I just read an article forwarded to me by my dad. Of course, by now everyone has heard about Bush’s quick reflexes. New York Times op-ed writer John Kenney puts a satirical spin on the incident. Speaking of father, congratulations to my parents, who are celebrating thirty-one years of marriage. When I set out for Norway last year, I left on my birthday. Today, on my parents’ anniversary, Kristen is leaving on her own trip down South to participate in friend Merilee’s weekend wedding. She says they will be expecting good weather with highs in the seventies. On Kristen’s way back to Moscow, she will be stopping by the Twin Cities and will need to brace herself for seeing a minus sign on the thermometer reading, not to mention the wind chill. When I leave for Norway this time, it will be at Christmas. My flight plan does not include a stop out West, so I will be grateful to see my sister here for a few days.
Though I don’t fly out of Minneapolis until the twenty-sixth, Eric and I are moving out of the apartment on Friday. Cleaning and packing are already under way. Although the weeks sometimes dragged along, my few months here now seem to have flown by. The biggest reason for moving to the Midwest was to spend time with family, and in that respect, the trip has been a success. It has been good living with Eric and Mari in a perfect location not too close not too far from the rest of my relatives in the area. I owe a lot to Eric and his parents for making the stay in Wisconsin possible. They have made me feel like one of the boys.
With my final week in Stevens Point, I have finished off a couple shifts at Figi’s and made progress on a Christmas video for my sisters. Unfortunately, it will not get done before I leave, so keep an eye out for a sneak preview. Over the past few days, I’ve also come up with a few goodies while surfing the web:
- Miranda never fails to impress. Last week, she put up the family’s Christmas tree.
- Not long ago, I discovered the blog of Portland writer, Benjamin Parzybok. He posted recently of the frigid weather that has blasted most of the country, including Oregon, and linked to a video of slow-motion stupidity in the snowy streets of his city.
- Eric showed me this video of opera singer Paul Potts, who made a name for himself on Britain’s Got Talent.
- Less refined but equally entertaining is Cartman’s rendition of O Holy Night, a classic Jason first shared with me years ago.
Packer Fans
You don’t have to tell anyone in Wisconsin where that is, and most cheese heads have been there themselves. But since I’ve been the new guy in town, everyone has been telling me that I need to take in a Green Bay game while living in Packer country. We finally got the chance when Eric found some decently priced tickets for a couple of great fourth-row seats at today’s face off against Houston. You’d think that temperatures barely squeaking into the double digits would freeze a southern team in their tracks, but the Packers suffered another hard blow by losing to the Texans, 24-21. The final score, however, didn’t keep the game from being an unforgettable experience and one of the highlights of my time in Wisconsin. The cold weather made it even better! I’ve posted the first pictures since Norway on my Flickr page.
I subscribe to weekly reviews from Vanguard. Their latest edition confessed that “the committee of economists responsible for dating the nation’s business cycles declared that the United States went into recession last December. That makes the current downturn already longer than average.”
Perhaps that is why I have now been given only one four-hour shift at Figi’s for the second week in a row. After lying that I would be scheduled for any hours I wanted (60/wk would have been nice), this is simply unacceptable. Recession or no recession, I will be lucky to pick up enough extra hours at work to pay for the gas to get me there. But with two weeks left in Point, looking for a new job is hardly worth it.
In addition to the price of gas, I saw some unusual things today. The first was when I rolled over in bed this morning – 6:22am on my alarm clock. I needed to wake up early for a doctor’s appointment, but my alarm was set for seven. Sometimes my body likes to play tricks on me, and I can’t remember the last time I woke up that early.
The next happened shortly after. I stepped out of the shower and checked the weather to discover that it was a balmy ten degrees outside. When I pulled the blinds in my room, I was greeted by this scene from The Day After Tomorrow.
Frost inside my window pane. I later discovered icicles.
On my way to the doctor’s office, as if in defiance, I stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s. I’ve been there a lot lately, but I had never seen a McDonald’s delivery truck in the McDonald’s drive-thru. At least they have confidence in their product. (By the way, have you heard this story? Compared to this.)
At the doctor’s office, I saw something else I hadn’t seen in a while: 158.5 lbs on the scale. I don’t check my weight ritually, but after going down to 140 after last year’s operation, I’m glad to be back where I used to be. Of course, I did have a few layers on.
Driving home, I noticed a warehouse whose sprinkler system was running. It felt more like watching snow production on a ski hill. The result was ponds of ice neatly arranged on an impressively green lawn.
When I tuned in to Headline News this afternoon, I got to watch a live high-speed car chase in Oklahoma City all the way to its conclusion. Incidentally, I have developed a secret crush on this news anchor, whose resume includes working for KTVB in Boise. Not only is she gorgeous, she delivers her stories with the most personality and class I have seen on any news program since Anchorman.
And finally, perhaps the most unusual thing that happened today was finding this in my oven:
My first single-handed attempt in the kitchen since moving to Wisconsin - from a recipe booklet on loan from Aunt Sue: Ham 'n' Tater Bake, appropriately topped with cheddar cheese.
I have two roommates here in Stevens Point: my cousin Eric, and his beautiful border collie, Mari. Mari is a champion show dog, and Eric has her trained exceptionally well. She knows dozens of commands and phrases, one of which is, “What’s on TV?” In fact, usually by the time the word “what” comes out of your mouth, she’s already on her way to the television to block everyone else’s view. She excitedly watches sports or animals, especially other dogs. Occasionally, she’ll even walk behind the TV to see where they are, like she does with the cats in this video:
Filed under: Memories, Sports, Updates, Video, Wisconsin | Tags: nanowrimo08
I drove home to Point yesterday after spending a week with the Knudsons as their live-in interior decorator. I made it back just in time for orientation at my new job with Figi’s customer service. This was no small accomplishment, considering how many cars I saw in the ditch thanks to a fast but furious snow shower. Today, I woke up to an outside temperature of fourteen degrees. On Saturday, we turned the heat off while painting, and that kind of cold made itself obvious the next morning when we forgot to turn the thermostat back on. Thanks for a fun week, Sue, for the hair highlights, and for the envelope. I forgot to show you these before I left:
Seattle-Bremerton ferry for a Stavesacre show, 2004.
During a recent visit to my grandparents’ farm, my grandfather bestowed on me a small gift. It wasn’t expensive or even that shiny, but it didn’t have to be to serve it’s purpose. With a lifetime of experience, my grandfather gave me a small compass to remind me of the need for direction in life. I find it somewhat ironic telling the story on this blog, given its name, but grandpa Dave is right: I could travel the world over without having direction, find my favorite place on earth, and not know what to do once I got there.
Having it together on the outside doesn’t prove an inner purpose, and despite living the yuppie dream until last year, I couldn’t have said I was at peace doing so. My recent wanderings only bring to the surface a lack of direction that has quite likely been with me for much longer. Depending on one’s point of view, that might sound like something to look down on, but I think it is healthy and am comfortable with my present circumstances, as long as they don’t lead me to complacency.
My last post made it official that I’m thinking about grad school. The interesting thing about the programs I’m looking at are that most of them are relatively new, given the emerging fields of study related to global warming. They tend to draw on their respective institution’s existing environmental and natural resources department, which is the best point of reference I have for judging the quality and reputation of their students and faculty.
While global warming may be the catalyst that is pushing these programs forward, it is not the only reason I am interested in studying climate science (one name for the many variants of essentially the same course of study). I love being outdoors and enjoy the multifaceted beauty of creation. That is one of the biggest draws Norway holds for me, and spending most of the last year there got me thinking about the possibility of pursuing a career that took advantage of my interest. There is, of course, the practical side. Regardless of the causes for global warming, governments and economies around the world are poised to invest huge amounts of capital and infrastructure into making the world a cleaner place. Getting this degree will enable me to be a part of that.
When I enrolled at the University of Idaho, I felt like I could have enjoyed studying anything from journalism to engineering. With some insight and advice from my dad, I picked computer science and had a blast. I still remember the adrenaline rush I got from writing my first “hello world” program with the help of Jared Miller in the basement of the Janssen Engineering Building. My sister studied Greek in college; I studied Geek. After graduating in 2003, I landed a rewarding job with a successful company and will never consider the four years I worked there to have been wasted. But I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my professional life in front of a computer screen. As much fun as I had developing software, I also wasn’t passionate about my end product.
It has taken me the better part of my twenties to gain a mature perspective on where I want to go in life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I now have the tools and experience to be able to make that choice. Of course, that perspective isn’t complete and it doesn’t apply only to my professional career, though it makes me question how realistic our educational model is. Without developing that thought further, I will say that I could still see myself being content with a journalism degree (perhaps this blog is my outlet) or sitting in the R&D cubicle I escaped from fifteen months ago and not being entirely unhappy. But I would have been living someone else’s dream. Some lucky people might realize their life’s purpose by the time they turn eighteen. For me, it has taken a decade longer, and I’m still working on it.
Now I am seriously considering a Master’s degree. My heart is not completely set on it, and I will keep my options open as I begin the application process, which I expect to either solidify or dissolve my curiosity. First comes the application itself, followed by figuring out how to pay for it, waiting for acceptance, selecting a program if given the choice, and relocating to wherever that school may be. For now, I am focused on four universities:
The Geosciences degree offered by the University of Oslo would be my first pick for obvious reasons, despite the fact that Oslo is my least favorite city in Norway. Unfortunately, I have already all but written this option off, as I would need to win the lottery just to submit an application. While there is no tuition to study there, the government requires a bank statement showing that I could support myself for the next two years, or the equivalent of roughly twenty grand. The program does have study abroad options with the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, which may mean those schools are worth looking into down the road. This makes my realistic first pick the University of Michigan. Their GIS and Modeling coursework is right up my alley, given my background with computers, and the school is not too far from my extended family here in the Upper Midwest. Coming in third is the University of Washington, also because of proximity to my family in Idaho and friends across the Northwest. Honorable mention goes to Stanford, simply for name recognition. That, and they have a cool picture on their webpage. Application deadlines for Fall 2009 range from December to next Spring, so I plan to get the ball rolling by the end of this month.
The first two lines of that song by the Steve Miller Band could sum up my last two months in Wisconsin. An email from my aunt today reminded me that I ought to post an update on my employment situation. Contrary to what she had heard, I am not completely out of work. I did get laid off with several others at the book factory a short two weeks after being hired, but I was able to quickly find another job that will start on Monday. Not to be confused with telemarketing, I will be taking seasonal catalog orders at a call center – a job that will fit my schedule well, provide attendance and performance incentives, be much less stressful on my body than the factory, and finish at about the same time I will be leaving for Norway. In the meantime, Sue and Greg have offered me the job of painting several rooms in their house, so I am spending the week with them in Appleton. Just another example of how much they’re doing to help me out.
Two coats down, one to go.
I never suspected that it would be this difficult to find work in Stevens Point. Add to that frustration the dilemma of what to do with a tempting but more permanent software programming offer, and I was given fair reason to doubt the wisdom of moving to Wisconsin if I was going to turn down that position just to go back to Norway. It didn’t take long, however, to realize that both were the right choice. Though it has been a great place to reconnect with family, Stevens Point is not somewhere I would want to spend more than these few months, especially after my cousin Eric graduates from UWSP. So, turning down an attractive salary to earn minimum wage printing books or answering phones is not as bad when I consider that I will be back in a steady job at a great ski resort before the year is out. Until then, I am grateful for any work that will help pay off the plane ticket.
Of course, a seasonal bartending job is not my long-term goal either, which brings me back to the need for purpose. I have spent a good part of my abundant free time in Stevens Point convincing myself that I would finally like to enroll in a postgraduate program. Though my dad was suggesting it before I even earned my bachelor’s degree, I’m glad I got some years of professional experience under my belt first. Not to mention that I wasn’t about to turn four and half years of school into six or seven. But now that I’ve taken a break from programming, spent serious time analyzing my interests, and formulated some ideas about the future (having the time of my life in the process, of course), I realize that if my next career is to take advantage of my computer skills, it will have to involve more than just typing code at a workstation for eight plus hours a day. It would look something more like this.
The snow was falling on Stevens Point as Eric and I returned from watching the UWSP hockey team win 3-0 over the St. Mary’s Cardinals tonight. Earlier in the week, Wisconsin was still getting unseasonably warm weather, which we took advantage of by getting in one last day of rock climbing. I can’t put the day’s video on YouTube, thanks to its sweet copyright infringement filter (I used some Eminem), but you can view the video on Facebook if you’re there. So this picture of Mari I took on Monday will have to do. Also, the Malta video is now up on the Videos page. The quality isn’t great, though you can watch it in HQ if you click through to YouTube. Again, if you are on Facebook, the upload is better there.
