Well, not really….but sometimes I feel that way.
As some of you know, I have asthma kinda bad. Most of 2006 was spent feeling like crap for me. At the end of last year I found out part of that was due to a medicine mishap. Way too many doctor visits, hospital visits, medicine taken and weeks off work made it not too enjoyable. As of yesterday at 4pm I would say I was feeling pretty good. I had been feeling pretty tired all day, but didn’t think much of it. After I had been home for about 15min after work I felt so bad I had to turn off My Name is Earl and move 3 boxes off my bed so I could chill. Next thing I knew Liz was waking me up. I could hardly talk and hardly move.
So that started the exodus to Muncie. As of now, about 24hrs later, I’m finally able to sit up and make my way to a computer. All I know is that my apartment is still definitely unlivable and it’s supposed to rain this week. That means more melting snow and better possibility of water coming in. I need a new place to live.
Usually Sundays are days filled with rest and relaxation for Liz and I. Today wasn’t one of those days. We got a knock on our door from one of our neighbors asking if we were getting water into our apartment. We checked in the other room and we definitely were. All the melting snow and rain from last night had created a mini-lake outside. The water wasn’t coming in from the exterior wall though. The water was seeping into the interior hallway and then coming into our apartment from the interior wall. So we spent our afternoon trying to move and re-arrange boxes and other various items. Luckily nothing was destroyed.
After we stemmed the tide, we took a break by heading over to Robby’s for some Oscar action. Matt and Liz were there too. We got to enjoy some snacks, good conversation and a very dry floor. Oh, and we also learned that some friends of ours are going to have a baby. For now, I gotta get some sleep so I can get up early and lift in the morning.
I was done with work before lunch yesterday so I decided to get the editing done on the podcast. I think I spent about 4-5 hours on it. Most of that is spent just listening to what it sounds like. I spent some time trying to think of a good song to put in there. My first thought was Dangling Feet by DeVotchka, then I messed around with a lot of other things and ended up where I had started. I even pulled a couple of audio clips from the movie.
Overall, I think this is much better than the last one. I’m going to submit it to iTunes this afternoon so be ready for another installment soon.
Regulars:
Chalupa
Paul (Gunner)
Moser
Andy
Sevier
Bleu
Music:
DeVotchKa - Danglin’ Feet
The Big Lebowski soundtrack
Chapter 1
Page one is setting up the Dursleys. We learn where they live and little bit about the characteristics of Mr., Mrs., and their son Dudley. They don’t sound like very nice people at all. Mrs. Dursley and Harry’s mother are sisters, however, Mrs. Dursley pretends like the Potters don’t exist. The Dursleys are afraid of and disdain the Potters because they’re weird and peculiar. Their worst fear is the neighbors finding out their “secret”
corpulento - corpulent, stocky
rollizo - plump, chubby
empresa - firm, company
taladros - drills
habitual - usual, customary
útil - useful
inútil - useless (adj), good-for-nothing (person)
estirarse - to stretch
encima - above
valla - fence
fingir - to pretend
estremecerse - to shake, tremble
alejado - far away, remote (distance)
juntarar - to join, put together
Tonight we finally were all able to get together and record episode two of the Lebowski Podcast. We were all set to record last week, but we got hit with that blizzard and everything got set back. I think tonight went 100 times better than our last recording. We all gelled, Bleu coming in wasn’t weird at all, the conversation never really faltered, we had more content and fan mail to discuss, etc. One exception would be that the computer gave us some grief and we lost at least 15 minutes at the end. When we found this out, we re-did it in about 5 min. Then realized it still wasn’t working. After switching the drive we were saving to we finally got our ending finished up in even less time. It kinda sucks at the moment, but maybe it was for the best. It was probably getting a little long anyways.
I’m not sure hot long it will be til it’s up on iTunes. I’ve been working a lot this week so I’ll definitely have some free time on Friday during the day.
Today was our annual tech fair at work. For me that means helping to haul a lot of equipment over, set things up, man a booth, talk to a lot of people and help out in whatever way I can. Sometimes I get frustrated here and there, but overall it’s a great experience. This year I was manning the Turning Point booth and had a couple professors with me showing examples of what they do in class.
If you don’t know, Turning Point is a classroom response system that works as a plugin to PowerPoint. You essentially install it, get an extra toolbar in PP, put some interactive content in your slides, hand out the clickers to your students/audience and then give your presentation. You can keep track of who is associated with each clicker or you can keep it totally anonymous. It can be pretty cool and useful if you do it right.
I need to do some more work on Harry Potter. I’ve never really read a book in spanish before, plus, I haven’t done much with the language in a while so it’s been a challenge. I’m thinking of either starting up another blog or just making it a part of this one; I want to chronicle my journey through the process. I’d like to summarize each page and also list any new phrases and words I picked up along the way. I think it’ll help me retain more. I think I spent about 30 min on the first page. That may sound like a long time but I looked up some words and also got stuck on a couple phrases. However, after reading through the whole page 4 times, I pretty much had it memorized.
So after a couple more emails, Jim came knocking on my door Sunday afternoon. Gunner happened to be over watching Barton Fink with me and Jim seemed quite comfortable saying everything in front of him. Well, I don’t know if I’d definitely call it comfortable for him since his hands were shaking so much, but anyways…
I wouldn’t say everything started off as a “conversation” because it started off with Jim spouting off about how I’m causing trouble, sending nasty emails and getting my fellow neighbors riled up. I basically had two options at this point: One - I could give in to my human nature and be a dick. I could throw all the accusations back into Jim’s face and respond like those sub-class citizens you see making fools of themselves on daytime talk-television. Two - Or I could try and diffuse the situation, try to act diplomatically and reason with Jim.
Thankfully, God gave me the wisdom to choose choice number two. Jim was so ready to be yelled at and basically it was like he was reciting Kyle’s tone and thoughts that I read from the emails he sent us. Then I got Jim to calm down and converse. I apologized for any miscommunication I had done and had tried to explain the situation from the start and re-state my actions. I tried to iterate to Jim that in my mind things could be bigger than they are because precedents exist in my mind from how things were handled over the summer. Jim apologized for not returning my phone calls in a timely manner and for not really informing me in when it would have been appropriate. We both agreed that we could improve the communication between ourselves in dealing with matters concerning the building. Jim also mentioned that I’ve been a great tenant. I always pay rent on time, no tenants have complaints about me and they have no complaints about how I treat the property. That part was a little confusing though because if I’m such a good tenant then how come I’m accused of being a “fabricator of stories” and “creating a hornets nest” when I asked a couple neighbors if they had a copy of their lease?
Anyways, I think my original goal was achieved. Jim miraculously found copies of leases. I’m guessing people started calling the owner because why else would they say that I “created a hornets nest”? All I wanted was for some of these college students to better understand what it means to rent a property and what their rights are. I hope things will get better and I think they’re starting to realize that I have realistic expectations and am easy to get along with as long as they’ll just give me an honest answer.
I switched my main blog from blogger to Wordpress a while back due to the impending “doomsday” of me having to switch over to Blogger Beta or “the new Blogger”. Well last night I was trying to do a final import of my other two blogs and that’s when they decided to make me switch. It wouldn’t let me do the import until I logged in and converted. The problem is that Wordpress can’t import from the “new Blogger” unless I want to do a very long and tedious process step-by-step. This is so annoying. I’m hoping that Wordpress comes up with an import fix soon.
I’ve been getting a lot of advice today on the apartment problems.
Smitty suggested I call the city to see if there’s an ordinance about snow removal.
Joe suggested I talk to the Muncie Landlords Association to get advice on what to do.
I also called up Tom and Sue, my old landlords, and talked to them about it.
Right now Liz and I are continually trying to communicate with Kyle and diffuse this big situation that seems to have arisen out of us asking when the snow will be shoveled. My gut feeling is that nothing will really change, but time will tell on that one. The good news is that I at least have one idea of a place to live if I decide to get out of here.
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