due to popular demand…

At last, an update! My public demands that I make my presence known on the web again, so here we go.

The last few weeks have mainly been spent catching up on time with Kelly, since she’s about to be taken away from me again. 🙁 We’ve gone home and to Brianna and Mike’s, and this weekend we’re going to her home to celebrate her father’s birthday.

Schoolwise, things are proceeding okay…got a project due on Monday, but no other major news to report. You didn’t really come here to read my thoughts on school, right? You want pithy quotes and updates, dont’cha? Well, give the public what it wants, I suppose.

So, the Body For Life (take 3) thing is going reasonably well for both of us, except that my hamstrings are crying out to me whenever I decide to, I don’t know…move, and Kelly seems to have strained a ligament in her ankle or something. We decided to take the day off, exercise-wise. But I have definitely noticed a difference in the way I look, so that’s promising.

We’ve also played some golf recently. That’s right, kids…Kelly’s playing golf. (She’s on the Dark Side now, Ricky…MU-WAH-HAH-HAH!) She even went and bought some clubs. This weekend will include more golf, as her dad likes to play and Kelly’s buying a round for his present. Speaking of gifts, I received a nice one myself for our 6-month anniversary (yeah, yeah, I know…it’s not really an ANNIVERSARY when it’s only months…but it’s my web page, so nyah nyah)…a pull cart! This allows me to walk the course a lot easier (and it’s pretty nifty; it even came with its own water bottle!). So we tried it out last week, and to our surprise, actually did pretty well. I even made my second birdie of my golf career; updates are on the golf page. I also almost lost my wallet, but that’s another story…

I’ve also spoken for the youth out at FBC Alachua for the first time, and it didn’t seem to go too badly. I only saw someone yawn once. 🙂 It’ll be interesting in the fall, when I just have the high-schoolers to teach. Will I still be able to relate to people 10 years younger than I? Stay tuned…

Okay, so that’s about it. I hope that this satiates everyone’s desire for all things Brandon for a little bit, ’cause I’m going to be away this weekend. But until next time, stay frosty, kids.

more tidbits o’ fun

Thoughts while contemplating if watching Wimbledon constitutes true boredom:

  • You know, for a 25-year-old male, I don’t have nearly enough tools.
  • Sometimes I have to wonder about my TV’s movie rating system. If “City of Angels” gets three stars, Shawshank certainly deserves four.
  • I guess that if there’s ever a time for the car to have its battery go out, it’s during summer break when I don’t have anything else to do.
  • Corollary: In terms of pounds per square inch, nothing beats a car battery for heaviness.
  • Saw Monsters, Inc. for the first time today, and thus far, I’ve got to say it’s my least favorite of the Pixar offerings.
  • That’s not saying it’s not better than 90% of the other movies out there.
  • And speaking of which: does Steve Buscemi ever get tired of playing the creepy bad guy?
  • I think it’s the final step in completely missing one’s girlfriend when you make a web page calculating the exact amount of time left until she’s back.
  • If you haven’t gone to buick.com and seen the “Tiger Trap” video, and you like golf in any way, go. Watch. I’ll wait.
  • There aren’t many things in life that cause more frustration than working on your research project for hours and getting nowhere with it.
  • And finally: while I may never be a match for Mr. Goodwrench, I had a little Tim Taylor moment when I got my car started after putting in the new battery. Yes, I know it’s not that difficult, but remember, we’re talking about someone who scored in the 29th percentile of men taking the auto/shop portion of the ASVAB in high school. Anything more involved than putting gas in the car is a victory.

thoughts approaching summer break

  • Has anyone else ever wondered why the audience claps when someone finds a daily double on “Jeopardy!”? Does the audience realize that they’re applauding pure luck? You’d think a “Jeopardy” audience would know better.
  • One of these days, I’m going to calculate how many free 12-packs of Diet Dr Pepper I could get per year just by cashing in from recycling old Diet Dr Pepper cans.
  • Speaking of which, I’ve got quite the pyramid of cans going on my end table right now. Okay, it’s not a pyramid; more of a set of skyscrapers. I really need to clean my apartment…
  • I realize now why I didn’t get to play basketball on my high school teams and onward. It wasn’t that I was too short. It’s that I was too fundamentally sound. I tend to pass more than I shoot, so I was immediately disqualified.
  • The bottled water industry has to laugh out loud every time they look at their profit margins.
  • I don’t know why, but in computer golf games, I enjoy making golf courses more than playing the game itself.
  • One of these days, I hope to be traded from one university to another for the equivalent of 35 million euros.
  • Less than a week until the 25th!

low-grade blues

My normal body temperature is 97.6 degrees. As I type this, my temperature is 98.8 and rising. I’ve had a scratchy throat all day long.

What, were you worried I’d done badly on a test or something? 😉

So, I’m just laying back in my recliner, hoping that it’ll be a 24-hour thing. I haven’t heard of anything going around recently, but who knows? I’d like to be better tomorrow; I am doing a devotional for the youth at my church tomorrow evening, if I’m up to it. So prayers would be nice.

off the top of my head

A few items to address, since I haven’t done anything in some time on the site:

  • A helpful hint for spammers: when giving your credentials, you don’t have to say, “Dr. John Brown, PhD”. That’s redundant. And it gives me a really easy way to filter-delete you.
  • After two weeks: June 25 looks a long ways away.
  • In related news, the apocalypse was reported to be near: I finished my architecture project today, a day and a half ahead of schedule.
  • They don’t always bring me down, but: rainy days make me just want to stay in my apartment all day.
  • And speaking of: The waterwall that I bought would rank among the best purchases I’ve made, if I had actually bought it instead of got it with a gift card.
  • And finally: today’s my father’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!

the night of 1000 words

Here it is, my friends…the entry that will have you recalling the banner years of pressing on…where posts occurred every day, and sometimes more than once a day, and tended to be longer than just a couple of paragraphs. The entry so huge, it’s filed under four, count ’em, four, categories.

Do I sound enough like an NBC promo?

Continue reading →

school’s back in session

So we’re back in school again, and it’s been a pretty good week. I only have one class this summer term, but I also have an independent study. If all goes well, it could take me a long way toward my dissertation. This, of course, is A Good Thing ®.

Niceville was wonderful. I got to see a lot of Kelly’s hometown, and I added a couple of shades of tan to boot. 🙂 I also played a round of golf with her dad. I shot my best 9 and 18-hole scores. Updated the golf page to reflect it. (Yeah, the back 9 was pretty bad, eh?)

greetings from Niceville!

As I type this, I’m in Kelly’s parents’ house in Niceville, Florida! We spent the last couple of days in Birmingham, where I introduced her to Ricky and Tammy and my grandparents, and gave her the tour of the University of Alabama campus. I haven’t heard yet for sure that that’s where she’ll do her graduate work, but I’ll keep pressing…

Anyway, after a quick layover in Ozark, we came down here last night. We’ve braved some pretty nasty weather on this journey. Alabama is going through some of its worst weather in a long time right now, and we were right in the thick of it for some time. So yesterday, when we pulled into Ozark, and it was blue skies all around, it was a sight for sore eyes. (In my case now, literally…Kelly’s parents own two cats, and we’ve shown before that my eyes can’t take that too much).

Today on the itinerary, if the weather is good: either Big Kahuna’s (a water park in Destin), or failing that, the beach itself. I’ve left all further vacation arrangements to my sweetie. 🙂

the sixth ring

The University of Florida has the worst football ticket ordering system in the country.

Here’s the deal. Starting Friday, at specified times, students can call in to the ticket office and request tickets. There is no other way to get tickets. In effect, this reduces the entire campus to a large mass of speed-dialers and redialers, trying to be one of the 20 or so who can get in and get a ticket at any one time. This is rather difficult when you’ve got about 40,000 people vying for one of those lines.

I have tickets now, thankfully, but it wasn’t without a lot of busy signals and “This line is busy…we will continue to try the number for 30 minutes for 90 cents” messages and a couple of cramped fingers at the end.

And by the way, the title of this entry has nothing to do with the phone system. It’s the particular area in Dante’s Inferno that I’d liken this situation to, if repeated ad infinitum.