It's an H of a Day

I went to visit my grandparents today with the expectation of going to the Old Folks' Home with my grandfather to play music for them.  But he didn't feel up to it and I spent 4 hours longer then I anticipated at their house.

My grandfather and grandmother are always happy to see me when I visit.  I usually play the violin with my grandfather who assumes because I have natural talent on the violin that I should automatically know every single fiddle song there is. "How about Pony Boy? Love Lifted Me? Danny Boy? No?"  So out of 7 or so visits I've made there, we've played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at least 21 times since it's the only song I know.  He always gives me this look when I shake my head because I can't recognize the song he's playing.  It's a look that says, "I sure don't understand what his teacher sees in him! He can't even recognize his alma mater song!"  He always asks me what songs I play on the violin which truthfully I can only play the one.  The rest of the time I practice scales and try to build up muscle memory to get the correct notes.  But I can tell he doesn't really think much of scales or learning all of the notes on the violin's fingerboard.  

My grandmother views me as something a little less than a technical genius.  "Do you think you can reprogram my computer? I've forgotten my password and I need my email and things to work."  I'm the least competent computer person I know.  When something goes wrong on my computer, I start slamming my head against the wall, revive, and then see if the problem's fixed itself. If it hasn't I start offering sacrifices and libations in the form of computer chips and contact cleaner to the computer.

Today she asked me to look at her telephone. I glanced at it and immediately said, "Oh, the LCD is burned out or there's maybe a short or something in there," which set her off: "Oh, do you think you could fix it? Do you know of anyone who could fix it? We really need the caller ID to work."  My eyes glassed over and I stammered out technobabble: "OH, well I think they don't repair telephone handsets these days. It's all market leader loss examples with people buying cheap phones and throwing them away when they wear out, though I guess you could buy a new one and get a long distance circuit including your circle of friends."  I'm not saying that she has high expectations for me to keep up with technology, but if a bomb fell off one of the jets stationed near the chAir Force base and landed in their backyard, my grandmother would call me up and say, "Dear, a bomb fell in our backyard marked 'HE' and I just know you can come over and defuse it without us having to get the police and ATF agents involved who'll trample over my begonias. Will you?"

But today was a back and forth day between my grandfather and grandmother:

"It's fernal cold outside. I'm fernal cold in here."

"Well, turn the gas logs on."

"No, they bother you. I'll just sit here and freeze."

"I think the television's loud enough."

"I can't hear you, crazy!"

"I SAID I THINK IT'S LOUD ENOUGH!"

"WHAT?! I NEED TO TURN THE TV DOWN TO HEAR YOU! what did you say?"

"I SAID I THINK IT'S LOUD ENOUGH!"

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL!"

My grandfather really summed up my worst fears when he turned to me and said, "You'll have this to look forward to when you get old" as my grandmother yelled into the telephone "There's something wrong with our PHONE! We need it repaired!"

My Physical

MEPS was quite the experience.  I went to the hotel on Monday where the Navy was putting me up around 4 and got to read and relax until suppertime.  There were a lot of people there at the hotel, compared to the 20 that were present the last time I went to MEPS.  I'm guessing it was a combination of MEPS being closed for the holidays, and the end of the month when recruiters should be making quotas.  And quite a few people who were going into the Army had waivers for DUI's, DWI's, misdemeanor drug convictions, and other interesting arrests.

After supper, I biked for a little bit in the gym room they had, read for a few minutes, and then went to bed.  Except I couldn't sleep for more than 30 minutes. My roommate had turned up the temperature for the room, which meant the heat would cut on every 40 minutes like clock work, making me hot and sweaty enough to throw off the covers, and then the sweat would get cold and make me freeze, and I'd throw the blankets back on. That went on until 4 in the morning when I got up, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast and to check out.

I arrived at the military entrance processing station around 5:45 AM and walked through the doors of my liason at 5:55AM.  Paperwork was first on the things to do, followed by even more paperwork.  Somebody screwed up and got the suffix wrong on my name (not a big deal...but that's not the name on my SSN, driver's license, or birth certificate) and corrections were promised to be made.  After completion of the paperwork, I was instructed to go to the medical section.  There my blood pressure was taken by a pert HM2 in Winter Dress Blues who barked, "Honey, you need to RELAX!" when my systolic was high.  So I did my best while the automatic cuff attempted to cut off the circulation to my arm.

The doctor was next who asked me general questions about my health, and then poked and prodded me.  Hearing and vision were tested in addition to a verbal reading test to make sure I didn't have a speech impediment or stutter.  The same HM2 who took my blood pressure also drew my blood.  And it only took her 14 seconds, including prep and tying my arm off!  Upon having my blood drawn, I went along with 15 other people into a room where we performed several different range of motion exercises.  I'm guessing its purpose was to tell if we had any sort of gait, balance, hand eye coordination, or scoliosis problems.  After the exercises, I had to urinate in a cup.

I was amazed at some people's inability to comprehend exactly how to urinate for the lab tech.  "Uhhhh, my recruiter didn't mention anything about this," "I know I haven't gone in 6 hours, but I don't really need to go to the bathroom," "Well I had to go a second ago, I don't know why nothing happened!"  And these people will be defending our country some day. Sheesh.

After that, all the people who provided samples were seated, and we essentially waited on the rest of the guys who had either failed to provide a sample numerous times or were waiting until they needed to go to the bathroom.  About that time I noticed how unusual the group was.  Some of the guys were former active duty who were reenlisting, and they were in their mid to late 20's.  Then there were guys who bald, gray, and over 40 who had served in the military half a lifetime ago.  It beats the hell out of me what they were doing there, but we were all sitting and staring at each other.  And it seemed odd that I was the only one with enough foresight to bring a book to read.

About this time while we were all waiting some of the younger unshaven guys began whispering to each other, and with each reply, puffed up their scrawny chests and jutted their chins out: "Hey, what're you planning to do?" "82nd Airborne Division, man! I know I'm going to make it!" "Screaming Eagles for me" "I'm going to be a Ranger" "1st and 5th!" "3rd and 5th!"  It only took about 3 minutes of this for me to realize that none of them were shipping out that day but were just entering the Delayed Enlistment Program and hadn't met with any counselor to determine their MOS or to be curtly reminded that specific jobs or MOS are not guaranteed.  But what the hey. The military needs clean toilets too.

After a final check with the physician and going over my medical records with another HM1, I left the actual building at 11:00AM after being there for a little over 5 hours.  I should know, according to the doctor, within a week if I'll be cleared medically but he was completely convinced that I would be cleared. Still, fingers crossed.

Lincang Yinhao 2007 Te Ji Tuocha

I've made a large enough dent in my small pu'er stash to justify opening the wrapper on this tuocha.  The predominant smell is sweet hay and the compression is tight but not impossible to pry leaves off.

The taste is simple but straightforward: hay, sweetness, astringency, smoke, and bitterness.  Each of the tastes can be picked out rather easily from the tea since they don't meld together into complexity.  This tea doesn't have a lot of middle notes to it.  It's just a little bit of sweetness and astringency as it enters the mouth, and then smoke and bitterness as it reaches the back of the tongue.

This tea never really evolved from the first few steepings.  I've become somewhat accustomed to tea being a little bitter than I'd like for the first two cups since the infusions are very short and it's often hard to decant a teapot precisely within 5 seconds or so for the first infusion.  And a few seconds late means bitter, astringent tea.  But this tea was smoky and bitter throughout several sessions and the flavor beneath the smoke and bitterness was hay.

All of these flavors combined to produce a tea that was ultimately forgettable. The smokiness was overpowering and never really smoothed out to add complexity to the tea, and the hay flavor never developed any sweetness or fruitiness or anything.  Maybe 10 years or so would be beneficial to this tea, but there's certainly nothing redeeming about it now.

One Clown Right After the Other

Great. George W. Bush left office taking creepy Dick Cheney with him, and now we've got another clown in the executive branch: Joe Biden.  Who can forget the classic idiotic quotes from Ol' Joe like, "You can't got into the 7-11 without an Indian accent. I'm not joking," or upon introducing his wife, he made some off the cuff remark about her having an advanced degree...and that he didn't want the audience to discredit her because of that.  And what about requesting Missouri state senator Chuck Graham to "Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya!" when senator Graham is wheel-chair bound?

Former President Bush had plenty of these moments, but at least when he screwed up, he knew that he screwed up. And you knew that he knew.  Mostly because his eyebrows arched a little bit higher, his eyes darted back and forth, and you could imagine him thinking "One third of America just saw that on live television. Crap."  Joe Biden's face remains stoney which is either a pretty good deadpan, or he's being absolutely serious when he's being absolutely idiotic.  Based on the way Obama discretely grabbed Biden's elbow, I'd have to say it was the latter: "Now, now, Joe. We've talked about this. Too many words, too much excitement."

"Sorry, Barack. Say, I still don't understand why you chose the more qualified Hillary Clinton over me."

"We all have our reasons."

At the start of the new year, Pat Robertson predicts with deadly inaccuracy what's going to happen in the year.  I praise the Lord everyday that I'm no Pat Robertson, but here's my prediction with Joe Biden and Obama:

Biden takes a trip to China to reestablish goodwill and open economic talks between the USA and China.  Upon seeing a senior party member over 5'6" he loudly exclaims, "Wow! You must be considered tall around here!"  Obama sees it on the morning news and races outside for a cigarette.

Biden prepares a speech for UN delegates meeting to draw up peace treaties for the Middle East.  Obama makes the secret service take an alternate route so that Biden arrives late and can only give 15 minutes of his hour long speech.

Biden goes to France and meets with President Sarkozy.  He leaves his microphone on and goes to the bathroom.  He spies a bidet and says, "What in the heck is that? Wait, I'll call Barack and see if he knows.  Hello, Barack? Joe here. No, I'm not having any trouble with the names again, I'm wondering what this thing is here in the bathroom. Probably a bidet? Ok. Yeah, see you later. PEACE OUT!"  CNN captures the whole thing, along with President Sarkozy stifling a laugh.

Right now I'm hoping that Obama will quit smoking and stay healthy enough for the next 4 years to continually remain stony faced throughout Biden's screwups.

Deep Thoughts

Often times I'll ponder the deep mysteries of the universe: How did we get here? Where are we going? Why can my beagle not stand the cold on a walk in the 28 degree snowy morning, and yet run for over an hour chasing a tennis ball with aplomb in the same weather?

Laptop Troubles

My laptop troubles started when I first received my laptop from UNC.  I first noticed that it was running slowly within 2 weeks of having it so I ran the craptastic anti-virus software that came with it.  

"Hmm, looks like you have some viruses," the IT guy said.  

"What?! How is that possible? All I did was download a bunch of music and TV shows from some Phillipean host!"

So I got that fixed. Then my hard drive crashed after 3 months of use. Then my screen burned out my sophomore year. And the problems piled up. I've been through 2 hard drives, 2 laptop screens, 1 fan, and 1 OS re-install because I deleted a good portion of junk that UNC puts on its hard drives (which they reinstalled when they put Windows back on the laptop) which caused some vague system error.  And now my fan's died and the stupid thing refuses to turn on.

I'd love to get it replaced, but the last time I tried to get it fixed in my hometown, the repair store took two weeks to completely determine that they could not install a fan on my laptop. Something about not being certified parts dealers for IBM or some other odd reason, though they're qualified to repair IBM's.

What in the HELL gives?

I have a dream that someday in the future computers will be disposable (and indispensable), so that when yours royally f's up your term paper or project, you can just pull out the tiny hard drive containing your data, get a hammer, and smash the stupid computer to bits, plop down $10 and get another computer that functions properly, and resume working.

But for right now I'll settle for the hammer.

New Teapot

I got a new teapot from Puerhshop. It's the real deal, so to speak.  Its pour is great, its lid fit is great, and I'll be able to tell in a couple of months if the clay is great.  All it holds is 120 ml, but that's plenty for me.

The teapot has a neat design which I chose because I figured it was better to have the tea leaves expand outwards rather than upwards.  It's squat and circular, and the lid fits flush with the top of the pot perfectly.