J-rod's Jargontic Jamboree V: Meeting Your Barrel Roll Needs Since 2004

I don't really have time to go into details right now, so I'll keep it fairly nebulous for the moment:

1) Christmas was more or less a disaster, aside from the fact that I won $54 from assorted relatives in three nights of poker. That's a new personal best.

2) Good riddance, 2007. Too bad you're still hanging over my head like a ton of bricks. I haven't even had time to make resolutions for 2008.

3) Ron Paul was in fighting trim on Leno last night. I keep meaning to write something substantial about his campaign, but it hasn't happened yet. It will happen, though. Just you watch.

4) I have a date Thursday evening. With a 20-year-old. Whaaaaaaaat?!

And now, back to the grind.

First and foremost, thanks to everybody who commented on the previous thread, and everybody who offered encouragement in the weeks leading up to my comps. Your support meant a lot, and thanks for tolerating my near-constant predictions of doom and despair.

Secondly, congratulations to Shen Lung Kung Fu's new crop of green sashes, who faced a trial of their own and triumphed. Luke, Will, and Jason--you guys are all great, and I'm only sorry I've had less time to work with any of you lately. Hopefully, that will change after Christmas. Congratulations also to the former Sihing Britton, who is now Sifu Britton.

Thirdly, I finally defeated Heath in a fair game of Axis & Allies. He managed to acquire long-ranged aircraft for Germany on his first turn, which made things pretty ugly in Europe. But I did the same thing with the United States, then one-upped him by getting heavy bombers. After placing two additional AA guns in Great Britain during the first round of play, I spent the entire game trying to roll the rocket development. When I finally got it, I quickly made a shambles of the German economy. Russia held out the entire game and eventually captured Berlin. My last move before Heath threw in the towel was to place a Soviet battleship and transport on the Black Sea. That's never happened before. It was pretty gratifying.

Closely related to the above: I recently purchased some Axis & Allies miniatures from the War at Sea expansion. Crimson Castle was not selling starter sets, and they only had one booster. I won't know whether or not the game is worth pursuing until I've gotten my hands on a starter and learned the rules, but as of now I'm skeptical. For roughly $16, I got a Scharnhorst, a transport, a flight of Wildcats, a sub-chaser, and a torpedo boat. I won't be getting anything else unless I am really impressed with the game mechanics or can find an online supplier who offers substantial discounts.

Fourthly, I finally got a chance to read Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I was not impressed with the movie, but I had heard the comic was worth a look. Volume 1 was excellent. My opinion of Volume 2 is somewhat lower. Moore's decision to use the Martian invasion from War of the Worlds as the plot was a stroke of genius--so much so that I almost forgave him for From Hell. But about halfway through the second volume he fell back in the gutter for 4-5 pages and ruined everything. Volume 1 is proof enough that you can tell a good story without making some things explicit.

If I pass my comps tomorrow, it will be through a combination of Providence and dumb luck, as well as a fortuitous alignment of the planets. As of this moment, I fully expect to fail.

Sadly, I don't seem to care.

Dr. Kohl's lecture yesterday morning was interrupted by a police officer who had an arrest warrant for one of his students. Said student has been absent for roughly two weeks. I guess that's one less final I'll have to grade.

After the lecture, I finally had that long-delayed conversation with Dr. Beeler about my academic future. The biggest problem I had with pursuing a Ph.D. was coming up with a dissertation topic. Last week, I had a burst of inspiration. The idea is definitely fresh, and it could potentially translate into a preservation-orientated job without an abrupt shift into a new program. I still need to run it by some other people in the department because it is a bit unorthodox, but Beeler thought it was an intriguing topic. So that's Step #1. Step #2 is acing comps. 17 days to go...

Following my afternoon office hours, I went to the library to pick up some more sources for the Crittenden paper, which has bogged down in roll upon roll of unlabeled microfilm. I have found just enough to confirm that the story is worth telling. Unfortunately, I'm just not seeing the depth of source material I need to make it work. I may have to change my focus to something else. But at least I have a back-up plan now.

After an hour or so of research in the office, I was chatting with Mitcham when we heard what sounded like screeching tires and a woman screaming. Apparently, a professor got clipped by a car near Morgan Hall. Brutal.

On to Richmond!

Obviously, I am pretty swamped these days. November is going to be a terrible month, and December will be at least as bad. But I want to take stock of recent events before I get too far behind:

Candice's wedding was beautiful. The ceremony was held on the beach behind the Gulf Crest Resort at 5:00 Saturday afternoon. I was unfortunately a little late, as I went through Sweet Gum Head and Ponce de Leon instead of Bonifay. Thanks to some overly vague directions courtesy of Yahoo! Maps, I got lost once before I found Highway 79, and again after I got into Panama City. I ended up driving to the end of 79 and going the rest of the way on gut instinct. It took another 15 minutes to find the right condo, and I ultimately arrived 8-10 minutes late--just in time for the exchange of the rings. Candice could not have picked a more perfect day to get hitched. The weather was fantastic, and the beach was the perfect backdrop for the affair.

After the ceremony, the party retired to the pool deck for the festivities. There was plenty of music and dancing, but I just loitered around the pool talking to other guests. The turn-out from our graduating class was pretty disappointing. Besides Tabitha (who was in the wedding party), the only other 2001 alumni to show up were Jonathan Precise, Courtney, and myself. A lot of our former teachers were there, however, so I had a pretty good time reliving the glory days. I think every single one of them asked me if I was seeing anybody yet, and Ms. Davis even told me that I needed to hurry up and get married before she got too old to come to the wedding. So there you have it, ladies. If Alice Davis can't believe one of you hasn't snagged me by now, then clearly you have dropped the ball. After I had been sufficiently ribbed about my status as a bachelor, I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants legs, and took a long walk along the beach. All in all, it was a wonderful evening, and I'm glad I got to be there for Candice.

I finally got through the last of Dr. Kohl's midterms this morning. I think I failed something like 45 people out of 149. About six percent got "A"s. I've never had such appalling scores, and I can't help but wonder if maybe I was being too harsh. Then again, the short essays on the readings seemed to be what killed most people, and it's entirely possible that a lot of students just didn't read the assigned material. The mediocre attendance indicates that roughly half of the enrolled students are approaching the course like a survey rather than an upper-level class, so that's another area of concern. Dr. Kohl thinks it was a mistake for him to expand the enrollment, and at this point I would have to agree. We can only hope that the course on the Civil War (probably his most popular class) isn't ruined by the same problems.

I will be presenting at the Southern Conference on British Studies Thursday morning. Tuesday night, I will be driving to Birmingham and crashing at Eric's, where hopefully I will be able to catch Ron Paul on The Tonight Show. The next morning, E will once again taxi me to the airport, where I will rendezvous with Mitcham for our flight to Norfolk. Upon arrival, we will pick up our rental car and begin the journey to Richmond, with a lengthy stop at the Mariners' Museum along the way. The museum recently opened its Monitor exhibit, so the timing could not be better. We're also hoping to get a look at the Newport News shipyard, assuming that any of it is open to the public. Should be a great trip.

No way I'll be able to make a single coherent post about the last week in a reasonable amount of time, so bullet points will have to suffice.

E came over Saturday for a brief visit. Eli joined us for dinner at the local Schlotzcky's, where I listened in utter mystification as the two of them discussed some of the finer points of religious reasoning. I still haven't gotten used to Eric defending Christianity. He's much better at it than I am. After the meal, we played several rounds of Scattergories. I used to be very good at that game, but now I suck. I actually had a headache by the second round. Pathetic.

Dr. Selesky returned the 580 midterms Tuesday. I thought I didn't do particularly well, but I ended up with a 99. I guess I should stop worrying about his assignments, because I always do better than I think I will.

I FINALLY got the microfilm I needed for my paper on the Crittenden family. The library misplaced the rolls, and I lost another week of research time while they tracked them down. Fall break would have been the perfect opportunity to make some serious headway. I suspect this is going to be another uphill battle, especially since John Crittenden's handwriting is almost indecipherable.

I passed my Spanish proficiency exam, so that's one more stumbling block avoided. The next step will be passing my comps, which I will be confronting November 19th or 26th. Same line-up as before, only I replaced Dr. Clark with Dr. Selesky because I would have to be insane to test in a weak field I took in my first semester of graduate school rather than a strong field I'm taking now. That substitution should help a little. But it's still going to be tough.

I have a huge pile of midterms to grade for Dr. Kohl. 148, to be exact. Three essays each. Ouch.

I'm home for the second time in as many weeks because Candice is getting married in Panama City later today. I'm getting really tired of going to all of these weddings without a date. You'd think my girls would make some effort to set me up once in a while. They know I need all the help I can get.

That is all.

( Some stuff I drew on the office mini-fridge last week. )

I should draw more often. I miss it.

I took Dad out to the movies for his birthday. I knew he would want to see 3:10 to Yuma since it was still playing in Dothan, so I made an exception to my policy of avoiding westerns. It was actually a tolerable film. Christian Bale and Russell Crowe did great jobs with their respective parts, and the themes of moral ambiguity and sticking to one's principles in the face of deadly odds were handled in an interesting fashion. But the ending really ruined the movie for me. It just wasn't consistent with the actions of the characters. I think the perfect finale would have been Dan Evans (Bale) getting Ben Wade (Crowe) to the prison train in the midst of the gun battle, thus fulfilling his promise to the railroad company. Then, just before the door closed, the characters would exchange the same dialog that occurs a few minutes earlier, in which Wade reveals that he had already escaped from Yuma twice. I almost liked the film, but I ultimately left the theater feeling pretty ambivalent about it.

While I'm on the topic of movies, I would like to note that I finally saw The Thin Red Line last night. I am curious as to how George Clooney managed to get star billing for a meaningless two-minute cameo. Woody Harrelson and John Cusack at least had significant bit parts.

There's no place like it.

The end theme and closing to Glory is one of the most beautiful soundtrack compositions ever. Way to go, James Horner. I can almost forgive you for your involvement with Titanic. Almost.

And here's a bit of trivia for you: the soundtrack to the Airwolf television series is apparently so rare that a copy of it once fetched just under $1000 in an auction. Crazy!

At some point while translating page 3 of the exam (which as best I can tell was about various environmental issues), I started asking myself what I'm doing here. I'm 24 years old. I'm still in college and have no interest whatsoever in a terminal degree in my current field because I'm completely fed up with education. I'm no closer to a real job than I was when I started graduate school. I want a wife and a family eventually, but I don't have any relationship experience and my prospects aren't likely to improve once I leave the college atmosphere. I'm frequently depressed and/or jumpy whenever I'm not asleep. This despite the fact that my sleeping habits of late have been unusually "normal." Whatever reserves of motivation I had left are nearly exhausted, and now all I want to do is to get the hell out of Dodge. A lot of this is probably due to the fact that I haven't been home since May--a marathon away streak that fortunately ends this weekend, or God knows the state of mind I would be in right now.

For my next trick, I will learn/re-learn enough Spanish in 24 hours to pass the proficiency exam tomorrow afternoon. Be amazed!

I'm about to depart for E's apartment, from which I will be conveyed by Firebird to the airport and my appointment with the flight to my doom. I'm crunched for time, but I didn't want to leave without posting this first: my mom is the best person in the entire world. I don't post that often enough.

I live or die by the next 36 hours. Wish me luck.

I think my biceps have gotten a little more developed. It's also possible that I just think they've gotten a tad bigger because I've been doing a lot of push-ups over the last three months, and I want to see results.

My brain has hatched an amazing new plan. And it's so simple, so ridiculously obvious, that I can't believe it never occured to me before now. I don't really have time to go into the details at the moment, but I will say this much: the Ph.D. is out. O-U-T.

I freakin' hate Comcast.

I love driving all the way to Wal-Mart only to realize that I left my checkbook at home. I suppose I should be thankful I realized it was AWOL before I started shopping.

Now is the perfect time to panic:

AAAAAAHIMADEADMANOHGEEZBEELERSGONNAKILLMEAND
IMGONNAGETLAUGHEDATBYALLTHOSEPEOPLEATTHESYMPOSIUM
ANDIFANYONEEVERMENTIONSMALTAINMYPRESENCEEIMGONNA
RIPHISHEADOFF!!!

Deep breaths, Jared. Deep breaths.

I hear thunder! Please Lord, we need a good storm. This heat is getting unbearable.

My skateboarding penguin made the cut over at Bearskin Rug. People just love him! Here's a bigger image, with a red outline tracing the original shape:



Now if only I could somehow profit from this guy's popularity.

"Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around the world in eighty days. To do this he had employed every means of conveyance--steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading vessels, sledges, elephants. The eccentric gentleman had throughout displayed all his marvelous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?

"Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!

"Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?"

Ah, but is that all from Mr. Verne on the subject? Not quite.

"Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one. The gentleman who uttered the cries was evidently a belated Mormon. He was breathless with running. Happily for him, the station had neither gates nor barriers. He rushed along the track, jumped on the rear platform of the train, and fell, exhausted, into one of the seats.

"Passepartout, who had been anxiously watching this amateur gymnast, approached him with lively interest, and learned that he had taken flight after an unpleasant domestic scene.

"When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout ventured to ask him politely how many wives he had; for, from the manner in which he had decamped, it might be thought he had twenty at least.

"'One sir,' replied the Mormon, raising his arms heavenward--'one, and that was enough!'"

Why did I suddenly decide to read a novel? I should be working.