So school started this week and now that I'm finally living in the same town as the school I'm attending (and because we already know what happens when I have to pay for parking) I've decided to explore alternative transportation.
Walking: Walking is a classic (albeit slow) method of transportation that allows one to take shortcuts on roads that have been closed for so long as to be overgrown with weeds and various forms of shrubbery. Walking also has the benefit of allowing one to read while in transit (except for the navigation of greenery on the no longer car accessible section of the trip). Unfortunately, walking also involves the manual labor of carrying the necessities of graduate life back and forth to class (which obviously includes an uphill climb in both directions, no word yet on the volume of snow). Theoretically walking would also be a healthier choice since it is over two miles to campus, but anyone who has seen me walk and read at the same time would probably make a successful case for having my motion classified in the strolling or perhaps even wandering category, both of which score fewer health boosting points.
Bike Riding: Bike riding is the quickest of the transportation options, but (in order to remain the quickest) requires a more popular route of travel, thus decreasing the enjoyable scenery points. The route still includes uphills in both directions (as does any non motorized option) and necessitates helmet hair.
Bus Riding: Having been on a hiatus from riding the bus (ever since I finished grade school) I was the least practiced at navigating this type transportation, however, having nearly finished an ms in cs (yes mom, I really am going to finish it soon) one would think that this is a surmountable challenge. When I was in kindergarten and I rode the bus for the first time my parents followed me in the car (and all the girls go awww). Unfortunately they were unavailable for such nearby support this time, and lets face it, it was embarrassing enough the first time. So, I took the bus all by myself. The first few times I rode, I conveniently rode away from home towards the end of the line. It's easy to figure out where to get off when the bus gets to the end of the line, because, well, it's the end of the line. Then, yesterday, for the first time I rode the bus home and I'm sure you will be surprised to hear that I managed to get off at the right stop :). The key is to pull the chord after the corner with the blinking light which is after the corner with the actual stoplight (those of you familiar with houghton will recognise this pattern). I can read on the bus despite the best efforts of the drivers who seem to take pride in stopping and starting the bus as quickly as possible. And since walking and riding my bike are both uncomfortably warm in the afternoon, the bus drivers seem to be doing their best to make the bus as air conditionally freezing as possible.

Things I will miss when I move from the country at the end of the summer:
1. How in parking lots (with potholes bigger than garbage can lids) people manage to park in such a way that half as many cars fit as would fit in a suburban lot of the same size and a third as many as would fit in an urban lot.
2. How people put their trash out a full 24 hours before the garbage man comes to flaunt the fact that they pay to have their garbage picked up rather than driving it to the dump. city slickers.
3. The fliers I receive weekly in the mail for either tractor related equipment or instant aluminum barns.
4. Cow crossing signs (not so much the actual cows).
5. Being the only person in the food store not wearing camo and/or fluorescent orange.

SLAM
Matt: "OW. Mother o' &#$%*!"
Me, rising to investigate: "Ya alright in there Matt?"
Matt, exiting the room: "Yeah, that junk hurt - I slammed my knuckle on the window."
Me, going about my work and chuckling: "heh heh heh heh..."
THUD
Me, falling over my trunk: "OW, my toe!"

Be that a lesson to all of you

Ok so my watch randomly stopped working the other day and I was at my parents' house in Ohio and since they live near a mall, I decided to stop on my way back to NY and get a new battery. So, I go to the mall and go into the first jewelry store I come to. The guy takes my watch apart but then discovers that he doesn't carry those particular batteries. So, I head back out into the mall towards the kiosk that jewelry store guy said has a better selection of batteries. On my way there I had to fend off a woman with broken English who really wanted to sell me this strong smelling, overpriced hand lotion. I'm carrying my watch in pieces rather than having them put it back together between stores and lotion lady is squirting various sprays and lotions that do everything from make your skin softer to make you glow in the dark and I have my fist clenched to protect my watch from these scary potions and she is grabbing me and squirting saying "you like?" The guy at the next kiosk selling cellphones is meanwhile giving me odd looks that were either meant to be sympathetic or hopeful that my clenched fist was going to come in contact with her nose. Finally, I make it to the watch place and they take my watch apart and call the guy back from break and put new batteries in and take a long time and decide that my watch is just broken. Life's tough. So I went to Sears and picked out a new watch and waited while the woman took some of the links out. Mission Accomplished, back to NY. Total time spent at mall: 2 hours.

So, I get back to my apartment and I unload the car and feed Mollie and I look down at my watch and suddenly I realize it's not ticking. Oh man! It's been sitting here for two weeks and I finally made it to a mall this past weekend. I told the woman in Sears what happened and she starts filling out this form to mail my watch away to be fixed. So, I explain to her that I actually live an hour from the mall and she gives me a voucher to go get a new battery at the little kiosk thing in the middle of the mall. Sounding familiar? I go to the kiosk and she puts in a new battery and it still doesn't work. Even more familiar. I go back to sears and return the new watch and pick out another new one. But when I get finished setting the time this one does not work either. On to watch number three, which manages to hang on at least long enough for me to set the time, go back to the kiosk in the middle of the mall to have the excess links taken out, and drive home. Total time spent at the mall this time: 2 hours (including a few quick stops for various other mall items).

Total time spent in watch procurement: 4 hours plus travel time, apparently time flies when you have no watch to keep up with it.

So I went to the library in Belfast today. I've been to the library in Filmore and the one in Wellsville (where I got my library card for the Southern Tier Library System) and since I lost my Houghton card (ssshhh) and Belfast was the only open library I decided to go there. So I drive to Bellfast and find it and go inside and like most of the local country libraries it is just a converted house so it takes a minute to find the right section of books and figure out which rooms are for patrons and which ones are not. Conveniently enough the children's section is in the garage next door which has been painted with flowers and forest animals on the outside, I was not feeling quite brave enough to look inside. This particular library actually appears to be only one room with bookshelves from floor to ceiling and an impressively large rotating large print collection. The best part about small libraries is what ends up all on one shelf. Books about automachanics on one end of the shelf and fine art on the other end. "Passing the Postal Service Test" paperbacks are just around the corner on the shelf with "Handling your difficult two year old." So anyway, I found a few books and went over to the desk and the woman wouldn't take my library card. They apparently do not use plastic cards with a bar code on the back in Bellfast. No, they use little paper cards with your name on them. I'm not even entirely sure that she checked the books out to me; I was to busy filling out paper forms with holes in the side to go in the patron binder to really be paying attention. Even when I was growing up we had those punch card things so they didn't have to sign the books out to you one at a time. Those were cool because they made that neat ca-chunk sound when they punched the cards from the pocket in the back of the book. She did put my card number from Wellsville in my file though, "just so we can check in the computer and see if you have any outstanding loans," which she said with a very serious expression as if the book police might drop in from the secret removable panels in the ceiling and arrest me if I try to library hop. Perhaps if they got one of those cool ca-chunk card punching machines she could relieve some of her stress and not be so uptight about wayward books.

West Point is under some sort of massive virus attack - straight outta the movie Hackers. "Hackers of the World, unite!" and all that jazz. For whatever reason, someone out there is generating emails by the minute and sending them out to entire Corps. You know the type:


TO: addressOf@usma.edu
FROM: Claire
SUBJECT: OUR SECRET

ok ok ok,,,,, here is it


*** Server-AntiVirus: No Virus (Clean)
*** "USMA" Anti-Virus
*** http://www.usma.edu

Far from the success enjoyed by a very young Angalina Jolie in the movie, these particular troublemakers are an annoyance at best. They can be creative, I'll give them that. They even managed to send an authentic looking email from my mom's email account saying something about I should call home more. Don't worry, i wasn't fooled.

After about half an hour of these things, I decided it was time to mount my own little defense, and as they say, the best defense is a good offense. So I open up the rules wizard in outlook, and wip a rule to filter out the spam. Easy enough, it basically finds any emails with key phrases like "ok ok ok,,,,, here is it" and auto deletes the email. Awesome. no problem.

A little while later, someone sends out an email to the company with instructions on how to set up the auto delete thing. He even includes the key phrases to add to the rule.

my rule deleted his message. ironic, isnt it.

A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to programming 1 and I grabbed a hot chocolate packet out of a new box of hot chocolate (that I brought back from my parents' house I think) and I stopped off in the faculty lounge, dumped the hot chocolate packet and some hot water into my cup, put the lid on, and went to class. So far, so good. When I got to class I was walking around helping people and I took a sip of my hot chocolate, "ooohhh gross!" I yelled out. In a normal class this would not be that noticeable since there would be general student working on a project noise, but not in this programming class, these students are totally silent while they program, an unnatural phenomenon that could easily by the topic of another post. Anyway, the "hot chocolate" that I made in my cup (which has recently held a variety of teas and coffees with perhaps not the most thorough washings between) definitely tasted more like the last three drinks I made than the current one. I tried another timid sip just in case. Definitely not drinkable. So the rest of the class I was walking around with my stomach growling in protest of the lack of hot morning drink. When I got back upstairs I dumped the cup out and the water was surprisingly clear, "hmm, there must have only been marshmallows and no hot chocolate in that packet," I thought to myself. I don't really like those little fake marshmallows they put in hot chocolate, which is why I surmised that this box must be from my parents' house. Anyway, I continued on, I actually washed the cup I think, but then it fell apart, which is a whole different story. So today I went to make hot chocolate in my mug, I got a packet out, dumped it in the mug, and "ah ha! no chocolate! At least now I'm onto their game!" I thought to myself (actually the "ah ha" part might have been out loud) so I grabbed the box to look and see how many of these defaulty (a word which means relatively the same thing as faulty that Carolyn coined, if you say it to yourself a few times you will discover that it is much more fun than just saying something is faulty) packets were left and I noticed that some of the packets say "marshmallows" and some say "chocolate." Apparently this is meant to be a two step process of making the hot chocolate and then dumping the marshmallows on top. Who knew?