because the semester is almost over and I have time to think about things like this

Simplify. That is my favorite word this week. Yesterday before work I cleaned out the closet in the spare room. My objective is to give a large percentage of the non-crapola items in our house to Goodwill -- not because I am seized with charity, but because I want to have less. Stuff. So we're going to streamline.

Stuff clutters my brain. Maybe if I have less stuff I will have more room to remember how to implement combination without repetition when I am given a problem on my discrete math test (a skill I know but apparently which flew out the window when the test was before me Friday. I think my printer adapters circa 2001 and old magazines crowded it out).

So in coming days and weeks and months, I am going to focus on items and tasks that I like and that bring me peace. Items? ... Nothing, unless they are part of an enjoyed task. Tasks? Being with Neil, preferably with no electronic 3rd party, although a movie is OK ONCE in a while. Being with and communicating with family and friends. Reading. Eating good food. Moving around, which includes: walking, jogging, hiking and yoga. So that's pretty much it. Of course, there's other stuff I like, like my jobs and politics and programming, but I do those anyway.

It is 77 outside and gor-geous. And Thursday there's a 40% chance of rain, which is also awesome. Amye, call me because those tix to SLC are cheap and may go fast. Emily, are you coming home for Christmas? I'm going to go finish my ironing with Keith Jarrett. Both doors are open to this beautiful day. My mom made us delicious french toast and sausages this morning while we talked turkey. How many people think my dad should hire himself out to organize and decorate people's houses, including staging a house that's for sale? Actually, my mom probably would be great in real estate AND could bake really good cookies for open houses ... but I digress.

XO

rough draft

xcen > fr

xcen > fr

Wanna see something cool?

hearts

xcen > fr

xcen > fr

This weekend was so fun.

xcen > fr

xcen > fr

cola

Update: Make your preference known

Saturday the 14th

• Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Tim Russert. We are chagrined that he will miss the presidential election, and that we will miss his presence during the thick of it.

• We think Gwen Ifill and Andrea Mitchell ought to be on the Meet the Press short list, although David Gregory probably is first in line. I just saw online that someone is pushing for Sean Hannity, which is disturbing.

• 

• And also: I am almost done with a new Web site for my dad. I still have to add the ordering page, once I figure out how. Also a couple of the pictures look blurry, regardless of my tweaks, because the original photos are poor. But maybe I could put up the site, then change the images once I get new pics. Most of them are good, anyway.

• And: There is a women in computing conference in October for 4 days! And I might get to go! I have to write a 500-word essay on why I want to go and how it's going to make my community and the world a better place if I'm selected! My resume speaks to my utter lack of volunteer work/community service, which is bad, but I'm hoping my JOB sort of makes up for that. Any suggestions on my resume or essay would be greatly appreciated! Check it out: >Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Grace Hopper got a Ph.D. in math in 1934 and was a designer of COBOL and a pioneer of the philosophy that programming could be written in quasi-English, rather than assembly language or machine code.

• "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for." - attributed to Grace Hopper

• P.S. The new-ish blogspot formatting interface is nice, but it still doesn't make a whit of a difference in the final appearance. Which is time-consuming, frustrating and misleading. OK bye.

2 weeks ago in hawaii

classic special comment.

pictures

I give up trying to insert captions. The lush pictures are from our hike! I forget where. It was cool. The tree in front of the parking lot is what everything looks like on Maui. The wood on the beach is from the annual canoe-making ceremony. The rocks, if you look close, host these weird sea animals that look like Mr. Bubbles except gray. Notably, they were on the nude beach. Mahalo.

I love love love love love love love summer

Good morning! Maui was beautiful. It was the perfect thing to do at the end of the school year. We will post pictures soon. I am happy to be home in our own desert paradise and I can't believe it's summer! My aspirations include writing letters, reading, yoga, cooking, and seeing friends and family. And working, of course, which is child's play compared with homework! (At least, my kind of work. For those of you who work in schools, it's a completely different ballgame.) My mother sent me this months ago and I only just now read/listened to it: npr story . Also, I saw this article on meditation in the New York Times this morning and found it interesting. Any thoughts? I wonder if it's related to EMDR , which apparently is gaining traction in crisis counseling and PTSD. Wait, here's a nyt article about it: nyt emdr story.

Tax Day: The Aftermath

Charles Gibson is annoying. This debate is totally not tubular. I suck at calculus. How do astronauts become astronauts? Do they get certified in spaceship aeronautics and then just wait around for someone to come up with a mission? I love Hillary's response to being called on the blatant Bosnia lie ... "First of all, let me just clarify that there is one thing I am not -- and that is dumb. I am not dumb. Sometimes I say things that don't entirely jibe with other things that I may have said in the [distant] past. So ... let's give it up for my bud General Wesley Clark!" Loose transcript, but not inaccurate.

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

In fact, I'm beginning to suspect the "random" thoughts are becoming encoded into my daily mental-musing circuit. Is that a bad thing?

Not sure.

Maybe.

I think Panda Bear sounds a lot like Brian Wilson. Does anyone else feel this way?

With Amye providing fine assistance in design sense and manual labor, we moved furniture around Sunday. Now I love it! Both rooms! Wait, lemme see if I can take a picture with the computer:

That's just a corner of the front room, but it's next to a table we set up so I would have a lot of space to do schoolwork. There are three windows in this room, and they are really big!

I like almonds, although more in concept than in texture. I like the taste. Too many almonds may sort of numb my mouth and throat, like avocado. But I'm not sure. Maybe at Christmas we'll get a big wooden bowl to put nuts in, including almonds, and eat them with a nutcracker. I'll have like 20 in a row to observe the effect.

Also, I really like vanilla and lavender, in concept and in smell and in looks. And it's fun to add cinnamon to whatever I'm cooking. Although I haven't cooked in a while. Neil cooks lovely dishes, like on, I think, Thursday he made chicken molé with greens, just because. Tonight I am slated to make grilled bacon & cheese – I will try to do him proud. And also, I love having time to do my homework. Love it.

good tv

http://view.break.com/467869 - Watch more free videos

lost?

there are 53 faux-scriptural tractates prominently featured as the "exegesis" in philip k. dick's now semi-prominently featured-on-lost book valis. following are those corresponding with "the numbers," uh, just for fun --

4. Matter is plastic in the face of mind.

8. The upper realm has plenary [Var. plenipotentiary] powers.

15. The Sibyl of Cumae protected the Roman Republic and gave timely warnings. In the first century C.E. she foresaw the murders of the Kennedy brothers, Dr King and Bishop Pike. She saw the two common denominators in the four murdered men: first, they stood in defence of the liberties of the Republic; and second, each man was a religious leader. For this they were killed. The Republic had once again become an empire with a ceasar. "The Empire never ended."

16. The Sibyl said in March 1974, "The conspirators have been seen and they will be brought to justice." She saw them with the third or ajna eye, the Eye of Shiva which gives inward discernment, but which when turned outward blasts with desiccating heat. In August 1974 the justice promised by the Sibyl came to pass.

23. The plasmate can crossbond with a human, creating what I call a homoplasmate. This annexes the mortal human permanently to the plasmate. We know this as the "birth from above" or "birth from the Spirit." It was initiated by Christ, but the Empire destroyed all the homoplasmates before they could replicate.

42. To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox: whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.

42 is good. 42 in tandem with, say, 30 could be the solution.

the Hillary Hussein Clinton campaign had nothing to do with crafting this charming plagiarism ..as far as I know

I just washed my face

Note to any business (e.g., restaurant, vacation spot) that is putting together a Web site: Refrain from music, elaborate introductions and complicated presentations that require specialized software. These features are distracting, annoying, and potentially toxic to the system.

I love Famous Dave's BBQ. Neil says he doesn't love it but it's "fine."

I was aghast at (note the non-link) Charlotte Allen's article in the Wash. Post Monday. Neil describes it as "boring."

Why were marshmallows invented?

FINNISH STUDENTS ROCK!!!

This article indicates brains are not born of homework.

quote of the day

"Y'know, Tim ... you ask a lot of hypotheticals."

P.S. Saturday I rode the elliptical machine and watched Lawrence Welk and was soooooo happy.

bad day

today was somewhat sucky, although I only had to go to one job, for which I was grateful. I probably was also supposed to go to another job but made an executive decision not to, plus, I don't know where it is, except somewhere far away, and I had already worked many hours and my life force was saying no. Tomorrow, after class, we are going to Prescott :) :) It will be very nice and peaceful and romantic, with fresh air and sunshine and flowers and horses. And I will bring The Custom of the Country, which has been whimpering with neglect since school started, and I will not bring the computer.

I got 95% on the last computer science programming homework! It took like a hundred hours. Neil is doing well in his class and said today the teacher talked about if-loops and for-loops, in which he already is versed. I think we should go on a family vacation to Europe next year ... anyone?

it was fun to watch the debate tonight and watch Obama and Clinton subtly piss each other off. I mean, there was nothing subtle about the way they felt -- the subtlety was in the lil' digs. Last night I went to Anne and Wayne's and watched the lunar eclipse. The cloud masses were kind of flirting with it, but they parted now and then so we could see the moon being occluded by other things that were more interesting than clouds. I think there is a Thievery Corporation song called "Shadows of Ourselves."

Hold the phone -- the highs in Prescott Friday through Sunday are 43, 50 and 58, respectively. Hmmm. ... I'm glad I checked weather.com prior to packing (which will be at the last second tomorrow). A recent bubble bath washed away some of the bad feeling from today. Now I will watch Lipstick Jungle and read Java and maybe start the next assignment. I appreciate friends and family, especially when they're just nice and supportive and you don't have to fit a certain type or mood.

stream of monday night

She's out of my-y le-eague, just a fool to believe I have anything she needs("she breaks the wind" is what Neil would say, were he here) tonight I changed 7 dead to 6 dead in the niu shooting and 5 dead to 32 dead in the va. tech shooting and youth core to youth corps for some e. valley group. no stellar headlines. after work at 12 I have to figure out how to put all my pdf docs (5) containing my writ calc homework into 1 doc without compromising the legibility -- acrobat reader just reads. I found a free, cute lil' dashboard application on apple.com, but 3/5 of the pdfs I cleverly emailed myself before leaving for work are broken. So I have to do it at home. after work. no problem, hopefully. i will not be docked for turning them in "after" 12, hopefully. Nor will I receive 8.8/30 on the assignment, hopefully, which is what i received on the last one, for a number of diverse and interesting reasons. tomorrow, after a few hours at health south and home health, i look forward (no, I really do) to cleaning the bathroom and dusting the furniture and -maybe- cleaning the floors. the most obvious way to clean them is with the vacuum, but that rates a 30% in total quality. The tiles have marks from god-knows what that I think don't respond even to windex (I will try that tomorrow), so moving a vacuum over them at times feels like an ex. in fut. Plus, there are no carpets anyway, so mopping probably would be a more effective cleaning method, but with mopping it's like I put so much (ok, 5 minutes worth of) effort into preparing and lugging around a sudsy bucket, and moving the furniture, and then the sudsy turns to grimy when I'm done with like half a room. I guess there are worse things than refilling the sudsy bucket, and methinks tomorrow is my day to test that hypothesis. And then we will light candles and I will maybe go to the gym and maybe go to yoga and maybe go to a computer security systems club meeting at school and definitely work on my computer science project, due weds. I finished most of it at the godfreys' this wknd, just needs some fine-tuning. so fun! I look forward to having the time tomorrow to do these things. Maybe neil will read me some pages of Mildred pierce! ok the papers are here bye p.s. bones from a 16-inch frog that had a lot of teeth and lived with dinosaurs were discovered in madagascar, and also, state legislator Karen Johnson really wants teachers and students to have guns at school so people don't shoot each other. :)

this is not a pipe

What logic is this?

hi

Hi. I don't have to get up for work tomorrow. The weather is not quite as cold as last week. It's pretty much in the mid-60s during the day. Does anyone know what it means when your Toyota Camry has to be revved to go after every single red light? I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow and it would be really sweet if the answer involved spark plugs. I have major aspirations to go the gym all the time, starting soon, and also yoga. All the time. Starting soon. I have middlin' aspirations to play the guitar. And get more massages.