NORDO

This is hard, because there at least two blog posts I really want to write right now (one is on Iraq, the other is about how November totally kicked my butt), but I'm not going to do it! No sir! Not until I get these bleeding law school applications finished! And the living room cleaned out at least somewhat!

So that's it. No more blogging until the applications are all done. With any luck it won't be that long.

Freakonomics

So... I read Freakonomics, which apparently is one of the biggest nonfiction books of the year.

I didn't buy it, though, I borrowed it from a friend. It turns to be very interesting and thought provoking, but I'm not sure it's quite as amazing as a lot of folks are saying. The main problem with this book is that not everything in the world can be explained with the cold logic of economics. I like the book's premise--that we can use the tools of economics to answer all sorts of questions. I like the idea of coming up with my own questions and trying to find solutions in the same manner as the book's authors. But I am not among those who believe that all of live can ultimately reduced to algorithms. Messrs Levitt and Dubner seem to think that is possible.

I may write a longer review when I'm feeling better, but I might not. This book gets... oh, I don't know. It's probably worth a read, I mean, it is interesting. Just don't forget your salt.

Freakonomics

So... I read Freakonomics, which apparently is one of the biggest nonfiction books of the year.

I didn't buy it, though, I borrowed it from a friend. It turns to be very interesting and thought provoking, but I'm not sure it's quite as amazing as a lot of folks are saying. The main problem with this book is that not everything in the world can be explained with the cold logic of economics. I like the book's premise--that we can use the tools of economics to answer all sorts of questions. I like the idea of coming up with my own questions and trying to find solutions in the same manner as the book's authors. But I am not among those who believe that all of live can ultimately reduced to algorithms. Messrs Levitt and Dubner seem to think that is possible.

I may write a longer review when I'm feeling better, but I might not. This book gets... oh, I don't know. It's probably worth a read, I mean, it is interesting. Just don't forget your salt.

Ugh

Laid low by gastroenteritis, I had hoped not to do anything but sit around in the recliner and sleep today. Had hoped. But the office doesn't let me do that.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and came home Sunday night. I had a spot of dinner, but poured myself a glass of milk to drink with it. The milk, it turns out, was bad. I only drank one swallow of it, but that was all it took. Lord only knows what was in there, but it wasn't very nice.

I didn't even lie down in bed before I got sick the first time. Then I felt so much better I took a shower and lay down, thinking it was all over. Ha! One AM was a harsh hour for me. So was three-thirty. I don't think I ever got any actual sleep.

Lying there in the bed later in the morning, I became acutely aware of every joint in my body, and the way the bones fit into them. I could feel each individual bone, and how it was situated. I just couldn't get even remotely comfortable; if I lay on my back my neck hurt, if I rolled on my side my shoulders and arms hurt, on my stomach nothing felt good at all.

I stayed in bed anyway. The phone rang around 8. I had to go in to the office. Ugh.
I left the house around 9'30, quite ill. I never realized how lousy the roads are in Tampa until this morning, but I could feel every single bump in the road--every concrete joint on Bayshore, every manhole cover, every bump in the pavement on base. I about got sick just driving in.

Fortunately, I got my work finished fairly quickly, and came back home, where I slept on the recliner for a while. I had corn flakes for lunch, which stayed down, and made some chicken noodle soup in the crockpot which I'm enjoying now.

My advice: smell the milk before you drink it.

More Pots!

I have some new pots over at St. Pete Clay. So here are some photos.

First we have the standard pic of everything new.


First we have the long-awaited ugly face jar. Not much to say about this. The salt firing added nice pitting and made him even uglier.







Here is a big fat jug. This is the first jug I've thrown in two parts.










This item here is a nice jar I've glazed all over with amber celadon, which is a glaze I've tried for many years to produce and which, as you can see, I have not yet perfected. But the jar is still pretty nice anyway.













And finally we have the Christmas Jar. I don't know what exactly made this jar turn out the way it did, but it's beautiful, and if it doesn't sell at this weekend's Christmas Sale (8-4, Saturday and Sunday, at the studio on S 22nd St), it's coming home with me.

Thanksgiving

Ooo! I have pottery pictures! But I'm also about to head home for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I must get on the road shortly or I'll have to fight rush hour traffic. I'll post on Sunday.
Enjoy the holiday and we'll all be back together in a few days.

A Ramblin' Man

The title could have multiple meanings. I don't really have anything to say, but imagine that I'll ramble on a bit anyway.

Tampa is a great city, don't get me wrong, and I've enjoyed living here at least as much as I would have enjoyed living anywhere else the AF might have sent me. That said, there are some things I miss.
The weather here has been more or less exactly the same at all times that I've been here. I've deployed during the winter and during the hottest part of the summer, and every time I come home from a deployment, the weather here is the same as it was when I left. I didn't think much about it until I started spending so much time here this past year, and I realized that the weather was pretty much always the same.


Today, at last, we got an actual cold front, and it was dreary and grey and rainy, even if only for two hours. It felt like actual weather. I loved it, but at the same time I was a little cheesed by how exciting it was. Today, for the first time in about a year, I wanted to pick up and drive away and not come back.

I grew up in Florida. I shouldn't get sudden urges to drop everything and drive to Cheboygan, Michigan, so I can see some snow and a genuine winter storm. But I got one. This is, alas, a sign that less has changed in my outlook over the last several months that I might want to think.

Turns out, I'm still not ready to settle down, even though I claim to be. I first noticed this thought creeping around in my brain on Sunday, during my bike ride. Smith & Associates (no relation) was showing a few units in The Meridian and Victory Lofts, over in Channelside. I rode up and took the tour. I was mostly interested in seeing The Meridian, the outside of which I quite like, but it was Victory Lofts that really caught my interest. All my life when I've thought about living in the city, I've been picturing Victory Lofts; I just hadn't realized it until Sunday. I can't afford anything in that building, but some day when I've made my money selling tawdry novels (I always knew Lauderdale would be tawdry, but it's become more so as I've written it) I'd like to pick up something like one of the city view penthouses at Victory Lofts.

But while I was thinking these thoughts on Sunday, I was also thinking about what it would really mean to put down roots here in Tampa. I like this city. In two or three years, downtown is really going to be an exciting place to live. And I don't want to be here for it. I'm just ready to go.

For the last year, I've been thinking that what got me depressed and anxious about the Air Force was the inability to stay in one place and put down roots. But that's not quite the problem. I don't really care to put down any roots; I just want to be able to say when and where I'm going to go, and I can't do that in the service.

That said, the age of the Dharma Bums is over. I'm not aware of a way I could move around the country at a whim and still maintain continued employment that would keep me fed, clothed, and housed, and allow me to keep my car, library, and laptop in good shape. If anyone is aware of a career that would allow this, please tell me all about it.

That said, the "laptop in good shape" bit is causing me some trouble right now (see, I told you I'd start rambling). I've owned the current machine (known as The Governor) since January of 2003, so this one has had a fairly good run, certainly longer and less troubled than the previous iteration (Betty). But in the spring of 2004, the power plant on this machine crapped out, and it could no longer accept a charge through the ac adapter. I sent it in for repair; it was a huge saga that I won't detail here, but suffice to say it took over a month before I finally had a working computer again, and they'd had to wipe the hard drive.

I'm much better about backing up these days, but The Governor has reached what I consider the goal life span of one of these machines and I've thought for a while now that if anything broke on it again I'd just replace it. Well... the power plant's going to die again soon. Initially I thought there might be a problem with the AC adapter itself, since the plug on it where it attaches to the computer is looking somewhat corroded. I got a new adapter in the mail today from HP. The new one doesn't work any better than the old one, although it does look better without the corrosion.

This means that I now find myself in the market for a new laptop. I hate shopping for these things. They cost way too damned much money, and to get the few things I really need in such a machine I usually have to buy something with far more functionality than I really need (and thus have to spend more than I want to). With unemployment looming in the distance, I'm not keen to spend much...but then, I do need a computer. While I have a terrific old Smith Corona typewriter waiting for me in Atlanta, it's not functional at the moment; I'm also not really going to try to write a novel longhand, much less get it published.

So, if you A) know of a job where I can pick up and move any time I want, or B) have a suggestion for an inexpensive but somewhat customizable laptop, I want to hear about it. And if you just want to say that you totally feel the same way about wanting to go someplace new all the time, I want to hear about that, too. Especially if you're a single woman, because obviously we're meant to be.

Sunday Morning

This morning I took my usual Sunday constitutional a little later than normal, so there was more traffic on the roads than normal. Not a big deal. I wouldn't want to do it during a weekday rush hour, but downtown is not a hard place to ride a bike around in--at least as long as Mayor Iorio keeps the lights timed.

This morning I rode around the back side of The Floridan hotel, renovations to which were supposed to have got underway some weeks ago. They aren't, but then we've heard the line about renovations getting under way every few weeks now for the last year.

But there is something going on at the old hotel; a sign at street level indicates that the city is to hear a request for a special tax exemption on December 8th, which presumably the owners want in place before beginning their work. Or, this could just be one in a long line of stalling tactics. But somebody's been in the building recently, as three inflatable snowmen now adorn the top of the building; I first noticed them yesterday on my way home from work.

As I was riding along the sidewalk on the south side of the building, a visibly drunk person driving an extremely shiny and evidently new black pickup truck stopped beside me. He had a lot to say, but was having difficulty forming the words he wanted to use. Among other things, he told me he wanted to get to Busch Gardens. I started to say how to get there, but he launched into a spiel about how he was only in Tampa for a day and wanted to make his mark--I shudder to think what he meant--and several other things, none of which I could make out. The shiny new pickup had a shiny new smoker in the back, one of the things you'd use to cook a few hundred hamburgers, for example, and he gestured at it a lot, but I couldn't tell what he was saying.

He had two passengers, both shabbily dressed and also visibly drunk. The driver was wearing what might have been the only decent clothes he had, and a black cowboy hat exactly like the one Kenny Chesney was wearing in the poster advertising his newest album that was pasted on the boarded up window of the Floridan behind me. Where he had picked up these other two I had no idea, but it occurred to me that he might have stolen the truck, the clothes, and possibly the passengers as well. I didn't want to ask.

After making what were evidently supposed to be jokes (lots of laughing involved, anyway), he mentioned that he also wanted to pick up a prostitute. I assume this was in fact the only thing he wanted to do. And I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I knew where to send him. It was far easier to give him directions to Nebraska Avenue (just head down this street a few blocks and turn up Nebraska Avenue, that's where you want to go) than to get him all the way up to Busch Gardens, to which he was too drunk to be admitted anyway. But prostitutes? Yeah, I know where you can get those.

Really, I don't know from personal experience or anything. But I live in downtown Tampa; I have lived here for two years and I read the papers. I know that if I ever wanted to score some drugs and pick up a hooker, I'd head right over to Nebraska.

The fact that this comes up on a Sunday morning is probably a sign.

Capitol Football

This came from The Hill e-News, and I found it so amusing I had to share.

The first annual "Longest Yard" Fall Classic, a football game between members of Congress and the Capitol Police, ended in a 14-14 tie yesterday. The event raised funds for the Capitol Police Memorial fund and the game was played despite torrential rain and dropping temperatures Thursday night...
...More than 30 members of Congress participated; former Nebraska Head Coach Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb.) coached the members' team.
Although the contest was billed as flag football by the bipartisan press release, the game was so rough that one member, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), sustained a head injury that required stitches.

A head injury requiring stitches? Wow, that's more contact than you see in late-season NFL games between teams with losing records. I'm impressed. Rep. Tom Osborne, by the way, is running for governor of Nebraska next year, which is all the more reason to go there as far as I'm concerned.