I took a couple pictures (one and two)of the couch late in the afternoon yesterday. You can see the design a bit better, but unfortunately the color still isn't coming out right. It should be brighter green color rather than the dull gray the picture shows. So much for my career as a photographer.
All right, I added some pics of the bookshelf in our living room and the couch we just bought yesterday. Unfortunately, the couch doesn't show up to well at night, so this afternoon we'll have to take more pictures of it, but rest assured that it's a great couch!
For the bookshelf pictures, note especially this one, where we have thoughtfully devoted a shelf to "Earl Anthony: Super Bowling: Tips That Take You To The Top", along with a mini bowling set for extra practice. Also, note the "Christian sandwich" in this picture. Each of the books in this picture falls under the description "epic classic", which is of course why they are all grouped together (the blue book on the far right is the collected works of William Shakespeare, right alongside "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night").
I had my first office hours yesterday. Nobody came. I wouldn't have come if I had been an undergrad in the class though.
The Dave Matthews Band concert was awesome last night. They played a bunch of songs that I didn't know but were still good. I think that means I need to be getting some of their newer CDs. Both Tiff and I are tired, but we have a lot to do today (I didn't get much studying done yesterday) so there's no rest for the weary.
http://wrigley.as.arizona.edu/~rsbussmann/pics/dining
I'm "teaching" this semester. Of course, no one in their right mind would call what I'll be doing teaching. My responsibilities are essentially grading and holding two office hours a week. But, it's what's gonna pay the bills.
Our sweet dining room table should be delivered in the next hour and a half or so. I ran into Tiff on the way to school, so things are looking good on that front.
I finished seventh out of eight in the LPL poker championship last night. Eric busted me out, which was extraordinarily unkind given the fact that I gave him a ride to the tournament!
I just removed two dead mice from my office. It appears that the number of dead mice to be found in the office is directly proportional to the number of traps that are set, which is disconcerting to say the least.
In brighter news, Tiff and I moved in to our new house over the weekend. The place is absolutely amazing! Huge windows in every room, hardwood floors in all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom (tile), and just a very well designed kitchen make it awesome. Yesterday we bought an expensive dining table set (table + six chairs) at an upscale thrift store. It was $500 for the whole thing. Sure it's expensive, but furniture is expensive, and we decided this was something we could keep for a long time. We also bought a couple of chairs and a bookcase. I'm especially proud of one of the chairs because it's a rocking chair! How awesome is that! Rocking chairs rock.
Pictures of our new place can be found at http://wrigley.as.arizona.edu/~rsbussmann/pics/movingweekend/
I spent four hours today learning next to nothing during the course of a required teaching orientation for new TAs. The only good part was a one hour talk on how to be a good teacher. I thought the guy giving the talk covered a lot of important material in an interesting manner. The rest of it, however, could have been more quickly and efficiently conveyed in handouts. The worst part was that they didn't have any food and the damn thing started at 8 am and didn't finish until noon. We did get one 15 minute break that became a 5 minute break when the early morning stuff ran over-time. Ugh.
Meanwhile, studying for the written prelim is something that can best be described as "abject misery". Ok, it's not that bad and I feel like I've learned a fair bit already. But I've only gotten through one class so far, and when I looked at the final I didn't have a clue how to do any of the problems (not unlike when I actually took the damn thing and got the worst grade in the class on it, good for a C in the class overall!). I have 32 days left before the exam, 10 of which are weekend days. I'd estimate that I've studied about 5 days so far, all on this one stupid class. That leaves 22 days for 11 classes, plus all the previous written prelims (4 years worth). I may have to step up my productivity here. Or just fail. Grrr.
So far I've spent the first hour at work looking at furniture for our new place. Yes!
So far, Ikea looks like the place to go. At first I was just gonna look up dining room tables, but then I thought, hey, how about a few chairs to go along with that. And then, hey, how about a coffee table or an end table? Why not a spice rack too? And then an hour was passed.
Time to get to work...
My office at work has been under seige by a mouse I dubbed Morley over the course of the past week or so. Unfortunately, I think the fault lies primarily with me for our office being a target, since I kept a big bag of honey roasted sesame sticks in a drawer of my desk, as well as cookies and rice cakes. Judging from the initial mess in my desk though, it was clear that Morley preferred the sesame sticks. I actually didn't mind so much that he ate the food, since I left it there for any type of creature to eat. The problem is that he pooped indiscriminantly wherever he went. Since he spent a lot of time gorging himself in my desk, he pooped a lot there! Not only that, but in the next few days after that, he kept coming back to my desk and pooping in it overnight! Even though there was no food in there anymore. That was when I lost any respect I had for Morley (he had built up a little respect with me, since I saw his escape method from the room: climb up an ethernet cable through a gaping hole in the ceiling; fortunately for him, our office has plenty of gaping holes in the ceiling with ethernet cables dangling down from them). So even though it's a little sad seeing him stuck in the mouse trap this morning, I'm not gonna shed too many tears over him.
Tiff and I have a new place to live at 2103 E. Mabel St. We won't be able to move in until August 15th or later, so I won't have pictures till then. You take my word for it though: it's a great place!
Tiff and I are in Tucson now after a lot of driving on the road from Madison to San Francisco for a marathon on Sunday then here to Tucson. Jayme and Nelson were nice enough to drive along with us from SF to Tucson. We just watched Aladdin with them at my place. It was a lot of fun, especially when Jayme, Nelson, or Tiff would speak up with the lines before they happened! We're still looking for a place in Tucson. We've decided we need to up how much we're willing to pay so that we get a nice place in a nice neighborhood. Well, that's it for now. Pretty fing exciting, eh?
I made cajun skillet beans from the moosewood book and it went over well. I was pleased. We also tried the berry sauce from my parents. That went over well too. I'm sure my parents would be or even are (now having read this) pleased.
Tiff just read this post and it went over well. I'm pleased.
