ELEVENTH IN LINE |
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 About This Blog A blog about my life, universe, etc. At any given time you might find something endlessly interesting or just me ruminating on something else, which no one (not even myself) finds interesting. That's the way blogs go, I suppose. Anyway, I was eleventh in line, and you weren't. Hah! About Me Name: Sarah Age: 26 Residence: Columbus, OH Religion: LDS Political Score: 5.00/-2.15 Job: Temp @ JPMorgan Chase College: Ohio State University Majors: Political Science, International Studies High School: Home Educated Hobbies: Reading, standing in line for things, writing, research Resume: HotJobs Email: lloannna@gmail.com About My Family My mom is a lawyer in Pickerington; my stepdad and dad are computer guys, and my stepmom (who works with my dad) is an engineer. My sisters are, in order of age, a photographer, an artist, and a person too young to have her own website. My brothers are, in order of age, living up north, and again, a person too young to have a website. At some point soon I'll be collecting links for my aunts, uncle, and cousins. ^_^ Message Services (Please see the notes below the Comment Policy before sending me a message) AIM: lloannna ICQ: 29395930 Yahoo: lloannna My CafePress Designs Even More CafePress Designs Star Wars: Episode 3 Line (Hollywood) My Star Wars Line page   NaNoWriMo 2007: My Novel: Cipere Lumen  NaNoWriMo 2006: My Novel: The Manatee Conspiracy  NaNoWriMo 2005: My Novel: Beyond the Cliffs of Kefira   NaNoWriMo 2004: My Novel: sul Okyar tir taTz'ileea  Worthy Causes Fight the INDUCE Act LDS Foundation - Humanitarian Projects Starlight Children's Foundation    Sponsored Links 
Fun With Social Commentary  Useful Stuff Work Around Internet Censorship (Chinese) Work Around Internet Censorship (English) Atom Feed OR...   Scripture of the Moment 2 Nephi 2:27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. Quote of the Moment William Penn Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers. Scripture/Quote Archive Link of the Moment Oisre Old Links of the Moment A Beaten Path - Travel Reviews One Trilogy to Rule Them All Let the Hobbit Happen Honored Duo of Readers Join My Army 20 Questions Jackie of Inder, Lead Extraordinaire Friendster Fun With Randomness Learn Something Random BlogSpotter Random LJ Images Leon's Random Generators MathCom's Random Number Generator Page Other Stuff I Like KBYU TV KZION - Listen Now My Websites My LiveJournal The SarahFinder My Homepage My (Funny) Harry Potter Fanfiction My (Romantic) Harry Potter Fanfiction My Yahoo! Profile My EZBoard Profile The Rest of the Line Laura's DeviantArt Page Other Stuff 
 Archives November 2002 | December 2002 | January 2003 | February 2003 | March 2003 | April 2003 | May 2003 | June 2003 | July 2003 | August 2003 | September 2003 | October 2003 | December 2003 | March 2004 | April 2004 | May 2004 | June 2004 | July 2004 | August 2004 | September 2004 | October 2004 | November 2004 | December 2004 | January 2005 | February 2005 | March 2005 | April 2005 | May 2005 | June 2005 | July 2005 | August 2005 | September 2005 | October 2005 | November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | July 2006 | November 2006 | January 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | October 2007 | November 2007 | December 2007 | January 2008 | Important Info  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are not attributable to my employer, Blogger, Google, those who link to me, or anyone other than the author (as indicated). Comments of visitors are the responsibility of the invididuals posting. No responsibility is taken for the content of materials linked to from this site. Any questions relating to the administration of this site or its content should be directed to Sarah Marie Parker-Allen, at lloannna@gmail.com. BLAP Statement: -- If I mention something that's been published and is still available on the Internet, I will link to it. Well, if I know it's there, anyway. -- Once I've posted something, I will not make substantive changes to the body of the post. Any changes will be noted with an "EDIT" tag at the bottom of the post in question, or will be noted in a subsequent post. Typos, stylistic errors, and link updates will occur, without time limit (though if it's been a while, I'll let you know). If I really really regret a post, it's likely I'll post about cats or something for a while in pennance. You've been warned. -- If I find something through the efforts of another blogger (in fact, of anyone I can link to), I'll credit them with a link (the style of such a link is pretty much up to my mood, so don't expect consistency in that area). -- My comment policy is listed below. Comment Policy I like comments, and I'll keep them activated. HOWEVER, if you want to start a flamewar, go somewhere else. If you want to get me to start arguing with you about Ohio State vs. Michigan, whether Mormons are Christian, how stupid being spoiler free is, or pretty much anything else inflamatory (inflamatory is in the eye of me in this case -- if you don't trust my judgement, too bad), go somewhere else. All links to pornography, all instances of vulgar language, and anything else I don't think is appropriate for my sisters, brother, neice, and nephew to see (ages 1-18), or quite frankly appropriate for ME to see, will be edited as I see fit (probably with links to something else, or alternate words, or what have you). All spam comments, including blatant off-topic self-promotion, will be deleted. If you've been banned, feel free to email me; if you're uncivil, please know that I'm interested in finding out exactly how many people I can add to my killfile without bringing my processer speed to zero, and don't mind using your address in my experiments. I reserve the right to delete and/or ban anyone I want. If you need to say it that badly, go get your own blog. They're free, you know. A Note About Chatting and Emails I'm not what you would call an extremely social or extraverted person. As a matter of fact, I tend to test 100% introvert on Myer-Briggs and other personality profile tests. Therefore, please be aware that most of the time, if I don't already know you (either in person or through weeks/months/years of email contact) the chances are I won't be very talkative if you IM me. I like having a long time to consider what I say, and that goes double for what I say to total strangers. Please don't think me scary, rude, hateful, or even just someone in a perpetual bad mood, if chat efforts are unsuccessful. Quite frankly, it's probably better for you to go find someone else to chat with, unless you have something significant to say. And if it's that important, you should probably email me. Which reminds me to let you know now that if you do choose to email me, it might be days, weeks, months, years, or never before I email you back. It takes a lot of energy for me to come up with replies to random inquiries from strangers, and most of the time there's something I'd rather be doing instead. Your understanding is appreciated. I'm not saying don't try, I'm just saying -- have minimal expectations, okay? Thanks. Oh, and if you DO know me, don't treat this statement as an excellent excuse not to talk to me. You know who you are.  
 Credits and Such |
Saturday, December 31, 2005
The Finish Line! I offer a challenge to members of the Church throughout the world and to our friends everywhere to read or reread the Book of Mormon. If you will read a bit more than one and one-half chapters a day, you will be able to finish the book before the end of this year. Well, that was issued in August, but I didn't start till October 16th. And, as of today, I still hadn't read anything past the end of 3rd Nephi, leaving me with 35 chapters, or 130 pages, to go. My copy of Excel started freaking out around 8pm -- it said I needed to average 769 chapters a day to finish on time! It said I wouldn't be done till January 13th at this rate. But it was wrong. ^_^ Completion Dates (by book): Title Page -- 16 October 2005 Introduction -- 16 October 2005 The Testimony of Three Witnesses -- 16 October 2005 The Testimony of Eight Witnesses -- 16 October 2005 Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith -- 16 October 2005 First Nephi (1 Ne.) -- 26 October 2005 Second Nephi (2 Ne.) -- 27 October 2005 Jacob (Jacob) -- 9 December 2005 Enos (Enos) -- 9 December 2005 Jarom (Jarom) -- 9 December 2005 Omni (Omni) -- 9 December 2005 Words of Mormon (W of M) -- 9 December 2005 Mosiah (Mosiah) -- 15 December 2005 Alma (Alma) -- 20 December 2005 Helaman (Hel.) -- 20 December 2005 Third Nephi (3 Ne.) -- 30 December 2005 Fourth Nephi (4 Ne.) -- 31 December 2005 Mormon (Morm.) -- 31 December 2005 Ether (Ether) -- 31 December 2005 Moroni (Moro.) -- 31 December 2005 Erm, yeah, that book of Jacob was a rough one. Not to mention Helaman. Heh. Anyway, though my powers of procrastination were great, my powers of determination were greater. Whee! And with nearly two hours to spare! Now I just have to find a job, and I can change my signature at LiningUp.Net to something other than my current to-do list. Labels: book of mormon, church, goals, LDS, mormon, projects, prophets, religion, scriptures . | 0 comments | Thursday, December 29, 2005
My Own Law School Rankings! Celebrate my brilliance with me! My sisters don't care and my parents are watching 24 (hi, Mom!) and I've come up with my very own rankings for law schools. This is just one of the several dozen different rankings I'm working on: Columbus Recruiting/Law Firm Reputation. I went to the NALP site and copied down all of the places that the fifteen employers listed in Columbus said they did on-campus interviews at. I gave each school a raw rank, based on the number of "votes" -- Ohio State, unsurprisingly, came in first (Capital, Case Western, Michigan and Vanderbilt rounded out the top five, in that order.) Then I weighted each vote: the three firms with the largest pool of schools got a 5, the next three got a 4, etc. The top 5 schools stayed the same; Cleveland Marshall and Notre Dame fared worse, Akron fared very badly (dropping from 21 st to 30th.) Then I weighted the scores for each school by region/big name: big name schools were penalized by dividing by 6, Columbus area schools by 5, etc. Lots of changes came in that round: Vanderbilt moved up to first, and Michigan moved up to second, tying with Washington & Lee and Boston College. Then I thought about it, and decided that on a practical level, given that the whole idea is to measure Columbus area reputation (I'll be doing something similar for Washington DC, Salt Lake City, and a few other markets I think I'd enjoy living/working in,) I should weigh those original votes a LOT more than the others. The final composite ranking is...
Yes, that's right, Yale was only given about as many on-campus interviews as a couple of career fairs. Obviously, their reputation would win out over the whole "we never came to your school to do interviews" thing; the point of my own research is not, generally, to try and convince myself that I'll have a better career than a Yale grad (as I'm not, clearly, going to Yale myself.) The point is all those other schools -- the ones I don't know much about, like Vanderbilt or Dayton -- that you wouldn't necessarily think of as "feeders" to Ohio law firms. Schools where I might actually be a good fit (both for admissions and afterwards,) and by the way still have a good career back here, if this is where I decide to work. In case you're wondering, these are the employers in Columbus that I looked at (the number of places they reported recruiting at is in quotes; one of them put at the botton of their list of 25 or so locations that they interview at "over 40 schools," but they didn't say which ones so I could only count the ones they listed): Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP -- "Very Large" Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP -- "Very Large" Thompson Hine LLP -- "Very Large" Frost Brown Todd LLC -- "Large" Baker & Hostetler LLP -- "Large" Bricker & Eckler LLP -- "Large" Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP -- "Medium Large" Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's Office -- "Medium Large" Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP -- "Medium Large" Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP -- "Medium Small" Schottenstein, Zox, & Dunn Co., LPA -- "Medium Small" Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter -- "Medium Small" Ohio State Legal Services Association -- "Small" Chester, Willcox & Saxbe, LLP -- "Small" Bailey Cavalieri LLC -- "Small" Obviously some of those firms are probably larger than what it seemed from their lists; I decided against ranking them by actual size or the number of lawyers they recruited because, well, the spreadsheet was already quite large, and an initial glance indicated it wouldn't change the top rankings much. I mean, considering that the three firms classified as "very large" interviewed at almost every school on the list (every single one of them, at a minimum, interviewed at Ohio State.) Oh, I found out my official, final GPA at OSU (unless they make me take more Russian -- I'm hoping they don't, even if it could help my GPA) -- 2.891. Slightly higher than I thought, and depending on how LSDAS calculates my GPA I could actually get up above 3.0 with all those A's from everything I've done since 2001. A 3.0 and a 170... that really doesn't sound that bad. Sigh. Labels: law school . | 1 comments | Sunday, December 25, 2005
Oh, yeah... Forgot to add, I've put myself on this site so I can compare myself to other people who are applying to the schools I'm looking at. The best part is the little graph logo next to each school's name -- you can see acceptances and rejections on a graph where the X axis is GPA and the Y axis is the LSAT score. It's an easy way to see that while I've got next to no chance at Georgetown, I have a very good chance at Cooley and a decent chance at, say, Case Western. Labels: law school, law school admissions . | 0 comments | Tier 4, Here I Come... [warning: whining ahead!] So, I got a 170 on the LSAT (that's it -- next standardized test I take, my goal is going to be a perfect score; my goal for the SAT was 1350 and for the LSAT was 170, and I got 1380 and 170, respectively.) But, my undergraduate GPA is something around 3.0 (I have to try and recalculate it using the LSDAS method to know for sure, but it'll be between 2.95 and 3.05, unless I've totally messed up my estimates or forgotten some "A" grades, which is possible but unlikely.) Now, as far as I remember, these are my grades (very roughly): Freshman - 3.4 (1997-98, age 16/17) Sophomore - 2.1 (1998-99, age 17/18) Junior - 3.5 (1999-00, age 18/19) Senior - 3.7 (2000-01, age 19/20) [Sophomore year could be lower, I don't have one of my grade reports so I can't be 100% confident that I got that year's GPA over 2.0 at the end of Spring 1999; Freshman year includes a repeated course (Calculus) that I got a D in the first time, so that might hurt me more] My Sophomore year was... bad. Very bad. Mostly in the form of a quarter where I got two E's and a C- (there is a medical explanation that I'd rather not go into here, but I don't know if it'd be especially persuasive and my parents say that won't matter.) At the end of that quarter, I changed my major to History and Political Science (from Computer Science Engineering,) and got mostly A's with a few B's and at most two C's (I don't think it's that many, but it's been a while since I looked) after that. I also did some good social stuff (e.g. volunteering at an AIDS charity) and career enhancing experiences (e.g. internship at the Department of State.) I took a lot of 500-level social science classes and got all A's in my majors (I dropped the History major in 2001 because I didn't want to take on loans for another full year of study.) I took the last 6 low-level classes I needed to graduate (Russian 2 and 3, Marine Biology, Geology, Environmental Geology, and World Regional Geography) at UCLA and some California area community colleges (think $11 a credit hour vs. $135, and semester versus quarter credits at that.) Except for Russian 3, I got A's (B in Russian 3.) Incidentally, I worked a lot harder on those community college classes than I would have had to at OSU. I haven't taken any college classes in two years, but haven't done anything remarkable professionally either (though working at Disneyland helped me figure out a lot of stuff.) And my undergraduate GPA reeeeeally bites. Meanwhile, my mom's law school has a really good deal for people with high LSAT scores. It's not a highly-ranked school, but it's hard to justify not trying for free tuition (or going to a place that's higher-ranked but incurring 4 times the level of debt.) And though it seems like it's really hard to get good grades there, I'm good at overworking classes and doing well when no one else does (in Marine Biology, I had the only A, and most of my friends got C's.) And now they've had someone go to be a circuit court clerk, and there's a graduate who's now teaching at Notre Dame. So. Maybe, if I decide to go the academic route (*) I can go to some place I'd really like to (e.g. Georgetown, where my great-uncle taught for a very long time) for an LL.M. program or something. (*) people who try and convince me that that dream isn't feasible will be sh -- that is to say, their comments will be deleted. With prejudice. Grrr. Labels: law school, law school admissions . | 3 comments | Saturday, December 17, 2005
Another year, gone! Well, okay, not quite, but I'm wrapping up the final touches on my last lesson in Primary CTR-7B. They just changed presidencies, and I'm going to be teaching CTR-8A next year; it'll mostly be the same kids but I'll be doing a lot of things differently (the biggest change will be administrative: this year they'll be divided into teams, and will be competing for points in behavior and helpfulness and Gospel knowledge.) Anyway, for my last lesson (which is on Christmas -- we're not having Primary on Christmas Day) I'm focusing on the 3 Nephi 1:13 line: "Behold, the time is at hand!" and especially on the idea that these people were waiting and waiting and waiting for so long, and didn't know when this huge great thing was going to happen, and then all of a sudden, it was happening. I'm dividing the class into two halves: Jerusalem and Zarahemla. The kids in Zarahemla will get Lamanite feather headbands (I know, I know, but I can't very well make them whole costumes) and the kids in Jerusalem will get shepherd's crooks. Tomorrow I'm making a star to turn on at the appropriate moment in the lesson -- it'll use one string of Christmas lights and some pieces of wood to give it shape. I'm still trying to sort out how I'm going to divide the classroom -- trying to decide if there's enough time and if I'll have enough hands to bring in a proper large body of water to separate the two sides of the room. I've already picked out how I'm going to represent each place: pictures on one side of a Mayan temple and the Madrid Codex and stuff, and on the other, a model of the Temple in Christ's time and a map of the old city and, well, a bunch of sheep. ^_^ The take-aways will be a Lamanite feather and a sheep, each, plus a cute bookmark with "Behold, the time is at hand!" in big letters and a cute star I made in Publisher. Oh, and unless serious fighting breaks out, they'll get to keep whichever props they're assigned. I'm sort of hoping less than 5 kids show up, just so I can keep some of the props for the future (though I can't imagine what I'd do with them, unless I put them in some kind of a portfolio for preschool teacher job interviews.) Oh, and I'm just over halfway done with the Book of Mormon now; I'm in Alma 26. I'll be trying to finish Alma before we go to church on Sunday; that'll make the final push through to the end much, much nicer. [Tags: Mormon, LDS Church, Church, Religion, Christmas, Primary] Labels: church, LDS, mormon, Primary, religion, teaching . | 0 comments | Tuesday, December 06, 2005
So, like, wow! I was just telling my sister Laura yesterday -- this is the first time since February, 2002, when I didn't have Some Big Thing hopping around on my schedule, demanding that other stuff make room for it. There are no more Star Wars lines, no more Lord of the Rings parties, no more entrance exams, no more cross-country jogs for potential career advancement, etc. It's kind of liberating, really. If I go to California or Washington DC or someplace else, it'll be on my own schedule. Yay! Anyway, on top of that, I've also finally finished the Big Important Stuff that needed lots of my mental energy (most notably, the LSAT) -- if I have a spare half hour, I don't have to worry that I'm not practicing logic games, or something, anymore. And I can accept a job that might have wildly fluctuating working hours, or have me moving from location to location, without worrying about the long-term consequences. Whee! As a result, I'm now fully engaged in my new job hunt. I've submitted about a dozen applications, most notably to the Hyatt on Capital Square and Medco (formerly called Merck-Medco.) I've even started going on interviews, if you can believe that. Today was the Hyatt; they're very nice and seemed to like me (I interviewed with two different people, for a total of about 55 minutes.) I should know if they liked me enough to hire me within a week. Meantime, I'll be hunting down other opportunities. Anyway, that's it for now from me. I might come up with a more bloggy post later; I've also got to get back onto the novel writing horse, though, so we'll see. Labels: future, quality of life, working . | 0 comments | Friday, December 02, 2005
A stroke of (maybe) luck! So my stepdad (hi, Gene!) is driving me to the LSAT tomorrow morning. It's on the OSU campus -- it was, I thought, going to be in the student testing center, but it's not; they've moved it to a different room. And it turns out, I've been in that room before. I've been in that room very often, in fact. I was in that room almost every day in, I think it was, my very first term at OSU -- it's the room I had my (hideously boring) Chemistry 101 lectures in. ^_^ Hopefully, this will get me just slightly better luck on the LSAT than the similar situation with my Foreign Service Oral Exam did (I got 5.25 on that, with a required minimum score of 5.5 -- then again, that's like, 90th percentile right there.) I doubt the secretary in charge of the exam will be one I've worked with before, though (I've only worked in Maintenance, Astronomy, and Payroll at OSU,) which was pretty much the coolest part about the FSOE. Seriously, all the other candidates were impressed by the whole "she recognized you" thing. Anyway, I'm doing laundry so I'll have warm AND clean clothes to wear for tomorrow (I might put them back in the dryer a few minutes before we leave; it's going to be near 0 tomorrow morning) and I'm going to take the night off of thinking about the LSAT and being on the computer, by watching Stargate while reading the third Harry Potter book (it can be accomplished, I've done it before!) Wish me luck! Oh, before I forget, I'd like to dedicate my performance on the LSAT tomorrow to: Arwyn (for extraordinary helpfulness and generosity) Stephen (Ethesis) (for having written some seriously thoughtful advice) My parents (for material support), especially my mom (who already did all this stuff -- I find that very helpful, psychologically at least) eBay (for providing the means for me to get my critical PowerScore book) PowerScore (for writing my critical Logic Games Bible) And all my friends, for putting up with me for the last two months. Thanks, everyone! ^_^ Labels: law school, law school admissions, LSAT . | 1 comments | Monday, November 28, 2005
LSAT woes... In case anyone's wondering why I'm not posting much, or why I disappeared from the NaNo forums, it's because the LSAT is on Saturday and I'm having serious issues keeping my practice test performance consistent. I keep getting better and better at Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension (the last test I took, I got 70 out of the 77 LR/RC questions right) but my performance on the Logic Games is incredibly spotty (on that same test, I got just 9 out of the 24 LG questions right.) I think I'm getting easily unnerved or something; probably has something to do with the fact that I can finish any other section in 17-22 minutes, but keep going over on the Logic Games (the first two practice tests, I finished the LG section with several minutes to spare -- my last one, I made myself stop at 11 minutes past the deadline, with four questions unanswered.) And, the more I pay attention to how slow I'm going, the slower I go! I'm taking the rest of the night off -- I'm going upstairs to watch a DVD, then I'm going to read a few chapters from the Book of Mormon, and then I'm going to BED. Do not pass Go, do not under any circumstances even think about the LSAT. Tomorrow is a new day. I actually am getting quite good at the Logic Games (when time isn't a factor, I'm getting 6/7 or 5/7 questions right on any one game;) there's just something about today that's made them impossible. Oh, according to the charts in the back of the practice tests, my scores so far have been: First Batch: 153 (consistently) 3. 167 (Saturday) 4. 168 (Sunday) 5. 163 (Monday) Note the rather sudden drop there... yeah. Harry Potter and I have a date in the living room now. TTYL. Labels: law school admissions, LSAT . | 0 comments | Saturday, November 19, 2005
Go Bucks!! We won! Too, too much fun. ^_^ I've only been to 8 OSU home games (4 doing the flag in ROTC, 4 doing card stunts in Block "O") but they were all VERY exciting, and I've always been under the impression that nothing you could see on TV could compare to that. But boy, this game was close. Now I know why so many people pay $350+ for tickets! Anyway, you can find the scores and highlights and pretty much everything you want to know about the game elsewhere, so let me just say this: GO SPARTANS!!! (I would love to see us playing Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl... yes I would... hmmm...) Labels: Buckeyes, football, Ohio State, OSU, sports . | 0 comments | Saturday, November 05, 2005
Yes, I have some NaNos... Or rather, excerpts from my current efforts. They're going on my writing journal, located here. So far I've gotten to 12,094 words, which is where I was on 11/18 last year, so yay! Labels: goals, NaNoWriMo, projects, writing . | 1 comments | Friday, October 28, 2005
Disillusioned, Etc. [A]s a faltering/wavering member, the bloggernaccle is where I come to sincerely and earnestly try to work through some of my doubts. Even though I don’t always comment, I ALWAYS read. I find/found some strength here in the bloggernaccle. I went from reading View from the Foyer every day to reading Times and Seasons and feeling hopeful. Of course, one wonders how exactly you can do that when at least two of the folks you were gaining strength from were complicit in a rather hefty conspiracy/hoax. Everyone else already said good stuff at a blog I'm still pretty sure is real, in the comments. My picks are... Sue, who wrote that above quote, also wrote... I just never thought the bloggernaccle was a place where I had to worry about getting punked. [I]t isn’t even the fake BOH blog, it’s the fact that you lose faith in the whole idea of a bloggernaccle community of people whose “light” you might be able to borrow for a while, people who you might be able to trust a little not to deliberately lead you in the wrong direction, and ask occasional doctrinal advice from. You wouldn’t get advice from the folks from the Banner, obviously (because they were a little too strange), but the naccle in general - only it turns out you can’t trust any of them either - they’re all in on it - isn’t that hilarious? I feel like an idiot. JKS, too: [T]o find out that people are just screwing around, playing mind games, and snickering with their fellow in crowd naccle buddies - it’s disappointing. And Maria, who sums the specific matter up well: I read BoH on a pretty regular basis, but I never once posted. Nevertheless, I feel an extreme loss of respect for those involved and a general disillusionment with the bloggernacle as a whole. My take? I put it in the comments there, but since everyone's already moved on, here you go again: I've never been so glad to be a "personal"/"light extemporania"/"sooooo not a bloggernacle blogger" person. Even the jerks on slashdot live up to a minimal "reveal your real identity or be seen as an annonymous coward" structure. I can't really look down on them for being meaner or less considerate or less "real" than anyone in the bloggernacle now, now can I? For the record, I'm a real person, and so is everyone else I know. I really did stand in line for Star Wars (twice!), I really do teach in Primary, I really am looking for a job, and yes, I really am a Mormon. As far as I'm aware, all of the sites I've linked to on my blogroll are, if annonymous, then obviously so -- and 20.7% are people I've met in person (one of them's my mom.) She really is my mom. Honest. I swear. No, really. Sigh. It was a lot easier when everyone else was telling the truth, too, you know? [Tags: Mormon, Bloggernacle] . | 0 comments | Thursday, October 27, 2005
BOM Blogging! part two So, I've gotten through 2 Nephi 11 -- which means that if I keep up at exactly this pace, I'll finish on New Year's Day. ^_^ I heart Excel spreadsheets. Today I started 2 Nephi in earnest, and ran across this, which had never really impacted me before (as far as I can remember):
I mean, wow. Exactly. You said it, Nephi. (emphasis was mine, though) [Tags: Mormon, Book of Mormon, Church and Religion] . | 0 comments | Sunday, October 23, 2005
Happy Birthday to Me! I am now old enough to rent a car (if I ever get a credit card again - thanks for reminding me, Gene) and run for Congress and all kinds of fun stuff. Quarter of a century old, more than 1/3rd of the way to "there's no way you can deny you're an old person now" land. And I got to sleep in this morning. WOOT. Now, one person telling me "you know, I have no idea what to get you for your birthday," you can easily dismiss. Two, and you might wonder if you're some kind of closed book. Three such comments, though, and it's time to take action. After five years, I have finally updated my Amazon.Com wishlist. There shouldn't be any more VHS format stuff on there. There shouldn't be anything that sold out in mid-2002. There shouldn't be any comments apologizing for being a Harry Potter fan, any requests for my non-air conditioned dorm, etc. I deleted everything I didn't want or had bought for myself. There are 150 items, ranging in price from $5 to $200. Let's be clear, though. These are all things I'd love to get. I heart presents greatly. Don't think this is some kind of creepy "you must buy things for me you evil people" thing, though. I don't hold the universe under an obligation to get me stuff. This is just to fulfill a request. Three of them, actually. So, go forth and shop. Or not. ^_^ And have a happy My Birthday. Each and every one of you. Do it. Do it now! . | 2 comments | Sunday, October 16, 2005
The Book of Mormon Challenge So... like, three months ago (four months ago? a long, long time ago...), President Hinckley said everyone should read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. I was kind of in my soul-killing job at the time, and had ironically gotten about halfway through Helaman before that job started, and then totally (TOTALLY) slacked off. As in, I read up to Helaman 8 in 5 weeks, and didn't read at all after that. I've spent the last three months (or whatever it was) debating whether to start over from the beginning or from where my old Seminary scripture mastery bookmark is sitting (which is where I left off.) Today I decided to enlist the assistance of Excel and determined that if I read 4 chapters a day, I'll be done before Christmas (even counting the testimony of the three and eight witnesses as separate chapters, 4 chapters a day gets you to December 14th if you started today.) Soooo... I'm starting over from the beginning. ^_^ Just finished 1 Nephi 4. And, since I'm starting over, I'm also working on a project I thought up a while ago... I've long noticed those "study bibles" and "bible for teens" and whatnot, and decided I should create a personalized version of the scriptures for ME. I can make the font nice and readable, I can put whatever notes I want in the margins, etc. So I'm starting with the Book of Mormon (conveniently, one of the volumes NOT thoroughly covered in the "study bible" market;) I'm trying to do the initial formatting at the same rate I read it (four chapters per day,) which means that I'm actually reading each verse... well, at least 1.5 times, and more likely 2 or 3 times, each day. We'll see if those promises (re: greater measure of faith, etc.) hold up. ^_^ Church, Religion, Book of Mormon, Mormon . | 2 comments | Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Anyone who thinks... That a Romney Presidential run would generate lots of fuzzy happy "Aww, shucks, Mormons are okay folks!" feelings in the American electorate... please see here. That is all, thank you. . | 1 comments | Monday, September 19, 2005
Arrrrr! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, me buckos. In honor o' that, today's post be full o' richy, piratey goodness. I've got too much t' do, and not enough time t' do it, but it's me day off and I don't care. I'm probably goin' t' reschedule t' LSAT, just t' give meself more time t' get that score up. Honestly, I think I'd be improvin' smartlyer if it weren't for t' fact I was already gettin' a pretty decent score, mateys. I'll defin' take it in December, though, should I move t' date aft once (i.e. I won't move it aft t' February if it looks like me score be still stuck below 160 at t' end o' November.) In oth'r news, it's less than two months t' NaNoWriMo, and I've actually got a plot I be likin' this year, mateys. I think last year's project was fatally flawed, in that th' story I wanted t' tell had characters I liked, but no day t' day conflict. Jus' now I got a call from t' Blackwell campaign for gov'nor. T' race mus' be heatin' up now, I takes it. Lastly, we did our rehearsal for Sharin' Time yesterday. I keep havin' to remember what things sound like to yer average 7-year-old -- I'm changin' th' stuff to make it easier, not harder (me bilge rats had a very hard time understandin' th' concept, and I think "good or bad" is easier than "which one is good") and I'm also goin' to bite th' bullet and use 100 lb. Bristol instead of th' drawin' paper I got (me test quote pages got totally trashed in rehearsals.) I may also go ahead and create "hold to th' rod" props to place along th' path to th' Tree of Life, provided I can find me some rod pieces that will look all ri' (I don't think th' ought to be shiny, see.) Oh, jus' a fair word o' warning, me hearties -- Lost premieres this week, and Battlestar Galactica goes on i' fall hiatus. Apparently th' powers that be only want one good TV show on at a time anymore, the blaggards. Shiver me timbers! Mormon, Ohio, LSAT, TVPirates, Talk Like a Pirate Day . | 1 comments | Sunday, September 11, 2005
Sharing Time is here again... The Primary Presidency revised the Sharing Time schedule and I didn't get a copy -- which meant that today I found out I'll be doing the presentation in two weeks. Given the brevity of our preparation period (we'll get an hour to go through our lesson next week AND do any preparation for the presentation) I basically came up with a presentation on my own, and the kids will help me execute it. It's a little annoying, since I'd wanted them to contribute more to it this time around, but I think I've got a good way for them to help out more effectively during the presentation than they did in February -- and realistically, given the age group I'm dealing with, I'd probably end out making most executive decisions myself anyway. Anyway, the idea is pretty simple. Our theme for September is Choose the Right; I decided to go a slightly different direction than the basic "which are the right choices to make" simply because we've done that the last two weeks, and the kids in general aren't participating as much as I'd like them to. Also, it's hard to get all 40+ kids to participate when brainstorming. So we're going to do a choices thing, but instead of choosing actions, we're choosing words. More exactly, the kids will be evaluating two statements, and deciding which one is the word of God, and which is the word of Man. And yes, it's been fun collecting stuff for the word of Man side. The format is going to be a trek to the Tree of Life. The child (or possibly two children, for a race) will start at the back of the room, and try to move forward towards the Tree of Life I'll have by the chalkboard. They'll have to pick the word of God to move a step forward (this is a take on Lehi's dream, and the hymn "The Iron Rod," where "the iron rod is the word of God.") The rest of the group will help them (the child or children trying to get to the front of the room) decide which one is the word of God, probably by raising their hands. When the child makes their selection, one of my students will hold up either a giant black "X" (for the word of Man - the incorrect selection) or a giant "CTR" shield (for the word of God - the correct selection.) I'm hoping that some of my selections will be tricky enough that we'll get a few wrong answers, because a) wrong answers make them pay more attention to the next few questions and b) one of my kids will have nothing to do but hold up a giant "X" and I don't want them to stand around bored for 20 minutes (I know, I know, it's really terrible.) The rest of the kids in my class will be in charge of holding up posters with each reading on them; I've got 7 active students, so hopefully they'll be able to keep up. One kid will be holding the Tree of Life poster, which leaves 4 holding quote/scripture posters. I'll be buying a lot of poster board (and spending about 2 hours writing scriptures and quotes out on those poster boards... ugh) this week. If it's a race, the kids will take turns answering which one is right and which one is wrong. If it's not a race, we may end out trying this twice -- either way, I've made 20 selections for each category. I haven't yet paired them up with one another, which I want to do for maximum effect. I'm not sure I'll get all 40 posters (yeah, exactly) done, so I'll probably also start with the best ones. Anyway, here are the selections. First, the word of Man:
This is the finished, merged list, with scriptures -- I'll post the references in a little bit, once I sort out which scriptures I decided to use in place of my original list.
(yes, I know, a few of those word of Man quotes were originally meant sarcastically, or ironically, or what have you -- the point here is not "OMG, Anne Rice is EEEEEVIL!", the point is that these are wrong ways of thinking... heck, some of those, I wrote myself, because the original stuff was way over the head of your average 6 year old... I've also already shortened some of those scripture verses, and will probably shorten some of the others... that is, the quote will be all-scripture, but might not be that entire verse; again, trying to reflect the fact that I'm working with 40 kids who were, for the most part, born after 1999) Anyway, considering I pretty much came up with that during spare time between meetings, and while talking with my students, I think it'll work out well. If I have time, I'll try to get Laura to take some photos of all the posters. There'll be 43 of them in all if I get them all done (1 Tree of Life, 1 CTR, 1 "X", 20 word of God scriptures, and 20 word of Man quotes.) Whee... [edit: I did some editing of the selections, and edited the post to reflect that... also, I merged the two lists because I've now paired them up with one another, and added Technorati tags. ^_^] Tags: Mormon, LDS Church, Book of Mormon, Bible, Church, Religion. . | 0 comments | Monday, September 05, 2005
WOOT! The Church has finally, finally posted an MP3 version of the Old Testament! They've had a streaming version (I think .wma) for a little while, but for some reason the MP3 set was missing the OT for ages. Now it's there! I've got 92% of the book of Genesis already saved. WOOT! Tags: Mormon, LDS Church, Bible . | 0 comments | "I'm Okay" - Katrina Site In case you're hunting for information on a relative/friend missing in New Orleans/the rest of the Gulf -- or if you're from New Orleans/the rest of the Gulf -- you can search OR enter yourself into the database I've linked on the sidebar. It's a cute little green and white button that says "I'M OKAY." No really, go look. This should be of particular help to anyone interested in the following ZIP codes: -New Orleans, LA and surrounding area: 70000 through 70499 -Biloxi and Gulfport, MS and surrounding area: 39426 through 39595 AND 35450 through 39425 AND 39596 through 39772. Those are the ones that are so bad, UPS and FedEx can't bring stuff in; they don't have power, other utiltiies, or clear roads (the second and third ranges in the Missouri area say to expect massive delays.) If you've gotten out of those ZIP codes and/or know someone who lives in/was visiting one of them, this is the database for you. Tags: Hurricane Katrina, Flood Aid . | 0 comments | Thursday, September 01, 2005
Louisiana Companies Lots of individuals live in New Orleans, and have lost their homes and workplaces. And lots of companies are based in New Orleans, and have lost stock and warehouses and computer equipment... their stock prices probably aren't going up right now, and they may not have insurance to cover their losses, let alone reestablish their businesses. One of the things that has most helped third world countries is plain old capital investment in local ventures... so in the long term, why not invest in some New Orleans based companies? The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau website is still running, and gives a partial list of NO-area companies. Some of these sites are down, and some seem to go up and down periodically. The company/brand names are all pretty unique, though. And if you or someone you know owns a small business in the affected areas, you should contact the Small Business Administration for assistance. There's a good overview of what's available here. FRENCH MARKET HOT SAUCES Tony Chachere’s Zatarain’s McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce BEANS Camellia BEER AND SPIRITS Abita Beer Dixie Beer (note: not their own site) COFFEE AND TEA Community Coffee and Tea French Market Coffee Luzianne New Orleans Coffee Company CONDIMENTS, SPICES AND SPICEBASED FOOD MIXES Blue Plate Mayonnaise Crystal Condiments Magic Seasoning Blend Melinda’s Original Habanero Pepper Sauce Rex Pure Foods and Horse Shoe Pure Products Steen’s Syrup GRAIN PRODUCTS Watermaid and Mahatma Rice Reising and Zip Bread King Cakes -- Haydel -- Gambino -- Randazzo List courtesy New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. Fall 2004. (I deleted Southern Comfort from the list, because they are now based in Louisville, KY -- they still might be a good choice to help rebuild in the area, though, since they're originally a New Orleans company) [Technorati tags: Flood Aid, Hurricane Katrina.] . | 0 comments | To those who keep coming to my site, Looking for instructions on how to setup a Greatland tent? I have two words for you: Pray. Hard. Seriously, I gave up. I suggest buying a new tent instead. . | 0 comments | In case you were wondering... Yes, LDS Humanitarian Services is working on Hurricane Katrina. The best way to donate seems to be to go through your local ward clerk -- just fill out an ordinary tithing slip and mark "Humanitarian Fund." You can also send funds to the Humanitarian Fund directly (the link has the phone number, address, and website.) Remember that if you use a credit card instead of a check, the credit card people take out a processing fee -- that's a standard issue, and might be a good reason to donate directly to the local branch of a national or regional charity. For information on the Church's efforts, including information on the safety of Church missionaries and members in the area, go here -- I'll update this post if and when they put up more recent information. And as for non-LDS charities, Strengthen the Good is doing a donation matching program, and InstaPundit has a ton listed. LDS Humanitarian Services is even in there now. Technorati tags: Flood Aid, Hurricane Katrina. . | 2 comments | Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Where'd the comments go? I've removed the HaloScan comments because I'm tired of them getting deleted after 6 months. Hugs to everyone who commented on the old comments -- and rejoice, for now you can comment on the Blogger comment pages, which will ask you to prove you're a human, but won't insist you have a Blogger account (and won't require you to bypass your popup blocker.) . | 0 comments | Glargh... Okay, this LSAT thing is going to give me an ulcer or mental breakdown or possibly both. The last copy of that PowerScore Logic Games Bible left in Columbus has apparently disappeared. I've given myself 24 hours to decide whether or not to try and move my test date to the December slot. This is very frustrating. . | 1 comments | Monday, August 29, 2005
Now entering APM (Absolute Panic Mode)... So, my mom helped me register for the LSAT today. I'll be taking it on October 1st. Most of the last month has been 100% devoted to learning how to do DSL tech support (I got a smoking modem on Friday, and cussed out on Saturday!) and getting used to a new schedule. Now I have to go crazy to get a decent score on this test. Blah. I just submitted reservations for two LSAT prep books (the Logic Games Bible recommended by Steve/Ethesis and Arwyn, and a book by Kaplan, who got me a decent score on the math section of the SAT back in the late 1990s) Depending on my scores on the practice LSAT I'll be taking on Wednesday or Thursday, I may try to order more publications. I need to raise my score by 20 points in the next 30 days. Gah. Must get back to work. . | 2 comments | Sunday, August 14, 2005
Explaining, Rephrasing, and Dissembling Okay, so today one of the kids in my Primary class was trying to copy down the lyrics to the songs for our program in October, instead of singing along. This seemed hopeless -- I don't know any second graders that can copy down the songs as fast as we go through them, and she wasn't learning anything about the tune (which is the bigger problem for some of the kids, who can read but don't yet actually know how to sing along.) Negotiations commenced and were brief, because I promised that next week, I'd bring her pages with all the lyrics to all the songs we're singing in the program. She went back to listening. Now, I'm not one to hand the kids a stack of pages and say "sing along." Oh, no. Because as soon as I sit down to do that, I start noticing... issues. See, we're singing some older songs, some songs they've never heard before, and a hymn. We're singing some fairly esoteric stuff, especially for a collection of kids who don't know what words like "discouraged" mean (and let me tell you how TOTALLY pumped I am that they're finally actually asking me when they don't know a word -- I've been explaining, without being asked, almost every third word, for the last eight months, and now they finally feel comfortable asking for help...) So, I'm adding a glossary. MOst of the kids aren't quite at a reading level where they can get through this glossary very easily (according to Word it's at a 7th grade reading level,) but they've got older siblings (who can't define "restored" or "ponder" very coherently, I suspect, but almost certainly can sound out and explain my definitions.) Plus, this was a good exercise for me, since the ones that can't read will probably need to know what most of those words mean to understand what the heck it is they're singing. And don't try to tell me they'll learn from osmosis; there are probably adults out there that are still disappointed that apricot trees do not, in fact, produce popcorn. Anyway, here goes. I still haven't done a final edit; I know there's inconsistent captialization and I'm sure I'm off the doctrinal deep end thanks to one or two insane typos (there are some VERY different words that sound VERY similar, okay? now I proofread all talks several times...) That'll be the task for next Saturday, most likely, since I'll be off work that night. And in case you're wondering, this is pretty much EXACTLY the way I talk in class.
. | 0 comments | Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Some things never change... So, the Atlantic Monthly (article expires July 28th, 2005) did a profile of Mitt Romney. A few people have noticed that its tone was inappropriate. I tend to agree, and sent the Atlantic Monthly a letter:
(The governor is a topic of conversation within the Bloggernacle at large, of course...) I don't know whether I'd vote for Romney for President or not. But I know I'd never give an interview to Sridhar Pappu. . | 0 comments | Monday, July 25, 2005
I drove 50 miles for... Diddly squat. My first training session at my new job was scheduled for this afternoon, but apparently sometime between my interview (in June, remember) and today, they decided to push the start date back to Wednesday. I said "but I didn't get any kind of a call," and they said: "We only call to confirm start dates one day in advance." Which means that I'll be getting a phone call tomorrow, letting me know that I don't need to show up for training today but rather two days from now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This on top of their whole "if you apply today you can work on Monday!" ad campaign (I applied in late May and will get my first paycheck on August 24th) has not really inspired a whole heck of a lot of confidence. We'll see. Meanwhile, now I have to be extra careful with gas and driving; hopefully I can get some cash for fuel by sealing the driveway next weekend, because otherwise I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And I can't go to YSA tonight (Caroline has to go straight to work so she can't give me a ride) because I wouldn't be able to get us to church on Sunday if I went to the building tonight. Grr. At least this is forcing me to study more for the LSAT. . | 0 comments | Saturday, July 23, 2005
This makes no sense at all... So I spent all of Comic-Con making up logic puzzles, and this afternoon/evening I spent about two hours solving the easiest five logic puzzles in a book of games my mom lent me. And this evening, I took a second practice LSAT... and I got a 153 again. Now, at first I wasn't all that surprised, because one of the logic puzzles in the practice test left me so utterly lost I simply guessed at the answers. But -- and this is the part that's got me annoyed -- I actually raised my score in the games section of the practice test! And, correspondingly, lowered my score in Reading Comprehension (I'm going to go over that one again, because I was pretty confident about that section.) My percentages? Arguments (Logical Reasoning) -- 74% Reading Comprehension -- 51% Games (Analytical Reasoning) -- 54% Erm, yeah. I've got two months left (Arwyn: yes, I'm taking it in October.) And I start my new job on Monday. Let me therefore take this opportunity to freak out slightly: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH! Okay, that makes me feel better. I think I'm going to go sic some armies on one another (Age of Empires, WOOT) and take another look at Reading Comprehension tomorrow. Maybe I'll try to LSAT-ize the Book of Mormon or something. Heh. . | 0 comments | The end of an era? I'm about one episode away from giving up on Stargate SG-1. No, I'm serious, I am. It's been fun, sure, and yeah, I endured the rough periods: they killed Daniel, they killed pretty much everyone who knows Teal'c or Daniel, they killed Sam's dad, they killed Daniel again, they ditched Hammond, they promoted Richard Dean Anderson almost out of the show, and all of this I endured. But in the last ten episodes, they've imported the main Farscape team, they've completely ditched O'Neill, and quite frankly they're just being stupid now. Even their Comic-Con appearance just annoyed me. I mean, how sad is it that the Atlantis episode that showed this evening is at least twice as good as SG-1, and still awfully pathetic? I can also console myself, there, with the knowledge that they're only adding one extra cast member to that show. At least I've got Battlestar Galactica to look forward to. But boy, I'm not sorry I asked for Sunday/Monday off (for my new job) instead of a Friday/Sunday split... . | 0 comments | Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Leaving for a bit... Comic-Con calls. Things would be dead with or without me around here -- my sister just took her test at driver's ed, and my other sister is starting a job at Wal-Mart tomorrow. Mostly I'll be missing an awesome fireside on Sunday and a missionary farewell on Friday; I'll also have more bugs to fight off and clean up once I'm back. Hopefully when I get back I can also find some cash-generating activities; my job at Call-Tech doesn't start till the 25th and it'd be swell if I had gas to get to and from... bleh. On the cash note: counting all my coinage, I'm going to Comic-Con with just $26.50 in my purse. That is officially insane. I'm not doing it again till I have actual money. . | 0 comments | Sunday, July 10, 2005
Well, it's a start... I took one of my mom's computerized LSAT practice tests just now. All I can say is... heh. Okay, fine, I can say more than that. The score I got, according to the computer, was 153. This is not as good as I'd hope for, though to put it in some perspective I can recall that the first time I took a practice SAT I got an 1150 score (my eventual score was 1380.) Also, it'd qualify me for a 50% scholarship at my mom's law school. Still, I need to raise that by about 15 points before the end of September. The -- how shall I put it -- greatest area of "opportunity" is, unsurprisingly, the Games section. I had to flat-out guess on two of the questions (always a terrible sign) and got just 45% of the questions right. For comparison's sake, I got 64% of the Reading Comprehension questions right, and 71% of the Arguments section right. I had a feeling the Games section would be the worst, since I'm not much good at the logic games in puzzle books. My eventual goal is to get 85% or more of the questions right on the practice exams (that works out to a score around 170, I believe.) I figure I'll have to put in at least 10-15 hours of work to raise my practice score by 1-3 points (I figure it's something like five hours per point, but it probably won't work out quite like that) and I have a little less than 2,000 total hours between right now and the start of the test (that translates into a more convenient 'nearly 11 weeks,' by the way.) Anyway, since my goal is to gain 17 points, I figure an hour or two a day for the next, you know, 82 days, will be more than sufficient. I can probably even take Sundays off. I suspect I'll try another practice test every week or so; expect boring analysis like this every five to ten days, therefore. Bleh. 153. . | 0 comments | Thursday, July 07, 2005
I hate tents! Okay, so some friends decided to arrange a "we'd really like to see you" thing for Comic-Con, in which all of this year's birthday presents are going towards airfare and such, and I'm actually able to go. Which is cool, and I love them, and yay for Comic-Con. BUT. My major logistical contribution is the tent. Yes, we are camping out for Comic-Con (and when you consider that Larry is spending like $760 for five nights in a hotel...) and it'll be fun. Assuming, of course, that we can get a tent that will work. Since there will be between 2 and 5 people in the tent every night, I figured a nice, large, 2- or 3-room tent would be perfect. And it just so happens that my family has one of those, in the garage. 10ft x 14ft, 2 rooms, woohoo! Or not. Now, let's ignore the fact that I haven't actually asked if I can use the tent yet (I figured I should see if it's still in working order,) because the tent isn't in working order! We're missing two critical elements: the instructions, and 1 Tent Pole Segment #2. For reference's sake, the tent should look like this, only a different color and without those awning things. Tent Pole Segment #2 is one of the two types of tent segments that goes straight across the top of the tent. In this case, we're looking for one of the two side arches, rather than the one down the middle. Ugh. Anyway, setting up tents (especially ones this large) is already not a ton of fun, but with rusty/sticky tent poles (don't worry guys, if I can use the tent I'll clean the poles before I pack them up) and not enough space/light and with all these annoying setbacks (why do we have pieces left over, AND missing pieces too????)it's extra BLEH. I can't even figure out who made the tent (American Broadway? Greatland? Neither actually exists... I think they're both North Pole Ltd. brands.) Like I said, BLEH. That is all. . | 0 comments | Saturday, June 25, 2005
Well begun is half, umm, Okay, it isn't really half done, but I'm still proud of myself for doing the trim of our front door. I'm in a total painting mood now -- all these bare walls and unfinished bookcases had better watch out. The trim looks good, I think. It's weird how a new coat of white paint looks so much whiter than an old coat of off-white paint. Heh. Anyway, I think with the green on the doors themselves, it'll look really cool. We should put up, like, a brass thing of some sort (nameplate, knocker, whatever) to complete the look. We won't, though. My next project is probably going to be the stairs coming down to the basement. I haven't decided yet whether to try washing those walls or do more work organizing my room (I want it clean enough that I feel not icky doing yoga on the floor by my bed...) after writing my Sunday School lesson. We'll see; I expect to have lots and lots of spare time tonight because a) all of my friends are at Disneyland and b) this is probably the easiest lesson to write ever (forgiveness!) Funny how some of the most complicated things to really do is so easy to teach (at least, the principle itself.) I've narrowed down my "hard to say" example (to show how hard it can be to say "I forgive you") to either onomatopoeia or antidisestablishmentarianism (they're all 6/7 years old, and most can read.) . | 0 comments | Thursday, June 23, 2005
Compromise Bites So, Kelo. See InstaPundit's roundup for all the links I would have given you at the beginning of this post. What I wouldn't give for a major political party that could manage to be sane in terms of international relations, basic economics AND the fundamental principles of a free society all at the exact same time. No, not these people -- I will not support a party full of people who think they can manage a country but who can't actually manage a simple campaign for Congress. Argh. I don't trust government. I think it's utterly insane to trust government. The whole idea behind limiting powers left, right, and center in the Constitution is that it's completely irrational to trust government. You just don't do it. It's like letting serial killers be in charge of elementary school administration, having groups of professional politicans be in charge of your money and your military and the rest. Honestly, if Kerry hadn't been such a twerp and there hadn't been this whole war on terror deal, I so would have been more conflicted about voting for Bush. His nominees would be even lamer, I bet, on this issue than the folks we have now. For way less emotional discussion, see here. . | 0 comments | Tuesday, June 21, 2005
This doesn't make much sense... Dubailand? Okay, first off, yay for more theme parks! I want to be the first one to work at them all. ^_~ Second off, there are lots and lots of disgruntled former Disney employees. Please seek some of us out and get help with your theming, guys. Eco-Tourism World? Bleh. Third... how much do you expect to pay your employees? The reason I ask is, well, if you're expecting to have 300,000 people working there, and only 200,000 visiting per day, that means that you have to have every one of your guests supporting the salaries of 1.5 workers, and all the marginal and fixed costs of their stay, AND all the profits you anticipate getting per guest. That's going to be hard. Disney and most of the other Western theme parks charge between $25 and $55 (the premier ones are all over $45) per day in admissions; meals cost about 1.6 times what you'd pay for them in the outside world, and most retail items cost 20-50% more than what you'd pay at the stores across the street from the main gates. The hotels run at a premium, too. Most of the workers make a little less than your average unskilled worker in the local economy... and their ratios are more like 30,000 workers for 120,000 guests (actually, the Disneyland Resort, excluding the hotel, employs around 22,200 people, and gets 11,000 guests on a VERY slow day and 90,000+ on a really busy day; max capacity is over 100,000, if you include Downtown Disney, which has no entry fee.) Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this one pans out. And for the geographically challenged amongst my readers... Hat Tip: BoingBoing . | 1 comments | Monday, June 20, 2005
Home Improvement Okay, so I have one project! I'll be painting the trim around the front door (and the front door itself) for $20. I need to find sand paper and I'll be all set. Once we have some sealant for the driveway and back porch, Caroline and I will attempt those projects together. I'm also thinking there's potential in the fact that most of the interior walls haven't been painted yet, though I have to figure out how to get all the dirt off the primer before any actual painting takes place. And, of course, all of that has to be done with the cats running around. Oi. On the one hand, a temp job (or starting this blasted tech support gig) would be better in terms of having a steady stream of cash. On the other, it's kind of cool to be able to see the fruits of my labor, as it were. I mean, I go through that front door all the time. . | 0 comments | Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Good News, Bad News... Okay. I have a job. Yay! But, not only does it not start until July 25th -- I won't get paid until August 24th (!) Yeah, exactly. So, I'm going to be going to a temp agency after lunch. See if I can get lots and lots of short term assignments. 40 hours a week at $9/hour (11am to 8pm, Tuesday through Saturday) and pretty much exactly the shift I want -- I can go to YSA family home evening and dances, and watch Battlestar Gallactica, AND sleep in -- is basically ideal, for the short to mid term. Really really stinks I can't start right away. Also, the training pay is bizarre ($60/day, rather than a set hourly rate) which has me worried about classes going till 2am or something. Ah, well. That first paycheck will be substantial (I'm thining around $1070, after taxes?) which will be, you know, good. Can't believe I won't see that till August, though... bleh. Anyway, I've technically got a job, so I think I'll watch Clone Wars today. Probably won't go see Ep. III again till I actually get paid, though, since that'll cost money and I have... well, none really. Thinking about asking my stepdad if Caroline and I can stain the deck in back for cash. Hmmm. . | 0 comments | Opportunity Costs and Blog Comments I will probably never comment on this post. I know, I know. Why on earth am I posting here about how I won't comment over there? Well, this is what the original post says (a small chunk, I should say): Here are some thoughtful responses to Milbank’s work. They model the kinds of responses that are appropriate. I’ve requested a couple more and as they come in, I will add them to the list. Erm... One of the very best things about the blogosphere, in my opinion, is how much it resembles my favorite classes in college. Lots of really, really awesome material is put out there -- and all kinds of responses are safe. You'll probably get yelled at if you bring up your cat's latest antics in the middle of a European history discussion (say, a review of family relations in 1650s England?) unless you're really, really good at making it relevant. And if you are really, really good at making it relevant, well, class is way more fun. But it's okay to respond to an analysis of gender roles and household responsibilities with "Wow, I have no idea what any of that means, but it kind of reminds me of how my mom thinks that I should know how to cook and knit even though I can buy food and clothing at Wal-Mart," because it shows you've at least made an attempt to meet the material on some level, and anyway, in a second one of your classmates is going to either shoot you down or say something so impressive (good or bad) that it makes everyone forget that you just said something kind of silly. Discussions can shift, people are engaged... everyone (hopefully) did the reading and in the meantime, the exploration is fun, because you know you don't have to be profound for every second of every conversation. Which is especially nice, since you're taking four classes and doing about 200 pages a week of reading, and you have a part time job and the roommate from someplace unspeakable, and frankly, half of this material is either hideously boring or way, way beyond your level still. And your professor has been studying it for the last twenty years (and by the way, selected the textbook herself.) Anyway, it took me nearly 8 months to get comfortable commenting on blogs (only took about 4 months of college classes to stop being too shy to talk -- by my senior year, I was asking questions in lecture halls.) It took over a year before I worked up the courage to email Glenn Reynolds (or, bizarrely, any other blogger,) though; he's a professor and a famous blogger, for heaven's sake. The point is, I don't need any kind of "make this conversation meaningful, darnit!" pressure, since I give it to myself in rather large doses already; it's bad enough we insist on that in all that stuff that goes through peer review (honestly, if I do go to law school, I'll probably have my meltdown halfway through Scholarly Writing.) Some of the best conversations on blogs that I've seen lately have included random whining, Star Wars references, and even "hey, we went on a blind date with each other ten years ago!" reunions. Those are the ones I got a lot out of; the ones that made me rethink my views on stuff. The ones that made me click on the links in peoples' signatures. The ones that didn't take such a huge effort to read and comprehend -- and the ones that didn't demand, up front, serious discussion. Now, it's okay that there are posts out there that do demand that. I'm all about serious discussion much of the time (ask anyone I've dated -- or for that matter, anyone who's met me -- if I like serious discussion.) But I think that blogging has a huge advantage in its inherent unpredictability, and light-heartedness, and low barriers to entry (both technologically and culturally.) And I just don't... enjoy feeling like my response to a post will get more scrutiny than my paper/poster on Lithuanian nationalism did at the last undergrad research conference I participated in. In fact, the posts I'm least likely to ever respond to are the ones that seem to demand a really thoroughly researched reply. Please, I find myself saying, please just make a simple error of fact -- or ask for a relatively unambiguous opinion... Reading four essays about "radical orthodox" philosophy and trying to formulate a reasoned, well-written response in the space of around 24 hours (of which 2 will be spent trying to write the actual post) is likely to generate 2 or 3 click-throughs to this blog, and no reply comments or emails. I can get that with a random "ummm, I don't really care for pop fiction endorsed by Oprah, and probably won't read the Da Vinci Code" reply on M*, with three seconds of effort and no massive level of stress. Moreover, I'll definitely understand what the heck my own position on the matter means at the end of the day (i.e., "I don't like Oprah, and I won't be reading The Da Vinci Code!") which I sort of doubt will happen with anything I could say in reply to Jim's post. I'm, uh, not even sure what question I'm supposed to answer in Jim's post, which kind of worries me, to be honest. Given that, I'd probably spend another 20 minutes trying to find the question (it's taking a lot of self-control to refrain from doing that right now, just to settle the matter.) So, ummm, I won't be replying in that thread. Too much risk, not enough reward... Sorry, Jim. I thought it was an awesome essay (at least, the chunks I understood, which were actually greater in number than what I thought I would understand, because I had been trying to watch CNN while reading it, the first time through) I hope you liked writing it. Good luck with the experiment -- I think there are a lot of people at T&S who will not be all defeatist (as I am, I'm afraid) when faced with your challenge. It's definitely the blog to try it at, at least. ^_^ (no offense to Jim meant, by the way -- this post was born because I literally said out loud "Whoa... there's no way I can reply to that" as soon as I hit the "(More)" link on the front page of T&S, and wanted to figure out why I'd had that reaction -- and as an illustration of how much work a *real* reply to Jim would take, I've spent 55 minutes writing and editing this post... which probably goes to show why I should get over this whole perfectionism thing, I bet.) . | 0 comments | Saturday, June 11, 2005
A thousand words... Okay. I'm sick of not having a camera. Yes, it's taken two years to get to this point (my old one broke in April of 2003,) and I feel justified in blaming Caroline for this. Anyway, I've got (or soon will have) a $50 voucher from Best Buy (my old cell phone simply will not stay on, so I'm applying for a replacement voucher,) so I'll have to get this camera from them. And, once I have a job I'll have bazillions of things to pay for (insurance, gas, rent of the storage shed, rent at home [?], student loans, food, shampoo...) -- and of course, I don't have a job yet (prayers will be much appreciated around 9am Tuesday morning, by the way,) so things will be even tighter as I'll have stuff to buy that I've been putting off (I must, for instance, get a job before I run out of toothpaste.) So. I don't think that realistically I'll be able to spend more than 5% of my weekly pay for the summer (or about $150-200) on this camera. That puts the upper limit of my price range at around $149-179, I think (since the $50 will be largely offset by the price of a memory card and taxes.) I'd like to get a camera that can at least do ordinary portrait size photos (8x10), can do a bit of the pretty sunset/super up-close flower/cool shot of a tractor from the side of the road type photography, as well as get good shots of Ohio Stadium from the banks of the Olentangy River and photos of my friends at conventions and such. I want to be able to take the camera places (camping, Europe, whatever) and I want it to still be a decent-yet-fun camera in four or five years. I don't need to be able to do fancy tricks (take a photo with a sepia filter, say) with the camera itself; that's what Paint Shop Pro is for. I want to have a memory system that isn't insanely expensive ($100 for 1gb of memory is probably my limit,) and I want to be able to take more than one photo every 20 seconds. I want to have one of those LCD screens. I definitely want to be able to upload photos directly to a computer using a USB port. I'd like to be able to put the thing on a tripod, since Caroline has one of those and I think they're useful. I want the memory system to be available in five years; it'd be swell to get one that's compatible with lots of different readers. I don't want the camera to insist on me installing a ton of proprietary software just to get my photos on the computer. I like video, but it's not a big deal to me if I can't have it. I need to be able to do a moderate amount of fiddling with the zoom and such. I have to be able to turn off the flash, to force the flash to go off, etc. Oh, and I want to be able to fit the camera in an ordinary size small camera bag -- I already own three of the things, and don't want to get anything else, especially anything bigger. I don't need the thing to fit in my pocket, though. It would, incidentally, be swell if the thing had either a really strong battery that can go a few days (say 12 hours of operation) without recharging, or uses AA batteries (since I already own a recharger and 8 rechargeable AA batteries.) Weeks of working at the photo booth across from it's a small world has permanently soured me on special size batteries for cameras. Anyway, are there suggestions or comments or anything? Anyone know of a camera that would fit those requirements? My last camera was a 3.2mp (I think) Olympus Camedia, and I liked it -- my biggest thing is just being able to get slightly higher resolution on my photos (I'm sorry, but using real film has spoiled me on that one.) I'd like to have a slightly more intuitive control system, too -- I'd had that camera for more than a year before I was comfortable with even simple stuff like scrolling through all the photos on my card. . | 0 comments | Because only so many people can be eleventh in line. 
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