10 posts tagged “me”

Meme ganked from a bunch of places.

1. I won the Orange County Spelling Bee in fifth grade; my winning word was "bivouac."  For this feat I received a savings bond and a copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.  In sixth grade, I didn't make it past the school-wide competition, because I confused "propellent" and "propellant."  In seventh grade, I missed out on a trip to Disneyland with the honor society, of whom my then-crush was president, because I used the British "diphthong" instead of the American "dipthong."
2. The first day of my first job, I knocked over an entire pallet of computer monitors in front of my supervisor's boss.  Somehow, I didn't get fired.
3. I have a triangular scar on my right index finger from when I was running to catch a bus and tried to grab a signpost to change direction.  It was one of those metal posts with holes, like a giant erector set, and my finger got sliced by the edge.  I caught the bus, but my hand was a bloody mess the entire ride.  I also have a small scar on the knuckle of that hand from a childhood skateboarding accident.
4. A small hypertext piece I wrote back in 1996 was a bit of a one-hit-wonder in academia; it was quoted in the next edition of my professor's book and appeared on the syllabus of courses at at least three different universities.
   
5. Although I have a valid driver's license, I have not driven an automobile in almost ten years.
   

My hair is now "brown-black" rather than just brown.  It's a little bit more contrast in time for Halloween (even if I don't have a costume planned).

Cheapo dye isn't quite as even as some of the other times I've done it (this may be because I didn't wash my hair beforehand, per the directions, or it may be because it's been a few years and there's a little bit of gray that wasn't there before), but it actually looks slightly more natural this way, so I don't feel bad about spending less.

I'm back in the apartment. Everything appears to be working.

No idea what things are like downtown, or whether I'll have work tomorrow.

(I can't seem to post from my PDA to Vox, because there's no way to check the mobile posting address from a mobile browser.  That's really dumb design.)

It‘s now Sunday, and I'm in Silver Creek.  When we left the apartment in Hamburg, we had no cable, no Internet access and very little water.  There's a boil water warning in effect as far away as here since Saturday.  Thing is, if I weren't out here I wouldn't know because I'd have no access to the information.  I don't know how to find out whether the office will be open tomorrow by the time I'd have to get on the bus.

In the downtime, I've been watching Supernatural and Degrassi reruns and taking far too many OkCupid tests.  In a few hours we'll head back and see what state the apartment's in.  I'm more worried about people living in the city proper.  I'm sure they're all right, but I'd like things to get back to normal.

How do a few downed trees do so much damage?  Don't utilities and municipal governments have contingency plans for this sort of thing?  (Yeah, stupid question.)

It was a slow weekend, as everyone was away for most of it.  I managed to be moderately productive, getting a haircut (I'll take some pics later this week - it's about the length it was in my old LiveJournal icon) and cleaning the apartment a little (not enough); and I managed to be moderately unproductive, starting Final Fantasy 7 again, the Playstation version this time (can I finish it before FiFanTwelMo?), reading more of John Dies At the End (it reminds me a lot of Robb Sherwin's work) and not getting to the supermarket.

Personal library

I'm working on putting all the books, DVDs and music I own into a "personal library" collection here on Vox.  (I really wish they would add other Amazon items, particularly video games, this way.)

Note:  the fact that something's in this collection doesn't mean that I've finished reading/viewing it, or that other readers have - so use spoiler warnings where necessary in the comments!

Note to self:  if you're still bouncing off the walls three hours later, caffeine does have an effect on you.  Or at least something does.

Old photos

Threw a bunch of old pictures I had lying around onto the blog.

Life is pretty good, with the potential to get even better if I can figure out some details (stupid NFTA doesn't run the Hamburg buses late, and doesn't run anything from downtown to North Campus.  It shouldn't be harder to get to UB than Fredonia). 

There's a lot I'm looking forward to these days - Heroes premiere tomorrow (I'll probably do another SoC blog entry on it), other shows coming back (Lost!  With Desmond!), games and movies - and potentially new friends to share all this with.