Defecation

The concept of pooping in stalls is actually rather strange. There is this taboo about pooping in this country, yet we still poop in stalls in public restrooms. I mean, yes, there are these little "privacy" walls, but you can see the other person's feet and hear the splash and know when they are wiping. When you dust away all the pretenses, you really are just pooping 2 feet from a stranger who is also dropping a deuce, and then pretending like it never happened because saying something like, wow, someone's been into the burritos would completely destroy the fantasy of privacy. You have just shared something with a total stranger that most people have never even shared with their own spouse.
I think I have the swine flu. Actually, I'm sure I do not, although I have been feeling shitty. I kind of just wanted hysterical people searching for swine flu to come across the previous discussion.

I was woken up this morning by a marching band going down Nassau Ave. My roommate informed me that it was a Little League parade. Huh. The weather is absolutely amazing for a second day in a row. Last night was perfect and was the first time in the year that I was able to be outside in a tee and shorts without being uncomfortable. We biked back from a party and Brandy commented how it was warm enough to not be cold, but not hot enough to make us sweat.
It's the end of the semester and things are very stressful right now, although my magnanimous stats TA extended the due date of our problem set so that I don't have to be spending hours on that at the same time I'm trying to write my term paper, which relieved me enough to actually be able to enjoy the day yesterday.
Friday night Eric came by "for a quick drink." Of course, we ended up playing Puerto Rico twice and drinking two bottles of wine and a bottle of Ommegang, which is probably my favorite beer on the East Coast thusfar. I won both games by employing my 'amass victory points early and buy a wharf' strategy. In the first game I didn't even buy a big building and Eric had three. Needless to say, getting up on Sat was a bit difficult.
We got up around 11:30, in time to go pick up our CSA share - I injured my knee so I didn't have to go to practice. We were excited because we got a ton of salad greens. Spring is truly here.
We planned to go to the park where I could work on some papers I needed to read, but we didn't get there until about 5. That didn't stop us from staying several hours. It was super crowded and there were some random musicians hanging out playing. In New York, nice day + park = party. We sat around watching the hipsters, beautiful girls, and weirdos. I got a little work done and then Eric joined us, work stopped, and Boggle commenced. Eric was on and he somehow beat me every time. I suspect practicing.
We stayed until after 9:30. At home I had to wait for Brandy to get ready, which was taking longer than usual. After she was finally ready there was a debacle with my socks since they were "blinding" in contrast with my clothes. After a bunch of time wasted looking, we realized that I didn't have any socks that were appropriate and I left with the same as before. Pros of dating a fashion designer: you become fashionable but still don't have to spend money or care. Cons: reread this paragraph.
We biked down to Larisa and Jason's house, which is in our old neighborhood. Larisa is one of the first people I met in NYC when I lived here two summers ago. Jan and I met her at a party in Clinton Hill and we all ended up hanging out together throughout the summer. It was funny because we would always ask each other if Ji, this Korean girl we also met at the party, was coming whenever we all hung out, like she was part of our little group, even though she only hung out with all of us once or twice.
Anyway, the gathering was a going away party for the two, who are moving to Jason's hometown, Melbourne next month. It was small, but nice. I met a guy who is very into the biking culture here and told me that the really shitty bike lanes that exist in NYC, which force you to ride in the door zone, were originally designed as hashed, no-entry lanes to assert that bikes have the right to take the lane and not ride in the door zone, but were changed at the last minute. I also learned that the police dept had unilaterally passed a law that says that any two people traveling in the same direction and breaking a law could be arrested and charged with staging an illegal demonstration. This was meant to give reason to arrest Critical Massers. City Council eventually overturned this law. FOA requests regarding the pending class action lawsuit against the police for illegally arresting hundreds of Critical Massers showed that in advance of the IMF protests the police had updated the police handbook to prepare and it indicated that anyone on a bike is probably an anarchist and is a likely threat. Anyway, enough about our illustrious police force.
I also met a guy doing his PhD in math at SUNY Albany. He was impressed when I asked him if he had an Erdös number. He did not, but apparently he knew a guy who had both an Erdös and a Kevin Bacon number.
We went to bed earlier, and with less booze, and waking up today was not as difficult. Now that I have finished a delicious breakfast, I must work.

This past week has been one of the most stressfully busy weeks of my student career. Now, I'm sure I've had more work to do before on large papers, but I think it is more stressful to have several medium things to do than one large one. I also have to work 15 hours a week plus school time and commute time, which doesn't leave a lot of time left over for when lots of due dates arrive. I then have several looming projects that I should be working on, but am not and I also had a friend visiting from Chicago this weekend, so I definitely wanted to get done with my stuff before the weekend so I could hang with him.
I have, however been doing rather well with my goal of never getting less than 6 hours or more than 8 hours of sleep per night.
Hmm, I really want to talk about the ridiculous weekend, but I'm just too lazy to write. I'd much rather talk, so shit. Class is starting soon anyway.

Hudson Valley Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/dobozban/HudsonValley?feat=directlink

Next half

On Sunday morning our host cooked up the cheese blintzes we had brought from Greenpoint and we ate them with sour cream and maple syrup, yum! He also cooked up some eggs, so we were well nourished for our morning ride down to Cold Spring. Before taking off though, we spent a few minutes tossing the disc around, which is something I really need to get into the habit of doing.
The ride down 9D was not bad. At first Brandy was apprehensive about the 55 mph traffic coming on our asses with little to no shoulder. She does not have a lot of bike experience, except in the city or rural roads, but after a bit we were able to relax some since the traffic volumes weren't high enough to warrant concern. It was a scenic ride down the valley and much shorter than expected. Turns out we were staying about half the way between Beacon and Cold Spring and our expected 6 mi ride turned into 3, downhill the whole way for added convenience.
Cold Spring is a small town in the forest on the river. It's smaller, and more affluent than Beacon. The scene is less artsy fartsy, more oriented towards antiques. There were some interesting stores, but after two I was over it. We tried to find a coffee shop where I could get some work done. Unfortunately that was not to be. We found what looked to be hopeful, a little bakery with coffee and nice tables outside, but after ordering a coffee it was discovered that there was no bathroom and the coffee was Seattle's *ahem Best. We stayed long enough to choke down the coffee water and we headed down to the river.
They have a wonderful plaza with benches sticking out into the river. There is a huge stone mount across the river and the river also makes a large turn here, so there is a nice view of the cliffs as well as West Point.
From there we went to bar right next to the tracks in the old depot with plentiful outdoor seating. I got a bit of work done here before we decided to walk around in the woods for awhile before meeting our host for dinner.
There is a nice trail around the south edge of town that passes along a swamp and then a babbling brook in the forest. The trail goes through a forested glen that feels very isolated, but is right next to the town. All throughout it are the foundations and wall remnants of some old factories and the area is strewn with bricks. At the head of the glen, the creek passes through an old dam, right underneath the 9D bridge. After the dam, the creek crashes through a narrow gorge, about 10-15 feet deep. It was a very relaxing place to stop and rest. It was a bit unnerving how the creek sprayed out through the spaces between the old blocks in the dam, but we laid on the rocks beneath nonetheless.
There was a large amount of beer cans and other trash marring the beauty, so we filled up a large garbage bag, which had conveniently been tossed as well, and carried it into town.
Dinner was at a pricey French restaurant, which was fairly decent, although they overcooked my "medium-rare" ribeye.
We ended the night pretty early since we were all leaving at 7 the next morning, capping it off watching some TV show about this chemistry teacher who decided to start making meth after he finds out he's dying, which was fairly entertaining.

Hudson Valley

Happiness abounds now as I am currently on Spring Break. No, I am not sitting on a beach someplace sipping piña coladas, nor am I hitchhiking across some remote nation; rather, I am sitting in my office eating take out Italian food on my lunch break. I surely blew my load already this semester when I took off half a week to travel to Belize on $180 tickets, and now I must work work work.
This did not stop me though from taking a little advantage of the break. Brandy took off work on Monday and we took a little trip upstate. We caught the Metro North train on Saturday to Beacon, which is in the Hudson River Valley. Here we were picked up by our Couchsurfing host, who nervously asked in our first phone conversation whether we were law enforcement, and further, whether we were 420 friendly. Important questions surely for someone who smokes daily, but certainly not an issue for us. It is a shame that in our advanced country one must be worried that a house guest may see a stem or seed and condemn.
But I digress. He was a friendly, and quite talkative fellow originally from Yorktown, and he immediately took us off to a spectacular hike up Breakneck Ridge. The Hudson Valley is truly a special place, the likes of which I have not seen in my travels. One of the wider rivers I have seen, the Hudson travels more or less straight south through a deep valley girdled by ridges, cliffs, and mountains, in the typical rounded, leafy Appalachian style. There are numerous protrusions into the river that add to depth of the scenery.
Our climb was a steep and straight one up the side of the valley. There was plenty of scrambling and opportunities for scaling, and we were soon rewarded with spectacular views of the river, which was smooth as glass this day. This was also nice because it was in the 50s, and a wind might have made things a bit less enjoyable. At the top there was also a small swamp filled with cattails and other such vegetation, which seemed odd considering you could see a drop off just past this little depression.
After the climb, we made a loop through the woods and returned to the car starving and tired. Back at the apartment we cut up a cantaloupe and ate much of the kielbasa I had brought.
After a brief nap we headed into the town of Beacon. We strolled the ridiculously long Main Street, which was quite lively due to a combination of it being "Second Saturday," which is a monthly event where all of the many art galleries have showings; and that is was the day of the St. Patrick's Day pub crawl on the other end of Main Street. This event was filled with underagers completely wasted. It ended predictably with a brawl, which we managed to have passed just before its outbreak. No sooner had it begun when over a dozen cop cars flew down the street. They must have been itching for something to do because they swarmed like crazy to what sounded like a small fight. There was a group of guys in front of us and one said, in a mocking redneck cop accent, "It's time for us get back where we belong. Yup, back to Poughkeepsie." Word on the street the next day was that someone was tasered, although this was likely a different incident.
Other highlights include a glassblowing demonstration and a super-powered pogo stick, which I was able to handle well for awhile, but the thing eventually went out of control and I narrowly avoided landing on a parked car.
Dude had to head down to some crappy other town for a friend's birthday, so Brandy and I went to what I would consider to be one of the better coffee shops I've yet encountered in the NE. It is a very chill place with tons of natural light, couches, and space. Best of all, it is right across from a delicious cheesecake shop.
When the coffee shop tossed us out at 9, we headed back down the Main Street, which is about a mile long, in search of nightlife. There were only three places that were open, a dive bar overflowing with drunken tools, next door to a fancy-looking Italian restaurant with a bar, and a pretentious-looking wine bar on the far end of the street. Skipping the douchefest, we entered the Italian place briefly, but found that overflow from lamo pub had infiltrated and filled all of the bar seats, leaving only dining seats or standing, so we resigned ourselves to pretension. When we got to the wine bar, we found that we had misjudged and that it was not nearly as pretentious as we thought. In fact, it was quite as their name, "Chill" Wine Bar, implied - Quotes included. We drank delicious wine and relaxed there for the rest of the evening.
The next day we did some stuff.

Conference calls and hordes

It's pretty humorous when there is a conference call going on in my office. Being a lackey, I am not usually involved, so when I walk down the hall I hear the same voice echoing from four or five closed doors. I typically also get to witness a chagrined face in every office, intently focused on the phone, with a hand on forehead.
In other news, I have decided to call the New Jersians, whom I must battle as I pass through Port Authority on my reverse commute, The Hordes from the Hinterlands. I am sifting through copious amounts of photos from various days of my commute and hopefully will post them eventually.