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| Sometimes, things just don't go well. Between today and yesterday, I will have changed the back tire on my bicycle twice!
As most of you know, my two wheels is my sole means of transportation outside of hitchhiking (which I have done on occasion, on campus of course). It is cheaper than a car but almost as fast. In the past, it has brought me the things I love most in life: church, admiration, speed, freedom, exhilaration, exploration, trains, companionship, efficient transportation, mobility, and adrenaline rushes.
The downside, though, is that I'm often riding it over roads shaped like cheese-graters. I've replaced my tires several times and often have to adjust the seat.
Well, this morning, I was feeling quite satisfied after fixing my flat back tire. I decided that I would go out for a ride before lunch.
The ride was enjoyable, but the wind made it take longer than I expected. Right when I was almost back and looking forward to lunch - in fact I was about 50 feet away from the college - I felt a wobble, and sure enough, my back tire was flat again. There was a long staple in it, and I got off and walked.
Even though I was almost on campus, it still look me 20 minutes to get clear to the other side, lifting the back wheel so the rim wouldn't drag. Tonight, I will fix it again! It is a bit discouraging, but at least there's less than five weeks left until I get HOME!
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| As the leafs crinkle under my feet and a cold wind blows over my shoulders, I think back to my past and the summers that have gone before me.
For everything is dying as the world becomes locked into gray.
The changing of the seasons are intertwined with the mortality of men. The earth is going around the sun yet again, and there is one time fewer left for us to see.
The memories of warm summer nights are quickly fading into the oblivion that will come with the snow-swept plains.
The pictures on my computer forever alternate, sweet reminders that what is past can never be returned to.
The darkness becomes longer each day, as we huddle inside our shelters, searching for light and warmth.
The season for bicycling is passing, replaced with the smells of good food and a warm fire in a house a thousand miles away.
November is almost here, and summer is gasping its last as the northern hemisphere tilts away from the sun.
Yet spring will still come again. What is dead will be renewed, and what the winter snows conceal will once again be plain for all to see.
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| As many of you have long suspected, I have long dreamed about becoming a great potentate and absolute ruler over a large portion of humanity. My difficultly has always been in figuring out how to start, but now I have been brilliantly inspired with a new idea. I will buy Detroit.
I was scanning through the news when I came across this story (click here). With the bust of the unionized auto-makers, real estate has plummeted extraordinarily. So much so that even with foreclosed houses being auctioned off at $500, over 7,000 of them have not been sold.
For a paltry 3.5 million, I could own a metropolis the size of Boston. That's enough properties to not spend a night in the same house for twenty years. 3.5 million dollars! That's less than two new diesel train locomotives. Less than the dorm LeTourneau's going to build. Less than the kitchen appliances in the new cafeteria.
Owning a city would be amazing. I would rename it as "Daveland." I could start my own fan club, or even my own cult, dedicated to the pursuit of trains. After Detroit, it would be easy to take over Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. Chicago and New York would fall into my hand next. I will rule the world with my iron fist!
So the only question is, where can I get 3.5 million for this noble endeavor?
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| Everyone has pet peeves. To me, there is nothing ruder than text-messaging and sleeping in class.
It's a public scourge. It doesn't matter how important a topic a professor is covering. There are kids who cannot wait 15 minutes for class to get out, and they hide their cell-phones under their desks and text away. Even in classes where the professor threatens severe repercussions, students still try to get away with it.
I do not understand why someone would be that obsessed about texting. I have a very arcane pre-paid cellphone, and I don't even bring it to class. Yet people spend hundreds of dollars a year on giant texting phone plans.
When you consider that every lecture costs about $58, texting in class becomes ridiculous. Are we that self-absorbed, and demand so much instant gratification that we have to know what our friends say to us immediately? I seriously doubt that most of the texts are of a serious nature. "LOL dude, what's up" is not worth interrupting note-taking.
In addition, people will start texting during private conversations. This annoys me most of all. There is no other better way of saying, "I don't care what you're saying." It happens when we're working in lab and on research projects. People will set down everything to let their friends know that they are "in the labs." I even saw a guy who couldn't help but text during a job interview dinner. To me, that said "I am extremely unprofessional and sloppy, and I can't be expected to buckle down and do a hard day's work."
Sleeping in class is another egregious offense. Most people don't know how bad they look with their arms in their hands and their limp bodies hanging sideways, slung out around a few chairs.
Well, last Friday, I couldn't stand it. I was in Organic Chemistry, and a girl was complaining that she had lost her cell-phone. "Well good" I thought to myself, and this girl frequently texted in plain sight of the professor and everyone else.
About twenty minutes into the class, she decided to go to sleep. She was two seats down from me at the same table, and she put her legs on the seat next to mine and started kicking my seat. Her head was completely resting on the table. To my right, a guy was doing his calculus homework "under the table" - another offense against courtesy and common sense.
Perhaps a self-righteous rage came over me, and I grabbed the guy's giant calculus textbook with my right hand. Then, I transferred it to my left. Using the muscular mass I had gained from five years of working out, I raised it high above the table, a few inches away from the sleeping girl's head.
Then I let it go. "WHAM!" The textbook hit the table in full force, sounding like a gunshot as it vibrated down the metal legs. The vibrations could be felt across the room! Obviously, the drowsy student was now far from asleep. I grinned salaciously. The students in the table behind me laughed The professor didn't even notice.
I hear LeTourneau is actually working on a plan for people to get better cell-phone reception in the academic buildings. Why they would want to do that, I'll never know.
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