Thanksgiving

1. My brother looks, self-admittedly, goofy in all pictures because of the way he smiles. With a little coaching from his much wiser older brother though, I think we nailed down the secret to making fake-o looking smiles appear genuine.

I mean, look how happy he looks. Someone must have told a really funny joke.

Truly, the hallmarks of the Button Family Smile is to simply squint your eyes and smile really big. I never realized it before, but everyone in my family (with the notable exception of Scott, until now at least) smiles like that.

Also, note the new winter fashion everyone: horizontally-striped polo shirt over vertically-stripped, button-down dress shirt.

2. I had no idea that driving through Ohio during a holiday weekend could be so rough. Considering the traffic going north and south down I-71 (which basically runs the length of the state), I would have to assume that the entire state population was on the move.

3. As if everyone in my family wore this stupid, curly-hair, Magnum P.I. wig this past weekend...

I guess it is a good look though. I can't complain.











4. Facts about Kurt Vonnegut that only interest me (Taken from a collection of his short stories entitled, Bagombo Snuff Box):

a. He once told Joseph Heller that if it hadn't been for World War II, he would have been garden editor of The Indianapolis Star.

b. In an early short story that he wrote titled, Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp, he references Crawfordsville, Indiana.

c. In the fifties, Vonnegut quit his job doing PR for GE and moved his family to Cape Cod to begin writing full-time.

d. These are his 8 rules of creative writing:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

5. I would like to give thanks to the following relationship sponsors:
a. The Greater Main Street Association
b. The Koala Foundation of America
c. The Track Pants Twins, stars of the "Rock Your Bod" series (written and directed by Elisabeth Sugrue)
d. S.O.B (Save Our Beagles)
e. Lewis Black
f. Ben Folds
g. The letter, Q
h. Things that make you go, "Mmmmmm"
i. Continental Airlines
j. The Neon Cactus
k. The Parking Garage Preservation Society of Cincinnati
l. Chimney Rock
m. Friends and family

6. The thought of eating another White Castle cheeseburger makes my stomach turn, but I know someday, somewhere I'll try to share an entire Crave Case (that's 30 White Castles folks) with someone who is as much a glutton for punishment (and ungodly, awful food product) as I am.

What's in a Name?

In the town of White Settlement (an unforunately named suburb of Fort Worth), during the most recent election, a measure to have the name of the town changed to something more politically correct was struck down in a hotly contested vote by inhabitants. Proponents of the measure argued that the town of some 15,000 was being hurt economically by the less-than-appealing name. Recently, Home Depot and Wal-Mart have packed up and left (and judging by the number of these hardware and retail behemoths that are scattered about the country, I would say that this is a major warning sign concerning a town's economic health), and the local chamber of commerce has been up-in-arms over its struggles to attract new businesses.

The name "White Settlement" comes from the fact that a large contingent of white folk built a settlement amid a large number of Native American settlements in the 1840s. The town, which is 80% white as of the 2000 census, claims to have no real trace of a racist past. Thus, the so-called "heritage" that the slight majority of the townfolk have (for the time) preserved is based largely in a desire to re-affirm their ancestors' uncreative choice of a name.

I think that if these people were really serious about keeping the name, they would have at least had the decency to make some cute alterations to the name's past. For instance, a town named after a person is particularly delightful. In this case, let's call our quiant hero Ichabod White. And if they really wanted to strengthen their argument for keeping the name of "White Settlement," they would have our Ichabod, dashing hero and founder, fighting off hordes and hordes of vicious, man-eating Native American savages. Not only does this point give the name historical fullness, but it also preserves some of the original (yet hardly creative) irony that, at the time of its founding, the most distinguishing feature of this town was the fact that it was a bastion of white-ness in a heavily Native American populated region.

One of the arguments for maintaining the name "White Settlement" was the fact that the city would have to spend over $25,000 to have all official-type uniforms, signs, and letterheads changed. Without knowing the extent of the city's dire financial situation, I would have to say that this point is out-and-out stupid -- given, of course, that the major cause for the flight of big business in this simple burgh is indeed due to the politically incorrect name. I also think that changing a really unattractive name to one with a bit more pizzaz is simply a smart business decision that any sober-minded capitalist could appreciate. The monetary price to have the name changed is a small one if it can at least give the town a fighting chance in the battle to stave off its unfortunate economic doldrums.

Since the name is really the city's first line of attack when trying to sell itself to prospective businesses and residents, having an unoffensive name makes good business sense. And as such, I propose a compromise: Give the town a slogan and have that slogan added to all official documents and signs. States have slogans, and they proudly display them everywhere. Ohio is both, "The Heart of it All!" and "The Birthplace of Aviation." Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln." And Alabama, curiously, has "Stars Fell on Alabama." (Not to be out-done, Texas has a whole fucking song, but I'm not even going to get into that one right now.) Any good ad man would agree, "Slogans are slog-tastic!!"

So, the good people of White Settlement should try the following on for size:

1. White Settlement: "We may, in fact, be 80% white and our name IS White Settlement, but we seriously love you colored folk."

2. White Settlement: "We're white, and we're right. So get used to it!"

3. White Settlement: "The 'I' of Ichabod."

4. White Settlement: "Look how low our crime rate is?!"

All in all, I think a lot of people have missed the boat on this issue. The primary concern here should be, "How far should a town go to sell itself out to corporate America?" The hulaballoo that this is an example of political correctness running amok in our society is but a red herring. The fact of the matter is, this is really an example of how much sway outsiders such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart have in the day-to-day operation of small communities across the country. Rather than being accepting of the unique idiosyncracies of small towns, with their quaint toy shops and hardware stores (which are true measures of a town's heritage), these aggressors come into town and immediately stamp their way of doing things as the right way to do things (with the corporate paradigm of political correctness dragging in tow).

At any rate, White Settlement has a stupid name and a stupid story behind the name.

A news report prior to the election can be found here.

Also, the poorly thought-out opinion piece in the A&M school paper that prompted me to write this cynical diatribe can be found here.

...And You Can Count on It

I don't get to be in Cleveland very often throughout the year. In fact, being home for most of this past summer was the longest amount of time that I've spent at home since after my freshman year at Wabash. At any rate, when I am at home, my brother and I typically spend most of our time between working out at FitWorks or playing video games into the early hours of the morning.

Marc Brown is the owner of Norton Furniture, a store located in downtown Cleveland which offers credit to just about everyone and even leaves out fresh baked bread for any homeless individuals who pass by. Another interesting aspect about this particular furniture store is the costumed mannequins which decorate the showroom.

Between the hours of midnight and 5 AM, Marc Brown's off-beat, homemade commercials frequently air on local television. The first time I saw one of his commercials, I honestly thought it was the freakiest commercial I had ever seen -- predominantly because of Marc Brown's raspy, wheezy voice. The audio from this particular commercial can be heard here.

After making fun of the commercial at length, my cousin's boyfriend alerted me as to why his voice sounds like that...

As it turns out, Brown was kicked in the throat by another kid as a child, injuring his vocal cords. Yet behind his peculiar presentation is an uncommonly astute merchant who's managed to become the king of the urban-furniture business.
Cleveland Scene, 1/19/05

Bonfire

I went to Bonfire last night.

I don't want to misrepresent the tradition, but as far as I know, every year before the t.u. game, a large stack of logs is erected and then razed to the ground as a symbol of Aggieland's "burning desire to beat t.u."

The largest stack was erected in 1969. It holds the world record for largest bonfire erected at 109 feet, 10 inches. This tidbit of information comes from a scathingly critical, yet interesting article written by a former member of the cadet corps.

When 12 students were killed by collapsing logs from the 60 ft. tall stack in 1999, the tradition of having Bonfire on-campus was stopped. In fact, ligation involving the university is still on-going today. Nevertheless, students have taken it upon themselves to move Bonfire off-campus and hold it without any university involvement. For more information on this organization (which, in despite of a recent controversial vote by the student government remains unrecognized by the university), I refer you to the Student Bonfire website.

At any rate, in despite of all the controversy surrounding the continuation of this 90-some year old tradition, I went to Bonfire with two of the other physics grad students. This year, it was held in Bryan, which is in close proximity to College Station, on a dirt race track called Hot Rod Hill. I was ecstatic to see signs posted for demolition derbies and the such. How this little piece of paradise has remained hidden from the A&M student body writ large is beyond my reasoning. The fact that there is a dirt track within ten minutes of me where cars slam into each other with tremendous violent force is equally tremendously pleasing. The facility had ample parking. We parked in a grass field and had to traverse a great amount of cow plop in order to get to the race track. We arrived quite early, so not very many people were in attendance as of yet (the girl at the gate said that they were expecting approximately fifteen thousand). But we were pretty excited to see a tall stack of logs ready to be set on fire with a small-ish burnt orange outhouse on top with the words, "t.u. frat house," inscribed on the side -- a skull with the longhorns sawed-off was fixed to the outhouse directly above those words.

Since we were there awfully early, about four hours until burn, the three of us found some Aggies with a glow-in-the-dark football to play a friendly 4-on-4 game with. The most notable thing that happened during this time was when I deflected a potential touchdown pass and then tripped and tore up jeans while doing a little victory dance. Clearly, this was an incident of karma coming to bite me in the ass for committing the veritable sin of excessive celebration in the endzone.

During the middle of our contest, the crew working on Bonfire began hosing the 50-some foot tall stack of logs with kerosene (although Peter would claim it to be jet fuel). They did this for a good half of an hour.

Eventually the lights went down, we all did some yells, sang some songs, and witnessed some pageantry before the Bonfire was finally lit. The picture here shows approximately the top twenty feet of the stack. You can make out the burnt-orange outhouse amid the fiery, intense blaze.

For whatever reason, the logs had trouble catching fire. The crew managed to keep the fire going though. After some time, someone made the questionable decision to hose more kerosene (or jet fuel?) onto the stack. At this point, the three of us took many, many steps backward and viewed this insanity under curious protest. After about three minutes, the blaze was going very strong again, and the hose was turned off without any incident (thank God).

Soon thereafter, we left because of the cold and because we were getting pretty hungry.

Part of the tradition around Bonfire is that if the stack collapses before midnight, then A&M will lose to t.u. I think, this year at least, that A&M can consider it a victory if they keep the score within three touchdowns.

A Terrible Font of Light

I was sitting at dinner across from my lovely girlfriend Sissy. We were eating out at a trendy bistro on the opposite side of town before leaving for Paris. Sissy was having the sicilian chicken, and I ordered the beef flank steak. We got our usual corner booth near the back of the darkly lit restaurant.

The gentlemen that were sitting at this particular table before us seemed to have left some of their files behind. I notified the waitress, and she said that they were due to come back soon for them. Apparently the two gentlemen gave strict orders to leave the files at the table and that they would pick them up themselves. I thought that was an extremely odd request, but admittedly, I didn't even think twice about it. I had a lot on my mind, we were going to Paris, after all. Much had to be done before leaving that night, the last flight of the day.

Two sharply dressed men approached the table. The one was asiatic in his features and skin color. The other gentleman was a white man with an eye patch over his left eye. He had scars which looked to be the result of cigarette burns on his right hand. I counted five of them at least. They approached us and made a simple request. "May we sit down at your table for a moment. I need to enter some information into my computer before we leave."

Before I could reply, the white gentleman was sitting next to me in the booth. The asian gentleman remained standing. I asked him who he was and what he was doing, but he simply replied that he was in quite a hurry and that there was no time for this sort of hub-bub right now. I thought this gentleman to be quite rude, indeed. I was about to call the waitress over. Before I could though, the gentleman pulled out his laptop. I was mesmerized by it. It seemed to be strangely above what technology is. There was a certain mystical quality to it. The display looked advanced, and the screenshots that seemed to be popping off the display were hypnotic. I don't even remember what I was looking at. The gentleman was furiously typing. The sound and the colors made me instantly lose my mind, and I was sucked into a different world.

When I came to, everything was just as it was before. Sissy was eating her dinner and drinking her wine. The asian gentleman was still standing. And the white man was by my side. The two gentlemen were talking. I looked at the laptop again and noticed the wireless card that was jutting out the side of the computer. For some reason, I wanted to put it in my mouth. I wanted to taste it. I was sure it had a distinct taste. I thought maybe that's where the magic was coming from. I was going to consume it whole, and it would be a part of me forever.

The two were clearly distracted. Sissy didn't notice. I pulled the card out and begin chewing on it. It was fragile, delicate...it broke into a million pieces upon first contact with my molars. I was disappointed though -- it was just plastic. It tasted distinctly like technology. I didn't feel any magic.

Instantly though, I was frightened out of my mind. Worry crept over me like a disease. We were going to be late, I knew that. The men were going to realize what I just did. I was scared. I turned to Sissy. "We need to leave. Now." She didn't understand why though. She looked at me, absolutely puzzled. I whispered in her ear, "I'm going to be in a lot of trouble with these men. Let's leave now." She didn't want to because we weren't finished with our meal yet. I guess that's completely understandable. I told her to just trust me and that I'd explain after we had left. We got up. They didn't notice.

I found our waitress, slipped thirty bucks into her hand, and said to her that we had to leave in a hurry. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

We went back to the house and gathered together our luggage. We had plenty of time before the shuttle would arrive to take us to the airport -- about twenty minutes. Sissy's father would be meeting us at the airport. He's a technician for the airline and got us seats as stand-by passengers for the flight to Paris. The shuttle arrived. The driver retrieved our luggage and put it on the luggage racks near the front of the shuttle. We sat in the back. I fell asleep, my head resting on her shoulder. We arrived at the airport with an hour before board-time.

When pressed to describe Sissy's father, I normally reply that he looks strikingly like an older George Clooney. No one ever seemed to see the resemblance but me. People think I'm crazy. So pops met us out in front of the ticketing and check-in area of the airport. I noticed that my luggage was missing. An undescribable fear crept over me once again. I felt panic all around me. My heart raced.

My cell phone rang.

"Esteban, we have your luggage here on the shuttle. I'll be driving back. I seem to be stuck though. There's a slight situation here, and traffic is at a standstill. It may be 20 more minutes before I can pull back around near where you are."

I was very confused. Ten stressful minutes passed. Sissy's father told me everything would be fine, that we'd just be in a slight hurry is all. Sissy gave me a worried expression. She said I was turning pale. I thought maybe I shouldn't have eaten the gentleman's wireless card.

I called the shuttle number back. This time a man with a Nigerian accent answered. He said one thing to me.

"I can see you and your girlfriend."

A terrible vision befell me. So I walked over to the nearest police officer and punched him in the face. I broke his nose. I sucker punched him. Hit him in the kidneys. Kicked him while he was down. Two officers came from behind and tackled me. Led me off in cuffs.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

In the newspaper it would say that a crazy man assaulted a uniformed police officer for no apparent reason. I did it out of desperation though, because I could not be on that plane. I don't know for certain, but I have an inkling that if I reach a certain altitude that I'll blow up into a million pieces. I imagined that plastic wireless card in mouth falling apart and radiating light with an awful power.

"Likely story," they told me. "We've heard of your kind before."

Memories of Monon

After a semester of watching some almost-high quality Division I NCAA football here at Texas A&M, the size, scope, pageantry of the Monon Bell game seems to differ greatly from the way I remember it while an undergraduate at the estimable Wabash College. But regardless of the seemingly diminishing quality of my memory, the strength of the intoxication associated with the game remains with me, and the joy of the exploits are as strong as ever.



As a freshman, the Monon Bell game was at DePauw. The morning of the game, I awoke to the pleasant sensation of orange juice and vodka screwdrivers and biscuits and gravy. As an unwitting freshman, I got severely inebriated at the Kappa Sig house without thinking of the consequence. I got on one of the many charter busses leaving Wabash College for DePauw. The realities of having to endure such a long trip while drunk on screwdrivers did not really set in, ever. The crisp fall air and nearly cloudless sky -- I did not notice these things as a result of the alcohol. It was cold, but pleasant nevertheless.

I got on the bus. Hunyadi took a plastic bottle filled with straight vodka -- that crazy bastard.

I got off the bus having to piss like a racehorse, as the expression goes. I was neatly bundled up with winter coat and a hat atop my head. I noticed that several of the upperclassmen were urinating in some bushes. The bushes were in the front yard of some poor sap's home. Not fully realizing what was going on, I went to relieve myself in said person's bushes as well. I remember that Mr. Jason Huggins was there at the bushes with me. He gleefully acknowledged my presence. When I finished, the seemingly large number (read: maybe 6?) of Wabash upperclassmen had already finished and were well on their way up the hill leading to Blackstock Stadium. I started chasing after them. My hat fell off my poor and overwhelmed head. I had to go back to retrieve it. I was severely behind the other Wabash men.

I made it back up the hill only to find some of Greencastle's uniformed finest. I'm sure that they looked at my youthful, punk ass with great amusement. They were set to give me a hard time. I radiated the essence of underage alcoholic, and I'm sure they saw it like a great beacon of light from afar, with the noticeable exception that I was right in front of them, of course.

"How old are you, son?"

"Well, I'm 21 sir."

"Is that so? Where is your I.D.?"

"Oh, I don't have it."

"That's unfortunate. You know, you sure don't look 21, boy. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Wabash College. I'm 21."

"I don't think so. Why don't you head back to those busses? You're not getting into this game. That's for certain."

"Alright sir."

I went back to the busses and saw one of the seniors from my house. Wormser told me to just hide out behind the busses until the coast was clear, and then we'd go up into the stadium. I thought that was a fantastic idea. (As if I were in any position to disagree with anyone) We went up the hill again towards Blackstock Stadium, and I enetered. The great necessity to urinate struck me again after showing my ticket and passing through the entrance to the stadium. I went into a port-a-potty and upon exiting ran into the same sheriff who stopped me atop the hill previously.

"I thought I told you that you were not allowed in here, boy."

"Uh, yah, sir."

"Don't let me catch you again."

He let me on my way, and I took a seat in the bleachers by my pledge father and his girlfriend. A lot of my fraternity brothers were in that area. Pledge Gary and his girlfriend were standing in the bleachers directly in front of me. I really don't remember much from that game. Whenever Pledge Gary would leave his seat though, I hit on his girlfriend. I didn't even say anything. I just merely massaged her shoulders. She would smile back at me. Very strange indeed.

During halftime, a sophomore in my house, Andrew Roy, was playing the role of Wally Wabash, the Wabash mascot. He got tackled pretty hard but managed to steal the head of the DePauw Tiger. The head passed through the Wabash stands before being returned.

I was sitting near the endzone where "The Catch" happened. With almost no time remaining in the game and Wabash tied with DePauw, that Jake Knott pass floated in the air before my eyes, glanced through the hands of Ryan Short and landed in the hands of Kurt Casper.

I rushed onto the field in a seeming instant, only moderately less-intoxicated from when the game began. It's weird to think that a freshman, Elisabeth Sugrue, was with the DePauw side, playing in the band, near the endzone when that play happened.

I drank from the Bell that night, a truly glorious experience.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

My dad is oftentimes short on fatherly advice but can run long when it comes to fatherly directives and/or ordinances. But, when he isn't telling me what to do, telling me when to have it done by, calling me a putz, or telling me that I'm strange; he's been known to tell me to think before opening my mouth.

With that in my mind, I think I've come up with a dandy list of stupid things which have managed to fall out of my mouth before getting filtered back by any form of conscious thought.

1. "I think I need a little Jon time." I think this phrase was said with an extreme amount of exaggeration around, "Jon time." I don't think I know what "Jon time" really is. I don't think anyone does. Saying that you need to spend time with yourself and invoking the third person in order to do so is and has always been a capital offense.

When someone drops a statement like the above, and does so during a rather tense situation, it's very easy to lose your bearings. In fact, you may find yourself being completely taken aback and surprised. This sort of statement calls for a swift and direct slap to the face.

2. "My heart is a cold and lonely place." Well, I was a little intoxicated when I said this little gem. The thing is though, talking about your relationship while intoxicated is a generally unforgiveable offense in and of itself.

3. "There's a hole in my closet where my heart used to be." Sophomore year, I had a roommate for about 30 seconds before he moved over to Phi Delt.

4. "How many of you are there?" Mike was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Einterz & Einterz."

5. Person on phone from Pizza Hut: "Cash or check?"
Me: "Yes"

6. Phone rings during my recitation period. I get distracted from what I'm doing. Inexplicably, I turn back around towards the board and say, "I'm sorry."

7. My math professor is going over a difficult integral with little time left in the period. He says that the only way to do this in a short amount of time is by going over it carefully. He then says it's like the saying, "A man tells his butler, 'Dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry." He says the statement doesn't make much sense. I immediately reply with the question, "Is the butler's name slowly?"

8. "It doesn't matter who I'm with, as long as I'm with someone."

The above are generally all thoughtless, but some are clearly more offensive than the others. Like most people though, when pressed to give a good, thoughtful answer, my mind generally goes blank -- perhaps that's why I genuinely like to write. In a written medium I have all day to compile a thoughtful answer and regardless of the end product, at least I'm more comfortable doing it.

Not putting thought into what you do, as it turns out, is far more offensive than not putting thought into what you say.

Walking towards quantum mechanics yesterday, I was caught in a bad rain storm. I sat through the class soaked down to the quick, feeling cold and absolutely miserable. At the end of the hour-long class period, I walked outside towards the bus stop. The rain had stopped, but the wind was putting up a good fight in the battle to break my spirits.

When the bus finally came, I was glad to get out of the wind. For some reason, I thought the bus would be a good place to do a proper examination of my conscience. I have not received the rite of reconciliation in well over a year, but I think the examination of conscience part must be engrained deep within me as a relic from my Catholic grade school and high school days. I think you can go through the actions of loving someone, saying and doing the right things, without being honest about it. I also think that it's difficult to know whether or not you're being honest about love until after making that mistake repeatedly. As it turns out, the pain sticks with you far longer than when you're little and you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove top or put your chewing gum in your brother's hair. The mistake of not being honest about love is one that I don't ever intend to make again.

I was sitting on the bus, letting a wave of sentimentality hit me, when the person sitting next to me shoves a small booklet in my hand and asks me, "Have you gotten one of these today?" The cover of the booklet says, "Are you a good person?" I tell him that I haven't seen this ever. I tell him that I am a good person. He asks me if I'm a christian, and I tell him that I'm Catholic. For whatever reason, I guess he felt that he still had to convince me to believe in God. I'm going to count this as the first of many thoughtless things he said to me. He asks me, "Have you ever lied?" And I answer that I have. He asks me, "What do you call someone who has lied?" And I tell him that you call him a liar. He asks me if I have ever stolen something. I tell him that I haven't. He then asks me if I've ever downloaded music. I then tell him that in that case, I have indeed stolen something during the course of my life. He asks, "What do you call someone who steals?" And I tell him that you call that person a thief. So far, I'm not doing horribly bad at this quiz, I suppose.

At this point though, I'm failing to see the relevance of this line of questioning. Although I may not be the best Catholic, I genuinely believe in the rites and sacraments of the Church. And so, he continues going through his pre-programmed spiel. "You cannot rely on your own goodness to be saved. You need to have Jesus in your life." I take offense to this because I suppose that he is assuming that Jesus is not present in the life of a Catholic. "If you are guilty of murder, a justice will not let you off from serving your time if you present a case of good works that you have done. Justice must be served, and God is just." At this point, I realize that he must not really care what I have to say. So I tune out. If I had more time, maybe I would have tried telling him that the severity of the sin is judged not by the deed alone, but by thought also. A father understands that his eldest son may not realize how difficult it will be to get that gum out of the youngest's hair. No matter how much we grow up, we'll still be little kids.

At any rate, although I would never buy what that guy was selling me, I may go receive the rite of reconciliation. I guess sometimes God can speak to you through someone who isn't even thinking about what he's saying.

Safety Town

I tell this story quite a bit, probably because it speaks to my gullibility or remains a testament to the quaint obliviousness that resides deep within me. I told this story to one of the other physics grads while sitting around, drinking coffee, and wasting time -- having a casual conversation about how the media and government are particularly adept at instilling abject fear and paranoia in the populace at large. For some reason, this came to mind.

At any rate, when I was a pre-schooler, my mom enrolled me in this summer program designed to teach little children like myself how to be safety conscious and aware of the dangers lurking behind every corner. Safety Town was a veritable safety wonderland. During this program, we'd sit and listen to boring grown-up types tell us how to be safe. I'm sure there was dumb craftsy things that we had to do also. This portion of our safety-rific day was an absolute snooze fest, but I learned very important lessons such as never talk to strangers and always look both ways before crossing the street. Perils of wisdom were handed down to us, giving us the understanding that accepting candy from someone that we don't know is a very unsafe and unwise thing to do. From that time on, I wouldn't think twice about playing in the street or attempting to operate heavy machinery. If I found a gun or some other lethal weapon or any suspect object in general, I would be the first one to alert the nearest adult. Contrary to popular belief, huffing toxic fumes in the garage is not a good time in the least bit. Pull the green wire to defuse a ticking time bomb. If you're trying to escape from evil terrorists, a very rudimentary but effective bomb can be made out of chewing gum, a paper clip, and a plastic straw. The very important advice went on ad nauseum.

The aspect of this program which remains indelible in my memory was the safety playground in the parking lot of the school where all this safety-extravaganza went down. It was a fenced in enclosure that mimicked city conditions, just on a miniature (read: AWESOME!!!) scale. It had scaled-down buildings and accurately marked streets. Miniature street signs were at every street corner. Working traffic signals hung over the streets and alerted pedestrians to when it was safe to cross. During the course of the day, we would all get to learn and play in this miniature city and would take turns at being pedestrians or at riding big wheel tricycles down the city streets. Whoever thought to let us pre-schoolers ride big wheel tricycles down scaled-down city streets is an absolute genius. (Petulant Pre-schooler Me + Me-sized City = Most Incredible Fun Ever)

On the very last day of the program, I very much eagerly anticipated my last opportunity to ride the big wheels around the little, enclosed town. All went well, and it was a joyous occassion. Before I knew it, we were being told that it was time to head back inside the school. I was sad. At that instant, a strange man approached me from the other side of the fence, outside the school property. He offered me a piece of candy from his plastic bag. I almost took it, thinking that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with a simple piece of candy. But I quickly remembered how important it is to never trust strangers. And this guy was most certainly a stranger, in every sense of the word. He was wearing the stereotypical bad guy, black winter hat (in the middle of the summertime, mind you) and was wearing a dark and creepy trenchcoat. I told him, "Thanks, but no thanks sir."

The fools behind me though were quick to take candy from this monster. I was absolutely perplexed. How could these kids be so stupid? Weren't they paying any attention? Some of the others smartly refused this strange man's offer of sweet, sugary goodness -- effectively reassuring my faith in humanity but not erasing the disappointment that I had in my peers who had sat with me and learned such valuable nuggets of safety wisdom yet still failed to recognize the most obvious looking of strangers.

I remember this next part quite vividly. Once we got back inside the school a bunch of us (the smart ones, that is) ran up to the officer who helped instruct the program. We told him about the stranger and the candy and the fools who had brought themselves to a quick and untimely demise by taking this candy (obviously laced with strychnine or maybe LSD). He went out into the parking lot to assess the situation further. Before we knew what was happening, he was chasing down the candy-pusher out in the parking lot and tackled him down to the ground, giving him violent blows to the head before finally placing him under arrest. That was the most exciting thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, by far. It was a very surreal experience to have, and I was only a pre-schooler, so there's no way that I would have been able to identify the surrealness of the occassion. We all clapped and cheered for the heroic officer who had saved us from imminent doom and went back inside for more safety-themed arts and crafts, followed by a fun awards ceremony to commemorate the successful completion of the Safety Town Program.

The sight made quite the impact on my young mind. First they told us about the dangers of strangers, and then I actually saw it with my own two eyes. What a coincidence! Amazing! It's all true! Strangers are bad, and the rest of the things that we had been told must be true also. I was committed to being the most ardent follower of being safe.

Not until high school did I realize that the whole thing must have been staged.

The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (or Ten Things that I am Partial Towards)

1. "...put a little boogie in it."

2. The Great Koala Infestation of '05 (pronounced 'aught-five')

a) My koala wristband
b) My koala shot glasses that seem to be constantly misplaced
c) My faux-beanie baby koala friend
d) SudaCare Shower Soothers
e) Those Koala-Kare fold-out tables in bathrooms for changing smelly-diaper babies

3. Oversized hats, sunglasses, scarves, or mittens on undersized people or animals

a. Beagles
b. Babies
c. Bagles
d. Bugles
e. The Cincinnati "Bungles"
f. The Bangles and their amazing hit, "Walk Like an Egyptian"
g. Babies who root for the Bungles while listening to The Bangles and riding Beagles who play Bugles for Bagles (and any permutation thereof).
h. I don't know if that last sentence works so much any longer because Carson Palmer and the Bengles are pretty good this year.

4. Very bad puns

5. Cheese

a) Literal cheese, like the kind you can eat
b) Bad music, as in the cheesiest techno with the most vapid, banal lyrics and the out of control music videos that go along with them
c) Dressing and acting like a big chach (pronounced (CH-otch), completely irreverantly and out of spite
d) Bad infomercials: There's one on TV nowadays for a urine remover. It's called "Urine Gone!" I think it would be more aptly named "Urine Luck!" or even "Urine Trouble (No Longer)!" The best thing about "Urine Gone!" is that it comes with a blacklight. I presume this is so you can play the MTV Room Raiders game at home and at your own leisure.

At any rate, this product would have come in handy at Wabash. I have a long and colorful relationship with public urination.

6. I miss summers filled with basketball and baseball all day followed by hide-and-seek, ghosts in the graveyard, and video games all night.

7. Mannequins that wear nothing but their underpants and making them anatomically correct by snuggly fitting a large bouncey ball in the crotchular region

8. The way reading a good novel makes you feel after you finish and close it. It feels as though you are filled with an immutable wisdom -- not a transmuted sense of knowledge, but an intimacy of experiences that are now your own.

"The idea is not to get caught up in the minutae and all the details but to have a wild sense of what the time was like."

-- The Fr. Ober, S.J.

9. The comedic stylings of Lewis Black, Family Guy, and The Simpsons and the people that can reference them cold

10. "...To fight and not to heed the wounds..."

AMDG
AEKDB
TAMU
IHOP
BFF LOL
TCY HI5

Solitude

Alastair thought of his mother. The lonely, aging widow needed him to be around and that's why he did not go far when the time came for him to go to college. Before dying, his father had taught there briefly, uprooting the small family from their home in New York to accept a tenure-track position as a professor of physics at the small, midwestern University of O.

Alastair thought about when he was in grade school and how every Friday, after school, Alastair and his mother would go shopping at the smallish mall that was thirty minutes down the road. He didn't altogether enjoying shopping with his mother, especially when she would go to try on clothes for a seemingly interminable amount of time. Making the most of the opportunity of being beyond the watchful gaze of his mother though, Alastair would frequently hide behind the dresses on the clothes rack and peer out with that inimitable impish grin of his. For Alastair, this exercise was all about getting caught and being an annoyance to his mother. As he got older, his exercises in trying poor Chelsea's patience would become more complex and subtle.

One day, Alastair was flippantly making some remarks about his sixth grade classmates. Joanna was unable to finish the last arithmetic quiz as fast as he did. They would race to finish, and this meant that the both of them would frequently make little, careless mistakes. Alastair began picking up little tricks that confused Joanna, and she could not understand how he could finish so fast and do the work so well. Of course he would never let her in on his secrets because that would be giving up a great edge that he had on her.

His other nemesis was Jose. Jose's mother worked in the school as an algebra teacher for the junior high. Alastair and Jose were matching each other on the Accelerated Reader chart, book for book. The program was simple. You picked a book from a list, read it, and then took the corresponding quiz on the correct floppy disk. The computer recorded your score, you printed out the certificate which gave the quiz score and showed it to the teacher, and then the teacher would put some stars up on her chart next to your name. Each book had a number next to it, indicating level of difficulty and the number of points earned for successful completion of the book's quiz. The teacher, Mrs. Williams, would put up a number of stars that equaled the percent correct times the number of points earned for a perfectly done quiz. Of course, Alastair was excellent at this game. He was always an avid reader, and now he was finally getting some reward out of it. At the beginning of the program, Alastair was off to a maddening start, and then all of a sudden he slowed down. His large lead was slowly diminishing by Alastair's over-acheiving match Jose, who was largely disinterested until the accolades began pouring down on Alastair by Mrs. Williams.

Alastair, of course, was just biding his time. He let his mother in on the secret finally. For the past two weeks, he had been reading Charles Dicken's David Copperfield. He should be finished with the work by that evening. Alastair went on and on about how this would be his crowning achievement, how the class would be dazzled by his remarkable performance, and how poor Jose would be disheartened and defeated by this altogether, well-executed knock-out blow. Eighty-four points were up for the taking if Alastair managed a perfect score on the quiz. Alastair admitted that the depth and bredth of the work made it hard to discern how many points he would walk away with, but he was excited nevertheless. And of course he would do well on it. There was no question in his mind about that trivial fact. Upon examining the chart, Alastair realized that only twenty spots remained after his name on the Accelerated Reader chart hanging at the back of the classroom. He was not sure what Mrs. Williams would do, but Alastair was certain that whatever measure she took to recognize his feat would make obvious to any stranger who enetered the classroom that the boy known simply as Alastair Templeton was more than just your ordinary student. Alastair's former teachers and the teachers from the upper grades would come by and heap more accolades upon Alastair. They would rave about how they absolutely adored having him in class. The teachers he did not have class with yet would remark on how they looked forward to doing their part in molding his clearly brilliant mind.

Maybe Mrs. Williams would make a big ceremony over it. After all, his feat was worthy of some celebration, no matter how small. Alastair liked the idea of a great, big trophy -- one made of cheap plastic with a plastic, golden book resting at the top of a plastic, golden pedestal. There would be a little plaque on the fake marble base bearing his name, and it would be in recognition of his remarkable aptitude in literature. Alastair, of course, would act surprised by all the adoration heaped upon him. After all, feigning humility in front of his peers would better serve him in the long run, he reasoned. And then he could go home and bask in the warm glow of the cheaply made trophy and his copy of the quiz certificate. Maybe he could gain some points with his classmates if he brought in some cupcakes the next day.

His mother cut him off there while she was fiddling with some panties strewn about a table in the department store they were in.

"Oh honey, I love to listen to you brag," was all she said.

Alastair was a bit puzzled. Only later would he realize that she always knew more than she would let on. At the time, Alastair wasn't worried -- they would be going out for ice cream in about ten minutes.

...Some More

• Alastair Templeton


• Alastair


• Lost in the Penumbra


• Bicycles and Such


• Amelia Buendia


• Regional Transit Authority

UH OH...(I think I Crapped my Pants)

1. A convicted murderer and rapist who had escaped from an Oklahoma prison was captured last weekend on the A&M campus. He had been hiding out on one of the upper floors of an academic building which stands right in the middle of campus. The news though didn't make the front page of The Batallion, the school newspaper here at Texas A&M. One can only suppose that not making a big, hairy deal of the situation is in the best interests of the campus as a whole and that maybe sensationalism serves no great purpose, but perhaps the story should have gotten more attention.

I'll give The Batallion the benefit of the doubt because of some of the other pressing issues on campus, such as international students getting assaulted or discriminated against in the popular Northgate area (a strip of bars directly across from campus). A graduate student from India was assaulted by four A&M students. Two other incidents, that I can think of, have occurred in the past several months as well.

2. Hiding out amongst forty-thousand some-odd students is fairly easy.

I've already heard of two other instances of students living out of a non-residential building on campus. I'm not sure if these students were doing this out of spite or for the purpose of not paying rent. One involved an undergraduate who supposedly was sleeping at the MSC (the student center here) and showering at the rec center. The other involved a physics student who supposedly was living out of the physics building. But, those stories are all hearsay, I suppose.

3. Pi-Curious: A pun, a play on words, possibly meaning an intense desire to have an irrational amount of sexual relations with an irrational number of members belonging to any set of gender/sexual orientations; it could also refer to an intimate understanding of the number PI or engaging in passioned study of the number PI.

Matt, a fellow physics grad, came into class earlier this week with the word written on his hand (he claims it's the first original thought he's ever had). The community of physics grads, writ large, have been in an uproar ever since over it's meaning. The above is what I'm sticking with though.

4. Shotgunning Keystone Light: A fine Kappa Sigma tradition dating back to 1400.

I've come to this conclusion largely based on the following facts:

a. We met some Kappa Sigs, randomly, on a beach while on spring break in Destin, FL. We had noticed earlier in the day that they were shotgunning Keystone Light. We joined them and shotgunned three out of spite or maybe out of brotherhood -- I'm not certain, the memory is hazy at best.

b. We shotgunned a lot of Keystones my senior year. Although the memory of that is not very clear either, I have the digital video evidence to prove it.

c. "Tweeder drank beer, because, well, Tweeder drinks beer."

d. I have a student who facebook-ed me. She's dating a Kappa Sig here at A&M, and I noticed in her Facebook photo album that she is indeed shotgunning a Keystone Light at a Kappa Sig party of some sort.

And thus, the status of this fine tradition is confirmed.

5. Karaoke Night: a fine physics graduate student tradition dating back to three weeks ago.

After the first quantum mechanics exam (which happened one week after our first math methods exam), several of us went to Fitzwilly's to celebrate not dying (I suppose). Peter, Matt, and I stayed late into the night to sing karaoke to a rather empty bar audience. News of the hilarity spurred much interest among the other grad students, and now karaoke has become a much anticipated weekly event.

This past Tuesday, two of the Chinese international students came with us. They didn't sing, but the fact that they came out was wonderful.

My song selections from the most recent karaoke night:

Domino -- Van Morrison
Wheel in the Sky -- Journey

I sound awful when I sing, just awful. No karaoke song should ever go past two minutes, because that's precisely when you become extremely self-conscious about how bad you sound.

Regional Transit Authority

Amelia was a superstitious person. Her comfort level rose as her habits became more engrained into her daily life. While in high school, her day was seemingly compartmentalized and organized with an utmost, complete lack of temerity or spontaneity. She woke up every morning at 5:30 AM with her stereo blaring the song, "There's Always Someone Cooler than You," by Ben Folds. And the song was fitting and uplifiting in that ironic sort of way that fit Amelia to a tee and that never failed to bring a smile to her face -- like clockwork. Amelia would walk over to her "Far Side Day-to-Day Calendar," and tear one day off, discarding it forever in the trashcan and effectively removing all the concerns and worries from the past day along with it -- a ritualistic cleansing of the soul. She would go downstairs, sit on the large couch in the living room and turn the big-screen television onto MTV. Her breakfast consisted of one Toaster Strudel breakfast pastry with icing and a glass of orange juice. At exactly 5:55 every morning she would start running the water for her shower. She would wake up her father at about 6:30, giving him about 15 minutes to wake-up and drive her to the bus stop, which was located in the mall parking lot. There they would listen to the radio until the bus would arrive and take her away for another day of school.

These innocuous idiosyncracies though became much more significant as the date approached for her to leave home for the University of O. and begin her freshman year of college. The very neat correspondence between her academic day and her morning routine suddenly registered in Amelia's head, and she worried that maybe there was more to her seeming luck and successes than met the eye. As that last summer wore on and quickened toward her imminent departure, the smells of the morning bus ride became real to her and she carried it with her through the day, always thinking about it and focusing on it. When night came around, she would plop herself down in the front of the television and concentrate on the morning bus rides that she would never have again once she was at the University of O. She would sit and think about it until falling asleep, not even aware of what she had been watching. Her parents would come down the next morning and see her positioned strangely, not even making the connection that she looked like a sleeping bus-rider. They would ask her about it, but Amelia would just shrug it off and say that she must have been exhausted from a rough day of working at the fast food place down the street.

Amelia never realized before that summer that her best sleep came while on the bus. She didn't know if it was the smells that she experienced during the bus ride every morning, but she reasoned that this must have been the case because it was strong in her memory. Amelia was puzzled by this because the smell was what she hated the most when she first started riding the municipal buses every morning. At first she had trouble pigeonholing the smell, but it soon became identified with urban decay and decrepitude, of poverty and sickness, and of hard-times and exhaustion. Oftentimes, in the morning, she would sit on the bus while listening to her favorite CD for that month and think about exhaust, waste, and the abject tiredness that seemed to surround her on the faces of those sitting on the bus and on the building facades that lined the well-worn path to school.

One morning during that last summer, she woke up early and walked herself out to the bus stop in the mall parking lot. She got on the bus and quickly realized that this was nothing like as she remembered it. Sitting on the bus and thinking about her disappointment and misplaced expectation, she soon realized that the weather was too warm and the sun too bright. A proper morning bus ride was cold and filled with grey skies, dreary thoughts, and the occassional nap to escape all the tiredness that surrounded her.

Her motivation, the secret to her success, what turned her onto academics in the first place all those years ago was the fear that the smell would catch up to her and consume her whole. Life in the city was hard, and she saw its affects every morning. The city's hardness lived in that smell. Her early morning routine was merely to steel herself against its effects.

Her classmates were wrong to joke that she was blowing members of the faculty. Sometimes there are forces at work that are greater than the sum of your worth.

...Some More

• Alastair Templeton


• Alastair


• Lost in the Penumbra


• Bicycles and Such


• Amelia Buendia