Back to School

You know, it occurs to me that technically, it took me three weeks post-graduation before I moved back into college (ENMU -- go Cougars!). But being at a college where you for all practical purposes don't belong isn't all Van Wilder... no, no -- i had serious business to attend to this past weekend. In the form of the class that makes this affordable housing all possible: Basic Life Support for Emergency Health Care providers.

I majored in Biology. Now if you know me well, i'm firmly entrenched in the non-medical side of the science. You know, the biology that deals with plants and animals and stuff. In fact according to recent studies, over 87% of all biology occurs outside of hospitals (Clifford, unpublishable). Nevertheless there is something of a vested interest in knowing what to do if you see a guy dying. Fair enough, and i need to take something if i am to stay here... so they can have my weekend.

In truth it took a little under 4 hours--start at 8, test out before lunch. The course is complete, and I get to be a card-carrying CardioPulminaryRespiro... guy. Sort of like Peter in Family Guy. sweet!

ENMU is such a different college than St. Olaf. I looked through a course listing, and was struck by the juxtaposition of deciding between Intro to Religion and Intro to Refrigeration. One perk: we do have our own airport. St. Olaf could use its own airport. Reference, anybody?

The rest of my weekend I spent biking around Roswell. Found the nice part of town on Saturday. Roswell was billed to me as a retirement community, which I was able to confirm about on my bike (why anyone would retire in 100+ degree heat eludes me; sounds a bit... fatal, frankly). So, not really a lot of young people down here. Of those that are, a great deal are put up in the NM Military Institute. Come to think of it, there are a lot of random military installations down here. Sadly, also occupying local youths are gangs, and a rehab center nearby.

And today I finally made it to the Alien & UFO research museum! Roswell's funny - it pulls in so much in tourism and notoriety for the crash that happened some 60 miles northwest on some guy's ranch. I learned quite a bit of background today at the museum, and yes, it actually is a really interesting case. I shall relay more later.

Snipets:
Congratulations to my sister Megan, and her fiance Joe who just got engaged!!!
I shaved my head again! overshadowed here perhaps by my sister's engagement, but i like it and it was the only reasonable thing to do.

I return to the field tomorrow. I'm quite terrible at catching lizards so far... mehaps i can turn it around.

Congrats, KG

Here's something I never expected to see after the T-Wolves caved in 2003:

Congratulations KG!!!

Speaking of things I never expected to see...

Randy Moss, now doing his stupid chicken dance-thing for New England. It was so much cooler when he was mooning people in Minnesota.
And just like Moss himself, the Pats look god-like for almost the whole season, pushing the limits of statisticians to even describe how awesome they are, and then don't show up when it really counts. 16 and 0, or 18 and 1?

And what's with Boston taking all our best athletes? Garnett, Moss, David Ortiz, Doug Mientkiewicz, Manny Fernandez... what the hell??? I guess Minnesotan teams have a tendency to yard-sale off their best players. To anyone, really. Even you or me! So if you want Marian Gaborik or Joe Mauer to do your laundry and take out your trash... all it'll cost you is a mid-round draft pick and one or two young prospects. Hey, we all know a couple.

No wonder the last one to win anything was, uh, I guess the Twins back in 1991. Wow. I guess next March, when we trade Adrian Peterson to Cleveland for a 3rd round draft pick and a JUGS machine, we'll have three more "rebuilding" years to sit through. gaaaa.

But seriously, this is the Vikes' year. 11-5, improbable playoff run to the Super Bowl... where we get squashed by the Jags 42-20. (would have been Pats, but Moss tweaks a hammy in week 6 and is gone for the year).

These remarkably-detailed sports predictions brought to you by me--a man at a computer!

It's getting late. Again, Way to go KG.

Destination: New Mexico

Move over Rio Grande, there's a New Mexico!

So my pappy and I finished up our road trip--2 days, with an overnight in Pratt, Kansas--and celebrated by staying in his buddy's Indian casino in Albuquerque (i'm getting really good at spelling Albuquerque. Albuquerque. no i did not just copy and paste that. albuquerque.) And we won money! Single deck blackjack is the single most convenient form of gambling known to man. Hell, when the shoe is just 52 cards, even I can count that. So I arrive in Roswell about $120 richer.

My living situation is this. There are no good, cheap apartments in Roswell, near as my Craigslisting abilities could flesh out. I spoke with another guy I'm going to be working with, who's also from out of town, and he's been living in a hotel for the past few weeks. Furnished, and nice, but my god that adds up.

So my dad took the liberty of inquiring into housing at the University of Eastern New Mexico Roswell campus--which, sadly, is only open to actual students of the university. We inquired as to what this meant, and it means taking a minimum of 1 credit (in St. Olaf terms = 0.25 credits. Or Fitness Walking, for god's sake). So I looked at a course listing. Of course, i'm here to work a job, not get my degree; however, there is a 1 credit, weekend-long EMT-training refresher course. And it's next weekend. I'm signed up, I live in an ENMU apartment for peanuts a month, and I learn what to do if I find a guy passed out on the sidewalk. Tuition? Fifty-two dollars. YYEEEAAHHH!

I haven't formed any real impressions of Roswell yet. Just an average town, maybe 2 or 3 Northfields, 4 or 5 Cambridges. And constantly over 100 degrees, which is nice. Judging by the absolutely stellar (note: sarcasm) works of sci-fi that Roswell has spawned,

i figured the whole UFO crashsite/alien cover-up thing would lend itself to some serious chincery around town. i haven't encountered it yet but will keep my eyes peeled.

Dear god, it's Martin Sheen in that awful Roswell movie! Co-starring Dwight Yoakam. Must... not... rent... ...!

Lastly, I realize my last post ("Road Trip, Part 1") implied that this one would be entitled ("Road Trip, Part 2"), but it wasn't. I'm here in New Mexico now; who wants to recap? Not I. Plus, now it's sort of like Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part 1, to which no sequel was ever made. Awesome movie. You should rent it. But not Roswell. leave that alone.

Road Trip, Part 1

Hi all, I'm leaving for New Mexico tomorrow! My dad and I are doing this, the whole 20some hours, road trip-style. I was torn between going through fun and exciting Colorado(!!!), or plain jane Kansas which cuts 140 miles off the trek. As I'm driving to my conservation internship, I've decided not to be a douche and to cover the shortest distance possible, through Kansas. pray for us.

In other news, people are reading this now! woot-yeah. someone has even voted in my poll... hurry hurry, only what, 20 days left? How, oh how, do people feel about puppies??

Okay, i've got to pack and I mean it this time. I'll fill ya in later.

Life is Fun!

Hey guys. No one is yet aware of my blog, so I feel no need to write with any semblance of a filter. Ass! oh man this is dangerous. mehaps I'll put a link to it on my facebook profile. balls.

So, I see that not everyone's blogging career takes off: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30649

that's another thing you can expect from me. A loottt of links to relevant Onion articles.

I went to Chicago last week! I had never been there before, nor actually had I been to New York or L.A., a bit odd, since I've been to Berlin/Frankfurt/Paris/Amsterdam/Tokyo/Shanghai/Beijing/Bangkok/Ho Chi Minh City. Anyway, usually I really dislike big cities, but Chicago really helped turn that around for me! Super expensive, although not as bad as it could have been, Chicago was very clean, and Chicagoans seem to be pleasant, non-threatening Midwesterners. Got to go to the Cubs game (Wrigley Field!) my first night in town, under the most random circumstances. Great game, small stadium, good hot dogs. All in all, the Cubies get an A.

I got scammed a couple times. Everyone's story seems to involve "I need money for my two children..." The first time it seems likely enough, then it just gets old. Next time, I'm asking for names.

"My car is out of gas, and I have two little daughters I need to get to dinner!"
Me: "Oh no! Two daughters? Quick, what are their names?"
"Uh... ... Rob..berta, and ... Joy-Joy. Roberta and Joy-Joy."
Me: Ah. I see. Bye.

easy, right? If I had one superpower, it would be to think on my feet like that.

that's not really true. My answer to the age-old party question "what would your superpower be?" is Omnipotence. Arguably within the rules of the game, this is analagous to finding a genie in a bottle and wishing for infinite wishes. I could fly, I could read minds, I could know the mind of God. Suckas.
And if you wish for the power of invisibility, you ARE a pervert. be honest, what else can you really do with that?

I've had a great weekend. Amy and Goeun came from Olaf to visit me at my house! We went kayaking, we watched movies (new Indy = FUN), we enjoyed each other's company. Another reminder how sad it's going to be to move to New Mexico on Wednesday (sigh). I'm going to miss you guys. More later. I love you guys.

The Lowdown

Alrighty! Well I'm back, and things are starting to take shape. So I picked a definitive theme for this blog thing. let me explain:

First, a question: If you could live the life of any historical figure, who would it be?
My answer is the biblical Abraham. you'll see why later.

For those who don't know, I'm leaving Minnesota to take a conservation internship in the Chihuahuan Desert of Roswell, New Mexico. This will be great for me. For some reason, I've always loved the symbolism of wandering the desert. That, and I'm a complete biological reductionist--hence, the Abraham fixation.

Get a load of this. Genesis is chugging along, we are introduced to Abram, who's at first just sort of a background character. Then, God starts favoring the hell out of him--go stand on this hill & all the land you can see, is yours; your barren wife Sarah (age 90) will start bearing children; your offspring will be as numerous as the stars; they will overtake their enemies' cities, et cetera. Every word dripping with pure genetic fantasy.

Think about it. Every little perk of Abraham's directly acknowledges the ingrained sense that the author (really all men. women too, although they employ much different strategies.) of how to win at natural selection. 1.) Take over all of a scarce resource (land), 2.) fill it with little Abrahams, 3.) Make sure the little Abrahams are rich, powerful men too ("I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you"), and 4.) start pimping the Canaanites. Really, there's no way for this to fail.

Funny thing, Darwin comes along some 3,000 years after this was written to "explain" natural selection to us. But Abraham knew about it all along. You know that Sunday school song that goes "Iiiiii'm a child of Abraham. And so are you. And you. And you, and you, and you!"
Game, set, match --> Abraham.

Also, I feel that wandering the desert is otherwise very symbolic of something. Seeing as how many people reading this blog recently graduated and are out on their own, we'll go with that.