well, i climbed about 50 feet up a tree today just to see what i could view from that promontory. it's great. i could see the water, the mountains and the whole neighborhood. next time i'll bring a camera up with me so i can share.
school is going well. i got a 90% on my first test! can't argue with that. the whole thing is making some good sense to me. i like that. and i like it better this time than when i was in high school, thank heavens. i think i can take a full year of this stuff straight...maybe.
in other news my best friend is getting married in a few weeks. it's basically the definition of the shotgun wedding. minus the shotgun and adding in an M-16 instead. he's rushing so they'll be good to go for his deployment to okinawa in june. so i can understand. he's sure that she's the one and i'm excited for him. trying to get some time off of work to go down and see him. i hope i can manage it. it's going to cost a good deal, as well, and i'd have to put it on a credit card because i'm broke from the bike and school hitting me at the same time. such is life. in other news i'm FINALLY going to get my bike back after almost a straight month in the shop. they basically don't know who they can and can't get parts from anymore which has caused over 2 weeks of delays. so it's kinda their fault but it's also not like they've just had it and haven't been trying to get it done, either. i'm just antsy because the past two weeks have been gorgeous out here. damn i've wanted to go ride basically every single day. there's been one day of rain these past weeks and other than that it's been sunny, warm and generally perfect spring weather.
so i'll be round to say hi in a bit...i have to name the bike now. yeah, i'm one of those kids. but i choose czech names instead of normal names. at least i'm unique. my car was named anezka. this bike is a boy. i'm not sure what he's named yet. more on that to come.
that is all! sukka!

still working along at that story. it's taken a remarkably different form already. i changed my direction a bit. it's going alright, though.
i've been working more at chemistry. i want to get a good grade, after all. but more i just actually enjoy having something to do with myself and it's better than i remember it being during high school.
i made a better stove! it doesn't have the flame leak problems the last one did nearly as bad and i think that some jb weld will fix those problems most eloquently. i promise i will post pictures of it running like a dream.
my motorcycle should be out of the shop with a brand spanking new clutch tomorrow, i think. i hope so. i really want to hear that engine under me again. been a week since my tantalizing few days of vapor-fueled freedom. soon to be continued once more in rain pants.
that is all.
for now.

Part 1 of a story i'm working on

It is clear and cold outside. I find myself wondering if I did indeed spend my life in doubt for a valid purpose. Tonight I dreamt that I was back at Neuberg, sweating my way to a new foundation of human understanding when I awoke with a shudder. The open window brought in an icy wind which almost snuffed the fire, the guttering of these flames being that which awoke me from my nap. It feels as though I have been meditating all these years. How can I know my mind has not been decieved by the sinister intelligence? Even this night I still do not know. God, if you are indeed presiding over this vast cosmos allow me to see you before I die. I must know you are there. Perhaps it will do that I should tell you from whence I have come, owing to the fact that it is the very basis for my doubt. You will, no doubt, find me as one from an insane assylum but I assure you that I have spent my life determining that I am not. My mind is clear, my thinking is clear and based only on that one principle I have never been able to doubt: cogito ergo sum. On the evening of my revelation in Neuberg my nacent mind had not matured sufficiently to understand the plane that stood before me. Vast expanses of lightning, indeed it seemed to me more than the whole earth could hold, filled the ochre space. I could feel no familiar pull, breathe no familiar air, see no familiar views and I was terrified. I had found cerberus and was unprepared. I was sure I had entered the very entrance to the final judgement. Then I heard a great voice, echoing across that infinite darkness. "Ecce homo, you have come to the world as it is. Aristotle has not found the true entrance to the cave. DaVinci has found no god to paint. You must find your way to the ultimate truth not by these means but through certainty." This world quickly fades into another, less sinister but no less confusing place. Was it really a place? I believe so, but I do not know. The walls flickered with the light of lamps and candles. the smell of exotic incense fell upon me and the slow, constant drone filling my ears sounded like a man humming a single note that stretched unbroken to eternity. There were wanings, to be sure, but never a complete end. The dynamic aspect ensured me that it was indeed a human sound, as surely as a simple tune might be instantly recognized as human and this gave me great comfort. The walls were close and low, with simple collumns of stone holding up a roof of limestone. There, surrounded by the shells of countless living things the voice came again. "Witness the true freedom of humanity!" It shook my very ligaments and bones with its volume and the resonance. "These are souls who understand nothing, think nothing, see nothing. They are but flies on a plane, always precisely marked but never aware of the greater mind observing them." "Where am I?" I asked simply, not expecting anything in return. "You are in the heart of our first experiments with engineering societies." There was no point to asking more, as the image began to fade and I began to tumble in blackness. Something caught me as I fell. I felt the strange sense of direction returning after my fall through the void, something was there that allowed me to percieve my own being although I knew not what. I found that I was fixed, as if formulated on a pin, an insect on display in a vast world I did not begin to understand. As I gazed around I became aware of small points of light. I then became aware of the hum from the room I had visited previously. It was faint but distinguishable. There were others here! Or I percieved that others were near. I could not see anyone, only hear them. I was alone, a mere point of existence. Once more I was shaken from my thoughts by the voice, that dreadful, cold messenger. "Now you may see where thought leads. This is the very connection of all thought and action. There are few who may enter this realm and none who may understand. Like flies in a web those who come here struggle against a force felt but never known and surely irresistable. They are decieved by it and warped by it. They will return until the understanding is reached. They struggle for non-being but never realize that they have already achieved it. Being is an illusion, a web cast out to snare the ignorant and to fuel the web-builder. All that you see is like a dream of a dream." Then everything faded. The sun shone with that cold wintery intensity, but I could not tell if this was indeed the world. It was as if everything was a phantom of the world I left the night before. Nothing was certain.

hopefully all of you have now realized that God is the single most homocidal being in all of human history. he's ordered or ordained more deaths than any single person could ever hope to. don't try to tell me God is good when he would condemn so many.

i've now been laughing at this comment for way too long because i totally appreciate it and am a super nerd:

Is there a sanitary place to have sex in a lab?

This really never comes up, probably because labs are continually staffed with bleary-eyed graduate students spinning cells at odd hours. Hypothetically? Plenty of places are kept clean, but you’ll likely contaminate someone’s experiments if you arrange yourself on the bench. It’s a squeeze, but you might try the autoclave. There’s nowhere cleaner, and it brings new meaning to “steamy.”

finished my stove, it'll hold about 2 oz. of denatured alcohol and burns pretty darn hot. i'm thinking about using a pop can for my pot since i'll usually be using freeze dried meals... at least when i'm going solo.
i might get something else for bigger groups. probably a slightly bigger aluminum can. anyone know of something that comes in a can of about 32 oz.?
oh, and you can hear the newest built to spill album due out next week right now!! can't wait!!! it is so good from what i've heard so far.
pictures of the stove as soon as the camera is charged, probably tomorrow. it's super tiny and cute for a stove. i'm going to make another to try to do a better job of meassuring and cutting and constructing. i think i'll JB Weld it all together, too, instead of using tape. the tape melts itself off and it heavy. oh well, it still makes it look way better on this one.
i'm working and going to school all the time now. at least i should have my motorcycle back tomorrow or maybe thursday at the latest! another thing i'm excited for. but i have so many bills to pay as a result. darn. at very least i don't have to be stressed about not being able to get my class because it looks like i'm surely in. i'm going to make sure of how i can cement my place tomorrow. this week has been a pain in the ass but worth it. i've spent something like 3 hours each day on a bus going to school then to work. oh well.

i'm embarking on making my tiny little stove out of two pop cans. i'll be posting pictures for you all later on here...