Uncooperative Crickets

Skye and I started watching Battlestar Galactica last night. She likes it! I think that Dexter must have switched something on in her brain, so that she now can really appreciate good television shows.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating food with other people.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 11:57 AM 0 comments

Olivia the cat has changed—she has suddenly become more affectionate. She actually spent 45 minutes purring in my lap today. I initially thought that this may have been because I started taking over some of the food duties (We started putting the food up in her kitty condo, since we do not want Baby Awesome to be crawling around and eating cat food. Since I have a good foot of height on Skye, it is natural that I start taking over these duties). However, Skye has reported the same thing. This leads me to believe one of three things:

1. Olivia can sense that a baby is coming, and is sucking up to us in an attempt to remind us not to forget about her once the baby arrives.
   
2. Olivia is now completely an adult. She is now 1.5 years old, so maybe something that naturally clicked.
   
3. She has a sinister plan, and is lulling us into complacency.
   

Frankly, I'll be happy if either of first two prove true, and disappointed it ends up being the third.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 2:56 PM 0 comments

I was able to mostly fix my car. I haven't figured out how to remove the 60 pound battery out of a narrow space, but that is a project for later. Instead, I just re-worked the wiring so that the car runs on 72 volts instead of 80 volts. It doesn't go as fast now, but it works.

The semester is beginning to wrap up. I have all of my exams written, and I have only one more lecture in one of my two classes (the rest of the days will be review activities and a midterm). I'll need to figure some stuff out for my other class, but something just fell into my lap yesterday, so I should be fine.

Things I saw on the side of the road while running: a bed, a television, and some sort of an animal bone on the running trail.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 4:21 PM 0 comments

My electric car broke down on the way to work. I pulled over to see what was wrong, and I eventually found that one of the batteries had become disconnected. When I tried to reconnect it, I noticed that the terminal was gone. It had completely melted. I'm going to have to buy a new battery.

A special thanks to the nice man who picked me up and drove me to work. He was much kinder than he needed to be.

Finally, a special video from a Tea Party held in my own home town. I am proud of my people, and the speaker in this video demonstrates why.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 3:28 PM 0 comments

I'm thinking that I might go back to "run 5 miles every other day, and leave the car overnight." It is a bit of a pain to go through all of this.

We had a busy day of wills, volunteering, and going to a "holistic birth mother" meeting. The meeting was okay, but I was mostly annoyed. It seems like some people were really down on the local hospital for their birthing practices, and they were taking it out on the hospital representative.

Now, I am not crazy about the hospital birthing practices. This is why Skye and I are planning a home birth. However, it seems to me like some of the people at the meeting had an over-inflated sense of entitlement. They had many options: they could have done a home birth, they could have gone to a birthing center in the region, or they could have gone to the hospital. None of these options are perfect. I think that these people really wanted to go to a birthing center; the drawback is that the nearest one is an hour away.

Fine. I do not blame you for not wanting to drive an hour. And you probably had reasons for not doing a home birth. Fine. The hospital may have been your favorite option. But do not get mad at the hospital representative for not being the perfect choice. You are choosing to live outside of a major metropolitan area, and it is unreasonable to assume that you deserve to have every amenity that you want. Go ahead and request this from the hospital, but do not be mad when they do not provide before a lot of people do.

I actually have more sympathy for the person than I am letting on; I do think that there may be a little bit of bait-and-switch going on at the hospital. They claim to be very "holistic birth" friendly, but I do not think they are. However, I do feel like they were mostly upfront about the situation. They told us that there are very few restrictions on practices like water births, but they also told us that the doctor will have a lot of say in what actually happens. AND they told us that we will have whatever doctor is on-call, not necessarily the doctor we signed up for. The message could have been clearer, but there were definitely clues.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 12:22 PM 0 comments

Skye has been on a Dexter tear. She loves it. She normally likes to watch one episode of a series per month,^† but she was watching up to four episodes at a time. It was impressive.

I have little to report except that I spent all Friday and Saturday grading. The grading is done...for now.

In other news: It looks like I get to teach two sections of my favorite class ever: abstract algebra! It also looks like these might be my only two classes, thanks to a nice "parental leave" policy at our school (and a great department chair who is bending over backwards to make sure that I get it after I dropped the ball on it).


^† This may be a slight exaggeration.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 4:20 PM 2 comments

Mano posted a great Daily Show clip about Fox News. I think that it is worth watching the whole thing.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
For Fox Sake!
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 11:50 AM 0 comments

I'm planning on changing up my running schedule. I had previously driven in on Monday morning, run home Monday evening. Run in on Tuesday morning, drive home on Tuesday night. Repeat for Wednesday and Thursday, drive both ways on Friday. Alter schedule according to weather.

This was nice, because it gave an easy 20 miles of running (5 miles per day). It also took minimal time; it takes me about 15 minutes to drive, about 35 minutes to run, so I get a 5 mile run for only the cost of 20 minutes. Also, the logistics of clothing were easy—when I drove, I just needed to bring an extra pair of clothing, keep it in my office all day, and bring it to the locker room right before I ran home.

The main draw back was that I would leave my car overnight at work twice per week. I didn't like this, so I came up with a new plan:

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: run to work, and run back. Tuesdays and Thursdays: drive to work, drive back. Alter schedule according to the weather. Now I get 30 miles of running in (40, if I run on either Tuesday or Thursday) and I don't have to leave my car at work overnight.

The catch is: clothing logistics. Here is roughly what I need to do, starting with the assumption that I have already left a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a hat at school.

1. Drive in on, say, Tuesday.
   
   
   
   1. Wear work clothing, except running pants instead of jeans and other shoes instead of work shoes.
      
   2. Bring an extra shirt, undershirt, underwear, socks.
      
   3. Get to the office, change into jeans and work shoes.
      
   4. Work all day.
      
   5. Change into running pants and other shoes; leave jeans and work shoes at office.
      
   6. Bring shirt, undershirt, underwear, and socks to locker room before leaving for home.
      
   7. Get any dirty laundry that is in locker from day before.
      
   8. Drive home.
      
   
   
2. Run to work on Wednesday.
   
   
   
   1. Wear running gear, including running pants and running shoes.
      
   2. Run to locker room.
      
   3. Shower.
      
   4. Change into clean shirt, undershirt, underwear, and socks left the previous day.
      
   5. Keep running pants and running shoes on.
      
   6. Wear hat and jacket that are already at locker.
      
   7. Go to office.
      
   8. Change into jeans and work shoes.
      
   9. Work all day.
      
   10. Change into running pants, running shoes, hat and jacket.
       
   11. Go to locker room.
       
   12. Change out of hat and jacket. Leave them in locker.
       
   13. Change into running shirt.
       
   14. Leave dirty laundry in locker.
       
   15. Run home.
       
   
   
3. Repeat.
   

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 10:24 AM 2 comments

I was looking forward to Halloween. After the first seven doorbell rings, I was less excited.

I am getting caught up on life. In particular, I replaced the battery caps on my electric cars. My electric car needs to be filled with water every month or so. The company that converted my car put on quick release battery caps. This is a nice idea, except they were put on in a way that I had to disconnect the batteries in order to refill the water. This is annoying.

Thankfully, Johnson Controls (the battery maker) was kind enough to send me the original battery caps for free. Thank you, Johnson Controls.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 5:25 PM 0 comments