Saturday: 11-2-06

I worked from 2 o’clock till 6 today and bought groceries on the way home. Traffic patterns in the city at that time were messed up because the Strip had been shut down for the Lights Fantastic parade, which was just about to start. It was below freezing outside, so watching a parade couldn’t have been all that enjoyable. After having a dinner of beef stroganoff, potato salad and a cheese dog sandwich, I spent the rest of the evening continuing to work on my Chinese paper about racism. Some leading Chinese scholars in the 1940’s advocated Hitler and Nazism but said that it wasn’t strict enough for China. Maybe it’s a good thing that the communists took over.
I met Mike and John at Gatsby’s at 10 o’clock. John turned 30 today. Mike’s house in St. Louis was out of power due to the ice storm. Somebody, in our group, I won’t say who, was looking at a really big girl across the bar and said, “You should walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, can I get you another stool”. Leaving Gatsby’s, we went to Sidetracks, which was very crowded with a lot of the some people that had been at Gatsby’s a few minutes earlier. It appeared that a party of people was moving from bar to bar. Mike, John and I sat at a table by the doorway to the women’s restroom. We next wanted to go to the Hangar, but weren’t willing to pay a $4 cover charge, so we went to Stix. Josh met us there. Anna E. was there. I think Anna E. might be insane, but that’s not to say that there’s any problem with that. Leaving the bar, I went to a party at the theatre student’s house with Josh. Black people danced there and everybody was having a generally good time. I left around 4 AM, then talked to Johanna on Skype till 6AM.

Sunday: 12-3-06

I slept till nearly three o’clock this afternoon because of the extremely late night. The temperature didn’t get out of the 20’s, so I guess I didn’t miss much. After eating chili and a sandwich for lunch, I went to work on completing my paper about racism in China. I finished it up about 8 o’clock, then spent the rest of the evening translating a Chinese news article for another class. I obtained that article from a Chinese government-controlled news website, then attempted to translate it automatically using another website. The translation was so bad that I could barely understand a thing, so I set about trying to manually translate it by copying and pasting characters into an online Chinese dictionary. After 3 hours, I had partially translated three paragraphs, so the going is very slow. The article is about potentially replacing the dragon as the national symbol because the creature is seen as being angry and aggressive in the Western world. Imagine the US replacing the eagle because people in other countries don’t like it. If I was Chinese, I would be offended.
Stepping out to smoke a cigarette just after midnight, I noticed that a pile of Daily Egyptians had already been delivered to the building. Reaching down to pick it up, I noticed that another Pig Head article was on the front page, above the fold for the first time. The article continues on page 10, where the Pig Head picture was printed again also.

Monday: 12-4-06

Nic picked me up during his lunch break and we went to the post office to pick up the martial arts equipment that I had ordered online a couple weeks ago. We need to find another cheap set then we can start beating each other up. The set I ordered includes about a dozen different kinds of pads, including headgear and a padded vest.
I called Judicial Affairs this afternoon to ask about playing a short video clip at my “gag gift” hearing on Friday. The video would consist of segments that were recorded in Wendler’s office on the day I attempted to deliver the gag gift. After waiting on hold for several minutes and being transferred, then waiting on hold again, the woman who will conduct the Friday hearing asked what kind of video I wanted to show then told me that her office had no way to accommodate the showing of a video, even though I said it could be done with either a television or a computer. The university of course has an abundance of such equipment and it would surely be used against me if they had a video to show. So, I will have to play my video on the small screen of my camcorder.
Next, I went to the Student Center bookstore to try and buy a clear-faced folder to put my China racism paper in. The manager of the store noticed me looking around and asked if she could help. Not surprisingly, they were out of clear folders. You would think that this store was run by the state based on how often they are out of basic school supplies. So, I bought a three-ringed paper folder without a clear face and an overpriced glue stick to glue the title page to the front. Checking out, one of the women that collects backpacks at the door told me that my purchases were boring and suggested that I buy a shirt.
I spent the next 30 minutes in the Faner computer lab proofreading and printing out the racism paper, then got it all packaged up in the folder and ready to turn in. My next stop was at Old National Bank to cash two checks. The lobby was already closed at four o’clock so I deposited the checks into the ATM. Todd happened to be exiting the bank at that time, whom I used to work with at Schnucks. We went to the Hangar and had two beers and caught up on current events and talked about old times.
I returned home at 5:30 and finished up translating the Chinese article about China removing the dragon as its national symbol. I worked from 8 o’clock till 10. Carl and Kelly had been visiting their daughter over the weekend and had just gotten back into town. They gave me and my bike a ride home.
Checking my email, there was a message from my Chinese teacher saying that my racism paper must be turned in online, so I wasted my time and money printing it out today. Before going to bed, I created a mock Daily Egyptian article about Student Judicial Affairs charging a deer with assault.

-The power of Stag-

Tuesday: 12-5-06

I printed out 30 of my mock-Daily Egyptian articles and posted them around campus after Chinese class today, including inside the building that houses Judicial Affairs. They will surely now be seen by hundreds.
In culture class, a test about Japan and a survey had to be completed. I talked to the student Matt on the way back home. He studies Japanese and has to give a ten minute presentation in that language for his final exam. He’s a 2nd year student and I’m a 3rd, but I don’t have to do anything nearly that complicated.
I spent the rest of the evening studying for my Chinese final exam.

Wednesday: 12-6-06

I went to Chinese class for really no reason today. The assistant teacher reviewed for the exam for a few minutes, then let everybody leave early. I stopped by the professor’s office after class to ask about a test I hadn’t received back. He said that I would have to cite the sources of the research paper I turned in yesterday, then turn it in again. I had turned it in the first time with just a bibliography in the rear and not the sources cited throughout. I was wandering if it would be a problem but didn’t think so considering requirements for previous papers at this university. (Kiser, 2006)
Many of the mock-Daily Egyptian article I put up on campus yesterday were missing today, presumably because students thought they were funny and took them. I saw somebody reading one I had posted on a bulletin board near the Chinese offices.
I worked normal hours today. A woman with a heavy British accent came in and didn’t know the difference between different coins when it came time to pay. She said that all our money looks the same and she worries about accidentally giving a $100 tip instead of $1.
I went grocery shopping on the way home. A package of breaded mushrooms I bought didn’t have microwave instructions on them, so it was no surprise that they turned out tasteless after 2 minutes in the microwave. I spent the rest of the evening continuing to study for my Chinese final exam.

-Don’t Fool People with Fake Lottery Tickets-
-Wierdest Bible Verses-
-It’s illegal for kids to have sex in Utah(with each other)-

Thursday: 11-7-06

There was no Chinese class today. I had the option to take the oral part of the Chinese final exam either today or tomorrow and will take it tomorrow. I did laundry in the morning, seeing the Chinese student Michelle outside shitting her dog. It was only about 20 degrees, so we didn’t talk long. My electricity went out at 10 o’clock, probably because I was using the toaster and microwave at the same time. I went to the office to get it turned back on and there was as a sign on the door saying that the staff was working in room 330. Looking around the third floor for that room, I realized that there is actually a laundry facility in this building. So, for four months I was walking down the street to to my laundry when there was a laundy room just steps away. The management of the apartment never told me anything when I moved in, they just wanted money.
I spent the early afternoon beginning the take-home final exam for my culture class, which consists of a five-page paper that does not require research. The bike ride to campus was short but brutal with the extreme cold. In culture class, a female student that sits near me was giving away pretzel bites. I pulled one out of the bag and it was wet and hairy. She said that condensation on the pretzel bites is normal and the hair was probably from her glove, so everyone ate them anyway, including me. They did taste good, though. The student Amanda claimed she had almost been runover by a bus today. I thought she was exaggerating but she had a tear in her jeans to prove it. The bus had sped by so close that a bolt or other piece of metal had snagged her jeans. The incident happened at a crosswalk and the buses on campus are notorious for speeding through crosswalks. Amanda was almost another sacrifice for new campus traffic laws. The last sacrifice happened several years ago when a girl was killed in front of the Engineering building, which resulted in speed limits being lowered by five miles per hour. If many more people are hit, then the speed limit will soon be zero and flower beds will be planted where the roads once were.
I went to the Student Center to meet Yan after class, getting a Mcdonalds fix before the meeting. Yan and I talked about dragons. Here’s a couple excerpts from my class journal:
I asked Yan to explain the concept of the dragon. As the article states, he said that the Chinese people feel that they are the offspring of the dragon. The dragon is seen as a god that created them, so as its children, they hold its qualities and respect it. Dragons were thought to live in the oceans and be responsible for the rains. They would fly into the air and spray water down on the land. So, to please them, farmers placed offerings of food on temple roofs. In times of drought, more and more food would be sacrificed in an attempt to please the dragons and bring rain. So, the worse the drought-the less the food, and correspondingly, the less the food-the more that was sacrificed to the dragon. This practice surely made matters worse.

Yan said that dragons were only cast negatively in a few pieces of literature. A bad dragon would refuse to irrigate the land and may even bite swimmers in the ocean.

I asked Yan what other symbols he often sees associated with his country and he mentioned the panda bear and Great Wall. I then asked what new symbol he would create for the country if it was his job to do so. He said that he would use Shanghai’s colorful TV tower .I proposed the image of a King Kong-sized panda bear climbing that tower and he got a good laugh.

Friday: 12-8-06

OK, I said last night I wasn’t going to update this weblog till Friday, but I lied. I had my “gag gift” hearing with Student Judicial Affairs at 10 o’clock this morning. I rented a laptop beforehand at the Student Center so I could show a video clip during the hearing. The Daily Egyptian reporter Brandon showed up while I was in the Judicial Affairs
waiting room. He’s the one that’s been writing all the articles about my cases.
When the hearing started, I requested that it be open so Brandon could sit in on it and take notes. The hearing officer was Amy Rose and the hearing was held in her office. She is a pretty woman in her late 30’s and is the most personable hearing officer out of the four that I’ve dealt with.
The hearing started out with Rose reading the police reports from the case, in which the gift was described as “having a foul odor”. The gift did not have any odor. The first witness called was the Chancellor’s secretary, who had been in Wendler’s office the day the gift was delivered. She recalled her accounts of the events on that day, then I was allowed to ask her questions. I asked if the gift had a foul odor and she said she didn’t know. The other witnesses called, Micheal Stokes and Sgt. Sneed also gave their accounts from that day. I finally got Sneed to admit that the gift looked nice and didn’t have any odor, and that the pork chops were fresh and in their original packaging.
After the witnesses were through, I showed Rose video footage that my camerawoman had shot on that day. I did this to try and prove to her the staff was not at all concerned about the contents of my gift. In the video, they lie to get me to stay in the office, saying the Chancellor will see me in a minute, then they continue business at their desks not paying any attention to the gift.
At the end of the hearing, Rose found me guilty of Disorderly Conduct, but not Harassment. Like the hearing last Friday, I was again given a censure with no conditions, meaning I’ve been warned but don’t have to do anything to be allowed to stay in school. I’ll post the hearing audio next week from this hearing and the one of last week. I think that the school was abusing its judicial system by bringing up charges in this case or the previous one, but since there are no punishments associated with my “warnings”(censures), the Case is Closed.

OK, now I won’t update this weblog again till Sunday, seriously, unless I see any unforgettable roadkill today.

(cont.) I talked to Ruli in the Student Center bowling alley for a few minutes after returning the laptop computer. She works at the service desk there. Jason happened to come in to bowl while I was talking to her, whom I met a few months ago and had played racquetball with once. I spent the next hour and a half in the Faner computer lab studying for my Chinese oral final exam, which I took at 1 o’clock in my professor’s office.
The test took about five minutes, then I went on to work from 1:15 to 5:00. Nic stopped in and I showed him a copy of the “Student Judicial Affairs Charges Deer with Harassment” article. I left work an hour early to take $100 out of an ATM machine, buy a bottle of Captain Morgan from Old Town Liquors and rent camping equipment from the Rec Center. The equipment is rented at an attached facility called Base Camp, which offers canoes and just about everything a person needs for successful camping. A very friendly pretty blond girl waited on me while a male student worker assisted her by gathering the things I wanted; a cooking kit, 0-degree sleeping bag and a cooking burner. It cost $18 to rent these things for two days. The male employee was nice and poured gas from other stoves into the one I was borrowing. The sleeping bag was quite large and getting it home on my bike took some trial and error experimentation.
Lee was already waiting in the lobby of my apartment building when I arrived. We packed all of my things into his Explorer and stopped at Wal-Mart on the way out of town. Our purchases there included nearly $75 of food and equipment. Many things were bought with the mindset, “you never know”.
For dinner, we got double cheeseburgers and fries from the McDonalds drive-thru. The drive to Dixon Springs State Park took about 45 minutes. Finding the tent-camping area took a few minutes of randomly exploring the network of little gravel roads in the park. What we found was perfect; a secluded site nestled in a forest of tall pines where the ground was covered in soft pine needles.
As we approached the park, the temperature reading in Lee’s truck had fluctuated between 17 and 20 degrees, so getting a fire started was our first order of business. Luckily, we had been able to buy two bundles of wood at a gas station in Marion earlier.
Once camp was set up, we commenced the drinking of hot chocolate and the cooking of stuffed crab. There was no noticeable wind and the sky was clear. I’m assuming the temp approached 10 degrees later in the evening. We comfortable sat next to the fire for a few hours then explored our sleeping bags in the tent sometime around 1AM. At first, it felt that I would be warm all night, but I woke up with very cold feet in the middle of the night. Leaving the tent to use the bathroom once just about gave me hypothermia.

Saturday: 12-9-06

Lee and I were awaken in our tent this morning by the extremely unexpected sounds of a large group of people chanting very loudly not too far away. My first thought was that some kind of environmental protest was happening in the park. Lee said that he hoped they weren’t protesting camping because we would be the only targets available. Listening more, we could tell that it was some kind a boot-camp style march. The chanting continued for the next couple hours and we correctly assumed that the prison located nearby had a boot camp in the park.
The temperature became very favorable in the morning and we both slept in till after 10 o’clock. I’m guessing it was about 35 degrees and it was the warmest 35 degrees I’ve ever felt. It honestly was great after the 10 degree night. We built a fire and set about cooking hash browns, eggs, sausage, toast, hot chocolate and pop tarts for breakfast. Hot food was also a great thing.
We set about hiking all the park’s trails in the early afternoon, walking along the base of a bluff, through an oak forest and into a canyon. Dixon Springs is quite an unusual park in some ways. We passed the boot camp and saw a squad of about 100 prisoners marching and chanting just a couple hundred feet away. They were well trained and extremely loud. There is a large sewage treatment cement lake near the main office of the park, which constantly fills the air with a humming noise. Near the canyon trail entrance is a swimming pool and children’s playground.
The canyon is definitely the most scenic area of the park. It passes underneath a massive arched bridge, which I briefly climbed on. The canyon is strewn with house-sized boulders, small tunnels and flowing water.
One of the most memorable moments of the hike was witnessing a convention of singing red-headed woodpeckers. Several of the birds surrounded the trees around us and loudly sang to each other for several minutes. For lunch, we ate turkey sandwiches under a small overhung rock where a waterfall was frozen.
We went back to the campsite at 4 o’clock to collect wood and build a dinner fire. Dinner included a garlic-pepper tenderloin and boiled potatoes. I drank 5 or six Captain Morgan/Coke drinks over the course of the evening, helping me to stay warm, but it was never really that cold anyway, compared to last night at least.
Every time Lee and I take a trip like this, we develop some kind of ongoing joke and run it into the ground for days at a time. This weekend’s joke involved praying to all kinds of different gods. It started when one of us went off to use the bathroom and said, “oh Lord of Secretions, please allow this secretion to happen with ease”. The joke had already been going for nearly 24 hours, and by this time we were praying to everything from the Sweet God of Potato Cutting to the Merciful God of Excrement. It never got old.

Sunday: 12-10-06

Lee and I cooked another big breakfast at the campsite this morning and the temperature was even warmer, about 50. We tossed around a foam football for a few minutes after that and experimented with trying to get eggs to explode in the fire. The key to getting an egg to explode is extreme heat. It must be placed right in the coals for maximum power. We had everything taken down and packed into the truck by one o’clock. No park rangers had ever stopped by our campsite to collect fees, so we went to the office and voluntarily paid the $12 fee. A pudgy clean shaven middle-aged man was working, whom we asked a few questions about the park, like, “Why are there three churches side-by-side in the middle of the place?”. The odd things about the park are due to the fact that it was once a small town about 100 years ago, when people had come from all around to experience the healing powers of the natural springs. The springs were capped off in the 1950’s for liability reasons, which I find to be a bit outrageous.
We took another tour of the canyon before leaving, this time walking though the bottom instead of along the top. We took a few dozen pictures and climbed up the wall of a small cave out an opening in the top of it. The short climb was actually very difficult because the top was sharply overhung and the hole out the top was very small. A young family came into the canyon after we arrived, which was only the second time we had seen any people in the park all weekend. We had seen a man jogging in the canyon yesterday, but he appeared to be an employee.
Leaving the park, we stopped at a water spout to wash our dishes and hands, then headed towards home. We had lunch at the Jumbo Restaurant in Vienna. I ate a chicken dinner with three side dishes. Lee prayed to the God of Roll Buttering before buttering his role.
We arrived back in Carbondale just before five o’clock, stopping at Base Camp to return the equipment I had rented. The same chipper blond girl was working. I had to tell her that the stove never did work all weekend.
Lee then dropped me off at the apartment and headed home. I put away all my stuff and took a very wonderful shower before typing this blog and getting new pics online.

Monday: 12-11-06

I spent the whole afternoon and early evening doing final-exam related work. I finished typing a paper for my culture class by about 1 o’clock, then worked till 6 o’clock on finishing a take-home final exam for a Chinese class and studying for the final exam in another Chinese class. There is little more final-exam work to do accept for spending more time tomorrow studying the Chinese final exam.
I bought a train ticket to Chicago online today and I think that Amtrak pulled a bait-n-switch on me. I checked the prices and saw that it was going to be $30 each way. I called the friend I will be staying with, Ericka, to see if the dates were good for her(Sun-Wed), then tried to book the tickets. The website gave me an error message saying, “Your session has expired”. I retrieved the ticket prices a second time and the price was $23 higher…….hmmmmm.

Tuesday: 12-12-06

I dropped of a blank CD this morning at the Judicial Affairs office so they can get me a copy of the audio recording from the hearing last Friday. I had breakfast at the Student Center before going to work at 9:30. Carl and Kelly were out of town this morning so I ran the store by myself all day. Their other employee Carie came in at 12:30, but just worked on miscellaneous projects by herself. She doesn’t know how to do much customer service related stuff yet. Nic stopped by in the afternoon to see how things were going. His parents(Carl and Kelly) usually ask him to stop by when I’m working by myself to see if I need anything. He told me that Carl had bought some books from a dead lady on Saturday. The lady had been dead in her house for five days before he arrived. The family had discovered this and had her body removed not too long before Carl arrived, so the house apparently smelled pretty bad. I would have been helping to get those books from her had I not been camping this weekend, so I guess I didn’t miss much.
Carl and Kelly got back into town at 4:30, then I went home just after 5.
My culture class teacher invited the whole class over to her house tonight to give the oral presentation part of our final exams. I was supposed to meet the student Jianna at 6:45 and walk to the teacher’s house with her, but I could never get ahold of her and she didn’t show up at the house.
The teacher’s(Brooke’s) husband had made snacks and hot apple cider for everyone. I was one of the first couple students to arrive. The house is in a nice residential neighborhood on the south-west corner of Carbondale. The fireplace was going in the living room and the snacks tasted great, especially since I hadn’t eaten since 9 o’clock this morning. About 25 students had showed up by 8 o’clock, then we went into the basement to give our presentations. Brook had enough chairs set up in a room down there for everyone to have a seat.
The presentations were supposed to be 3 minutes each, but most people were taking longer. We took a break at 8 o’clock and it seemed that things were going to go much later than expected. So, I handed my final paper into Brooke and told her that I would try to give the presentation in her office on Thursday, along with some students that couldn’t make it to her house tonight. It’s only worth a small amount of credit, so I doubt I’ll actually ever do it. I really didn’t want to leave, but I have a Chinese final exam at 7:50 in the morning. I went to bed very early so I could get up in the morning and study.

Wednesday: 11-13-06

I got up at 5:30 this morning to make time to study for my Chinese final exam. The sun had not even begun to come up when I arrived on campus just before six o’clock. The doors to the Student Center were locked and a single student was sitting in front of them. I asked if he also had an exam at 7:50, which he did. The doors to the Faner building and the library were also locked. The library used to be 24 hours during exams, so people must not be studying as much anymore. I was going to just sit outside under a streetlight and start studying, but I noticed that a door to the Faner building was partially propped open. Inside, there was one student sitting in a dark lobby. The hallway lights were off. I walked to a classroom on the second floor and turned on the lights, where I studied for the next hour. I then had breakfast at the Student Center before returning to the Faner building to take the test at 7:50.
My class’s exam wasn’t scheduled till 12:50, but I took mine with a first-year Chinese class so I could get done early and go to work. The same teacher teaches all the Chinese classes, so this was no problem. The test took about an hour and a half and wasn’t all that difficult because I was semi well prepared. There were two people in this first-year Chinese class that are also in my culture class. One of them is Matt, who will be moving to Japan next year.
Next, I stopped by the Judicial Affairs department to pick up the audio CD I dropped off yesterday for copying, but they said it wouldn’t be ready till Friday. They must have very slow computers. I arrived at work just before 10 o’clock and spent three hours packaging a large number of Internet orders. The other employee, Carie, spent several minutes talking to me while I worked. She said that one of her sisters got into Notre Dame on a fencing scholarship and researches AIDS in Africa, and that her other sister went to Cambridge and is a doctor. I think Carie has some kind of disability, but I’m not sure what.
I worked till 3 o’clock, then bought some groceries on the way home. Sleep easily happened from 4 till 6 o’clock, then Nic came over an hour later. We were planning to go to Mugsy’s comedy night, but he was a little girl and decided he didn’t feel like it. It must have been the sand.
Not having much better to do, I spent the next couple hours seeing if I could make a decent rap video. It turns out that I couldn’t, but I’ll post it online tomorrow anyway.

Thursday: 12-14-06

It was about 60 degrees and sunny for the second day in a row.
My first day with no schoolwork and I got up at 8:30, even earlier than I usually get up when I do have schoolwork. I spent the morning on the Internet trying to find free software and beats that will allow me to make decent rap songs. There is a quite a market for rap beats. Finding free ones actually took a bit of searching but I finally discovered a gold mine. For the rap I made last night, I just used my video editing software to mix tracks, but it turned out with loud static noises, so I’m going to try some other free stuff now. My camcorder microphone works decently for recording the audio.
Searching for free software, I happened to come across an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice database that allows the user to create custom Arnold quotes. Somebody seriously must have spent years on this thing and now they just give it away for free.
Another thing I discovered this morning was the fact that people train their dogs how to dance and enter them into dance competitions.
I worked from 1 o’clock till 4:45. One of the store’s most eccentric customers came in today with his wife. He never stops talking and you never know what he going to talk about. His wife is the most patient woman in the world and can sometimes be heard scolding him when she thinks his crazy stories get out of line. I was shelving paperbacks today when I heard him tell her she had her Romulan cloaking device turned on. He had said it because he couldn’t find her among the shelves of books. Her very casual response was, “No, just looking at some books”.
I met Yan at the Rec Center at 5 o’clock and taught him how to play racquetball. He had never played before and picked up the rules almost instantly. I of course beat him easily in the both the games we played, but I can tell that he would make quite a great player if he practiced much. After our second game, we stood around the racquetball court while he taught me how to speak about all kinds of different racquetball-related issues in Chinese. I learned how to say things like, “The ball hit the floor”, “It’s your serve”, etc.
I went back to my apartment at 7 o’clock and ate a corndog, ham sandwich and macaroni salad for dinner. You might say I did at least one constructive thing tonight- made that message to the Chinese that’s linked above.

Friday: 12-15-06

I worked at the bookstore by myself all day because Carl and Kelly were out of town. The weather was great so I was able to leave the front door of the store propped open all day. The traffic noises outside scared the hell out of Casper the cat, so he slept in the back office all day long.
Nic brought me lunch from Wendy’s. He works for a newspaper selling adds door-to-door to businesses in Carbondale, so he stops in the store often when he happens to be nearby.
Nathan B. came in to buy a book about hiking on the Appalachian trail. Nathan is the brother of Aaron, whom I used to work with at Schnucks and whom I stayed with in Yosemite National Park a few years ago. Another familiar-looking customer was Nessa, a girl who I had a class with several years ago. She said that she had since married an Austrian student and moved away to Austria with him.
I closed the store at six o’clock and returned home, then Josh picked me up a bit later to go have dinner at a new Mexican restaurant behind the Murdale Shopping Center. His sister Sara and her friend Carrie were already waiting for us there when we arrived. They practice law together at the same firm in Murphysboro. The four of us went to so the Bond movie Casino Royale after the meal, which was full of clever violence.
Josh and I met Nic on the Strip at 11 o’clock. We had planned on playing pool at Gatsby’s, but that dirty place was charging a $2 cover, so we went to Sidetracks and played pool at an even dirtier place. There is only a single pool table there and it was badly stained from spilled drinks. Many of the bar patrons were dressed strangely and somebody told Josh it was because of “porn night”, whatever that means. One girl was so drunk that she didn’t notice her breast hanging out of her shirt. A group of guys rolled a blunt and smoked it together while standing right next to us. I’ve seen people with hitter boxes at bars, and maybe even the occasional joint, but never a whole blunt.
We next did some bar hopping and went to Stix and PK’s. At Stix, I saw L.A., whom I hadn’t seen in probably 12 years. He is a relative of my high-school friend Stephanie L. Nic won several games of pool at Stix. At PK’s, we saw the Fatty’s girlfriend. Fatty lives just a block away, so she took us over to his place after the bar closed. He was just home taking a break from work, so we left after a few minutes and went out in search of a nice house party.
We had heard from some girls at PK’s that there was a party on Pecan St., so that’s where we went. The house the party was at is very near where I used to live with Mike and Jeff. Some girls walking into the party told us it was “lesbian only”, but they lied. What it actually was was a balloon party. We bought some beer off a guy who was carrying around a case of Keystone Light.
Thirty-minutes later, we decided to check out another party we’d heard about, which was on Washington St. It was after 3 o’clock by this time and the party was winding down by the time we arrived. It was being held in a small house by the train tracks and not many people were left. The people that lived there said that they would shut the keg down in 30 minutes, so we didn’t buy any cups.
Instead, we went back to my apartment. Nic and Josh used to be arch nemesises, but now act like destructive little boys when they get together. I’ve come to expect destructiveness out of Nic, but never Josh. It seems that Nic now makes Josh destructive and Josh in turn makes Nic even more destructive than he normally is. My apartment is a mess.

Saturday: 12-16-06

Josh slept on an inflatable mattress on my floor last night, leaving this morning when I got up for work at 9 o’clock. I only worked for an hour and a half today, just packaging the Internet orders then returning home.
I’d only slept about three hours last night, so I went back to sleep from noon till 2 o’clock. I met Ruli at Longbranch(coffee house) at 4 o’clock, where we sat and talked for about an hour. She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a long time and it just so happens that she’s also beautiful, so needless to say, hopefully we get to spend more time together.
I returned home at 5:30 and repaired my apartment from the devastating affects of Hurricane NicJosh. A more accurate way to explain the damage would be that Hurricane Nic was fueled by tropic depression Josh. But, we had a good time and the damage wasn’t permanent, just a mess that’s all.
I spent the rest of the evening packing up my things for the upcoming trip to Chicago and editing the audio from my “Gag Gift” hearing. This may be the last post on this blog till I return from Chicago on Wednesday night.

**I forgot to mention that my sister recently took a job with the FAA(Federal Aviation Administration) near Boston. She will be moving out there with Brant in January. Her job will be to fight animal terrorism, that is to design airports grounds that are not appealing to bugs and animals. If there’s no bugs, then there’s no birds, etc., and animals will be less likely to cause airline crashes. She is responsible for keeping snakes off planes and stuff like that.

Sunday: 12-17-06

I got up at 6:00 this morning in order to catch a 7:30 train to Chicago. I was walking the 4 blocks to the station so I made sure to pack lightly with just 2 bags; a laptop bag and another bag that carried my clothes etc.
My ticket was already paid for online, so I just picked it up at the ticket counter. As the train was leaving the station, I heard a conductor say “We have a runner” over the radio of another conductor that happened to be standing nearby me. A person had missed the train and was chasing after it on foot. It somehow seemed funny that a person would chase a train, but even weirder, the train actually stopped for this person. We were stopped for a couple more minutes, then I heard, “I didn't think this was going to be an extravaganza, sorry”, over the radio.
The train was sold out, so I waited till the opportune time to pick up my coat from the seat next to me, which of course was when the best looking female passenger walked by looking for a seat. I'd assumed she was a college student, but then noticed that she was carrying a Carbondale High School Cheerleaders bag.
Passing through the town of Centralia, I noticed a big sign on top of a downtown building that read “Centralia: Your Opportunity”. An old man was standing on the curb under the sign chewing gum. It's unclear where the opportunity lies in Centralia.
There was thick fog in the central part of the state and heavy clouds remained as we entered the northern part. I little girl sitting behind me kept hitting my seat and singing Christmas carols and nursery rhymes. She told her dad, “I love you” several times, and the dad ignored her. I spent my time either sleeping, looking out the window, or reading a book about Japanes culture. The book was part of the required reading for my culture class last semester, but I'd never had time to do more than skim it.
A couple hours into the trip, the train was like a sauna and I had to take off the sweater I was wearing. It was even hot in short sleeves.
The cheerleader was getting off at the same stop I was, Homewood. She removed her bags from the overhead apartment and I noticed a hissing sound in one of them, which was soon followed by the overwhelming smell of hairspray. I informed her of the problem and she shook the bag to make it stop. I didn't notice any explosions after we exited the train, so I guess she wasn't a smoker.
Ericka was just pulling up to the train station as I walked off the platform. A few blocks away, we were had to wait about 10 minutes for a barely-moving freight train. This part of the city is just terrible for that. A few blocks after that, we were stopped by another train that moved just a bit quicker. Our first stop was Ericka's parents house for lunch. Her mom, dad, brother and grandma Russo were all watching the Cubs game in the TV room. This was the first time I'd ever met her grandma. Ericka and I played two games of ping pong in the basement. I'm yet to ever win a game against her. Next, I played Yatzee with Ericka and her mom at the kitchen table. I lost.
Ericka and I picked up the lunch from Chi Tung, a very popular local Chinese restaurant that I've had food from many times before when visiting here. With our order, we received a complimentary $20 Christmas gift certificate because Ericka's family orders often.
The football game was in overtime when we got back to the house, so everyone ate in the TV room. Ericka's grandma seemed just as interested in the game as anyone else. Afterwards, we had some wine and played Hearts at the kitchen table. Everyone but Ericka's dad played. I took me a few rounds to get the hang of the game, so I came out almost in last place. I blamed the poor performance on my evil hand, because we had been joking around all evening about people who think their limbs are evil and cut them off. This conversation topic had started when Ericka told about how she had recently gone to a taping of the Jerry Springer show, which featured a transvestite who had cut his legs off with a chainsaw.
Another interesting conversation was when Ericka's mom told about a time when she was at a red light and 6 large black women got out of the truck in front of her and started spitting all over her car.
Ericka and I went to her apartment at about 6 o'clock, then took a walk around her neighborhood for an hour. A group of guys yelled all kinds of disgusting things at us as we sat on a merry-go-round in a park. Ericka wanted to buy candy on the walk back, then we sat outside her apartment for 30 minutes so she could let her two cats play, which is apparently something she does for them often. I think this girl needs a dog. We ended the evening with a Carl Sagan video about asteroids.

Monday: 12-18-06

I woke up at dawn and spent some time typing yesterday's journal entry, then went back to sleep till 9:30. Ericka and I went to a local mall, called Westfield, this morning. She was looking to buy a Nintendo Wii for her family for Christmas, but as we expected, all the stores were out of them. She says she loves playing the Wii, so this is a very convenient gift to give.
There was a kiosk that had a machine running that sewed custom logos and words onto hats. I asked the operator if there were any words that he would refuse to sew on a hat and he answered, “No, free speech. Right?”. I considered having a terrible hat made and getting one of my friends were it sometime, but decided I could spend $10 in some better ways.
For lunch, Ericka and I shared two value meals from Arby's at the food court; a chicken tender meal and a roast beef and cheddar meal. This mall has a massive two-level caurosel in the middle of the dining area.
Next, we went to Ericka's parent's house to use the Internet. She wanted me to help her make a Myspace page and check the price of Wiis on Ebay. The Wiis were selling at twice their store prices, so she gave up on that idea. She went through my website and picked out about a dozen pictures and a video to upload onto her Myspace page.
I had been planning on trying to find a used laptop to buy while staying up here, so after we returned to Ericka's apartment, I walked to two stores across the street to buy 4 local newspapers with classified ads. This was mostly a waste of time, as there was only one laptop listed and it didn't meet my requirments. My original plan had been to try and buy the laptop from Craigslist.com, but Ericka not having Internet access at her apartment was going to make that too difficult.
Ericka and I briefly left her apartment again so she could try and find a house for rent that one of her friends had seen recently. She just received her teaching certificate and will soon be taking a job and looking for a new place to live.
She went to work at 3 o'clock and I fell asleep. Jennifer R. Came over at 6:30 and we went to Keegan's to have a drink. A man named Steve sitting at the bar stool next to us happened to be a 1984 SIU journalism graduate. He chatted with us and bought us each a very well-made long island tea. Jennifer knew the bartender and asked her to put something in the drinks that made them pink, so I was then sitting at the bar drinking a pink drink. Ericka got off work at 8 o'clock and joined us. She also knew the bartender, but didn't drink anything.
The three of us returned to Ericka's apartment shortly after she arrived. For dinner, she and I ate ready-to-eat meals that were in her refrigerator. The meals are part of some diet plan, but mine was actually surprisingly good.
Jennifer left at 9:45 and Ericka and I went to go see the movie Borat. Everyone I know had said the entire movie was hillarious, but Ionly thought about half of it was hillarious. But, the idea for the movie was 100% hillarious and I'm sure they'll be more to follow.

Tuesday: 12-19-06

Ericka and I were planning on going to an ice skating rink today, but never ended up doing it. We had leftover Chinese food at her parent's house for lunch, then bought some steaks, potatoes and asparagus for dinner at a local supermarket. She went to work at 3 o'clock and I spent the afternoon reading, sleeping and watching TV. Ericka's black cat Chopin spent the whole afternoon on the coach with me. It sits and stares at my laptop screen when I'm typing.
In the evening, I watched a History Channel series of shows about the history of different kinds of drugs, which seemed to be not-so-subtly implying that the War on Drugs is a huge failure. I began cooking the steak dinner at 7:45 and Ericka returned home at 8:30. Jennifer showed up an hour later with a surprise; Nick H.
I hadn't seen Nick since I was in Chicago for my Externship last March, so it was a nice reunion. The four of us went to a nearby bar where the band Leadfoot was playing. Ericka has friends in this band and I've seen them play many times before.
We sat at a table in the front of the bar, but it was so loud that we moved to the back. We drank iced buckets of Miller High Life for $12.50 each; not exactly cheap for Miller High life, but the cheapest thing on the menu. We played some darts and everyone got bored with the game before it was over.
I had planned on staying out with Ericka pretty much all night and going to an after-hours party, but Nick just wanted to go back to Ericka's house and have a few drinks there and enjoy the peace and quiet. Ericka wasn't happy that I decided not to spend evening with her, but I could tell that Nick wasn't going to be happy staying out either. So, since I hadn't hung out with Nick in so long, I went with his plan and the two of us rode with Jennifer back to Ericka's apartment, stopping along the way to buy some drinks.
Jennifer just dropped us off at Ericka's apartment and went home. Nick ended up falling asleep within 30 minutes of our arrival. I fell asleep shortly afterwards and slept till Ericka got home at 5:30, then sat up for a while talking with her.

Wednesday: 12-20-06

Nic decided to leave Ericka's apartment at 8:30 this morning to ensure that he wouldn't be late for work later this afternoon. The drive to his home in Downer's Grove only takes about 30 minutes, but he doesn't have a car and the indirect bus/train route takes about 4 hours.
Jennifer showed up at the apartment with her son Aiden about 30 minutes after Nick left. She came over to offer us a ride downtown, not knowing that Nick had already left so early. I also didn't need a ride because my train wasn't leaving till much later. Had I not had two bags to carry around, I just would have spent the day downtown.
Jennifer stayed for an hour and Aiden wildly ran around exploring and climbing on everything. He's 15 months old and he memorized my name after I had said it just twice. Ericka got up just before 10 o'clock, then Jennifer left at 10:30. For lunch, I took Ericka's car to Chi Tung and brought back a pick-up order.
We both went back to sleep from noon till 2 o'clock, then I made my way downtown to catch the train. Ericka had to work at 3 o'clock so she couldn't take me. Getting downtown was easy because I was able to take the exact same route that I had in March when I worked downtown for one week. After 43 blocks on a bus, I transferred to the Orange Line train. A train on this line derailed yesterday and precariously tilted off an 27-foot elevated track, but there were no signs of any disruptions today.
I accidentally paid $5 for a train pass that should have only cost $2. I don't think refunds are given, so I gave my card to a bum on the train. He was a young black guy that entered the car through the connecting door in the front. There were trash bags in his hands filled with unknown goods. He sat down across from me and promptly requested “$10 or $15”. He started asking for drugs after I denied him money, first requesting marijuana, then cocaine, then meth. Another bum then entered from the front of the car a few minutes later. He was an old man with an unusually high pitched and accented voice. He stood in the middle of the car giving a speech to the 5 or 10 passengers that were riding, saying that he wanted to work but couldn't find a job bla bla bla. His voice was so weird, almost like a robot.
I got off the train at the Lasalle St. Station, which was the wrong one, as the Amtraks leave from Central Station. It was only a 4 block walk. The sky was cloudy and a light drizzle was falling. Inside the station, I found a Tribune to read while waiting 30 minutes, then the train boarded and left on time.
A girl sat down next to me at the first stop. I was one of the only passengers in my car with a seat companion. For dinner, I couldn’t help but order a bratwurst meal for $7.50 in the dining car. Nearly the entire rest of the trip was spent sleeping. It rained all the way from Chicago to Carbondale.
I walked the three-four blocks to my apartment, then spent the rest of the evening checking emails, phone messages, updating journals, making faces into the mirror, etc.

Thursday: 12-21-06

I sent an email to the Illinois Department of Commerce this morning to begin the process of securing the internship that I was promised by the Chicago office last March. The supervisor there will hopefully put me in contact with the supervisor of the Shanghai office so I can send the university paperwork off to be completed and returned.
Drizzle or rain was falling all day long, for at least 14 hours. This must be part of the same weather system that dumped two feet of snow out west, but what the hell do I know. I worked from 2 o’clock till 5:30, then went to the Student Center to meet Yan. The building was locked, so I returned home and found messages from Yan saying he already knew this. We agreed to meet tomorrow morning instead.
Nic picked me up at 6:30 and we went to the Hangar to play pool. Pool is free there of Thursday nights. Nic’s sister Carly met us an hour later. He convinced me to play Big Buck Hunter after a few more games of pool. He’s been playing the game obsessively with his coworkers lately.
Nic, Carly and I went to Nic’s house at 9:30, then sat around for an hour talking and playing a golf game on his Xbox. Larry soon arrived and so did Sara and a friend whom I’d never met before. Nic, Larry and I went to go see the movie Eragon at 10 o’clock. Five minutes into the movie, I spilled a whole large coke along with all the Captain Morgan that was mixed into it, an expensive spill.
The movie was about a dragon with a telepathic feminine voice and the guy who rode it. I really don’t get into fantasy but ended up liking the movie, mostly because it made me laugh hysterically at it. Nic had been laughing since the beginning and I couldn’t help but join him when the dragon came out wearing a suit of armor. The cheesy dialog made it all the better.
Larry dropped me off at my apartment after the movie.
In other news, I checked my grades online last night and discovered 3 A’s and a B. Somebody in Carbondale is selling a Lamborghini on Craigslist.com. It has front end damage from a crash and cost $25,000. Who in Carbondale would have a Lamborghini?

Friday: 12-22-06

I had breakfast at the Student Center and met Yan there at 10 o’clock. During the past semester, our meetings had been for the purpose of fulfilling a class requirement, but I’ve decided to keep on meeting him because we can help each other out with language quite a bit.
I had been planning on working at 2 o’clock today, but rescheduled for noon because my dad had invited me to visit friends of his at 3 o’clock. He picked me up at the bookstore at that time and we stopped by my apartment so I could pack a bag. Since it’s so close to Christmas and I won’t be working again before then, I just decided to stay at the house in Murphysboro until the holiday.
We picked up Clara in Murphysboro and headed north to Alton to visit my dad’s college friends Bird and Andy at Andy’s house, which is a nice brick home with an in-ground pool and pool house in back yard. Bird was up visiting from Dallas. During the drive up, the car was oddly vibrating during acceleration. I drove the last half of the two-hour drive.
I’d met Bird and Andy before on multiple occasions, but had never really gotten to know them all that well. We spent about six hours together tonight and I decided that they have almost nothing in common with my dad, as they’re full of dirty jokes and stories about chasing women. They know each other because they were all part of the same fraternity in college. I’d never known this before and somehow can’t see my dad as a fraternity guy.
Andy has been to Cuba multiple times over the past six years and has taken Bird with him on at least one of those trips. We saw many Cuba pictures and heard some pretty humorous Cuba stories. Andy called a woman he knows in Cuba and everybody in the house but me talked with her. Andy said the call cost $1 per minute.
Andy kept food on the table and the wine glasses full all evening. For dinner, he and Bird donned aprons and chef hats and made three pizzas, which were excellent. This was the first time I’d ever had anchovies and I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. They have a strong taste but it’s not overwhelming.
After dinner, my dad and Bird spent an hour singing and playing their guitars. We left the house just after midnight and returned home in Murphysboro just before 3 AM.

Saturday: 12-23-06

I woke up at the house in Murphysboro at 11 o’clock this morning. Despite our very late night, Clara and my dad had already been up for some time because a man had come to buy some car parts earlier. I ate a sandwich for lunch then took Clara’s car to buy a few Christmas presents.
There was a group of huge vultures eating something dead along Harrison Road. The birds were larger than chickens and didn’t fly when I passed by, so I stopped and tried to take a couple pictures, but they did fly when I approached on foot.
My family is exchanging very little for Christmas this year, so I wanted to just buy a few little gag-type gifts. My first stop was at Nance’s Trading Post, a tiny second-hand store that has been in business for at least 25 years along Harrison Road. The building is literally falling apart and there is no longer even a sign showing the name of the business. There was no “open” sign on the door and the hours were written in smeared black marker on a stained sheet of regular paper. Nobody would ever realize this is a business unless they were familiar with the area. There was an old beat-up Chevy car in the parking lot, which probably belonged to the beat-up-looking skinny woman who was working inside. She had a child with her behind the counter. I spent several minutes looking around at the junk then briefly entered a second hand clothing store next door. I found nothing to buy.
My next stop was Dollar General, where I found everything needed for Christmas this year, which came to a total of $15. I felt sorry for some of the very poor-looking customers, especially a man with a huge belly that was wearing a dirty sweat outfit that was too small with a pair of worn-out sandals on his feet.
On the way home, I got a second lunch from the McDonald’s drive thru. Amanda was at the house when I arrived back. My dad and I took a long walk in the woods in the mid-afternoon, going all the way to both Lake Murphysboro and Little Lake. Janie the dog followed us and we came upon a young couple in a picnic area that also had a dog.
There is an area near Lake Murphysboro that my family has called Indian Bathtub ever since I can remember, which just consists of a deep pool surrounded by stone. After all these years, one of the huge 1 ton+ stones has collapsed from the hillside into the pool. Another interesting sight near this area is a beaver dam that has backed up a huge amount of water, turning what used to be a tiny stream in to a little river.
Back at the house, my dad and I took his new 1960 Catalina convertible for a drive to get some gas. Several people made comments about the car at the gas station and a black woman even sat inside of it. This woman looked familiar and it turns out that she was Juanita, the hall monitor from my high school. She also thought I looked familiar and asked my name, then we realized who each other was.
Continuing our drive, we passed by the water treatment plant that is near our house, where at least one tornado touched down in September. You can see a video of this on YouTube. The winds were strong enough to even snap several telephone poles off.
Back at the house, I took the three-wheeler on a short drive, then my dad and I dug up a small Christmas tree from the garden.
We went shopping in Carbondale after dinner, first stopping at K’s Merchandise to buy a home entertainment sound system. K’s has been having a going out of business sale for months, so sections of the store are becoming empty of merchandise. There was one home theatre display model left, which Clara bought for half price. My dad also bought me a pair of pants from Old Navy. Before going home, Clara also asked that we stop at WalMart and Pier 1 Imports.
Back in Murphysboro, I hooked up the new home theatre system and my dad and I watched part of the 1959 movie, the Great St. Louis Bank Robbery.
The kiwi wine that my dad made a few weeks ago is finished and I tried a glass of it tonight. He refers to it as “diesel” because it has a very odd flavor and may not have been made quite right.

Sunday: 12-24-06

I woke up at 9 o’clock this morning and wrapped the few gifts I’d bought yesterday. I also completed the temporary hookup of the new sound system Clara bought last night. My dad got home from church after 11 o’clock and we had lunch together. Clara didn’t arrive home for another couple hours because she does work at the church.
I walked out to Little Lake and noticed that the spillway was partially blocked by debris. Just for fun, I poked at the debris with a stick and got a large amount of water flowing. There was a sound behind me and I turned around to see water pouring out of a manhole on the side of the dam. The culverts were clogged and the water exiting at this point had eroded about at least a dump truck load of dirt from the base of the dam. I told my dad what I’d seen and then we returned to the spot so he could see the problem for himself.
Seeing a malfunctioning spillway prompted him to want to fix his own. Our own lake’s spillway was partially clogged with leaves and rocks, so we cleared it out with a hoe and rake. All the lakes in the area seem to be at high levels right now.
We then did 15 minutes of bird watching with binoculars and saw about 10 different kinds of birds, including some titmice. He has several feeders set up around the house, so the bird activity is constant.
Christmas Eve wouldn’t be complete in Southern Illinois without burning a couch, so I burned one that happened to be sitting on our burning pile, then entertained myself for the next couple hours by watching the movie March of the Penguins. Brant and Amanda came over just before the movie was over and Brant asked me to turn it off and watch football instead, which I did. He got distracted a few minutes later and left the room. We all ended up watching the movie Cars a bit later.
For Christmas Eve dinner, Clara cooked Cornish hens, then we went to a church service at 7 o’clock. In the car, Brant kept flicking my ears and poking at my head, then he shoved the offering plate into my ribs at the church.
Multiple babies cried throughout the service and at least one cell phone rang. The communion was given by having each person come to the front and pull of piece of bread from a loaf and dip it in a cup of grape juice. I joked afterwards that my piece had an artificial finger nail in it but I’d eaten it because I didn’t think it would look good if I spit out the blood of Christ. The service ended with everyone lighting candles that had been distributed when we’d entered the building.
Returning to the car, I briefly spoke with Matt P. We stopped at SI Liquors on the way home so Amanda could buy a bottle of sweet wine. She won’t drink the semi-sweet stuff that my dad keeps on hand.
We played Cranium for the next hour, then opened the few small gifts that we had for each other. One of the things I got Brant and Amanda was a spinning top that lighted up and bounced. I ended up launching it into the ceiling fan so hard that dust fell all over the place.
We ended the evening by passing around a hand puppet and taking turns telling jokes or stories. My dad could have been a ventriloquist.

Monday: 12-25-06

It rained nearly all day and briefly snowed in the morning.
I watched part of the movie Andromeda Strain, then my dad, Clara and I went to Brant’s parents house to have a Christmas dinner at 1 o’clock. There were about 15 guests in all and the food was great.
Everyone in Brant’s family opened all their gifts after the meal. His sister even got a brand new computer.
I left with my dad and Clara just before dark and they dropped me back off at my apartment in Carbondale. Christmas evening was spent doing laundry, getting some new pictures online and watching the rest of Andromeda Strain. My building is eerily abandoned accept for the occasional zombie-like foriegner milling about.

Tuesday: 12-26-06

I woke up at 2AM last night and didn’t go back to sleep till 8. I finally got out of bed at 5 o’clock and sat at my computer for three hours. The email I sent last week to the Illinois Department of Commerce Chicago office about my Shanghai internship was undeliverable, meaning the person I sent it to probably doesn’t work there anymore. So, I went ahead and sent another email to a different person, this time directly to the manager of the Shanghai office. Hopefully they respond.
I went to work from noon till six. Tavis and Katie stopped in for a few minutes to say hello and see if I wanted to go out tonight. I did some grocery shopping on the way home. Tavis picked me up at 8 o’clock and we went to his parent’s house in Murphysboro for the best prime rib meal that I can remember ever. The meat was from 17th Street and was easily cut with a fork.
Tavis has a new toy that everyone took turns playing with. It’s a handheld gyroscope called Powerball that moves in ways that seem impossible. Getting the Powerball to start is tricky and I couldn’t do it even after trying for about 20 minutes straight. Tavis started it for me and handed it over, then I grabbed the wrong part and got a painful friction burn.
Tavis, Katie and I went to W.J. P’s house at ten o’clock, where everyone was watching the movie Jack Ass 2. This is the one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen and I loved every minute.
We next went on to John E’s house, where everyone was playing poker. There were about 10 people there in all. All the women were talking in the living room and all the men were playing poker, of course. Tim wanted to leave the game early, so I bought his $8 worth of chips for $10(we didn’t have change). My bad investment turned into a good one when I won several hands worth about $9 more.
Tavis, Katie and I left and went back to his parent’s house about 3 o’clock. Katie farts a lot.

Wednesday: 12-27-06

I woke up on Tavis’s parent’s couch this morning at 9:30 and he gave me a ride back to Carbondale. There is heavy construction going on right next to his house, so it had been hard to sleep for some time before that. Underground gas tanks are being removed from what used to be a gas station next door. That property seems to be cursed against gas stations because there have been several there over the past years. Since I couldn’t sleep this morning, I layed around for a couple hours watching serial killer documentaries on Court TV, which had been left on all night.
Back at my apartment, I fell asleep from 11:30 till 1 o’clock, then had a quick lunch and went to work. Most of the workday consisted of processing 2 boxes of cassette audio books, which involved various tasks online.
I went directly to Yan’s apartment after work, which is near the dorm towers in a building that is set up similar to the one I live in. I had actually looked at an apartment there before renting my current one. Yan was outside the front door waiting when I arrived. He and his wife were cooking a dinner on a third floor kitchen with several other Chinese people. The food was great and all the people were friendly without exception. Among the many dishes served was whole fish (with heads included) and radishes dipped in a soy sauce-like paste. I really love the Chinese people more every day.
I took Yan and his wife on a 2-hour driving lesson after the meal. They both have passed the written driving exam and have permits which allow them to drive if a person who has had a license for at least one year is in the car. They bought a little 1999 Toyota last week. They really blew all of the Asian driving stereotypes out of the water tonight. Not because Asians have inferior driving skills, of course, but because they had barely every driven a minute in their lives before tonight. Since they are both over 30 years old, I somehow just naively assumed that they would have at least the most basic of skills, but I should have remembered what my own skills were like when I started driving.
The trip began with Yan driving the car about one mile to the arena parking lot. He drove about 15 mph most of the way and sometimes made erratic turns into other lanes. In the arena parking lot, we practiced parking between the lines several times, then his wife took over and tried the same thing a few more times. There happened to be two cars parked one space apart in the huge empty lot. I got Yan to successfully park between them, but he wouldn’t let his wife try it.
For reversal practice, I had her circle the drive that surrounds the boulder in front of the arena. She quickly caught on to that but her speed was never over 2 mph.
Next, she drove through campus and back onto route 51 south headed towards the arena. At the 4-way lighted intersection with Mill St., she nearly ran out in front of an SUV. The light was red and she believed that she could make a turn without stopping. Yan and I both yelled “STOP! STOP STOP!” when we realized what she was doing, but her stop was delayed and came dangerously close to the SUV.
Back in the arena parking lot, Yan practiced reversing around the circular drive and wasn’t doing too well. His wife then took over again for some more parking practice. She wanted to drive the car back to the apartment, but Yan said that it was “too dangerous”. She drove anyway. Turning back onto route 51, she asked which lane she should drive in and I told her, “the right one”, so she drove on the shoulder. She laughed everytime she made a serious mistake, and so did I, but Yan seemed to be very nervous.
I arrived back at my apartment at 10 o’clock, then Tavis and Katie came to pick me up a few minutes later. We spent the next three hours at the Cellar. First, we played trivia, then Tavis’s brother and sister and his sister’s boyfriend Chad came. We played some bumber pool and started to get a little rough with each other over it, all in good fun of course.
We all went to Denny’s at 1:30. My high school friend Jason was working in the kitchen. I shot a spit wad onto Tavis’s face and it stuck on his cheek.

Thursday: 12-28-06

I slept in till noon this morning, which still allowed for less than 8 hours of sleep. I worked from 1:30 till 6. Casper the cat hasn’t been in the store since Christmas. Carl and Kelly took him home on the 24th and now he runs and hides every morning before they come into work, so they joke to the customers that they are in contract negotiations with him. People come in looking for the Casper several times per day.
My internet access had been out when I got up this morning, and it was still out when I got home. Strangely though, my Skype phone service still partially works at times. Without Internet access, I watched Fox News on the big screen TV in the lobby while I ate dinner. Fox News is not really news and neither are most of the other networks. CNN was running multiple feature stories a few weeks ago about the violent repercussions of the diamond trade in Africa. It just so happened that Time Warner, CNN’s parent company, had just released a movie about the diamond trade in Africa. They are breaking basic rules of journalism and will pay, maybe.
I spent most the evening organizing everything on the hard drive of my computer in preparation for selling the computer and buying a laptop in the next couple weeks.

Friday: 12-29-06

My internet access was out for the second day in row, so I complained. The office was not staffed, so I called the manager from the lobby payphone and he said, “Well, we don’t usually work today, but I’ll look into the problem this afternoon”, like he was doing me some kind of favor by restoring the service that I’m paying for. There was a girl sitting in the lobby that is friends with some Chinese people I know, so I asked if her internet access had been working. She replied that she didn’t know because she hadn’t used it in a few days. How could someone that lives in a little tiny room not use their Internet access for a few days? She must be insane.
I went onto campus to try to use the Internet there at noon. Passing by the under-construction library, I noticed that the exterior walls are finished on part of the upper section of the building. Only two more years of work to go and the rest will be finished, coffee shop and all.
I was thinking that at least the Student Center would be open today, which has a few computers available for checking emails, but I was wrong. The campus is virtually abandoned except for a few wayward nerds and overworked janitors.
So, I went on to Save-a-Lot and bought some odds and ends including a soap dish, two $1 fake-leather CD holders, paper towels and super glue. At the bookstore, I used some of the credit I have to buy three books about China. One is about the life of one of the main exiled Tiananmen Square activists, one is about the Cultural Revolution and one is about an American named Frederick Ward who was famous in China in the early 20th century. I have no idea who the hell Frederick Ward is, but the book looked somehow interesting and had great reviews.
I worked from 1:15 to 5:50. My dad stopped in for a few minutes to talk with me while I was reorganizing the cookbook section. He was on his way to meet Clara at the mall so they could buy Amanda a new suit to wear to her new anti-animal-terrorism job with the FAA. Actually, she informed me the other day that fighting animal terrorism will only be one small part of her job, but that’s still what I’m going to tell people she does. She’s only book smart, you know, but even that is a lot more than what Brant has going for him.
Just before I left the bookstore, I gave Carl and Kelly the manuscript of a children’s book I’ve been writing this week about Casper the cat. I didn’t mention it in this journal before because I wanted it to be a surprise. They both thought it was good and I will print a few out and see if they sell. If so, then I’ll make more. As for profits, the book is only 21 pages(mostly illustrations) and we can’t charge much, so I proposed that we charge a little more than we normally would and give the money to some children’s charity. The moral of the story is to watch out for strangers, so a charity like The Center for Missing and Exploited Children would be appropriate. I think this approach would benefit everyone more than if we tried to make a profit on the books.
After giving me my paycheck, Carl and Kelly surprised me with a Christmas card that contained a $25 Buffalo Wild Wings gift certificate and a $25 Save-a-Lot gift certificate. I hadn’t expected any Christmas bonus at all, so $50 was quite nice.
Back at my apartment, I had a chicken pot pie and a turkey sandwich for dinner, then spent about two hours talking with Johanna on Skype. I just can’t understand why I can use Skype but not a web browser.
After talking with Johanna, I spent an hour cleaning up my apartment in preparation for Stefan’s arrival tomorrow night. He’ll be staying for three nights. The room next to mine has been unrented for months, and the door in the bathroom leading to it is unlocked, so I made the bed up over there for Stefan to sleep in. Maybe I could just start renting the room out after he leaves……

Saturday: 12-30-06

My Internet access was finally working this morning, after two days of absence. I received an email from a friend of Stefan, which said that Stefan had gotten very sick on the plane from Germany and has been staying at his hotel in New York and seeing a doctor. He hadn’t been able to contact me himself because he didn’t have easy access to a computer. I called his cell phone and he said that he also hadn’t been able to contact me by phone, which turned out to be because he was dialing a 619 area code instead of 618.
So, he’s going to continue recovering in New York instead of coming to visit me, then he’ll continue his trip to Florida and Chicago after he gets to feeling better.
I spent the afternoon pricing laptop computers and doing some other shopping. I considered taking the bus in case I bought anything large, but the bus in on a break schedule that would have been terribly inconvenient.
My first stop was Best Buy. They had a good selection of laptops and one actually met all my qualifications except for not having enough memory. I was considering buying it along with some extra memory, but then a terrible saleperson ruined the deal. When I asked about the memory configuration, he said that there was no way to know what kind of chip set it had before I bought it and opened it up. I asked again if there was anyway he could find this information for me and he again declined, so I walked out and went to Wal Mart.
They only had three laptops on display and I wrote down the info about one that seemed like a decent deal. My next stop was Goodwill, where I spent nearly an hour going through all the used clothes. I found two perfect pairs of pants but the best purchase by far was a whole 70’s-style outfit to wear to Randy G’s New Year’s party tomorrow night. It’s perfect and cost less than $15- shoes, tie, pants, belt, shirt and sport jacket included.
I arrived back at my apartment at 4:30, then had dinner and spent some time investigating potential laptop purchases online. I fell asleep for from 8:30 till 9:30, then spent the rest of the evening getting my Casper story ready to publish in a Microsoft Word document. Getting all the spacing right took some time and experimentation because I want to be able to cut each sheet of paper into four separate pieces, each of which will be a page in the book. The plan is to print it on heavy duty paper and bind it in a plastic comb. Anybody got a plastic comb binder?

Sunday: 12-31-06

One day before January and it was 60 degrees and sunny for much of the day. Clouds and rain arrived in the afternoon. It was so nice at noon that I decided to go out for lunch dressed in all camouflage. Well, the camouflage was just a coincidence. I ate at Wendy’s, then bought some super-powered hair gel at Walgreen’s so I can wear a fro with my 70’s suit to the party tonight.
I also bought an 18 pack of Bud Light and 2 bottles of Champaign at Old Town Liquors, which was bit tough to get home on the bike. Two passers-by made comments about my liquor on the way home. One yelled, “BUD LIGHT!!!” and the other asked, “Gettin’ started already?”. Both of these people already had drinks in their hands. There will be a lot of hangovers in the world tomorrow morning. I would have to guess that New Year’s Day is the world’s biggest hangover of the year. People will be doing little else than resting tomorrow, so maybe all this drinking is good for the environment because people won’t be consuming as many resources and polluting the environment. Well, then again, think about the terrible bodily fluids of all kinds that escape from people…..
I spent time in the afternoon trying to nurse my sick iPod back to health. New songs uploaded to it cannot be played unless it is connected to a computer. They don’t show up on the iPod’s screen, but they do show up on the computer when I connect it. All the songs I initially uploaded several months ago are fine, but it won’t accept anything new at all. I even went as far today as to delete all the songs and restore the machine to its original factory settings, but the problem remains. I blame Brant.
My Taiwanese friend Peter and his very pregnant wife Wendy came to pick me up at six o’clock. I was dressed in my 70’s era suit with my hair sticking straight out in all directions, but Wendy still said “hen xiu”, which means “very handsome”.
We ate dinner at an engineering professor’s nice house on the west side of Carbondale, so I felt a bit out of place with my outrageous wardrobe. Everyone in the house was Taiwanese, including the professor, his girlfriend and the 10 or so guests. Strangely, I don’t think anybody thought I was dressed unusually. They had to at least wonder about the flowery belt, but nobody said a word. Our meal consisted of about 10 Taiwanese dishes. I provided a bottle of champagne.
Appropriately, the professor had a karaoke system in his TV room, so that was the after-dinner activity. All the songs were Chinese and the text was in Chinese characters, so I just watched and tried to identify the characters I knew. We also watched the New Year’s celebration from Taipei, Taiwan, which the professor had recorded earlier. The city of Taipei had attached tens of thousands of fireworks to their recently completed Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building. The display somehow seemed funny because I could never imagine an American city voluntarily attaching thousands of pounds of explosives to a skyscraper.
The Taiwanese professor is about 50 years old and has been in the US at least 20 years. During that time, he has embraced deer hunting at an extreme level. His TV room must have a dozen buck heads sticking out of the walls, all of which had Christmas decorations on them. In other rooms, the occasional head or pelt can also be found. It is always fascinating to see what parts of American culture foreigners will get involved with.
Peter and I left the house at 9 o’clock and went to Randy G’s house(his wife stayed behind playing mahjong at the professor’s house). Peter ran at least one stop sign along the way. Randy was supposed to be having a party tonight, but Peter and I were the only guests that showed up. Randy, Lisa and the two kids were all just watching TV inside. Peter and I stayed for about an hour, recording a short video and playing some poker. Randy and Lisa had just received a new camcorder for Christmas and had been having fun making themselves and the kids disappear on tape. They played a few minutes of this footage to Peter and I, then had us record our own disappearing act. Peter held up a beer and had me point at it and say “Happy New Year” in Chinese. We then stood perfectly still while Randy removed the beer can and turned the camera back on. The camera was on a tripod, so the disappearing act turned out quite well.
Peter and I returned to the professor’s house after an hour of poker. Peter’s wife and three others were still playing mahjong at the kitchen table. A couple other people were watching something in the TV room and the professor was sleeping. Peter took over playing mahjong for his wife and he tried to teach me the rules, but I just couldn’t follow. The players took a break at 11:55 to celebrate the New Year with the others in the TV room. They found the right channel just as the countdown hit “9”. I popped a bottle of champagne and we all shared a New Year’s cake.
Mahjong continued immediately afterwards and lasted another 30 minutes. I was a bit surprised when three of the players each handed the other about $10 at the end. The professor then got out of bed and all of us watched a Superman movie in the TV room till 4AM. The evening ended with the eating of leftovers from the meal earlier.