I’ll be home for Christmas

Happy New Year, everybody. Hope it’s going well so far. Now gather round and I’ll tell you a story about how I spent the holidays.

Way too early in the morning on Saturday, December 24, I took a taxi to Seattle-Tacoma International Aiport. After a layover in Phoenix (spoiler alert for those who haven’t been there: the landscape is all brown), I found myself at good old Orlando International Airport, waiting for Kate to fly in and my family to pick us up.

After a long wait, Kate arrived and so did my parents and my sister. We set off back to my parents’ house, where we had some light noms for dinner and decorated the Christmas tree. Some people always decorate their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, but in my family we normally do it super early, so it was nice for my family to wait. My dad and/or mom had actually cut down the tree themselves since they live out in the relative wilderness now, near Christmas tree farms and things like that.

The next morning was Christmas morning, and, still jetlagged, I slept way in. By the time everyone woke up, it was time for a late breakfast, so we decide to eat before opening presents. Then we exchanged gifts. It was such a familiar feeling to me that it was hard to remember that I wasn’t home for Christmas the previous year. I normally dread giving gifts because I never know what to get, but this year I felt like I’d picked some winners. (I was really happy with the stuff I got, too. I’m surrounded by good gift-givers.) Later, other friends/family came over for a turkey dinner, and after that, more gifts were exchanged. It was a great Christmas.

The day after that was a pretty lazy day. My parents had the day off, so we all went for a hike nearby. It might have been pretty cold by my previous standards, but I found that after living in Seattle for less than a year, I could withstand the Florida winter a lot better. We probably did other things that day, but I don’t remember what they were.

On Tuesday, Kate wanted to explore nearby Gainesville, but my parents had to work. Fortunately, my Aunt Sandi volunteered to take us around, and we even visited some places I had never been to before. After going to Bealls Outlet (one of Kate’s favorite stores), we tried to go to the Devil’s Millhopper only to find that they were closed on Tuesdays. Nearby was a musical instrument store I had never been to, so we checked it out. We plinked around on a steel drum, surely to the delight of everyone who was working and shopping there, and I strummed some acoustic guitars for Kate.

For lunch, we went to The Jones, a local-type restaurant that I had wanted to go to with Kate during one of her previous visits (that time, we went to an Italian buffet instead). The food was great, and I’d love to go there again.

Well, that’s all I have to time to impart right now. Next time: kittens.

You probably know that certain societies (ours not being among them) have a lax attitude toward drinking alcohol. So it seems that the effects of alcohol are a self-fulfilling prophecy. The author of this article for the BBC suggests that if we make alcohol seem boring to kids, they’ll stop binge drinking and engaging in other drunken shenanigans.

Home on the range?

It’s Election Day all around the country. This year, here in Washington, it’s mostly about electing school board members and deciding whether the state should continue to have a monopoly on selling liquor. But next year is a presidential election, and, like many people, I’ve already been thinking about it.

I could have added to my recent lament (and I could have sworn I did) that the US is woefully locked in to a two-party system that offers us little real choice. It’s one cog of the machine in which corporations buy politicians and get favorable laws out of them. I’ve at times been tempted to support third-party candidates, but it seems hopeless: Voting for your favorite third-party candidate means not voting for your preferred major-party candidate, which helps your less preferred major-party candidate cruise to victory. It’s called the spoiler effect, and if you want to avoid it, you have to vote dishonestly. I’ve always accepted this as a sad reality of life.

But it doesn’t have to be so. Your vote doesn’t have to consist of picking a single candidate to the exclusion of all others. I’ve just found out about a system of voting called range voting. In range voting, a voter ranks the candidates on a numeric scale according to preference (say, 0 to 10), and the candidate most preferred by voters—the one with the highest average score—wins. This allows voters to express various levels of support for various candidates, eliminating both the spoiler effect and dishonest voting. With range voting, third-party candidates could get enough support to level the playing field without “stealing” votes that could cause one major-party candidate to lose to the other. Everyone wins, if you will.

There’s a related system called approval voting. Approval voting essentially takes the system we have now and makes it multiple choice: You can select (approve) more than one candidate, and the candidate approved by the greatest number of voters is the winner. In fact, approval voting can be thought of as range voting where the scale consists only of 0 and 1. The advantage over range voting is that it’s extremely simple, but it doesn’t allow voters to express their preferences as clearly and may not be as beneficial to third parties.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be very much interest in either of these systems. Although several organizations have used approval voting (including the United Nations and IEEE), it’s just not very well-known, and the main source of information about range voting seems to be a poorly designed website by the mathematician who developed it.

No voting system is perfect (otherwise there probably wouldn’t be a whole branch of mathematics dedicated to them), but range voting and approval voting sound much better than anything else I’ve ever heard of. I would really like to help out an organization that supports one or both, but the Center for Election Science (which supports approval voting) and the Center for Range Voting both seem to be tiny groups with little or no momentum; the latter, whose website is the poorly-designed one I linked to above, seems to consist of that one mathematician. (And actually, I just noticed that he’s the president of the former as well.) Meanwhile, FairVote, which advocates the apparently flawed system known as instant-runoff voting, has actual support and a spiffier name.

I’m now imagining myself spearheading an initiative for local elections to use approval or range voting. It would be pretty cool to make a difference like that. But if it’s even possible, it would be extremely tiring and expensive: Seattle is one of the most populous cities in the United States, so I’d need quite a bit of help. I’m not sure, but it might even be necessary to change state law to allow approval or range voting. So, semi-jokingly, I ask: Who’s with me? And a little more seriously, I ask: How could I start?

BBC readers complain about annoying Americanisms. A lot of them sound perfectly normal and correct to me, but I’ve never heard of others. And of course, some of them are genuinely annoying.

The college years are over

These past few months, while I haven’t been writing about my trip to Russia, I’ve been focusing on my studies. It was my last semester of college, and I had a lot of stuff on my plate, so I wanted to make sure I did a good job with everything. In my case, I needed to take a full course load this semester to satisfy all my requirements.

One of the things I had to do was complete a senior project. I chose to develop a ride-sharing website in a similar vein as CouchSurfing. I need to make sure the university doesn’t own the rights to it; otherwise I’d like to roll it out myself sometime later.

Since I work on campus, this week is my last week of work. (I think I’ll have to come in on Monday for a little bit, but probably not for long.) At this month’s meeting, on April 14, the other graduating seniors and I were honored with certificates, windbreakers, and catering from Olive Garden. Three of my favorite things right there. They’re going to miss me at work, and I’ll miss being there, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to move out to Seattle and work at Amazon.

I can’t pretend that I haven’t been thinking about the move—I’ve been obsessing over it, actually—but I’ve been trying to reflect on the past four years as well. You know, to wax poetic the way I usually do. I’ve done some fun stuff and made a lot of friends. I don’t think I would have done anything differently if I could do it all again. Maybe I would have gone out more (I played a lot of Minesweeper my freshman year). I think I’ve turned out okay, though.

Right now, I’m kind of in a weird place: My classes are over, but instead of heading home as I usually would have done by now, I’m staying in Gainesville, going to work every day, and waiting for the graduation ceremony. My sister is graduating on Saturday; I’m graduating on Sunday. (Surely she’ll brag about this for years to come, just like how she tells everyone that she’s a minute older than I am.)

I can already tell that college graduation is different from high school graduation: it’s not mandatory, no rehearsals you have to attend, no maximum number of people you can bring, no bullshit. Well, there is some bullshit: Herff-Jones is back and selling college rings. But you and we that have free souls, it touches us not.

So, on Sunday, I shall stride across a stage wearing funny clothes and pretend to receive a diploma. Call it what you want, but I call it closure.

And hey, if you can’t make it or just want to be a total creeper, you can watch my graduation online! Click that link at 5:00 PM EDT on Sunday; that’s when it’s supposed to start.

And while I have your attention, it’s time to bust the myth that fast-food burgers don’t rot because they’ve got nasty stuff in them. Actually, it looks like homemade burgers don’t rot either. (Via The Presurfer)

Everything’s waiting for you

My old roommate Andy moved out last month, and a new roommate took his place on Friday. Now I live with three or four people whom I don’t know very well (or at all), and it’s because I wanted to save money by living in a four-bedroom apartment.

I doubt many people live in this apartment complex for more than a couple of years. It’s designed for college students. Leases take effect in August and last 9 or 12 months. All utilities are included in the rent. For every few buildings (and there are many), there’s a “community assistant,” analogous to an RA in a college dorm. And the place has a mascot. It’s a giant squirrel. Named Dr. Speckles. I wish I were making this up.

Just as I felt restless after a year and a half in the dorms, now I feel restless after a year and a half here. I often think back to my travels in Europe and, more recently, Russia. I would stay in an apartment with one of the locals, and we would go out on a five-minute walk to a restaurant or a shop or something else interesting. It’s not like that here. I feel isolated. There’s only one bus route that goes by this place, and nothing is in walking distance (except for about three restaurants, but there’s no sidewalk on the way).

After thinking about it a bit, I’ve decided that I want to stay in Gainesville after graduation, which is only a few months away. Specifically, I want to live by myself in an apartment downtown. That way, I can be within walking distance of shopping, entertainment, and dining opportunities. There are a lot of restaurants and cafes I’ve never been to but would like to check out, and there are some great ones (like Dragonfly and The Top—wait, their official site is on Myspace? How ironic of them) that I would love to be closer to.

Plus, I’d be a short walk away from libraries, a park, a branch of my bank, and a post office. A post office! I could get my own PO box so stuff I order online wouldn’t be left at my doorstep for people to steal! (Wait… I’m checking this out now. PO boxes start at $60 per year in my area?? I’d have to think about that one some more. Now I’ve just Facebook-stalked the downtown apartment complex I’ve had my eye on, and it seems that they hold packages in the office. I’m in love.)

Living downtown, I would also be near the main bus station. In fact, this place I’m considering is located along 6 bus routes and is a short walk away from 6 more. Since I’m not planning on getting a car, this is hugely important to me. I would be just one bus ride away from places like the Oaks Mall, Butler Plaza, and Satchel’s Pizza. Wherever I end up working, I’d probably be able to get there pretty easily.

I’ve tried to imagine possible downsides as well. Noise might be a problem, as well as the presence of drunk and/or homeless people, but I’m not really sure. I should see if anyone I know lives in the area and talk to them about it (if anyone reading this has lived downtown, please feel free to chime in). The only things I would miss about my current place being close to are my sister (if she doesn’t also move) and Marco’s Pizza (which, sadly, doesn’t seem to deliver out that way).

So, I mentioned this downtown apartment complex that I’m interested in checking out. There are four different one-bedroom floor plans, a couple of which have patios or balconies, as the case may be. I would like another go at having a balcony. The one here at my current apartment is pretty crappy. There’s nothing to look at except for some trees, and the last person who lived here left a bunch of junk there that no one has ever gotten rid of. Nobody uses our balcony.

This downtown place looks like it’s not specifically for students. Some reviews I’ve read online say that there are plenty of grad students and families living there. That’s the kind of place I want to live in. The complex’s web site suggests that you don’t have to move in on a certain day in August and that you deal with utility companies directly, which is great because I want options. I don’t want cable, but I do want really fast Internet service and maybe a landline.

Oh, and then there’s the cost. If I live downtown, it looks like I’ll have to pay 2 or 3 times as much for rent as I do now. Since I’m a habitual saver (or, more accurately, a habitual non-spender [or, even more accurately, a non-habitual spender]), I don’t think this will be a problem as long as I get a job within a couple months of moving in.

So… thoughts?

Here’s why you shouldn’t play the lottery: Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator. Wikipedia tells me that Mega Millions is a game available in most states, but the general principle is the same as with any lottery: the more you play, the more money you’ll probably lose. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Moderate quasi-home makeover

Andy, my roommate of a year and a half (but it seems like longer), left on Thursday. His decision to move out put me into a bit of a jam, but it’s not his fault. Somehow, I’ve managed to get through three and a half years of college without having my own dishes. Or silverware. Or a bunch of other stuff.

My first two years of college, I lived in a dorm (or “residence hall,” to be politically correct), so I usually ate at the dining hall (or “dining hall”) and used paper plates and plastic silverware when I didn’t. Then I moved in to this apartment with Andy and Ryan, and each of them had a full set of cutlery and cookware and whatnot. They let me use most of it, so I didn’t need to buy my own stuff. Ryan moved out this year, so I’ve just been using Andy’s stuff and whatever Ryan left behind.

With Andy moving out, a lot of things in the kitchen (and living room, and elsewhere) would be gone, so I had to do something. Since I’m almost done with college (yikes!), I figured it would be best to skip over the cheap college-dorm furnishings and get quality stuff for myself—things that would last a lifetime (or more than four years, at least). On Sunday, Andy and I went out to Walmart, Target, and Bed Bath & Beyond so I could buy what I needed.

Since I expect to move in to my own apartment after I graduate, I’ve been thinking about how I want to decorate it. After living for so long in a dorm room and a cheap apartment, I want a place that really feels like home. That’s why I want my next apartment to be reminiscent of a mountain lodge. Think about it: what’s cozier than a warm lodge in the dead of winter? Ideally, there would be a lot of wood and stone and earth tones and things like that. So, when I was going shopping, I mostly picked things that were brown and had an old-fashioned or classic look.

One of the most important purchases of the day was a set brown stoneware plates and bowls. They have a handmade look to them (probably because they were made by hand in China, but never mind). I also got a set of silverware. It’s brushed stainless steel, so it actually kind of looks like silver (I think?), and each piece is heavy and strong. Together, they look like things your ancestors would have eaten with on the frontier. Or in a lodge.

Another major purchase was a floor lamp for the living room. Andy had a really cheap one, and I wanted to get something nicer. I ended up springing for this iron cage floor lamp with a bronze finish and an alabaster glass shade (can you tell I’m copying stuff from the description?). But it looks really nice, and I like it. I think it goes with the theme (a sentence I must have said about a hundred times while we were shopping). The lamp, the silverware, and the dishes came from Target. I love Target.

At Bed Bath & Beyond, I found one of those clocks that update themselves based on radio signals from an atomic clock. I had been wanting one for the living room for a while, and I liked this one because it was a pale gold color with wood paneling on either side. (It goes with the theme!) So, I bought it. The display model was the only one they had in stock, and it didn’t include the outdoor temperature sensor that the product’s web site says goes with it. I don’t really need that, so I set it to show seconds instead of the outdoor temperature. I still like it because it gets the radio signal and it looks really slick.

The other things I bought were:

• Wooden cutlery tray (the thing that keeps your silverware organized in the drawer)
• Dish drainer and a tray to go under it
• Dish towel
• Doormat
• Oven mitts (I don’t bake stuff, but I take hot things out of the microwave)
• Paper towel holder
• Plastic containers
• Pot with lid (I pretty much just make pasta, so I don’t need pans or anything right now)
• Ladle, spatula, and various other kitchen utensils (mainly for the ladle, see above)
• Colander

It’s pretty sad without Andy being there, but at least I can eat.

An article from Wired: Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.

Walk, don’t run

I guess it started a couple of Mondays ago, when, standing at the bus stop, I noticed that I was starting to get sick. My condition deteriorated within a few hours, and I spent the next day and a half back at my apartment. I went back to school and work on Wednesday with nothing but a lingering sore throat, and I thought that was that.

Well, if that had been that, that wouldn’t be the first paragraph of this post, now would it?

Last Monday, my throat suddenly became much sorer, but I went to school and work anyway. It wasn’t till I got home that I suspected that my tonsils might be involved. Sure enough, I opened my mouth and there they were. I had never had any problems with them before, which is why I didn’t think about them right away. But there was no doubt; my tonsils were swollen.

I knew I had to see a doctor, but I hadn’t been to one since I was maybe four. My parents always took me to a chiropractor instead—several times a week, in fact. I’d been taught to believe that diseases were caused by pinched nerves in the spine, that vaccines caused autism, and that “Just Say No to Drugs” referred to all drugs. It’s a wonder that my friends didn’t fall over laughing as I told them all this. Fortunately, the subject never came up much, but I did live in fear of the question: “So, who’s your family doctor?”

Now I needed one, and I didn’t have one. But I figured I could go to the Student Health Care Center on campus, so the next morning, I called to make a same-day appointment. Each student is assigned a team of doctors, each with its own office in the Infirmary; I was given directions to mine and the instruction to come early so I could fill out some new-patient paperwork.

An hour later, there I was in the waiting room, filling out some forms. I was on the other side. My family had just moved and I couldn’t remember my new address, so I had to give my parents a call. I didn’t want to make a big deal about my situation, but I told them (in my strange, tonsilitic voice) what was up. I also took this opportunity to ask them whether the health insurance card I had in my wallet was still valid. And… it wasn’t. I had no health insurance.

They measured my height and weight (I’m officially 6’1″, you guys), and then I was directed to go into a small room, where I sat on some big table-looking thing. I don’t even know how I knew to sit on this; I must have just seen it on TV. Someone came in to take my pulse and blood pressure and asked me about my symptoms. She took my temperature: 101.3 degrees. A doctor came in and gave me a couple Tylenol and a can of Gatorade.

Then she took a swab from my tonsils, and after I sat around by myself for what seemed like an eternity, she came back with the results: I had an upper respiratory infection, both viral and bacterial in nature. This, she said, was unusual. She gave me a prescription for antibiotics, which would make me feel all better within 48 hours, and said I could get them for free at a local supermarket. On the prescription was the diagnosis: acute pharyngitis. Huh. Not so cute to me!

Antibiotics: a word only referred to in my family with derision and in hushed tones. I had been taught that if you take antibiotics, you might as well be killing yourself. They were basically the worst thing in the world other than vaccines. Outside the Infirmary, I called my parents to give them an update on the situation. Since they now live close by, my dad offered to pick me up and help me get the prescription. Fortunately, even though my parents don’t like antibiotics, they recognize when they are necessary.

So, we went to the supermarket, and while the prescription was being filled by a dude in a white lab coat, we went around and bought some stuff I would need to help me battle my illness: orange juice, Gatorade, canned soup, and a few other necessities (such as a couple of king-size Mexican Cokes from the Hispanic foods aisle). Then my dad dropped me off back at my apartment, where I proceeded to do very little. It was hard to eat, not only because I had difficulty swallowing but also because my appetite had been reduced to almost nothing.

The next day, my parents offered to pick me up and let me stay at the house. It took me all day to decide, but once I saw that I wasn’t getting better, I took them up on the offer. I had been concerned about getting them sick, but I followed the doctor’s advice of washing my hands a lot. It sure was nice to be away from everything and to be close to my family in their new forest abode. The home-cooked meals were good too.

I had been taking the antibiotics as prescribed, getting plenty of rest, drinking fluids, and gargling with hot salt water, but the 48-hour mark had passed, and my tonsils were just as swollen as ever, maybe even more so. The only consolation was that I was less queasy, although not many foods could fit through my mouth anyway. I was beginning to lose hope when my dad mentioned that I should stay positive. But why? I wondered. That doesn’t make any sense. This should work whether I think it will or not!

But then I started thinking about it. I started thinking about the placebo effect and other counterintuitive things science has revealed about the efficacy of treatments. And I thought about a teenage girl standing up in an Alabama science classroom, saying, “But it don’t make a lick of sense!”

Maybe it doesn’t, random kid. (I imagined her in more detail, by the way. She has three kids. They are addicted to Mountain Dew and all have different daddies.) Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you. But you’re not the researcher. You didn’t administer a double-blind study whose results were independently reproduced by others at a different time and place. And neither did I. But somebody did.

In short, all I had to do was be happy, and that would make me feel better. It made me happy that that was all I had to do. I had all the medicine, but I had just been missing this last piece of the puzzle. It was a vicious cycle of happiness, really, that I just had to jump into. I slept happily.

The next morning, my throat was even sorer, and my fever was still 101.3. I called the Student Health Care Center to make another same-day appointment. The receptionist told me that they were all booked for the day without even letting me get a word in edgewise, which, as you know, is the only way you can get words in most of the time. So I hung up without saying another word. I called the number on my doctor’s card with the hope that I could reach her directly, but I got the receptionist again. “Didn’t you just call?” Click. She must have been mad.

My dad decided to give them a call next. I was afraid he was going to give them an earful, but he explained the situation calmly and managed to get a nurse to talk to me on the phone. When I told the nurse that my medication wasn’t working, she urged me to come in for a visit immediately so that they could squeeze me in.

We got there as soon as we could. Apparently there had been nothing for the receptionist to get mad about; she thought that my cell phone service had been cutting out. My doctor was out that day (as was almost everyone else, apparently; no one gets sick on Fridays, I guess), but another doctor met with me. She suspected mono right away and set me upstairs to the lab for a blood test.

This was another new thing for me. I don’t give blood, and I haven’t been vaccinated for as long as I can remember, so the idea of needles penetrating my skin was something I wasn’t familiar with. Things like that don’t make me sick easily, but I was concerned about what it might feel like, so I asked the woman who was about to take a blood sample. She said it was just a prick, nothing to be worried about. I said yes, but some people pass out when they see needles. No need to worry about this one, she quipped, it’s never been used.

The needle hurt more than I thought it would. I didn’t want to look. But it was over quickly, and I made my way back downstairs to await the results of the test. After what seemed like forever, I was called back in to meet with the doctor. She came in with a copy of the lab report and said, “I was right!”

She showed me the numbers on the report and explained why I had mono, but I was too busy looking for my blood type to pay much attention. (I didn’t see it.) Apparently, I would have it for at least a few weeks. She also noted that I was “borderline” anemic, which I thought was odd since I thought I ate a lot of meat and enough green vegetables. This was almost too much for me to wrap my head around.

The doctor prescribed me some steroids, which I could pick up for a small fee at the pharmacy upstairs. As for further treatment, she said I should eat a good diet of fruits, vegetables, meat, grains, etc. (basically, not processed food); drink lots of water; sleep a lot; not drink alcohol; and avoid contact sports, which could cause me to rupture my spleen. In other words, the Rx was to relax. I could get behind that.

I picked up the drugs and went back to the house to recover. My tonsils started returning to their normal size later that day. The next morning, my fever was gone, and by Sunday, I was all better. The doctor had said I could get back to work and school when my fever was gone, so I went back yesterday. The only thing I’ve noticed is that I’m more tired than usual. Hopefully that’ll be my last symptom.

Today, I went to the Student Health Care Center for a follow-up just to make sure everything was okay. I’m very pleased that they were able to help me for free. Even though I didn’t have insurance, all I had to pay for was the steroids, which only cost $10 (actually $9.99—why?). And I’m glad that they were able to squeeze me in on a busy Friday when my medication wasn’t working. Best of all, I now have a good reason not to hate doctors.

The next phase of the treatment is in my own hands. The doctor said that if I take it easy and try not to overexert myself, I shouldn’t have to go back for another appointment… unless the whites of my eyes turn yellow. Then I should definitely get that checked out.

Coincidentally, this was next on my list of links to post: Darryl Cunningham Investigates: Homeopathy. It’s a brief run-down of homeopathy in comic book form, similar to the one about the MMR vaccination controversy that I linked to recently. (Via waxy.org)

Adventures with Kate, part five

We now return to Adventures with Kate. When we last left our heroes, they had spent a second day in historic St. Augustine.

The next day was Wednesday, August 11. Our host dropped us off at the Greyhound bus stop—St. Augustine doesn’t have an actual station—and, in keeping with his occupation in the home entertainment business, gave us some (solicited) parting advice on buying TVs. (Stick to names that you know, and don’t buy Vizio.)

Our original plan had been to spend the night in Jacksonville and return to Gainesville the next day, but since we couldn’t CouchSurfers to stay with in Jacksonville, we decided to go back to Gainesville that same day. (I apologize to my friends who live in the Jacksonville area, but I forgot about you because you had just moved there, and I bet you wouldn’t have had much time or space for us anyway, given your whole moving situation and all. We cool?)

Back at the Jacksonville Greyhound station, Kate and I were hungry, and we didn’t have much time to go and eat before our next bus. We found an Italian-type restaurant a few blocks away from the station, and as we waited for our food, Kate used some place’s Wi-Fi to check for last-second acceptances of our last-minute couch requests. No dice.

After a little while, we got back to the station, taking our food in case we had time to finish it. (Surprisingly, we were allowed to eat in the station.) Unfortunately, in order to get back to Gainesville that same day, we would have to suffer a layover of several hours in Lake City. Wondering what there was to do there (“nothing,” our host had told us), we had decided just to walk around and see what there was to do.

The Lake City bus station was near the center of town, which didn’t seem too implausible, since probably everything was near the center of town. We had passed some important-looking buildings on the way to the station, so it was in their direction that I suggested we walk. The main building turned out to be the Columbia County Courthouse (or, according to the building itself, the COLVMBIA COVNTY COVRT HOVSE, which is hard to pronounce—trust me, I tried). Kate and I, the shutterbugs that we are, started snapping away.

In front of the building was an obelisk, a memorial to the Confederate veterans of a particular battle that had happened in the area. Elsewhere were tombstone-like memorials commemorating later wars. There were five of them, arranged chronologically from left to right in an unfinished semicircle. I said, not entirely jokingly, that they were saving space for future wars. I failed to notice that there wasn’t yet a memorial for the wars we were currently in.

The sun was hot, and we were tired and thirsty, so we looked for a place to relax and have something to drink. We found a cafe and went inside. There were some tables and an empty stage, but no one was there except for a fat kid plunking around on an organ in the corner of the room. In the back was a doorway with beads hanging from it. We went through, and there were a few patrons nestled among wall-length bookshelves, which were filled with books, and random things like a knight’s suit of armor. Behind the bar, a man with a rebellious haircut told us that the cafe had just reopened and that they didn’t have much food. Kate wanted juice, and since they didn’t have any of that either, we moved on.

Nearby was an old-time pharmacy and soda fountain, so I saw an opportunity to give Kate a taste of old-fashioned America. We went inside. On one side was the pharmacy, which was open, and on the other side was the soda fountain, which had already closed. We sat down at a table anyway, and since no one came to us, I went over to the pharmacy side and bought a Pepsi out of the fridge. Kate got a Sierra Mist. Sitting at our table, we used Kate’s computer and the soda fountain’s Wi-Fi to get online. Kate sent a message to her mother, and I signed up for an account at CouchSurfing.

At our quiet table, we had a view of the spare traffic going hither and thither along Marion Avenue. At one point, while Kate was using the facilities, a man came up to the window and stopped. He silently asked for the time. I showed him my cell phone, and he seemed satisfied. But then he held up a note saying that he was deaf and that he needed 75 cents. I knew that like most beggars he was probably just collecting money for drugs, but as a result of my Catholic upbringing I felt obliged to give him a little bit just in case he really needed it. We each went to the entrance of the building, where I opened the door and dropped some spare change into his hand. As I got back into my seat, I saw him give a gesture of success to a woman driving pick-up truck slowly alongside him.

The next time someone asks me for money, I guess I should really just tell them to get help at their local homeless shelter, but I feel bad saying no to people who are (apparently) in need. I would be glad to give a little extra to them, but how do you know who really needs the money and who doesn’t? Fortunately I don’t have to make that decision every day, but if I ever live in a big city, I’d probably grapple with it often.

We didn’t have much time before our bus came, so we walked a couple of blocks to see one of Lake City’s famous lakes. It wasn’t very big, and it had a fountain in the middle, but there seemed to be actual life in and around it, such as the Muscovy ducks (Kate thought they were chickens at first and was amused when I told her their name) that a couple of people were feeding en masse. It started drizzling sporadically, so we took that as our cue to get back to the bus station.

We arrived back in Gainesville and started our long trek from the Greyhound bus station to my apartment. We went through the University of Florida campus, where we stopped for a while to admire a double rainbow that had appeared in the sky. As Kate and I talked about the double rainbow video that had been making rounds on the Internet, I overheard some other passersby gawking at the rainbows and talking about the video as well.

After a bus ride from campus, we were back at the apartment at last.

Here’s an interesting analysis of Americans’ evolving views of homosexuality: “Gay? Whatever, Dude.”

Adventures with Kate, part three

On the morning of Monday, August 9, Andy drove Kate and me to the Greyhound station. Kate and I would be taking a bus to St. Augustine; while we were there, Andy would be going to Albany and staying there for a couple of weeks. Since Kate and Andy wouldn’t see each other again, their goodbyes were especially poignant.

Kate was a seasoned Greyhound pro by this time, but I had never ridden with them before. In fact, I would venture to guess that not many people have. Besides that it’s inconvenient for a majority of Americans (i.e., the ones who have cars), I think there’s a sort of stigma attached to bus travel in this country. I was about to find out whether there was any reason for that.

Our bus pulled up, and we made our way on. The bus seemed decent enough—there was a good amount of leg room—but we changed seats to get away from some people who were talking. (There are no assigned seats, but you can’t sit in the very front. I don’t even know why they have the seats there if you can’t sit in them, but that turned out to be the rule in every Greyhound bus that I rode on. Maybe someone can enlighten me.)

The bus set off for Jacksonville, where we would have a brief layover. I had only made the trip from Gainesville to Jacksonville once, so it wasn’t really familiar to me. You pass by Gainesville’s cute little airport, and then for most of the trip you’re traveling through small towns in the middle (or, to be fair, probably closer to the edge) of nowhere. You also pass by the Florida State Prison.

It was near here that I happened to notice the bus driver talking on his cell phone. We were driving through a small city—I guess it was Starke—but that was no excuse for his behavior. Still, I was feeling more non-confrontational than concerned. I decided to complain to Greyhound later, but even then I forgot. I think Kate did it. The driver talked for about ten minutes, and when he wasn’t talking, he was singing. Why don’t more people ride Greyhound??

To pass the time and try to ignore the merry bus driver, I continued reading Of Human Bondage, which I was eager to finish by the end of Kate’s visit so we could talk about it. Kate was busy taking pictures with the new camera that I had bought for her. It was a Pentax K-x, a DSLR, and I agreed to give it to her as a gift to help offset the cost of her flying all the way here from Russia. She’s a photography nut just like me, although she’s more serious about it than I am. I don’t see myself wanting an SLR anytime soon.

It wasn’t long before we reached the Greyhound station in the metropolis of Jacksonville. It was a relatively large building with a number of “gates” that different buses could pull up to. (These were nothing more than a row of numbered doors, each of which corresponded to a bus-sized parking space outside.) We didn’t have long to wait, and in the meantime a poster imploring runaways to call a particular hotline for help tickled my fancy. Stigma, stigma, stigma.

Next, we hopped on the bus heading for St. Augustine. We were going to be late meeting with our host. Kate had made sleeping arrangements for us via the CouchSurfing hospitality network, and our host had volunteered to pick us up at the Greyhound station in St. Augustine. When we arrived, he and his roommate were waiting for us in their vehicle. They took us to a restaurant for a late lunch.

The restaurant was located on the water, but the water wasn’t the ocean. It was a marshy, tidal sort of thing with crabs and pink birds running around, and there was a marina nearby with lots of boats. The restaurant also had a pen with a couple of baby alligators in it, and Kate and I checked them out after lunch. Then we wandered around and checked out the boats. Our hosts gladly followed us around.

Then, they took us back to their place. They lived close to the historic part of Saint Augustine, near the possibly famous Bridge of Lions. Actually, the bridge seemed to be going extensive renovations, and the lion statues had been placed in storage. So for the moment it was the Bridge of No Lions.

Later, Kate and I started to explore historic downtown St. Augustine. Kate needed a certain filter for her lens, so our first stop was a camera store that our host had looked up for us. The place turned out to be pretty sketchalicious, selling nothing but the incongruous combination of electronics and beauty supplies. There were cameras and makeup everywhere. The guy at the store had the filter she needed, and he wanted an arm and a leg for it, but Kate managed to talk him down to a more reasonable price.

With Kate’s camera safe from the harmful rays of the sun, we were free to meander around some more. We made our way to Castillo de San Marcos, the historic fort that was built by the Spanish. We didn’t have much time to spend there before it closed, but I was determined to make every minute count. I had only been to the fort once before, and it had been undergoing renovations, so I didn’t get to see much of it. This time, we were free to walk around the courtyard and the various rooms that opened up into it. We spent a long time sitting in the old chapel. Soon after, the fort closed, and we had to leave.

From there, we walked down historic St. George St. (Saint George Street, that is), which I find charming, even if it is touristy. As Kate was taking tons of pictures of the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States, a disheveled-looking man started giving me unsolicited ideas for cheap dates, one of which involved watching some owls somewhere. I couldn’t help but stay and listen since Kate was busy taking photos. Little did I know that by this point she was just snapping unflattering pictures of me torturing myself to listen to this guy.

It was getting dark, and we called for a ride to get picked up. Our host took us to a store where Kate could buy some clothes; she hadn’t packed a lot because she had been counting on buying stuff in the US. She didn’t find anything she wanted at either of two stores, so our next stop was the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner (and, in our host’s case, for future meals).

Back at home—the place felt like home since we had our own room—we prepared dinner. Well, really, the host and Kate did most of the work. Kate cut up the chicken, the host made a sauce and got a salad together, and I was eventually tasked with helping to make some couscous. Our dinner consisted of the sauce on top of the chicken on top of the couscous with the salad on the side. And man, was it good, especially after such a big day. The conversation was good too. It turned out that the host had also been a student at UF a number of years ago, and we had even taken one of the same classes with the same professor.

By this time, it was getting to be late, so we went to bed. We would have another big day in store for us.

Here’s how fraudsters make fake credit cards. (Via The Consumerist)

This video is fun (if a little annoying) to watch, but the subject matter is interesting: The surprising truth about what motivates us. (Via Lifehacker)

Adventures with Kate, part two

Kate, Andy, and I got off to a slow start on Sunday, August 8. It was already the afternoon when we decided to go tubing. For those of you who don’t know, tubing is a popular pastime in the Gainesville area. Basically, you get yourself an inner tube; go to one of the slow, meandering rivers out in the country; and enjoy the ride.

If it sounds pretty dang halcyon (according to Google, no one has ever said that on the Internet), like the way you would imagine the young boys of yesteryear going down for a swim at the watering hole, it’s not really like that. People tend to go tubing down the Ichetucknee River at Ichetucknee Springs State Park, which may or may not be pretty crowded. And a whole cottage industry of tube rental companies has sprung up around the park so that you can stop at some little place on the side of the road, get a tube for $5, and, when you’re done, leave it at the park for Jimbo ‘n’ pals to pick up when you’re done. Not a bad setup.

The park contains several entrances to the river—on-ramps, if you will—that determine the length of time you’ll spend floating downstream (there being a single place for all tubers to get out). By the time we were all ready to go, only the entrance that was furthest downstream was still open, so our journey down the river would only last about an hour.

Aside: Do you know what makes rivers flow? Rivers are formed when water comes out of a hole in the ground—this is the source of the river—and then, thanks to gravity, all this water flows toward lower ground (downstream), like when water flows down the driveway when your dad is washing the car. The ground gets lower and lower till it reaches sea level, and, voila: the water enters the ocean. Fast rivers come from mountains and stuff because they’re high up, and slow, meandering rivers are found in flatter places. This is all extremely obvious, but most of it no one ever told me outright, and it only really hit me when I was in maybe high school. Because, you know, I don’t often sit around, thinking about rivers and stuff.

The drive to Ichetucknee Springs State Park was longer than I remembered, and we were even concerned about making it to the last river entrance on time. I realized that we’d be driving right by my parents’ new house. Kate and I had been planning to spend a few days there, so I decided to call the ‘rents and ask if the three of us could have dinner there on the way back from the river. Of course, they said it was fine.

We stopped at a place for some tubes. One of the good ol’ boys noted that I was wearing a Beatles shirt and said I looked like I could be one of them Beatles; he added that he just seen one of their movies the other day, great movie, the one where John Lennon has the ring stuck on his finger and the crazy Indian cult is after him tryin’ to kill him and all. Great band, they were.

There weren’t too many people at the park, and the three of us made our way to the entrance farthest downstream. I was the only one who had actually gone tubing before, so Kate and Andy probably didn’t know that getting in was the hardest part. We were standing a metal platform just above water level. The water was moving along pretty quickly, so it wouldn’t be too easy to lay down your tube and get yourself in. Andy went first. He slipped on the platform and fell into his tube. Kate got into hers awkwardly. I got into mine like a pro, but the water was really cold, so I wasn’t extremely pleased either.

Since the water was moving so swiftly, Andy hung on to a nearby tree branch to wait for me and Kate. After we all got together, he managed to help Kate reposition herself on the tube so that she would be more comfortable. And then we felt free to float along, enjoy the natural scenery, and relax.

In fact, you can’t spend too much time relaxing because you have to watch where you’re going. The river might not take you around turns so easily, and you can find yourself running into the edge where there are sticks and spider webs and who knows what. It helps a great deal to be able to steer yourself by rowing with your hands, even if it looks silly. So it was out of necessity that Andy and Kate picked up on the art and science of being a human rowboat.

After a while, we reached the end of the river. Well, not really, but we reached the point where we had to get off. The river was roped off and there was another platform off to the side where you had to go and get out. We left our tubes at the designated area and took a tram back to the section of the park where we had started. The trams came every few minutes, but they would be fairly full. Andy had the misfortune of sitting next to a chipper scout leader who was making jokes with everyone around him. Luckily, the ride didn’t last very long (although I’m sure for Andy it did).

Andy and Kate wanted to swim in the springs from which the river sprung, so we drove to the upstream part of the park. It was closed to tubing at this point, but the springs—halcyon swimming holes, if you will—would still be open for a while. I had never been to this part of the park, so it was new for me too. There were a few springs. The nearest one was filled with people, and Andy and Kate decided to swim for a minute or two before getting out. I didn’t go in because the water was too cold.

But Andy and Kate insisted that I swim, so we decided to go to the spring that was farther away. It was about a ten-minute walk through a wooded path, and only a few other people were there. We went into the water. It was extremely cold, and I swam around frantically, perhaps all the more frantically because I was still wearing my shoes. After a minute or two, I started to get used to it, but I still wanted out. So I got out, and I was afraid that I would be freezing since I didn’t have a towel. Surprisingly, I was just fine. I guess it was because there was no wind. It was always windy in South Florida, and I always dreaded getting out of the pool.

We dried off and headed toward my parents’ (and I guess also my) new house. I told Andy where to turn, but he missed the turn because he couldn’t see the driveway for the trees. Seriously, the entrance is pretty discreet. The mailbox by the side of the road is pretty much the only indication that anyone lives there. But Andy turned around and made his way down the dirt driveway that looks like it could be long but is actually pretty short. And then, standing amid the trees, the new house came into view.

I had only been there once, when my parents were still checking out the place. Now the place already looked like home even though they had just moved in. (The fact that we had most of the same furniture helped quite a bit.) I checked out my room, which had a new bed and was filled with boxes, most of which I didn’t have to pack (but I would have if I had had the time, honest). I felt at home pretty quickly. Andy and Kate chatted it up with my parents and grandmother.

Mindful of Andy’s vegetarianism, my parents made spaghetti for dinner, and everyone was pleased with how it came out. After dinner, we watched a little football on TV, it being the start of the preseason and all. But it was getting late, and we were all tired, so we decided to go back to the apartment.

But before we did that, we stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s on Archer Road to get a little ice cream. Andy had almost finished his ice cream before Kate decided what she wanted, and if you don’t know them, then you won’t be able to tell who I’m taking a jab at by mentioning that fact. After our dessert, Kate and Andy played a card game; apparently they just have decks of cards lying around for you to hang out and play. After that, we went home. Kate and I had a big day in store for us.

The Mohammed Image Archive is a collection of images of Mohammed, spanning the entire history of Islam, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. (Via Atheist Revolution)

Have you ever heard the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism? Here, in comic book form, is the story of the scientist whose bogus study set off a wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that has yet to die down. (Via waxy.org)

The Landa Kongreso: Monday and beyond

This is the final post in a three-part… blah blah blah, you don’t care.

On Monday morning, I attended the closing ceremony of the conference. Well, there wasn’t much ceremony; the term used in Esperanto means “solemn closing.” It wasn’t especially solemn either. It was mainly a series of closing remarks, capped off with a singing of “La Espero.”

The organizers of the convention presented some statistics, most notably that the attendance was over 100. The president of Esperanto-USA gave some details about the next national convention, which will be held at the University of California, Berkeley, in early June 2011, and the one after that, which will be held in north Texas in 2012.

I was the only college-age kid to attend the closing ceremony. Once that was over, I rejoined the others in the lobby. Andy, Darcy, and I got to talking about exciting it was to be with so many other young Esperantists and how to keep the energy going. For a while, Esperanto-USA had had an active youth branch called USEJ. We decided bring USEJ back to life by starting up an IRC channel where we could constantly chat with each other and by having regular voice chats online. We also decided to look into the possibility of having a national youth congress in South Florida in the winter.

I’ve come back energized, and I’ve come back with a goal. I want to take new Esperantists with me to Berkeley next year. That means Andy and I will have to work hard to attract new members to our club and help them learn Esperanto, but it’s a worthwhile challenge.

I didn’t actually go to DC at all during the trip, even on the drive to the train station. Yes, instead of flying back to Florida, we took the Auto Train with Andy’s dad and Andy’s dad’s car, which Andy is now using. It was actually pretty comfortable, and I even expected to sleep at one point. I don’t think I actually did; I should have known better. But the complementary dinner and breakfast were pretty good, and it was fun to see “America at see level” (Amtrak’s former or maybe current tagline).

We arrived in Sanford, Florida, on Tuesday morning, and we drove to Gainesville. As soon as we made it to UF, I raced into my public speaking class, which was already in progress. I was going to have to deliver an impromptu speech. We had each submitted a quotation, and then when it was our turn to give a speech, we had to pick one of them at random and and deliver a speech about our reaction to it.

For some reason, there weren’t as many quotes as there were people, and I was the last to go, so I was left with none. The teacher asked people to submit some more, so I had fresh pickin’s. I chose:

“We are not here merely to make a living, we are here to enrich the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson

Within three minutes, I explained a little bit about what Esperanto is all about and about the experience I had had with other Esperantists over the long weekend. I tied it all together by explaining the shared hope that Esperanto can help enrich the world. I got a strong round of applause, and people had more questions for me after the speech. I got a 98% on the assignment.

With Congress.org’s MegaVote, you can sign up for weekly e-mails with information on how your representatives are voting. Good idea! (Via HackCollege)

I had no idea Google allowed you to purchase advertising time on TV, but someone at Slate tried it out. (Via waxy.org)

You know what’s cool? Science. You know what’s cooler? Infographics that aren’t totally stupid and help you understand science. Here’s one that organizes popular health supplements by the amount of evidence for their effectiveness. (Via Lifehacker)