Genius In Progress

Oh sure, like we all haven’t broken into song on sentry duty!

What? What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Sie haben meine Hummer gestolen.

It’s not my feet; I just washed them!

Shall we run for our lives?

Oh yes, lets.

Sarcasm is a foreign language to you, isn’t it?

I’ve got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

Bastard Son of Barney! Die! Die, stuffed ball of fluff! Illegitimate Teletubbie! Die, you Muppet from hell! Die, you foam ************!

Goody, I get to play cards.

Well, now that I got that out of my system…

YOU’RE NOT GONNA MAKE A CANOE OUT OF ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, ’tis a bummer. Francine has gone home for the summer. She left yesterday morning early, on fairly little sleep I’m afraid. I already miss hanging out with her. All those hours late at night and no one to hang out with, playing video games and singing along with music. Ah well, hopefully she’ll be back in a couple months, and until then I’ll have to settle for late-night chatting (darn modems using phone lines and all that jazz) when she occasionally gets the chance to log on. I think I’m going through withdrawal Well, off to play some more guitar. Maybe I’ll get good one of these days.

So the results are in, and no matter which way you spin it, I am an idiot. Always nice to have a little confirmation of that interjected into daily life.

Well, that calculations are in… as of Wednesday morning of this week, I had obtained a whopping 12.75 hours of sleep. I rounded off the full Thursday to Thursday circuit with 17.75 hours (yeah, I know, I slept a ton last night). I am afraid I may have worn Francine out though… we stayed up all night (literally, I dropped her off at ~6:20 on Wednesday morning) having more fun than should be allowed for that late at night (well, at least for my part I did, I hope she feels the same) Unfortunately she had to work, and I hope she wasn’t too worn out. Sadly, she’s leaving to go back home for the summer tomorrow morning early, so our hanging out is at an end for at least a couple of months, though I would love to take a trip down for a weekend sometime to say hi. Ah well, methinks I am not healthy for her to hang out with, staying up all night and such, so maybe she’ll actually be able to catch up on some sleep now.

Well, as the title indicated, ‘twer another weekend well spent. The weekend actually started sort of early for me, since I took Thursday off. The original plan had been to go canoing with Francine on the Huron, but weather forecasts shifted and thunderstorms were aniticipated for part of the time we would have been on the river. Despite that, we decided to go for it, and God blessed us with awesome weather the whole trip. It started out a bit cloudy, but the sun came out in just the right amounts the whole way down the river. I believe if it had been any more sunny, it may have been uncomfortable (particularly since we didn’t bring sunscreen, not thinking it would be sunny).

Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I believe she did too. There was one incident with a canoe, a large log, and a failed portage attempt that left certain members of the expedition slightly more soggy than originally planned, but it was warm, and with some splashage from the paddles going on anyhow, it all worked out in the end. We also took the opportunity to explore pretty much every nook and cranny of moderate or greater interest along the river, which was quite enjoyable.

After finishing up the canoing, we headed over to my house to dry off, grab some food, and have a go at the trampoline. As our luck would have it, about 5 minutes after we got to the house, it POURED rain. I believe you probably could have gone swimming in the puddles on the grass. Thanks God for waiting on that one. Anyway, we eventually rounded out the afternoon with some trampoline usage and some SSX 3 snowboarding on the Game Cube (which it seems Francine enjoys at least a little bit).

Phew, this is gonna be a long entry. Anyway, after trouncing some high scores playing Teletubbies Slaughter, I settled for a score of 805, and called it a Friday. Saturday brought a very early awakening time (I went to bed at 5 AM and woke up at 7:30 AM) to help Kelly move into her new house. Sadly, U-Haul people at most of the Ann Arbor locations at least, are cretins, and they didn’t have the truck, so we had to postpone the move until ~ 5 PM, which ended up working out extraordinarily well, because it meant I got to hang out with Francine for a bit in the afternoon before heading over to make the move, which ended up being probably the easiest I have ever participated in. The new house is gorgeous, and also quite near where I live, which is quite cool. We set up on the back porch after finishing moving stuff and hung out grilling hot dogs and corn and relaxing. It was quite an enjoyable evening.

Sheesh, you’re still reading this entry? Most mortals would have turned aside from sheer boredome long ago. Anyway, Sunday being Father’s Day, we headed to church first, and then over to Joe’s Crab Shack for a Dad’s day lunch. After my experience there recently, I wanted to tell them it was someone’s birthday, but noone seemed too open to the idea, so I controlled myself (this time… muhahaha). We spent the afternoon relaxing, and then after dinner I headed into Ann Arbor.

At that point, I met up with that really cool girl I keep mentioning (who, btw, is one of most fun people I have ever had the pleasure of doing random stuff with) and we headed down to catch the second half of Spirited Away at Top of the Park. We then proceeded to head over to my house, where we stayed until around 5 AM playing video games. Man, that is good stuff. It was actually getting light out already by the time I got back home. Quite enjoyable. So anyway, like I said, excellent weekend, I had more fun that I probably should be alloted in a month.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there. Thanks especially to my dad for teaching me all that fun stuff I need to know. Check out the lyrics… it’s an awesome song, and it’s got POSITIVE lyrics about dad. Woohoo!

What’s a dad for dad?
Tell me why I’m here dad
Whisper in my ear that I’m growing up to be a better man, dad
Everything is fine dad
Proud that you are mine dad
Cause I know I’m growing up to be a better man

Father I will always be
That same boy that stood by the sea
And watched you tower over me
Now I’m older I wanna be the same as you

What’s a dad for dad?
Taught me how to stand, dad
Took me by the hand and you showed me how to be a bigger man, dad
Listen when you talk, dad
Follow where you walk, dad
And you know that I will always do the best I can
I can

Father I will always be (always be)
That same boy that stood by the sea
And watched you tower over me (over me)
Now I’m older I wanna be the same as you
The same as you

Father I will always be
That same boy that stood by the sea
And watched you tower over me
Now I’m older I wanna be the same as you

(When I am a dad, dad
I’m gonna be a good dad
Do the best you could, dad
Always understood, dad
Tell me I was right, dad
Opened up my eyes, dad
Glad to call you my dad
Thank you for my life dad)

– Life of a Salesman, Yellowcard

Well it’s been quite a fun last couple of days. On Wednesday that little sister of mine dragged me along to swing dancing lessons at the Michigan Union Ballroom. It’s actually a pretty cool setup. For $3, you get to participate in your choice of 1 hour of beginner lessons, 1 hour of intermediate lessons, and 2 hours of just enjoying yourself dancing. I may have to attend again at some point. Sadly we showed up late, so I missed some of the beginning lesson, and never haved swing danced before it left me at a disadvantage.

The reason we were late was that I wanted to watch Reagan’s procession into the capital. I think it’s such an honor to have experienced this funeral. Rarely do we get to see something so solemn, particularly on this magnitude, and I think it’s something a lot of people will remember for quite some time. For a little while, the world set aside various other political scramblings and nudgings in order to honor a great man, and it was a great feeling.

Moving on from that, I went to look at my first house on Friday. It’s probably more than I should ever conisder spending on my first house, but man was it gorgeous. 3 bedrooms, 3 full baths, 4 person hot tub on the back porch, high ceilings everywhere, excellent condition. Man, I would have the smooth living quarters in that house. Well I am sure there is much more research and searching to come before the whole thing goes through, but it sure is exciting nonetheless.

Saturday morning saw the start of the soccer tournament… 4 teams of us having at it in a tournament. Each team played each of the other 3, with 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie. Ties in the point system were settled by point differential. Our team, sadly, posted no wins, but most of the games we played were very close and I think could have swung either way. One thing I know is by 5:00 PM (the tournament started at 10 AM) I was SOOOO sore… and quite suntanned (/ burned) as were many other people. I am still feeling the muscle aches right now.
Later that evening I had the pleasure of going cruising with the top down in a Jeep with Francine. We had fun just driving around to random places, though we found out the hard way that despite 70 degree weather, when it starts getting cooler for the evening and dark, Jeeps get pretty cold with no windows or roof. Hopefully I didn’t freeze her to death or anything. I think I may have ingested a couple of mosquitos while riding standing up in the back seat, but it was well worth it. Ahh, too much fun.
On Sunday, I did very little of use… I like it that way. I need more days like that. And thus we arrive at today, Monday. All I can say is, it would have been a day better spent sleeping in.
Oh yeah, and my collaborator in the Jeepscapades burned me a CD from a cool band, Frou Frou. They have one song on the Shrek 2 soundtrack that you might have heard, but either way I highly recommend giving them a listen.

Beauty \Beau"ty\, n.
     1. An assemblage or graces or properties pleasing to the eye,
        the ear, the intellect, the [ae]sthetic faculty, or the
        moral sense.

              The production of beauty by a multiplicity of
              symmetrical parts uniting in a consistent whole.
                                                    --Wordsworth.

              The old definition of beauty, in the Roman school,
              was, ``multitude in unity;'' and there is no doubt
              that such is the principle of beauty. --Coleridge.

     2. A particular grace, feature, ornament, or excellence;
        anything beautiful; as, the beauties of nature.

(source Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary)

I happen to like these defintions of beauty, because they sum up more the essence of true beauty. The word does not imply a skin-deep aesthetic quality as the definition, rather that can be one of the components. Beauty is defined by a “multitude of unity”, a group of characteristics together in harmony.

The most beautiful people I have seen have not been made beautiful by their looks. Physical appearance can be a contributing factor, but I believe physical beauty to some extent is just an outward manifestation of real beauty. People are beautiful because of who they are; a smile; a laugh; a twinkle in the eye; a self-assuredness and a comfort with who they are. People who know themselves, who know the joy of life, and the joy of living, they exude a certain feeling. You can look at those people and see that they are thrilled to be exactly who they are and exactly where they are.

I have the pleasure of knowing people like this, and I wish more people could understand this. The sheer joy of living, of being exactly who you are, is so much more attractive than any amount of perfume, makeup and expensive clothing. If we as individuals and as a society placed a little more stock in this, and less in encouraging everyone to look like the latest model, methinks the world would be a happier place.

Well, I said I would put the pictures up, so here they are… I don’t have the cake pictures yet, but here are the unique ones from Joe’s. Sadly (or fortunately, in my case) they were taken with a cell phone camera so the resolution is not outstanding, but you will get the picture. Heh, get it, “get the picture”? Ahhhhh, so anyways.

There I am… for clarification, that’s a grass skirt, a coconut bra, a stick horse and and inflatable monkey… and yes, I am riding the horse while spanking the monkey, and yes that is a dollar bill in my bra.

Man, I’ve seen my car driven now. I think the ride feels about 10 times faster in the passenger seat. What? I let someone else drive, you say? Without a second thought. The ride home from Weber’s took a minor roundabout route (that’s my kind of drive home) that involved some high velocity highway driving. Anyway, I had a great time, Then I got to introduce another person to the inrigue, shall we say, of White Castle. I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of hanging out with a person more fun to be with. Ah the joys of late night adeventures.