Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Psych Circus

In intro-psych today the teacher was talking about sociocultural psychology, and how some things are perfectly normal in some setting (i.e. dancing on the table with a lampshade at one's head at a party) yet absurd in others (doing the same in class). It brought to mind the escaped circus freak with the shiny shiny pants. I saw him again yesterday, walking around campus this time, not downtown. I suppose the direction he was going downtown was towards campus so he is possibly a student here.

No gold stretch pants yesterday though. He was silver from neck to wrist to ankle, head still white, with black around his eyes and trailing back towards his ears with wavy lines. I saw him walking around campus, and then while sitting through physics lecture he walks up to the door and looks in through the window, and it seemed, in my direction. Then, he paced past the two doors for a while. Just as I'm starting to think that I'm halucinating or that the matrix rejects are coming for me, the guys to my right commented on the oddity walking around. During break between the two hours of lecture he came into the room for a minute. I didn't see what business he had, as I just noticed him leaving again.

Anyway, back to psych. I was thinking how this man wouldn't turn any more heads than anyone else as a part of some circus, but wow, what an oddity in real life.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Belated Update

So, as my brother pointed out, I have not been very good at keeping those in the loop who should really be in the loop. Very sorry, my bad.

I now have a son. He was born on the nineteenth of this month at 11:25 pm, and was 7 pounds, 9.5 ounces, and 21 inches long. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I get them on my computer. I know I saw people with cameras, but I need to track them down. MJ is doing well, recovering from the fun times, and Aidan is learning all sorts of things, like how to eat and poo. Still no stink in the poo, but that's expected shortly. Then I intend to teach him to hold his head up and make cute noises. The only noise he's got down now is crying, but he does that well.

I'm quite proud of the two of them, and would have got this post out much sooner, but I've been hella busy getting furniture moved around, and getting stuff set for school, and adjusting to baby life myself. By the way Berserk, I'll still need some help moving, but it won't be too soon here. I've got to get a little down time, but I'll give you a call after that.

Also, I'm liking being back at school. I like being downtown. It's good to see all the, lets just say unique, people one sees downtown. Yesterday I saw a man with no hair who had his entire head painted white and was wearing metallic stretch pants. That's right, but it was even better than it sounds. It was like the circus just walked past me.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Good Cold Work

It's been a good week, with a couple of unusual projects. First, I helped a local Venturing crew (co-ed Boy Scouts) provide first aid at a New Year's skating party. It was freakishly cold. This ice skating thing is out in the mountains, and it was pretty cold here in town. I think it was like nine degrees here before you even factor in the windchill. A few of the other adult volunteers were also EMT's, although we operate on a first responder lever in the crew. I think this looks like an okay networking opportunity. We had a few injuries, but nothing too serious. The worst was a cut above someone's eye, the lightest was either one of the band-aids we had to pass out, or the lady who fell and hurt her wrist(not bad enough to even swell at all, but after she came back a second time they wrapped it up to make her happy). It was kind of fun though, being one of the adults in a scouting event which is not church run.

It's not that I have anything against church or scouts separately, it's just that they don't always mix so well. My biggest problem is that troops must be kept separate by ward, and patrols by quorum. This means that I am the scoutmaster of a troop of five boys, but only really in charge of a patrol of three of them. Two of these come regularly. One of those seems to give a crap about it. The one who doesn't come regularly is prone to some pretty immature outbursts should he decide to show, and not find everything to his liking. It's not to say that the two who are less helpful are bad or anything, just green, and it's difficult to get them interested in a program that's not really up to what it should be. And, who's idea was it to make the deacon's quorum president the senior patrol leader? How does senior go along with first year scout?

But that's not the point. The thing is, it was nice to see a group where the members are interested in being there, and participate willingly. Also, it was good that my youngest sister (a member of the crew) was able to keep warm enough out there with the help of my wife's borrowed snow gear. She's out yesterday and today on another trip with the crew. They're providing first aid services for another event. I'm glad that they were able to come by here briefly and pick up the snow gear again, there was some reluctance, so thanks Dad. He was thinking they might have to find something at home, or stop by the store or something, but I doubt they'd get anything quite as good (My wife as a good cold weather coat she used in Maine), or save any time (we really aren't that far away). By the way Mom and Dad, I'm sure she still needs to get some gear of her own if she wants to keep this up, maybe some time when you're not already running late, and maybe at a real store like REI, not Kohls.

That brings me to my other project this week. I wasn't at this winter camp because I was going to spend the day hauling Christmas trees away as a fund raiser for my troop, but that's a bust as no one seems to either have real trees in the town we put up the flyers, or want to pay five bucks to have it taken away. Instead, I helped my father-in-law empty out a huge trailer full of stored crap, sort it, and put it in a big shed. It's amazing how much stuff fits in a trailer, and more amazing that we got it all (aside from a large garbage pile, and a smallish goodwill pile) into the shed. It was nice though, that the sun was out, the wind wasn't too disruptive, and it stayed warmish almost long enough.

There's still more stuff to move around here. The trailer is done, but I've got to find somewhere to put all the crap that's in my brother-in-law's old room. Most of the stuff is his, but some is just general family crap. A pretty good amount belongs to either me or my wife, and that much can go with the rest of our stuff, it's just the family stuff and his stuff that poses a problem. I'm concerned with where all of this will go only because his old room will be my son's new room. My wife is due to pop in about three more weeks if she holds that long. By the way, congratulations to the oldest of my baby sisters who just had her first child, and my first niece. I've got a couple places in mind for the stuff. I just need the official okay from someone so I can't be blamed for anything. I think I'll see about getting that once I move the rest of our stuff out. But, that's a project for next week.