it tricky in mine and my brother's schedules and then seemed surprised when mom told her (*yet again*) that we couldn't make the dates she picked and that's why we each planned to visit her separately at other points in the summer... doht

*got 2 nice new shirts off the clearance rack at sears

* watched "being julia" with mom -- on the whole i enjoyed it, although my freakin dad came in the living room with his cockatoo samantha and made a production of talking loudly to the bird for the last half hour of the movie and of yelling at me when (a) i asked him to quiet down so i could hear and (b) i got upset when the bird tried to land on me for a bit... so i missed some key lines, but retarded parent aside, it was good

* dinner with the family... 10pm is late to eat already, and that's 11pm in jersey... oi

* went to walmart with my brother

brother quote of the week: "damn straight i got mad skills changing clothes in movin vehicles"

i refuse to explain context.

tomorrow, dad works, brother works, mom has a meeting in the morning, but i'm hoping to convince her to go up to reelfoot lake with me in the afternoon... we'll see. at least i've had a nice time with mom this trip. my brother works so much already and is taking extra hours this week and next so that i've not really seen him at all between sunday and dinner tonight... dad's in his usual fussy about ridiculous things and picking on me like he's in 2nd grade mode, and i'm getting irritated with it. when opportunity avails, i just go somewhere where he isn't when he's being ridiculous, but i have hollered at him a couple times this week... oh well... family...

happy weekend y'all... time to go read myself to sleep :-P