http://www.zefrank.com/thewiki/RunningFool_Trip

there’s a guy trying to make his way from spokane to the east coast and back over christmas break, using only viewers of zefrank’s the show for transport and lodging.

and companionship, of course. :)

anyway, neat idea, and i wish him luck. if you consider yourself a sports racer, and are traveling and/or sitting home with an empty couch over break, give runningfool a holla, eh?

so it’s the craptastic battery charger that is broken after all, which means i need to send away yet again before i am able to be a self-sustaining photographer here in the UK, and the bill for my absentmindedness in the orlando airport climbs.

the battery that has allowed me to take pictures for the last few days ran out of charge, and, with flagrant disregard for my chants of “please work! please work!”, the charger did nothing after several hours other than attempt to claim the battery as a hostage for its crappy manufacturing overlords (it seriously took me 5 minutes to extract the battery from its grip).

hopefully it did not fry the victim completely, but i don’t know yet, and i won’t know anything more until i am able to locate another charger that can be shipped to the UK (they don’t makey my camera over here, so it’s a bit of a hassle).

let’s hope this story ends after that, shall we?

i don’t believe that everyone has a right to justice, or freedom, or equality. i just think we should give it to them anyway. because we can. and doing things because we can see that they are better, not just because we have to, is what fulfilling our human potential is about.

being in the uk and all, i didn’t really notice that it was september 10th until about 4:00 this afternoon, when i followed a link from schmutzie to an episode of zefrank’s the show from a few days ago.

when i say “i didn’t really notice that it was september 10th”, what i mean is that i didn’t make the association between 10/9/06 (which is how they write the dates over here) and The Day Before The Fifth Anniversary Of 9/11^TM, and when said association clicked in my head, i felt rather grateful for the current distance between myself and mainstream American media sources.

at the same time, though, i felt the pull of the memory and my own process of coming to terms with it. i wondered if i should take the time that i still haven’t really taken to write my own response. i marveled at the fiveness of the years that have passed, and remembered the unborn blog post that floated through my head as i walked around downtown one day on my recent trip to the city.

i had decided i should make my own little pilgrimage to ground zero, and had done so by spending several hours walking in a rather meandering fashion from prince street down to battery park and back up again to nyu, where i was meeting liza for lunch. i made my way to the construction site in the midst of my walk, with more difficulty than i had anticipated, since i had never before had to actually consider what the cross streets were for the world trade center, seeing as it was always rather obvious where to find it.

i stood there a bit puttering around trying to decide whether i wanted to, like, you know, Do something while i was there, and after a couple minutes i realized i was pissed off at the president and the war and the media for how numb it has made me by making it nearly impossible to disentangle my memories of that morning from the knots and snarls of all the other crap that has come to be connected to it. i felt, for a few minutes at least, like i had been robbed of my ability to mourn. as if the animal of my genuine and sap-free feelings was sleeping next to some really loud, annoying yippy dogs that wake up every time you go near and drown out anything of merit and the whole ordeal just makes you pull your hair and run away and wonder why you ever even bother.

that was irritating, but eventually i was like, fuck it, you don’t have to fight that fight, just give the dogs a milkbone and feel what you feel and think what you think and write what you write and remember what you remember and focus on building the future rather than bickering about the past.

so i didn’t worry about the shmaltzy posters. i read some graffiti instead, and watched the new yorkers go on about their business as the wonderfully adaptable human creatures that they are. i walked across the bridges that span the construction site and thought about the ghosts of the walls and desks and copy machines that i was passing through as easily as if they had never been there at all. i stood there for a few minutes with some of these thoughts whirling in my head, and then i went on about my day.

i met liza for lunch at a place called ‘wichcraft, which is an oh-too-clever name, and had a sandwich with truffle-scented trumpet mushrooms and fontina. i got caught in a crazy downpour in columbus circle when i stopped there on the way home to go to the apple store and get liza a new ipod USB thingy as a thanks-for-having-me gift. the next day we saw three movies for the price of one and hung out with a friend of hers who works at mtv. the day after that we used my car to go get kitty litter so she wouldn’t have to have it delivered, and i left the city after an unplanned driving tour of riverside drive as i puzzled over construction detours and let the fates decide whether i was going to leave manhattan by bridge or tunnel.

which is all to say, i made my peace with new york for the time being, and i’m glad.

i’m also glad that i followed the zefrank link, though, and so i hope that you may do so as well.

i think it will serve as a sort of innoculation against anything else i come across tomorrow; a way of remembering not to get either too numb or too huffy; to take time to feel what i need to feel and then focus on the work i want to get done.

and that’s really all i wanted to say in this post, actually.

all that other stuff, it just fell out, so i hope i didn’t contribute too much to the schlocky onslaught while attempting to arm you against it. :)

dum di dum…

now i go to bed.

today is my first full day off since i started work last week, though i do have to cook dinner since i flaked out on my turn yesterday because i’m not used to the schedule yet.

but that’s ok.

it’s an absolutely gorgeously clear day today, and now that i had a leisurely morning and a cup of tea, i think i’m going to go on a walk.  there’s apparently a little trail on the side of the lake if i walk through the little bungalow complex next door, so i’m going to snoop around.  the main road is actually quite busy and a bit narrow, and cars whiz by quickly, so i’ve been afraid of walking along it for very long, and i’m excited to see where the path leads.  i am only sad that i can’t take pictures.

/sigh/

yesterday i looked at my bank account balance and had quite a scare. it’s running right on the edge, so it’s good that i’m working now and can just sit tight and enjoy the room and board here at the hotel. the only problem is that my work wages are going to be deposited into a local bank account, so i need to make sure that anything that debits automatically is covered.

in theory, this should be fine because i am getting one more small paycheck from the math department on friday, and there are two backpack refunds still pending, once we figure out how to get the checks deposited. so i told myself not to worry because nothing substantial should happen before friday, right?

right…

i look today anyway, just to make sure, and lo and behold – the department store where i bought my work clothes on monday is trying to charge me twice. crap!

i called them up, but it’s a hassle to deal with a refund over the phone, and i can’t get there to do it in person because there aren’t any buses this afternoon. so they’re going to get back to me, and hopefully soon…

sigh

in other annoying news, my camera battery charger arrived yesterday, and it’s not going to work. i was afraid it wouldn’t, because the generic battery that i bought in glasgow is a little bit different than the official canon battery, but i couldn’t find a charger specifically for it, and so i just hoped that it would be ok seeing as it powers the camera and all, so it has to be the right size and shape. but i think the contacts are in slightly different places, and the charger doesn’t seem to do any good.

double sigh

i suppose there’s not a super rush for pictures, since i will be here for a while, and “here” is the kind of place that doesn’t change much for decades.  so i’ll just buy the ‘official’ battery/charger once the money stuff is sorted out. it’s just annoying to have to pay for all this crap when the camera was at the upper end of my budget to begin with. i guess i’ll just hope that i sit on it or something as soon as i get back to the states, so then i can cash in on the uber warranty, and feel like i got my money’s worth. :)

in the meantime i will just sit back, work, hang out, and let money start coming In for a while.

that will be a nice feeling.

like having the chef plan our meals for us and do the shopping.

the live-in staff take turns cooking, so i will be up every 3-5 days (depending on how many more staff end up staying in the hotel), which is kind of fun. i like cooking, and planning a menu is some of the fun and a lot of the skill, but it’s nice not really having to think about it for a while, and it’s doubly nice having a professional do it for me.  it’s kind of like living in the dorms again and having a meal plan, except you’re allowed in the kitchen, you get to cook every once in a while, and the food is better.

score.

the menu at the hotel is mostly seafood, and rather fancy, but we eat simpler things, making use of the leftovers in clever ways. yesterday we had some really good fried shrimp, chips, and a salad, and today we had a chicken stew with naan. there is also breakfast every day – cereal, leftover pastries, and/or eggs and bacon cooked to order, and we can make our own sandwiches and fruit for lunch.

i’m going to eat better for these few months than i have in a while, and with not much effort and not much expense – they take £30 out of my pay each week for room and board. two nights at the hostel in edinburgh cost the same, and a week in the room that i passed up in matthew’s house would have been twice that. and neither of those included any food.

so yeah, that’s a perk.

as is being able to write a blog post ten minutes before i have to start working, because all i need to do is change clothes and walk downstairs.

i think i’ll be ok with this for a while. :)

i should put more pictures in my posts.

first i need to get that new battery charger, though, because i didn’t have the neverending battery after all.

:(

tim points out erik‘s mentions on slashdot and ars technica for his AbiWord/OLPC work with Summer of Code.
way to go, my friend.

you’re building ladders.

i look forward to talking about the view. ;)

ugh.

there’s a gala dinner tonight, which will be nice, but it means we’ll be out late, and not working, and i need to finish the flash prototype, pronto.

i am tired. i have a stuffy head. our group is experiencing tension because we don’t really agree on what our design is right now, which is bad, but we’re prototyping anyway, and i’m not sure how to resolve our misunderstandings because the power dynamics are complicated, and we’re down to three days…

sigh

really, though, i’m excited. i think we’re doing some good work, even if we disagree on what it is, exactly. there are confusions and constraints and complications, but… we’ll see where we are when we give our presentation,
and then we can work from there, eh?

gotta love it.
;)