I grew out my facial hair for 2 and a half months and then decided to style a new beard for every day of finals. Survived finals one day one beard at a time. For your viewing pleasure:

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Patriot Act

Someone had terrible gas in the airplane. Where's the patriot act when you need it?

Prepare the colon to return fire!

The whole plane sat on the tarmac for at least 15 minutes after we landed in Medford Oregon because the people in the Tower (a glorified term for the two drunks with binoculars in a hunting stand) on top of the airport (another 18 cent word I'm using to describe the shed the hunting stand was sitting on) had apparently smelled the fart on the plane and were otherwise too incapacitated to direct the pilot to one of the 3 available gates for de-boarding. The pilot, paralyzed by the open ended math problem facing him, decided the best course of action was to sit with all of the passengers and wait for the tower to wake up from their shit coma.

Plane A leaves Denver traveling west at 326 mph for 2 hours and 43 minutes, arrives with 59 normal passengers and 1 carrying a polluted payload. Plane A comes to a complete stand still at soon to be shit-stained airport. What is the difference between the captain's capacity for spatial reasoning and the passengers' perception of the passage of time as the limit of the passengers' tolerance for fecal math jokes approaches zero?


Shaking like a Rockstar

It's been 9 days since my last sip of a caffeinated drink. Prior to that (see my previous post) I was drinking a lot of coffee. Lots. Too much. I know that because my headache went away.

Today I was walking through Denver International Airport. My flight from Denver to SF was delayed an hour, which would have put me in a major crunch to get on my flight to Medford, OR. The airline gods are on my side today. 1 seat available on a direct flight to Medford? Check. After a satisfy interaction with the airplane guy behind the desk, I got to march a mile to the new gate. On my journey I stumbled across a ROCKSTAR energy drink.

It's hard to describe exactly how I felt about seeing this. I do not need energy to fly. In fact, I would rather drink a beer or two (or 6) and get on the plane and sleep for a couple hours. I'm not a particularly nervous flyer, but sometimes if I act that way I can get extra booze for free on the airplanes. Something different about today. The rockstar. I don't need any caffeine. I don't need energy, awareness, increase HR, shakes, or the diuretic effect of caffeine prior to boarding my flight.

It's calling my name. I bought it. Drank it. Now I'm sitting at my gate waiting (and now shaking). The feeling I got when I saw the drink (I'm bad at telling stories) was happiness. I know exactly what the physiological response to this drink is supposed to be. I know that I'm going to shake, and eventually crash. But all I can think, looking at the rockstar, is that drinking it is going to make me happy. Satisified? Thirst Quenched? Energetic? NAY. Looking at the Rockstar made me feel fucking euphoric.

Anyone know where I can score some cocaine?


Caffeine Pit Stains

It's the end of finals week. Strung out and tired for nearly 3 weeks of studying like a maniac. Bags under my eyes. Stacks of neglected laundry, mail, dirty dishes. Mountains of rewritten notes, drawings, textbooks, photocopies. A whole tree's worth of paper in the trash can. Pens and pencils stashed in every coat, pants, and backpack pocket of every pants, coat and backpack I own. Broke. Scraping by on what's left of ego waffles and campbell's soup. 1 more exam left. Functioning purely on instinct and caffeine. I'm practically sweating coffee. It's ridiculous but I'm here because I believe in what I'm doing. This is going to pay off. I'm here for a reason. One more exam.


Steve McQueen

I was thinking I wanted to get a model of a human skeleton. Probably not a full sized skeleton - I don't even want to think about shipping costs... A half sized skeleton would do just fine, but accurately proportioned and molded with all the appropriate bony landmarks so it could be used for studying should I ever feel so inclined. It's hard to say whether or not I would actually use it to study. The real reason I want a skeleton is so that I can name something and introduce it to people who come to visit my dungeon apartment. Steve McQueen. Ashlee suggested Boris Karloff. That is a good one too.

I'm putting this on my "Things I want for Christmas" list.

All I want for Christmas is hypertrophy of my rectus abdominus.

A cool article on Forecasting the cost of Healthcare in the US


A good read if you get time. No conclusions drawn, but something worth thinking about.


@ Regis

Beginning of week 3 and already every time I am out of line of sight of my books I start to feel a lot of anxiety. I don't even have them open all the time, but if I'm not around I feel like I have a weight on my chest. This is unhealthy. My goal for Week 4 is to study hard and start creating balance. I need to start riding my bike again. Baby steps, I guess.

On a more positive note - I did spend this last weekend as the best man at a very good friend's wedding in Havre MT. It was a long way away from most of my books, but I brought enough homework help me forget any homework-related anxiety. I got to spend the rest of labor day weekend driving to Bozeman singing Flight of the Conchords songs and nursing hangovers. I needed the break after my first two full weeks of grad school, but I have a lot of catching up to do from missing Friday.

I am also going to maintain this blog a little more faithfully. This is partially in case anybody actually reads, and every once in a while to keep myself in check and to make sure I'm doing the things I set out to do. It's like a journal - but not as private, and I might get to crack some good jokes and rant about something every once in a while. -d


Removing the Northstar Engine on a 97 Cadillac Deville Concours.

It's like legos but I swear a lot more...

So I said to myself "Self, what you need is something complicated to do for the next couple months. You should buy this second car and sell chunks of it to people and keep what you need for your own car."

This was a bear of a job that took me a few days less than I thought it would. Still, no easy task here. The broken engine came out and a man bought it for $300. Success!

This is what it looks like before you start pulling all the stuff off. There is NOT a lot of room to work with here. There are 2 ways to remove the engine, lifting it out of the car, or lifting the car off of the engine. The second option is the preferred way to do it. Guess what way I'm NOT doing it...

Air intake has to come off with lots of ground wires and the ignition core, spark plug wires, and lots of other junk. Mostly this is to access the starter, whic his in the CENTER OF THE FREAKING ENGINE BLOCK. What drunk asshole engineer at GM thought that would be a good idea?

Zero clearence. It's a tight freaking job - and nobody should have to do it.

The starter goes in that big hole in the middle.

With the starter gone, I could disconnect the flywheel from the transmission, and then eventually the transmission from the engine.

There is a bracket that connects to this son of a bitchin' thing to the transmission that I had NO IDEA existed. Imagine my suprise when I finally started lifting the engine and the whole car started going into the air. Anyway, don't forget this little guy.

Aaannnnnndddd PRESTO! You too, can remove the Northstar from your cadillac using some simple hand tools, a freaking crane, foul language, and some kinves. After that, you might consider putting easter eggs in it, or lighting it on fire. I hate this engine. Enjoy.

Questions, comments, concerns?


Denver for Denver





This is where I will attend Sunday Mass.



I am Denver Lancaster, and I approve this message.


In my travels, I witnessed many remarkably dull things.

Goal #1 Revisited...




Columbia University, New York, NY - Rejected


Denver: "Okay!"


Denver: "-------"







The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN - Waitlisted



University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA - Accepted!





Columbia University - Rejected

University of Washington - Waitlisted

University of Montana - Waitlisted

The Mayo Clinic - Waitlisted

Regis University - Accepted

University of Puget Sound - Accepted