My first haiku.. I’m sure I have plenty to learn 
blinded by the night
drifting beneath windy skies
alone in the dark
EDIT: For those wondering, the picture is actually from a fireworks show and the breeze died down so they were setting off fireworks into the smoke from the previous ones… was a really wild sky..
I caffeinated myself to a whole new level of jittery goodness with the intent of rocking out and producing some of the most awe inspiring (bordering on mediocrity i imagine) lesson plans ever conceived by a less than enthused student..
..and go me on finishing most of my assignment (translation, 4 of 6 complete). Had I checked my e-mail prior to starting I would have seen that the due date was pushed back by a week. oh well. I guess i’ll be sleep deprived tomorrow regardless (i wonder how long it will take for this dang energy drink to wear off… 
)
..d
There have been a few odd things around here this weekend that I figured I would share. I’ll start with last night..
We’re sitting around watching Raiders (yes, Indiana Jones 1) and heard this odd noise outside. It sounded like what would happen if you smashed two metal garbage cans together. It was windy and raining, so I didn’t think much of it. My wife was curious, so I got up to look in the back yard for something… nothing there. Went out to the front of the house to look out on the street to see if anything looked out of place. Still nothing.. We were heading out to run some errands today and when I got in my car and looked across the street in the daylight, our neighbors car looks like it was rammed from behind last night (thus explaining the noise). By rammed, I mean RAMMED. I’m going to guess the car will be deemed totaled. Looks like the axle on the back wheels is bent to hell, and well, the whole car just looks awful. The worst part is that the people across the street look to be out of town.. should be a lovely surprise when they get home.
What makes this an exercise in stupidity is that I only took one minute from “noise” to looking out the front door, which means the car that plowed into the one that was parked made a very quick getaway. The only explanation we can think of is that the driver was drunk enough that leaving was the best option.. this shit angers me. Oh well…
I tend to think of myself as extremely intolerant of stupidity and stpuid actions. If you can’t stand up straight, don’t drive your car. If your ankle hurts, don’t run a marathon, etc.. things that seem to break a little thing called common sense. But there are people out there who consider certain things as “common to the senses of all”.. like lighting your hair on fire or punching a brick wall because it looked at you funny (you laugh, but secretly you know someone like this).. oh well. I guess my common sense just tells me to not do really dumb things, and to do whatever it takes to avoid the stupid things of the masses. Never underestimate the power of stupidity in masses…
..d
I spent a great deal of time writing through why I never actually succeeded in putting up a semi-successful blog (or for that matter, any kind of usable website), and the biggest problem I always had was not a lack of desire, but a lack of direction. My “About” page goes into detail on where the direction went and how I would lose interest in the past. With everything (more or less) in place, I can finally look forward while my interest is still piqued.
I started my search for something more.. ideas to write about, motivations for taking that unique picture, anything! I’ve existed in a creatively-starved state for too long and the frustration that comes from my apparent non-expression is reaching a boiling point. To add insult to injury, searching for blogs (really it’s more of a blog community that I was looking for, but read on) is unnecessarily difficult. I found some great sites that I wanted to participate on which were “Invite Only”, and then found not much else. I wondered how my wife was able so many great outlets for her creativity and emotions, and my repeated attempts to get “the answer” from her (she never answered 42… how sad) resulted in me just back where I started… with nothing.
So, today I decided to find the answer to this creative funk. I think I have found a few outlets for my rampant mind. The first site I will start contributing to is called Sunday Scribblings. This site is a collection of bloggers who write weekly on a prompt that is given by the website maintainers. The next site I want to try and contribute to is One Deep Breath. This site is dedicated to poetry (specifically, haiku) writing from the blogosphere. A third site that I am not sure I’ll have much for but will try is the Self Portrait Challenge. This is a photoblog that takes submissions on a monthly basis that are, yes you guessed it, self portraits.
I’m sure I will find more, but for now, if I can at least START, then it’ll all be good
..d
Just a quick note — I am going through my old blogs (yes, that is plural!) and pulling out the posts that I think are best suited for this new *non-lame* direction I am taking. Look for a category called “Old School” as well as the archive to start showing months that are very much in the past.
Also pardon the large degree of variability in the blog today. I’ve been messing around with many things (mostly plugins) and am having limited to zero success on things that, atleast in my mind, are simple.
..fm
Saw this in my morning read of my usual websites.. with a title like this, you can’t just gloss over and keep on.. keep on truckin’..
Flight of the Pole Dancer, on the Popular Science Blog.
..fm
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EDIT: Since we’re talking about physics, figured I’d post something that combines two great things: music and fire.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/v/HpovwbPGEoo[/video]
With such an ambiguous title, one has to elaborate. Am I thanking Sir William Wallace, the scottish knight (I just read this, so I’m not sure I believe it yet) from the 12th century, and later glorified by Mr. Melibu himself? No.. Am I thanking Mike Wallace, one of the many slowly decaying folks on 60 minutes? Probably not..
No, today my thanks goes to you, Lew Wallace!
Lew Wallace?
A short recap for those of you (including myself) who aren’t as familiar with their American historical figures: apparently Mr. Wallace was a lawyer, governor, general in the civil war, and the author of Ben-Hur. Boy do I feel educated now!
No, I’m not thanking Lew for a book that gave rise to a great piece of cinematography or thanking him for a “job well done” during the war. I’m thanking Lew Wallace for his invention of the snooze button.
That lovely/hated button that we all love so dearly at 5am when it’s just too cold and dark to think about anything but moving a limb far enough to depress Lew’s greatest achievement (all you civil war buffs and history junkies can hum and haw all you like, but you know you love the sweet sweet relief of nine more minutes of half-asleep bliss!)
In my searches for the origin of the snooze button, I encountered some other interesting facts: the snooze button pre-dates the electric alarm clock. I have a real hard time understanding this one, as in my logical mind.. well.. you need the clock to snooze, right? I guess in the old days you could just stick your finger in the way of the hammer smacking the bell.. and maybe a few bandaids!
So, Mr. Lew Wallace, American statesman, author, and inventor of the most beloved and despised button of all time… Thank You!
..fm
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Some links for you to read, enjoy, and pick my story apart with (and yes, I am ashamed that I used Wikipedia.. ugh!)
http://www.thebluesmokeband.com/alarm.clocks.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Wallace
http://elgoosopimpo.blogspot.com/2005/04/snooze-button-is-devil.html
http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2004/com04/sourcearts/article17.rtf