Category: Personal

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve been out of work (( IT work for a bio-research department at the university. ))sick for most of this week.
In order to celebrateacknowledge my absence, my co-workers placed a gigantic, inflatable ladybug on my chair.

For those who may be concerned, I’d like assure you that my illness is not, in fact, due to radiation exposure, nor have I turned into a giant ladybug.
That said, I’m going to see if I can find a giant aphid…er…hamburger I say, HAMBURGER! for lunch.
My workplace is awesome.

I’ve spent the last few days huddled up in my apartment due to some sort of illness. The symptoms seem to suggest the flu.
Even with me being 26 and in otherwise reasonably good health, that virus kicked my ass.
I’m on the mend, but my boss and I agree that I should take the rest of this week off to avoid infecting everyone at work.
Argh. I hate being sick.

Arizona, as you’re probably aware, is a land of intense, burning sun. While the winters are pleasant and enjoyable, the summers consist of a horrible ball of nuclear fusion focusing a not-inconsiderable amount of its output into your immediate vicinity. Think ant-under-a-magnifying-glass, wow-I-didn’t-know-asphalt-has-a-liquid-state type heat.
A few years of this heat pounding down on my car combined with an uncovered parking spot at my apartment complex, and I’ve begun to notice the effects: the back of the rear seat headrests were beginning to fade and the plastic speaker grilles on the back deck were crumbling to dust. While the fading cloth isn’t a huge concern (it’s on the back side of the headrests, and nobody ever sees it), the grills were a problem as they looked horrible and the crumbling plastic affected the sound produced by the speaker.
The dealer wanted a few hundred bucks to replace the rear grilles, and I thought that was outrageous so I ended up buying the grilles for about $22 and looked over the technical bulletin that accompanied them and explained how to put them in. I think the same people who write instruction manuals for IKEA also do the ones for Toyota — the graphics were lacking and the text was barely descriptive. Replacing the grilles required the disassembly of just about everything aft of the rear seats.
Fortunately, the engineers at Toyota designed their components to be both knucklehead proof and easily removed and installed using extreme force — the problems I ran into stemmed from the fact that I originally wasn’t applying enough force to overcome the various clips, catches, and other bits. Though replacing the grilles took several more hours than I expected and inflicted several nicks, cuts, and scratches on my hands, I was finally able to get it done.
I’d say that swearing at my car for a few hours was a reasonable price to pay in order to save several hundred bucks from the dealer. I took a bit of the money I saved and got my windows tinted at a place recommended by my mechanic. My hope is that the tint will keep the car cooler, and reduce the intensity of the light on the interior of the car.
Being moderately handy and curious about how stuff works actually has some real-world benefits, like saving money.

Myself and two friends went out to a local cheap chinese buffet (( We’re cheap college students. What can I say? )) this evening and for some reason the conversation turned to vacation cruises.
I mentioned that I’ve been on a cruise before, and you tend to get a few older, retired people, a few younger couples with kids, and a whole lot of grotesquely fat people (( The food is unlimited and included with the flat-rate cost of the cruise in most cases. )).
At the very moment that I said “grotesquely fat people”, a leviathan of a woman carrying two heaping plates of food happened to walk by. It turns out she was sitting at the table directly behind me.
Awkward.
Of course, I wasn’t referring to this particular woman, nor meant any offense to fat people ((I could stand to lose a few pounds myself.)). I was simply stating an observation about cruises, but I can see how a small snippet of said conversation would be easily misinterpreted as being offense. Hooray.

Wednesday marks the beginning of Stress Week for me: three physics exams in as many days.
A life? Seeing the sun? A healthy stress level? A physicist needs not these things.
I’ve been studying for the last week, and still feel grossly unprepared.
Posting will be delayed until later in the week when I recover.