Wanderlust

I took the GMAT back in August. Frankly, my results disappointed me. I did OK on the verbal section, but my math skills have declined since college.

But I guess I did well enough. Nearly every day my mailbox is filled with a thick envelope inviting me to come study at a college far, far away. Chicago. Pennsylvania. Michigan. Yesterday it was Boston College. I've never been to Boston, but it seems nice.

And then the reverie begins...I could sell my house, quit my job, jaunt off east for school for a couple years. I could envelop myself in more school debt than I ever accumulated as an undergrad. Maybe I could pick up that bartending job that's always slightly intrigued me.

I've learned how to respond to these things, though.

You toss the envelope in the garbage without even opening it.

And under no circumstances do you think about the millions of trees that get killed so that schools can send this stuff out...

I predict...

"I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. Ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.” Wilbur Wright, 1908

Being a passenger is fun

Recently I've been flying fairly regularly. But today I was taken flying. A coworker of mine is in a partnership with a Beech Musketeer. They've recently sold their Musketeer into a flying club that has a Cessna 206 (and something else). So when he asked me if I wanted to go flying in the 206 during lunch I was all over it.

It was a quick flight out of Blue Ash, up over Kings Island, back to land on 24 (is that right? I don't fly into Blue Ash much...). Compared to the Cessna 152 that I'm current in, that 206 is huge. Six seats (instead of two), 280 hp (instead of 115hp). It climbed like crazy--unbelievably quick. We were at pattern altitude before turning crosswind. And then it was fun just looking around, trying to find houses, keep my bearings. It was nice to keep my feel off the pedals and just enjoy the whole scenario.

Pride goeth before the fall

I was listening to The Dogs on the way in to work, and singing along (per usual) to Diamonds and Coal.

In ways I feel like that's my life story recently....diamonds to coal. And the through miraculous grace that coal gets redeemed, gets put to new and better use. I look at my life in whole and in part and think "it's good." It's been hard, but it's good. Things really do work together.

But then I worry. What can I say, I'm a worrier. Is this newfound renewal just another chain that needs broken? God, I hope not. But, if so, go ahead and do it Lord...

Today feels like a new day. I woke up at 5:30 this morning. And it's not like I went to bed real early last night. I am not a morning person. I tried to will myself to sleep longer. But finally I gave in, turned a light on and cracked my Bible, reading from Sarah's death to just before Jacob's dream. I sat for an hour or so in the presence of Word, in prayer (I suppose, it was ethereal and lacked words). I stumbled to my piano. Can you commune with God over Bach Inventions? I think so.

It was a surreal morning--so unlike me.

I never know how much to write here, but....(cue dramatic organ crescendo)

I had a date last night. And this time, I swore I was keeping my mouth shut. I'd practiced all my stories, converted everything to first person ("I moved to California, I bought a house, I went to Holland"), I was determined to hide this elephant of my past. It's just too big and cumbersome and people always define me by my history. I suppose that's fair enough, but a lot of things have happened to me that I don't think really define me.

But she's sharp, this one....she didn't know it but she trapped me. Before I knew it I was introducing characters and plotlines that I'd hoped to keep buried for chapters.

All's well that ends well, I suppose. She said she'd not been surprised by a story like that in a long time. Well, if you want surprising stories then I'm your man. And she only got the Cliff's Notes version--she has no idea :-)

A story of fall and redemption indeed.

"Is there still redemption for anyone?

Jesus come,
Turn the world around.
Lay my burden down,
Turn this world around.
Bring the whole thing down."

Changes Come, Over the Rhine,

You Know You're From Indiana When:

My dad sent me this....things like this are usually so corny they're not worth the time reading. But this time, I'm not only sharing...I'm annotating!

You think the state Bird is Larry.
Well sure. Tall, skinny, pasty white boy rules NBA. Everybody needs heroes. Especially pasty, skinny kids.

You can say "French Lick" without laughing out loud.
Well, not now...

There's actually a college near you named "Ball State."
Near you...try in my backyard. We could hear the band during football games.

You know Batesville is the casket-making capital of the world and you're proud of it.
Heck, I've worked there.

You could never figure out spring forward-fall back, so screw Daylight Savings Time!
Yeah, but I'm converted now. DST allows you to leave work in the middle of summer and have enough daylight for a full round of golf.

Your feelings get hurt whenever someone points out the acronym for Purdue University is PU.
Nah, Purdue sucks. See below.

You know several people who have hit a deer.
Yeah, but that happens all over.

Down south to you means Kentucky.
And to be avoided at all costs.

You have no problem spelling or pronouncing Terre Haute.
Home of Indiana State University. See Bird, Larry...

Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
Yes.

Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
Again, yes...

You know what the phrase "knee-high by the Fourth of July" means.
Doesn't everybody measure time by corn growth?

You've heard of Euchre, you know how to play Euchre, and you are a master of Euchre.
Clearly.

You've seen a running car, with nobody in it, in the parking lot of the grocery store, no matter what time of year it is.
But less and less so as time goes by.

Detassling was your first job. Bailing hay, your second. Or you could stack hay, swim in the pond to clean off and then have the strength to play a couple of games of hoops, all in the same barn lot on the same day.
Come on...we're not all hicks in Indiana. I, for one, never detassled or baled. I had a paper route. And worked in a library.

You say things like catty-wampus and kitty corner and know what they mean.
Yeah, but I like bigger words that people can't spell.

You install security lights on your house and garage, then leave them both unlocked.
I didn't install them--I bought it that way.

You carry jumper cables in your car regularly.
Be prepared.

You drink pop.
I call it "soda" because this usage bugs the daylights out of me.

You catch frogs at the crick.
I'm on a one-man campaign to eradicate the word "crick", too.

If you want someone to hear you, you holler at 'em.
Don't you?

You know that baling wire was the predecessor to duct tape.
Yeah, the adhesive on duct tape creates a mess when you wrap exhaust pipes with it. Baling wire is better.

You know that strangers are the only ones who come to your front door.
This was my grandparents' house, through and through.

Kids and dogs ride in the passenger seats of cars and the backs of pickups.
Been there, done that. Now I'm older and seeing it terrifies me.

You think nothing of driving on the roads and being stuck behind a farm implement in spring and fall. You just hope it's not a hog truck or a manure spreader.
I can't wait for dotted lines so my 200 horses can pass that sucker in a blink.

High school basketball games draw bigger crowds on the weekend than movie theaters, IF you have a movie theater.
Sure, it's a higher quality entertainment product.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
And it's hard to do donuts in the summer.

The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires six for local sports.
Priorities, my friend.

You can repeat the scores of the last eight NBA games, but unless the MVP is a Hoosier, you are not sure who he is.
BTW, how is Calbert Cheaney doing this year? Or Alan Henderson? Or Bonzi Wells?

You can see at least two basketball hoops from your yard.
:-)

You can name every one of Bobby Knight's exploits over the last few years.
And make a compelling defense for him (even though you slightly hate yourself for it...).

The biggest question of your youth was IU or Purdue.
I was an IU fan from early on. But they don't have an engineering school. Purdue's is well-regarded. On a campus visit in high-school I bought a t-shirt that said "Purdue University--I tested out of IU."

It cuts both ways :-)

Indianapolis is the BIG CITY.
Indianapolis rocks. Seriously.

Getting stuck by a train is a legitimate excuse for being late to school or work.
Muncie is surrounded by train tracks. Apparently in the 20s blocking train track intersections was the MO for trapping organized criminals in a town.

Everyone knows who the town cops are, where they live, and whether they're at home or on duty.
And some of us have still been pulled over by one when we blew by him sitting in his driveway.

You've been to the Covered Bridge Festival. And you took back roads to get there. Why sit in traffic?
Matthews, IN. Great fun.

To you, tenderloin is not an expensive cut of beef, but a big, salty, breaded & fried piece of pork served on a bun with pickle.
We've got to die of something, might as well be blockage of the arteries.

You end your sentences with prepositions, as in "Where's it at?" or "Where's he going to?"
I'm trying to figure out how to train this out of me. It still breaks through, almost daily...

I like it when life works out (or seems to)

Last week was test week with tests in both my Finance class and my Operations Management class.

The coinciding of schedules was challenging and unnerving enough, but I did terribly on my first Finance test--about 71%. And I thought I did well! The fact that I need a B in the class for my company to reimburse me is always following my thoughts about grades. So. I studied hard for my Finance test. And got a 108%, bringing my class average up to a 94 (each test is progressively weighted more--which is weird, but really going to help me out I think).

Success #1.

Earlier this week I was operating solely on adrenaline when I procured a genuine date for next week. By genuine I mean no goofy online beginning, no strange progressive dating introduction, but a legitimate "friend of a friend" who I've met and seen before. Even some of my friends have met and seen her before.

But still--that whole context of calling up someone for the first time, asking them out--I find it unnerving.

My friend gave me good advice: I was confessing my nerves and was told "yell 'HUAH!' and then just dial the phone."

So I did.

Success #2.

And--finally--I've won free Cokes from their current cap promotion three straight times.

Success #3.

With this kind of roll, I should head to Vegas, baby!

I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde's quip: "The God's punish us by answering our prayers" (or something like that).

Whenever I get giddy I'm afraid the other shoe is going to drop...

Check this out--a great little local band.

This weekend a friend gave me a CD telling me that he thought I'd like it.

Indeed.

It was just the disc--no case, no notes, no supporting material.

I called him the next day and said "these guys sound great--like a mix of Sixpence and Caedmon's Call."

Now I'm reading on their website that they collaborated with Steve Mason (Jars of Clay) and Matt Slocum (Sixpence None the Richer). Well, I was close.

Seriously, you might want to give these guys a listen: Dividing the Plunder.

I think I've identified the pain in my neck

Brain pain the same for ego blow, physical punch - CNN.com

"There's something about exclusion from others that is perceived as being as harmful to our survival as something that can physically hurt us, and our body automatically knows this," the researcher said.

Eisenberger said the study suggests that social exclusion of any sort -- divorce, not being invited to a party, being turned down for a date -- would cause distress in the ACC.

That's the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that registers physical pain (but you all knew that, right :-).

What I wonder is how this affects memory and recall? How does the passage of time affect our recollection of those painful moments? And how does maturity effect it as well? Some rejection turns out to be good--the cool kids at school who ended up getting in trouble, the girl who turned you down but wasn't really right for you anyway....In retrospect some social exclusion is to our benefit. Does that realization affect how our brain perceives that pain? How our brain perceives the memory of that pain?

But I love how science continually confirms common sense.

Rejection hurts.

Wow. Profound.

So Little to Say

I'm posting out of principle. It's nearing two weeks since I've typed anything here--and the last was just a link to a web article.

But sometimes it's best to remain silent when there is nothing to say. I don't know much, but I know when to keep my yap shut.

So for the few people that look to this to keep tabs on me, here's what is going on.

I passed a milestone of note recently. A couple weeks ago my three-year anniversary at Cardinal transpired. Since graduation I worked at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space for just over a year and Chiquita for three years. As I'm not leaving Cardinal anytime soon this has been my longest stint at full-time employment.

And that's significant because I always find myself itching for change after three years. And so I am. That's probably more due to my current assignment than my relationship with Cardinal. My current project started in early February and was supposed to end in June. But I'm still here. I've got one more week to go. Just getting back into the Cardinal office for a bit will probably help rejuvenate me. But for the past few weeks it's been a drag--I hate driving downtown, I hate the slow elevators in my building (and their musty air), I hate the construction on 275, I hate having lunch by myself every day. I'm just ready for change.

And school isn't much better. A couple weeks ago I had my first cycle of tests. When you have class on subsequent nights (Wednesday and Thursday in my case) it's even worse when the tests are on the same schedule. So I studied Monday and Tuesday night for my two tests. But I must have lacked focus. I got a solid "C" on one and a "B-" on the other. This does not please me. Now I must do better the rest of the semester, but I hate having that kind of pressure on me.

What it really all comes down to is that I've just been too busy. My weekdays are so busy from start to finish that I really count on weekends to relax, do housework, just to reorganize and recharge. But I've had plans and commitments nearly every weekend since mid-August. There has been very little time spent just laying around, or cleaning, or hanging with my friends in Indiana. I've done zero reading that isn't assigned for class (and really, Finance and Management textbooks aren't all that enjoyable of reading fare). Fortunately my schedule starts to let up a bit. This weekend I'm busy Saturday, but the rest is free. The following weekend I've got a close friend's wedding--but that's it.

It's not all bad, though. I've been flying regularly. I passed by Flight Review a couple weeks ago, and I've managed to go up solo once a week since. It's hard to describe, but the whole scenario is so important to me that it seems surreal. When I'm driving out to the little airport I get nervous. Not nervous about flying--I'm quite confident with that. It's more of a haunting nervous, like I can't believe I'm really doing it, or I'd better enjoy it because it's a privilege that could easily disappear. It's hard to describe.

But it's fun and I grin just thinking about it. I have some friends who I've promised to take flying for years and I'm looking forward to start fulfilling some of those promises. And then next summer I hope to really go somewhere. I've drawn a mental circle around Cincinnati with a radius of about 400 miles: that'd be about 4 hours flying (and about all I could stand in a little plane). Sometime next summer hopefully I'll take a little weekend jaunt. Maybe Mackinac (a place I've never been). I've got friends I could visit, or all kinds of basebally parks I'd like to get to. Expensive? Yes. Difficult to plan because of weather? Yes. But a fun goal nonetheless.

One more thing that really excites me is that an important end is in sight. I don't talk about this much, but my friends know that me getting out of debt is an important priority of mine. It was a struggle post-college to manage all the opportunities, but one of the benefits of my (relatively) newfound singleness is the freedom to make my own choices--and stick to them. And I'm six months away. The credit cards have long been paid off. My school loans are gone. And my car should be mine in about April (it depends a bit on tax return timing, but about then).

It really can be done. Any of you out there working on it--stick to it.

I'm not much of a cheerleader, am I? :-)

So that's it. Not too exciting, eh? No exciting or entertaining dating stories. No significant traveling. No deep thoughts, or gut-wrenching situations, or heartwarming stories. Really, not much is going on at all. Work and school. Sticking to plans. Wondering where September went? Looking forward to vacations in December and February and pretty much just trying to survive until then...That's about it.