FRI - 1.6.06 - 4:08 AM
46-13? Chalk up a big one in the "L" column for me. Sheesh.

I'm taking the Rose Bowl result pretty well. It was just too strange to believe as it was happening, and by the time that sensation wore off, I'd talked with some people (about other things) and was feeling better. Still, there's just something empty inside me today.

I'm about to get sappy about sports again. Just so you know.

Most of my life, I've been a complete hard-luck fan. My favorite team of all time in all sports, the Kansas City Royals baseball club, has had one winning season in the last eleven. The last time they made the playoffs, I was a month short of my second birthday. They're currently holding the place of honor as the laughingstock franchise in Major League Baseball. Good times, to be sure.

My second favorite team of all time in all sports, the Kansas City Chiefs football club, has fared slightly better. If they don't make the playoffs, they're in the hunt till the end almost every year. However, they haven't actually won a playoff game in thirteen years. They haven't been to the Super Bowl since the AFL-NFL merger in the early 70s. The only thing that can compare with having your favorite team feed on the bottom every. single. year. is having your favorite team have a great season and then trip all over themselves in the playoffs every. time. they get in.

I'd never really been a diehard fan of any other teams. I had tastes of championship glory when the Razorbacks won the basketball title in '94, and the Sooners the football title in 2000, but when those teams did poorly, I could take them or leave them. The first half of this year showed me that OU is still in this category for me. On the other hand, every single Royals loss hurts (and that's a lot of pain). Every Chiefs loss hurts, probably moreso because of the shorter and therefore more important regular season. I could never say that about other teams. Then I went off to college and joined the Trojan Marching Band.

"Brainwashing" seems like the best way to describe how you're ushered into the Trojan Family. I can remember being out on the field the first day of band, standing at attention in the sun and listening to the director going on and on about the mentality and tradition of Trojans, and wondering to myself how any of the teams ever lost a game. The season progressed and I only got deeper in. As the UCLA game approached, I couldn't really tell if I had any hate for them. Then gameday arrived, and since then the only team I hate more is the Oakland Raiders. I don't know what changed.

The point of all this rambling is that USC joined the Royals and Chiefs in my upper echelon of fandom. In the four years they've been there, they've been to four BCS bowls and won two national championships. This was completely unfamiliar territory for me. What was even more unfamiliar was the confidence. With the Chiefs and (especially) Royals, I always expect the worst. I have hope, sure, but when a deep ball is thrown or a fat pitch is hung, the sense of dread outpaces hope decidedly. With the Trojans, I expect things to go right. For them to go otherwise would be, well...WRONG.

But things went wrong on Wednesday night, and the incredible run is over. It really was a great game, though. One play at any time could have changed the outcome. The loss hurts, and the loss of the winning streak on the last game of the Leinart-Bush-White era hurts a LOT. But it wouldn't hurt so much if the last three years had been anything short of euphoric. For that, I am thankful. I wouldn't trade anything I've watched or shouted or felt in that time for the world, let alone for a three-point loss in one of the best games I've ever seen.

Thanks SC.

TUE - 1.10.06 - 1:48 AM
Man, you gotta love Oklahoma. One day there are wildfires running rampant all over the place, the next, it's freakin' snowing.

I've been back in Norman the last few days. Most of my time has been spent trying to think of something to do. The best things I've come up with so far are sleeping and watching TV. It may come down to cleaning out the closet before too much longer.

SUN - 1.15.06 - 7:51 PM
This is unequivocally the worst purchase I've made in recent memory, and that includes a thirty dollar course packet I never used. Unscented Right Guard Sport, let me count the ways I hate thee:

1. You don't really do what you're supposed to, and that's a fairly big problem.
2. You're a spray, but you still cake up. If I went outside in freezing temperatures with my hands at my sides I probably wouldn't be able to lift them again.
3. It wouldn't be an issue if not for nos. 1 and 2, but your packaging is dull.

Now I face an AFC Championship game of Denver and Pittsburgh. That's like choosing between getting kicked in the nuts and getting kicked in the shin (respectively). The choice isn't difficult, but I'd really prefer another option. However, I don't feel bad for the Colts. The last two times the Chiefs finished 13-3 and got home-field for the playoffs, they lost to Indy. I never felt any active dislike for them because of that, but any subconscious grudges I might have been holding onto can be laid to rest.

THU - 1.19.06 - 2:31 AM
Look at my clean room!
One - Two - Three

As of now, it still looks pretty much the same, but who knows how long that will last. I felt like I needed to get it clean before the semester started and subsequently let it go for a few months.

Classes are off to a good start. Studio is down to about 60 people, and instead of dividing us into sections, there are three roving instructors who cover the whole studio. I think I might like it. It's nice not having classes before 11:30, and even better not having them all on the same day.

More to come, I'm sure.

MON - 1.23.06 - 9:56 PM
My sinuses are congested to the max. It's hard to concentrate on a slideshow when your nostrils are leaking like an 80-year-old faucet.

The only fault I can find with my schedule so far is that I don't get a lot of free time during regular business hours. This means I sometimes have to wake up earlier than I would like, or have to use what should be a break to run an errand. But like I said, other than that, it's been great.

FRI - 1.27.06 - 1:37 AM
Inspiration's not a choice
it's got to search you out

Design isn't something that can be faked. Well, it can be, but most of the time such work is obvious. So, as a designer, if one's muse is lying down on the job, it's all but impossible to do anything worthwhile. Creativity can make up for a lack of inspiration (and often is the source of it anyway). But when those proverbial juices stop flowing, there's not much in the way of recourse.

I was largely unsatisfied with my studio work last semester. Most of my designs started off well, but got off track between concept and execution. And with some of them, the concept wasn't that great to start off with. Concept is the crux of just about every project, and the major point of application of creativity/inspiration. I don't know what exactly was holding me back, but I had trouble coming up with cogent solutions for those problems.

I'm not generally worried about my creative abilities. In many cases, my designs have been simpler, perhaps safer, than those of my classmates. But I feel like my best ones are efficient and effective enough to stack up with anyone else. I have the potential to be an excellent designer, but that fear of the well drying up is something that lurks back in a corner of my mind, peeking above the surface from time to time.

SAT - 1.28.06 - 11:59 PM
Back in September the battery on my watch died. I didn't get around to fixing it until mid-December. So I've had it back for about a month after three months without it, and last night one of the little structural rods broke, rendering it unwearable. Gah.

I'd get it fixed, but I'm approaching the end of a six-week period between paychecks. What this means is that I have little to no cash since the new year. This also means that the only way I can pay for things is with credit. As you can imagine, one can rack up lots of expenses in four weeks. And I had JUST gotten the thing paid off last month. GAH.

MON - 2.6.06 - 1:03 AM
I am in the computer lab at Gould Hall right now. Partly because I was doing some sketches for tomorrow, but mostly because I can't use my computer at home. This is because the hard drive is dead.

I spent about three hours on the phone with Dell tech support, speaking to three different people and getting disconnected once. I also had to drive to Midwest City and back to get the hardware CDs I needed to run some tests. The third person I spoke with was actually very helpful, but her conclusion was not what I wanted to hear. The hard drive is beyond repair.

I don't know what this means for all the data on the old drive. I've heard that sometimes it's possible to recover data on a bad one, but I'm not sure if it would work in my case. I'm not even sure what exactly is wrong with mine, just that it doesn't work anymore. Luckily I uploaded all my important digital camera photos to the internet, but who knows what else could be lost forever. I guess it'll be nice to have a clean drive again, though. Whatever. I don't really want to think about this much more.

My headphones broke about a week ago, too. I can't get them glued back together. I've been using those crappy bud things that came with my iPod. I hate them.

Dealing with the University of Oklahoma Student Association is quite easily the worst part of working at the UMC. There's so much red tape to hack through just to do stupid things like ordering paper cups or printing flyers for events. Every week it seems there's a new form to fill out or something that needs changing. The whole system strikes me as completely ridiculous.

Other than all these electronics breaking down and The Man holding me down, things are really going quite well. Maybe one of these days I'll take time out to talk about something that isn't going horribly wrong.

THU - 2.9.06 - 6:46 PM
He took the stage in a wedding dress.

"We want to touch you like no other band has touched you before. But we want it to mean something. We want to marry you. Will you marry us, Oklahoma City?"

I have two bible studies that I alternate between on Wednesday nights, but by some roundabout coincidence, they were both cancelled this week. I was spending a little time in a campus computer lab around 6:30 after studio was over when it struck me: "Of Montreal is going to be at The Conservatory tonight." My evening having recently been freed up, I decided to go. Doors were at 8:00, so I stopped by the Pita Pit to catch up with Isaiah and see if he wanted to go. He was going to be stuck behind the grill for the night though. I drove home to get a sweatshirt, then struck out for northwest OKC.

I got there around 8:30, but there was still a line outside. I stood in my spot for about five minutes when I realized two things. Firstly, that the wind was REALLY cold. Secondly, that the old guy in front me looked familiar. I can't confirm because I didn't talk to him much, but I'm 98% sure it was the rabbi from the Hillel Center at OU. Which is completely awesome.

So anyway they eventually opened the doors. There were rumblings in our section of the line that there were only 40 tickets left from advance sales, and there were definitely more than 40 people in front of us. But I walked up to the booth and they sold me a ticket.

I saw Of Montreal at The Opolis in Norman back in May. The place is tiny, and it was so so hot when however many dozen people crammed into it. The Conservatory is considerably bigger, but that isn't saying much. I saw a sign displaying a maximum occupancy of 240, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few extra people swimming around. I found a good spot about halfway back where I could stand on a step and see over people's heads. The opening band was The MGMT and they were eh. Next up was Grand Buffet, a duo of rapping white guys who didn't have any songs longer than about a minute and a half. They put on a good, eccentric show and were really funny. DJ Jester the Filipino Fist spun some records until the headliners were ready to take the stage.

Somewhere during all this, Brian Moore and Daniel Dillon spotted me and yelled my name. So I wormed through the crowd and hung out with them for the remainder of the show. Of Montreal didn't disappoint. It was about the same as their set last spring, but it's a good enough time that I didn't mind. Things finally wrapped up around 1:00. I drove back to Norman, ears still ringing.

My new hard drive apparently shipped yesterday, so hopefully things will be back to normal soon. At the very least, this has been terribly inconvenient.

SUN - 2.12.06 - 1:50 AM
My laptop's back in business as of last night, and I'm back online as of this afternoon.

D-Link, who makes my wireless card, has the absolute worst customer service I've dealt with.

I gave a wildly successful PowerPoint presentation in History of the Built Environment on Friday, after learning how to use PowerPoint on Thursday night.

This week was pretty busy. Next week will be more so.

All my love.

THU - 2.16.06 - 7:45 PM
There's a building on campus that has a headline-scrolling video board. I was walking past it today and it said "Scorpion Queen and Centipede King marry." Sometimes context is everything.

SUN - 2.26.06 - 3:49 PM
If you were to take a quick snapshot inside my mind lately, it would look something like this:



Just seeing clips on TV gets my insides all charged up. Baseball is so much better than anything else.

FRI - 3.3.06 - 1:54 AM
I probably would have enjoyed the Olympics more if they hadn't been preempting Scrubs, My Name Is Earl, and The Office for two weeks. On the plus side, though, I took the time off to get completely caught up on The Office. And I must say, after viewing all 22 episodes within a few days' time, I think it's the funniest show on TV right now. Scrubs is getting a little stale, honestly. Some of the bits are veering more toward weird for weirdness' sake rather than actually being funny, and the "sentimental" moments seem more and more forced. There's always been some overacting, especially on Zach Braff's part, but lately it wears thin faster. It's a shame, but the excellence of those first two or three seasons can't be diminished. And it probably won't ever sink to the point where it's not among the best of the best. It just won't be THE best anymore.

As for The Office, I think the only show that even gives it a run for its money would be The Colbert Report. It's not really fair to compare the two, but I have a lot of respect for a show that can maintain excellence in a format as tired and restrictive as the sitcom (and on a network station, for that matter). This week's episode was actually pretty disappointing, but I can't imagine The Office going into a slump for more than about 10 minutes.

FRI - 3.10.06 - 11:58 PM
Just a quick note before I head to Biloxi for a spring break of hard labor. We're leaving at 7:00 AM tomorrow, getting there around 10 PM. We'll be there Saturday to Saturday. Who know, maybe I'll even have something interesting to say when I get back.

Also, the backlight on my monitor has stopped working. It's funny how much that thing helps. If there are any typos in this entry, please forgive me. I can't so much see.

Until next week. Be good.

MON - 3.20.06 - 9:40 PM
Here I am. Biloxi was incredible. I'll write more when I have a befitting amount of time to do so, and some pictures to share. At this point, I'm still not even sure where to start.

Two items of note from today: (1) I saw two different people wearing USC sweatshirts on campus today. Notable because it shouldn't be cold enough to wear sweatshirts in late March, and also because folks around here don't generally jive with USC. (2) Today saw the first tornado warning of the season. I was walking to the union around 5:30 and there was definitely something rolling in. I grabbed some dinner and sat down to watch TV at Crossroads Lounge. The emergency broadcast system came on, but there's no way to change the channels on the sets in that room. So we continued watching Around The Horn, and a few minutes later I walked past a window beyond which the sun was shining. Whatever.

TUE - 4.4.06 - 11:57 PM
Lots to catch up on. Let's begin.

First, Biloxi. I went with Shereen, one of the other UMC interns, and six others from University Lutheran Church in Norman. Driving long distances and living in close quarters with several strangers could have been questionable, but as it turned out, everyone was great. By the time we got to Biloxi we were all more or less friends, and would only get closer as the week went on.

We arrived on Saturday night and made the first of many trips to Wal-Mart for supplies. We staked our homestead in a tent city behind Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, which was much more civilized than it sounds. The next morning the Lutherans got up to go to worship, but Shereen, who is Muslim, preferred not to, so the two of us wandered around town instead. When we got back to camp, we ran into one of the organizers, Mark (who is only 22, incidentally) who offered to take us on a damage tour. He drove us down the beachfront highway and told us his personal story. We stopped in several spots to take pictures and try to process all the devastation. I mentioned that I felt guilty snapping photos as if I were sightseeing, but he assured me that it was important to do so, even if only to help people back home understand what was going on. We drove through the inner city, where entire blocks of houses were completely wiped out. There were lots of American flags hanging on remaining structures. It seems to me that the flag is often used profanely in our society, but it was inspiring to see it symbolizing sincere hope and spirit.

We awoke Monday morning at 6:30 (or thereabouts), ate breakfast, and struck out for the first job site. It was a small home belonging to an elderly veteran. The team consisted of our Norman group, two guys from West Virginia University, and a handful of adults with construction experience. We pulled up the FEMA tarp, stripped the existing shingles, repaired some roof boards, laid tar paper, and reshingled the whole thing. We finished up around lunch time on Wednesday. We went to the next site, ate lunch, and started again. This roof was larger and steeper (as well as having a poolshed/garage which also needed reshingling), but we had more help coming and going over the two days we were there and finished up by lunch on Friday. That afternoon we went to the beach with our West Virginia friends before they left, and then had dinner at an excellent restaurant in Gulfport.

We got up early once more on Saturday and made the drive back to Oklahoma, taking a detour through New Orleans. The east side of the city still looked awful, but driving through downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, everything seemed close to normal, albeit empty. It started raining soon after we got through Lafayette and did not stop the entire trip, often gushing forth as if from a faucet. We arrived safely at home around 10:30 PM. To sum up the trip with bullet points:

\15 hour drive
\New friends
\Biloxi was heartbreaking
\Biloxi was promising
\Biloxi still needs help

Mark estimated that there will be at least another 5 to 8 years of work before the area starts to resemble its former self. Hopefully I'll be able to make it back at some point, and hopefully you can make it too.

Here is a link to my pictures from the week. They follow a general flow of most recent to oldest. So you can start at the end and go backwards if you like, or start at the beginning and move backwards chronologically. Either way is fine. Eventually I'll get a page set up here at the site rather than externally linking.

The week leading up to Spring Break was full to the brim with tests, projects, and papers, as well as trying to prepare for an entire week far from home. To complicate things, as mentioned in my last entry, my computer started having major problems just six weeks after the hard drive crashed. After getting back from Mississippi, I immediately got to work on my portfolio for admission to the third year of OU's architecture program, as well as other assignments. I was basically swamped for all the last four weeks of March. But I'm really pleased with how my portfolio came out. If, by chance, you're interested in seeing it, you can find a digital version here. With my computer problems fixed for the time being, this last weekend was my first chance to kick back in quite a while. And of course, it just happened to fall on Daylight Saving Time so that I could lose an hour of sleep. I'll still take it.

Baseball is back, and not a moment too soon. Of course, the Royals lost their first game, but the team is improved enough over last year that it should be at least May before my spirit is entirely crushed. And today, Jackson County voters approved renovations to Kauffman Stadium that should keep the old yard around for at least several more years. I like what I've seen of the renovations, and Kauffman is a truly unique, beautiful park among the retro-clones and lingering cookie cutters. I'm glad to see its life extended. The rolling roof for the complex was voted down, and while it would have been cool to have a Super Bowl in KC, I wasn't sold on the roof design. We'll see where things go from here, I suppose.

I've gone on long enough. Now that I'm back in commission and don't have this big huge entry hanging over my head anymore, I should be updating more regularly. Isn't that great?

TUE - 4.11.06 - 12:46 AM
Tonight (Monday) I heard Robin Meyers speak at the union. He's a UCC pastor in Oklahoma City and professor at OCU. He's an occasional opinion columnist in the Oklahoma Gazette and has a book coming out next month, "Why The Christian Right Is Wrong." His columns are usually quite caustic and he has a pretty large profile among left-wingers in the area. I probably would have been more excited about seeing him, say, a year and a half ago. As it was, I was looking forward to it but leery of a close-minded tirade against the administration. Titles like "Why The Christian Right Is Wrong" (which was also the title of the lecture) are exemplary of the kind of sectarian thinking that makes me reluctant to follow politics at all.

Turns out, I really enjoyed the thing. He's much more amiable in person than in print. While his views were certainly one-sided, he wasn't completely dismissive of the other side at all, even making a few small concessions here and there. Basically, he read the speech he gave at the UMC in 2004 which, through phenomenal internet word of mouth, led to the publishing of his upcoming book. He then talked about the events leading to the book and took questions for a while. Turns out he didn't come up with the title of the book; a panel from the publisher or somebody read it and suggested a title, and he (apparently begrudgingly) accepted their suggestion. At any rate, if you get the chance to see him, he comes with a high recommendation from me.

FRI - 4.14.06 - 2:00 AM
I am completely stuffed right now. I don't really understand, seeing as how I last ate over three hours ago, and it was only a chicken sandwich and fries. Lately I don't have the urge to eat as much or as often, which is generally a good thing I suppose. As to the cause of this, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe I'm just sick of dining on campus all the time.

For some reason, moral issues involving privelege (mostly as it pertains to food) have been crossing my mind lately. For instance, in a world where millions upon millions of people struggle just to sustain themselves, what is the moral high ground when patronizing an American restaurant where portions are usually unnecessarily (and often ridiculously) large? You can gorge yourself silly simply because it's there (morally questionable at best) or you can eat short of your fill, thereby wasting food that others would gladly consume. (Of course, the best choice would probably be to get a to-go box and ingest reasonable portions until it's gone, but that ruins the nice little dichotomy I set up.)

I'll not get started on flat-rate all-you-can-eat buffets.

THU - 4.20.06 - 11:45 PM
Bebe was here in Norman from Monday until a few hours ago. It's always fun having her around, but I won't mind the absence of her cold wet nose at 7 AM (which is, without fail, her breakfast time).

I keep waiting for school to get crazy as finals week gets closer each day, but to this point it still hasn't. The volume of assignments due has increased just slightly, but they're not big things. I don't know what's going on, but I like it.

SAT - 4.22.06 - 4:31 PM
An error at the KC Star's website puts it quite nicely.

This Royals team is implausibly miserable. I honestly don't think things can get any worse. The only good things about the team (young hitters in the minor leagues...anything else?) are, at this point, only potentialities. The pitching staff just might be the worst in baseball history. With Joe Mays taking the hill tonight (in his first three starts, he's given up 3, 3, and 5 runs respectively in the first inning alone) they're almost certain to lose their 12th consecutive game. I thought things were bad in the late 90s, but the total, sweeping ineptitude of the last few years makes me question what sort of karmic forces might be at work. Surely this cannot possibly be anything but some form of punishment.

WED - 4.26.06 - 9:37 PM
The Royals have won 3 out of 4 since my last post. Reverse jinx in full effect, party people.

School's finally going to pile itself on me, but only for about a week. By Tuesday afternoon I'll be through the worst of it. Until then, you probably won't hear much from me.

MON - 5.8.06 - 2:49 AM
I have Yahoo! as my browser's home page so that a few times each day I can click on the little house icon at the top of my screen and check out the latest headlines. Now, the art of headline writing is something that is lost on almost everyone who writes them, with the nadir of the medium of course being terrible puns (ESPN.com, here's looking at you). Yahoo! headlines are a few notches better than that, opting for straightforward banality, but there are usually at least one or two that pique my interest enough to warrant a quick scan of the full article. Tonight, however, not only were the headlines particularly dull, but they hinted toward topics that were completely un-newsworthy. See for yourself:

--"Likely nominee for CIA director draws fire"
[Wait, you're saying a Bush nominee is not being universally welcomed?]
--"Car bombs kill 16, 26 found dead in Iraq"
[Numbers concerning casualties in Iraq have lost all meaning at this point.]
--"Iran again threatens to exit nuclear pact"
[But maybe if we check back with them tomorrow things will have changed.]
--"'Sanctuary city' for immigrants gets pricey"
[Finally, a respectable news item.]
--"China graduates to have hard time finding jobs"
[No kidding, there's like a jillion of them.]
--"U.S. economic outlook polarized by politics"
[More political divison? I don't understand...]
--"Barbaro's Derby win spurs Triple Crown talk"
[Welcome to the day after the Kentucky Derby. You must be a new visitor.]

In conclusion: slow news day, slower people.

FRI - 5.12.06 - 6:49 PM
And then there was summer vacation. I finished my last test at around 2:30 yesterday afternoon and am now left trying to fill up my days until next week when the family drives up to Iowa to see more family. I checked out a Dostoevsky book (The Brothers Karamazov) from the library a few days ago, the completion of which should provide a sufficient challenge over the next three weeks. Other than that, I'll probably be listening to a lot of music and watching a lot of TV on DVD. Exciting.

Speaking of TV, last night's season finale of The Office was a masterstroke. It could not possibly have been done any better. It's hard to imagine which direction the story goes from here, but they've certainly got my attention.

SUN - 5.28.06 - 6:45 PM
It's been a week now since I was at Kauffman Stadium, experiencing the worst time I've ever had at a baseball game. Obnoxious St. Louis fans filled about 3/4 of the stadium, the sun was uncomfortable (I ended up with a mild burn on my neck), and the Royals rolled over and took what was coming to them. On Friday, they managed to end a 13-game losing streak (their second 10-gamer just this year) and appear to be on their way to another lengthy one now. They called up one of their best prospects awhile ago only to let him rot on the bench for two weeks before sending him back down again. The entire pitching staff is embarrassing at best. I'm done writing and caring about this team until some big changes are made.

It looks like one very positive change is on the verge of being made, but the owner and his son (the team president) have to get out of the way first. Here's a great article by Joe Posnanski on negotiations with Dayton Moore to become the Royals' new general manager.

My first week working for air-conditioner manufacturers York International went well, although I often had long stretches with nothing to do but sit and look at my surroundings. Things should pick up once I get some more experience under my belt, but if not, it will be easier to take once the paychecks start coming in.

SAT - 6.10.06 - 11:45 PM
It's hard to believe that on a day where it hits 100 degrees it can be so pleasant outside once the sun is down. The afternoons aren't any fun around here, but once evening comes there's nothing better than driving with the windows down and feeling that 80-degree breeze.

But wait, I've got more to say about weather! I have an extension for Firefox that tells me current conditions and the next day's forecast. I'm not sure where they hire the people who write the short forecast descriptions, but I would guess that most of them are hoping to catch on in journalism. Screenshot examples:

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