The Myth & The Majesty

I know, I know. I should try to stay on topic. Korea. All that. But I was sorting through some of the pictures on my computer and I came across this. Which sent me down a blogging rabbit trail. You see, this picture says a lot more than it seems. First, it tells me that yes, I have lost weight since moving here. It also shows me the people that I previously only identified as "My Brother's Friends" but now consider pretty much my friends as well. And apparently my Summer Shadow started that gig earlier than I realized. (Finally! I have a blog name for her!) But it shows something else, something I already knew to be true. Something I once thought might be shifting but ... well, it isn't. I really, really prefer my personal bubble to remain intact. It's true. At nearly thirty years old, I'm still too socially awkward for hugging. And while I know the people in this photo particularly well (I mean, one of them is my brother, for crying out loud...

I am, wholly and completely, a (mid-)rural Midwest kid. I'm still thrown by how empty the train was that day. This means a lot of things. I am familiar with many versions of tator tot casserole. I've gone trick-or-treating in so many layers that my costume was rendered indistinguishable. And though I'm not yet thirty, I've been driving for well over half my life. Out here, you learn to drive about the time you can reach the pedals ... and then you drive that first car until it doesn't run anymore. It's easy for even non-motorheads to have long, drawn-out conversations about their vehicles and the ailments they've had. All you have to do is mention mileage in a group and it quickly becomes a contest to see whose car has racked up the most miles so far. In this unleaded upbringing, buses and trains are less than practical. Amtrak doesn't cross the state (although they used to have bus service to a couple of places) and buses don't seem to dr...

My first time on a normal passenger plane was in April of 2002. It was my senior year of high school; the band was going to New York City. It had been seven months since 9/11 but as our crowd of 60-some boarded early in the morning in Sioux Falls, we didn't really have any trouble. It would be some time yet before liquids were limited in your carry-on, and years before anyone would even consider charging for a checked bag, much less a carry-on. I had a cell phone ... that didn't work when I got that far from home. I had a calling card so that I could call my mother on a pay phone from the top of the Empire State Building. While I certainly had Internet access by then, I didn't know anything about my flight or the plane I'd be on. [There was a near-incident involving a foil-wrapped package of Pop-Tarts when we went through security, but it was mostly just hilarious.] My, how things have changed. Now, I find myself getting ready for the wedding in two and a half...

This is Clarence. A few weeks ago, Clarence appeared in camp, hungry for both food and attention. Apparently one of the sadly large number of pets that get dumped in the area, Clarence seemed happy to find people. Not long after that, the Bossman suggested Clarence should maybe be relocated. And then I had my first real encounter with him. Followed directly by my buying a bag of cat food and putting an official claim on him. It may have something to do with Clarence's uncanny resemblance to Edgar, who was staying with me at the time. (In fact, the first time I saw Clarence, I thought Edgar had gotten out.) It may also have been the fact that he seemed friendly enough and had, after all, found us. Anyway, since then Clarence has taken to wandering camp. Most mornings he follows me around, no more than a few feet behind or in front of me as I check buildings or grab coffee from the kitchen. He's proving his usefulness, too -- I've been given a couple of gifts o...

As you may have gathered from my last post, I'm in the midst of some potential life changes. I've been slowly working myself out of a job here and that means that eventually, I'm really going to need a real one again. Of course, this would be easier if I was absolutely certain about what I wanted to do with my life. But like so many people my age, I haven't nailed down what I want to be when I grow up, even if I have a few ideas. But as the summer ended and I set aside my kayak and bike, started watching more Sportscenter (seriously, when did I become a Sportscenter watcher?! ... it's an autumn thing, I hope), and started working fewer hours, I knew it was time to figure that one out. It's time to be elsewhere. Past time, really. And so it is that I'm spending my free time crawling the Internet, searching job sites and specific company sites, looking for that Holy Grail of positions that (a) doesn't put me in an office 40 hours a week, (b) lets me...

Amanda over at Life In Lajes  was minding her own business, trying to get to the UK when she was unexpectedly memed. Not being a naysayer herself, she decided to continue the madness. Strictly speaking, I'm not a meme-er. (Tee hee.) But when I found her comment waiting for me, I couldn't say no. And not just because I've known Amanda for longer than most of my non-family readers and she knows where I live. First, here are THE RULES as shared with me: You MUST post the rules.  Answer the questions the tagger sent for you in the post, and then create 11 new questions to ask the people you've tagged. Tag 11 bloggers; however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs. Let them know you've tagged them! Have fun! (Ashley's note: I would add "6. Don't ask a question you're not willing to answer.")   Now, these are the questions posed by Amanda: 1 . Where d...

I'm a collector of hobbies. It's true. Some of that is because I don't sit still well. Some of it stems from the first few months I was in Wausau, back when I didn't really know people and abruptly had to find ways to entertain myself. In any case, I've retained a lot of those hobbies and rather excited about getting to tackle them this summer. So ... First of all, there's this friend of mine sharing her photography skills with the world. If you're like me and just don't get enough out of your camera, I recommend checking out her posts . Secondly, I discovered something fantastic earlier this week ... This blog chronicles the available lake kayaking in the Sioux Falls area and I suspect it could be helpful for other folks around here. Since this is the first summer I've spent here in a decade, I'm looking for all the help I can get. Third ... To area folks, hey, there's a rugby game tomorrow (12:30) at Marion Park. Weather permittin...

1. Soy milk, when frozen, comes out of solution. When it thaws, it does not go fully back into solution. 2. Product placement dates back to at least 1971's "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory." 3. I share a birthday with a Glee castmember. Note: he's actually two years older than me. Which means he's turning 30. And playing a high schooler on TV. Awkward. 4. Since "Umwelt," there's been an upswing in xkcd awesomeness. Truly, the last month has been ... fantastic. Today's? Also great. 5. I still despise Sioux Falls drivers. Not exactly a revelation, but sometimes I'm surprised by how much it continues to bother me. 6. My numbers-first approach to life may not be entirely healthy. Or normal. 7. A person can buy Twilight Zone bobbleheads (recommended to me by Amazon based on my shopping history) ... and they're in black-and-white.

Let's just pick up where we left off yesterday, shall we? 9. The forgotten plus to a birthday month? The number of places that will give you special discounts when you buy something. I think I've been offered close to $100 in free stuff already. 10. Something kind of funny happened to me on Friday. I went out to dinner with D&J (...oh, you know who you are) and ordered ribs. A couple minutes after we dug into our food, a manager appeared with a whole new plate of ribs. Why? Because they'd put the wrong sauce on mine. Which meant that I got an entire meal out of the deal. A mistake that I don't notice, doesn't mean I have food that sucks, and that the manager promptly fixes? Best restaurant error ever. 11. During a recent Woot-off, I bought a super-nerdy T-shirt . (I couldn't help myself. Really, I couldn't.) There's something odd going on here: even if I leave out the weekend, it takes only two days for it to get from Texas to Sioux Falls and ...

1. As an offshoot of Party of One , let me just say ... I love being a regular at a restaurant. I love walking into a place and knowing the staff by name. I love it when they know what I'm going to order before I order it. I love the comfort of chatting with people who wander through. However, it's a little alarming when you realize how much more you hear as a regular than as a normal diner. 2. I'm really looking forward to "The Avengers" on Friday, even if it'll be a little while before I get to see it. Maybe it's because it's a Joss Whedon movie. Maybe it's because it's been in the works for so long and I've heard about it since almost the very beginning. Maybe it's just because I'm a nerd. In any case, I can't wait. 3. It's been some time since I paid this much attention to "Dancing With The Stars." I guess it took them casting a Packer. (And Urkel! Who knew we'd ever have the chance to look at Urkel and sa...

Hi there! How's it going? Not a lot to report here. It's been a day of organization. I've been sorting through ... everything, it seems. Old clothes, piles of paper, computer files. While making my way through my computer, I started collecting in one spot some of the more ridiculous photos I've taken. And, naturally, my next thought was that they needed to be shared. These are all things I've seen myself. They're at varying levels of amusing and/or ridiculous. Some of them are somewhat legitimate. Some ... aren't. Like this. I didn't really know what to make of this. This one was just amusing. In a Wausau grocery store. (Of course.) This was actually a fabulous ad campaign for a museum in Seoul ... There were several slightly-less-clothed works of art depicted. I figured this one was recognizable enough. This was just plain dumb. Shame, B&N. They apparently just don't want you taking care of business on t...

Last year, I wrote about my personal Packers history, and since then I've mentioned them far more than I ever thought I would. Today (in the interest of a non-serious post with at least a little purpose), I give you... Eight Reasons I'm Proud To Be A Packers Fan 1. It's the only community-owned team in the States. (They have their 5th stock sale going on right now. I wish I could join in...) 2. They had the guts to tell Brett Favre that no, he couldn't come back unconditionally (he would have to compete with Aaron Rodgers for the starting position) -- and when he didn't like that they traded him and ended up with Clay Matthews. I'd say that overall, that move has worked out rather well for them. 3. Fans will get behind players they refer to as "Packer people" and will similarly shy away from players that don't fit that. (Guys I've heard mentioned as "Packer people" include guys like Donald Driver, who writes children's b...

1. I am not a scrapbooker. However, there are times I want to find a regular photo album (such as right after returning from an overseas trip) and said albums are frequently found near the scrapbook sections of craft stores. As it turns out, one o'clock on a Friday afternoon is a bad time to go looking because it leads to me getting trapped in scrapbook hell, surrounded by intense scrapbookers with carts loading up on sales items. I was afraid I was going to have to spend the night in that aisle, subsisting on the mints in my purse ... or climbing the display to escape to the frames aisle. 2. All right, it wasn't that bad. Still, it seems that early Friday afternoon should be safe for shopping. Not so much. 3. I did get to talk to a few random strangers, first about what went best with a Minnesota Twins print (besides, you know, flames) and at some point about the craziness of the Friday afternoon traffic. 4. Speaking of which, Sioux Falls continues to make me crazy. ...

If I have a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. -Erasmus My spending habits have changed drastically in the last year. Of course, that's to be expected -- after all, I lost my job and went from having disposable income out of proportion to my age to having a lack of disposable income out of proportion to my age. I abruptly stopped buying things and my "social money" was carefully budgeted for an occasional dinner or birthday outing. Those habits haven't yet changed, even though I've been allowed to relax a little. However, all along, I've managed to find money if there's a book I really want. I've written from time to time about my ongoing love affair with the written word. While I don't really do book reviews here because, well, I just don't, there is another aspect of this love that is easy for me to convey. This booklust has led to me finding bookstores in most cities I've visited, regardless of ...

You don't really notice how bad a cold sounds until you have complete strangers looking at you like you have the plague. (I feel like I should be apologizing to those within ten feet of me. I swear, this is the end of the cold! I'm not contagious!)  This is still probably the most peaceful picture I've taken. Whatever happened to the normal buckets of Legos? The new Muppets movie (aptly titled "The Muppets") comes out this Thanksgiving, and it is distinctly possible that I am inordinately excited. Particularly since I'm 27 years old. I suddenly want a privacy filter for my laptop. Has something to do with people sitting behind and a level above me. There's a fine line between absurd and brilliant. Case in point: in 1955, Dr. Thomas Harvey thought it would be a good idea to steal Albert Einstein's brain during his autopsy. In and of itself, that thought is absurd. Yet decades later, that very brain provided genuine scientifi...

While I was at the ranch last week -- the cattle ranch, as in a place where beef is raised -- I managed to have entirely vegetarian meals. It wasn't intentional. In fact, I took a long hard look at the contents of my grandparents' freezer and basically determined that no matter what I pulled out of there, I wasn't going to finish it before I left. Instead, I had the contents of their garden at my disposal ... and so it was that I ate fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and potatoes at every meal instead. Turns out there are plenty of ways to be creative with those, especially if you add noodles or eggs. (Hey, I needed protein in some form.) Enough ways, in fact, to keep a person eating for a week without getting bored. There were interruptions, which definitely helped. After all, Shorty's 21st had to be celebrated. There was Mexican food to eat and the new staff of the Gaslight to judge. (Maybe we should give them more than two days before judging too harshly.) ...

Note to self (and the world) If you have any desire to harbor any hope for humanity, for crying out loud, stop reading comment threads on news articles! Especially -- ESPECIALLY -- if it's about something or someone you respect/enjoy and would like to continue to respect/enjoy. People. Are. Ridiculous.

In every place I've lived, I've had a "spot." The one where I always go to relax, the one that helps ease my nerves. Often my bedroom (particularly when I was sharing a house with five other women), sometimes a lesser-traveled living room or something similar. For the last fifteen years, there's been one room at Storm that has been "that spot" for me. It's the room people forget about -- on the bottom floor of the main lodge, tucked back from the game room, and rather inexplicably referred to as the fireplace room. (There's a fireplace in almost every meeting room in this camp. I have no idea why this one gets a special designation but it's been that way through at least three directors.) The furniture doesn't match, the TV is old and enormous, it's smelled the same way for basically ever, and it is easily the most comfortable spot in this building. I have a crazy history with this room -- the first time I went to camp, we slept h...

Last year, Blogger launched a statcounter of their own that came standard with a blog. It was great for a few reasons -- first, for regular bloggers, it meant that we could keep track of a few things without effort. Secondly, it meant that those of us who were frustrated with third-party statcounters could give them up entirely. Third ... it was free. I like free. Anyway, it's been an interesting source of information for me, not least of all because it's proving to me daily that yes, people read this thing. I thought perhaps I could share some of that information with you. First, there's the spread by country (although only the top ten are shown): Clearly, most of my readers are in the US. Not exactly surprising. Next up is South Korea, which is also not surprising given that Mia Sorella lives there. Russia follows ... likely because I still have a few friends there. Daz was in Italy for a time and as this is an "all-time" stat, I suppose those hits are f...

Dear Habicht, Such a solemn air of silence has descended between us that I almost feel as if I am committing a sacrilege when I break it now with some inconsequential babble... What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul...? It's been a rough couple of days -- not just for me, either. If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. The kind of week that sends me careening off into other places looking for words of wisdom. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. This time, amongst many other sources (I've been reading an awful lot), that's included Albert Einstein ... who happens to be one of my heroes. Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Toge...