Starship Enterprise.

I want to start with a statement: This will probably be the nerdiest post I ever make.

You all know what I’m talking about. Early Star Trek. Captain Kirk. A small team of Star Fleet crewmen venture down to the alien planet to look for signs of life etc. I think I know how they felt.

I walked across town to a friend’s house for a party tonight. We had quite a bit of snow today and it snowed while I was there. Once I decided to leave, I put on my coat, hat, and gloves– all of the necessary equipment to survive my voyage. I popped in the headphones and listened to some Imogen Heap.

The walk home seemed to bizarre and alien. The whole town is just dead. I live in a college town that basically dies when school is not in session. The new snow covered the landscape and the streets. As the snow fell and my feet trudged through what had already fallen, I realized how unfamiliar the whole thing was. I couldn’t tell what was sidewalk and what was road, though the healthy amount of Hennessy I consumed may be partly responsible. All of the buildings had the lights turned off. There wasn’t a car in sight. No sign of life.

I turned the corner onto my street. I left the lights on in the house (I don’t pay utilities) so the house looked warm and welcoming. I stepped in and all of the sudden everything looked familiar again. I was home. I was comfortable. I was indoors and was experiencing the wonderful order of my house after experiencing the hazard of the blizzard.

As I unsuited from my winter gear and settled back in at Starship Enterprise (which is the coolest name for a college house I may add, despite what some people think), I realized this must be how the Star Trek crew felt. They got to come home to Starship Enterprise and settle back in after exploring a totally new and alien world.

I gotta go, I think my mini corn dogs are done.

Wogdons in Weehawken

Take out a 10 dollar bill. If you’re like me, just google it. That man is Alexander Hamilton. Let me tell you a story about him.

Two boats crossed the Hudson river around six AM on July 11, 1804. Dueling was forbidden in New York so these men rowed to the semi-secret dueling grounds under the tall cliffs of the Palisades. Aaron Burr had some beef with Alexander Hamilton stemming from the election of 1800, in which Hamilton made sure Burr would lose to Jefferson. After the election, Hamilton was talkin’ smack about Burr in some letters which were published. Burr told Hamilton to apologize– Hamilton refused. Burr issued a challenge and now they are rowing across the Hudson to settle the dispute.

Like I said, dueling is forbidden in New York at the time, so steps are taken to protect people legally. The guns are brought in a bag so that the rowers can testify to never having seen any pistols. Hamilton and Burr figure out their positions and prepare to duel. Everyone but the duelists turn their backs so as not to be witness to the crime. The rest is a bit shaky, but as far as historians can conclude it progressed as follows. Hamilton, not wanting to kill Burr, purposely fired his first shot into the air and hit a tree. This is called a “delope” and was very common in duels. This way no one had to die, the duel would end, and each man could be proud and courageous for having dueled another. Whether on purpose or by accident, Burr fired his shot into the ribs of Hamilton, causing some serious damage to his internal organs. Burr’s friends rushed him away and covered him with an umbrella because people were coming.

A doctor had just arrived and rushed to the side of Hamilton. Hamilton– nearly lifeless– said “This is a mortal wound, doctor,” just before losing his pulse and sinking away.

And that is how the man on the 10 dollar bill died.

As an encore–  a description of Hamilton’s cocky attitude just moments before the duel.

“Hamilton performed a series of deliberately provocative actions to ensure a lethal outcome. As they were taking their places, he asked that the proceedings stop, adjusted his spectacles, and slowly, repeatedly, sighted along his pistol to test his aim.”
I wonder if Burr shot him just for that.

A Life of Arctic Sounds

In the summer months, we would often walk to a great bakery in town, The Grateful Bread. We ordered sandwiches to go and would walk across Main Street and through Veteran’s Park to a bench near the Kinni River. We talked a bit, but mostly sat and ate and listened. The sounds were fantastic. The river. The ducks. The girl practicing her guitar on a blanket in the grass. The wind rustling the leaves in the trees. The downtown shoppers with their ice cream. The bikers. The walkers. The walkers’ dogs.

I went to the same spot the other day and had a much different experience. As I crossed the bridge at Veteran’s Park, I stopped halfway across and leaned out over the river. Totally frozen. I heard no ducks. No geese. No guitars. I heard none of those summer sounds I miss so much. Instead, I heard the ice splitting and cracking and moaning. I heard nothing else but the cold wind beating against my ears.

I continued my walk along the path that follows the river south again. Further down the river is a small lake just before the dam. The lake is usually full of sound from the birds and the waterfowl. Today– silence. An old man and his dog walked up to me and we exchanged greetings. He told me he walks this path every day. He walked here earlier this morning and saw quite a sight. He pointed to a spot on the lake where a dead goose laid. He said that earlier there was an eagle gnawing on the corpse but he had scared it away when he walked out onto the lake to look at the goose. He told me he could see tracks in the snow that were from the goose’s wings. He explained how it must have hit a powerline or something, fallen down, broken a wing, struggled, gave up, and froze.

Winter might seem dark, cold, depressing, quiet, and oppressive at times. Just don’t give up and freeze. In time, life will once again be full of sound, color, and warmth.

Order and Hazard

We got a snow day the other day and that was wonderful. The next day, while it was still absolutely freezing out, I debated skipping class. Class wasn’t going to be hard. Pretty easy actually. It’s just that my room was so nice and cozy. I recently got a coffee-maker for my room which has been put to use very often. I dragged a space heater out of the basement and put that in my room. I could sit around in my pajama pants and slippers all day and listen to the Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums. Why would I want to leave my nice, warm, cozy room to go out into the blistering cold with the bad winter traffic and the wind and the frostbite? It reminded me of a course I took last J-Term.

Last J-Term I took a great literature course. One of our units was on what the professor called binary opposition. He said that everything comes in pairs. Good and evil. Hot and cold. Rich and poor. The list goes on forever. Although he never said it, I could tell that his favorite of these pairs was what he called Order vs. Hazard.

We read many short stories and poems and related them all to the idea of Order vs Hazard. Stay on the path because that’s where the order is; the woods are full of hazard. Stay with your poor abusive family because it is some kind of order opposed to the hazard of striking out on your own. Keep order by collecting and saving your money? Or try your luck with the hazard of gambling or risky investments?

I chose hazard. I put on my coat. I put on my gloves. I took a cup of coffee to go and set out towards my class. I made it to class safely and it all worked out. I really just think it was because I didn’t have to go through any woods. Every story I’ve read with woods had a theme somewhere along the lines of “Don’t go in the woods.” Except for The Scarlet Letter. But that book blew.

Where do you see Order vs Hazard in your life?

Settle down, T-Pain

It’s 4 AM and I can’t sleep.

I was sleeping. And then I woke up to a terrible and terrifying noise. I can’t even describe how afraid I was as I shot up from my slumber and scanned the room for whatever monster or maniac was making this noise. The culprit– my new T-Pain poster.

Sean and I were talking about how I don’t have any posters on my walls in my room so while we were at ShopKo we decided that I needed to buy a poster from their limited selection. My options were essentially Twilight, Miley, Toy Story, or T-Pain. I went with T-Pain. I thought it was funny.

I put the poster up in  my room. And just a bit ago it began to dislodge itself from the wall. As it did so, it curled up a bit because it was all rolled up when I bought it. As it curled, the poster dragged against the wall and created the worst sound.

I’m safe and settled down a bit and hopefully T-Pain has settled down too. I think I’ll give this sleeping thing another shot.

I need more posters and might replace this demon T-Pain poster. Any ideas?

Forts

Sometimes my room reminds me of all the forts I had when I was little.

My sister and I use to build forts in the living room. These were giant complexes of chairs, cushions, and blankets. We had all the amenities. We would carry in a little fan to blow outside air into the fort. Air conditioning. We stashed some sodas in a cooler and brought that in with us. A fridge. the best part was the toys. I have no idea what Gabby played with, but you can bet that I had plenty of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures duking it out in there. These forts would last for a day and eventually Mom and Dad would make us take it down and restore the living room to its original condition.

My dad built a fort for us in the sandbox when we were little. It was essentially a little one-room house, complete with real siding, a door, and a window. I can’t remember using the inside much or even what was inside it, because the best part was the roof. There was an outside ladder leading to the roof, which was essentially a high platform with a railing. There was something wonderful about being that high up when playing with the neighbor kids. You can throw footballs farther when playing 500. You can pretend to be pirates on a ship as you grip the railing and stare out at the open sea of our yard. Super Soaker fights? The roof of the fort was the place to be. Eventually we got too old and the fort started to break apart. I remember the day we tore it down.

My other childhood fort was a not built for me. My dad built a shed in the back yard next to a crab apple tree. The shed itself was full of lawn and garden tools and random hunting decoys and other miscellaneous items. It was not a fun place to play. But the crab apple tree was easy to climb and there was one branch that was practically parallel to the ground and offered a walkway to the roof of the shed. We were not allowed to climb on the shed, but when the parents were gone, we did. My favorite part was jumping off. I was younger than my sister and was scared at first, but eventually I loved jumping off the shed and rolling in the grass to get up and climb the tree and do it again. Every now and then we would get caught on the shed and were told to get down. I didn’t mind too much because I got to jump off the shed one more time. This fort has never been taken down. I drove by our old place a while ago and the shed and the tree are both still intact.

Basically everything I liked about my old forts is something that I like about my room at my college house– my more adult fort. I have my fan. I have my fridge. The way all of my doors are too short make it seem like a little fort. I can close the door and play whatever music I want and play with all of my toys like my Nintendo or my other Nintendo or my mini-golf set. The stairs leading up to my room are like the ladder on a tree house and I can look out my window at the street and see the people walking to  or from class or the bars. My room is my fort and is a place where I can have privacy and escape. But it is not just for escape. Forts would be no fun if there wasn’t someone else to hang out with.

Tell me about your fort.

Seeds

Anyone who smokes cigarettes should just switch to eating sunflower seeds.

• You still delight your oral fixation.
• If you hold some in your hand and just put some into your mouth every once in a while, you still have something to do with your hands.
• Spitting seeds at a target is almost as cool as exhaling smoke out your nose.
• Current legislation could ban flavored tobacco products. Sunflower seeds will always come in a large variety of flavors.
• Seeds are super cheap, unlike cigarettes.
• Your habit would not be banned at every sporting event– it would be encouraged.
• You can eat seeds inside your house and it doesn’t make everything smell and stain the walls. But if you eat seeds inside, DO NOT leave the discarded shells in a plastic bottle on your desk for 6 weeks. Use a new bottle every day.
• Oh and sunflower seeds won’t kill you.

Chemical-filled cancer sticks or seeds from the happiest flower ever? You choose.

Don’t Hydro Pump Me, Bro

The air was crisp and cold, but our heavy clothing permitted us to remain outside, sitting on a log looking out at the south fork of the Kinni River. The water swerved, flowed– bubbled over the rocks, creating that sound, the sound which is entirely universal to all humans.

About an hour before this, Sean and I were sitting in 320 South Hall. We were listening to a lecture about Japanese history, specifically their religions. Japan has a history of syncretic religions, meaning they adopted many different religions or philosophies (Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism) and merged them into something that works for everyone, while at the same time maintaining the integrity and wholeness of all of the individual ideologies.

While Prof. Petkov covered the main ideas of Shinto religion, I was getting hungry and less and less eager for my next class. The lecture covered a lot of ground: Buddhism, Zen, sushi, kami (local spirits inhabiting natural landforms and other things), technology, robots, fuel efficiency…

My hunger and I came up with a plan. Sean and I would skip our next class, go to the University Center, buy a plate of sushi, bring it to the river, and eat in the presence of the the Kinni River’s kami. Meditation just wasn’t going to happen, but we had some good discussion about class, grades and all that stuff. I’m not sure of whether or not we actually dined with a local river spirit, but the food was good and I enjoyed chillin’ by the river.

Optional reading for the day:

Shinto Religion

Kami

Pokemon

I included Pokemon because I imagined kami to be something similar. I think the KinniKami looks something like Squirtle, who is pictured below.

That was probably insulting to the Japanese.

And Squirtle.

Sorry.

A Different Kind of Salvation

Today was filled with fun, courtesy of Mr. Sean Brunn. Sean, Jordan and I hopped into the Intrigue and set out west for the Brunn homestead in Corcoran.

I felt terribly though. I had to poop and I felt sick to my stomach for the whole ride there. Eventually I told Sean to take the next exit and find a gas station. We ended up in the hood and stopped at a shady convenience store. I practically ran in– about to explode– to find out that this store had no restroom. Back on the road, we drove around until we found a small gas station, but as we pulled in I panicked and told Sean to keep driving because this place looked super scary. Not seeing any gas stations around, I decided that I should resort to finding a church. I entered the church and searched the halls for a restroom. Eventually I found a Reverend and he told me where the bathroom was. And it was good.

Back on the road, I still felt sick to my stomach. I held out for a long time, but eventually I needed Sean to pull over. At least I waited until we were off the freeway and everything. By this time we had actually just pulled onto a small country gravel road. I said “This is perfect. Pull over here.” I stepped out of the car and did my thing, while realizing that Sean was driving away. At first I was very angry, thinking that he was ditching me or pulling some kind of prank. And then I realized that I had actually asked Sean to pull to the side of the road just steps away from his house. His brother was in the yard, watching as I threw up in the field right next to the house. It was awkward. This post is awkward…

The rest is good though. I met his brother for the first time, and got to see his parents again. We watched movies, cut down trees, ate brats and burgers, played horseshoes, and visited Sean’s favorite cigar shop/lounge, Tobacco Grove.

Overall it was a great day. Oh and I totally won at horseshoes. And I can honestly say that today was the first time I ever thanked God for a toilet.

Victory!

I’m claiming victory over this wretched cold. I got sick at the beginning of spring break, suffered through all of my “vacation”, and am just now beginning to feel better. But yeah, Victory!

Spring is here and I’m pumped for that. Went out and bought a new softball glove. I’m playing on two softball teams this spring so I’ll use that a bit. I’m also playing dodgeball and ultimate frisbee. And floor hockey. It should be fun and hopefully I’ll win a coveted Intramural t-shirt.

Tomorrow I start running outside again. Gotta get all set for that Dew Run in the summer!

Not much substance tonight but for free I’ll give you a picture of my new headband.