Tonight I write to remember. I want to have this post saved and printed out in a huge font so that someday, when my eyesight is poor, I can read it and remember this day. I’ll do this, not because anything momentous happened, but precisely because nothing did. No doubt when I reach middle age, or perhaps retirement, like so many others, I’ll wish I was 19 again, or that I’d just turned 21, because those were the good old days. That was back when I _____, chased women, drove a fast car, did drugs in trendy clubs, fill in the blank. I guess I figure I’ll still have the same bizarre yet vivid imagination that I have right now, but much poorer memory.

I did nothing of consequence today. My day at work was spent playing with scatter diagrams, which made me feel like a little kid playing connect the dots, but with serious grown up faces and a salary. I ate at my desk, because I don’t take lunch breaks anymore, and I rode the train home, sampling the fine mix of Dallas’ finest odors and personalities. I had eaten some pasta with this garlic and something strong sauce for lunch, so I fit right in.

When I got home I decided to work out, despite my strong inclination not to, to keep from breaking such a young habit. After lifting weights and running about two miles, I smoked a cigarette and bought some pants. Now I’m sitting here being multi-cultural, eating my chips and salsa with stir-fry and rice. Hooray! On a positive note, my girlfriend has still not discovered that she’s too good for me. I’ve got my fingers crossed, hoping she never does.

That’s it! No drugs, sex, and very little rock and roll. A smoke and a shopping spree. Take heart, me you old fart, your life never was an MTV movie.

Last night was facinating. After work, I worked out despite my desire not to, which was good, and to my great pleasure I’m slowly increasing the distance I run and the weight I lift. It always seems to me that the first couple weeks getting back into exercise are the most rewarding. I always seem to have deteriorated substantially, and start out not being able to lift much of anything, and with very little endurance. Within a week or two, I can notice significant improvement, and I think it’s just that I’m getting back to where I used to be more quickly than I can build upon it. At least it’s a built in encouragement during the first few weeks when it’s not yet a habit. Then by the time it’s routine, it doesn’t matter as much that you don’t add weight or laps very often.

When I got done with that I headed to Guitar Center and picked up some potentiometers, which are variable resistors basically. They’re essentially a volume control knob, though they can be used to control other things, like tone. Anyway, I got home and rummaged through my car to find all the electronics equipment I had used in my course this summer. I found my Leatherman, which made me very happy by the way. So I plugged my guitar in before I started, just to see if it was working, or at least making noise. When my mother took it to the store that morning, they said it made noise, the tone knobs just needed replacing.

Anyway, it made not a sound, so I loosened the strings up and took the whole thing apart. I made a mess de-soldering the volume potentiometer, thinking that would surely be part of the problem, thinking that perhaps the connection was bad, but had been working temporarily while at the store. I carefully trimmed the ends of the wires and peeled back the insulation to make sure the connection would have clean wire touching, I used flux, and I was meticulous. I put it back together again, tightened up the strings, and plugged it in. Nothing. So I throw it back in its case, grab the amp, cord, and tuner, and threw it all in my car. The Guitar Center would be open for another 17 minutes, and it takes about 8 minutes to get there. So I tear into the store, check my stuff in, and tell them my problem. I wanted to test my guitar once more to see if maybe my amp was bad, or who knows, I just wanted them to look at it and come up with a magic answer. I was tired of looking at an expensive decoration, I wanted my guitar’s soul back.

So I ran up to the cheapest amp I could find, afraid that my soldering job, as careful as I was, might somehow blow the amp. I’m a Computer Science Engineering major, I know about electricity. I’ve taken as many classes on circuits and electronics as most Electrical Engineers have in their junior year. The guitar is a passive device, essentially, and there’s NOTHING I could have done to hurt their amps. I could have heated up myself a warm bowl of solder and poured it all over the internal parts of my guitar with a silly grin on my face, plugged it into their most sensitive amp, and it would have made no sound, and probably have no effect on the amp.. So I found the cheapest looking amp afraid that my soldering job might somehow blow the amp. I swear I’m retarded.

I plugged it in, and no sound came out, so I went over to the chick at the parts counter with a despondent countenance, and asked if they did maintenance. She said no, but that a previous employee now did repairs, and she would give me his business card. She asked what needed fixing, and I told her I had no idea, gave her the story of what I had done and the results. I asked what she thought could possibly be wrong, and she asked if I had tried any other cords. I didn’t have any other cords, so she said we might as well test it once more before I went through the effort of getting a repairman. With a new cord, it sounded fine. I had just bought that cord. It had never occurred to me that a newly purchased piece of wire might not conduct electricity. I had wasted an evening, yet I was overjoyed to shell out another $10 for a new cord which she tested for me before I bought it. I couldn’t have been happier. My guitar is back, and I kissed it goodnight as I tucked it in last night, into its padded case.

This morning I was very pleased to find a present I left for myself. Occasionally when I wear a dress shirt for only a few hours, I just hang it up rather than going through the trouble of washing it. Apparently I haven’t worn this black shirt for a while, and that’s where I had left my $2 Old Navy sunglasses, the ones I’m so proud of. That started the morning off just right.

When I stepped outside, I was shocked, so much so that I had to run back in and tell someone! It was cold! It was so cold I wouldn’t have worn a short sleeved shirt even if I could have, and that’s cold! It was beautiful, all dark and quiet, and I felt wonderful. The morning reached its highest point while I was driving along 75. The sunrise this morning was just about the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. It seemed all the more lovely realizing that everyone else was probably staring at the bumper in front of them, pissed that they were in traffic. I thanked God for showing off this morning, and I really think He was, it was gorgeous.

You know what makes me happy? Bananas. They taste great, they’re breakfast food, and let me tell you I love breakfast food, but they also go great with a million desserts. They’re so cheap that sometimes I’m not sure if the grocery store is charging me for the bananas or the little plastic sacks I put them in. Like a lot of fruit, they’re perfectly packaged, won’t make a mess before you open them, and they just look cool! I’m hyper because I bought a Starbucks coffee on the way to work, and seriously, have you not been reading what I’ve been saying? This day has been
awesome, and I haven’t even gotten to the part where I meet up with the most beautiful woman alive!

Here’s a sample of my current assignment at work. Somebody who came before me wrote a document describing what I’m now needing to describe, so I’m supposed to update the document to reflect the changes that have taken place in the last year. This is a small portion: “Although there are limited numbers of growth rate value have to enter the system by the regional planner, the operational group should be the person to enter these data.” Now I understand that we don’t all have to be English majors, but help me out here! I’m like a lonely guy getting frustrated trying to pick up chicks in a bar, I don’t know what’s single and what’s not! I’m also left curious as to who the subject is, and what exactly is going on. Also giving me cause to pause and wonder is this sentence: “There are some other user may provide the growth factor has not be fully identified yet.” If you think there was context to help interpret that one, you’re wrong.

Here’s another interesting bit: “The system and system administrator must get the database ready and monitor the database integrity.” Now this one is grammatically correct. This is also apparently an effort on behalf of the previous author to anthropomorphize a computer system to add life to an otherwise dry technical work. Apparently when the
database needs to be made ready, both the system administrator and the system itself must roll up their sleeves and put their heads together, working in unison to achieve their mutual goals. I wonder if the system gets paid for its hard work. So I guess I got my wish, I’m being paid to write, sort of. I wonder if they’d appreciate my desire to be the literary critic of the IT department.

- Adapted from a letter to the most beautiful woman alive. Loosley based on actual events. No animals were harmed during production except for the turkey consumed by the author while writing.

“When I say goodbye to Cynthia Breazeal [scientist at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory], she tells me I should go to Japan, where robots are made to look more life-like, and people are less worried about them usurping human faculties. At Waseda University in Tokyo, she says, there is a robot that is truly amazing: it plays the flute. She doesn’t seem to realize that a French inventor built just such a machine, over 250 years ago.” –Introduction to Edison’s Eve

It’s funny to be confronted with a concept that completely redefines your perception of the world you live in. To think that history isn’t really what you thought it was can be an exceedingly intimidating idea. I think most of us suffer from the delusion that somewhere in the not too distant past, human beings got smart. They weren’t smart before that, they picked their teeth with Bowie knives, or came up with stupid ideas about fanciful creatures guarding the ends of the earth. Now we’re much more scientific. We don’t guess, we test and we know.

So why is there such evidence that contradicts us? Why are there pyramids and great stone walls and mysteries we’ve given up trying to understand, all accomplished back when we assume people were gathering berries for a living? The truth is we’re not any smarter, in fact, there’s evidence to the contrary. We build upon the discoveries of those who came before us, but do we innovate and invent and create like they did? Is the computer programmer smarter than the one who created the first computer? Is there a point to asking these questions?

I’m finally typing again on my laptop, which makes me happy. I had forgotten what a connection I had made with this machine, though it was created by the evil HP demons, and I do feel rather geeky thinking I have an attachment to a computer. I’ve missed writing my thoughts down while on the train, since the thing jerks back and forth so much it blurs my handwriting. The seats are also so cramped I have no room for my laptop unless I sit in the seats that are supposed to be made available to the elderly and handicapped. I’ve never seen either at 7 in the morning, so I avail myself of their seats all the time now. Without my laptop to play music and write on, I’ve been sleeping almost every time I get on the train, developing one of the strangest sleep related patterns I’ve ever come across, and that is the synchronous wake up.

I’ve observed this occurrence before when riding the bus system of Phoenix back before I came to college. Regardless of how bad the guy next to me smelled, or how large he was, or loud, and believe me it was always one of these things if not a combination, despite this I was always able to go right to sleep within 10 minutes of sitting down. Part of this was because my poor sleeping habits started way back then, and if anything I was even more foolish back then. It’s also a self perpetuating cycle, since once you find out you can get sleep on your commute, you factor it in to your routine. Anyway, I would then sleep soundly with my face pressed against the far from sanitary window, only rarely waking for a quick moment to see a new companion taking the place of the last one. I would then immediately close my eyes again and block the thought of them.

You see I rode the number 3, one of the longer routes in Phoenix at the time to my knowledge. I rode it from very close to my house all the way downtown, and it usually took about 90 minutes. This was the same bus line my father had ridden not long before me, in the years when he still worked for APS. I would occasionally hear him tell stories of the interesting characters he came across on this daily adventure, and wonder if they could really all be true. My dad’s description and warning was, “The number three … You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, we must be cautious.”

This wasn’t far off base. One morning I had to wait by the side of the road for about half an hour because the regularly scheduled bus had been held up by a stabbing. This happened fairly far north, which was unusual, but it happened on the number three bus, so it wasn’t utterly shocking. The man later claimed the CIA had implanted a chip in his leg that made him do it. Particularly downtown, it was not uncommon to pick up very shady looking characters, who often couldn’t keep their personal business to themselves for the duration of their trip. I remember several times the bus driver stopped the bus and joined in the shouting to try and resolve things. I also remember once stopping to pick up passengers, starting to leave, and then stopping very suddenly due to shouts by those looking out the window. Apparently some drunk old vagrant had managed to roll into the street with his head in front of the rear tire of the bus. After a lot of shouting he came to and wandered off again.

The number three ran along Van Buren, the street well known in Phoenix for its evening activities. This included some cheap bars, but primarily prostitution. I never saw the street at night however, so I didn’t understand when girls would make jokes about working on Van Buren. I would respond that I did too, wondering where they worked. They’d just laugh, realizing I was indeed a homeschooler, and therefore clueless. My favorite part about the culture associated with the number three were the large number of mentally retarded passengers that rode it for the first 20 minutes or so that I was on it. The one that most stuck out in my mind would call out in a very loud voice every morning what day it was, what day tomorrow was, what day he got paid on, and sometimes he’d add what yesterday was. I was always in the know on days of the week. The guy who usually sat next to him just continually threw angry glances at the guy in the aisle or the guy in the seat across the aisle, whichever didn’t exist, and made fierce hand gestures and appeared to be picking a fight with his imaginary adversary.

The point is, all this went on around me and entertained me immensely for the first few weeks, but eventually became routine. I therefore slept fabulously through it all, and the funny thing was, I would always wake up about 20-30 seconds before I needed to get off the bus. I don’t know if my body knew how long I could sleep because I’d become familiar with the route, or if it picked up on key sounds like the names of the streets being called out by the driver directly preceding my stop, but whatever it was, it was alarmingly accurate.

Now I do the same thing, with just as little clue as to how it works. I never miss my stop, and I wake up consistently around the same place. This morning was a bit different though, since I’ve been working out I sleep even more soundly. Luckily this time my companion was a mom with two kids, and the little girl, who was absolutely adorable, hit me and woke me up a little bit before I had to get off. That’s the most interesting thing that happens on the train. It costs more so it keeps the colorful characters off, I guess.

I began working out on Tuesday, joining the local community recreational center near my house. I have successfully targeted every muscle in my body, and now fight to suppress the moaning accompanying the aching pain brought on by any movement at all. It’s glorious, and it might just be the motivation I need to quit smoking. This weekend will be a good test to find out.

In other news, I have picked up a cheap book to learn java, and I learned tonight about one of the early inventors who envisioned robotics and artificial life. I read about it in a new book called Edison’s Eve, which I have decided to purchase soon because I verified this piece of information that I found incredible. In the late 1700’s, this French guy Vaucanson created this mechanical duck that mimicked the movement of a duck, ate like a duck, and then secreted what it ate. It had over a thousand moving parts, as many as 400 articulated parts in just the wings, and this device was about the size of a duck. With determination like that, we should have androids that laugh at how simple C3P0 was. Check out the incredible shitting duck here.

Thanks for reading all this stuff, I guess I’ve been holding it all in recently. I think my next trick will be to begin publishing my dream journal in Lesbian Writings, since I thought I was going to put stuff in there, and that never worked out. Please keep writing, I love reading all you guys’ blogs. Take care.