In college, I had a minesweeper habit. I would play until all hours of the night. My friend Hunter called it "Mindsweeper" because it was impossible to have an intelligible conversation with me when I was playing. Then I quit.
Then I went to my new job. It had minesweeper on my new computer. I just had to get it removed. It was interfering with my ability to get tenure.
I made two purchases recently that I am very excited about.
Skye and I bought a Skype phone. That is, we bought a phone that can use Skype without a computer. This fits into my plan to have a phone bill of $5 total each month (compared to $45 through more traditional means). We got it yesterday, and it worked well on our tests last night.
I bought red ink refills to fit into my favorite Parker pens. This has made grading much, much more enjoyable. I enjoy having a nice pen that I can use, and now I can even use it for grading.
I am on a reading binge. I read Got Solar? over the weekend (Skye and I are planning on installing solar into our new house), and I am halfway done with Whatever It Takes, which chronicles a man (Geoffrey Canada) and his attempt to gradually eliminate poverty in Harlem. It seems like it might work, and there is scientific research behind his ideas.
I also started reading Snowcrash, and I will read Ender's Game after that. I am pretty new to science fiction, and these seemed like good places to start.
Sometimes I like to wait two months before posting.
Sorry about the delay, and thanks for all of your concern about my elbow (especially Bad Z). It is fully functional and painless. In fact, it has been for a while - I just haven't been organized. From here on out, I hope to write here regularly again.
I am very, very happy that Obama won. I am also pleased with the way he has started as president-elect; he has been choosing advisors/cabinet members who know how to work with the legislative branch (Daschle, Emmanuel, etc.). Things might get fixed.
I am not so happy about how my Congressional race turned out. My Congressperson, Michele Bachmann, may be the craziest member of Congress (Traficant and Dornan are out, right?). Here is Bachmann on global warming: "[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet. …We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that." I can't wait until 2010.
We move into our new house in a week and a half. We now have a bunch of furniture for it.
