Goats do Roam
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The post's title, while being a brand of red wine that's quite good, is also a valid motto for my ambulatory habitation patterns during 2007. I traveled a lot last year. A LOT. I did a quick rundown on my calendar and counted 13 round-trip flights last year and 69 days away from my home during them. That's averaging a flight every 4th weekend and being gone one out of every five days. And that doesn't even include any road trips I might have taken (of which there were a few).
Here's how the flights break down by the numbers:
- 13 total round-trip flights
- 8 flights to visit Ginger
- 4 flights that were work related
- 4 flights to visit family
- 1 flight for a wedding
- 10 days out of the country
I haven't bothered to tally up the total expenses or the frequent flyer miles, but I'm sure the numbers are staggering. Hopefully there will be some free flights in the near future, especially with all the weddings coming up. This year is shaping up to be quite similar -- one flight already logged with two planned for February, one in March, and one in May. I haven't even started looking at football season yet.
Labels: All my friends are getting married, Ginger, I fly too much, I'm a big nerd
Author: Goat » Comments:
Keeping up with the Cardassians
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
I'm walking back to work after lunch today with my coworkers and one of them is debating what new car to buy. She's debating between Toyota and Lexus SUVs. My other coworker points out a Mazda RX-72 ZC (or some other stupid combination of letters and numbers) and says "How about that one? That's what the Cardassians drive." I swear to God I thought he was talking about the alien race on Star Trek that have big thumb-prints in their foreheads. I busted up laughing because it seemed absurd for a Cardassian to be driving a Mazda SUV. Where were the cannons for shooting up Bajorans?
My quickly figured out what I thought they said and started laughing at me. Turns out there's some reality TV show called "Keeping up with the Kardashians" where they just follow some family around. Now, I read a lot of useless shit on the internet everyday and watch my fair share of television, all for the sake of keeping up with pop culture, but I have never even heard of this show. Apparently I'm supposed to know all about this show which, from what I gather, is about some bimbo and her family. What the deuce is going on?
Labels: I'm a big nerd, I'm surrounded by morons, TV
Author: Goat » Comments:
Take Two
Monday, November 12, 2007
Pangle introduced me to a sweet new game a while back called Take Two. Admittedly, Matty GP introduced her to it -- it was a game he and his 12 siblings played as kids. It cheap, easy to learn, and addicting as hell. Here's how you play:
What you need:A set of Scrabble tiles (just the tiles, no board)
A flat playing surface, preferably a large table
How to play:Start by laying all the tiles face down in the middle of the playing surface. Mix up the letters. Each player selects 7 tiles and places them face-down in the palm of their hand (don't look!). When each player has their tiles in hand, someone says "Go!" and everyone flips their hand over onto the table so the tiles are now face up.
I actually picked these out randomlyThe object is to form a crossword using all of your letters -- i.e., imagine you are playing Scrabble by yourself, positioning word after word, only you have to use all seven letters. All standard Scrabble rules apply. House rules generally dictate that the "Q" tile counts as "Qu" for the sake of player sanity, and the well-being of the player who gets all the "U" tiles.
A crossword using all seven lettersThe first person to use all seven letters yells "Take Two!" Every player then takes two more tiles, regardless of whether or not they finished using the first seven.
Ack! Two more tiles!Now each player must use all nine tiles to form a new crossword. Players can build off the crossword they already built or rearrange any or all of the tiles to make a new one.
Piece of cake. Take Two!The first player to use all their tiles shouts "Take Two!". Every player again takes two more tiles. This continues until all of the Scrabble tiles in the center of the playing surface are gone.
If a player shouts "Take Two!" and there are no tiles left (or not enough for everyone to take two), then that player is the winner of the round. You can keep score of how many rounds each player wins, or just play for the fun of it.
The rounds are hectic and a little nerve-wracking, especially if you fall behind the person shouting "Take Two". Often times the winner of a round is different than the person who shouted "Take Two!" the most, so don't get flustered. Also, sometimes you have to be willing to abandon the words you already have to fit in the new letters. And even if you don't win one round, there's another one coming in a matter of minutes.
A group of us played last night for about two hours, and if it hadn't been for work today we would have played longer.
Labels: I'm a big nerd, Pangalicious, weekend
Author: Goat » Comments:
skeew wef tsap ehT
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
For those of you who haven't (a) read the Davinci Code, or (b) completed 6th grad world history, the title of this blog post is "The past few weeks" in reverse. Why? Because this post is going to be all about ingrown toenails. And by "ingrown toenails", I mean "the past few weeks of my life told in reverse chronological order." Before I begin, I have to make this disclaimer: If you read this post backwards, there is a secret message. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's the same story told in chronological order. Only time will tell.
I think I'm coming down with something, which is bad because Alaska is coming to LA to visit this weekend. I haven't seen him since the Irish whooped up on Ty Willingham in Seattle a couple years ago, so it's bound to be a heartwarming reunion. Plus, it will probably convince some of the other LA Domers (
Carolyn) to come hang out. I have no idea why I just coughed Carolyn's name in my blog, seeing how she probably doesn't even know it exists and thus will never read it. And who's fault is that? Sure, sure, blame it on the Goat.
Oh! Speaking of goats, I saw the funniest thing the other day on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Before I tell you what it was, I have to tell you check out this show. It's like This Old House, but with things that are interesting. Okay, back to the story. So good ol' Mike Rowe visits a goat farm in Tennessee that's famous for it's "fainting" goats. This breed has a condition where the goats will stiffen up like they have rigor mortis, and they usually end up falling over on their sides with legs pointing straight out! HI-larious. I nearly fell off the couch. Luckily, Ginger found it amusing that I liked the fainting goats.
"Ginger?" you say? Yup. My special lady-friend made it out to LA this weekend to go to a wedding with me up in Beverly Hills. We felt pretty fancy rolling up to the Beverly Hilton for the reception in the Stardust Room. To quote Ginger: "Fayun-cy!" We had a good time even if the power did go out mid-reception. My buddy Keith picked up the slack by sitting down at the baby grand piano and belting out some dueling piano-bar favorites. I think he made $10 in tips, too. Most of it came from the DJ.
Fourth of July this year saw yet another party at the Sheldon Chateau. While lower-key than previous years, it still delivered like only a Chateau party can. Beer brats, beer pong, and a game of cups that pitted the PLACE Corps teachers against the Northrop Grumman engineers. I bet you can guess which side won just by guessing which side drinks competitively more.
A few days before that I finally got to rotate to my new job. So I'm pretty stoked about this. I've basically gone from hating my job to loving it. I'm finally getting to do work in the field of telecommunications, instead of the field of pointless documents that kill the rainforest. I can actually feel the atrophy of my brain stopping and new cells being regenerated. Or maybe that's a tumor. We should consult Detective John Kimble.
"It's not a tumor!" That guy's my governor. Anywho, I share an office with a brand new hire who just graduated from USC. So far she seems pretty nice, so I'm cool with it. There are a lot more Trojan fans in the office, too, so that's going to make things interesting.
PLACE Corps + tradition = Annual 4th of July camping trip to Sequoia National Forest. In a rare turn of events, the non-PLACErs were the largest group which meant the conversations didn't revolve around teaching. Instead, they're weren't any conversations AT ALL. Engineers are socially awkward. Thank you, Captain Obvious. I did get to take windsurfing lessons, though, which was sweet. That shit is hard, though. It didn't help that we were trying to learn in 20-30 mph gusts. The instructor said it would build character, or some similar non-sensical raving. He was old.
And there you have it. Consider this the fat lady singing.
Labels: All my friends are getting married, Domers, Ginger, I'm a big nerd, Sheldon Chateau, summer, TV
Author: Goat » Comments:
Finding your average home
Thursday, June 14, 2007
There has been an inquiry as to how I was able to find my average hometown. Well, I'll you. It was no easy task. It took hours of mapping, calculation, configuration, and persperation. Luckily the software guys at Google Maps and Microsoft did all of that for me. All I had to do was:
- Make a list of all the places I have lived. My criteria was simple; I had to actually "move" there and live there approximately one month. High school summer programs, college dorms, and summer lodgings during college all count. Summer camps, band camps, sports camps, and vacations do not count on account of their short nature (one week). The one gray item on my list is Fairfax, VA, when I spent 3.5 living out of various hotels for my job. Since I wasn't living in my California apartment during that time, I'm counting it.
- Determine the latitude/longitude of each residence. This is where those sweaty engineers at Google Maps helped out. You can see a map here.
- Take a weighted average of the lat./long.'s. I determined how long (in months) I've lived at each location. I multiplied that number by the latitude and longitude for the location. Do it for all locations, add them all up, then divide by the total number of months in my life. The result is the average lifetime latitude/longitude. See the table below for the numbers.
| Location | Months | Lat (N) | Long (E) | Weighted Lat (N) | Weighted Long (E) |
| Woodreed Ct. | 48 | 38.32 | -85.51 | 1839.63 | -4104.95 |
| Highgate Dr. | 175 | 38.35 | -85.43 | 6711.36 | -14951.44 |
| GSA | .75 | 38.21 | -85.70 | 28.66 | -64.28 |
| GSP | 1.25 | 39.03 | -84.46 | 48.79 | -105.58 |
| Zahm Hall | 27 | 41.70 | -86.23 | 1126.00 | -2328.40 |
| Castle Point | 3 | 41.72 | -86.22 | 125.17 | -258.66 |
| Animal House | 12 | 41.69 | -86.22 | 500.37 | -1034.69 |
| Lafayette, IN | 20 | 40.41 | -86.89 | 808.38 | -1737.85 |
| Marina del Rey | 3 | 33.98 | -118.46 | 101.94 | -355.38 |
| Sheldon Chateau | 21 | 33.91 | -118.41 | 712.30 | -2486.64 |
| Fairfax, VA | 3.5 | 38.86 | -77.38 | 136.01 | -270.84 |
| TOTALS | 314.5 | -- | -- | 12138.67 | -27698.74 |
| AVERAGE | -- | -- | -- | 38.59 | -88.07 |
38.59ºN latitude, 88.07ºW longitude gives you Parkersburg, IL. See, I told you it was boring.
Labels: I'm a big nerd
Author: Goat » Comments:
The post's title, while being a brand of red wine that's quite good, is also a valid motto for my ambulatory habitation patterns during 2007. I traveled a lot last year. A LOT. I did a quick rundown on my calendar and counted 13 round-trip flights last year and 69 days away from my home during them. That's averaging a flight every 4th weekend and being gone one out of every five days. And that doesn't even include any road trips I might have taken (of which there were a few).
