Huh???...

How can a person named Harry Mitts call into a radio comedy trivia show (NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!) and they don't make fun of him?

Ponderings....

I feel fortunate, on a daily basis, to be part of a relationship unit. I mean the boy is great. But today, more than usual, I feel extremely fortunate for my unit. Today, I have one of the largest most painful zits on my chin I have ever had in my life. I feel like it may be my skin getting me back for all of those adolescent years I went acne free. This one is a honker. When this zit arrived yesterday I took evasive action. I walked around the house last night with a rather sizeable glob of toothpaste on it (a friend told me once that it helps dry them out). This morning I woke up and it was a bit smaller but much redder and had some little companions (most likely a result of the toothpaste clogging surrounding pores). This got me thinking that in my current state, it would be awful to be single. I walk around with what for all intense and purposes is a denture in my mouth (which half the time I don't wear all day and never on the weekends unless I happen to go out). Can you imagine if I was single and ended up wanting to make out with someone and having to say "Hang on a second! I have to pop my fake tooth out!" My gray hair has become increasingly more prominent and I have slacked off on the root touch ups. I am just gross right now. The only thing I have going appearance wise these days is that I am physically in the best shape of my life. I am grateful for that too because all of the working out makes me so tired that I never have the energy to go out at night saving the general population from the Mount Fuji on my chin, the grey ghost on my head, and the grand canyon in my mouth. Thank you, boy, for lying to me and telling me that you think I am pretty.

Tour this....

Yesterday was the first day of the Tour de Georgia. I am trying to figure out where I can possibly go catch a leg of it but there isn't too much happening too close to home. I am thinking that watching it will inspire me to love riding my bike and to ride more than once before my first triathlon of the season which, by the way, is less than two weeks away. While I enjoy the crap out of watching cycling and I truly love the sport, I don't so much enjoy going riding. Here's some reasons why:

- Cycling clothes are bad
- Your crotch hurts for days after that fist ride
- Everyone around here that rides is pretty damn good and I always feel like a loser
- It takes a lot of damn time which leaves me stuck riding on the weekend which is
normally scrapped due to crappy weather or a twinge of a hangover
- The cycling community is a weird one that I don't necessarily want to become a
part of but I would love to be a better rider which leaves me on the outskirts of
things. This is, at times, fine by me but I am pretty sure that there has to be
one or two really cool people that ride that I could pal up with and that could
challenge me. The times I have gone out with new folks I don't know very well
they turn out to be bike geeks in sheeps clothing and tend to be too bike snobby
for my taste.

That being said, I do love to watch cycling. If you need a giggle visit Dave Zabriskie's website here and read the one question on the bike interviews.

If You Are Not Listening to....



The Black Angels' Passover

YOU ARE A FOOL!!!

An Interesting Article on....

Global Warming

Sidewalk Art by Julian Beever...

It's Thick...

I just overheard the entire secretarial pool down the hall from my office going on and on about the fabulousness of the skort collections.

My week ended with a bang. The timing couldn't have been better. While I am feeling a bit occupationally belittled, some Assistant Dean So and So barges into my office on Friday and informs me that the chances are growing exponentially greater that I will be getting booted out of my office. They are hiring new faculty, four to be exact, and apparently the two empty offices on my hall, the two on the floor below me, the one on the first floor, and the two empty ones on the floor above mine just aren't providing enough space for FOUR new faculty members. This all came after Assistant Dean So and So barges in and asks me in a curt and gravely voice the following questions (answers will be included):

Asst. Dean: What IS IT that you DO?

Me: uh...GIS stuff. Land Use Change Modeling (this is my standard and simplified answer. So far, Asst. Dean So and So hadn't really been all that friendly and I didn't really feel like going through a more lengthy explanation).

Asst. Dean: "Well, then WHO IS IT you work for?"

Me: Drs. yadayada, yadayada, and yadayada

Asst. Dean: Wow, you really get around

Me: I work for them all at once (genius!)

Asst. Dean: Well, I have never met you!

Me: Actually, I met you two months ago at the hall pot luck and prior to that I met you at a job talk and some Christmas get together.

Asst. Dean: OK. Let me reassure you. You will be given "adequate work space" wherever you end up. Does that work for you?

Me: I guess that all depends on what your definition of "adequate work space" is.

Needless to say, this has made me incredibly more sour toward me job. I know it doesn't sound like much but I had already been given the wink-wink-nod-nod that I would have my office all to my self. What this means is that I can listen to music without headphones, I can bring in some plants for the window, I can giggle at podcast without feeling like I potentially look like a nut job, and I can eat until I am purple without one concern that I am disturbing someone. Now those dreams appear to be coming to a dead stop. The best part is they have no idea where they are going to put me. Thanks!

I have become mildly obsessed with Jose Gonzalez's Veneer album. If you need a mellow little ditty, I highly recommend it. I hate to give him the old "he sounds like Nick Drake" but he sort of sounds like Nick Drake minus the suicidal tendencies. Put it on when you are feeling the good internal tingle because all is right with the world.