This must be the first time in 10 years that I didn’t at least feel a bit sick on New Year’s day. Hanging out with Chinese/Taiwanese can be healthy I guess. Still, it was a very late night and I slept till 2 o’clock. I ventured outside an hour later to eat lunch at Burger King. Henry was behind me in line, a man that has walked between Murphysboro and Carbondale every day for over a decade I think. We used to work together at Kroger and he remembered me. He is usually a bit shy, so it was surprising when he energetically shook my hand today. Getting so much sun over the years has turned him into an almost leather-like creature.
I bought Corn Pops and sliced cheese at Schnucks after the meal. These two items will not be eaten together. The only employee I talked to was Dee W, who had an extremely different hairstyle. I commented on this and she said it was because she had cancer and it had just begun to grow back. The cancer has subsided for now.
I also saw a teacher shopping who taught me geography in 8th grade, but I didn’t speak with him. He once threatened another teacher that his class would attack hers using water guns filled with acid because her class had attacked his with paperwads.
Back at my apartment, I spent at least 4 hours trying to fix a problem with the bulletin board on this website. For some reason, I’m unable to log into the administration panel. After hours and hours of scouring tech help message boards and even reinstalling all the software, I’m nowhere. I now believe the problem is just unique to my computer and that I’ll be able to logon from other locations, so I just wasted 4 hours if that’s the case. I tried everything conceivable to delete any cookies or cache data from my computer, so this is a great mystery.

Tuesday:

I had a dream last night that I accidentally signed up for a gay math class next semester. Having an all-male math class is not unusual, but guys in this particular class were just being too flirty with each other. I finally asked someone what was going on and they informed me I was in Gay Math. Damn, why couldn’t I have ended up in Lesbian Calculus or something…..
Well, this got me to thinking today…could a private gay university be a profitable venture? I obviously don’t have the money to be such an entrepreneur, but was curious if such a think existed. Searching online, I found that many universities offer degrees in gay stuff, but no university seems to be solely advertising itself as a gay university. I did come across one website that claimed it was trying to start a gay school that would teach everything from kindergarten to college. Gay kindergarten!!???*** WTF!!!! Now I’m just waiting for somebody to read this and make fun of me for having a dream about a gay math class.
I went to a copy store on the Strip at 11 o’clock this morning to have 20 copies of my Casper the Cat book printed out on heavy duty paper. Each page of the book is ¼ of a sheet, so each full sheet of paper held 4 pages. I was going to cut all this paper manually, but the clerk working offered to cut it for free in the store’s heavy duty paper cutter. The cutter basically consists of a giant razor blade powered by a big hydraulic cylinder. It would make a wonderful torture device.
Next, I went to the library to try and fix the problem with my website’s message board that I mention yesterday. Sure enough, the problem was confined to my own personal computer and I wasted hours trying to fix it last night.
The under-construction library is now in even worse shape than it was last semester. Using the library bathroom was an interesting experience. There is only one bathroom for men and women to share and that bathroom only has one working stall. One wall is missing from this stall, exposing a sharp 15 foot drop into the basement.
I also used the table space at the library to organize all the pages of my Casper book. Upon doing so, I realized that the last page had not been printed, so I returned to the printing store and had the same clerk print it out.
I had lunch back at my apartment before going on to work at 1:30. I took my Casper books with me because I wanted to ask Carl and Kelly if they had or knew anyone with a plastic comb binder(they didn’t). The printing stores outrageously want $2-$3 for each book, so I must do the work on my own. I’ll even buy a cheap used binder(if such a thing exists) online before I pay $40.
My workday mostly consisted of packaging a massive amount of Internet orders, which took about 3 hours. Back at my apartment, I did laundry and had canned beef stew for dinner before going to Mark B’s apartment at 9 o’clock. Mark and I watched TV for a couple hours. On Judge Judy, a middle-aged middle class-looking woman was accusing another middle-aged middle class-looking women of ordering magazine prescriptions to her house because she was mad at the other woman and her husband for taking a cruise alone when the two couples had originally planned to take the cruise together. The defendant and her husband hadn’t gone along because they didn’t have the money. The evidence in the trial included copies of the forms that had been sent to the magazine companies with the forged signature of receiver. A short stuffy-looking handwriting expert named Bart Baggett was brought in to decide if the forged signatures matched the writing of the defendant. When the handwriting expert stated his name for the court, he seemed to have a slight speech impediment that made his “B”’s sound “F”’s(see name, seriously). Mark didn’t believe the show could be for real and neither did I, but I’m just not sure. If they did find real people to act those parts, then hats off to the producers. In that case, especially the person who found Bart Baggett should get a huge raise and company car.
Wednesday: 1-3-07

I packed my things this morning in preparation for the family's trip to the West coast. My sick iPod doesn't may not be as sick as I thought because it allowed me to upload some music. I took $500 out of my bank's ATM on the way to work, passing by several roaming bands of Indian's and wheelchairs along the way. Since all the students left town, these seem to be the only people that can be seen on the streets, and they almost always travel in packs.
At work, Nic and Peter came in and spoke with me. Nic had just arrived back in town from a week visiting his dad in Montana. Peter came in to ask if he could scout for deer on my parent's property with the Taiwanese professor whose house I was at on New Year's eve.
My dad picked me up at 4:45 and we stopped at the apartment to get my bags. I also paid the rent there before leaving town so I don’t return home to a huge late fee. Next, we went to Rural King so my dad could buy mouse poison and birdseed. He saw a friend shopping and they talked about birds and bobcats for a few minutes. The friend said his dog had killed a female bobcat that was raising 4 babies, then gently carried the babies around in its mouth like a mother. Leaving Rural King, we took two bags of free popcorn then accidentally tried to get in the wrong white truck.
Clara met us in a nearby parking lot so my dad could leave the truck there for a coworker to borrow while he's out of town for the next week.
Passing through Murphysoboro, my dad and I pumped gas into the car while Clara did a few minutes of shopping at Dollar General. She couldn't at first find us sitting in the car after leaving the store, even though she had pass directly by us twice. We didn't honk the horn or say anything because it appeared that she was looking for someone else, but she was just temporarilly blind.
At the house, I had to unpack my suitcase and try to fit everything in a carry-on bag because Clara has a plan for nobody to check any luggage. Amanda and Brant came over and we all ate dinner together. I did the dishes afterwards. The rest of evening didn't get any more exciting, but I got to make fun of Brant a lot.

Thursday: 1-4-07

Alarms were going off at 2AM this morning. I was sleeping on the coach at my family's place and it was time to head for St. Louis in hopes of catching our flight. We arrived at a St. Metro station just after 4 o'clock and rode the train 30 more minutes to the airport. Check-in was relatively painless because we had no checked luggage and the crowds were relatively small at the early hour. We were at our gate an hour early so my dad and I bought breakfast from one of the few restaurant booths that was open. My burrito cost $6 but was huge.
The first leg of our flight was to Denver in a small bumpy crowded United Express jet. After quenching my thirst with a Pepsi from the lone flight attendant, I immediately went to sleep as the sun came up. The Denver airport was still showing many signs of the snowstorm that shut it down for three days during the holidays. Ice remained on parts of the runways and mountains of snow could be seen in spots. Our Denver layover lasted 2 hours and we spent time sitting in a Mcdonalds lobby, where I showed everyone how to pull the plastic security strip out of a $5 bill.
The final leg of our trip happened in a 767(7 rows wide), which was luxury compared to what we'd experienced earlier. Phones were located on the seat backs and the price was listed at $10 per minute. Thinking about this, the price seems fair considering the fact that only time anyone would use such a phone is if they were about to die.
I went to sleep on this flight even before the attendants brought the soda around. Upon landing 2 hours later, I noticed that the man seated behind me had a small white poodle in his carry-on bag. On our earlier flight, I'd seen a similar poodle in a pink carry-on bag. So, why does it cost $150 to take a dog on a plane while a baby is free? Babies are always screaming but I've never heard a thing out of a dog.
I’d visited California twice before, but had never been south of San Francisco before today. As could be expected, the areas of LA surrounding the airport are very clean with lots of tropical lanscaping. We were picked up by an Enterprise shuttle in front of the terminal and taken to rent a van, which Clara had pre-arranged. The Enterprise office offered a long line and a 30 minute wait, then we were placed in a nice new white KIA van with 11,000 miles on it.
Getting to my brother and Keri's place involved a 2-hour drive south to the town of Bermuda Dunes, which is near Palm Springs. I slept much of the time and awoke to see thousands of windmills situated among the huge ugly mountains. Signs in the area posted high wind warnings.
In Bermuda Dunes, we had trouble finding my brother and Keri's apartment, so Keri met us in her car and we followed her there. They live in a well-manicured gated community of single level stucho apartments. They have their’s nicely decorated with new furniture and a fish tank overstocked with huge fish that have bad attitudes. The first thing I did was take a shower to wash all the travel germs off. Spending hours on any kind of public transportation will make a person feel dirty.
We had wonderful super-sized strip steaks for dinner, which Keri barbequed on a big new gas grill her mom had just given her for Christmas. The apartment barely provides enough patio space for the grill and a small table.
After dinner, we went into Palm Springs to check out a street market that takes place every Thursday. Amanda and Brant were too tired and stayed back at the apartment. Palm Springs is just a 20 minute drive away. We parked the van in front of a night club where through the window a man could be seen dancing on a stage inside wearing only a g-string. Palm Springs is one of the gay capitols of the US. The night market was beginning to wind down by the time we arrived at 9 o'clock, but a couple thousand people and a couple hundred vendors were still present. The event is held on a palm-lined street filled with nice restaurants, clubs and small art stores. Every vendor was charging outrageous prices for things, like $13 for a little bag of beef jerky.
We returned back to the apartment an hour later, passing mile after of mile of luxury country clubs and hotels. My sister and Brant were long alseep by the time we returned.

Friday: 1-5-07

I slept on the couch last night and my brother and Keri slept on a 2-foot thick air matress in the same room. My brother's coworker's started calling and two-way radioing him at 7 o'clock on his Blackberry with job-related questions. Clara cooked a breakfast of eggs and ham. I took a brief walk outside and encountered high winds and a dust storm. So much dirt was in the air that the surrounding mounntains could barely be seen. The state of California is paranoid and even requires warning signs on mailboxes and laundromats. My dad had mentioned seeing the sign on the mailbox, then I came across the one on the laundromat, which says something like, “This area is known by the state of California to contain substances which may cause birth defects”. I would love to replace some of these signs with something like, “This area may be hazordous to women who are pregnant with or may become pregnant with an alien fetus.”
Everyone left in the rental van at 9:30 to make the long drive to San Francisco to visit family there. The first few hours of the trip took us past downtown L.A. and into snowcovered mountians. The temperatures ranged from 60 to 30 degrees depending on the elevation.
The last few hours of the trip took us through the massive valley which stretches hundreds of miles up the state. The valley is mostly completely flat land with millions of fruit trees and grape vines stretching into the horizon. A terrible smell began to fill the air for many miles, then we came upon the most massive beef farm I ever could have imagined. A metropolis of cattle stretched across the landscape so far that everone was just speechless.
There were 7 people in the van so three had to be crammed into the backseat at any one time. We had expected the trip to take 6 hours, but the actual time was over 8 hours. Our destination was my aunt Treva's house, who lives in the southeastern suburbs of San Francisco with her husband Bill. Also at the house were my aunts Pat and Ruth, all from my mother's side of the family. I had no memory of any of these aunts, but supposedly met two of them in 1982. Treva works as a medical researcher investigating a new method to keep the blood banks safe. Ruth used to work as a nurse and Pat is currently a missionary for a group called Jews for Jesus. She has traveled around the world doing this work, including the Ukraine and Israel.
We had a lasagna dinner and sat around talking for many hours. I learned many interesting things about the family, like the fact that one of my grandmother's husbands spent years trying to build a perpetual motion machine in his garage. The visit was worth the 8-hour drive it took to get here.

Saturday: 1/6/07

I slept on an air mattress on the floor last night in the living room next to another air matress which contained my brother and Keri. Getting up at 8 o'clock, my dad had already been out walking around a nearby reserviour with my aunt Treva and Bill was in the kitchen offering a continental breakfast. Everyone soon got up to either take part in the breakfast or watch the others eat.
The plan for the day was for the family to go out in the rental van by ourselves and explore the city, but Treva and Bill offered to go along as our tour guides. There were now too many to fit into one vehicle, so Bill also drove his car. I accidentally slammed one of the van's fold-up seats onto Clara's foot before getting in the backseat of Bill's car. It at first appeared her day of walking and enjoying the city may have been ruined, but the injury was luckily only temporary.
The ride to downtown took about 45 minutes and we parked on the fifth floor of a garage. Walking a few blocks, we bought day passes to the cable cars and rode one a few blocks to the cable car museum. I'd grown up hearing about the cable cars, but never realized why they were so famous. Cables move by just under the street level and the cars grab ahold of them to move along. The conductor's controls allow him to grasp the cable at different tensions or apply brakes, which is all the control they have. At either end of the line, the cars roll onto turntables and are manually turned the other direction by a team of employees.
We rode in the standing positions on the front edges of the car, which put you dangerously close to oncoming traffic, especially the other cable cars going in the opposite direction, which pass just inches away. If two people on opposite moving cars just lean out six inches they will hit each other.
The cable car museum was much more than I expected. The museum is actually the power plant of the cable car system, which keeps the cables moving that stretch all over the city. Each car is run along a single cable that may be miles long. Huge motors and wheels at the museum allow this to happen, with the cable moving along just under street level at about 10 miles per hour. Another intersting display at the museum was pictures and info about the 1906 earthquake. The initial quake hugely damaged much of the city in the predawn hours, then a three day fire completely destoyed a whole 400 block area, which encompased all the major districts.
Next, we walked a few blocks down steep hills to Chinatown, which is supposedly the largest Chinese district in any American city. Here, I saw a foreign tourist drop his $400 Cannon digital camera onto the pavement and destroy it. Compact cameras almost never can take such a fall.
Going back uphill to get back on our trolley almost killed Brant and he just can't understand why someone would build a city in such a spot. Our next stop was Fisherman's Warf. Large birds infested this area and flocked inches within any person that happened to be sitting around eating. Wings and claws skimmed the top of all of our heads at least once I think. The birds here have no fear when food or the potential for it is involved.
We spent some time watching the famous sea lions bask in the sun at Pier 39. The temperature was in the upper 50's and the lions were loving it. For all I know, they might love every day, but they really seemed active today. They congregate on several small adjacent rectangular stand-alone floating platforms near the pier, with up to 15 of the large creatures on a single platform. There were about 100 of the animals in total and constant yelps in different deep tones could constantly be heard. A lion would sometimes seem to be yelping for no apparent reason, while others screamed because another lion was trying to walk overtop it or take its space. There were a few hundred people observing this activity, and it sometimes seemed like the pushy crowd's behavior was worse than that of the lions.
For lunch, we ate at a very nice crab restaurant at the pier. I ordered a half-crab, which was expensive but I couldn't come to such a place and not order such a thing. My aunt Ruth and her significant other Jim met us here, then we all continued on our sightseeing tour together.
We got back onto the cable car and returned to the point where we had initially gotten on at. Ruth and Jim didn't have cable car tickets, so they took other public transportation and met us at the Golden Gate Bridge. To get to the bridge, the rest of the group returned to the parking garage and retrieved our two vehicles.
The sun was setting as we arrived at the bay. Our timing was perfect. A couple dozen surfers could be seen underneath in wet suits trying to catch some waves. Temporary wire fencing had been installed at the south end of the bridge while crews were installing “siesmic retrofitting” underneath. We spent about an hour here and a few of us walked about half-way across the one-mile long bridge. This was my second time to visit the location. The first time happened about 4 years ago when I'd been in the city visit my friend Chris P, who graduated from SIU and moved here to take a job with the FDA. Chris and I were suppost to hang out again today and talked to each other on the phone a couple times, but we could never make any arrangements that worked.
As for the bridge, one of the most memorable things is the “Crisis Hotline” phones located at either end. Over 1000 people have supposedly commited suicide on the bridge since its construction 70 years ago. I had my video camera out, but never got to film any such action.
We all returned home at dark and had pizzas for dinner from a local take-out restaurant. Afterwards, we spent the next couple hours exchanging terrible pet death stories then played poker for a couple more hours. Amanda and Brant went to sleep before the poker started. My dad also said he was going to sleep, but returned to the table and played Clara's hand till all her money was gone. I ended up winning 2 dollars.

Sunday: 1-7-07

Everyone was up and eating breakfast by 8 o'clock this morning and we said goodbye to Treva and Bill an hour later, heading out on the 8-hour drive back to Southern California. The return trip seemed to go a bit quicker than the trip up had.
We parked next to a hippie van at one of our rest area stops, with a man, woman and dog living in it. The front dashboard was piled high with sticks and what appeared to be trash at first glance, but was actually a variety of indian spiritual artifacts. The woman was walking her dog outside and holding a sign asking for money to get to Texas. My dad gave her five dollars.
Passing through Los Angeles, we stopped and walked down Hollywood Boulevard, which is where all the stars on the sidewalk are. The first strange thing I noticed here was the overwhelming presence of Scientiologists. They occupied several large buildings and small stores with the Scientology name proudly posted in huge letters and quotes from their leader L. Ron Hubbard. They even had booths set up offering free “stress tests” and selling some of Hubbard's books. One tried to recruit me when I stopped to take a picture.
Walking down the boulevard a few blocks, we came to a very crowded area in front of the Chinese and Kodak theatres. Dozens of people were dressed in costumes here trying to get tourists to take pictures with them for money. Everything from Cinderalla to Storm Troopers could be seen here and they were very actively trying to attract attention. I snapped a picture of a Sponge Bob that happened to be walking by, then I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder a couple seconds later. The tap came from Sponge Bob, who seemed to be mad that I hadn't given him any money. He mumbled something and turned away when I didn't respond.
Stars names, hand and shoe prints were in the concrete in front of the Chinese Theatre, which seemed to be the focus of the crowd here. A multi-level shopping center stretched between the two theatres, which offered balconies that provided veiws of the Hollywood sign and the L.A. Skyline. The atmosphere in this area was like that of an amusement park.
Walking back to the van, my dad stopped to take a picture of a guy getting a tattoo behind the window of a tatoo shop and a young guy with a huge mohawk. I stopped to take a picture of a black guy with an afro driving a bright red Mercedes convertible. The man smiled and pointed his hand like a gun at me when I snapped the pic.
We arrived back at my brother and Keri's apartment at 7 o'clock. The cat had puked all over the back of the couch. My dad and Keri picked up take-out Chinese for dinner, then everybody but Amanda and Clara played a Texas Hold Em' tournament for $5 each. Sitting in the van for 8 hours today made me unable to sit around any longer and I eventually got too tired and basically gave away my money on risky bets. My dad came out the big winner with $20. Brant got $5 for second place.
The Learning Channel was showing a series on people with severe disabilities all evening. They have had camera crews periodically following certain individuals around for years, producing a new show about them each time. The half-woman now has a child that's a few years old. It appears that she has no body below the stomach, but she obviously has something there. She's been married to a non-disabled man for years, who is the father's baby. The next feature story was the girl with two heads. “They” are 16 years old now and have just received their driver's license. Each head controls half the body, but they can complete complex tasks like driving with no difficulty. When asked about relationship issues, the heads refused to comment. The disabled woman in the last program, who had become a quadrapelegic after diving into a sandbar, did comment vividly on her relationsship with her able-bodied husband, saying the orgasms are longer and better than anything she ever had before the injury. The focus of the show was her pregnancy.

Monday: 1-8-06

Chris and Keri's air mattress went flat overnight, probably because Sammy the cat clawed it. Everyone split up today and my dad and Clara went to Joshua Tree National Park. Chris, Keri and I drove 20 minutes into Palm Springs and rented ATV's from a rental business on the west edge of town, which consisted of several rundown trailers and shacks. Long abandoned dune buggies and other ATV's helped to give the place even more of a hillbilly look.
The owner Steve met us at the entrance. We knew it was Steve because we'd heard his extremely slow low-pitched voice on the company's answering machine message earlier. He tries to be humorously sarcastic with everything he says, and he sometimes does a pretty good job at it.
Step one of ATV rental was to watch an 8 minute video, which played on a tiny TV in a small dugout shack with dirt floors and stone walls. Steve narrated the video in his classic style. I took a bathroom break afterwards, in a similar dug out building where a real flushing toiled was mounted on stones in the dirt.
Step two of the rental process was to step into one of the trailers and find a properly fitting helmet. Shower caps had to be worn over the hair. Among the helmets provided were ones built to look like cowboy hats and football helmets. Fanny packs were also sitting on a shelf here, so I wore a Power Rangers one to store my camera in. An employee approached us in the trailer, asking for money and signatures on a release form. We didn’t have to show any form of identification and the release form simply consisted of a single sheet of paper that had already been signed by all of the day's customers before us. The price was $30 because Chris had received a $10 discount by calling and talking to Steve earlier. He'd secured the savings by telling Steve that people from his company had recently rented for the reduced price.
Getting onto our ATV's we had to sit and listen to an audio recording of Steve reviewing all the rules. This recordings had gotten progressively more weird and this one mentioned things like “4th gear is for going to Mexico”, “slide your eyes and pretty butt to the left when making left turns”, and “don't drive on the interstate”.
The area to drive the ATV's consisted of a few acres on the side of a mountain and at the base of it. The base of the mountain had rocky sand and had been landscaped with old tires and pits to ride in and out of. The side of the mountain was quite steep and had very fine sand that was impossible to get up at parts. The 4-wheelers were only 90 cc's and didn't have the power to make the steepest sandy climbs.
Chris immediately realized his bike didn't have the power to make any climbs at all, so we traded and I took his back to the starting point. The young guy that had put us on the bikes made a throttle adjustment with a wrench and sent me back out. I then traded bikes with Chris again because I still thought there was a problem, but I think I was just imaging it.
Despite the lower power of the bikes, we spent the next 45 minutes having a great time. We discovered that there were some not-so-steep routes that could get us to the top of the mountian, and the high speed trip back down made the slow trip up worthwhile. There were many sharp drops on the mountain, so I had to ride the brakes to keep from jumping into the air and crashing. The fine sand often felt like ice when the brakes were applied hard.
Getting stuck on the steep inclines posed the problem of rolling back downhill backwards at a high speed. To get out of such situations, I had let myself roll back slowly and turned the wheel to face back in the downhill direction. This turned into a near disaster at one point when I got to going way to fast in reverse on an especially steep section. The bike tipped over and I went sliding down the hill in the sand. I raised my head to see the bike tumbling down towards me. There was nothing I could do and it landed wheels-first right on top the middle of my back. The machine was still running and I could not free myself in the soft sand. The employee who had helped me earlier happened to be riding nearby and saw the whole incident. He pulled the ATV off and asked if I was all right. I said, “Yeah, thanks”, and he replied, “No, thank you, that was the best one I've seen all week”. I at first didn't feel injured at all, but my right arm and back hurt quite bad later in the day. Looking back on the crash, it was so fun.
Chris also ended up wrecking his bike in the pits at the bottom of the hill, but ended up with just a scratched hand. I nearly flipped mine a second time in the same spot as him, but was able to jump off and catch the bike at the last second.
When our time was up, the employee rode out to tell us to return back. Leaving, I heard him telling another employee about my and my brother's wrecks. The deep-voiced owner Steve was leaning up against a dune buggy near where Keri's car was parked, wearing a hawain shirt with a cowboy had and pulling a cigar from a package. He told me that the most serious customer injury ever had been a broken leg, but I think he might have buried a few out back.
So, we paid 90 dollars to beat the hell out of ourselves, I even had sand on my teeth and was completely exausted. The temperature was only in the upper 70's, but the beating sun made it feel hot. We returned to Chris and Keri's apartment to pick up Brant and Amanda, then the five of us went to a BBQ restaurant called Babe’s for lunch, eating outside at a covered patio. Three oversized copper pigs adorned the front of the building. I ordered a house-made beer called 3 Drunk Monks with my food. The atmosphere was great but the service wasn't. Our waitress got an attitude when we asked to split the check just two ways, then got the split wrong and refused to fix it.
The restaurant was attached to an area called The River, where an artificial river flows through a shopping center. We walked along the river and briefly entered an art store that was selling paintings for up to a quarter-million dollars. The quarter-million dollar painting was of course the ugliest one for sale.
We returned back to the apartment at 4 o'clock and Keri had to be at work an hour later. She was 30 minutes late. A friend of my brother's briefly stopped by to invite us out to a bar to watch the football game later(he never showed up).
I went to Walmart with my brother, Amanda and Brant. I was shopping for recordable CD's to place my pictures on and a pack of smokes. A McDonald's was located at the front of the store, and Chris said that customers could order food at the Walmart checkout so they could pick it up on Mcdonalds on the way out. So, this is fast food made even faster.
My dad, Chris and I left the apartment again an hour later to go watch the football game at a bar called The Beer Hunter. I really had no clue about the importance of the game, but am always ready to use sports excitement for an excuse to go out. The Beer Hunter was packed and almost no places were available to sit, so we drove across the street to a pizza restaurant/brewery. For the fourth quarter of the game, we walked to another nearby restaurant/bar called the Red Hen or something like that. On the way home, we stopped at a third bar that Chris had described as a kind of local redneck bar. Only a few people were there and we put quarters down on the pool table. The people playing at the table were Jeff and Katie, a local 30 year-old golf pro and his girlfriend. Jeff said he worked at an exclusive local course where 47 of the members were billionaires, including Bill Gates. Almost unbelievably, Jeff said he was born in Carbondale. We spent the next hour talking to this couple and everything they said seemed to be true. Jeff said that he had even been in Bill Gate's home, where inhabitants wear an identifying electronic badge like that on Star Trek, so every room knows their lighting preferences, etc. Small world.

Tuesday: 1-9-07

We all got up at 8:30 this morning and my dad was mad that everyone wasn't ready to leave at 9:19. Our destination was San Diego and we arrived there in the rental van about 11:45. While this is only two hours away, the climate is vastly different, with the hills showing lush green colors and large trees instead of the ugly brown rocks like near Palm Springs. San Diego's beautifulness and warm climate attracts droves of homeless people that can be seen travelling in packs all over the city. We stopped to eat lunch at a Mcdonald's and a black homeless man was sunning itself on the sidewalk behind the restaurant, laying flat on its back and outstretching its arms as if it was being crucified.
The main focus of our day was the world famous San Diego Zoo, which cost $22.75 each. My dad offered us all $10 to help offset the cost. We all split up for the day and I hung out with Chris and Keri. Not only is the zoo's animal collection amazing, but so are the plants and complex landscaping. All the animals can be kept outside year-round because of the warm climate.
The most memorable moment of the day was when a red ape asked Keri to put on lip gloss. The ape was standing up against the glass interacting with a female visitor. This woman had the cosmetic contents of her purse displayed against the glass and the ape pointed at what it wanted her to use. For example, it would point at hand lotion and she would put some on her hands. She told us that the ape, named Janie, had grown up in Tom Jone's manager's house and had been raised drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and getting manicures.
It seemed is if the zoo was drugging its animals because almost everything was asleep, especially after 4 o'clock. The family met back up near the entrance at 4:30 and we drove into downtown San Diego and parked near the harbour. An old aircraft carrier was permanently docked there with jets and helicopters sitting on its deck. Unfortunately, it had closed to the public at 5 o'clock.
A blimp with the name Sanyo on the sides was circleing over the skyline. That skyline contains at least three sets of luxurious twin towers housing hotels and condominiums. Passing by a realestate agency, we saw that a three bedroom condiminium in the nicest towers cost $2.5 million.
We had dinner at the Hardrock Cafe in the downtown entertainment district, which featured a domed stained glass ceiling and a vast collection of signed rock band memoribilia worth a fortune. The building was a converted Elks Club, which was evident from the logos in the stained glass ceiling.
We left the city at 8 o'clock and I slept nearly the entire two hours back to the apartment. Brant made multiple “wet willie” threats, but he's just a geek(note: he is a self-labeled geek(=even worse)).
My brother, Keri and I went out to visit bars at 11:30, first driving 15 minutes to a decent little place called Napa. The bartender looked at my Illinois driver's licence for a long time at all different angles then asked if I had any other forms of ID. He then went on to inspect my student ID and a credit card with the same intensity. This was followed by him speaking in spanish to a fat mob-looking guy on a stool, who appeared to be some kind of owner. Dressing in camo gear makes me look a bit strange.
We were given clearance for the purchase of a Captain n' Coke, Long Island Tea and a Bud Light draft. Another employee made the drinks and nobody asked for any money, which was surprising considering the total may have been near $15 or more. We sat outside under a heater so we could smoke a cigarette. California bars are of course all non-smoking.
This small bar was showing little action, so we drove on to another called the Palm Bar located in the main entertainment strip. There is room for over 500 here on two levels and in a large outdoor courtyard. They have a live band 7 nights per week. There are two game rooms, two bars and a sitting area on the top floor. We ordered beers upstairs and ended up looking over the second floor balcony onto the dance floor. Many customers in the late 30's-early 40's were out on the dance floor getting down hardcore. Sitting outside for a smoke, a big man struck up a conversation and said the people there were mostly members of the United Auto Workers association that had come for a union conference. It was now one o'clock and only the hard-cores were left. They were working-class people from all over the country that were just livin it up.
The live band sung from 1 till 1:30, which consisted of five people that probably held five separate nationalities. The lead singer was a good-sized hispanic female with some good singing potential. She gave the impression of a beginner in some ways but was impressive.
Sitting outside just at closing time, a very young hispanic couple asked for cigarettes. We all quickly struck up a conversation as the bouncers forced us to take last drinks and took our beers. We stopped to talk with the other couple for fifteen minutes at their car. The conversation was interesting because we were telling stories from different worlds. The guy, Brian, was driving a brand new vehicle with dealer plates while talking of growing up in the worst local neighborhoods around. Cops passed though the parking lot and Brian said, “Glad I was hangin out with white people because they'de be all all over us otherwise“.

Wednesday: 1-10-07

I slept on the floor last night underneath the kitchen table with a sheet draped over it to block the morning sunlight. Sammy the cat attacked the sheet all night even though I reached out and threw him away several times throughout the night. My dad and Clara got up and left at 8 o'clock and I then slept in their bedroom for 2 more hours. Brant excitedly burst into the room at 10 o'clock and jumped on me saying it was time to get up and eat at IHOP. Brant has barely shown a moment of excitement since this trip started, so his behavior was not ordinary. Food and poker usually seem to be the only things that can enlighten him.
The rest of us met my dad and Clara at IHOP, who had already been out and about the city for a couple hours. I think we all ate way more food than we needed. Back at the apartment, I fell asleep in Chris and Keri's room for another hour while Chris took my dad on a short tour of a mine that he works at. Brant was still acting strangely and again jumped on the bed to wake me up, this time even putting his arm around me and wrestling....
At one o'clock I went on a 5 hour drive into the mountains with my dad, Clara and Chris. Keri didn't feel like going along and Amanda and Brant stayed behind to work on making arrangements for their upcoming move to Boston. In other words, they were all being lame, but it was nice to have the extra space in the van.
We drove from sea level up to 6000 feet, stopping at a couple lookout points along the way. The climate quickly changed as our elevation increased, progressing from 65 degree desert to 40 degree pine forest. The mountains at the lower elevations appear to be just piles of stones because the once-solid rock has worn down into small pieces over the past few million years or so.
We came across a town called Idyllwild at 5000 feet, population about 7000. It was heavily geared for tourism and we spent some time browsing a few of the stores downtown. As expected, many were selling extremely expensive art of all kinds. It wasn't difficult to find a $1000 glass bowl or a $5000 painting. A rock/mineral store had an $18,000 8-foot tall cave bear skeleton standing in the corner. It had been found in Russia and was estimated to be up to 30,000 years old.
Everybody had to go to the bathroom now but nearly every store had a “bathroom for customers only” sign and we didn’t have $5000 to spend. A nice woman in a clothing store let me use her’s, but my dad and Clara had problems finding one. They eventually found relief at the only two gas stations in town, even though both stations were displaying the sign. In the confusion of the search, Clara became seperated for 15 minutes and was upset when we found her.
We next stopped at a mountain trail near the town and walked about a half mile along it as the sun set. This was a wonderful hiking area with boulders, giant pine cones and trees with a deep red-colored bark. I'd been mountain hiking several times before, but never in an area quite like this.
The sky turned to bright red as we made our way home, which produced a wonderful view out over the mountains. Back at the apartment, I cooked myself a grilled cheese and heated up a can of soup for dinner. Amanda, Brant, Kerri and I later played a game of Scrabble. Keri owns a swiveling board that makes play much more convenient than on the traditional board. The game came down to the wire with all four of us having very close scores. I got into a heated debate with the other players about a move they wouldn't allow. After several minutes of accusations and inferences, I accepted their ruling, which cost me two points. In the end, I was the first to run out of letters and I won by three points. Scrabble can cause problems.

Thursday: 1-11-07

My dad, Clara, Brant, Amanda and I all got up at 3:45 this morning and left my brother’s apartment headed to the airport. We were on the road by four o’clock and traffic already began to get heavy by 5 AM, all 10 lanes of it. We briefly got lost and asked for directions at a gas station.
We had arrived last Thursday at LAX, but departed today from the Orange County airport, which is roughly St. Louis-sized or smaller. Two employees from Enterprise came to inspect our rental car as soon as we parked it in the rental return area. Check-in was relatively painless at the early hour. We printed our boarding passes at an automatic terminal and were through security within minutes. The guards finally confiscated my little blue lighter, which I’d gotten aboard both flights last week. The secret seems to be placing it among many other items where it blends in under the x-ray scan. It was just in my coat pocket today. My water bottle was also deemed a threat to the aircraft and disposed of. I like to make a game of trying to get harmless forbidden items past security.
Upon finding our gate, I had breakfast at a Mcdonalds. There were at least 30 people in line there, while all the other restaurants serving breakfast had no customers, probably because they all want $6 for a breakfast sandwich.
My dad gave me his window seat on the flight and I woke up as the plane was passing over the Grand Canyon, which is the first time I’d ever seen it. Impressive, even from 30,000 feet it looks huge. I didn’t wake up again till we were over the snow-covered mountains near Denver.
Our connecting flight to St. Louis boarded just 15 minutes after we had arrived at the gate. St. Louis was under at least 4 layers of clouds and the turbulence was exciting. Some gasps could be heard when the plane sharply tilted left just meters above the runway. Being on a flight with stuck landing gear could be a good time as long as there were no fires or breakups.
We didn’t have to buy tickets for the Metrolink because we forgot to validate the ones we bought last week. An older man that sat in front of me on the train had a ponytail held together with a little pink scrunchie. The family’s car was still sitting right where we left it, tires and all. No gas had even been siphoned from the tank. Amazing considering it spent a week in East St. Louis. Drizzle was now falling and the 50 degree temperature felt cold compared after our week of warmth.
We stopped for dinner in the tiny Illinois town of Addieville at a bar/restaurant called the Eagle’s Nest, which was one of about three businesses in the whole community. Surprisingly, a tall pretty young blonde was bartending at such a place. Our food was cheap and excellent. Locals wearing flannel and overalls slowly streamed into the place as we ate.
I slept much of the way back and woke up to Amanda and Brant laughing at me. Apparently, my head had fallen to the side about 50 times, but I had no memory of it. My dad and Clara dropped Amanda and Brant off at Brant’s grandpa’s house, then they took me to my apartment in Carbondale. I began a load of laundry after unpacking all my things, then spent the rest of the evening updating this website with all kinds of new stuff. This is a lot of work when I go on long vacations, but I’m obsessed.

Friday: 1-12-07

I slept in till noon this morning. Yiming was walking in the door of my apartment building as I walked out on my way to work, whom I’d met when she came to my family’s Thanksgiving celebration. I’d given her my email address several weeks ago, but she said today that her messages had been returned, so I gave her a different address to try. My garthkiser.com address seems to periodically reject mail for unknown reasons.
Passing by the dumpster in the parking lot, I noticed that someone had thrown away three books written in Chinese and a Star Wars sticker book. The sticker book looked like-new and I gave it to Carl and Kelly at the bookstore to sell. I put the Chinese books back into my apartment so I can check the prices. I’ll also give them to the bookstore eventually if they are not worth any considerable amount.
At work, I spent most of the day hopelessly organizing paperback books. It’s hopeless because customers mess them up as soon as I get them fixed. A former NBA star, Mike Glenn, came in and bought several African-American books to have shipped to him. I have no idea who Mike Glenn is, but Carl realized it after Glenn had left.
Nic came over to my apartment at 7 o’clock and sent an email, then we went to the Strip and bought two slices of pizza from Wiseguys and ate it the Hangar. Larry and Anthony met us there. Nic knows Anthony from a marketing class they had together last semester. Anthony is a short slightly built guy but claims to be able to chop cinder blocks in half with his hands.
The four of us next walked to the Cellar. Wind and drizzle was blowing against us in the cold air and it was miserable. We played a partial game of shuffle board at the Cellar before going to Booby’s to meet Andrew. Nic knows Andrew through the same class that he knows Anthony through. Andrew is a short medium-built film student that seems a bit gay at first.
We had a pitcher of beer at Booby’s and Nic ordered more food along with Andrew and Anthony. This was the second of three meals Nic ate for dinner. Our group of five next walked on to PK’s, where a live band was playing. Andrew the film student said he liked the bar because it gave him ideas for new characters in his movies.
Our night of bar hopping was only half over. Our next destination was Big Boy’s Q’n, but they wanted a $4 cover, so we went to Tres instead. Side Tracks was our next stop. Anthony had somehow cut his hand in the bathroom at Tres, so he ordered a shot of vodka at Sidetracks to dip it in. Strange, but I guess it’s the same concept as peroxide or any other germ killer, with a bloody bonus.
We next had a snack at Jimmy John’s, then went on to Stix. I heard the DJ call my name over the sound system. It was Alex R., who grew up just down the road from my family. I also saw Matt from my Chinese class, who was dancing with a guy from Saudia Arabia that thought my name was Garbage. I actually really like that name.
Last and least(“not” was left out intentionally) we went to Gatsby’s, then I walked home.

Saturday: 1-13-07

Wendy’s has value meals for $2.99 now(sponsored), so I ate a double junior cheeseburger one today. Several families were in line and the parents/grandparents were wearing Saluki attire. Two times per year, the town floods with groups of three, usually consisting of two parents with a child they are sending off to school. If the child comes from a bad home, then they may be accompanied by grandparents instead of children. If the child comes from an exceptionally good home, then there may be a huge entourage following them around town. Actually, sometimes, the larger the entourage, the worse the family, but that’s a discussion for another time.
I worked from 1 till 6 and spent most of the day expanding the paperback mystery section to fill new shelves with hundreds of books Carl and Kelly bought from that dead woman a few weeks ago. Carl had built the new shelves today and his carpentry skills are no better than mine. But, it’s good that the store retains that hometown mom-and-pop look.
Speaking of hometownness, Casper the cat may finally be getting over his month-long depression. He’s been sleeping in the back office for weeks and refusing to interact with the customers that are always eager to see him, but he’s been taking ever-longer ventures out over the past few days.
Drizzle or rain was falling all day long and the temperature hovered just above freezing. Areas as near as St. Louis are supposedly experiencing the worst ice storm in 25 years. I stopped at Save-a-Lot on the way home and an employee surprisingly said “hello” as I walked in the door. She was cute and I was naturally curious about such friendliness at such a mundane job, so we struck up a conversation at the checkout and I learned that she just moved into town and plans on going to school here when she can.
Back at my apartment, I made the terrible mistake of running my toaster and microwave at the same time. This used to just flip the breaker on a power strip in the room, but has recently started flipping a breaker in a utility room that I don’t have access to. This is the second time this has happened and the first time was during hours when the office was open, so I was just able to go there and ask that they flip the switch. It seemed that I would surely be screwed at this after-hours time, but I walked into the lobby and found at least 200 international students there for an international student welcoming ceremony. The apartment manager was sitting with his wife and daughter and he gladly went to flip the switch.
John R. called at 8 o’clock and I met him at Mugsy’s shortly afterwards. John has known my brother since 1st grade and they have been best friends for years. He was there with his roommate Alicia and we played 4 games of pool at first, loosing most of them against two guys wearing grey shirts. A guy then introduced himself to me as God and God played with me on a team for a couple more games. I counter-introduced myself as Jesus and said “Hey dad”. He was wearing his Motel 8 uniform and had to be at work at midnight. His strange comments and women-chasing antics kept me entertained for a couple hours.
Sitting at a table with John was Michael, Grey and Mallory, all of whom turned out to be a hilarious time. Michael drank half a pitcher of warm beer with trash floating in it. The pitcher had been refilled by pouring several long-abandoned beers into it. Mallory reminded me of my friend Nora and I think Grey was her boyfriend.
One of the women that God was chasing turned out to be a girl that I worked at Mcdonalds with, named Venus. I didn’t realize this connection till I talked to her again after God had left. So, long ago, a coworker(Stephanie) and I had replaced the “V” on her timecard with a “P”. I asked her about this tonight and she remembered it even before I had finished my sentence! That day with the timecard is clear in my memory, when she had cried and cried about it. I’d felt bad, so it was good to have a nice reunion tonight. She is married with three kids now(including twins) but expects to get a divorce soon. She was with a big group of guys that kept pinching her butt as we talked.
Immediately after I’d talked with Venus, another Mcdonalds reunion happened, Dennis S.. It really was a great night.

Sunday: 1-14-07

I walked to 710 bookstore this afternoon and heard jubilant screams emanating from all over the town. As I suspected, the Bears had just won and everyone was coming out of their homes and the bars to scream about it. On the Strip, a group of about 10 people were running in front of cars waving around Bears flags and other Bears merchandise. There are tons of Chicago students here and the town might get torn up of the Bears happen to win the Superbowl.
At 710 bookstore, I checked the prices on the textbooks I’ll need for next semester and looked for a poster frame to put all the Pig Head Daily Egyptian articles in I have saved. The frames were $20 and the book for my geography class was $85, so I didn’t buy anything.
It lightly rained and drizzled for at least the third day in a row. Back at my apartment, I heard a potential renter walked into the empty room next to mine. Luckily, I heard her say, “Well, I liked the other one better”.
Having a good-looking woman sharing my bathroom sounds good in theory, but then they would probably just be hogging it 24-7. I’ve been thinking of ways to make the apartment next door seem as unattractive as possible. I already have a Muslim scarecrow in the bathroom to scare away any potential Muslim renters. I stuffed a shirt into my pig head mask and put sunglasses on it. It sits on a shelf above the toilet. But, only a portion of the students in this building are Muslims, so I also must come up with a strategy to scare away Hindu’s, Christians and Asians. As for Hindu’s, I need to get a cow head mask in there. An upside down cross with the numbers “666” on it should get the Christians, and there’s plenty of options to scare away the superstitious Asians. But, maybe this is all just too much work and I should just crap all over the floor instead. That should effectively offend any potential renters. But even in that case, if someone who likes Hot Carls or Dirty Sanchezes look at the room, then I’m still screwed.

Monday: 1-16-07

It finally quit raining today but remained cloudy. The temperature was in the low 30’s and I saw a guy walking down Poplar St. in short sleeves. I’ve seen this same guy doing the same thing on even colder days in the past. He appears to have some kind of brain disability, so maybe he just can’t feel the cold.
My purpose for venturing out was to take the bus to WalMart. Because of the Martin Luther King Holiday, only a single bus route was running, so I rode my bike down to Walnut Street and caught it there. The buses in this town usually have an average of about .1 people on them, but the situation was different today because most of the students are back in town and only a single bus was running.
On the bus, the first thing I noticed was a sign saying that all people over 5 years old have to pay the fee. How did they pick this age? How do they know if a kid is over 5? It’s not like 5-year olds carry ID. So, I propose that an undercover agent rides the bus and poses as a friendly rider who asks questionable-looking free-riders to recite their ABC’s. If the kids know their ABC’s, then they will be proud to recite them, letting the agent know that they are most-likely over 5. These free riders should be handcuffed on the spot and prosecuted as adults. Accomplice parents should lose custody rights. There is no excuse for such behavior.
An old hunchbacked woman with a huge neck goiter got on the bus near Wendy’s. I’d recognize that goiter anywhere. If you spend a lot of time in Carbondale, then you know who I’m talking about. The ride to WalMart only took about 15 minutes, then I spent an hour buying two shirts and a poster frame. The bus ride back took about 45 minutes because the bus had to go everywhere before getting back to my location. I even got off a couple blocks from where my bike was parked to cut 10 minutes off the ride.
Back at my apartment, I used the poster frame to make a collage of all the pig head articles that were printed in the Daily Egyptian last semester. Checking the DE’s website, I saw that one of the pig head articles was on their top-5 list of articles that received the most hits last semester. It didn’t mention the number of hits, but it was directly underneath and article about the HPV virus which they said had received widespread national attention.
I answered a Craigslist posting today in which a female student said she was looking for a guy to be her friend. She replied, “I was wondering why I got a message from you. You’re quite famous at SIU.” My reputation precedes me it seems.
Speaking of meeting girls online, I’ve been receiving emails from someone who claims to be a hot Russian girl looking to meet an American guy. I’d started the email interaction thinking for sure it was a scam. When I have free time, I love to keep the scammers going in circles for as long as I can, which is probably a good thing because it distracts them from scamming successfully. But after a few emails from the Russian girl, I’m not so sure she’s a scam anymore. I’ve been waiting for her to ask some kind of personal financial information or something, but she hasn’t.
And while I’m at these stories, a different person contacted me from Russia last week saying “she” saw my Chinese video on Youtube and thought I was cute. After three short emails, she said, I’m Chinese guy, do you mind? Do I mind, like “she” forgot to leave out that one minor detail!!!

Tuesday: 1-16-07
I spent 4 hours last night watching a Stephen King movie called "Storm of the Century", which I'd bought at WalMart earlier in the day. The extreme weirdness of this movie reminded me of another Stephen King creation, "The Langoliers". If you like extremely weird paranormal/science fiction, then I recommend both.
A new person has moved in my bathroom! To my horror, he began moving in while I was watching the movie last night. His bathroom door was painted shut, so him and his friend knocked on my door so they could get in the bathroom and beat the stuck door in. I already miss the last two months of having a bathroom to call my own. I'm thinking about writing a depressing book called "A Bathroom of One's Own". I should have gotten my scarecrows in there quicker, but this guy looks a bit goth so they might not have helped.
I got up so early this morning, 10 o'clock, because I went to work at 11 o'clock. The temperature was about 20 and I almost died because this winter has been so warm. There was even a faint traces of snow on the ground and flurries falling. I could only work till 12:45 because my first day back to school started a 1 o'clock with Chinese class. My final semester has begun!
The Chinese professor told the class that some Buddhist churches have again begun to display the swastika more prominently on their alters. It was an ancient symbol that the Nazi's hijacked. I'd seen a few small Buddha statues with swastikas on them in 2004, one of which I sold on Ebay for $25.
There was a student in Chinese class that had been absent for over a year. She is an American but I only know her by her Chinese name Li Pei. I'm not sure what she's been doing for the past year, but she told the class that she'd spent the summer working at a hospital in Shanghai.
I met with the professor in his office after class to speak with him about an independent study class I'm taking this semester, Chinese 435, which is called Business Chinese. I'm the only student taking it, so he let me borrow the textbook till I can order my own. We spent a few minutes talking about giant pandas in China, comedy in China, and my Chinese YouTube video. People are criticizing China for using pandas to its political advantage. Every country wants Pandas but China is only giving them away as political rewards. And according to the teacher, they are not giving them away but rather selling them for huge prices. Pandas seem so innocent to be a pawn in political games.
I talked to the professor about my idea of doing stand up comedy in China and making fun of white people, which he confirmed could be very popular. He also said that Chinese talk shows regularly invite foreign Chinese speakers to offer their opinions on local issues.
Leaving the professor's office, I ran into my advisor Brooke, who said that I needed a Closed Class Card from the professor to get officially signed up for the Business Chinese class, so I made another trip to the professor before going downstairs to the Liberal Arts Advisement office to get signed up for the class by a skinny middle-aged man who had obviously just dropped acid or taken X.
I have a one and a half hour break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I will be sitting in the computer lab during that time a lot probably. Today, a skinny goth girl sitting at the computer next to me kept freaking out and cussing at the screen and even complained to me about the extreme password requirements.
My other Tuesday class, East Asian history, is taught by the Chinese professor and a female assistant. After filling out a brief survey, he spent the rest of the hour showing pictures he had taken in China. He pointed out interesting things, but this is a 100 level class so many people are not interested in China and seemed obviously bored.
It was miserably cold on my short bike ride home. The temperature must have dropped all day. Nic stopped by at 5:15 and we went to pick up pizza at Papa John’s and ate it at his place. We went to the Rec Center afterwards to play racquetball, but we got to the door and he realized he had Sara’s ID instead of his own. We were both full of pizza anyway, so I had him drop me off back at my apartment and I promptly went to sleep till almost 10. I eventually managed to begin studying the vocabulary for this weeks Chinese lesson, which is about animal rights and teaches words like “monkey brains”.

Wednesday: 1-17-07
My first day of geography class began at 11 o'clock this morning in the Lawson building. It was either my imagination or the numbers on the outside of the building do not correspond to the room numbers inside. I entered the entrance that I thought had the number "161" engraved above it, but sat down and was handed a syllabus for Social Psychology.
So, I was in room 141 and I moved on to 161, where the teacher was a bit better looking but alot less professional. She spent the entire hour lecturing about things like the importance of eating breakfast before class, which she detailed on Power Point slides. One slide examined the validity of different excuses, like "My dog died", “The Bears won the Super Bowl”, and "I forgot". One student suggested that "I forgot" should be an acceptable excuse if the student brings in a note from their psychologist. The teacher also asked if we knew how the Student Conduct Code could be violated while taking her class. I wanted to speak up, "For putting a pig head on your car in response to a bad grade?". To top all this off, she even had us fill out a sheet describing our favorite movies, hobbies, etc.. One question on the form asked, "Is there anything else you would like to tell me?", so I wrote, "I like puppies."
On to the Student Center after class, I left a bulletin on the ride share board, which is a place where people who have transportation and are looking for it can leave messages for each other. I'm looking for a ride to the St. Louis airport on the 26th because I'm going to visit Nora in Wisconsin for the weekend at her mansion. I'd originally been planning to take the shuttle service BART to the airport, but they told me on the phone this morning that they want $55 each way. If I don't get a ride offered through the rideshare board, then I'll pay somebody $60 to drop me off at the nearest Metro station(1 hour 15 minute drive) and pick me up on the following Tuesday. That's $60 for the round trip, not each way, and if you take my money and don't pick me up, then I'll put a live pig IN your car after I've fed it and given it laxatives.
Waiting in line for lunch at McDonald's, a tall skinny black student was extremely overhelping a tiny Asian one. He aided her in every step of the ordering process and she leaned away as he leaned in close to give the advice. She was handed her coffee and he took it away and opened the lid for her, which seemed to obviously gross her out a bit. I'm sure she's going to take alternate routes in the future if she sees this guy in a hallway or on a sidewalk.
The assistant Hui Min taught Chinese class, which was surprising because I thought she had graduated last semester. It seems I mistakenly took “I’m going back to China” as “I’m not coming back”. Another surprise this semester is the fact that we have 8 students in class, several more than I would have expected considering most days last semester had a maximum attendance of about 4. The trend in Chinese classes is to have fewer with each progressing semester, but I think the new people in this class have somehow skipped some levels.
I worked from 2 till 6, finally finishing up a mystery paperback reorganization job that had taken me hours. I returned home after grocery shopping and ate asparagus and a chedder-brat sandwich then went to Kopies and More to copy the Business Chinese book I borrowed from the professor yesterday. Only three copy machines were working and zombie-students were at each one in the process of duplicating books. It took 20 minutes for my turn to come up, then about another hour to copy the book. The book would have cost $55, so that means I effectively made $49.50 per hour for one hour tonight(If you’re a retard, that means the copies cost $7.50, retard. (Oh crap, then I must have made $48.50 per hour))
I watched the green light in the copy machine go by 156 times and it started to make me crazy because I started to like the light so much that I wanted to be inside the copy machine forever. Where can a person buy a green light like that? I honestly believe that every person in the world should carry such a light and stare into it every time they feel uncomfortable in any way. This may be the solution to all the world’s problems.

Thursday: 1-18-07
I have a problem, or an opportunity, depending on how you look at it. I’m not going to be able to pass Business Chinese at my current skill level, which I’ve signed up for as an independent study this semester. The text discusses current issues in international trade, some of which would be difficult to understand even in English. I must read one chapter in the book each week and complete the exercises at the end of it. This is all I did today other than going to class, and I’m not even 5% finished. Even completing chapter 1, which is the shortest one, would literally be a full time job.
So, I’m thinking that the best thing to do would be return to China this semester instead of taking classes at SIU. There, I would enroll in a language exchange program where I teach English in exchange free daily Chinese lessons. There are plenty of programs like this in China and such emersion should get me fluent within a few months. They claim to be able to get a person speaking fluently in four months even with no previous training, so I should come out very well.
After the language study, then I would probably return to the US and finish my degree unless a job opportunity arose. If I run low on money while in China, then I will be able to make some extra cash by private tutoring. I hate to leave when I am this close to finishing my classes, but accelerating my language study like this could have very good consequences.
The only thing that might change this plan is if I work out some kind of deal with my Chinese professor where I can use a lower-level textbook. I will talk with him tomorrow(Friday).

Friday: 1-19-07
I didn’t go to my two classes this morning and afternoon because I’ve pretty well made up my mind to return to China earlier than expected. I have another week to drop the classes and get a full refund. I did go to the professor’s office to return that awful book to him. I wasn’t going to say anything about my plans at this time, but he asked if I’d ordered my own copy of the book so I felt I had to. He was very surprised and asked a lot questions as to why I had changed my plans, but he’s a good teacher and I couldn’t tell him, “Because I’m too dumb for your class”.
I went to work an hour early, at 1 o’clock, spending the last part of my day reorganizing hardback mysteries. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve moved these same books around now. The devil can’t get to me directly, so he posses Kelly and Carl and makes me do the same things over and over again. Hell is repetition, you know.
My dad was supposed to pick me up at six and take me on a date, but he was running late and I met him back at my apartment a few minutes later. We had Mexican food for dinner at The Corner Diner, then went to see what movies were playing at both the theatres in town. Our only options at the time were The Hitcher and Freedom Writers. We saw Freedom Writers because I didn’t think my dad wanted to see people getting their heads ripped off. I was skeptical of both movies because they were repeats of certain plots that have been overused; killer hitchhikers and classroom drama. Freedom Writers, the classroom drama, turned out to be excellent and I’d recommend it.
The night was still young after the movie and my dad and I went to PK’s for a drink. A band was playing in which the drummer appeared to be only wearing tape over his nipples and maybe a g-string. The singer, a short guy who was wearing some Cuban-like military clothing, was awful but entertaining somehow at the same time. In the crowds, I noticed the woman who grabbed my crotch and tried to fight Nic a few weeks ago.
My dad dropped me at home just after 11 o’clock, then Nic came over then Josh came over. Nic had us critique some potential logos for a great business idea he and Sara have. I won’t say what it is before it gets started, but I just can’t believe that nobody has thought of it yet.
We all ended up back at PK’s by midnight, then went on to Stix then went on to the Hangar then went on to a party at The Cherry Pit. I’d never heard of anyone refer to The Cherry Pit before, but it turns out to be a party house on the corner of Beverage and Cherry streets. I was thoroughly amused at the random people who took time out of their busy party schedules to stop and make fun of Josh. We were standing on a sidewalk and Josh was rapidly eating a burrito at the same time as he was rapidly talking to a stranger. He told the stranger, “I eat a lot”, and the stranger replied, “Yeah, you talk a lot to” and walked away. A couple minutes later in the same spot, Josh was laughing really loud and a group of guys across the street started mocking the laugh. Josh likes to be laughed at, which is a very good thing or he would probably get in a lot of fights. I truly appreciate people that like to be laughed at.
Not a lot was going on inside The Cherry Pit, but there did end up to be about 40 people combined in the upstairs and downstairs. There was an impromptu Reggae band playing in the basement, made up of random people who played all the instruments down there together. Luckily, there was at least a bit of talent on a drum set and a baritone.
I saw Matt from my Chinese class and talked to his Saudi Arabian friend Abive for a while. This is the second time I’ve met Abive and it’s just hard to believe he came from Saudia Arabia just a few years ago because his English is nearly perfect and he likes to party with Americans.

Saturday: 1-20-07
I did a lot of searching the Internet for jobs in China today. The best source I found was the classified section of the ChinaDaily, which is very similar to Craigslist. Of the 10-15 applications I emailed out, most were for English teaching jobs, but a couple were writing/proofreading related. One of my favorites was for a travel writer, so I even sent a link to my China and Finland blogs. The changes are, I will end up with a teaching job.
I stayed in my apartment all day, finally leaving at 8PM when Sara came to pick me up. We bought some drinks then met Nic at one of his coworker’s apartments who was having a party. Two female students lived there, named Marcello and Elizabeth, who are both ESL grad students(English as a Second Language). Elizabeth is just a regular white girl and Marcello is from Spanish speaking country.
Nic, Sara and I were some of the first guests to arrive. We began the evening by playing some games of beer pong, which Nic and I teamed up on and lost. About 15 people ended up coming to the party, including Marcello’s sister and several other foreigners. I spent a lot of time talking to a girl from Uganda, who had just returned to the US after visiting family there a couple days ago.
Six people, including me, Nic and Sara began a game of Texas Hold Em’ at 10 o’clock, which lead to Nic winning $35 about an hour later. I left the party with Nic and Sara after the game and we picked up some Labamba’s burritos for dinner and took them back to their house. We watched some terrible vampire movie there and I ended up falling asleep on the couch.

Sunday: 1-21-07
I woke up on Nic’s couch about 6:30 this morning and decided to walk home. A couple inches of snow had been forecast overnight, but the temperature was above freezing and only a trace of snow could be seen in the crevices of rooftops. It seemed strange that there would only by snow at those certain parts of rooftops. I could see absolutely none anywhere else.
Something strange is in the air on Carico street. Whatever this unknown substance is, it’s making the people crazy. I’ve lived there, and so have Mike and Carolyn, so we are all doomed to be really weird people. Why I say this is because there is a high concentration of eccentricity on the street. Timelloyd lives there, the crazy grass-eating hippy. Just down the street from him, is the house where there used to be a big sign in the trees that read, “THESE TREES MUTILATED BY THE CITY OF CARBONDALE”. What got me to thinking about this craziness today was a new dose of weirdness on the street, where the owner of a house has put dozens and dozens of Keep Out signs all over his house and the fence around it. Not the black and red kind of sign but ones that he has printed and laminated that contain his own personal version of the Keep Out message. Along with these signs, he has also printed and laminated just as many smiley faces.
I arrived back at my apartment by 7 o’clock and already found replies to two of the emails I’d sent about jobs in China last night. I was surprised at the quick responses, but even more surprised at the eagerness of them. It would appear that there must be a serious shortage of native English speakers willing to teach in China. Basically, the positions were already being offered to me in both of these emails, as long as I could confirm all the information I’d given about myself. One position seems to stand above the other, but the weaker position is in a much more interesting area. That better position is at least in a subtropical area where the climate is probably much like that of the northern areas of the Gulf Coast. I would be teaching English to preschoolers for an organization that owns 100 such schools within China and Taiwan. They provide a one-bedroom apartment at the school and $700 per month for teaching 15 hours per week. The cost of my flight would be reimbursed. This would basically allow me to save the money I already have and still have a lot of time to study the Chinese language.
I had two plain cheeseburgers from the Student Center Mcdonalds and scanned my passport at the Faner computer lab. The email from the Chinese preschool had requested I email a scan of my passport. I next rode my bike on to Mugsy’s and met Rufus there to watch the Bears game. The place was so crowded that the pools tables had been covered over with tarps to convert them into big tables. Despite the crowd, it wasn’t too crowded and pretty much everyone had a place to sit.
There doesn’t seem to be more than a few Saints fans in Carbondale and I didn’t see a single one at Mugsy’s, where approximately 95% of the people were wearing Bears clothing of some kind. Wild screams erupted any time even a slightly favorable event happened for the Bears. As mostly everyone reading this in the US knows, Bears won.
All but about 25 bar patrons left immediately following the game. Rufus and I moved to another table by a big-screen TV and began watching the Patriots game. Nic met us at this time, who had been watching the previous game at Buffalo Wild Wings. I sure do wish I’d been at BWW to see the action Nic described. A black man had come in wearing Saints attire and people started throwing things at him and a massive fight soon developed. Five police cars arrived within minutes and the officers sprayed their giant cans of mace into the building. The place had been filled to capacity, over 500 people, and about half immediately left when the mace was sprayed. The dozens of TV’s in the building were then turned off, making the remaining crowd even madder. More fights developed, including females, and the cops maced everyone again. Nic had some video on his phone and said that channel 12 had cameras in the building. This is a must see as soon as I can locate the video.
Rufus, Nic and I left Mugsy’s at halftime of the Patriots game and went in Nic’s car to the home of a friend of Rufus, named Donnie, who lives in the trailer park on Pleasant Hill Road that my sister used to live in. The four of us then went to PK’s together, then returned to the trailer court, stopping by my house to pick up some fireworks that I’d been keeping. Picking up the fireworks wasn’t my idea, but it seemed like good one at the time. We had bottle rockets and water dynamite and exploded them on the deck of Donnie’s trailer. An errant bottle rocket somehow ended up going inside my coat but really didn’t hurt me.

Monday: 1-22-07
I left for work at 1:30 and realized at that time my bike was still on the rack at Mugsy’s from last night, so I walked to work in light flurries, stopping at Wendy’s for lunch. Carl and I went to Murphysboro at 3:30 to buy some books from an old guy that lives there. The man had operated super computers for the Air Force back in the 70’s and had a large collection of military-related books to sell us. He was a big man that looked quite sick and had medical equipment all over the house. We ended up getting about 8 boxes of books from his small duplex.
Back at the bookstore, I worked till 6:15 then Carl and Kelly dropped me off to pick up my bike at Mugsy’s on their way home. Nic picked me up at 8:30 and we played two games of racquetball at the Rec Center. We were both very slow from the long day of drinking beer yesterday and didn’t do to well at the games.
We stopped at Schnucks afterwards and an old coworker, Elizabeth, helped me find a few empty boxes in the back of the store, which I needed to pack everything in my apartment up in preparation for the upcoming move to China.
Walking around the store, Nic and I had an ongoing debate as to whether or not anyone had ever had sex in space. He thinks that some people definitely have, and I definitely think that nobody has. At the checkout, Cheech was working and we even asked for his opinion in the matter. He seemed to think that it could have happened, but I think astronauts are way too professional to risk loosing their jobs for something like that. I wonder if a man and woman have ever been alone together on a space station for long periods of time…
I spent the rest of the night packing everything up in my apartment, which I worked on till 3AM. People from the school I applied at in China contacted me on Skype. A female teacher chatted with me for a while, then another teacher called me. The position in Yangzhou was filled yesterday, so they are going to get me into one of their other 100 schools, which are located in cities all over China. I’ve requested Beijing because Johanna will be there, but I don’t think anything is available there.

Tuesday: 1-23-07
I went to my apartment's office at noon today to ask about the move-out procedure. I did sign a lease, but this is a student-friendly place where people are allowed to pretty much move in and out as they please as long as they have a good excuse and are willing to give up their $300 security deposit. The employee working in the office sent me down to street to Forrest Hall to speak with the manager Keith. Forrest Hall is owned by the same company that owns ambassador hall. Keith asked that I fax documents proving I have a job after arrival in China.
I left for work at one o’clock and stopped by the arena on the way there to buy a ticket for tonight’s basketball game that my dad wanted. I only worked till 4 o’clock because my dad picked me up at that time to help me move everything out of my apartment.
Today is one of the only times that I appreciated my tiny apartment, because moving out took about only 30 minutes. At the house in Murphysboro, I got the stuff unloaded into my storage shed just before it got too dark to see. Perfect timing.
I had wanted to borrow Clara’s car and go have dinner with Gretchen tonight, but I called Gretchen and we decided to go tomorrow night instead because she had too many papers to grade. Clara generously agreed to let me borrow the car till Thursday. The car battery was strangely almost dead when my dad and I started it up. He put a backup battery in the trunk in case it goes completely dead on me.
I dropped my dad off at Saint Andrews School in Murphysboro, where he was planning on meeting his friend Randy and Randy’s son so they could all go to the Saluki’s vs. Northern Iowa game tonight.
Back at my mostly-empty apartment, I continued the ongoing job negotiations with the two teachers in China who work for the Dadi preschool organization. These are the same two women that I’ve been dealing with for days now. They are both extremely patient and helpful, but we have had some serious communication breakdowns. We tried using Skype’s free voice chat service at first, but the sound quality was too poor. We then switched over to text chatting and were just confusing each other even more, so I used my Skype pay service to call Eva’s mobile phone(the women’s names are Eva and Kera). We seem to now have come to the understanding that I’ll be working in Nanjing starting at the end of Feb.
I now have extra time, so I will just go to China early and spend a couple weeks hanging out before I have to be in Nanjing. I’ll probably leave Chicago for China on the 6th of Feb. Eva and Kera have invited me to come visit them in Zhuhai, which would give me an opportunity to learn more about the job and also visit some old classmates from Macau.

Wednesday: 1-24-06
I went to campus this morning to drop my classes. Interestingly, the office where this is done doubles as the Judicial Affairs office at Woody Hall. Also at Woody Hall, I talked with a person named Mike who is in charge of financial aid withdrawals. As I might have expected, I will have to pay the money they gave me this semester back before I can sign up for Spring 2008 classes as I plan. So, hopefully there are no huge unexpected expenses between now and then.
I decided last night that trying to take my desktop computer to China would just be stupid, so I went out on a laptop search all over town today. Luckily I had Clara’s car or this would have been a daunting task on the bike. My first stop was at Best Buy. I arrived a few minutes before the store opened at 10 and about a dozen other customers were sitting in their cars waiting to get in.
Inside, I experienced the Great Laptop Famine of 2007 for the first time. Best Buy usually has about 100 laptops available in about 15 different varieties, but they had just 4 today. Not only was most of the entire laptop section empty, but so was the desktop section. A little red-haired guy that looked to be about 17 years old told me that the store was not purchasing any more computers till Windows Vista comes out at the beginning of February. He explained that the existing laptops had all been sold to people who wanted to get their hands on the old operating system before the new one came out.
I next went on to Walmart, Staples and Office Max, where the same situation was occurring. Walmart had 0 machines, Staples had 6 and Office Max had 4. This is all very weird and Microsoft has way too much power.
Despite the limited selection, many of the available machines were marked down considerably. Only the higher-end systems were left, but many were now near the price range I was considering. In the end, I came down to deciding between a $799 machine at Staples and a $950 one at Best Buy. The Best Buy system was much more compact and powerful, so I was sold when the little red-haired guy offered to throw in a $100 gift certificate. The machine is a display model but shows no visible wear and has the full warranty. It is a Sony Vaio with a Duo 2 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. The specs are very important for my video editing, of which I plan to do a lot more of in China and maybe even make some money off it if I can get some of my plans going there. I keep my apartment unlocked and the computer is in my desk.
I couldn’t leave the store with the computer yet because the employees had to restore it to its original settings to remove the software that had been running when it was on display. The employee who did this was a guy who I once hired at Schnucks when I was the meat department manager. He cut part of his knuckle off on the bone saw and I had to take him to the hospital one day years ago.
So, leaving Best Buy, I got a haircut from Nathan at The Space, then briefly returned home, then ate lunch at Mcdonald’s before returning to the Best Buy to pick up the computer. I used my $100 gift card to buy two cables, a Bluetooth USB adapter and a Bluetooth earpiece. With this Bluetooth equipment, I’ll have the equivalent of a large cell phone whenever the laptop is near a wireless signal. With Skype calls costing just about a penny a minute from China to the US, this will really come in handy.
I worked from 1 till 5:45. The guy that wants to take my job came in to talk to Carl and Kelly. He is the brother of Josh’s girlfriend Heather. Proving even more that this is a small town, Nic happened to walk in the door while he was there and it turns out that they went to school together for years. The guy will almost definitely get hired now.
Leaving work, I drove on to the West Frankfort Intermediate School to meet Gretchen. She was working late tonight because she had been in a class to learn how to use a new SmartBoard system that was just installed in her classroom. She took me on a little tour of the 5th grade classroom she teaches in, which she has almost psychotically decorated with the children’s artwork. A sign on her desk reads, “Do not feed the teacher”. The room has about 8 new computers with flat screen displays and looks much better than any elementary school room I ever experience when I was a kid. To keep her students in line, she uses some interesting methods like the Marble System. The class gets marbles put into a jar any time they do something good. They then get some kind of treat when they have a total of 30 marbles. Their next scheduled treat is getting to watch the movie cars on the new SmartBoard system.
Gretchen and I next went to the house she rents in West Frankfort, which is all of a two-minute drive from the school. It is a good-sized two bedroom with a detached garage. She has two insane dogs inside, one of which is a collie that she got to replace Dakata, her old collie that died.
We ate dinner at La Fiesta in Benton and sat there for another hour talking. Gretchen seems to be very happy and had little negative to report other than a recent surgery to replace her pacemaker and a very sick grandmother. Earlier at her house, she had showed me a stack of about 30 get-well cards that her kids had sent when she was in the hospital.
I dropped her back off at her house at 9:30 and returned to my mostly-empty apartment, then stayed up pretty much all night getting everything transferred from my desktop computer to the new laptop and getting software installed on the laptop.

Thursday: January 25, 2007
I was up till after 5AM last night making the move from my desktop computer to the new laptop. I tried to put a fresh installation of Windows on the desktop because I’m selling it to Clara, but was unsuccessful. I continued the process for another hour this morning and was unsuccessful again. This is no big deal since Clara will probably put her own hard drive in it anyway.
At 2 o’clock, I packed the desktop and the rest of the stuff I’m putting into storage in Clara’s car, then dropped off a handful of clothing to Goodwill before going on to work for an hour and a half. I’m no longer a Bookworm employee now.
I went to Murphysboro at 4 o’clock and unloaded my goods. Clara was already at home and my dad arrived from work a few minutes later. My dad’s friend Randy was also at the house putting up some new paneling and a closet door in the new bathroom. There is a six-foot tall copper thing in the front yard right now that my dad just bought and plans on putting on top of the house. It’s cone shaped, weighs a couple hundred pounds and looks a bit like a church steeple.
Randy left just after I arrived and my dad and Clara were tired and fell asleep for a while. My dad is sick and he had just spilled grape juice on the seat of his work truck, so he wasn’t happy. We went to Carbondale at 6:30 and met Carl, Kelly and Nic at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Sara met us there after we had already eaten. I said goodbyes to everyone a couple hours later, then Nic, Sara and I went on to the Hangar to meet Josh, Heather and Heather’s brother Tim. The Hangar was charging a $5 cover, so we all decided to go to Gatsby’s instead. Josh has a ticket and the Gatsby’s bouncers would not allow him in on his FOID card, so we went on down the street to the Cellar. In the parking lot, Nic started taking video of me with his phone, which I should have thought was suspicious, but didn’t. I then felt a odd sensation on my leg and heard the sound of arcing electricity. Nic had threatened to buy a taser several months ago and get me when I least expected it, and that’s what he did tonight. I quickly jumped away and the jolt suprisingly hurt very little.
We met Nic’s friend Andrew at the Cellar, whom I’d met a few weeks ago. In my weblog that day, I’d written something like, “I met a couple friends of Nic’s tonight, one of which seemed a bit gay at first(Andrew)”. So, I was playing bumber pool with this “gay” tonight when he said said, “so, you think I look gay”. Luckily, he wasn’t offended and found it humorous. I never know who’s going to read the blog.
Our group next went on to Mugsy’s until closing time, then went over to the house of a real gay guy that Sara knows. Sara and the gay ordered pizza for everyone and we took turns tasering each other in different spots. I was the first to try a bare skin taser,which I did on the wrist. Sara had the most courage of everyone and even let Nic taser her neck!
Since I didn’t even have bedding at my apartment now, I slept on a matress on Nic and Sara’s living room floor. Thier dog Nelson crawled under the covers and stayed there all night.

Friday: 1-25-07

I woke up on Nic and Sara's floor this morning with her dog cuddled up next to me on a mattress. Sara gave me a ride home at 10 o'clock.
I have received yet another change of plans from the organization I'll be working for in China. Now they'll be sending me to Zhuhai instead on Nanjing. I had originally applied for a job in Yangzhou, then they wanted me to go to Nanjing and now they want me in Zhuhai. I had earlier told them I didn't want to go to Zhuhai because alot of the people there speak Cantonese instead of Mandarin. The email today said not to worry about that because all the teachers at the school speak mandarin. I told them that I'd take the job, but I will definitely still be checking out other options over the next few days.
At 2 o'clock I got all the stuff I'm taking packed into a large suitcase and a small backback. Everything valuable is in the backpack and will be carry-on luggage. I turned in my key to the manager and he seemed to have forgotten that we had spoken about my moving out early a few days ago. He said that I may continue to receive charges for my apartment until he receives proof that I've taken a job. I replied that I didn't have any money to pay Either way, so please don't charge me.
My Taiwanese friend Peter was my ride to the airport, who was receiving his mom there this evening off a flight from Taiwan. His wife will be having a baby on Feb. 14, so his mom will stay for about two months. He informed me of an unusual Taiwanese custom where a woman must stay in bed for one month after pregnancy. She can only get out of bed to use the bathroom and must even be fed in bed. This is apparently strictly enforced. Peter even told me that women used to use bedpans so they wouldn't have to get out of bed for anything. Interesting.
Not too far from the St. Louis airport is a tiny Chinatown, which is a new fact to me. It's actually just one street where many Chinese-related businesses are located. Peter had a shopping list from his wife, so we stopped at a good-sized Chinese supermarket so he could buy the products. The store's options huge live eels and frogs in styrofoam boxes. The frogs maybe weighed 1 pound each. In the produce section, was a huge block of tofu sitting in water that customers could cut chunks from and put into bags. In the seafood department, Peter bought a fish head that was about 10 inches across, which he said will be used to cook something called a fishhead pot.
Peter bought me dinner at a tiny restaurant down the street with two tables in it. A middle-aged Chinese couple that probably owned the place was working. Customers here are supposed to walk behind the counter and get their own bowl and fill it with rice from a pot. They then order whatever food they want to eat with the rice. Peter ordered a plate with all kinds of different foods, which turned out to be seasoned tofu, pork, chicken and turnip. One item tasted particularly not-so-good and Peter informed me that I had just eaten a slice of pig ear. He didn't touch a single pig ear slice. The turnip instantly made me run for water, which I was able to order in Chinese from the old woman.
Peter and I arrived at the airport about 30 minutes before I needed to pass through security, so we sat at a coffee shop during that time. He was very surprised to see that the shop offered self-service refills on coffee and soda, a concept which he said would never work in Taiwan because everyone would just bring their own cups. Sometimes I forget that Peter has only been in the US for 5 months. We talked a bit about airports and aviation because that's what Peter studies in school. He can identify the planes as they fly low over the airport. I had been hoping to someday take cheap flight lessons when I have a real job in China, but Peter gave me some info that destroyed that plan. Private citizens are not allowed to own planes in China, so there are no flight lessons except for the ones commercial pilots take. The military strictly controls the airspace. This makes sense in a country like China, but I'd just never thought of it.
The police at the St. Louis airport now patroll the terminals with Segways that say "Police" on the handlebars. They silently ride these machines around at about 20 miles per hour. Waiting for my flight, a man's voice came on the intercom saying that someone had left a laptop on a plane and it would be sold on Ebay. I had to walk out onto the tarmac and go up fold-out stairs to get on my plane, which was a 19-seat Beechcraft with propellers. There was a family of 3 with a screaming baby in the back row, which I of course had to sit right in front of. This family had to change their seats to sit together, so this messed up all the seating and everybody was confused and playing musical chairs. There was no bathroom or flight attendant, so the co-pilot did the announcements that a flight attendant usually would. He asked the typical questions to the people sitting near the emergency exits, "Will you be able to open this door in the even of an emergency?", and a girl replied, "no, this is my first time flying", and the co-pilot replied back, "Don't worry, I understand, it's my first time too.
The plane was very noisy and so was the baby, but I was exhausted and had remembered to put earplugs in my pocket, so sleep wasn't a problem. In Milwaukee, my connecting flight to Minneapolis was delayed by a few minutes, but it was worth the wait. I suddenly went from my worst flight ever to my best flight ever. It was a large Boeing 717 with first-class sized seats throughout. I estimated that the airline, Midwest, must have had to remove 40 seats, two from each row to achieve this feat. Airlines usually have thin profit margins, so it's unclear how they afford this. The lady sitting next to me said that all their other flights are the same. To top everything off, soft violin music was playing and the smell of baking chocolate chip cookies began to fill the air as we climbed to cruising altitude. Yes, instead of some crappy peanuts or pretzels, the stewardesses were actually baking us fresh chocolate chip cookies. Everyone was given 2. I requested Pepsi and was given the entire can instead of a small glass. I never had a favorite airline before today.
We were in Minneapolis in just over 30 minutes. Nora met me at the airport and we arrived at exactly the same time. She lives in a small town about 2 hours away, called Chippewa Falls. Once in the town, we stopped at a small restaurant and ordered a meal, then went to her mansion on a hill. Yes, she really does live in a real mansion on a real hill, all by herself. A relative of a friend of her family recently bought the place for $300,000, but can't live in it for two years, so Nora was chosen as the lucky housesitter. It has six bedrooms on three floors and is about 100 years old. Many rooms are decorated with beautifully stained and painted wood trim, and the main entrance with its big staircase is the most impressive. The rooms on the doors upstairs have names engraved on them because it used to be a bed-and-breakfast. There is a picture on one of the bedroom walls of a creepy girl, who we named Claire. I said "hello Claire" several times as I opened doors and Nora seemed scared. She lives in four rooms on the bottom floor which she has closed off to save money on the heating bill. This should be an interesting beginning to my journey.

Saturday: 1-27-06.

Snow was falling this morning and about an inch was on top of the existing few inches already on the ground. I turned on my laptop to discover a wireless Internet signal emanating from somewhere nearby. I love this wonderful new machine and if anybody tries to steal it I’ll torture them.

Nora and I walked 5 or six blocks downtown and joined a peace protest at 11 o’clock. Her mom had invited her to the protest. Her dad had gone to Washington DC to join the larger protest there. There is apparently a protest downtown every weekend here, but Nora said that this was the largest crowd she had ever seen, with 50 or 60 people. A woman wearing an “impeach Bush” sign quickly handed us both signs of our own. Many people honked and waved as they drove by the busy street and a few rolled down their windows to yell sometimes unintelligible insults.
The snow quit falling when we arrived and the sun came out, but we were still quite cold and had to take a break at a nearby coffee shop. The downtown area has a lot of northern personality and is maintained very nicely.

Nora’s mom took us to a robot war at the local middle school at 12:15. A group of about 100 people was in the cafeteria surrounding a plexiglass container where small homemade robots were fighting with saw blades and all kinds of other improvised weapons. The organizer of the event, a local doctor, had a microphone and was the announcer for each battle. There were two size categories of robots and none could weigh over 3 pounds. Sitting in the corner of the room was a lawnmower sized robot made out of heavy steel with sledhammers that spun around the top. This robot was only on display but will be entering a larger competition in Minneapolis soon.

All of the creators of today’s machines were boys of about 10 years old. Some of their robots were pretty pathetic, while others had obviously had quite a bit of parental help. After suffering a loss, I saw at least one kid with tears in eyes as he clung to his father and complained about the unfairness of a particular match. The plexiglass ring had hazards in all four corners. A horseshoe fell from one corner, a saw blade spun in another, a spike shot out of the floor in another and a trapdoor opened in the 4th corner. The best match was when a robot with a big drill bit spinning on the front got its bit caught in the wires of the other robot. Both bots went spinning over top of each other and got stuck together. Watching these matches, I wondered if putting a magnetron on a bot would be acceptable if the magnetron was under 3 pounds. Magnetrons are the things that cook food in a microwave, but I think they all weigh over three pounds.
A bit later in the afternoon, Nora and I went to a flea market downtown that wasn’t really much of a flea market. It was more like permanent vendors that had junk displayed in a small building. There was lots of empty space and the ugly products were overpriced. Across the street from the “flea market”, we had a beer at a bowling alley that was packed with about 300 league bowlers that were partying like they’d never get to bowl again. This was quite the center of activity in the town at the moment. In addition to the bowling, it seemed that a bunch of stuff was also getting raffled off, but I can’t imagine that most people would have been able to hear their ticket number called.
Nora’s stepmom called in the late afternoon requesting that Nora come to let her in her house because she was locked out. She lives in Altoona, which is about a 15 minute drive from Chippewa Falls. She promptly backed her car into Nora’s in the driveway after we let her in the house, but there was no damage.
Driving back to Chippewa Falls, we stopped at the local Super Walmart to buy swimming attire, but decided not to spend the money after finding what we wanted. For dinner, we ate at Casa Mexicana downtown. I ate so much that I fell asleep during the hour long car ride into the Northwoods. We headed north to visit Nora’s friend Carol, who’s family lives on a 3800 acre lake up there.
The family has a large beautiful house that includes a huge hot tub(why we wanted the swimming suits) and heated basement floors. The two snowmobiles that the family owns were the highlight of our night. Carol distributed snow pants, coats, boots and helmets to Nora and I to prepare for the ride. There wasn’t enough room for everyone on the snowmobiles, so Carol’s mom stayed at the house. The machines are large 800cc Artic Cats and I rode on the back of one with Carol’s dad. The temperature was below 10 degrees and light snow was falling again.
I’d never been on a snowmobile and have spend little time in northern areas during the winter, so I was quite surprised when we drove out onto the frozen lake and promptly hit 80 MPH and went down a frozen river four miles to a bar where about a dozen other snowmobiles were parked on the ice. On the river, stakes with reflectors on them are driven into the ice to mark at least some kind of a “road”. Inside the bar, the customers had put their heavy clothing into piles in the corner and were singing karaoke. About 50 stuffed animals lined the walls of the building, including many bears and bobcats. Nora and Carol requested that the DJ play the Chicken Dance and also sang Shania Twain. We stayed here for 30 minutes then went on a couple more miles towards another bar. Carol’s dad popped a small wheelie on takeoff, then briefly hit 96MPH on a straightaway. About a mile away, he realized that Carol and Nora were no longer behind us, so we turned around to discover that they were immobilized from a broken belt, but Carol’s dad just so happened to have an extra belt on him.
The next bar was most of a younger crowd driving cars, but there were a few snowmobiles. Nora and I played a game of pool and got three que balls stuck in the table before she finally beat me, but we were using her 1-ball as the que then, so I guess she really didn’t win. Our bar hopping wasn’t over and we drove on to another bar that was completely empty. We didn’t even go inside here, but just turned around and found another bar that did have some people in it, a lot of people actually. The parking lot was again packed with snowmobiles and a company was having a late Christmas party inside. A cover band was playing classic rock with an excellent singer, so the dance floor was packed. Nora kept wanting me to dance, but I did very little of that because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of taking off my snow pants.
We returned to Carol’s family’s house at 1:30.

Sunday: 1-28-07
I woke up at 8:30 this morning at Nora’s friend Carol’s house thinking that it was actually 9:30 because the clock in the room was an hour fast. Nora and I had some muffins with the family together downstairs for breakfast then Carol and Nora sat around looking at old pictures together for a while. They’ve known each other since 6th grade.
Nora and I left the house at 11:30 and returned to Chippewa Falls, stopping at the Lionkugels brewery lodge to ask about making tour reservations tomorrow. The large log-cabin style building features a 30-ft tall floor-to-ceiling chimney with fireplaces on all four sides of it. An employee made us a reservation for 4PM then gave us 4 tickets for free beers at the lodge bar. We sat in some Lionkugel chairs and drank our four beers, then drove on to a local bar and ordered bloody marys, grilled cheese and French fries for lunch before returning to Nora’s apartment.
We had planned on doing some kind of outside activities today, but ended up spending the rest of the day making a movie instead. What kind of movie you ask? Well, Nora dressed herself to look as crazy as possible, then I filmed her going through the house describing a fictitious mass suicide scenario. She played the role of the daughter of the previous owner of the home, who had once operated it as a bed and breakfast. The suicides are said to have been prompted by the spirit of a little girl named Claire, disappeared one day when the attic roof hatch was found open. Her dolls were found dismembered on the rooftop and she was never seen again. Nora and I had been making jokes about the house being haunted by a girl named Claire for the past two days because of a creepy old framed photo of a little girl upstairs. The girl in the photo is Claire, according to us at least.
I had planned on filming now and editing later, but Nora became interested in the editing process and wanted to do it together, so we continued movie-making for the rest of the evening, only leaving the house once to buy a bottle of wine.
Monday: 1-29-07
Nora and I had lunch with her dad, Brian, on his lunch break at the Casa Mexicana. This is the same restaurant I stuffed myself at on Saturday night. Brian, Nora and I spent an hour speaking about the world as we ate. Brian had just returned last night from the peace protest that was held in Washington D.C.. He has a vast knowledge of political, economic and spiritual history that far surpasses what I know on these subjects. He often brought things up that I was completely ignorant of, but did a good job of trying to patiently explain them.
Nora and I didn’t do anything else till 4 o’clock when we returned to the Lienenkugel’s lounge to begin our tour of the brewery. We were given two more tickets for free beers and had time to drink one of them before the tour began. Our tour guide was a young guy named Alex and I asked him if we would be allowed to swim in the beer but he said we couldn’t do that without the proper swimming attire.
The brewery consists of several relatively small buildings, some of which have been there over 100 years since the Lienenkugel family immigrated here and started the business. Alex guided us through several levels of the main building as he described the brewing process and the different equipment. Some rooms were 100 degrees and others were cold. There was 1.7 million gallons of beer in the tanks of the fermenting room. Alex said one tank equaled a six pack a day for 50 years I think. The most interesting part of the tour by far was the bottling room, which was operating at the time and producing 400 bottles per minute. The machines of course do all the work while people just stand around and stare at them. Alex gave Nora a free keychain for remembering how many gallons of beer was in the fermenting room.
We headed to Nora’s dad’s house at 5:30 but she got a call from work on the way that people were not receiving their newspapers on certain routes. She’s in charge of the small army of paper-people that deliver the Chippewa Herald’s few dozen in-town routes. The problem was with the three routes that a new employee was running for the first time. Subscribers are guaranteed their papers by 5:30 and the new guy wasn’t coming through on the promise. After driving around the area he was supposed to be for a few minutes, we found him pedaling around on a bike in the dark icy streets. He was a clean-cut guy in his 40’s who looked like he probably took the job to get some exercise or something. He didn’t realize how much time the routes would take and had started too late. Nora’s boss had already helped him deliver some of the papers and we helped with the rest.
So, I delivered to houses on the right side of the street and Nora delivered to the left. One man was sitting by his door waiting for the paper and complained when I put it on the porch instead of the box that was attached to the house. What a crappy job, especially when it’s 10 degrees and the streets are covered in ice. It has been snowing about a half inch every night and this has made the side streets treacherous. We briefly spoke with Nora’s boss and he told me that I was “brave”. I thought he meant for helping out with the papers, but he was actually speaking of my association with Nora.
We finally arrived at Nora’s dad’s house at 7 o’clock. He(Brian) had cooked a delicious wok meal of rice, curry, vegetables and chicken. Also eating with us was Nora’s stepmom(Ruth) and her stepsister(Aleah). Aleah is in her late 20’s and has severe brain damage from cerebral palsy, which happened at birth. Luckily, she just so happened to be born to a social worker. Ruth has done lots of work with disadvantaged peoples. Aleah can speak but it’s hard for people that don’t know her to understand. She is quite tall and has the mind of a young child who enjoys things like kids computer games and coloring. She gave Nora a finger-painting that didn’t seem to have any order to it other than a possible smiley face.
The dog chewed on my hat after the meal and didn’t want to give it back without a fight. Ruth soon put Aleah to bed and the rest of us sat talking in the living room. Brian gave me a simple two piece wooden puzzle that I could not solve without a hint. It just consisted of two blocks that somehow fit together to make a pyramid, but was amazingly difficult. Nora and Ruth kept trying to give me hints and Brian made a strenuous effort to stop them. He wanted to see me confused and I was.
We went downstairs to look at some of my pictures of Saturday’s downtown peace protest online. Brian has thousands of books he has collected on shelves in the basement. This far outdoes any of the private collections I saw people sell while I worked at the bookstore.
Nora and I returned to her mansion at 10 o’clock and watched the movie Match Point on my computer. I recommend it.

Tuesday: 1-30-07
Nora went to work at 9:15 this morning and I got ready to catch my shuttle to the airport, which arrived at 10:45. A van pulled up to the house driven by a bearded Harley rider who regularly attends the yearly Sturgis event. I was the only passenger at the time and he invited me to sit in the front seat. He mostly talked about his main hobby, digital photography and said that he won a $7,000 Harley in a raffle a few years back and gave it to his father.
We picked up a nice old white-haired woman that was headed to Florida, then stopped to transfer shuttles and pay the $49 fee in Eau Claire. The shuttle to Minneapolis had 4 passengers and I spent the hour and a half ride talking to an overworked but happy 40-something year-old former single mother with three jobs in the rear seat, who was on her way to visit her golf-pro son in Palm Springs. She was raised on a farm and commented that cows have beautiful eyes, which is true. We didn’t even ever introduce ourselves to each other, but pretty well know the other’s life story now. When I first started traveling a lot, it always seemed weird to spend hours talking to a stranger without knowing their name, but why bother if you’re just looking for somebody to talk to and know you’ll almost for sure never see that person again.
Dozens of lighters were abandoned at the entrance of the Minneapolis airport. They were just all sitting on the rims of the trash cans left there by travelers who would rather pass them to another user than have security throw them in the trash. I tried to use one to light a cigarette but it was 15 degrees out and they were all to cold to work, so a group of women complaining about not being able to take their makeup on flights let me borrow one.
I had 40 minutes to wait on my 3PM flight to Milwaukee and tried to use the airport’s wireless Internet service but a page opened on the browser saying it cost $8/day to use it. People wait an average of about an hour for their flights, so an $8 charge is just extreme and I of course didn’t pay.
My Midwest Air flight was only about half full. The stewardesses again baked fresh chocolate chip cookies and even gave me two extras when I asked to have the leftovers. The sky was very clear and offered a nice view of the small snow-covered flat-topped mountains in Central Wisconsin.
Upon arrival in Milwaukee, I collected my checked bag and waited 20 minutes on a shuttle that took me to a small emtpy Amtrak station near one of the airport’s parking lots. A few other passengers arrived by the time the train departed on hour later.
I spent the entire one-hour train ride editing the video that Nora and I shot on Sunday, getting it nearly completed. Arriving in downtown Chicago, I needed to get on the Orange Line, so I let a nice black homeless woman named Pat give me directions for $1. It was very uncomfortable trying to carry my heavy suitcase for 4 blocks in the 20 degree weather. It has wheels on the bottom, but no extendable handle, so I can either bend down to roll it or just carry it. Getting the thing through the El turnstiles also took a bit of experimentation and one of the ticket machines violently spit my $2 back at me onto the floor for no apparent reason.
There was a train waiting for me when I got onto the platform, and there was a bus waiting when I got off the train, so I arrived at Ericka’s apartment by about 8:30. She was gone to a kickboxing class, but had left the door open in case I arrived.
We went out to eat at a nearby restaurant when Ericka got home, which she wanted to go to and visit her favorite fish Puff. Puff is an adorable smiling blue-eyed puffer fish that lives in a big colorful aquarium in the non-smoking section. I asked the waitress, “Has anybody ever told you that your puffer fish has beautiful blue eyes?”. She had no reaction to the comment.
Back at Ericka’s house, we watched several videos from my website that she had never seen, including the ones about the Great Pig Head Incident of 2006.

Wednesday: 1-31-07 Chicago
I got up at 8 o’clock this morning and bought some doughnuts at a gas station across the street from Ericka’s house so I would have two $1 bills to pay for a bus ride so I could get to the train station and go downtown.
I went to the 9-story Chicago public library building to enquire about wireless Internet access. They did provide it free on two floors, including the Winter Garden on the 9th floor, which is a glass atrium with trees and plants. The entire building is beautifully decorated in marble and wood.
My main reason for this trip downtown was to apply for a visa at the Chinese consulate, so I looked up directions on the consulate’s website and headed in that direction. Library security asked me to open my backpack as I exited the building.
It costs $2 every time I get on a bus or train, so I stopped at a currency exchange and bought a one-week unlimited pass for $20. The library just so happens to be on State St., and so does the Chinese consulate. The two locations are about a dozen blocks apart so I took the Red Line subway there.
The consulate is on the 5th floor of a large office building. There were few people waiting inside so I was able to speak with an agent just a few minutes after completing the application. I next returned to the Winter Garden at the library and used the Internet access to speak with Johanna on Skype. A security guard saw me sitting Indian-style on a wooden bench and came over to ask that I not put my shoes on the wood.
I had lunch at a nearby Mcdonalds then walked on to Millennium Park to see the giant silver jelly bean. It had been under construction and covered up the last time I was here, which was with Johanna about a year ago. It was open today and very few people were looking at it because of the 15 degree temperature. It’s impressive because of it’s size and the way it reflects the city’s skyline off it’s curves. The metal is not particularly thick, so a vandal could do a huge amount of damage with a heavy object. There is not way to keep people out of the park at night, so it’s unclear how they keep this from happening.
My hands were already hurting from the cold after just 30 minutes in it, so I decided it was time to head back towards Ericka’s apartment. It would have been nice to spend the whole afternoon downtown, but indoor activities cost money that I didn’t want to spend.
Amazingly, I fell asleep on the bumpy 50-block bus ride after getting off the train. I even slept sound enough to sleep right through my stop on 97th street. The place I did eventually way up at, 101st Street, just so happened to have a Jewel store, so I went in and bought a few groceries before catching another bus back the other direction.
I quickly fell back asleep as soon as I hit the couch inside and slept another two hours. Ericka got home at 8:30 saying her car was broken down at work, so we couldn’t go out like we had planned. Instead, we ate dinner and watched part of the movie “The Labyrinth”.