National Geographic

All right, I just called a guy in Seattle that I was supposed to have a pseudo phone interview with, and the number he gave me for his cell phone was some old guy who had no idea who I was. I checked the number a zillion times, and I know that I dialed the same number in his email, so I don't know what's going on. *sigh* I guess I'll have to call him at work tomorrow... discretely...?

Anyway, after coming back from the gym, I was making dinner (well, not really, but I always call pouring myself a bowl of cereal, toasting a bagel and spreading on some cream cheese, or making macaroni & cheese out of a box "dinner," so we'll just move on) and I flipped on the TV. Of course, nothing was on since there was no OC this week, but I turned to the National Geographic channel in the middle of a special on the Orgasmatron. I only saw the second half of the show where three women met the doctor who discovered this whole thing and were going to participate in a 1 week trial. After getting the electrodes inserted into their spine and turning on the handheld device that could vary the frequency and intensity of the signals sent to their bodies, the women were told to go back to their hotel rooms with their husbands and basically "experiment" for the rest of the week. The outcome was actually really interesting - one of the women had fantastic results, one of them had a few orgasms over the course of the week, and the last women didn't see any changes at all. It was neat to see how the doctor discovered all this stuff, but it was really sad to hear from the woman who didn't really get anything out of it. I dunno... I guess it was just cool to see how these women spoke so candidly about the problems that they were having and what length they were going to in order to fix it.

I also thought it was amusing how some of the other people that were interviewed on the show talked all about their concerns about the "trend" that the Orgasmatron is setting. Ranging from "this is just like plastic surgery - we're encouraging women to chase after the ideal and they're losing sight of what's really normal" to "the female orgasm isn't really a necessary part of reproduction anyway, so why bother trying to recreate it?" First of all, the second argument is completely bogus since doctors are prescribing Viagra and Cialis to men who have already had vasectomies and are married to post-menopausal women. There's no reproduction going on. So now the message is that men can still enjoy sex but women can't? That's stupid. The plastic surgery argument is a little weak as well - if a woman is bothered enough by her looks and has the money to afford plastic surgery, who's to say that she shouldn't do it? Likewise, if a woman is unhappy enough with her sex life and has the money to pay for something like the Orgasmatron, why should people care that she's getting it? I'll bet it's making her happier. As long as the FDA says it won't hurt you, I say rock on.

Things about living in Texas that no longer seem weird to me

• flipping through at least 5 Spanish TV stations while looking for NBC
• traffic lights flipped on their sides
• losing count of the number of Corvettes and pimped-out 1984 Nissan Sentras I see on the road
• feeder roads for the highways
• walking into work every day and seeing "Mission Control Center" written on the wall
• telling people I work for NASA, because everyone works for NASA
• continuously using Unix commands by mistake in Windows applications
• not being interested in watching HBO's From the Earth to the Moon series on DVD because I already get too much of it at work
  
• living among palm trees
• having people ask me if I'm married
• having people ask me if I have kids
• turning on the A/C in March

Extended weekend

Carlos left this afternoon after a great long weekend. I think the highlight was eating ice cream for breakfast on Saturday and then going to Galveston to rollerblade along the seawall. Going to church the next morning on Easter Sunday fell by the wayside in favor of sleeping in and watching the USA-Mexico World Cup qualifier game. I think this makes my last appearance at a church on Easter over five years ago... but that's a story for another day.

I tried to vacuum my apartment this weekend because it's getting filthy (as in, I found a random bird feather underneath the living room rug, and I think my hamster pooped on the stairs the last time she was out there), but I discovered that the belt in the vacuum was broken, so my plan was foiled. I would ask my roommate if she knew where to get a new belt, but i think she's in India. I haven't seen her in about two weeks, which isn't really out of the ordinary since she spends so much time at her boyfriend's apartment, but I remember her saying something about having plans to go to India a few months ago. Our living situation hasn't turned out the way I thought it would at all, but it's been kind of nice to have this big apartment all to myself. The only weird part is when she actually does come home, because we sort of upset each other's rhythm.

Ugh, this post was useless. I'm not sure I'm really into this whole blog thing. It's fun to recount the funny stuff I see or random things that happen to me, but those events are sometimes few and far between. The other stuff that's been on my mind a lot lately isn't really appropriate for this sort of venue, so then I end up writing about nothing. *shrug*

In the bathrooms at work

Okay, I know you’re thinking, “No good stories start with a title like that,” but just hang on a second. In the bathrooms at work, a safety sheet is posted inside the stall door about a different topic every month. During the summer it was West Nile Virus; we’ve also had microwave safety, office safety, and some other less-memorable topics. Anyway, this month is “Driver Fatigue and Road Trance.” It starts out by scaring you with statistics about how many people die from drowsiness while driving and then goes on to list the symptoms of driver fatigue. Later on, there are some helpful suggestions on how to prevent driver fatigue and “road trance,” and while reading them, I couldn’t help thinking about the numerous times that G. and I drove between MIT and our respective homes near Detroit, MI. We always drove through Canada since it was shorter than going through Pennsylvania and Ohio, but it was still about 13 hours, give or take. Here’s the two of us not following the safety suggestions:

- Plan a healthy, well-balanced diet (okay - show me one person you know that’s ever had a well-balanced diet in college)
- Aim for seven or eight hours sleep (maybe if you added up the sleep that each of us got during the night, it would add up to seven or eight…)
- Start out as early in the day as possible (sorry, most of our trips started around 9pm the night before we planned to arrive at home. If you’re driving home for Thanksgiving, wasting an entire day on the road makes the trip pointless. Driving during the night means you have more time at home.)
- Avoid driving alone whenever possible (well, we accomplished that, but I’m not sure if it counts when the other person, usually me, snored the entire way home)
- Keep trips to reasonable distances (what defines “reasonable”?)
- Try to avoid long night drives (see #3)
- Keep the driver’s area cool and well ventilated (does this include rolling down both windows all the way and sticking your head out in the middle of December while going 70 miles an hour to keep yourself awake?)
- Talk to passengers without being distracted (again - me, asleep)
- Take breaks every two hours or 100 miles (hmm… how about every 350 miles when we stopped for gas?)
- On break, get out of the vehicle and walk, jog, or stretch (does stumbling into the rest-stop bathroom count?)
- If it is essential, pull over and take a nap of no more than 20 minutes. Any longer will make you feel groggy. (maybe it was sometimes more like 2 hours…)

Funny, those trips always went differently when I drove home with my parents…

Okay, so we didn’t meet all of the bathroom safety tips. But watching Andy eat chocolate-covered espresso beans the entire way home once, stopping at 5am for Tim Horton’s in BFE, Canada, detouring through Niagara Falls, and the general hilarity that resulted from being cooped up in a car for an entire night made it all worth it.

So much has happened...

...since I last wrote! Things have been pretty busy, and it never seems like I have enough time to sit down and actually post anything, and today (at work, at least) is no different, so I should be quick. I just got home yesterday from a weekend in Boston - MIT's open house for its recently-admitted aero/astro graduate students. It probably wasn't the most productive use of my time, since I already know the department pretty well, but it was an opportunity to visit Draper Labs, so I would at least know a little more about what sort of work I would be doing next year before I decide to accept the fellowship offer. During the Draper tour, I bumped into a girl that did her undergrad at Georgia Tech with Josh, and she was surprised to hear that he was now my officemate at work. Random small world experience...

The trip also made me realize how much I missed the Burton 2 crowd. We went out for dinner (Chili's, of course) and drinks (Whiskey's, of course), so I got a chance to meet everyone's new girlfriend and catch up on Angela's new relationship too. I also managed to monopolize the rest of Carlos's weekend, since this coming week is his spring break and he doesn't have any homework due for a while. I'm definitely sold on going back to Boston. I just wish it could happen sooner than August. Everyone I talk to that doesn't know anything specific about my situation at work tells me that I should stick around here until the beginning of August - save up some more money, I don't need to start classes or work at Draper that early, etc. But on the other hand, everyone who knows the real story about my life in Houston says, "Leave now! You're too unhappy here to stay for another four months." When I was younger, I couldn't understand why anyone would stay at a job or in a relationship that they weren't completely happy with, but at my now-wise age of 23, I can appreciate that nothing in life is ever that black and white.

Around the country in a bus

Ehren has finally posted all his pictures from our Vegas trip, and as I looked through them this morning, I had a chance to peruse his entire website for his trip around the country in a converted school bus. Here's how it starts out:

This page, temporarily, is the story of the conversion of a school bus into a motorhome. The deeper question of why will be answered eventually, so be patient.

On Friday July 23rd, I quit my job. I didn't enjoy it at all. There's an entire mental tome of reflection on this subject too, but again it's outside the scope of the bus conversion. Be patient.

A couple of posts later, Ehren explains a little about why he's excited for the trip:

It was tonight that the trip really began. My mind is clear of all doubt. In the past week and a half, even though it's been fun, and smooth, and unbelievably close to our vocalized goals for distance and experience, I've still been mulling over The Big Choices. We've stayed at the appointed apartments of friends who are going on to do their great things, having ensured their success along the paths that have been labeled out for all of us with bright signage and MapQuest. Yesterday, even, I balanced remote and lucrative-enough work, an afternoon at museums, an evening out and comfortable return home, which is all I had asked of myself on the days of this trip.

But tonight out my bedroom window I can see 270 degrees of the Shenandoah mountains. We're in a wide cup of hills, and all across the sky are cloudless stars and a vivid milky way. For dinner we had a roast chicken, and bread and cheese, and Dr. Pepper, finding our way around the kitchen by flashlight because main batteries still aren't connected.

It's hard, but not impossible, to describe why -- at least temporarily -- I've given up on doubt despite the fact that so much, the remaining entirety, is still unknown. This view, this composition of a day's events, this mix of travel and homes, this everything, is what I want. From now on, all the time.

There are a few reasons why I'm enormously impressed by Ehren's undertaking:
1) He's managing to work from the road/bus enough so that he's got money in the bank to support his travels, but not so much that it interferes with the real purpose of the trip.
2) Instead of buying an RV or equivalent vehicle, he bought a school bus, and converted it into a liveable space with only the help of his traveling partner Miro.
3) He's chucked the whole idea of a standard life: 9-5 job, apartment, etc. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not sure I have the balls (for lack of a better term) to quit my job and move out of my cushy apartment to pursue a dream like that.

Top ten

In my effort to waste time this evening, I did a lot of web-surfing and ended up stumbling across a Forbes website that ranks the top ten blogs in twelve categories. I guess I'm really only interested in the travel and photo categories, but I could definitely spend some serious time reading all these entries. Hmm... things to do at work tomorrow? :)

It's been a slow couple of days since getting back to Houston... I've been really tired lately, which I first attributed to just readjusting to my regular work schedule, but now I think it's more than that, because I've developed a sore throat, watery eyes, and the sniffles over the past 24 hours. This is always one of those times where I think about whether or not I really want to go to work tomorrow if I'm sick... please, let me be sick! It's always a fine line though - sick enough so that I would infect my coworkers, but not so sick that I couldn't at least drink hot chocolate and watch movies all day. You at least should get a little mileage out of a sick day. But I'm supposed to go downtown to see Les Miserables tomorrow night with two of my coworkers, so I guess it would be poor form to skip work and still go to the show.

All right, I guess that means it's bedtime.

What happens in Vegas...

Actually, I don't really have any wild and crazy stories about my weekend in Las Vegas that I can't write about here. I didn't get in until about 11pm on Friday night, so after meeting G. at the airport, we took a shuttle to the strip to meet up with the five other guys who had flown in from Boston, and the guy who owned the converted school bus that we were staying on for the weekend. Yes, a school bus. We had an extremely late dinner at Denny's, then snuck into the Luxor to use their pool and hot tub. About an hour later, we got booted out by the security guard ("Uh, no sir, we didn't see the sign that says the pool closes at 5pm...") and then went back to the bus and fell asleep. The next morning we hit up the Excalibur for some a.m. gambling, and then after stopping at the Luxor for the lunch buffet, we wandered down the strip to see the pirate show outside of Treasure Island (definitely not a family show), the tiger inside the Mirage, the Russian acrobats at Circus Circus, and the Arby's at the end of the strip (a huge tourist attraction, I assure you). We took the bus back down the strip to see the Bellagio fountain show on the way to New York, New York for Zumanity, the Cirque du Soleil show we were going to see that night, and on the way we ran into a couple of Christians with picket signs about how God will judge you if you are a rebellious woman, a dyke on a bike, a Mormon, or a sports nut, among other things. The fountain show was amazing, and the nerd in all of us spent a lot of time wondering how big the pumps were that shot the water 200 ft in the air.

After going to see Zumanity, which was definitely a weird combination of regular Cirque du Soleil stunts and a standard topless show you'd see in Vegas, we stopped for dinner and then headed back to the bus. The next morning we rented scooters to drive out to Red Rock Canyon, about 15-20 miles off the Las Vegas strip. After getting to the canyon we scooted around the "scenic drive" through the area and climbed up to the top of the ridge of red (well, more like orange) rocks. We camped at the campsite in Red Rock that night and drove back the next morning, and I can honestly say that after this trip, I absolutely want a motorcycle. Yes, top speed on the scooters was only about 45 mph, but it was by far the best way you could drive through that area. The only downside was that our little scooters looked slightly ridiculous next to the real motorcyclists driving down the road...

So, the trip was awesome. I would definitely go back to do more of the regular Vegas stuff (i.e. gambling and shows), and it would have been nice to take an actual shower somewhere between Friday morning and Monday night (washing my hair in the bathroom at the Luxor on Sunday does not count), but I had a fantastic time regardless. There's something about traveling with seven guys and sleeping on a school bus that leads to the kind of general ridiculousness that you wouldn't get on a standard trip to Vegas!