In less than a week I will truly experience the North for the first time ever. I'll be travelling to Madison to assess whether their astronomy graduate school is worthy of my enrollment, and of course, I've already taken measures to screw up my plans. It all began when I booked my flight with Travelocity. I was told to fly in on Thursday and fly out on Sunday, but for some reason, ever since I first talked on the phone with my contact there, I had it in my head that I was to leave on Tuesday. I intended to check back on the email before confiming my tickets, but Travelocity hit me with about dozen pages where I had to select what food I want to eat and what seat I want to sit in, and by the end of it I was so dizzy I just clicked on the confirm button. Thirty seconds later I realized I just made my trip for Thursday to Tuesday.
I emailed them, and for some reason it took them 2 days to respond with an e-mail telling me to call them. I called them and then my cell phone died while I was waiting on hold. Not having a land line, I ended up having to put off the phone call until later. Yesterday I finally talked to a man (who apparently used to drive to Austin for little league soccer, and whose great-grandfather died in the coal mines of Madison) at Travelocity who told me I was screwed basically. And then I get an e-mail from the guy at UW, and he wants to have dinner with me on Thursday night, but I made my flight such that I don't get there until after 11pm. Everything will probably work out, though I may have to miss more class than necessary, and I hope to have a smashingly good time up there.
This is also an appropriate time to mention a little project of mine currently in development which I will tenatively call Project Badger Kit. If anyone would like to try and guess what this project is, I wouldn't mind facilitating the discussion. I just received good news from the board on Friday and the project is definitely green-lighted and will be underway no later than the first week of March.
Tonight was my long-time friend Angela Huddleston's birthday. Even though we both live in Austin, I don't often see her, though I see her much more often than most people from Shreveport who are currently living here.
Well, I decided it would be nice to go to her birthday dinner tonight at the Macaroni Grill. It was all going well, I was making my usual idiotic conversation, and then bang! I hit a tree as I'm backing out of my parking space. Well I don't see a tree out my rear view mirror, and so I realize it must be a car. I'm thinking about driving off after a quick inspection of our respective bumpers when I realize what I've hit is Angela's car. Being like a rock, my Chevy of course sustained no damage, but her bumper was a little crunched and scraped. This is the same car that exactly three years ago was my only means of transport back to Shreveport for events such as my grandmother's birthday (Feb. 18) and Shreveport Mardi Gras.
Combined with the fact that I gave nothing to Angela in the way of present for her birthday, this must mean I have given her the all time worst birthday present of her life. Her boyfriend even gave us party favors (alcohol and chocolate) at dinner! So I'm definitely well into the negative.
Anyway, if Angela lets me, I might start hanging out more with her and her friends. They pretty cool, and more interesting to talk to than most people, and some of them even seem to enjoy talking to me.
I promised you more on this story, and I've only held out on telling it because of the somewhat anti-climactic sad ending. Soon after I posted the first part of the story, I received an instant message from the quiz bowl team captain which I thought was a joke:
CaptQBCutie: roby wants his chocolates back! what am i going to tell him?
This was not a very funny joke as I had slowly been savoring the chocolates at the rate of about one every few hours (and I continued even after receiving this message). The next evening I get a frantic e-mail from the captain, claiming that the original owner of the chocolates (Roby) wants them back for real, and also wants the golden bag and greeting card. Roby had apparently somehow looked up what organization meets in the room he left his chocolates in, and e-mailed the contact of that organization (our captain). I have tried to reproduce his quest, and the only viable method I have found is to google "bur 232 club," the name of the room alone (bur 232) is not sufficient.
Roby however was apparently not satisfied with just e-mailing our captain. He proceeded to use the information on the quiz bowl website to find out where she lives and then deliver a hand-written note to her door. We can only imagine how much he desired to once again possess the chocolates that Miss Nguyen had so thoughtfully given him. I brought what remained of the chocolates to the next quiz bowl practice, and our captian put them in the lost and found of the building. Maybe Roby will find them, but I doubt it.
(In the prequel to this post I also talked about my "arch-enemy." Many people have asked me who this is, and I told them. This is in the context of this discussion on the nature of arch-enemies, arch-nemeses, and more. If I find this discussion, which I suspect is online somewhere) I will update this entry, but for now know that this arch-enemy is about as significant to me as Egghead or Louis the Lilac was to Batman.)
I was planning on driving home to Shreveport today, a 6 hour journey from Austin. Last Sunday however, I discovered my good friend Amber was going to be home for medical school interviews Monday through Wednesday. I figure I can leave after class Tuesday (around 6pm) and get in town just in time for the usual beginning time of night activities with her and Daniel. Then I could go to bed at a usual time and maybe even make it back to Austin for my 3pm class, or at least 7pm ultimate practice.
Then, out of nowhere I was about to careen into three lanes of mud in a construction site in Buffalo, TX and I had no choice but to swerve into a concrete barrier. Luckily, one of those hollow orange barrels got in the way (it was pretty squished) and saved my car from any cosmetic damage. However, I had actually driven up onto the concrete barrier and my front end was scraped up against it. Luckily, 2 minutes later a tow truck came by and pulled me out and I was soon back on my way to Shreveport. The rest of the night was lots of fun (except for driving in cold rain for 6 hours straight), and Amber and I even managed to hold back the juggernaut of Mariokart, Daniel Do, and in fact beating him more than ever.
But then the next day I had to take the car into the shop and it was there all day, and I didn't end up leaving town until 8pm. Other lowlights include the smell of the house that half of Amber's family lives in (no, her parents aren't divorced, the family is just so big they need two houses). Her sister hasn't changed the cat litter box since Christmas, and even then it was bad (I still can't believe I watched a whole movie under those oppressive odors).
I was going to try to photograph the site of my off-road experience on the way back to Austin, but when I was driving back through Buffalo, there was a big diesel rig in the exact same predicament as I had been in in the very same spot. So take that you critics of my driving!
In spite of the fact that I have no clean bowls (which means I can no longer consume cereal and milk), I feel it necessary to proclaim to the world my success. I have at this time been accepted to two graduate schools: UCLA and Univeristy of Wisconsin at Madison. I am very excited about both of these places because there are cool people in both locations and I very much look forward to visiting. Even if I don't get into schools that are dubiously higher on my list (e.g., Caltech) I now know I have guaranteed money starting in the fall, and that in 5 years you will have to call me Dr. Trent.
On a side note, I was watching the Austin Music Network just a few minutes ago when a song I happen to particularly like came on. As I was watching the video, I quickly realized that the rooftop shots of the band performing the song were filmed on top of my home! Apparently Eliza Wren and her band somehow got onto the roof of RLM (UT's 14-story physics/astronomy/math building) to film the video for "Roosevelt." I am investigating potential phys/astro/math connections, but have found nothing yet.
(Oh, and if you think the drama revolving around the choclates is over, there is so much more to tell . . . )
So maybe the title equation isn't exactly true in all samples of Austin kids, but tonight it clearly governed the Travis concert. Four men traveled from Scotland (and one from England, Rick Wakeman's own son!!!) to Austin, TX, and beginng around 9:30 PM CST proceed to rock the genitalia off of both the male and female members of the crowd. How do they respond? Mosh? Headbanging? Even a little bit of jumping around? No. They just stand there, at most singing along. This reminded me a lot of when I attended an amazing Sheryl Crow concert in Tucson, AZ, and the people around me (I was in the third row) stood with their arms crossed as Ms. Crow unleashed some of the most rocking tunes of the decade upon them.
To their credit, the Austin kids (who to be fair are just the rich ones, most of my friends didn't go because the show was over $30) did start to jump around after Travis' frontman started jumping on stage during the encore performance of "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" As any fan knows, this is not even one of the more rocking tunes in Travis' arsenal. Earlier attempts by the guitarist to rile the crowd to such excitement by climbing on top of some speakers that almost fell over had failed. Rich Austin kids, stop listening to Spoon and Two Guy Trio and learn how to ROCK! If you don't do it now, I suspect that you will regret it when you are older.
This is also the first time I really got quality photos of an indoor concert, enjoy.
Last night I got all excited about tonight's prospects when I heard the late night VJs on Austin Music Network talking about all the fun things to be done in Austin on Groundhog Night. These included a free show at one of my favorite venues by an artist I have recently found kinda listenable and cool (David Garza) and also a discount showing of Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation showcase (an annual event) at the locally owned movie theatre/restaurant. I'd never seen either of these things before and I knew I could get someone to go with me. So I've made several calls, and the last person I call answers her phone but she tells me that she's going to the David Garza show with my ARCH ENEMY!!!! Also, she has seen Spike and Mike's thing before and didn't want to go. Also, now I know that my arch-enemy is also a David Garza fan, so I will have to abandon that musical interest (which won't be very hard actually).
Thwarted, I throw my clothes in the dryer and limp along to quiz bowl practice. After an hour or so of practicing (I showed up late) we pack up and start to leave. But wait! What's that golden package I behold underneath the table!!!! It's a box of Godiva chocolates and it's over half full!!! The remaining quiz bowlers begin to ravenously devour the sweet morsels, and as I peruse the other contents of the golden package I come across a card:
front: So Glad We're Family
No Matter how busy our lives get . . .
inside: . . . you'll always be someone who means so much to me.
Have a Wonderful Holiday
I will miss you this winter Holiday Roby, I'm sure Santa will forget the naughty things you've done!
Love, Chan Nguyen
We were eating Christmas chocolates! This is February! But since they tasted good we finished the chocolate we were currently chewing, and I now possess the remaining ~15 sweets. This is the best thing I have ever discovered in a classroom. Ever.
Today I decided that I would try to go to the grocery store before mass instead of my usual trip after. I thought the Superbowl had already begun, but I never actually checked as I was too engrossed by the QE marathon. I got to the store at the peak of the pre-game shopping madness. I circled for abotu ten minutes before abandoning my plan and instead returning a book to a friend. After that though I tried again, thinking surely the game must have started by now (I now know it hadn't) and after circleing for another 10 minutes I found a spot. Sweet. As I walk up to the store I realize there are no shopping carts left at the entrance, so I grabbed one of those little baskets and decided to only grab the essentials. I fit about 50 pounds of stuff into the little basket, and just barely made it under the 20 item limit. After mass though I decide I really do need milk (they were out earlier) so I return to grab that and some much needed thin chips. Well the thin chips were still out, but I finally got my 2% milk. And who should I find in the milk section but Paul Fess! He's a friend from high school that was quite talented at playing blues guitar. He always seemed like he never had his stuff together after high school (the last time I talked to him I think he was doing telemarketing), but he's apparently graduating from the great University of Texas at Austin in May, just like me! Way to go Paul!