Well it's about time...

Everyone else has been doing it, so why not me. Long, long ago, I learned that often crazier things happen to me than to other people. Maybe this will help me remember them. Even better, I'll finally have a forum to rant, keeping me from screaming on street corners for a few more days.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Amazing

I am still blown away by how great the U2 concert was. They performed for almost 2 and a half hours, playing all of the songs I hoped to hear plus a bunch of new stuff (Well, new to me). We had really great seats too. We were at the very front of the balcony at the Boston Garden, pretty much perfectly level with the front of the stage. This meant we could see everything! The music was loud enough that I could feel the bass rippling through me, and at times it felt like the whole balcony was shaking because of all of the people moving around and dancing on it. Talk about an amazing experience. I was super thrilled to be there!

Before the concert, we all stopped in a few bars along the way. I decided I wanted some candy, so I went to a 7-11 where I met this guy who said, "Want to see the boys?" I thought this was some kind of lewd comment, so I politely declined. Turns out, he was trying to buy tickets to U2. I guess a more reasonable person would have thought that first, but Central Sq has poisoned me. We talked for a while in line about how he drove out from Colorado to see them here and how he'd seen them in concert 40 times (!!). That's dedication.

Oddly enough, I'm back in NY at Grandma's. I'd planned on being up here this weekend anyway, so I saw no reason to change my plans just because I was here a week ago. As a nice surprise, my sister is up here too. I haven't seen her in a month or so, when she came up to stay with me for a day. It's nice to spend time with her, so that's fun too!

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Busy Week

It has been a wild ride this week. Monday morning, as everyone no doubt recalls, found me still at Grandma's, awaiting news of my little car. When they hadn't called by 10, I became unsettled, so I called them. Well, they didn't know why the body shop hadn't gotten my car back to them, but they would call immediately to check on it. 20 minutes later, they still didn't know, but shortly after that, they called me back and said that my car was ready. I told them I'd be down around 1, 1:30 to pick it up, and they promised to have it all clean and ready for me. What a laugh.

When I arrived at the dealership at 1:30, my car was not yet cleaned. They whisked it away to get it all washed and handed me the bill: $1877! I had expected a bill for $1477, since this is what the estimate given me by the insurance company was. I asked why there was this extra $400 in charges, but they seemed to have no idea. I then started comparing the estimate (which I just happened to bring) with the itemized bill, and found that pretty much everything was matching up. They made me wait until the manager arrived (about 30 minutes later), and he just too the extra $400 off my bill ("There is a different rate for body work"). Mind you, my car was still not cleaned at this point, so I had to wait for another 30 minutes for them to drive it up to where I could get it. All told, I was glad to get on the road, but the delay meant that I didn't get back home until 7 PM. Then at 7:45, I had to go to the airport to pick up Ms. T. G. What a day!

Tuesday was pretty uneventful, after that round of excitement. My Senate Contact and I made dinner plans for his break during the budget discussions, but the debating continued unabated over the time we were to meet. Since it wasn't going to be much longer, I just waited around the Statehouse for a bit. By "waited" of course I mean "wandered", so somehow I found myself climbing a tiny spiral staircase on the 5th floor that lead onto the roof. Now I can say I have been on the roof of another building. I'd worried that it would set off alarms or something, but since (a) there were no signs warning about not being on the roof and (b) the door was open, I wasn't really worried. We met up shortly thereafter and had dinner at P. F. Chang's, this fun little Chinese place near the Common. We hung out for a while, avoiding the rain, before I went to Cantab lounge to meet up with C. O'N. who stood me up. Darn her! It's ok, though, since I was exhausted.

Even more fun than being exhausted Tuesday night was getting up early on Wednesday morning. I had Samaritans at 7 A M! It was a really slow shift, though, so I wasn't really worried about not being totally on my game. I took a few calls. I talked to a few people. I read a few trashy magazines. All in a day's work. The rest of the day passed pretty mundanely until the evening. My Senate Contact had bought tickets to see the Tony Award winning play "Take Me Out", about a Major League baseball player who comes out of the closet. It was a really funny play, so I had a great time. Sitting next to us (well, really in our seats) was this group of older people whom we befriended. They were really fun to talk to, and very sweet. I wanted to get their digits after the play so that we could all go see other shows together! It was nice, though, to get out and meet fun people.

Today should be equally busy. I'm meeting Mr. Cli. D. for lunch, since it is his B-day (Happy Birthday, Cli!), then I will try to do a little work around MIT. This evening is going to really rock, since I am going to see U2 in concert! Once again, my Senate Contact came through with awesome ideas for things to do. I'll be sure to post how it goes tomorrow, probably between going to the gym (I've gained 2 pounds, for those keeping score) and driving back to Grandma's.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Weekend at Grandma's

Well I'm back in beautiful upstate New York, visiting my grandmother for the second time in about as many weeks. I was assured by Nemer VW that my car would be ready "on Friday. Saturday at the latest". In truth, it was not quite finished when I called on Saturday, but they have sworn up and down that it will be ready for tomorrow morning. I certainly hope so, since I have a ton of stuff to do back at home, not the least of which is going to the gym. One of the best parts of being up here is that I eat constantly. For some reason, the fresh air makes me really hungry. If I get to the gym tomorrow, I should be able to convert some of this food to new muscle, rather than just wasting it (and no, I'm not worried it will become fat).

Actually, as far as trips here go, this one has been great. My Senate Contact was super sweet and drove me out here. I always like taking driving trips with him. It's fun to just kick back and watch things go by. Plus he is a really good travel companion. Some of you might not know this, but I can occasionally be very opinionated or difficult to get along with. Sometimes I've even been known to push a few buttons. This means that long trips in the car can sometimes be tricky. I never have any problems with him. We got to Lake George pretty late, as we stopped for dinner in North Adams where we saw the only gay boy in North Western Massachusetts. Poor thing! The next day we chilled with my grandmother for a while, took a boat ride up north on the lake, and had lunch before he had to head back to Boston. Since then, my grandmother has talked about him constantly, saying how nice and sweet and cute he is. Single ladies out there, listen up, my grandmother is wondering why he hasn't been snatched up. Of course, she's also wondering that about me.

One other nice thing about this trip is that I've been able to play around more with my digital camera. I've taken a ton of pictures since getting here, mostly of the abundant wild flowers. Most of my photos suck, but I am starting to get the hang of things. I also have one photo of Forget-Me-Nots that I really like. I'll either post it here or on my website (math.mit.edu/~mikehill).

Tonight we went to a charity auction for this little theater in Glens Falls (which really should be named Glen's Falls, but who's checking). I was one of two people not in high school and under the age of thirty, the other being a quite attractive woman with whom Ms. A. K. (grandma's dearest friend) offered to set me up. Not too much to do around there, so I took my trusty camera (which does fit into my pocket nicely) and set about exploring the place. Well, I found my way to a cavernous basement (if they didn't want people in it, they should have locked it up better), where I experimented with things like obscuring the flash to get better control of the light. Quite fun, I must say, until someone came down, found me, and asked "can I help you" in a quite suggestive way. She wasn't too happy, so I told her what I was doing and went on my way. I did get a few good shots out of it, I think. I also learned a few tricks, so that's good too.

That's about it. Tomorrow I should get my car back and get back to Boston. Please with me luck on this, since who knows if Nemer will make good on their promise. The real question is, should I say something?

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Return to the Movie Theaters

So I just came back from seeing the new Star Wars movie. I had been, like many people, burned by the previous two, so I was a little wary. I wondered how they could top the last movie in terms of crazy chases and such (not to mention the use of stereotypes). I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The story focuses mainly on Skywalker descending to Vader-hood. Parts of it are kind of touching. Parts of it didn't gel with me. Parts of it I really liked. Parts of it were really cute. All told, it is a fun movie to see, and I'd be willing to see it again. After the previous ones, this is pretty high praise!

Equally fun were some of the previews for new movies. The new Batman and Fantastic 4 movies look pretty good. Even better is "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". The preview was fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Any volunteers?

I also ran into an old friend at the movie, Mr. J. M. Many readers of my `blog might remember him from my freshman year. He's now just finished his first year of law school at NEastern. How fun!

Yesterday was spent in its entirety grading exams. On the plus side, it's now over. I've assigned grades to all my students, and I can put it all behind me until the next time I need to teach. Since I have a teaching credit all stored up, that won't be for a while! It was really exhausting. All I wanted to do was go to sleep afterwards. I talked politics for a while with my insider on the phone, then I pretty much zonked out. That's the best thing for me to do at times like that. I am always a little moody, and when I get sleepy, it's all the worse. It's usually best for me to just go to bed, rather than risk fighting with friends or offending people.

Now all that's left for this term is to finish evaluating a student teacher and turn it in. Then I'll work some more on fixing things up for my webpage and maybe writing up that computation that my adviser wants me to have down on paper. He's psyched about it, so that's good.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Slow Days

Not too much going on of late. The big, exciting thing for me is that my digital camera arrived yesterday. I think I've taken all of 5 pictures, since I am terrified that I am going to wreck it. I'm also waiting for the right subjects. I guess I'm just a little picky. Is anyone surprised by that?

I spoke with the people fixing my car yesterday. They were kind enough to tell me that "it'll be about a week". I pointed out that it has already been over a week, and they tried to tell me that they had only gotten the go-ahead on Friday. I respectfully pointed out that I had personally called them on Wednesday to authorize the work, and then I changed tactics and let them know that it is difficult for me to get out there except for weekends and I really need my car back. They said they'd see what they can do. I'm going to call back tomorrow morning to see how things are going. This is crazy!

On Saturday, I went out with my Senate Contact and some of his friends to some bars on Newbury and Boylston St. We'd all hung out for a while beforehand, so it was a nice finish to a chill, fun evening. I was really had to have it all happen too, since I had been having a bit of a down day. I'm not really sure why; it just hits me sometimes. Guess I'm just "sensitive".

I'm currently working on fixing up my math department website. I have a tentative page up right now, but some of the links are conspicuously absent or contentless. Now that I have my camera, I can add photos, but the papers are going to take a little more work. I'm putting them up as I finish editing them. Still, it's taking a while. I should have them up pretty soon, though. For those curious: Mike Hill.

Tomorrow is my last teaching duty for quite a while. My kids have their final exam at 9 AM! I think that a lot of them are pretty nervous. I am too, in that after that, we have to all get together to grade all 700+ exams. The professor estimates that it'll take upwards of 5 hours. Wow. Then we get to do things like discuss grades and cut-offs for various letter grades. Talk about fun stuff!

Friday, May 13, 2005

I Love the Smell of Old Elevators

There is one at MIT that has to be at least 40 years old. It has this really intricate metal work along the top, and the walls are that old fashioned brushed metal. I'm a big fan. I especially like the smell: that subtle mix of machined metal and a hit of oil, mixed with years of use. Not surprisingly, it reminds me of where I first smelled it: the drama building at LSU. When I was much younger, I was in the children's' chorus / was the children's' chorus for a few operas. The building that housed our rehearsals was the colossal old performance hall, filled with dusty old rooms and rickety stairs. And of course, an old elevator. Guess those days are gone.

Yesterday I saw a movie at the MFA in their Gay and Lesbian Film Series. The movie was "Dorian Blue," a very cute coming of age story for a young gay man with a difficult father. The best part was that I got to see it for free because I volunteered to help out before the show. I handed out "Will Call" tickets for a while. That was really interesting. By far the nicest person to me was one of the producers. Other people were nice enough to say "thank you" and to smile at me. Others just stood there, not even telling me their names! After handing out tickets, I got to help this older woman take tickets. They didn't have a good system for tearing tickets: where should the stubs go? We were given a small wicker basket for the both of us, but that's not efficient. I just dropped stubs on the floor after tearing them. By the time most of the people had entered the theater, this other volunteer came up to me and said, "I've been volunteering here for 12 years, and I've never seen someone do that". At the time, I took it as a compliment, though there is a real chance she was slyly commenting on my uncouthness. Who knows!

Yesterday after the movie, I wandered for a bit around Newbury, and I found an old T-station entrance! It may be one that just isn't used often, but I don't recall ever seeing it open. I think that things like this will be good fodder for pictures, once my digital camera arrives (Tuesday afternoon, selon FedEx).

I used to broadcast my current mental state by absolutely falling in love with a particular song and playing it over and over. The one getting the most play right now is "Bridge over Troubled Waters". Any thoughts?

My summertime goal is to gain 20 pounds. It'll take a lot of work, working out, and actually eating. Keep me motivated!

I read "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" today. It was a fast read, so I spent the early afternoon just wandering around reading it. Funny how many traits I recognized in myself and my friends. Of course, I don't mind being touched, and I don't mind strangers, and I don't normally respond to situations by screaming or groaning. On the other hand, I know a lot of prime numbers, I play number games to calm myself, and I know tons of random facts. I guess the jury is still out, then.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Waterless Urinals Can Save 40,000 Gallons of Water a Year

I recognize that all people will find this as amazing as I did. Well, that is, all people except a certain someone who is sitting right next to me and shall remain unnamed. I just like to pull her chain a little.

The most exciting news of the day is that my digital camera shipped today! I will check it obsessively until it arrives, but that is to be expected. I'm psyched because I've been seeing really crazy stuff (like a man in a gorilla costume chasing a man in a banana costume around). I'm also thinking about selling the last of my toys in boxes on e-Bay. I'll add this to my lengthy "to-do" list, so who knows when this will actually happen. I'm going to guess some time shortly after never.

I've also decided to do a mentoring job at MIT for the month of July. It pays $2,500, and it is a total of 40 hours. I did it once two years ago, and it was less exciting than I'd hoped, but the money is good, and it isn't a terrible amount of work. If people have suggestions for problems accessible to high school students, I'd be much obliged.

USAA has agreed to the charges for my car. That's a relief. I told the car people yesterday to go ahead and start working. I hope that it gets fixed up pretty soon. It's weird to go out onto my porch, check my garden, and then not see my car when I look over at my parking space. Yay for OCD.

My Senate Contact told me yesterday that after 9/11, our much beloved federal government changed how the funding they give to local law enforcement agencies can be allocated: training & equipment are fine, paying people is not. How absurd is this? You can train your cops to use the really high tech toys you buy for them, but you can't pay them for putting themselves on this line to save people's lives. I am not so cool with this.

A little chore for today is to see if my healthcare plan is a "high deductible health plan". If it is, then I am going to set up a Health Savings Account. This would give me a nice $1000 pretax deduction from my wages, and it is money that I'll end up spending anyway. Since I don't itemize deductions, this is pretty much the only way I can get some tax savings for healthcare. It might also help other people in my dept. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Wine, Women, & Song

Tonight I had dinner at my cousin I.B.'s house. Now, I.B. is a few years older than me. In fact, she has twins who are going on 13. It was really nice. She made dinner (Grilled chicken, broccoli [no wokilly involved], strawberry shortcake), and she was nice enough to both remember that for a time I was off sugar and to realize that this wouldn't last long at all. In fact, she was right on all counts. We had a few glasses of wine and just chatted for nearly 5 hours. It was great. We had fun conversations. We had emotional conversations. We had a really good time. 2 thumbs up in the opinion of this reviewer.

I figured out my travel home. I'm flying back to Boston on Monday, arriving at Logan at 2:25. This means that (a) I'll be able to frantically do my grading and (b) I'll be able to attend Mr. C.D.'s defense. I was quite worried about missing it. This adds another $215 to the cost of this little adventure (there goes my dreams of a digital camera), but that's ok. My grandmother has been really excited to have me here, so that makes up for it. Plus she might cover the plane ticket.

I got her internet stuff up and running today. It was quite a hassle in the end, since the wire connecting the cable to the upstairs cable jack was just bad. I had to run wires all around furniture and under doors to make a system that gets her blindingly fast connections. On the other hand, I also get this blindingly fast connection, so it makes internet use a lot easier.

We also planted all her little plants. My hands were covered in wet dirt, and it got all under my fingernails. On the plus side, I was standing out in the sun, slightly covered in dirt, in just jeans and a white undershirt. I dare say that I looked mighty cute! Definitely blue-color chic. I was glad to get another job taken care of.

Tomorrow we are all going out to dinner to celebrate Mother's Day. If I know your moms, please wish them a great day for me too.

Lake George Update

This morning, my main task has been to set up Grandma's cable modem. Belive me, this is a chore I'm happy to handle. It has actually been trickier than I might like to admit. Many of the options for things like cables were bought in the 70s, when the house was wired. I'm not sure, in fact, if the cable connecting the cable input to the house to the upstairs can handle the increase of power needed for a cable modem. Guess we'll find out! Next we are going to work on replanting some spider plants. These are the parents of my little spider plant babies (one of whom is recovering from a nasty spill), so they should take off pretty quickly in their new homes.

One big highlight of yesterday was seeing Miss B. M. out at Williams. The drive was an adventure (both to Williams and from it), but I made it around safely and I had a great time seeing him. He gave me this magazine he had found in NYC that had some very interesting ads. Hilarious. I may have been able to extract a promise from him to visit more frequently. That'd be great!

I think that I am going to fly home on Monday. I've found some one-way flights which are somewhat reasonable. If I didn't have a ton of stuff to do back in Boston, I'd probably just stay for a few more days, but duty calls!

Friday, May 06, 2005

Every Time I Hop in my Car...

something terrible happens. I was driving down I-87, on my way to spend a little quality time with my grandmother. Suddenly, a tire on the tractor-trailer in front of me lets go, and, well, I went right over it rather than veering into someone else's car. Tore out some of the undercarriage, including my radiator. There's a good bit of damage, and they were kind enough to tell me that it won't be fixed until at least Wednesday. Great. At least my insurance will cover most of it. I'll still be out $500 for my deductible AND they'll probably use this as an excuse for raising my rates. We'll see, I guess.

In the end, the important part is that I am uninjured. I'm a little bummed about my car (I mean, I've only got 14,000 miles on it), but that is definitely secondary to my well-being. Plus I made it up to see my grandmother, and she's pretty excited to have me here. She's even got a list of chores for me! It's nice to spend Mother's Day with family, too.

That's about it. I did make it to the gym today, even though I was super sore from not sleeping enough and playing tennis yesterday with V. Since I tend to carry stress in my neck, right between my shoulder blades, I'm gonna have a great time tomorrow!

Thursday, May 05, 2005

It's be 10 hours and 4 whole days

since I last updated my 'blog. I've been really busy with all kinda of other random stuff. But this isn't really an excuse. I'll try to spell out some of the better highlights.

  1. Monday was An. H. 's defense. After all was said and done, we went to T.G.'s apartment to drown our sorrows about his leaving and his stress in a river of gin. Rumor has it that I had a few drinks too many, prompting a drunken text message to my Senate Contact at 1 in the morning. Delightful!
  2. Tuesday I had someone practice teach for me, giving me extra time to metabolize away the remaining gin in my system and to prepare my JuviTop talk. The talk itself was so boring that I drove some people from the room, and we had to postpone for a week. At least I didn't shame myself too terribly.
  3. Wednesday was a quite good day. I talked with some people about things that had been on my mind. I had lunch with my friend R.T.. I sold some stocks on which I took a loss because of Vanguard's accounting, but for which in my mind I took a gain, since if I begin counting from when I started trading, then my statement is correct. I found a paper online which contained a key result which I had conjectured and which I needed to prove my result. I met with my advisor (always a trip. He is outrageously funny). Then, best of all, I had a really nice dinner with my Senate Contact out in Dedham and hung out with him for the evening. Such a good time.
I'm going to Germany for a bit in June. That should be fun, since I'm going to see a lot of my math friends, including the awesome Notre Dame kids, there. The conference center is also apparently beautiful, so it should be a really good time all around. If anyone wants postcards or anything, please make sure to let me know. Even better? Maybe you should comment on my `blog...

Tomorrow I'm going out to upstate NY to spend the weekend with my Grandma. On the way, I'm going to have lunch with my friend B.M. (who's birthday is today. Happy Birthday, girl!). I'll be leaving Cambridge pretty damn early to make it out there in a timely manner, but that's ok. I'll survive! The really tough part will be getting up even earlier to make it to the gym tomorrow before heading out. I'm really getting back into the swing of things with that. I guess that means that I shouldn't get TOO insanely drunk tonight...