And all he talks about is pie

Parking is at a premium on campus these days. It's almost like the university treats it like an afterthought when they're planning some major construction project. In the time that I've been here I have had to change where I park three different times because of lots that have been torn up to build something new. It's kind of annoying that parking permits go up in price every year, yet the quality of the parking goes down, but nothing's going to change in the near future.

This month I had to change yet again because the lot where I normally park has been turned into stables. That's right. Stables. Not only that, but the road to my office has been closed off as well. Why? So that the cowboys can ride their horses from the stables to the arena. Stupid NFR, and their stupid millions of dollars that they bring into the economy.

Yesterday on the way back from lunch I was looking for a space to park. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I heard a motor start up, but the guy never pulled out of his space. I parked, then as my friend and I were walking past I saw that he was still there.

Me: That guy's still there. He didn't look like he was in any hurry to go anywhere.
My friend: I think you should lay a big turd log on his hood.
Me: A turd log, huh?
Him: It's better than a turd pie!
Me: A turd pie?
Him: You know, like a cow pie.
Me: Do you lay a lot of turd pies?
Him: Well, sometimes you're in the field and you have to go, and it ends up not being the most firm thing you've ever shot out your ass.

I am the needle in the vein. I am the high you can't sustain.

The following is a list of things you don't really need (or want) to know about me, but I'm telling you anyway:

• I can't eat popcorn without getting a bunch of little cuts in my tongue.
• I don't often eat hard candy for the same reason.
• I have taken exactly one puff of a cigarette in my entire life, as many times as I've tried chewing tobacco.
• My toes are crooked and so are my teeth, and I'll probably never do anything to straighten either of them out.
• I only have to shave every three days.
• Rednecks annoy me.
• I tell everyone I'm 6' 4", but I'm really only 6' 3 3/4".
• I have two belly buttons, but one of them's fake.
• I cut my nails with the scissors on my Swiss army knife key chain.
• A girl once told me that she had to leave so she could go to the post office and I said, "Really, what for?"
• I hate to dance.
• When I was 15, I wanted to grow up to be in the mafia.
• I've been meaning to go to the dentist for 3 1/2 years.
• My feet are cold.

Maybe I'm just damaged goods, and baby you're a babe in the woods

Given the nature of what I do, and the fact that I have little social life outside of the people I work and/or go to school with, most of the new people I meet are a bit younger than me. It's not a problem as far as just hanging out with people goes. I got over the rule that you can only hang out with people in your same age group in high school. If I only would have been able to hang out with kids in my class, I would have been going to rodeos all the time and hanging out with cowboys who had belt buckles the size of their grandma's turkey platter. Luckily I had other options. However, the age difference is getting to be big enough that it's something to think about when considering a relationship that is more than friends.

My last girlfriend was 7 years younger than me, which wasn't a big deal, but I thought it was at first. It's one of the reasons that I didn't dare ask her out once I started getting a crush on her. In fact, I probably never would have if she hadn't said something about it first. After we broke up there was another girl who was acting quite interested in me, but she was even younger, and while nothing ever developed with that, it forced me to think of where I need to make the cutoff. How young can a girl be and have me still consider getting into a relationship with her? After some deliberation I came up with the following rule: If a girl is closer to my daughter's age than she is to mine, then I couldn't do it without feeling like a creep.

I was talking to my brother about this a week or so ago and told him about my rule. He said, "That's fine for now, but at some point you should be allowed to get rid of that rule. Once your daughter gets old enough."

I said, "You're right. I think the rule should go away as soon as she turns 18. Then I can date her friends."

Another Seminar

I went to today's seminar, and if I have to suffer through that stuff, I'm making the rest of you suffer with me. I knew it was going to be boring from the title of the talk, but this part of the introduction of the speaker cemented that point in my mind:

". . . worked at the salinity laboratory, the world's foremost leading laboratory . . ."

Which prompted my friend to say "The world's foremost boring laboratory."

She also had the following to say about his outfit: part biogeochemist, part urban cowboy (but you probably had to actually see it for that to be funny - he was wearing a bolo tie).

Halfway through the talk I commented that it was so boring that I couldn't even make fun of it to keep myself interested.

Her response: "Au contraire. It is such a solid presentation, you can't find holes."

My favorite part was the end. Not only because it was the end, but also because he said "I went a little fast. Sorry about that. I was excited."

If I only had a nickle for every time those words had been uttered.

Revisiting Brokeback

I went and saw Brokeback Mountain last night. It's a very excellent film, the best I've seen all year (hey, I had to get a lame "it's only Jan of 2006" joke in somehow). I highly recommend it, but it's definitely not a movie for prudes.

I don't want to take away from the movie in any way, it's just that I seem to have attention deficit disorder, so during a few of the slower parts of the movie I had the following thoughts:

• It annoys me how much grazing is allowed on public lands. Ranchers who graze their livestock on national forest land (or blm land for that matter) are getting a screaming good deal. They reap the benefits from having their livestock grow without having to buy feed, while the common taxpayer is stuck with the bill for repairing the damages done to the ecosystem by having their livestock up there. This may be something I have to revisit another time.
• I'd forgotten about how windy Wyoming actually is. I don't think the movie was filmed there, but it definitely reminded me of that state. Aside from the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, I don't care if I never set foot in that state again.
• Seeing the characters of the movie made me remember what it feels like to be in love with someone (and I'm not just talking about the two main characters here either, I'm including their wives/girlfriends). I miss that.