locilre

Summer is finally at a close today. Looking back on what I set out to do, I accomplished somethings, failed others, took some planned routes, charted new ones. I really didn't imagine I'd be sending rock walls with Riahl, and Marissa as a means of kicking things off before school anew, but it was fitting. Mars and I rented shoes, which made climbin so much easier 12 1/2s were too tight on me, and absolutely pained my toes. I'm really looking forward to getting my own shoes, to wear without socks.

I got to check out Riahl/Mar's place today too, though there wasn't enough time to maté it up after the climb. Next time. I wonder if Joe would mind if I drank maté on site. Both Riahl and Marissa got drums, which is pretty cool, and provokes me towards the bongo.

One thing should be noticed, right once I needed to start writing, for the Arthur, and Trent Radio, my journal died. All English writing on my end of things has dried up. I'm keeping up with Emiljo on #esperanto, but that's about it. The next deadline approacheth, and I really want to submit. I've started collecting Arthurs in a drawer in Desk #2. Hopefully I'll have a full set come year's end.

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I had a real blast at Rock and Rope today. There was this little midget there, couldn't have been more than 10 years old. Her father was studiedly disinterested in her climbing, so I started joking around with her. Grabbing two high jugs and flailing around saying things like "Help! Help. I'm stuck." She got into it too, and was really pushing herself. This made her dad happy, since he wasn't on the walls, and was pretty passive about the whole thing. By the time I left, we were racing each other with my stop watch, and being total monkeys. Sometimes I forget how inspiring kids can be in that respect.

She was gone when I took that shot, but you can see the sweat stains on my shirt. Climbing makes me feel x100 more "worked out" than the gym does, and it really gives me targets to aim for. "Can I lap this in two minutes, using these holds, etc." It's really a lot of fun.

Another thing that was great about today, was meeting up with Laurel Paluck. She's the programming manager at Trout Rodeo, and we hung out for most of the general programming workshop. She's gunna give my good word for the Studio Trainer position, and hopefully get me a little more non-Timmies work. I'm also invited to be part of the Program Selection Committee, and Operating Crew. One's a blessing, the other a burden :P

I'm really gunning for the Trout this year. I want to do a couple of shows, hopefully better pencilled out. One thing I was thinking of doing was ad-hoc interviews with George St.-ers. One guy I met today is doing a show on the history of noise and sound art! Like how astoundingly cool is that. He's also a highly cool vegetarian Linux geek, and a member of Full Metal Booty.

Does anyone have show ideas for me?

Edit: Oh, and when I was done with the Trout Rodeo people, I went upstairs and read some more of Copleston. I found this awesome quote in a dictionary of philosophy when I was looking up the distinction between monism and monotheism. The quote was something to the effect of: "Monotheism: The belief in one god. Sometimes gods can be hard to count." I photocopied it, but it was too blurry to make out when I got home. I'll grab the verbatim copy next time I get up to the public library.

Ho! Lazy day over here.

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Damn, today was fine.

When I got up, Chad was just about to leave for Chapters. He waited for me to have my morning English muffin, and cereal, both of which weren't necessarily eaten in the morning, though they are patently morningish foods.

He invited me to drive him, which was a pleasant surprise, and I think I did an okay job of getting us both over there in one piece. It's great that he's willing to let me drive, because this means I might actually get some practice in Peterborough. The drive to Chapters is about six blocks, and we made a brief stop at Rogers to drop off a couple movies.

Once we got to Chapters, we stayed for the better part of five hours. I attacked some more of Don Quixote, aswell as looking at a book of the Ten Greatest Mathematical Puzzles of All Time, and some Latin stuff. The Ten Greatest weren't really that awesome, and I think the author might have been embarking on some crazy tangents. In the section on the Fibonacci problem for example, he found a way of mentioning, and illustrating Mobius strips... How'd he do that? Another one I checked out, was Introducing Relativity. I would actually like to sit down and read that whole thing, because it seems fascinating. They did even go so far as to mention some nontrivial math! Sacre bleu!

We managed to come up with some nontrivial math ourselves, when we came up with a question about the Harmonic Series. We were looking for a function such that H_f(n)≥n. Where of course f(n) is the smallest such integer, and H_n is the partial harmonic sum. After shottily messing around with it for an hour, we appreciated a barista's hair who was working at Starbucks, and deemed the problem intractable by our means. Chad kept on looking at Voltaire's Bastards, and that was it. When we got home, we checked MathWorld, and figured out it was way harder than we'd originally though.

When Victoria got home from work, Chad and her went off to the gym. I went climbing and finally splurged on a Rock and Rope membership. Damn, so much fun, but my hands are still callousing up and I need to pause often.

So finally, my hands hurt just enough that I can type without crying.

I went out to Rock and Rope today. When I got there the owner was asleep on the couch, taking it easy. Twelve dollars later, I got my day pass, and some chalk, and started bouldering like a devil.

So much fun. Good word. It hurt a lot, since my hands aren't used to that much pressure, but it was incredible. I just made sure to: pause regularily, fall often, and smile. Next time, I'm getting a month membership, since after five visits, it pays for itself. Hopefully I can convince Jay to come and belay me.

Tommorow, I think I am going to go out and get supplies for a chin-up bar for my room. If I don't wind up using it, atleast it will also dry my clothes.

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I'm turning into a bit of a snooze button junkie. I got up at 1000, and just kept on hitting the damn snooze button for an hour! I hope I didn't annoy my roommates. Usually you can't hear the sounds coming from my room, but I always worry.

By the time I've hit that thing for or five times, I'm fully awake, and just lying in bed. Sometimes I will lie there, with my eyes closed, simulating sleep, just thinking things through. That's kind of soothing for me, in a young Descartes way. Sometimes I'll go over a math problem, or a vocabulary list, in my head, but usually I run over what I've done of late, and think it through some more. This morning, I was thinking of a whole mess of shit that I couldn't properly explain to myself. Even after a good dosage of the snooze, I couldn't figure any of it out. Apparently I've forgot a good chunk of Calculus relating to volumes of revolution, so I might have to review some of the stuff, lest I lose my edge.

I also had a dream I should take down, but I wasn't sure on the details, and I would hate to offend anybody by phrasing it poorly.

Now, to go make some cardboard furniture, and rock-climbing at 1530, woo!

Today has been nice to me so far. I woke up early, and after many snoozes facilitated by Alarm Clock 2's Apple Remote feature, went right back to bed. No harm done. After my first alarm, I dreamt that I was with Sean. who though he was himself, was someone else as well. I thought it was back when he was first coming out, and we were kissing for the first time or something. It was strange in that my trainer today, was very much like Bloomfield, the Writer's Craft teacher Sean and I so enjoyed. The dream went into a different vein though, and I found myself clipped with a fishing hooking on my left breast. Sean was pulling it in, and I was telling him to stop tugging. Heh, who knows.

Training was a lot of fun, I did soup and sandwich today. I must have prepared thousands of bagels. My trainer was nice, and complimented me quite a bit on being such a quick study. I suppose it doesn't take much when you're only spreading a variety of creamed cheeses. The over emphasis on efficiency, stresses me out though, so when the school year arrives, I'm going to try and shift into something a little less like, what Bertrand Russell would call work; “moving around bits of matter at or near earth’s surface." Or at least to something of slower pace.

I always get a kick out of some of the horrible misuse to which language is subjected at the drive-through. The same thing happened at Subway a lot too. People have an idea of what they want, but it's rarely thought out more than a second before it is out of their mouths and we wind up with such abominations as: "I would like a large black coffee with three creams." Or another pet peeve, people who ask for things, and assume we know how they would like it prepared. All the time at Subway people would say "I would like a BLT" and walk off. They neglect to mention: the type of bread, the length, the cheese, whether or not they'd like it toasted, the added vegetables, the sauces, etc. It's particularily poignant when someone answers one of those questions with "Of course." The same is true of Tims. Another one I like is "I'll have medium black coffee. No. Two double/doubles. Large." All of that information is in the wrong order, sir. Please try again.

Last night, when I was walking home from downtown, I took Park St. which is pretty shady at night, but offered me a new view of the city. Luckily, I cut across on Perry St. and found out about Rock and Rope, which is only a couple blocks from my house!

I think (once I get money, now that I have a job) I'll be probably getting the Intro Lesson, and maybe a pass for September.