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Sunday, 11-28-04. Cool and partly cloudy
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This is the year to mark the ends of things, it seems. Ends of relationships, ends of lives, and ends of eras. In a rather shocking and unexpected gesture, tonight, my dad found me a new vehicle to replace the tank. I know I should be appreciative beyond belief, but the loss of my old friend the truck is a bit much to get over in such a short amount of time. I learned how to drive on it, I grew up with it, and the vast majority of my memories over the years have involved the old red beast. In actuality, it's an inanimate object comprised of steel, rubber, plastic, glass, and fluids, but shared time has its way of making things transcend this barrier. I do find considerable solace, however, in the idea that we could donate it to a charity, as it still runs fine and could certainly suit someone out there for some time to come. At least now I know that when I die at least 2 things will be waiting for me, my dog and my truck.
German word of the day: Umzeihen - To move (housing)
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Friday, 11-26-04. Cool and partly cloudy
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Is a photo more beautiful if you can hold it in your hands?
We flew back from Hawaii today. I attempted to compile some of the more telling photos of our surroundings and travels over there, so check 'em out. I also managed to somehow cough up a new Here I Sit entry.
German word of the day: Leblos - Lifeless
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Tuesday, 11-23-04. Sunny, humid, and hot
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Our problem with the insects appears to be well under control. We set out some traps the other evening, and haven't seen more than a trace of them since. I found an internet cafe, so I've actually been able to update this thing remotely. Unfortunately, I had the bad luck of sitting next to the local nutcase, and he began rattling off his various experiences with "Earth energy" as soon as I sat down, much to my intentionally exaggerated disinterest. This evening we had dinner at Bambou, a nice restaurant in a podunk town far to the north. Having a clean shirt and nice shoes made one stick out like a sore thumb, but the people were quite friendly.
German word of the day: Kuhdorf (n) - Hick town
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Monday, 11-22-04. Sunny, humid, and hot
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Surviving an unpleasant late evening with a nasty headache, I awoke bright and early this morning for a half-day trip on the Fair Wind II, a catamaran packed with tourists of all shapes and sizes. The destination was Kealakekua Bay, a choice snorkeling spot, and also the location where Captain James Cook was killed after overstaying his welcome in Hawaii. To avoid the sunburns incurred on the last snorkeling trip I went on, multiple slatherings of SPF 45 were applied throughout the trip.
German word of the day: Erwachen - To wake up
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Saturday, 11-20-04. Sunny, humid, and hot
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The trip's been going nicely. The flight was moderately painless, and the weather here isn't too outrageous. The only major problem we've run into is that in the evenings, there are bugs everywhere... roaches, particularly. A specific oddity we discovered was that about a dozen small roaches and bugs are living in the rather plush rental car, and after the sun sets they all come out and crawl around the floor and seats. We set out a handful of roach traps, so hopefully that will do something.
We've found some great local restaurants thanks to the concierge. Yesterday we had a great lunch at a place right on a busy beach, and tonight we had a nice dinner on the ocean, where we watched fishermen sitting on the rocks in the dark. One man perched on a prominent rock caught several, while another accidentally crossed his line and then was washed over several times by waves as the tide came in. Sometimes good entertainment is just as far as some wet rocks...
German word of the day: Meer (n) - Ocean
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Thursday, 11-18-04. Partly cloudy and cool
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Drafting was interesting today. My instructor brought out some of his better portfolios to show the class, and some of the work was incredible. It will be interesting to see what caliber of work I'll be producing when I'm in grad school, myself.
My drafting table at home was starting to look like an archeological dig of the semester. Scraps of projects from early in the semester were buried under consecutive layers of card stock and construction paper, and the foam core I'd been working with recently had been banished to lean against my chest of drawers due to lack of space. I also uncovered my beloved windchime and gauge thermometer, both of which I've decided not to put up at my current place of residence. In my pre-vacation cleaning frenzy, I also somehow managed to wash all of my dishes and scrub my counter, a feat which I've been working toward for several weeks. See you folks after the 26th... Kona, Hawaii awaits.
German word of the day: Windspiel (n) - Windchime
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Monday, 11-15-04. Partly cloudy and cool
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Ever had one of those days where your body wants to wake up at 7 am, but your brain knows that if you do, you'll only get 5 hours of sleep? In the end you're reduced to tossing and turning for 3 or 4 hours trying to fall back to sleep, and then, when you finally do wake up, you feel dizzy and slightly ill, like you're living your life as if you're half awake and you're watching it from a distance? Well, that kind of day unfortunately happens to me often. I'm not sure why, all I know is that it's annoying. Being able to focus on something for more than half a second comes in handy, you know.
Sorry, everybody. Apologies, accepted.
German word of the day: Hirntot (n) - Braindead
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Sunday, 11-14-04. Partly cloudy and cool
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Since I had to re-learn the mechanisms of life without a dishwasher last summer, the sparse occasions where I actually manage to get them all scrubbed and put away are treated with moderate personal fanfare. One of such events occurred yesterday, though I've yet to actually plow through them all. They seem to spawn children, and annex ever increasing amounts of territory on my counter.
Yesterday I drove up to SR to hang with Justin and B-Creature for the weekend. It was a much-needed excursion from the bounds of dense city life. Master Jon dominated at ping-pong, then Justin and I jammed out some top-40 hits with his keyboard synthesizer's drum machine. Later on we relaxed to some Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Ali G on DVD.
Sleeping in can be rather glorious, on occasion. Waking up in Justin's house can feel like waking up in a palace, if you've been living in a small box with one decent window for months. Today I wasted part of the morning playing some Rise of Nations, then Justin, Creat, and myself headed over to Oliver's so I could basque in the joy of my favorite market for a little while and pick up a few hard-to-find items. B's friends Spencer and Scott came over and we played a rousing game of Risk, though B stuck to her newly-found heroin of choice, Mario Brothers.
We made a trip to load up a few large items from my storage space, had a nice turkey dinner, and then I had to head back to Sanfran. I finally arrived home a little before midnight, and treated myself to some jello.
German word of the day: Strand (m) - Beach
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Saturday, 11-06-04. Cloudless and rather warm.
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Yet another excursion to a Ducks football game was had by my family and myself today. We took BART over to Berkeley for the Cal/U of O game around lunchtime, and had a fairly fun experience overall. Sunscreen was applied after the first quarter, but I do feel like a bit of sun might've crept through to my skin after all. I have to say, in comparison to the Stanford game, the general design of the Berkeley stadium is about as inefficient as one could imagine. I won't go into detail, but suffice to say that in order to find a bathroom with running water, I had to wander and fight my way around the stadium's knee-cramming bench rows and bottleneck walkways for a good 45 minutes. The Ducks lost, unfortunately. The point spread was a heartbreaking single point, and this after being considerably ahead of Cal for most of the game. Our moods were remedied, however, when my fam and I met up with Cherz, some of his family, and some good friends they brought along for an excellent dinner afterwards.
German word of the day: Sonnenbrand (m) - Sunburn
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Thursday, 11-04-04. Sunny and warm.
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Life feels different, now... rather hopeless, in fact. At least during the last 4 years there was the prospect that Bush would go down in flames come November 2004, but now that's passed with no change whatsoever. In fact, as a result of the election, the potential of this country has swung even farther into the field of the good 'ol boys, religious nuts, and war-profiteering corporate cronies, as we solidly now have the most stubborn, ignorant, radically conservative president in recent history, and his policial party now holds comfortable majorities in both the house and senate. If that isn't bad enough, it is highly likely that Bush will appoint at least a couple new justices to the supreme court during his second term. I feel like I'm living in Germany and it's the spring of 1933. I feel like I'm being dragged by a twine noose, behind a paranoid and rabid machine of social and political regression. How could my beloved countrymen be such as to vote for an idiot of the highest order?
I do like this, however. We are not red, we are not blue. Negate the romantic cheese of my own comments and seriously ask yourself why things turned out the way they did. Then go a step further and figure out what you can do to change that from happening again the next time around.
German word of the day: Purpurn - Purple
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Wednesday, 11-03-04. Cool and rainy.
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Well, that sucked. Kerry lost the election via Ohio by around 136k votes, and likewise lost the popular vote by 3.5 million. It's rather fitting that yesterday was a sunny, warm day, and today it's cold with a healthy dose of thunderclouds and rain. I don't feel like taking my "Kerry/Edwards" and "Defeat Bush" stickers down from my window just yet, so I think I'll leave them up a little longer out of disgust of the intelligence and reasoning of my fellow citizens to the east and south. last night before hitting the sack, I had a shot of my favorite dark rum to salute a sunken juggernaut. Kerry/Edwards, no more.
Ah, Shel.
German word of the day: Wahl (f) - Election
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