Day 8: Favorite Day

What was your favorite day this year and why?

I'm taking this to mean 'this past year,' since this year is less than a month old.

I'd say my favorite day was, if I remember correctly, Nov. 10th. In any case, that's the one that springs immediately to mind. The day started out with Mass, after which I met my dear friend AnnMarie and we went to brunch, where we spent a good couple hours talking politics. I don't know about you, but I love talking politics with someone who a). is well informed, b). shares most of my views, and c). is luminously beautiful.

After we parted, I went to the dojo for some semi-one-on-one training with a couple of black belts, where I spent an hour and a half or so working with sais. Then, having had a fine and interesting work out, I went to my parent's house to hang out with my best friend Tim for a few hours.

This day stands out as being both active, but not overwhelming: there was a lot going on, but I enjoyed all of it and I finished up feeling like I had really accomplished something. Of course, I always like hanging out with Tim, and any day I get to see AnnMarie automatically jumps a grade, so combine both of those with Mass, serious-though-not-strenuous intellectual stimulation, and a solid, though not overwhelming workout and what you have is a very good day indeed.

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Blog more often!

Self explanatory.

2. Read the Entire Bible:

I tried this once before and got bogged down in Sirach. So, this year I'm taking another crack at it!

3. Spend less time on the Computer

Slightly at odds with number 1, but I honestly waste far too much time on the computer and I'd like to change that: read, write, exercise, draw, play violin, and just do all the many non-computer-required things there are to do.

4. Develop a Writing Routine

I've made some progress with this, but there's definite room for improvement.

5. Become Conversational in Italian

Yeah, I need to step up the language studies a lot.

6. [REDACTED]

A private one; I'll let you know if I actually accomplish it.

On my New Blog

So far I am having an absolute blast with my new blog, The Catholic Nerd. For one thing, it feels like this is the kind of writing I've always wanted to do, but haven't had the opportunity to (been too wrapped up in trying to sound professional and serious). For another, I get to do things like equate the atheistic version of God to a cross between Superman and Jason Voorhees, complete with picture.

Speaking of pictures, the only real problem I've run into so far is the fact that I keep having to delay posts until I can find and/or make the right illustrations. This has necessitated my re-installing Photoshop on my old laptop and spending a little too much time messing around in Garry's Mod. It also means that I generally have to wait until I get home to publish them, since I can't make the pictures at work. Like I could have posted my recent piece on atheism today, but I decided that I really needed a Time's Square ad from an uptight spinster to illustrate my point properly, and so I must delay.

I've got big plans for this blog. I'm hoping to make something really unique and wonderful out of it. Stay tuned!

Work Complaints

I've come to the conclusion that I don't much like my job. The pay's good, and all (though I confess I have an irrational dislike for benefits packages brought on by three years of dying a little inside everytime I hear the word 'healthcare'), and the environment is generally pretty quiet, and as long as I get my work done no one minds if I write or blog at work.

Okay, put like that, I have pretty much nothing to complain about, job-wise. Except for the insane uselessness of the accounts payable people. I mean, do they ever even read my e-mails? Cause if they do, they certainly don't act like it. One day I'm going to test them by writing the most incredibly insulting e-mail my twisted mind can create, and then when they complain I'll just say "Oh, so you do read my e-mails! So why do you never pay the phone bill like I ask you to, you..."

But I digress.

I suppose my real problem with my job is that I honestly don't care about it much. I have no interest in cars except as a means of transportation, and even less in car parts like wipers and lighting. I have even less in...whatever it is I actually work with. Numbers, and papers and that bloody SAP program and vendors who somehow keep managing to lose the numbers off of the purchase orders that they'd like to get paid for now. Then they start furiously complaining that they aren't getting paid soon enough when I tell them the PO is marked for payment next month and they yell at me for that, then I have to inform them that the company only pays twice a month, so it'll be another week and then the payment date falls on a weekend so...

There I go again.

It's not the fact of the problems; I know there'll be problems everywhere I work. It's the fact that these are such ridiculous and dull problems. They're the kind of problems that makes one think "what am I doing with my life?!" and then return to that fantasy of going down south and opening up a rattlesnake sanctuary (yes, I have seriously considered that. Rattlesnakes need protection too, you know!).

In any case, I am now firmly convinced that my future does not lie in the corporate world (or at least, not in administration). I will probably work here for at least another year or two, but I'll be looking for a way out. In the meantime, I thank God I have a good, steady job that isn't actively odious and that gives me time to write things like this.

Day 7: Manhood Pt. 2

"What men in my life exemplify the qualities listed in Day 6?"

I've been fortunate enough to know a number of great exemplars of manliness in my own life. In the interest in space, however, I'm going to confine myself to three who particularly stand out:

My Father: The best example of manhood I know is my father, who exemplifies the qualities of strength channeled through duty. My father has always been there for us all while we were growing up. He never failed to tell us that he loved us, or to make it known that he would always support us.

My College Latin/Honors Teacher, Prof. Smith: Probably the finest scholar I ever knew, Prof. Smith was a large, white-bearded man who could control a class effortlessly while simultaneously dropping a classical philosophy of education as the uncovering of reality. I'd say I learned more from him in two years than in my entire prior education.

My Brother-in-Law, Seth: My brother-in-law  is an excellent example of Catholic manhood. He works as a mason (the job, not the secret society), plays guitar, and farms with my sister, their beautiful daughter, their dog, and a dozen or so chickens. Together they comprise the best example I know of a truly Catholic lifestyle.

P.S. I'm sorry this one took so long; I'm generally not very comfortable talking about people I know so directly online. I'll try to blog more regularly in the future.

Google Brain Teasers:

Today I stumbled across a very interesting list of brain-teasers that Google used to force its potential employees to answer. So, just for fun, I decided to list my responses below:

Google Questions and my Answers:

How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?

Answer: Enough. More if you don’t want it to go anywhere.

How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

Answer: Twelve first-born sons, six first-born daughters, two immortal souls, and the cost of water and equipment.

In a country in which people only want boys every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?

Answer: Non sustainable. Hello, China!

Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco

Answer: Quietly and calmly exit the city before anyone realizes something’s wrong (who's gonna miss San Francisco?).

Why are manhole covers round?

Answer: So dumb-bells can be used in a pinch. Alternatively, so they can be more easily transported and replaced.

How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?

Answer: A comfortable surplus.

How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?

Answer: Depends on whether the clock has a second hand. If it doesn’t, 24 times (Once every hour). If it does, then the second hand overlaps with the other two 2880 times a piece and overlaps with both at the same time 24 times.

Explain the significance of "dead beef"

Answer: Either a redundant phrase or the product of someone misusing his words. Or both.

A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?

Answer: He was coming to the hotel to collect his lottery winnings. He was late, so they donated it to the UN. Now no one will ever see that money again.

You need to check that your friend, Bob, has your correct phone number, but you cannot ask him directly. You must write the question on a card which and give it to Eve who will take the card to Bob and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure Bob can encode the message so that Eve cannot read your phone number?

Answer: Write the message in Latin telling him to write the number in Braille. Alternatively, entrust this mission to someone I don’t mind reading my phone number.

You're the captain of a pirate ship and your crew gets to vote on how the gold is divided up. If fewer than half of the pirates agree with you, you die. How do you recommend apportioning the gold in such a way that you get a good share of the booty, but still survive.

Answer: Suggest that slightly more than half of the pirates join me in killing the rest and dividing up their shares.

You have 8 identical balls, 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

Answer: For the first weighing, you put three balls on each side of the balance. If one side is heavier, it contains the heavier ball. If they balance, one of the two remaining balls is the heavier. In the former case, remove all the balls from the lighter end and set them aside. Then remove one ball from the heavier end, move the other to the other side, and weigh. If they balance, the removed ball is the heavier. If they don’t, the heavier side will be revealed. In the latter case, simply weigh the two remaining balls.  

You are given 2 eggs. You have access to a 100-story building. Eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor. Both eggs are identical. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process

Answer: I decide that this test can have no practical use so I go home and scramble the eggs instead. Alternatively, I simply start at floor one, drop the egg, and retrieve it each time to drop it again.

Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.

Answer: It’s a place where people store information so they can find it later. It’s on computers. Making it is a very boring job.

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Answer: Hop into the middle and unscrew the blades with my belt-buckle. Then use the blades to cut my way out and get revenge. 

Any different answers? 

Disappointing Halloween

There are a number of families in my apartment complex, so I naturally assumed there woudl be trick-or-treaters.

I was fairly excited about it; I boought a bunch of large candy bars to overflow my largest bowl, then I went out and bought a few more just to be safe. I bought a pumpkin, threw together a quick 'Death' costume, and even came up with a few macabre jokes to play on the kids ("Your fate involves eating too much candy"). Switched on the light, settled in, and waited.

Turns out I may have overestimated the number of children in my apartment complex.

No trick-or-treaters: not one. I was disappointed, even a little sad. I had been looking forward to handing out candy to the cute little ghoulies and ghosties and pop-culture beasties. Now I'm stuck with a large bowl of candy-bars that I have to finish myself.

At least I got some writing done. And my costume was pretty cool for all it's simplicity.