current status

my away message last night:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the past 24 hours of my life?
3-7 am: longest night's sleep since saturday; 7-9am: up and getting ready; 9am-1pm: visitation for kristin's mom; 1-2:30pm: kristin's mom's funeral; 2:30-3:30 funeral dinner; 3:30-5 rode to toledo airport; 5-6 checked in for my 5:55 flight, got frisked for the 3rd time in as many days because i'm apparently a security risk; 6-7:30pm: waited for 1.5 hours in a po dunk ohio airport on account of bad weather; 7:30-9pm: flew to chicago; 9pm-12:30am: waiting around chicago on account of weather, when i should have left at 10; 12:30-2:20: flew from chicago to jersey; 2:20-3: rode back home in eric's car; 3-3:30am ice cream/lara's life stinks right now party with eric

summary: completely exhausted and totally drained, asleep until further notice; unless you want to give me a huge hug, give me space :-P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

since then? asleep from 4am-1:30pm... now to figure out what i want to do besides curl up in a ball.

oh, i also came back to this mass email to the math dept.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thyagaraju "Raju" Chelluri (1977-2004)

We regret to inform you that Raju Chelluri was killed on
Saturday, August 21, by an Amtrak train at the New Brunswick station.
He was a graduate student in the mathematics department at Rutgers.

Funeral services will be conducted on Friday August 27, at the
Franklin Memorial Park Mausoleum, located on Route 27 in North Brunswick
(just South of Cozzens Lane, call 732-545-4184). During 11:00AM-1:00PM
there will be a family visitation; a Hindu ceremony will begin at 1:00PM
and the cremation will be at 1:45PM.

Next Monday, August 30, a grief counselor will lead a discussion at 1:30PM
in our Graduate Student Lounge (H701, Hill Center). Additional grief
counseling is available from the Rutger College Counseling Center (932-7884).
The department plans to commemorate Raju on September 10.

A police brief about his death has appeared in the Home News:
http://www.thnt.com/thnt/story/0,21282,1034264,00.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i didn't know raju, but i have friends who did.... it's gonna be a weird week.

a whirlwind of a day

i have been awake for 35 hours straight... but going strong... the last 23/24 hours are nothing at all what i would have expected them to be at this time yesterday.

8:15pm: i call roommate to see how her day is going, our call gets dropped mid sentence and i call back and leave a voicemail (this happens... neither of us are places where we get excellent reception)

8:45pm: roommate calls to tell me that just after we hung up before (just 30 minutes before) her mom died peacefully... we cry together on the phone for a bit

10pm: after sobbing for awhile on the porch, roommate calls back with specific funeral details and requests i show up monday morning/by lunchtime (this is at 10pm sunday night)

10:30pm: completely unpacked and needing to do laundry, i schedule a 6am flight that requires me to leave for the airport at 4:30am

11pm: i proceed to cry and freak out about the situation at hand... eric and me go on a field trip to pick up scott (who doesn't have a car) so he can eat ice cream with me and read me kids books

11:30pm: while we're out, me, scott, and eric stop by ben's place and kidnap him

12 midnight: scott and eric make root beer floats for us all, eric and scott read go dog go and fox in socks to cheer me up a little... the four of us (eric scott me and ben) laugh quite a bit

1am: eric and scott go home -- i'm exhausted, my eyes are bloodshot, and i have 3 hours to pack...

1-4am: ben decides to stay the night and make sure i don't freak out about packing on short notice on so little sleep... we watched "brother bear" while my laundry was going, and he made grits while i showered and packed

4:30am: a mere 8 hours after i got word about kristin's mom, i'm letting ben drive me in my car to the airport

6-8am: fly from newark to chicago

8am-11am: layover in chicago, midway

11am-noon: fly from chicago to toledo, OH

since then, when roommate and her dad picked me up at the airport, we've been running errands... first a mennonite buffet lunch place, then we went to pick out the flowers for the arrangement that will be on the casket this week, then went to the funeral home to meet with the funeral director for kristin's dad to sign a lot of papers... kinda surreal all in all.

other than that, i do whatever they're putting me to work doing and spend a lot of time playing with their dog and 4 cats... kristin's dad gave me the job of reserving a rental car and a hotel room for the florida part of their week...

all that said, it's gonna be a looong rest of the week:

tomorrow: wake/visitation from 1-5pm, 7-9pm.
wednesday: visitation from 10am-1pm, funeral from 1-2, i fly in reverse of what i did this morning, leaving toledo at 6pm and getting to newark for eric to pick me up at 12:30am (i.e. at night)
thursday: kristin and her dad will fly to florida, as will her mom's casket...
friday: they'll have a graveside burial service in clearwater, florida... kristin has several school friends from SC who will be there, and the ticket prices are pretty insane, so i won't be there for that part.

in the meantime, more errands and stuff with roommate -- back in touch when i'm back in jersey.

social experiement # 827

today i wore all black... black swishy pants, black sandals, black t-shirt, black pull-over hooded sweatshirt, black sunglasses... all black.

mostly because it was comfortable and it was a little chilly in the shade, nothing more.

however, i find it extremely amusing on days when i wear all or mostly black, the reactions that i get. (i used to wear lots of black a lot more often than even now... see below, picture of me from mid-9th grade)





so here's the rub... i find it funny that here are the reactions i got:
*leigh tells me that she thinks nothing of it unless i'm wearing a trenchcoat
*colleen tells me i'm fine if i wear all black because i look too friendly to be scary
*scott has no reaction whatsoever
*eric immediately goes "what on earth are you wearing?" and looks at me like i'm disturbed and has nothing more to say the rest of the day.

if i were wearing all blue or all red or all gray, there would be all scott's reaction -- i.e. none... what is it about black that freaks people out?

i find this highly amusing.

the end.

for the kids...

kids sermon at church today was cute... it was about things that can't be shaken.

pastor calls the kids all up front, and throws one a baby rattle, one an unpopped bag of microwave popcorn, and another a bottle of water, all of which they can shake and make noise with... they have a regular rhythm section going...

the pastor asks them all "so who can tell me something that is unshakeable?"

(blank stares all around from all the short people :-P)

pastor: "no one, really? none of you can think of anything?... fine, all of you, get up, and come on a little walk with me"

(he marches all the kids to the back of the church to one corner where there's a big pillar that reaches to the ceiling, has all the kids put their hands on it, and tells them on the count of 3 they're going to shake the church building... on the count of 3 they all sincerely try, and all the sudden, one little 3 year old voice chimes out above everything "pastor! what if we can't do it???")

*that* got them talking.

it was great.

the end.

away message last night:
tired, drained, and in need of about a million hugs

response:
valpo sara: How about an e-hug for neighbor lara---
valpo sara: {{{{{{{LARA}}}}}}}}

next away message:
Auto response from lkp 42 42 42: Auto response from lkp 42 42 42: tired, drained, and in need of about a million hugs
valpo sara: How about an e-hug for neighbor lara---
valpo sara: {{{{{{{LARA}}}}}}}}
after that and real hugs from ben and colleen, we'll make "that tired, drained, and in need of about 999,994 hugs"

response:
alliswan42: .....BEEP....uh, hello, this is Chuck from the Hug-o-matic e-hugs delivery service...I received a purchase order for 999,994 hugs...I do believe that we have only about half that in stock right now...I sincerely hope that the 99,999.4 hugs per week over ten weeks installment plan is agreeable with your people...if you have any questions or complaints, call (419) 571-3811 and ask for Chuck...have a good day....BEEP

conclusion:
yay for friends. :-)

i've also determined that i have the ideal study buddy right now... a year ahead of me, and thus has already passed quals, can answer all my questions, and isn't spazzing like the rest of my friends actually taking the qual... also gives good hugs and makes an excellent pillow... and makes good rootbeer floats :-) ... and watches chick flicks... and explains math stuff in little words that don't confuse me. :-) yeah... yay for friends who are good at helping me cope with life right now indeed :-)

drained

my day:
wake up
breakfast, shower, etc.
go to math building, and find ben
lunch with ben to discuss my life and give me a pep talk for my meeting with dr. greenfield later on
take scott on an emergency run to his house in my car with ben driving and me freaking out and eating my lunch in the passenger seat :-P
meeting with dr. greenfield (see note 1)
wandering around the math building
meeting with dr. weibel (see note 1 as well)
math at the park with ben
math at the park with ben, eric, scott, leigh, and colleen
playground with ben
pizza with all the above people
talked to roommate (see note 2)
started out watching a movie, but road to perdition really got to me so i went to my room 15 minutes in
complained to ben about stress for awhile :-P
bedtime story with leigh and colleen
now, i'm sitting here blogging while i wait for water to boil to make sweet tea for tomorrow ;-P

now, you really wish you were me, eh?

i am so tired and drained... and in need of about a million hugs.

i learned a lot of math today, but did a lot of thinking about non-math too... two footnotes:

(1) dr. greenfield is the previous math grad director, known for being one of the most personable and sympathetic profs in the department... ben and scott made me email him yesterday to see when he'd be around so that no matter that i'd never really sat and talked with him before, so that i could sit down and tell him how life is these days and that i might have a potential conflict with the qual in another week and a half.
his immediate reaction, "how DO you study when you have this much going on outside of math?.... your friend's story sounds like a horrible horrible joke -- that shouldn't happen to any family..."
our meeting was half an hour long (ben, after pep talk right before my meeting was worried i was about to come out in tears from a chat he expected to take 10 minutes), but ended in greenfield giving me a list of nice parks in the area to study at. :-) can't ask for better than that.

after venting about life to greenfield he said i should also talk to weibel, which i did... not nearly as sympathetic... definitely under 10 minutes of chat, but now... instead of like earlier in the week telling roommate "so any time you need me, other than the 30th and the 31st from 9 til noon, just say the word and i'm there", i can now take out the conditional clause... this is good.

(2) the reports from roommate about her mom aren't the most encouraging, but not drastically different from expected at this point either... they transfered her mom to a nursing home back in OH near their home yesterday... this was traumatic b/c she had a hard time staying flat on her back that long without understanding why she had to do it. today she was less responsive than before, just not reacting to things or showing recognition. this is such a sad, quickly developing, and frustrating story, i don't have much else to say right now.

in summary: life is stressful, but yay for good friends who give lots of excellent hugs. :-)

night y'all

update

so yesterday, kristin's family was told that her mom had either mad cow disease (no treatment possible), brain cancer (slim chances for treatment), or a brain infection (very treatable).

this morning, the neurologists informed them that the oncologists/neurologists yesterday were trying to give them hope, but an infection is not really what's going on.

what does this mean? whatever is going on (either brain cancer or mad cow disease) is untreatable. kristin's mom has not been eating since last thursday... when things get finished up at the hospital, they're taking her to hospice care at home to die hopefulyl comfortably at home.

kristin's taking the semester off to help her dad sort out life through christmas time.

i've told her any time she needs me other than 9-noon on the 30th and 31st (quals) i'll be there. looks like i make my next visit to ohio a lot sooner than i thought.

i sincerely doubt in the state things lie right now that i have the concentration to study enough to pass quals in 12 days. this means i will fail and if i don't pass in january, i'm out of the program.

people seem confident i can pass in january.

you know what though? i am first and foremost a friend to all my friends, and secondly an aspiring mathematician. at least this gives me reason for why i'm going to fail in two weeks besides the fact that i don't know enough yet, eh?

so yeah, prayers for kristin's family.

the end.

lists

complex, real, algebra, linear algebra -- things i need to learn a lot more about in the next 12 days

mad cow, brain cancer, rare brain infection -- current guesses as to what's wrong with roommate's mom

putting in a feeding tube, mri, and brain tissue biopsy -- procedures her mom has to go through in the next week

tired, drained, praying for a miracle -- words that currently describe me

keep roommate and her family in your prayers.

fun with a camera

i've been so good about studying lately -- today though, it didn't happen.

i was up til 2 last night and then leigh was knocking on my bedroom door at 7:45 this morning right AS my alarm was going off... i staggered out of the room, splashed water in my face, and then drove her to the uhaul place closest to here...

turns out, for wanting to stock a new apartment, we got a pretty sweet deal... leigh lives in a furnished apartment with a couple from greece... when she told them she was moving out and about to go furniture shopping, they told her to check the basement and take old stuff off their hands for free (we're going to pay them something anyhow)... out of our basement explorations this weekend, we picked 2 bookcases (one for videos, one for board games), a TV stand, a recliner, and a sleeper sofa for the living room... and leigh got a twin size bed and a nice desk out of the deal for herself... not bad for "free", eh?

anyhow, all that stuff picked out, ben, eric, leigh, and i spent the morning unloading things from the basement and getting them into the uhaul... getting the sofa out of the basement was quite the complicated trick and we thought when we shut the uhaul and drove off we had finished the hardest part -- we were wrong...

at our new place, we have the 2nd floor of a 2 story place. when you go in the front door of the house, you immediately are standing between two more doors, one for downstairs, one for us, so to get anything in, you have to make about a 45 degree angle between two doors which are no more than 3 feet apart and then immediately go up a flight of stairs... it was tricky enough to get a recliner through at that angle that the sofa had no hope...

on the other hand, in the back of the house we have a service stairwell that goes all the way up to the attic (storage) and all the way down to the basement (laundry/boiler room)... it's narrower than the first stairwell and it makes a 180 degree turn every 6 steps, BUT it didn't have the weird angle double door problem, so we figured we'd try it... it turned into an "only 3 people can get close enough to handle the sofa" deal, but they told me to take pictures because it was such a crazy job, and i got stuff out of the way as they went (light fixtures off the ceiling, etc.) before the upward bound sofa broke them... surprisingly, the sofa made it up (with some minor damage to the stairwell, but shhh don't tell tony (the landlord)... we'll fix it later) without having to be sawed in two like we were worried about.

anyhow, many hours later, leigh treated us to fudruckers for a late lunch... by the time i did other errands (filling out rebate stuff for this new computer, etc.) it was late afternoon... i went home for an hour while eric went home to practice horn... when we met up again at 7 for walmart and blockbuster (he paid $15 for unlimited rentals for a month... in the last 5 days we've seen big fish, amelie, fantasia 2000, and the fighting temptations... we rent 2, then trade them in for free... tonight's selections: intolerable cruelty and road to perdition) we were too tired for math...

eric had a red lobster gift certificate from the place he bought his car this summer and ever since he got it he told me he planned to share it with me... so before we went to watch movies, we had crab there :-) and for way cheap... by the time we made it back to my place it was 10:30, and the funny thing about having furniture now is that people use it instead of staying in their rooms ;-) so colleen and leigh were watching men's gymnastics finals on the olympics... we finished that with them, and finally at 11:30, started intolerable cruelty which had me worried a little at first but turned out to be decent... road to perdition is later in the week.

that's the scoop on my day.

if you're following the roommate story -- saturday was a rough day, but sunday was a really good one... waiting on some tests to come back, but unless they amazingly suddenly reveal something the doctors can treat, her mom is being transfered to a nursing home in ohio by wednesday... we shall see...

finally... why am i still up 2 hours after the movie is done? fun with my new computer of course... see the new apartment here:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/photoalbum.html#house enjoy!

kudos to ben for being the first person to actually give me a hug/rub my shoulders in the whole freakin insanely stressful past two weeks

the end

in other news...

just when you thought life couldn't get any more frustrating...

roommate called today... after a week's worth of extensive testing at the university of michigan hospital the doctors there determined that her mom's case of delirium is unprecendented, unreversible, and untreatable... they recommend that she be put in a nursing home next week.

la is sad.

keep the hunsingers in your prayers.

dude

What Kind of Geek are You?
Name
DOB
Favourite Color
Your IQ is	quite high
You are a	computer geek
Your strength is	you actually have social skills
Your weakness is	caffine
You think normal people are	strange
Normal people think that you are	satanic
This fun quiz by owlsamantha - Taken 40794 Times.

New - COOL Dating Tips and Romance Advice!

ok, so was that scary or what? i hope the last one is false, but the rest were eerily good :-)

later dudes.

movin right along

so today i didn't get any math done, but it was good.... did miscellaneous stuff around the house all morning and half the afternoon til eric made it over from getting his car fixed up (oil change, new tires, etc. as to be expected from driving cross country in one shot)

once eric was around, denny's for breakfast for late afternoon lunch... then circuit city... we examined the machines for a bit while the sales guy was finishing up with another customer and eric commented that what he paid extra for last year speed and storage wise on his computer looks to be pretty standard and he was amazed.... compare the specs:

old computer?
not even a pentium 1 processor, 1G of storage space, 16M of RAM

new computer?
pentium celuron processor, 80G of storage space, 512M of RAM

further advantages?
* i opted to get an LCD screen instead of the standard kind since the current monitor with the old machine doesn't show colors right (red comes and goes, and things get a bluish tint sometimes too) and it's the 3rd one attached to that tower that's developed that problem... i'm tired of it... so yay LCD and seeing colors right!
* sooo much faster! (i've been oohing and aahing all night about how much more quickly things happen and that the colors are all there and eric keeps laughing because these are things one should expect from a computer that i've been living without for quite some time :-P -- other eric quote of the day:
eric: (down the hall, salvaging some stuff from my old machine) *laughs hysterically*
me: dude, what's wrong with you?
eric: BIOS version 1.008... how can you still be running a machine with BIOS version 1.008... you should seriously take a picture of the startup screen -- that's so freakin hilarious)
* CD burner, DVD player both already built in, plus a series of jacks on the front of the machine already set up for digital cameras, etc. to plug in.
* new printer that came with the deal that i won't have to sit on the floor with and jam one sheet at a time into

only 2 minor frustrations so far
(1) i've spent so long with windows 98, which i know forwards and backwards, that XP goofs me up... things i could mindlessly click to and find before, i now have to go searching for... that'll just take time though
(2) as a result of #1 it took much longer than it should have to finally convince my old scanner (an HP scanjet 2100C) and the computer proper to play along nicely with each other... but,... i did ultimately succeed.

...and here it is 3am and i'm still up... my sleeping schedule is sooo off... :-(

anyhow, time to pretend to sleep... i actually have plans to tomorrow to do math studying with leigh so that i do get work done... math party at barnes and noble -- don't you wish you were invited? ;-P

night y'all.

mental breakdown, anyone?

today didn't start off all bad... we got internet at the new house, i got my room decorated and it looks completely awesome... and etc.... this afternoon's where things got painful...

(1) roommate's mom had a bad afternoon... she was good all morning, then had a spinal tap and after that things went downhill for the day... she was in pain and didn't recognize anyone, and roommate was tired and taking turns with her dad so that someone was in the hospital with her mom all night... yuck :-(

(2) more specifically on the lara front, when we got internet, i hooked up my desktop... promptly 10 minutes later it crashed.... that's what it's done all day... and is about to do again... so i tried to start up my laptop and it was fine for a bit, until i started trying to configure our new router through it, did a restart and since then, it freezes and then turns itself off before it even boots windows!... i can't deal with either of them... my desktop is at least 10 years old though and my laptop is going on 6, so i knew they needed replacements,... i was just hoping they'd hold out until i had money to afford replacements, ya know?

in summary, when my machines both basically died within 6 hours of each other (what are the odds of that?) (one i can't turn on, the other i can for 15 minutes at a time), i threw the laptop across the room (which probably didn't help it), and called eric, and related the situation... he said he'd help me find a new computer, but first we should sit still for a bit and chat about it before we went spending money i already don't have.... that was around 7:30/8pm tonight... (this was time #1 i was in tears today)

since then, eric and me went to subway for dinner and took out my angst on sandwiches and he both listened to me rant for a bit, and convinced me it was good to sleep for a night and calm down before going to spend $$... instead we rented movies... big fish (which i had seen before and he hadn't) and amelie (which he had seen before and i hadn't)... while at blockbuster we ran into john and his girlfriend emily and while explaining my evening, i waved my arm to gesture while talking (something i do frequently), and dislodged a whole shelf of videos, sending them all over the floor -- perfectly in keeping with my day... (this is time #2 i was in tears today)

the story only gets more woeful from here if you're starting to wonder about my sanity... eric and i watched big fish, and then before amelie, went to make popcorn... since colleen was grading papers for the class she teaches in the same room as we were watching the movie, i asked her what kind she wanted and she voted for kettle corn... i made popcorn, took it out of the microwave, freaked out that it didn't say kettle corn on the bag (and thought i had messed up) and ended up crying about that for another 5 minutes before eric convinced me that wasn't worth being upset over...

in summary, my breaking point/tolerance for stress right now is exceedingly low.

tomorrow, after eric runs lots of errands, it's a pizza and computer shopping party... tomorrow night i'll have a brilliant new computer... all with only $8 in checking... but hey, if i'm already in the 5 digits in debt, what's another thousand going to hurt? at this point, i really really really don't care.

night y'all

an ending

this is it: so long to 280 river rd. apt. 77B... i finish this post, close down my computer, turn in my keys to the office and head out.

it's funny... this hasn't been a bad place to live, but i'm not sad to leave it either like some past places (and there have been many... 3 houses with my family, and my river rd. apartment is the 7th place i've lived on my own/with roommates besides that)... i guess it's been functional, but it's not been exactly home...

last night, in the new house, with my room finally painted and half my stuff moved in, i slept for 10 hours... this is the first time i've slept longer than 7 hours in my own bed in well over a year... maybe i'm weird, but i attribute that to the fact that living with friends now, no matter what is going on, my new place is safee, happy, and comfortable for me... i can talk to the people i live with about just about anything and they genuinely want to know how i'm doing.... amanda's been a good roommate; we just never talked about anything.

updates on the rest of life? money's still tight... as indicated above, the painting my room thing finally happened... kristin's mom got moved to the university of michigan hospital for further testing and so experts can try to figure out what's wrong with her... things are hobbling by alright.

last night, to make things moderately happier, nathanael called for an hour. he was one of my church/bible study buddies in budapest. he's in colorado finishing his engineering degree... this was the 2nd time we've talked since europe... the first being in march... however for both of us, i think there's just something extremely nice about being able to vent to someone who knows you moderately well but is not involved in any of your life by any stretch of the imagination for a bit... both times we've talked, we've had really good chats... so it cheered me up to just ramble at him and to listen for quite awhile... yay for friends. :-)

now, to get on outta here... internet at the new place tomorrow.

later dudes

life

so, here's the scoop... i am exceedingly frustrated, stressed, sad, etc. this week... bad/frustrating situations in progress?

*keep roommate and her family (roommate = kristin, my valpo roommate, and one of my best friends ever) in your prayers -- major things are going on with her mom right now and her mom was checked in to the hospital yesterday afternoon to deal with them... i don't know how much i'm at liberty to say, but i'm really feeling for her mom and for roommate since i'm talking to her at least daily about how things are going there...

*health issues with my grandma -- when i visited her last saturday it took her 10 minutes to realize i was here and stop talking to the wall instead... this is new... i feel guilty because after how this visit last week went, i don't know if i ever want to visit her again all by myself... every time i've seen her in the past year she's been markedly worse and that scares me... as opposed to the previous three years where she'd have bad days and good days, despite the strokes, and you'd find her on an occasional good day that it was encouraging to come back again.

*quals -- i am so not prepared yet and so frustrated with how much i have yet to do.

*moving -- it took 4 days to get all my stuff moved across town, with eric helping every day, and various other people helping intermitently besides... i'm tired, sore, and not ready to organize my life in the new house yet

*other responsibilities -- it struck me this morning that i'm in charge of pizza seminar this year and i've done nothing yet... i have to start harrassing people to find speakers in the next couple weeks

*money troubles -- enough said... too much to pay and i don't get paid til september... it's going to be a long and stressful month

there are some positives though

*i'm now moved into a new house with colleen, and leigh comes back tomorrow -- i have roommates who will read kids books with me (were instituting nightly bedtime story time... _fox in socks_ was our first pick and _go dog go_ will be tonight) and who i can actually talk to when i'm stressed... the living situation will improve once (a) my room gets painted and i can really move into it, and (b) we all get our stuff settled... we'll have cable and internet there starting tuesday

*i have good friends... even after 15 days trapped in a car with me, eric's spent 4 days helping pack and is helping me deal with even more stuff later today... scott, colleen, and others have been particularly helpful lately too.

*i am finally moved except for my laptop, a chair, and a fan -- that's good, right? :-P

so yeah, that's the scoop lately... if you don't hear from me, it's because i'm doing a lot of hiding out and dealing with only 1 person or 2 at a time to stay calm... it's ok -- just check back in a month.

adventures in moving

it's going... far from done, but i'm making progress

conundrum #1: how do you move a full size bed 6 miles down the road from one second story apartment to another?

solution: take apart the bed yourself, then buy 100 feet of rope and make eric and scott do the rest for you...
they did it last night by tying one mattress at a time on the roof of eric's new car and driving slowly across town... my bed is now safely assembled at my new place

conundrum #2: how do you get hot water set up at the new house?

solution: figure out how to turn on the gas-powered boiler in the basement -- pretty sure we haven't figured that part out yet... yay cold showers? :-(

conundrum #3: how do i get the rest of the stuff to my new place when i'm tired and sore?

solution: very slowly, and hopefully before i'm supposed to be out of here (my old place)... and solicit for volunteers! -- any of you close to jersey who want free meals courtesy of me and my credit card, let me know and i'll put you to work :-P

and that's a wrap... carli rossow should be here any time now to have some fun for the day -- this will be good :-)

later dudes.

art

the finished masterpiece:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/roadtrip.html

qual study party in an hour -- this is going to make me cry

are we there yet?

what a day...

went to sleep at 4:30am, woke up (on my own, not with a clock) at 9:30, and started packing immediately... my clothes are at the new house and my closets are now 80% empty... all my books and board games (seriously over 2 bookcases full of books) are all gone now too... my room is still a mess, and basically a mountain of stuff... i worked straight until 4:30pm before giving up for the night... so now, pretty sure i'm absolutely exhausted. i am NOT looking forward to the repeat performance tomorrow.

moving in is a little off too b/c the landlord needs to repaint my room from the previous tenant so i can't put anything on the walls or against them until he has time for that this weekend.... this is not a fun game.

on the other hand, eric has earned the title of hero of the month i think. he survived 3960 miles in the car with me, and being around me just about 24/7 for 2 weeks without getting more than occasionally minorly annoyed... now here, the first day we're back and he could get a break from lara, he showed up on my doorstep just before noon and with a smile cheered me up a bit and packed his car full of my stuff... he intends to do the same tomorrow -- 3 mighty cheers for eric.

gone to pick up the final two rools of film from my roadtrip... later dudes :-P

let the insanity begin!

i wrote the most brilliant blog entry ever when i was in detroit friday night... full of all kinds of chipper details of the rest of the trip; unfortunately, eric's g-ma's webTV didn't like the "publish" button to submit that entry, so it's lost... never fear though, i'm working on a wesite to take care of the trip details, so i'll be brief... top 3 ironies/humorous events:

(1) apparently i hum in my sleep and never knew until i hummed loud enough to wake up eric the first two nights on the road... i called roommate and she told me i've been doing that sporadically for years and she never thought it important enough to tell me... dude, i hum songs in my sleep -- how weird is that :-P

(2) apparently eric's great-great-great grandfather built the farm house next door to the house i grew up in (i.e. i grew up playing hide and go seek in an old house his faily's had pictures of for years and wondered how to find for geneology/family history research)... this fact, and the process of discovering this fact led to quite the entertaining evening knocking on random farm house doors in small town illinois this past wednesday night

(3) absolute best highlight of the trip? eric and me miss a turn leaving yellowstone national park and as a result don't get out of the park going the proper direction until 11:30pm... this means there's nowhere to stop that late until cody, WY, a good 2 hours away.... eric hands me the keys figuring i'm better at being giddy and staying awake than he is... the only road from yellowstone to cody is a "scenic highway" that i'm sure is super nice in the day... however, when it's the worst mountain driving of your 2 week journey and it's after midnight so the only thing you can see are the reflectors popping up 20 feet in front of you and signs that say 20mph with the weirdest curves you've ever seen on them, it's not so much scenic as stupidly dangerous -- but whatever, we were determined to get to cody and sleep in real beds, so i pretended it was a race car game to stay in the middle of the road around the curves (good thing there were NO other cars around for hours and hours!) and eric egged me on.... we stopped a few times to be amazed at how many countless millions more stars you can see in total blackness... then after the moon set and we were debating if montana glows in the dark, i told eric whatever the glow was, it was waving at me... he laughed and told me i was too tired to be driving anymore, and i should stop the car a minute and run around to wake up.... however, i stopped the car to prove him i was right :-P... sure enough, there were are, loud techno (i.e. please keep us awake music) blaring out of the car behind us, standing smack in the middle of wyoming state highway 296, jaws to the ground, staring at aurora borealis for the first time -- i.e. the northern lights! we totally had a cow, and did a 1:30am happy dance in the middle of the street, clapped, cheered, and had another cow while admiring the lights before getting back in the car... talk about a story to remember... where were you when... you first saw the northern lights? *i* was doing a happy dance in the middle of a state highway in the wyoming mountains... beat that! :-P

ok, so rest of trip news will come from the website i'm working on.... link here when it's done... in the meantime...

here it is 4am,... tomorrow amanda comes home and i need to move most of my stuff before then (it's currently strewn all over the house and on top of the stuff the girl who's moving into my room, who apparently moved her large furniture all into my living room 2 weeks early... whatever).... i'm not ready for packing... i'm going to wake up and serious just start throwing stacks of books in my back seat and reverse the process to unload... eric said he'd help, but i have to actually use boxes to get him to move stuff... this could pose a problem...

however, eric also said, he doesn't help if i pull an alnighter, so this is me, at 4:15am, signing off and pretending to sleep... wish me luck that i don't spontaneously explode in the next month what with quals and moving.... seriously, why can't i be employed as a professional road trip taker? i'd love that dude.

night y'all.

still going :-)

just a note to all you lara's blog fans (all 3 of you? ;-P) -- hi from northwest indiana -- the trip continues to be a party -- many many more humorous details, but probably not until i'm back in jersey sunday.

be parties one and all of you! ;-)

...and the party only gets better from here!

in a word cirque du soleil last night was absolutely amazing! my description won't do it justice... i'll have to see about scanning in photos from the program or something.... the whole show was water based, i.e. the stage was a semicircle pool that got shallower or deeper depending on what was going on -- sychronized swimmers in really cool costumes, fire jugglers, high divers, trapeze artists, you name it... like i said, my description won't do it justice!

arlene and her boyfriend adam got her last night just in time for supper -- they walked the strip while eric and i were at the show... it's so good to see her again! and he's a pretty nice friendly guy to hang out with for the day now too (as if someone arlene was seeing wouldn't be :-P)... yay for semester abroad reunions after a year and a half! :-)

this is my last stop i'll have internet for awhile... in the meantime you can think of me oohing and aahing at the following stops along the way :-P

today:
finish packing eric's car, drive all 4 of us (me, eric, arlene, adam) in 2 cars from vegas to north rim of the grand canyon, possibly camp for the night, at least definitely see sunset!

friday:
leave arlene and adam to enjoy the canyon... drive from grand canyon to salt lake city, see the salt lake, stay with eric's REU roommate drew in salt lake

saturday:
drive from salt lake to yellowstone (new states on the way include idaho and montana :-) ), hopefully be there at the right time to see old faithful... at least be there to enjoy the park itself... stay somewhere around cody, WY probably.

sunday:
drive from WY to rapid city, SD, see mount rushmore, stay in SD

monday:
drive from SD to minneapolis, MN... stay with michelle collins!

and the fun only continues from there, but that will get told another time :-P

an excellent week to you all! =)

does this make me a bad person? :-P

i think i just ruined an 8-year-old's outlook on life... eric's sorting out stuff for packing the car, so there's not much to help with... so i'm entertaining myself and got on yahoo games to play a game of checkers...

ended up playing a rather chatty 8-year-old from buffalo, NY, who, when she discovered that i was nearly 3 times her age, got pretty proud of herself... i made a few dumb moves early on, that got us to 4 kings on my side versus 6 kings on her side... she kept telling me how cool it was she was "creaming" a 23-year old in checkers, and that i should "hurry up and get it over with"... i told her just because she was 8 didn't mean i was just giving up and "letting" her win... shortly thereafter she jumped one of my pieces and didn't see that that gave me a TRIPLE jump... 3 kings vs. 3 kings, i beat her rather quickly.

eric says she's going to grow up and be a criminal now even though i told her she played excellently and that it was a good game.

doht!

back to being a putz :-P

a three state day! :-)

soooo, so much for the thermometer... today had other plans for us.

we started out headed for california -- the state line is just 30 miles south of vegas on I-15. at the state line is buffalo bill's casino, which has a crazy roller coaster... apparently when it was built, it had the steepest drop of any roller coaster in the world or something... it was pretty crazy, going through tunnels and up and down faster crazy turns and drops... it was a rush to start the day :-)

next, we planned to drive the 45 minutes into cali to see the world's largest thermometer, but got caught in bad traffic and decided to turn back and do other things -- at least i was in the state? :-P, even if i did nothing but look at it and get caught in traffic -- then again bad traffic, that's california-y right? ;-P

soooo, having not seen the thermometer, we headed for the other nearby state -- arizona... we parked on the nevada side of the state line and walked across hoover dam, taking pictures of the colorado river, the dam, and lake mead -- mighty mighty impressive! :-P

that done, we headed into town -- went to the bellagio for a bit and admired their conservatory, picked up our tickets for tomorrow night, and watched the fountain show at 6 and at 6:30 -- absolutely incredible! :-)

finally, after dinner, (mexican fast food), we went to a local club where eric's brother marc's band (the quitters), had their first gig... it was a lot of fun... even eric's 80ish year old grandma came, with ear plugs, but with a huge smile on her face.... that woman's already giving *me* hugs every time i see her, it's great :-)

tomorrow, not quite as exciting til later in the evening -- eric does have to pack after all :-P however, there will be fun too... arlene, of budapest semesters fame, and her boyfriend adam are coming down from seattle and meeting us at eric's place around dinner time... we'll say hi and then leave them because we've (eric and me) had reserved tickets for "O", the current cirque du soleil show at the bellagio for months, whereas they decided to meet up with us about 2 weeks ago :-P... after we're back, sleep time, then the four of us head out on day one of actual roadtripping :-P woohah!

the great out west = lots of fun :-)

later dudes :-P

ode to the "great out west"

re: the title -- eric always kids me that i have the country divided into 4 or 5 categories: "midwest", "out east" "new england", and most importantly "the grand old south" and "the great out west"... unfortunately for most of the country, all the places i'd never been before this week are all lumped into the "great out west" category :-P  nonetheless, eric plays along with my classification system so it sticks :-P
 
last night was entertaining... eric's family's back yard is about the level of the roof of the house behind them, so it's an excellent viewing platform for the city... last night we watched the sun set over the mountains, and then eric's mom made dinner, which we also ate outside watching the cities light up for the night... beautiful... eric's family is hilarious though:  eric's dad is pretty quiet and laid back; he's a palentology professor at university of nevada -- las vegas... i can't ever picture him being mad or loud about anything; just very pleasant... eric's mom is a lot of fun; but a lot more excitable than his dad, is always talking to everybody and halfway fussing that everything goes according to plan-- and then there's eric and his siblings... while eric has the science thing going on and is pretty quiet at school in groups of people, with his family he can be pretty animated (as he can be with just a person or two he knows well, so not a surprise -- just entertaining to see him be more outgoing here :-P)... he is all about science and into classical music and nature stuff.... his brother marc (exactly one day younger than my brother) is complete opposite of eric... they look like brothers but beyond that... dude... marc is part of a punk band -- their first gig is tonight somewhere downtown; marc is much louder and much more of a party-er than eric, and just has completely opposite interests.... finally, eric's sister rachael, who's going to be a high school senior this year, is into country music, works as a life guard, has a lot of common personality aspects with her mom, and is good at being a girl (i would say i'm not good at being a girl, whatever that means :-P)... anyhow, long story short... put all these 5 people together with arielle (a girl from AZ who marc knows from his semester in israel a couple years ago) and me... where everyone is jewish except me = highly entertaining dinner.
 
after dinner, marc and arielle went to see blue man group; rachael went to sleep, and eric and me took out his telescope -- looking away from the city, we could actually see the milky way!  we also found messier objects M6, M7, M8, and M22 -- 6,7, and 22 are open star clusters (places in the sky that look dark/hazy to the naked eye but are places lots of stars are forming and can be seen with a telescope/binoculars)... M6 actually looks kinda like the outline of a bug with wings outstretched -- really cool!  M8 is a nebula -- although it's redish tinted in star magazines, it's just kinda gray through the telescope. :-P  nonetheless, we were excited and had a blast with it. :-)
 
we got home late, and now it's california day!  obviously since it's just an hour away, i have to go to the border to say i was there, and beyond that, just to say we did something we can only do in california, we're going to baker to see this , the world's largest thermometer -- to make it more exciting for eric, who's seen it many times before, we're getting greek food for lunch too while we're there, and then heading back...
 
more casino stuff tonight, to be followed by marc's aforementioned gig. :-P  party, eh?
 
later dudes! :-) look, out cali, here i come ;-P

viva las vegas! @ etc.

here i am!!! :-P... flew in after a very long day yesterday, had pecan pie with eric's parents and sister, and then crashed... yay for 3 hour time changes?
 
today was a blast though :-)
 
first off, eric had a hair appointment so i sat around and waited whole he had that... then we went to red rock canyon -- it's in the mountains around vegas... with several places to stop off and go rock climbing... we saw some petrogliphs (ancient rock writings) in the mountains and climbed up one large stone/mini mountain there called "the quarry"... long and hot but the view was INCREDIBLE!... on the way out of the park, a burro (think mexican donkey) was by the road and when eric opened the window to take its picture it stuck its head in to try to lick me!  craziness!
 
then, after going to in and out (one of eric's favorite "out west" burger places) for lunch, we hit the strip... i spent about $3 on quarter slots and got about $2 back :-)... that's about my gambling limit... we visited mgm grand, excalibur, luxor, new york new york, and then the m&m shop... it was fun. :-)  eric also beat me in a close game of air hockey but he claims he earned it after never ever beating me in reversi all last fall.  nonetheless, fun times all around :-P
 
here's the final random factoid of the day... last night over pie with eric's family, and hearing my dad's family is from south of chicago, eric's dad pulled a drawing off the wall of mr. and mrs. byron mckinstry and their farm in grank park, kankakee county, illinois... when i commented that grant park's where i was born and lived until i was 5 years old, they were all excited... mckinstry was eric's great-great-great-great-grandfather who went to california in 1850 for the gold rush, made it big, then went back to grant park to build this huge farm.... when i called the parents an hour ago and asked them if the name mckinstry meant anything to them my dad blurted out "the byron mckinstry farm??? that's right at the 1/17 split... everyone knows that"... soooo, detour on the trip next week to take pictures of this farm i've passed everytime i've driven between g-ma pudwell's and valpo in the past 4 years and not thought anything of until today... it's a small world after all... :-P
 
time to develop lots of pictures and go party some more :-)
 
oh and p.s.... eric's family moved this spring to a new house, and on the pull out couch i have the best panoramic view of the vegas valley all lit up and the mountains :-)  so even when i wake up at 4/5am (7/8 jersey time) i have lots of awesome things to look at :-)
 
yeah, party time -- later dudes! :-)

let the adventures begin!

dude... i sure hope eric doesn't get tired of me in the next 2 weeks... i've been what he would call "giddy" since i got back from memphis... just all excited about this trip... lara being excited = lara doesn't sleep = especially later in the day, lara doesn't make mmuch sense... but it's a bouncing off the walls, can't contain excitement kind of doesn't make sense... we shall see.
 
i slept 6.5 hours... waking up a few times inbetween to see if it was 6:30 yet... the plan:
 
woke up 6:30am eastern/3:30am pacific
church @ 8am eastern/5am pacific
ben picks me up for the drive to the airport 11am eastern/8am pacific
i fly out of newark at 2pm eastern/11am pacific
insert 3.5 hour layover in chicago
land in vegas at midnight eastern/9pm pacific
 
bound to be a long but highly entertaining day! :-)
 
later dudes :-)

news flash: lara joins the technology age

in order to not get a ticket (it's now illegal to talk on the phone whil driving in jersey unless you have a handsfree device), lara just purchased one of said handsfree devices...
 
dilemma 1: lara is so used to talking with and playing with her phone while talking that it's going to be quite the effort to remember to use said hand free device
 
dilemma 2:  lara charged this, as she's doing with most of her life this summer on account of not really getting paid for july and august... money makes me sad :-(

back and better than ever ;-)

man... what a 2 days...
 
wednesday night (1) it pouring down rain at precisely the moment i started to load my car, (2) my brother having time for the first night all week for a sonic slush run and joyriding for a bit, and (3) several interesting IM conversations i got myself into late at night, i didn't go to sleep until 1am... then in an effort to get on the road early enough to get to pittsburgh before my younger cousins' usual 9:30 bedtime, i woke up at 4:30, and drove 14 hours on 3.5 hours of sleep... yes, it took me 14 freakin hours to make the trip... (usually it takes 12.5) because on I-71 between lousiville, KY and cincinnati, OH they had everyone merge into one lane and then stopped all traffic for a bit so a gravel truck could go back and forth across the road to fill in the shoulder with said gravel... sitting in park on the interstate for an hour when you're ready to fall asleep already and have at least 6 hours of driving to go yet... yeah, i was not so happy.
 
on the other hand, besides that, and seeing one of the worst wrecks ever between harrisburg and allentown, PA today (a suburban with a mobile home on the back had tumbled over several times, and both parts were on their sides/upside down with several other cars off the road as a result of the fray), it was a good trip... beautiful weather the whole way through... about 10 minutes of rain total, and a certain friend of mine just calls every so often now to see how life is going and make me laugh :-)
 
so indeed... that's the scoop... 1 day to let my energy level recuperate, and then i'm off and running again!
 
more tales to come, i'm sure :-P
 
later dudes :-)

feelin hot, hot, hot

current temp? 100F
current heat index? 129F

oh joy oh joy... and in spite of that, yours truly spent most of the afternoon outside...dude

dentist appointment this morning -- no cavities and i still get to keep my wisdom teeth -- that's always good news :-)

then, lunch @ dixie cafe w/ mom, which always makes me happy :-)

then, vaccuumed and dusted inside my car, and washed and waxed the outside... taking frequent water breaks on account of the heat, this added up to 3-4 hours of work and now i'm exceedingly yucky :-P... but such things must be done on the one week per six months i have a driveway to do them in, eh? ;-)

cleaning up, packing, and going to Bible study @ doc sohn's, then hopefully out by 5 (central) in the morning... 12.5 hours to pittsburgh and i lose an hour with time zones... blah.

later dudes :-P

job perk #1372

what's better than just having a cool funny boss who likes me and makes me free lunches? -- getting to swim in her pool after work!

today it got up to 99 with a heat index of 119 in my part of town... craziness... however, at 4pm, when we were done working, we headed outside and swam for 2 hours -- it felt great! i hadn't had a chance to swim since last year!

done working for the summer... tomorrow's dentist appointment, packing, lunch with mom, and Bible study @ Doc Sohn's before i head back to jersey thurs and fri..

time to be a bum for once... later dudes :-P

something to laugh at

got this email this morning from my 4th grade teacher and laughed my head off:

"With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment it is worth reflecting on the death of a person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started."

(it's a joke... laprise really died in '96 at age 83 as per http://www.fff.at/2002/03/02/hokey-pokey-creator/, but whatever)

in other news: current memphis weather? temperature of 97F, heat index of 118F.. calling cotton farmers for 3 more hours, then going swimming! woohoo!

later dudes :-P

cats, bandaids, and other such fun :-P

man, even if telemarketing stinks, i have the funniest boss ever :-)

2 stories from today:
today, her 5 year old joshua mostly hung out downstairs playing with his matchbox cars and watching cartoons, but he came upstairs to the office at one point and said his nose hurt. carolyn (my boss) didn't see anything wrong, but to make him "feel better", she put a bandaid on it... she didn't feel like going downstairs and all she had upstairs was a huge butterfly bandaid that covered his whole nose! everytime he came back up to say hi and went away we laughed for 10-15 minutes about how funny he looked with a bandaid he didn't really need on his face :-P heh :-P

story 2... halfway through the afternoon, carolyn all the sudden jumped up and said "hey let's watch the garbage men out the window"... explaining... there was a big thunderstorm last week that threw their pool furniture all over the place... apparently something hit their neighbor's cat because after the storm, they found him dead under their swimming pool... they put him in a garbage bag in the trash (this part is sad, i agree) and he'd been there for 4 days in the 90+ degree heat and humidity, so it stank pretty bad out front... she wanted to watch their faces as they dealt with throwing the trash into the garbage truck... that got us laughing for another 20 minutes -- dude!

so yeah, i have a humorous boss ;-)

more data entry fun tonight after checking email and prolly going to starbucks with mom for a bit :-P... then again every night but one since i've been back in town, travis has called me to talk for awhile, so it's really more a factor of how much i get done before he calls rather than how much i get done before i crash ;-)

later dudes :-P

one more quip :-P

watching the news tonight, there was a blurb about west nile virus since 5 memphis zip codes have had animals test positive for it this summer again...

normally when they talk to someone on TV you see their name, and then a subtitle with what they do or where they work...

e.g. "rick pudwell -- memphis botanic garden" or "joe smith -- concerned neighbor"

today, one lady they had on had the best subtitle ever:

"terry walker -- duck eats mosquitoes"

ai yai yai

later dudes :-P

lucy in the sky with diamonds

... or international space station in the sky with jupiter... same difference, right?

ok, not really the same, but i did indeed see the space station tonight! it made a big arc to the west for a little under 10 minutes around 9:30 tonight... it was on the news earlier, and i got to a good break point with data entry for work about 10 minutes before it rose, so i made a point of going outside to see! :-)

other exciting events of the day? after church and lunch today, the family went to the wonders exhibit downtown (see www.wonders.org)... wonders exhibits are travelling museum exhibits that hit memphis for 6 months at a time... they generally get one per year... this year was the history and estate of the medici family of italy... pretty cool... my favorites were a case of math tools, and a case of astronomy tools the belonged to galileo.... of interest to my fellow lutherans, pope leo, who excommunicated luther was a medici so i got to see the papal bull that actually did that... also of interest to valpo CC people, i got to actually see part of a fresco painted by giotto, since he was from the time and place of the orginal family line of medicis and they sponsored his students some too... in summary, it was a cool exhibit!

so yeah, then the space station, and a good chat with roommate, and lots of data entry... and more data entry to come before i sleep =P later dudes!

king arthur & etc.

i was a complete and total putz all day yesterday... slept til lunchtime, wasted time online, read a bit, did word puzzles, developed pictures (more llamas here :-P ), and finally, brother and me went to see a movie: king arthur.

i don't like bloody/battle movies very much, but i enjoyed this one... it was more centered on the relationships between people rather than on "let's see how much blood/gore we can make"... so somehow that made it more watchable for me... guinevere kicked butt too :-P all in all, enjoyed it and glad we went.

now, went to the traditional church service with dad already this morning, and in an hour am going to the contemporary service with my brother (mom plays organ/keyboard for both and the guys both just go to one or the other)... this is one thing i love about good shepherd that's weird here... both services have the same worship style each particular week, but both services rotate between different worship styles and liturgy sources... there's not this chasm of "contemporary people" and "traditional people" like even just in my family... blah.

more this evening... later dudes! =P

a thought

i sooo do not understand my life right now -- any of you care to explain it to me?

dad quotes

seriously, don't some people annoy you just by the way they look? ~dad

~~~~~

dad: how can you not like las vegas [the TV show]? you're going there in a week!

...um yeah, because i'm sure visiting eric in vegas for 3 days will be *exactly* like the primetime TV show by the same name
:-P

the short of things

summary of my day:

*called cotton farmers for 3.5 hours -- well, really 3, and entertained my bosses 5 year old for half an hour while she was on a conference call and didn't want him playing in the background =P

*lunch with alissa (anderson) homes, ... we went to school together K-8 and she's now married 2 years, lives in mississippi and works as the district secretary for a clothing store chain... me, well i'm me... so we both get together once a year or so and ask lots of questions over lunch about what the other is doing, and then go our separate ways again :-)

*passed vehicle inspection! i hate memphis vehicle inspection... mostly because of the brake test... put your car in drive, pull up the emergency brake and then stomp on the gas... and your car isn't supposed to go anywhere??? it's ridiculous... for once, i passed the first time through -- after sitting for an hour waiting in line in the 90+ degree heat without air conditioning (to get better emissions scores)... at least it's done, eh?

*another hour of cotton farmer calling

...and now i'm home to do data entry... fun, eh?

later dudes :-P

for the girls... =)

other favorite song of the week (besides counting crows, referenced below), even though i first heard this one round bout christmas time... lyrics by martina mcbride below: =)

This one's for all you girls about thirteen
High school canbe so rough, can be so mean
Hold onto, on to your innocence
Stand your ground when everyone's giving in

This is for all you girls about twenty-five
In a little apartment, just trying to get by
Living on, on dreams and spaghetti-o's
Wondering where you life is gonna go

This is for all you girls about forty-two
Tossing pennies into the Fountain of Youth
Every laugh, laugh line on your face
Made you who you are today

Yeah, we're all the same inside
From 1 to 99

This one's for the girls
Who've ever had a broken heart
Who've wished upon a shooting star
You're beautiful the way you are
This one's for the girls
Who love without holding back
Who dream with everything they have
All around the world
This one's for the girls
Yeah, this one's for the girls

back to business

so, i must say, for hating telemarketing with a passion, today was relatively decent... mostly because i have the most awesome boss ever!

the short version:
"hi, this is lara calling from cotton grower magazine... do you still want to recieve our free publication for the coming year? are you a grower or a ginner? how many acres of cotton do you have for production? how many bales did you harvest last year? we're weird and are required by law to ask random questions: what's your mother's middle name?"
multiply by 250, and you have my day.

on the other hand, allow me to describe my work situation ;-)... i work for SD4JC, a memphis business that consists entirely of my boss, and then me and this other girl ashley (ashley's same age as me) that help carolyn (my boss) out on occasion... she works out of her house with her 5 year old kid playing around all day... one large bedroom of the house is just set up with 5 large desks and 4 computers and a dry erase board for work.

benefits: it's just me and my boss, so no business casual to worry about, just whatever we feel like showing up in for the day... my boss hates outbound calling as much as me, so we take a break like every hour on the hour to run around the house... she makes me lunch for free, and i'm free to use her pool after work if i'd like. no complaints on that!

now, i have data entry to do tonight at my leisure... extra $$ -- again no complaints here!

in conclusion, phone calling quotes of the day:

(it was great b/c we called alabama and arkansas people today and i had to pick up a drawl quick to be understood by some of them, which i do subconsciously... still haven't quite figured out how that works... but party and a half :-P)

the quotes:

me: or, I can talk to someone else in the family.
callee: no you can't -- no one else here wants to talk to you. (click)

me: hi, may i speak to (insert name)
wife of person i was supposed to call: honey, he's a farmer; he don't come inside.

me: how many bales of cotton does your husband have for production this year?
callee: sure as heck i dunno -- a LOT of it!

me: so, to verify that i talked to you and renewed your subscription over the phone, our auditing bureau requires that we ask an identifying question: what's your mother's middle name?
callee: oh, i know that one! last time it was "what color are your husband's eyes?" and i felt silly that i sure didn't know!

time to get back to work ;-P later dudes!

photo fun

the last half week of my life has been posted here -- enjoy!

come on, come on, turn a little faster...

since my drive home, that song (counting crows, accidentally in love) has been in my head -- it was in shrek 2 monday night, and it's been on the radio a lot... doht!

anyhow, today was my "free" day since work starts tomorrow...

lots of errands... developed photos from six flags saturday, 4th of july fun on sunday, and of the drive back... unfortunately although the scanner on the family computer is respectable, the dial up connection coupled with ftp to the rutgers servers completely stinks so it's gonna take forever and a day to upload things... look forward to it. :-P

it's recently come to my attention that i have an extremely eclectic variety of friends.... look at my memphis friends, my valpo friends, my rutgers friends, my internet friends, my international friends -- they constitute a great variety of people... today further illustrates that -- i spent 2 hours visiting my friend shannon... shannon is a 40 something mother of 1 (her kid is going to be a high school senior this fall)... she used to go to my church and was the leader of the flute quartet i was in at the end of high school. despite the fact that she's closer to my mom's age than mine, that she and her family left our church years ago for one closer to their house, and that i'm no longer in town, she's one of the most faithful people at emailing me regularly, and i went over to her house to just to chat for awhile, leaving because i had somewhere else to get to on time... she's not even like buddy buddy with my parents (they get along fine)... she's MY friend and she's their age =P... in summary, it was a good chat, and yay for friends :-) i like the fact that i have really a wide variety of friends -- interest wise, age wise, background wise... etc. :-) makes life all the more fun :-)

after hanging out at shannon's for awhile, mom, ryan, and i went to hear pastor mike's presentation. pastor mike (my memphis pastor) goes regularly on short term mission trips... end of may/early june he was with a team of people going to tanzania from the mid south district of the lcms (lutheran church--missouri synod) to talk with people and help finish building a new church building in progress... he talked for an hour, sharing pictures from his time there and it was pretty cool, although some things he commented on as sooo strange to him aren't that peculiar to africa so much as non-america :-P, or even to non-memphis :-P nonetheless, it was a cool presentation.

now, as is typical, 9:15 and the family isn't ready to eat dinner yet... and it's 10:15 jersey time... ai yai yai -- this is another reason i don't regret not living here all the time! :-P

later dudes :-P

oh joy, oh joy

called my boss... she has work for me starting bright and early at 8:30am tomorrow...

but...

who thought their telemarketing days were over and done 4 years ago?

*raises hand and cheers!*

who was dead wrong and will be making crummy calls 7-8 hours per day for the next week?

*raises hand and scowls*

at least it's more $$ in the bank, right?

lions, and tigers, and ... crickets???

last night...

me: dad! what are these giant bugs on the stairs to my room?
dad: can't you just ignore them?
me: can't you come see what they are and make them go outside?
dad: (comes over...): those are just cave crickets -- can't you ignore them?
me: can't i live in a house without bugs for a week
dad: you're in the South -- we have big bugs; it's part of the deal, enjoy it.
me: there are plenty of houses in the south without bugs... can you please make them go away?
dad: they're not coming in your room -- they're just on the stairs, go see.
me: (go up to my room) dad! there's 2 up here, please do something about them!
dad: (chases them into my closet)
me: dude, i'm not 3 anymore
dad: I can't see them anymore though... you're fine... good night.

back to the usual.

am i ridiculous to not want bugs the size of the palm of my hand bouncing around my room at night?

blah -- this could be why i choose to stay far far away most of the time :-P

later dudes :-P

walkin' in memphis

well, not walkin per se yet, but i'm here!

what a couple of days...

yesterday was fine... drove from jersey to pitt with no unexpected delays -- got a box of peaches at a farmers market on the way -- quite tasty... only aunt priscilla and step-cousin danelle were in town, so once i got there the 3 of us went out for dinner and saw shrek 2, and there was an extra scene at the end that i didn't remember from the first time through, so it was a party :-)

today was the entertaining day -- i got out of aunt priscilla's half an hour later than planned, then headed straight for columbus

there, i met up with travis (aka black death)... he was pretty much as expected... between having a picture of him, and having talked to him quite a bit on the phone in the past week, it was just fun to merge the voice and the picture and interact with him in person... we met at a cracker barrel just south of the city and chatted for an hour and a half before i headed further south... he also gave me 2 CDs (one is savatage (precursor to transsiberian orchestra (you know their carol of the bells/christmas eve sarjevo song whether you think you do or not), and the other he wouldn't say who it was -- i really liked it,... and i looked it up online... tracks 1-14 are zakk wylde -- book of shadows but there's a few on the end, and i really want to know who tracks 16 and 17 are because they didn't seem to fit stylistically with the rest of the disc... halfway wondering if they're him playing or not... we shall see..

anyhow, after lunch i travis called again mandating i give him my reviews of the CDs :-P, scott called to say hi, and eric called to tell me he finally has a car! party indeed :-)

by the time the two CDs ran out, i hit major crazy rain around louisville, kentucky... i.e. even with wipers on the fastest setting i couldn't see the car in front of me for awhile, and lightning hit so close to the road once i could feel the ground shake.

that survived, i was so pleased to make a pit stop in bowling green, kentucky (just barely north of the TN border) and talk to people with genuine southern accents... no matter how long you've been gone, the first real "southern" stop, is the best ever :-)

also passed the oscar meier weiner mobile on I-65 in central kentucky and was greatly amused :-)

as i crossed into TN i got a rainbow overhead from the passing storms... skirted around nashville fine and watched sunset as i headed west, however, as soon as the sun was gone, this huge dome-shaped cloud formed over jackson/memphis.... it looked like a mountain in the distance only the land is mostly flat and you could see lightning flashing through it every few seconds -- i drove towards that without being IN the storm for an hour and a half before i finally hit it -- it was amazing to watch! too bad you can't time taking pictures with when lightning takes off! anyhow, the 45 minutes of storm to my front door survived, my stuff is in the house, and i have a bunch of people to call :-P

night y'all!

happy 4th!

today was quality indeed.

after church, i worked on packing for my trip to memphis, and then helped scott start his move from the dorms on campus to the house where he, john, eric, mike, sam, and jared will be in the fall... in return he promised me a drink on him later. -- party indeed :-)

after a little more work at my place, jessica came up from philly, helped me bring a load of stuff down to my car, and then we watched the 2nd half of "ferris bueller's day off" before scott got back home from playing basketball..

he, ben, jessica and i went to applebees for munchies and drinks -- i got a mucho mudslide, on scott because he's a party :-)

then, we picked up colleen and headed for highland park... (where i'll live in a month) :-) -- they had a local band called "deSol" what was pretty fun... scott and ben juggled and played with my hackeysack and made some small children friends while jessica and i worked on making clover flower jewelry; jessica made herself a crown, and i made a necklace that scott volunteered to wear before i even finished... with him wearing it and continuing to play with his small children friends, i ended up being a flower necklace factory and making them for all scott's new 4 foot tall friends :-)

ben and me also got glow-sticks and had fun waving them around until fireworks started :-) and they were fun... actually, highland park didn't set any off -- they just set everyone up facing the fireworks from the town across the river (new brunswick) which is a little over... trees blocked the lower ones, but the high up ones, which were 80% of the show, were fantastic! :-) it was a party :-)

now, i'm back home, and should ponder getting some sleep before the roadtrip tomorrow :-)

jersey to pittsburgh tomorrow, pittsburgh to memphis on tuesday, via columbus for lunch with travis -- catch y'all on the flip side :-)

great adventure :-)

not a cheesy post title, -- that's the six flags park we attacked yesterday, and man was it fun!

you'd expect going on a holiday weekend on one of the most perfect weather days of the year we'd have spent the day waiting in line the whole time, but not so much :-P

ben, scott, and me met up at 10:30... waited for sarah to join, but she never showed, so we headed the 1.5 hours away to six flags great adventure (jackson, NJ)... me and scott and ben... trouble :-P

my first priority was to go on a ride that goes upside down (really this isn't hard to do :-P, it just meant we needed to hit up a rollercoaster first... =) )... anticipating long lines, we were surprised when we waited all of 10 minutes before getting to ride the "scream machine"... best part is -- i didn't scream... i laughed the whole time and ben (who was sitting next to me) wondered if there was something wrong with me as a result =P

after that, we rode superman... this ride took more of a 45 minute wait and i was nearly scared still to ride it once we got close... you get in the seat, hands, and legs free in the air, and just before the ride takes off they tilt everyone's seats so that your back is straight up in the air, and you're hanging, face down, facing the ground... as we went up the initial incline, just hanging there (me between ben and scott this time) scott took advantage of me being afraid and was like "dude, lara, look, if this thing broke, look how far we'd fall -- we're all gonna DIE!!!!!!!"... i screamed like a girl the whole time, which greatly amused ben and scott (because i don't really do that very often), but it was a rush. =)

after lunch we played silly carnival games and ben won me a taz (tasmanian devil, of course :-) )... we rode the teacups almost of the point of turning our stomachs, and then the ferris wheel to get a better scope of what we still needed to hit, then did one of those boat rides that goes down a waterfall and gets you wet... after that scott and ben wanted to stand on the bridge that the water ride goes under, because that way you get even more drenched... they got soaked twice over before they dragged me over to get drenched too... of course, dripping wet, and absolutely soaked, we had to ride rollercoasters to dry off :-)...

after all that fun, we split a pizza 3 ways for dinner, making it certain we couldn't ride anymore crazy rides... so we spent awhile in the arcade, and ben and me got enough tickets out of the silly machines where you drop quarters and try to knock more down to get me a hackeysack, and then scott and me each scored high enough on skeeball to get ourselves stuffed frogs :-)... ben won himself a stuffed rottweiller to, so picture the 3 of us with a dog, a taz, two of us with sutffed frogs on our heads (rotating which two throughout the evening), running around quoting "go dog go" (i.e. "helllllloooooo!!!" "helllooooooo!!!" "how do you like my hat!?" "i do not like that hat goodbye!" "goodbye") in stupid british accents and riding kiddie rides for an hour -- high on life is a good way to be :-) ... we rode the merry-go-round last of all because half the places to sit on there were chickens! and ben had to ride a chicken...

after that fun, we had an hour til their fireworks display, so i got yarn weaved into my hair that i'm guessing will stay put til it falls out of its own accord... i picked blue and white and the guys insisted i had to get red with it, so my hair is patriotic now :-P

when i was done, we got good seats for the fireworks -- we didn't even realize that there would be fireworks until a worker on one of the rides told us... it was fantastic, all out holiday deal... they had quotes from all the presidents since the dawn of radio, and later made a screen by blowing up water from a fountain and projecting a screen onto that, of shots from the life of ronald reagan -- it was kinda cool... we oohed and ahhed... and 11 hours after getting there, we drove on home... and sang the whole hour plus back.... indeed, what a day.

now, today, i gotta get my packing done! i'm on the road back down south in less than 24 hours and i'm not ready to go at all!

doht!

later dudes :-P

on my mind

so what's lara been up to lately (besides obsessing over how meeting an old online friend will actually go in person and taking oodles of online quizzes?) here's the real deal:

reading, working (on math), and more reading mostly... 3 main trains of thought too, and my current reading falls into at least 2 of those categories :-P

(1) relationships -- my talking with travis (aka "black death") has gotten more frequent by a ton lately, and it's been lots of fun, but i've consequently been analyzing a lot of what makes particular friendships work -- and why exactly it's so much different to go from internet to phone to in person communication instead of the reverse order, which is more standard...

also, i think since i have some of nicole's stuff now, the repurcussions of her accident last september are hitting me more realistically... i've known that when i talked to her 10 months ago tomorrow, it was the last time in this life... that she's gone, and that i won't see her again, but with some of her possessions here, and the fact that it's been the better part of a year, i've realized the back of my head can't fool itself into "nicole's gone on a long trip somewhere where she doesn't have access to mail/phone/etc... she'll get back to the states and i'll hear from her eventually..." that's a chump explanation, but i think in some ways, up til recently, she's been away no longer than some other friends who have come back from working/travelling various other places, and now it's getting to the point i can't trick myself into dealing with it that way... especially since her parents sent the package of her stuff, which i got on the day of my birthday, i've been hit with periodic huge "i miss nicole" waves out of nowhere... yesterday was an especially hard one, and i seriously cried for like 2 hours... such is life i guess... it puzzles me what exactly sets me off sometimes, but i guess that i still miss her and her memory affects me that strongly just is all the more evidence that she was that special to me, right? ... and that can't have been a bad thing... patience with myself... that's the key

(2) math stuff -- i've been studying hard for quals since my birthday and getting frustrated a lot. i've recently come to the conclusion that my personality is not well suited to mesh with the constraints of the first year or two of grad school... i will make it, because i'm stubborn and determined, and even more because i have great friends who encourage me and help keep me going, but i will be much more in my element when i can do research instead of studying tricky problems for a crazy test in 59 days when i don't test well anymore... it's a mind game of convincing myself i can handle the upcoming hurdles and stress to get to the point where i have the credentials to really do what i want to do with my life.

(3) i've been doing lots and lots of extra reading... and here's the proof that i'm really an academic... here's what i've read for "fun" lately...immediately after finishing the millenium problems (see this entry: the millenium problems (what's going on with math and why you, who are friends of an aspiring mathematician, should care =P) ), the next two things i've read cover to cover are:

(a)Astronomy magazine: Origin and Fate of the Universe, collector's edition

(b)time magazine -- june 21, 2004 issue

this is my thing lately... you'll notice that the next book i plan to start this week is called the science of God.... astronomy was not a religious magazine in the least, but it's all about the science of what the universe looks like and how it behaves... the particular issue of Time i've been reading has the cover "faith, God, and the oval office"... lately i guess, i've been fascinated by the relationship between faith and science and how the two interact. time wasn't so much about the science but how faith interacts with politics (plus it had a multi-page article about blogs ;-P) what what american society may or may not consider to be the appropriate interaction between the two.

i guess i've come into contact over the years with various shades of two distinct voices on the meshing of religion and science and i fall between the two.

(1) ultra conservative: the Bible says so and that's all i need to know... evolution, the big bang, etc., they're all people making up stuff to replace religion they don't want to believe in -- there are some things only God should know and science is pushing the limit

(2) ultra liberal: science is the one reliable way to explore the world-- you can't prove the claims religions make and they all have such fundamental issues; the lack of separation between church and state in this country scares me -- it's all the Christians trying to inflict their view on others and i want nothing of it.

i get so frustrated with both voices and am somewhere between the two. mathematics isn't a laboratory science, but it is a science... it's the study of patterns in the world, and the way i see it, once of the few disciplines that can honestly claim to seek genuine irrefutable truth about the world around us... math proofs are not subject to needing experimental confirmation, they're not just theories -- they show us FACTS about the world...

one of the theorems that most fascinates me is Godel's theorem, which although i'm not a logic expert by far, says that in any system of axoims that uses arithmetic, there will always exist statements that are TRUE, but are NOT able to be proven from the given known axioms (i.e. "obvious" facts) about the system. i like to read this as, no matter how much of what we know and scientifically prove about the world, just because one can't rig up an experiment and concretely prove the existence of God, this THEOREM leaves the necessary room -- the existence of God is one of those things that is entirely true, and not able to be verified by what we know and can get our hands on -- interesting, eh?

i'm done rambling and being preachy and whatever -- this is the food for thought on my mind lately -- starting the science of God this weekend, maybe even this afternoon, and more discussion of it as i hit on interesting points... in the meantime -- some quotes i like from 777 mathematical conversation starters (see previous entry) relating to the above :-)

"There is more religion in men's science than there is science in their religion." ~Henry David Thoreau

"No longer is theology embarrassed by the contradiction between God's immanence and transcendence. Hyperspace touches every point of three-space. God is closer to us than our breathing. He can see every portion of our world, touch every particle without moving a finger through our space. Yet the Kingdom of God is completely "outside" of three-space, in a direction in which we cannot even point." ~Martin Gardner

"There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the providence of science." ~Carl Friedrich Gauss

"Science and religion are both extremely important issues, but they do different things. Science deals with the factual state of nature, and religion deals with ethics and meaning." ~Stephen J. Gould

"Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God. " ~Maria Mitchell, astronomer, first woman elected to the Amaerican Academy of Arts and Sciences

"Everyone who is seriuosly involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man... in this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiousity of someone more naive." ~Albert Einstein, letter to a child who asked if scientists pray

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." ~Albert Einstein

.... and what do you think? (as if any of you ever leave comments anymore anyhow ;-P)

Mathematical Conversation Starter #478

Metric Maxims

28.3 grams of prevention are worth .453 kilograms of cure.
Give him 2.5 centimeters and he'll take 1609 meters.
More bounce to the 28.3 grams.
He demanded his .453 kiograms of flesh.
155 centimeters and eyes of blue.
A miss is as good as 1.6 kilometers.
First down and 9.1 meters to go.
I love you 35.2 liters and 8.8 liters.
~Anonymous

(from 777 Mathematical Conversation Starters by John dePillis)

(i can "translate" them all, can you? :-P)

you guessed it

11pm: here's lara, being a bum and dozing off early

11:15pm: phone call with "unidentified number" on the caller ID -- i answer and seriously it sounds like marcus dugan (tammy's husband)... so i was entirely confused for a minute, but you guessed it -- travis, aka "black death"

we talked for the last hour that he was at work (he's a pizza chef :-P)... and for his drive home... and for a bit after... 2.5 hours in all.

it was highly entertaining despite the fact that i'm braindead and was nearly asleep when the conversation started

what does one talk about for 2.5 hours? pizza... shoes... movies... ohio... gambling... more movies... tv... "hey here's a question that's more random than the last one you asked"... it was fun...

and if i type out the scott reaction now, then none of you will have to be ridiculous and say it "dude, 2.5 hours? soo, you engaged yet?"... ha ha...

whatever, but at least now, i can stop worrying about how tuesday will go, because if we can have a quality chat for 2.5 hours (just before his phone died, BD was like "so, this is the longest intelligent conversation i've had in months -- thanks!"), we'll be fine for lunch.

anywho... i was going to crash 3 hours ago... maybe now i will for real -- night y'all. =P

one more quiz, just for good measure :-)

I am infinity You may worship me, but from afar

what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

more quizzes

... because i'm having a minor personality crisis/mental breakdown today :-P


Which OS are You?





Which Nigerian spammer are You?




playing online board games with eric for a bit -- finally something happy :-P

dude -- ponder this

Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
brought to you by Quizilla


honestly -- i expected it to tell me "moderate", but ya know... b/c i'm definitely quite a bit more liberal than a lot of my memphis church friends, but i'm definitely quite a bit more conservative than most of my math/grad school friends... either way, there it is :-P

later dudes

doht

i did it again -- i freaked out tonight:

BlkDeth 13: hahahahahaha
BlkDeth 13: dont make me call you out of spite.
lkp 42 42 42: i'm really not that entertaining when i'm tired
BlkDeth 13: it is for spite, not entertainment! hahahaha
lkp 42 42 42: so you'd like your first dialogue with me to be me yawning and then hanging up?
BlkDeth 13: rofl
BlkDeth 13: it was an empty threat.
lkp 42 42 42: right now i'm about to fall asleep, seriously... just gotta wrap up like 3 conversations on IM here
lkp 42 42 42: will we talk before we actually meet each other though?
lkp 42 42 42: (phone is now off and charging for the night anyhow :-P)
BlkDeth 13: i'll work on that.
BlkDeth 13: *nod*
lkp 42 42 42: good plan

at least i told the actual truth this time -- but dude, why does the phone freak me out?

then again, as the ever wise eric said:

Galois1105: i think if you're afraid of it being weird [meeting in person], then you should talk to him on the phone
Galois1105: at least some of the weirdness will happen over the phone that way

we shall see...

quotables and other such fun

ben and me DID see spiderman 2 tonight... after i sat through "josie and the pussycats" on TV... partly it was on, partly i'd never seen it, mostly amanda claims she cancelled the cable so that today (june 30) was the last day, (even though it's still on now) so i figured i'd make use of the last bit of tv i have in the next month and a half.

before i get into spiderman though, random quote from an astronomy magazine article i just read that i found funny, before i just go nuts w/ spiderman stuff: "consider the vexation in not knowing with certainty whether you are 3 feet tall or 6 feet tall, or that the distance from chicago to los angeles is 1,000 miles or 2,000 miles. buying a new pair of slacks or planning this summer's road trip would be a guaranteed headache." (duuuude) :-P

anywho, ben came over for the last half hour of that, and then we saw spiderman... to capture the overall tone, immediately when the credits started rolling the first thing out of ben's mouth was "hey, let me do the 'lara is scared of the movie!' impression!"... he exaggerated, but it was pretty funny (i curl myself in a ball, and hide under my jacket)

really though, after seeing it i could understand why it's gotten such stellar reviews all around... although there were entire scenes i just closed my eyes from and paid attention again later, and there were several points where i just jumped and hid for a bit (much to ben's amusement), i enjoyed it,... the action was quality... the love story was believeable,... and other people were just plain funny.

in the end, it was a good movie... random quotes:

me: dude, what are you laughing at?
ben: half naked tobey mcguire, that's what

isn't it time someone rescued you?

I believe there's a hero in all of us who keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.

there, be inspired. night y'all.