Another week done-ish

Now that we're on the last part of the week I can write something. Not much, mind you, but something never the less. School/work was exceedingly boring this week. Looking for camping stuff (also known as shopping) online for the past two weeks or so anticipating some camping with Atalie is the only thing that was remotely interesting. You'll all be pleased to know that I put that birthday money to good use and then shredded the paper trail (thanks to Sally). Not that it needed to be shredded, it's just fun to shred things now that I finally can. Did you know those things chew up CD's?! I don't think this one was supposed to but it did anyway.

I think the first batch of beer is going to be crap. I just have this feeling that because I followed the packaged directions and not my own that it is going to be pond water. Alcoholic pond water, but pond water nevertheless. I'm sure my friends won't notice... Batch 2 will be properly done (hopefully with a larger brewpot).

End note #1: For those of you that didn't know, today is Google's 9th birthday. Alas, another excuse to eat cake. I fully expect, and I'm sure Brad agrees, that by the time they turn 18 they will have taken over the world as we know it and we'll be eating off of Google subsidiary manufactured plates or something.

End note #2: "Google's" is a typo in the Google-owned Blogger posting text editor. Can they not recognize the proper use of an apostrophe? http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

La Fin du Monde

It was great hearing from everyone back home and abroad yesterday as I am terrible with keeping in touch (my excuse is that I truly am keeping in touch via this blog...). I’ve gotten some great cards in the mail and despite the miniature mailbox that I’ve been assigned they were still in decent shape when I found them. I talked with Mike K for a while and am excited to hear that he and Brad have been talking about coming and visiting me/us sometime in October or early November. Now I just have to think of some stuff we can do…
Last night my friends here at MSU threw a great party for me. I decided to get back to brewing again and we decided to make it the center of the party as my friends were excited to learn how to do it. Derek held the festivities over at his house and my friends went party crazy. They brought a cake, a pie, some gifts, music and some games. It was good fun. Kat gave me this really cool beer mug with the Missouri State logo on it (which she bought earlier that day on the way back from having lunch with Luke and I) and Amanda gave me a bottle of la Fin du Monde, a ridiculously strong Belgian wheat beer brewed in Quebec. We called it a night around 12:30 and Kat drove everyone home- she’s had a rough week and while she probably needed a drink, she didn’t really feel like it.

Anyway, it was a good 24^th. Thanks everybody!

Buffalo River Weekend

This weekend I went down to Arkansas to do some canoing and camping with some friends from school. It was a blast! We hijacked the Departments canoes Friday evening and set up camp around 9:30pm right on the banks of the Buffalo River. After a good campfire we got some sleep under the stars. Saturday morning two of us shuttled a vehicle to our take-out spot while the rest of us broke camp and dried out our wet sleeping bags and tents which resulted from a heavy dew.

We paddled all day and stopped only once for a lunch break. The river was really low so we had to walk the canoes through some of the more shallow rapids. We saw lots of birds along the side of the river (something like 30 heron's) and fish in the pools. We had to paddle a lot because the river was also running really slow and we wanted to get 15 miles done by the end of the day. A large gravel bar along the bank of the river provided a camping spot for Saturday night.

Sunday we woke up to a cold morning and another heavy dew. The bonus was all of the fog in the canyon looked really neat. Breaking camp took a while as we were trying to prolong the inevitable usage of our sore muscles from the previous day of canoing. The day started out overcast with some sprinkles on the river, but around noon that cleared up to a nice sunny afternoon. After paddling the remaining 10 miles to our take out point we enjoyed some nice swimming in the river and tossing the Frisbee around. All our stuff was packed back up into the cars and we headed home!

I really enjoyed the trip and it totally wetted my appetite for more. We can't wait for Atalie to get down here to (hopefully) enjoy it too!

Austin City Limits

Due to Sally's good luck, I was able to go to the popular 3-day music fest that took place this past weekend! Sally had bought two tickets ages ago and invited a friend to visit and attend, but the tickets are expensive, sold out pretty much instantaneously, and originally I wasn't going to be here this long, so I sadly accepted that I would not be able to join them. However, the day before the festivities began, Sally casually told me, "Oh yeah- I won an extra 3 day pass to ACL."

Yah-hooo! :)

Unfortunately I didn't go on Friday because I had to work (although my coworkers saw it fit to leave early and not tell me they were going) and I was feeling worn out after the long work week. So while it was probably good for me to take it easy that night, I missed out on some of the best performers that were playing at ACL: Joss Stone, Kaiser Chiefs, Spoon, The Killers, and Bjork, for example.

Aside of a rocky start (I temporarily messed something up w/ my camera card and got no pictures my first day, and the ACL store was totally out of my size in my first couple choice t-shirts) Saturday and Sunday were a lot of fun, and I'm sure the extra rest Friday night was needed. I was out in the heat and sun for about 8+ hours each day, and you're constant standing or walking. We were definitely sore and tired after the weekend, but it was still time well spent. Of the people I saw, some of my favorites were: Ryan Shaw (what a voice, and just a lot of fun to be in the audience!), Young Love (cool music, even if it felt like being at a high school field trip when I was in the crowd), Blue October (some really awesome loud, heavier rock songs!), and the Little Ones (fun music and the group was just so happy and passionate).

I'm super grateful that I was able to go, although it's back to a regular workweek for me (I worked from 8:30 to 9:45 today- yikes). I've only got about 12 days left now in Austin though, and only 1.5 weekends, so hopefully I'll get some more fun and unique things in during the rest of my stay!

Virus!! Run away!

Last Wednesday evening, Missouri State’s College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CNAS) got blessed with a lovely virus. A laptop initiated it somehow (I don’t know all the details) and things went downhill. The virus exploits computers that have an outdated version of Symantec Anti Virus, downloads 100 files all over the computer and then wreaks havoc. Done with the computers, the virus then spread to the servers which went kaput instantly. Thursday morning, a CNAS-wide email was sent telling people to update their Symantec. Those of us that are mere peons and lack Administrative privileges can’t install updates (or anything else for that matter) and when damage control kicked in Thursday afternoon, every computer that didn’t get updated in the morning got their port shutdown. All of my work is done off of one of those servers and one week later my port is still firewalled.

The best part about this whole ordeal is that the one person in charge of software for CNAS was on vacation the whole week prior. Her sole purpose in life is to prevent this kind of thing from happening and well, she dropped the ball. She is in charge of something like 400 computers, including 2 Geography labs (which had classes cancelled Thursday and Friday) and unfortunately she won’t get fired because the powers at be weren’t inconvenienced at all.

Do your job, software lady.

Epiphany

So, I think I've come to the conclusion as to why I've been moping about the past week. Other than the obvious reason (Atalie leaving), I think it's because I've never lived by myself . Since day one I've been living with either parents or roommates- there's always been someone at home when I get there. (I miss my Brad!! haha)
Going solo is a big change- no body to share your day with, cook dinner with, or just sit around with. It kinda sucks. Maybe I should get a fish.

Annoying

This weekend was almost fun. It involved too much partying Friday night, too much sleep yesterday, and today I’m still really tired and lazy.

It all started when some other Grad student friends and I went out to a pub Friday night to listen to a couple of bands. The first one was WAY too loud for such a small space, but the second one was much better. Yesterday we went bowling which ended up being another late night. Therefore, today I’m really tired and not motivated to do anything, despite the need to do laundry and get groceries. It’s really annoying.