New Pictures

New pictures are up on my picasa site. I added the "People" album and put some pictures in "Animals," "Pretty Pictures," and "Benches and Stairs." Maybe more to come in the near future...but I don't really know.

Emotional Rollercoaster

I'm pretty emotionally stable. I don't have very high highs or low lows. My peaks and troughs don't last very long. Overall, I am a happy person. It's hard for me to get to such great heights. For instance, I say that I don't have fun very often. Some people disagree with me, but I define fun as a sensation of being caught up so much in the moment, enjoying every moment of what you're doing that you forget about everything else. I also say that I don't miss people (very often). Some friends beg to differ, but I guess instead of associating "miss" with "fond memory," I associate it with "long for their company."

Likewise, I rarely get mopey. If I am down, it usually lasts for less than a few hours. In fact, it's always a new day tomorrow and tomorrow always starts fresh. It's kind of interesting how certain people can affect my mood more than others. Today, one of those special people had me excited to see her, then I didn't get to see her and I was down for about an hour. I think this builds on my expectations hypothesis: don't expect too much and it's harder to get let down. I think now that it's better to be pleasantly surprised than a little bit disappointed.

I'm not saying that you should be a pessimist. I like to think of myself as a realist. Set realistic goals and achieve them. If you lower your standards a little, then you can reach your goals more easily...but each accomplishment isn't worth as much. On the flip side, lofty expectations can be unattainable (especially if they involve other people who can drop the ball along the way) and failing to reach them can leave you down.

Globes & Maps

The Strozier Library has a nice collection of globes and maps in the basement. There are some cool globes that are unlike any I've ever seen. For instance, one of them is an elevation map, but instead of just being different colors, the land is 3-D...the mountains actually pop out!

There are weird filing cabinets that you can get the maps out of...they're long and wide and shallow. I'm not sure how they're organized (although I haven't spent much time trying to figure it out).

There are all sorts of maps, but I think the ones that interest me the most are political maps. Especially old ones where you can see different names for countries (like Czechoslovakia) or different borders...or East&West Germany... I like really old maps where things are the wrong size/shape. I like non-Mercator maps and maps with labels not in English. One map that they don't have that I would like to see is a map of the plots on the moon that people bought on eBay and what real estate is left for me to buy!

Wasted Time Online (and other places)

Written 5/1/2002

I wonder: how much time have I idled away online in the past year? I bet it's enough to have ran about 80 miles. Which brings me to another conclusion...
Running about 850 miles per year takes up a lot of time itself. If I averaged 7 minute miles, then I ran for about 100 hours (this doesn't include stretching, putting on the running shoes, etc.)

But I guess: What better do we have to do with our time than something we enjoy. (It beats the h3ll outta wasting time at school in a class you hate *which by the way is probably everyone's biggest time waster*).

So I don't mind idling online because I like it. I don't mind taking up a lot of time to run because I like it. I don't mind going to school (on A-Days) because I get a lot of knowledge for a relatively low price. However, B-Days are just about worthless and I wish I could work or stay home and sleep or run or do some math or something!

Pick #31

The Get Up Kids's song "Woodson" is the lead-off track from the Woodson EP. Although the EP is only 4 tracks, all of them are good, and I think it's what got me more into listening to these guys. It did piss me off that I didn't know it was an EP before I bought it (it was on sale at FYE or one of those type of music stores).

HBF

I just got up from about a 4 hour nap...I'm about to go to bed for the night. I had a heavy day of drinking/not caring for myself. I got up around 10 to see off Beerman and Jess. I had 3 donuts for breakfast. I finished (well, almost finished) cleaning up the house. I got hungry in the process of cleaning up and noticed smoke coming from the neighbor's grill. Nick and I went over to their party (they invited us on Friday). It was fucking awesome. They had a full bar stocked with: Grey Goose, Patron (plata), Stoly, Bacardi, Southern Comfort, Jager, grenadine, all kinds of mixers, Tanqueray, all top-shelf shit. Not to mention that they invited about 6 professional bartenders. I think I had 10 drinks in the first hour. That was enough to get me to slip-n-slide without wearing the proper attire. I jumped in the pool wearing cargoes. I mean, it was raining anyway.
When we got there, I was very surprised to see Nick spitting game (and it seeming to work) on this girl named Nicole. They started playing beer pong on a team together. Lost. I thought Nicole was pretty good looking, so after Nick went home because the cops were called, I tried to get her to come to our place to get away from the cops. It magically worked. I was happy about this. She asked me to put her towel in the dryer. About 3 minutes later, she had a cell-phone call and split. I thought she went back to the party. She didn't. StEEEEE-rike. Hungry for play, I made a phone call (while still pretty drunk) to a girl who I thought was into me. Turns out that she must really not be that into me.

When I awoke, I looked at my phone and I thought it said that I called Sarah around 8pm. I was a little concerned about what I might have called her for. Turns out that she called me and all's well...except for that cut on my foot. I stepped on some broken glass at the party. It's not too bad. Not as bad as a soda-can cut on my foot. I had some girl dig the class out with her fingernails.

By the way, I realized that I only had 1 hamburger, when my initial plan was to go over there and eat their food! I was malnourished today.

HC Reunion @ My House

Today, the following HC people were gathered in my living room: me, Beerman, Walker, Jess, Nick Yanes. Sona and Sarah joined us on the phone. This morning all but Jess (and the telephone girls) played wiffleball in the street. It feels good to be a kid again. We watched a movie, I got to drive Beerman's new car a little bit, we grilled hamburgers for dinner (after the rain stopped). Good weekend.

If the goal was to get an HC reunion, we could have done a lot better since many more alumni live in or regularly visit Tallahassee. This was a sort of impromptu thing. Walker told me on Thursday that Jess was coming and Beerman surprised me on Friday night.

I wish I could keep my house stocked full of cool people all the time.