Blog of Billy

Dear Paris,

Stairs suck. Quit having so many. Also, deal with puddles. There are too many when it rains.

Otherwise, thank you for what was quite possibly the best trip I've ever had.

Love,
Billy

Mine detractors may have time on their hands, and cats that do not look wistfully lonely as they wander in after midnight every night, but I, as it turns out, do not. I'm getting really tired of being so busy. Hence, next semester, I am only taking 6 hours, and only then in the mornings. That should make me feel at least as though I have some spare time in the evenings.

The only exception was 3 weekends ago when I decided that I hadn't done enough reading lately to keep up with my own pretentious requirements for myself. I finally found the time to hop through Cannery Row, and the Harry Potter series. I now am counted amongst the ranks of those who know the painful truth: Dumbledore is actually dead. Sorry Kara.

Upcoming: Doug's corner is right around the other corner. You'll be able to look for his comments directly to find his take on life, and commentary on the upcoming Congregationals. There are precious few Holy Saturdays left in this liturgical season, so I hope to see all of you show up for a prayer or two.

Two weeks left until Paris! I'm pretty excited. Hopefull it will keep me younger than my recent half-birthday reminded me I am.

Speak of holidays/holy-days, November 6th-7th marked the 89th anniversary of the storming of the Winter Palace. Bishop's Landing did resonate with round after round of "L'Internationale", and vodka was sipped in memory of the movement too hopeful to be allowed.

Finally, November is upon us, and things, per usual, are starting to fall apart. Good luck keeping up. We're 1/3 the way through. Lots of travelling provides ample opportunity to make poor decisions, and I'm pretty sure we won't get through without crisis. Who knows, it may have already happened.

Walking and talking backwards.

So October has turned out to be far more involved than any month (barring the obvious) has any right to be. I'm seriously scared for post-Halloween.

Happily, though, October hasn't been without its share of positive moments. I've been consistent in my attendance of Holy Saturday Services, as Doug has been kind enough to note in his comments, during each footballing game of the University of Oklahoma's "Sooners." The Texas game was sore disappointing, as we are generally a better second half team than that. Iowa State would have been a glorious victory, were it not made bittersweet by the frailty of mere bone.

"Good Morning" whiskey was shot in honor of Pvt. Matt Steenson, who has gone to the hot hot desert to die. We miss him even now, and rightly anticipate his ghost to come back and sip and cheer as soon as it can.

Patrick and I took some time to reaffirm our various masculinities, as we celebrated the holiday of Hoist by lifting all of his worldly possessions and shlepping them across town. Then was a trip to that cathedral of testosterone, the home improvement store. Not one, but two trips to different stores were necessary to find the proper number of little metallic boxen and sturdy screws (Aluminum is weak...literally) to replace the cracked plastic contraption that wished the ceiling fan in place. In the end, I'm pretty sure the new one isn't going anywhere until someone is ready.

Even, though, with all the grunting and yelling and drinking and scratching, I find myself amazed by the power of good, kind people. Mister Rogers is a personal favorite, and a recent Esquire article on him was met with more than a bit of choked response. I seriously had to quit reading a few times toward the end because I didn't want to start sniffling too loud at work. And to think, this is the man who, with sheer force of goodness, saved PBS. Makes me happy to be in the world.

I got a sentimental heart that beats
but I don't really mind...

Short update. Right now I'm very mad at Fox Pay Per View's coverage of the OU-Middle Tennessee game. If we are already paying $30 a set to watch the game, why should I have to be subjected to the same tired car-lot and pharmaceutical commercials I get when watching over the air? I'm doubly mad that an ad for Car-Max pre-empted coverage of the opening kickoff. There was no chant, no opening hymn to my Saturday Service. Luckily, I'm still coming down after last week's fiasco, so this ought to be a bit easier.

Otherwise, I'm very comfortable living in the buffer area where bad decisions give you immediate benefit, but before consequences must be faced. Will the other shoe fall? Probably, but not today. We'll see what the rest of the debate season holds.

We could never decide what to call the cat
so we called her "Cat."

This semester is just ridiculously busy. Too much work. Too much school. Just enough tutoring. Not enough debate, or Denny's, or time for gallivanting. That's why I'm not going to Georgia State's tournament, but I am likely going to Missouri State that next weekend. I feel even worse for my brethren in law school, or on their way such.

When I was but a child, I had a relatively fear-free time of growing up. Bathtub drains were nothing. Heights: tree houses, roofs, etc. were actually inviting. The only things that really registered on the list of things I should be afraid of were wasps (a phobia inherited from my mother that I still hold) and automatic car washes. Yes, every time my folks would start to drive the 1981 Chevy Citation through the gauntlet of boiling chemicals and spinning brushes of doom descending on my tiny form, I would duck down behind the center console, and cover my head and eyes. Little garages behind the Texaco with such inviting names as "Sudsy Fresh" and "Kwik Kleen" were the cause for a double take every time we'd drive through. One would think that after 20 years or so of growing older, and more comfortable with modern technology that the quiver in my pulse would have abated. Sadly not so. Though I've been washing my car by hand pretty much since I've had one, I happened to be in a position where a late-night bird-poop removal was in order. Denise, in her perfectly normal wisdom, decided to take her shiny new car though the local "Blitz Foam" in Norman. I was pretty sure by this point that I had gotten over my child(hood|ish) qualms. Suddenly, though, the composite rubber-nylon-iron-rust brushes spinning at Mach 2.2 started slapping arhythmically against the oh-so-thin windows, and all I could think about was how mere human flesh could not possibly withstand such a whipping. But millimeters farther and I'd be rent to shreds. My blood pressure climbed like a meth-addled Sherpa, and my breathing came low and shakily. For what seemed like hours I stared into the jaws of the beast, and it tasted my fear, and thrived upon it. Only Neisy's frugal sense and disdain for undercarriage wash and extra wax cycle got us out of there before I could lunge from the cabin and go screaming into the night. Suffice it to say that the next time there needs to be a meeting of water and steel, it will come from the end of a nice, safe garden hose. Perhaps I can even make a business of it.

On Tuesday evening, during a tutoring session in the Maths, I came across a bit of a puzzler, in the form of a probability statement. It seems that if you draw a series of one-toothpick-length separated parallel lines down a piece of paper, then throw a bunch of toothpicks in the air above said paper, the number of toothpicks that land touching a line is exactly 2/pi. This little proportion looked strangely exciting to me, and as this was an elementary text, it did not indicate why the number was thus. After two days of occasional figuring in between pretending to listen to my Stat professor lecture, I had the right integral set up. Turns out that the problem was originally posed in 1733, and only solved 44 years later. That upped my ego pretty well.

Also, the Monte Hall problem, explained as a rousing game of "Donkey, Donkey, Treasure" at IHOP on consecutive nights makes me wonder if teaching math might be a plausible fallback career, if this whole "computers" thing ends up being a dead-end industry.

There's a flame, there's a spark,
But she beat my high score.
So say goodbye, there's the door.