Daniel's Summer Blog

It's a big picture, because it's a big gum tree. This photo was taken in parts (and later clumsily stitched together) on my last day in Argentina, right before we almost missed our flight to Sao Paulo. Funny story actually. Anyway, maybe someday I will tell you about it, a good time was had by all.

My parents planted an olive tree in our front yard when I was born, which aside from being a nice story, is a nice tradition and lends some relevance to this post. Unfortunately, I have not seen the tree for nine years now, but I assume it is somewhere between sapling and the above tree.

Pictures are easier; let me know if you want the full-size version.

I do not know if any of you remember, but sometime last year I went on a lengthy rant in this very blog about how trash was picked up very noisily outside my window (if you don't remember, you can always scroll down and look for it). I thought that I had left all those problems behind me. How very wrong I was. The morning before this one, there was some commotion outside my room around 5:00 AM, which let me tell you, is before any college student is ever awake. I grumbled in my half-sleep but did not investigate. This morning at 5:00 and then again at 8:00 I was roused from my slumber by a sound I recognized all to well: the thrumming of a countless-horsepower engine, the beeping of going backwards and new one, the grating, smashing, cracking noise of frozen snow being pushed about to form random piles in the quad. I did not investigate this time either, but the tire tracks and malformed mounds of snow are new and unmistakable. Now please note that my quad is not big. It is at the very most 100 square feet, with some "roads" leading up to the suites, and dirt patches filling in the spaces between the roads. Now, to my knowledge, which is limited in this field, I do not believe that there is a person who lives in this quad, whose physical abilities require him or her to be driven to their door. Therefore I must ask the question: WHY in the name of Louis B. are you shoveling our quad with extremely loud shovels at 5:00 in the morning? Would it not make sense to shovel other places, where people were not sleeping? Or perhaps everywhere else was already shoveled and the people who make these decisions did not want to send the shovelers home to get some well-deserved rest? Lastly, the snow is frozen on top. You can walk on it, probably skate on it too! No one is going to get all snowy because they are ankle deep in the white stuff. Please note that now that the time is almost 11:00 AM the quad is silent.

While I am blogging for class (Computer Supported Collaboration) I may as well revert to my blogging ways in real life as well, since I have been threated bodily harm by certain friends of mine if I do not get my act together.

I am trying to understand sports psychology. In our weekly phone chat, my grandmother berated me for not rooting for Das Bears in this year's Purple Rain Bowl. Now my grandmother, and by association my mother, are both Chicagoans, but I believe neither mother nor daughter knows a first down from James "Hands" Down. So now that the Bears make it to the big one she roots for them? Why not love them all year long? I would be so proud to have at least one relative to whom I could talk football. And then there is the whole hate them because they beat us versus root for them because they beat us and if they win it means we are a better team in general. Don't go there.

Idan came to town, he was pretty awesome. Also last week we got our first semi-significant snowfall of the year. Only about two inches, but it fell so that everyone could play in it Friday night. I engaged in a hostile snoperation with Roberto and Danny, with Danny being the X factor, aka Russia, you never know what the hell they are going to do in wartime. After that we went "snowboarding" which culminated in me stalling out at the bottom of a meager hill and my launching myself rear-first to the ground, which hurt much more the day after than it did at the time.

Sweepstakes: Catch the vague reference and you will rewarded.