Just read: "Citizen of the Galaxy"

While gardening and woodshopping this week, I've been listening to an audio book version of Citizen of the Galaxy, a 50-year-old science fiction novel. For some reason I got totally sucked into the first part of the story--to the point that I just had to sit down and listen for a while on Sunday. It went downhill a bit, but it was still an awfully good read.

What makes the book blogworthy though is that I picked it at random at the public library without knowing who Robert Heinlein was, or that he was writing 50 years ago. While listening, I did think that the book was mis-categorized YA fiction (or that maybe EPL doesn't segregate its audiobooks by adult versus kids). It never occurred to me, until the narrator said it at the end, that the book might have been written in 1957. I think this is the second or third time this has happened to me in recent years.

So while we're on the topic: everybody go re-read Snowcrash. And for those of you who have never read it, resist reading the copyright date.

2 things

First: one of my favorite bloggers is back after more than a year away. She holds to a strong theme (successful meals--whether cooked in or out) while subtly dropping in life updates.

Second: to the commenter at March 13: for the record, my house is one long block away from the Tiny Tavern. And when you gotta go, you gotta go.

oh--let's make it 3 things. My adviser accepted my thesis on Friday largely as is. Now I only have to jump through the grad school hoops and then I'm done.

The horror!

I stopped in at the Tiny Tavern on my way home from the Whiteaker Jig on Saturday (not too crowded due to the rain, but the sound sucked), and saw something a little odd. In the men's room were three or four bright red lipstick kisses.

A lady in the men's room? Natch.

A man wearing lipstick? Natch.

Touching anything in the men's room of Tiny's with your lips? Now that's scary. Think about the opening scene of Trainspotting.

A world class university?

I'm a little embarrassed that my "world-class teaching and research university" is looking at hiring a new president that can't format a CV.

Of course, since this smacks of a cut-and-paste job, maybe a more accurate statement would be to say that I'm embarrassed to work for a world class university that can't take the time to re-format the new president's CV before posting it online. Of course, it's an improvement over the 404-message that accompanied the initial announcement earlier today.

That said, it is very intriguing to see a variety of (what appears to be) hi-tech advisory gigs on the CV of a Hindu scholar who has written a scholarly journal article titled "Never marry a woman with hairy ankles." And although one of my coworkers called him a foreigner today, it should be noted that he is a Chicago native. I wonder where he grew up?

Abandoned plans

So that would be a big "NO!" on the major remodel. Here's several reasons why it's not a good idea for us at this point:

• It would take almost all of our savings just to pay for a very stripped down project. It would be at least 2 years before we could finish the bathroom that we'd be roughing out.
• Is anyone's job really secure at this point?
• Committing to Eugene for 5 years is not really an option for us at this point. Things are just too precarious
• The house is pretty awesome as it is. And with just a few tweaks (which I'm sure you'll all be hearing more about later) it will be even more awesome.
• We're just not fancy enough

It sort of feels like a dodged bullet. When push came to shove, we were just not willing to take the risk. Live and learn.