I voted today. Not that it made much difference. Both candidates are shoo ins for their party nomination. It gives us something to talk about. Gives news fodder for the Today Show tomorrow morning. Gives us some kind of sound byte tonight. But it is kinda good to go back to my elementary school and see how small the gym really is, compared to how big it once was in my mind’s eye. It is one of the few times I get to go back.
Voting isn’t hard. Senior citizens are there to help out. And when senior citizens are there to show you how to do things, you know that it couldn’t be that difficult. And they didn’t ask me if it was my first time voting (such is the case in times past). I’ve been voting for 10 years now. I guess my age is showing.
We use those electronic voting machines. Those type that you really can’t mess up. And yet people still leave them unattended, without voting. It shouldn’t be that difficult to vote. At one time I really enjoyed those old school voting machines. The ones with the leavers and black curtain. I can remember as a young child being taken into those voting machines while my mom cast her ballot. I longed for the day to vote and to shout out “Pass the shampoo!” from behind the privacy curtain. But ever since the late 80s technology revolution we haven’t seen those old school voting machines. Instead we opt for these bionic voting machines. I’m still waiting for online voting via the internet. Sure would be nice.
Wendy’s Triple is Dangerous
From an old Instant Messenger conversation:
Fri Oct 31 11:49:29 2003
Jenn: i’m gettin some wendys b4 we all meet up
Jeff: wendy who
Jenn: dave’s wendy
Jeff: I thought you were eating at home to save money
Jenn: i was, but i’ve been cravin it
Jeff: what food at wendy’s
Jenn: double stack
Jeff: it’ll make you fat
Jenn: who cares
Jenn: they are good
Jeff: the double cheeseburger?
Jenn: oh yes
Jeff: what about a triple
Jenn: thats dangerous
Jeff: so a double is good; triple is dangerous
Jenn: yep
Jeff: what is the cutoff point
Jenn: double
Jeff: at what point do you enter dangerous territory
Jeff: that one extra bite of the triple?
Jenn: when u stack 3 patties
Jenn: yep
Jeff: the extra bite of the third patty?
Jeff: or is it the extra bite of the third piece of cheese
Jenn: both
Jeff: are there warning labels on the triple
Jenn: on the bottom of the bun
Jeff: it is so dangerous, maybe it should be regulated by the FDA
Jeff: hazardous materials.
Jenn: lol
Jeff: I’ve never had a double
Jeff: only a single
Jenn: ohh
Jeff: I couldn’t imagine eating a triple
Jeff: those must be huge
Jenn: u should live on the edge a little adn go for a double
Jeff: maybe
Jeff: although I just don’t like that much burger
Jeff: I get double cheesburgers at McDonald’s alot since they are cheaper than the regular cheeseburgers
Jenn: true
Jeff: and I don’t like them.
Jenn: i do
Jeff: are you getting the double cheese burger in Lebanon or Gallatin
Jenn: lebanon
Jeff: what’s wrong with Gallatin
Jeff: does it smell too much like Darrell
Jenn: lebanon is closer
Jeff: yeah but it will be cold before you get to Gallatin
Jeff: or are you eating it before you get there
Jenn: yea, its like 2 minutes from my house
Jeff: aren’t you a bit apprehensive living so near a restaurant that serves dangerous materials (triples)?
Jenn: i don’t mind it
Jenn: talking about all this food has got me hungry, i’m going to eat some lunch. i’ll see u around 5
Jeff: ok
Jeff: see you then
Jenn: see ya
*** “Jenn” signed off at Fri Oct 31 12:02:09 2003.
Session Close (Jenn): Fri Oct 31 12:06:19 2003
In the Barber Shop
Ok. Here’s another dream I had last night (or this morning, rather). I’m going over church activities with Tim, a preacher friend of mine. I said I’m going to be preaching at Scottsville May 23 (a fact, not just in the dream). He says “Oh, that’s our family retreat weekend.” He starts to tell me that the retreat consists of them spending the night in the town barber shop, which of course doesn’t make any sense. He goes on to say it is a historic barber shop. But it couldn’t have been very big because barber shops are never that big.
So this dream doesn’t make any sense. Most dreams don’t. They’re just random thoughts out there that go through your head when you are half asleep.
Meanwhile many schools are closed today. For flooding. And they’re showing Snowbird reports for it.
[Listening to: 100 years – Five for Fighting – (4:00)]
High Rise
High Rise dormatory is Lipscomb’s biggest dorm. 8 floors. I was on the 2nd floor my freshmen year. Right next to the lobby. Grand Central station. With the TV blarring from the lobby, it was a wonder I got any sleep.
At Lipscomb they have a switchboard where they would direct calls from the main number. During night time hours the calls would get forwarded to the front desk of High Rise dorm. It was the job of the front desk attendants to answer the phone and direct the calls accordingly. I always wondered what kind of response the guys of high rise gave to after hours callers. Surely there couldn’t have been that many calls.
I always felt sorry for those front desk attendants. I’d leave for my 7:40AM class and find them sleeping on the couch in the lobby. What people will do for extra income. Supposedly it is subsidized by Federal govt grants.
Then there was the intercom system in high rise. During my freshmen year it was barely used. But in latter years it seemed to be used alot for fickle situations. Usually it was people waiting in the front lobby….they’d get on the intercom and say “Hey Joe, we’re waiting downstairs,” which would go out to the entire dorm. Yeah it was funny the first time. But as it dragged on, seemingly very frequently, it got to be just lame. Maybe I was just getting older and more serious about my studies, and I began to grow tired of juvenile behavior.
I was in High Rise for all 4 years of my college career. Started out on the 2nd floor. Then the 5th floor my sophomore and junior years. Then the 6th floor my senior year. I always wanted to find 3 other friends to share a suite with. 2 rooms together. But I never could find friends who had the same study habits that I had.
Superbowl
Growing up church of Christ…
Means never seeing a complete Super Bowl. I have never watched a complete Superbowl. Just basically the coin toss and a few plays. Then off to PM services at church. Afterwards I might see part of the halftime show, then the 2nd half of the game. I never could figure out why the NFL plans Superbowls on a night when many people are out at church. They could set it at 2PM and more people might be able to watch it. Then again, probably more people are home on Sunday nights than any other.
Then again I never could figure out why the Superbowl is so popular. Unless it is your home team, the game is somewhat less exciting. People tell me that I’m supposed to like the Superbowl and that I’m supposed to watch it. Yet I’m not as excited about it as I should be.
Come to think of it, I never have been a sports person. My parents would have relished me going into little league when I was but a wee child, but I preferred non-athletic stuff. Given their interest in collegiate and pro sporting events, they must have been disappointed, but they’d never admit it. Given the choice between brains and brawn, I’d take brains any day.
But I digress. Years ago when I was in college they’d give away $100 to a random student at the basketball games. I’d rarely go to the game. But since there was always a chance that I could win, I would listen to the game on the radio, then head down to McQuiddy gymnasium at halftime for the scheduled big money giveaway. If the student wasn’t there the money would rollover to the next game. It got up pretty high one time. Maybe $1000. Then Lipscomb got smart and started picking random times to give away the money (not at halftime). I never won any either way.
Blocking Google Imagebot
I’ve found that my church’s website has been linked from fark.com. They were discussing a news story about a kid getting killed on a merry go round. The church’s photo album has a picture of some kids on a merry go round, so they embedded that picture in their discussion. Just doing that link has put 4,000 more hits on the church’s site (at least through people viewing that picture). I’m sure they found the picture through Google’s image search. You can find just about anything on Google.
I’m slightly amused by it (since Fark is a favorite website of mine), but feel as though it could potentially be disruptive, especially if the picture got photoshopped in some weird fashion. So I’m blocking the Google imagebot through robots.txt. That should do it.
Postscript (2/1/04): We got about 4,016 hits on January 20th (the day we were linked from Fark). Whereas we normally get about 300 hits per day. Behold the power of Fark.
Hate
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
–Yoda
I need to remember that sometime.
P.E.
“Man! You smell like phys-ed!”
Chunk to Sloth, in the movie “The Goonies”
Yeah. P.E. Phys-ed. Gym. It was a rite of passage for sophomores. I knew it was coming. I knew I’d have to grin and bear it when I reached 10th grade. In junior high I specifically took band so that I wouldn’t have to change in gym class. By the time you reached the 10th grade you had to take gym. Something about the president’s council of physical fitness meant that we had to take gym sometime in our life. And not just recess. It had to be some kind of organized physical activity. And you had to dress out. Dress out to pass. You weren’t required to do anything else except to put on your gym clothes.
I had it 2nd period. Which reminds me of a Wonder Year’s quote:
“In one of those quirks of scheduling my first class was gym. This meant that I had to wake up in the morning, shower, get dressed, go to school, get undressed, run around, shower and get dressed.”
It wasn’t all that bad. We didn’t sweat much in gym, so nobody showered. And we really didn’t have time. As I remember the showers were pretty nasty, so we didn’t go near them.
What was the usual in gym was that we changed, lined up, and let the coach mark us present. Our gym clothes were pretty bad. The shorts were tight enough to be biker shorts, but without the elasticity. At one point we were writing our names all over our gym clothes because there had been some theft of gym shorts around there. And who would steal gym shorts?
Fog
The fog was thick in places as I drove to Scottsville. A friend of mine was supposed to be preaching, but as I unfortunately found out, he had a sore throat. It was singing night and I was asked to led a couple of songs. It was the first time I had done that in a while. Maybe since camp.
I anticipated a foggy night when I drove back, but it really wasn’t all that foggy until I got closer to home, on Green Hill Road. And why is it that the fog gets denser if you turn on your bright lights? In any case sometimes it really was beautiful or as beautiful as it can get in rural Sumner County during dusk. Can’t wait until the time change in April.
Melissa is in the hospital with an infection. Probably due to the c-section. They went to the emergency room Saturday night. They didn’t need any visitors today (needed the sleep instead), so I stayed away. Probably visit tomorrow.
Burn out
I noticed this coincidence.
I’m looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
–Foo Fighters – “Learn to Fly”
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
–Kurt Cobain
The Foo Fighter’s lead singer, Dave Grohl, was the drummer for Nirvana not too long ago.