July 13, 2014

Yesterday I inadvertently learned that a player from the United States is credited with scoring the first hat trick in the World Cup, way back in 1930. Apparently there was some controversy over the second goal but FIFA has officially given him the goal, so go USA.

Also, last Thursday I somehow forgot to mention the minivan at Sonic. It was parked next to us and we alerted to its exit when a loud robotic voice started endlessly saying something along the lines of “Attention, this vehicle is backing up.” This was repeated until the car was shifted into drive. I looked over and saw an old lady behind the wheel. My first thought was to wonder how many people she backed into before the court ordered her to have that device installed on her car. I don't know if that is a thing but I hope it is. I can't see her voluntarily putting something that obnoxious on her minivan.

Today I didn't have a lot going on but I did accomplish several small things. I accepted my graduate school scholarship, paid a bill, and finally printed off the letter I wrote to my friend last week. All three of those things can be mailed tomorrow. I also started to draw. Just a little bit but it is a start. I drew four different eyes. Not two pairs, just individual eyes. Drawing a pair of eyes is kind of a bitch because one always looks wonky. Maybe I could just draw cyclopes. (Also, it is weird that the plural of a word ending in 's', cyclops, is made plural by putting an 'e' in front of that 's'. Just learned that). A couple of the eyes didn't look half bad from a distance but there is a lot of room for improvement. Eventually I would like to be able to capture someone's likeness in a drawing. I've never stuck with drawing long enough to accomplish that. Maybe this is that time.  And, I did a little left-handed writing, continuing the letter I started to my friend several days ago. I think it's been over a week now and thankfully it was a bit like riding a bike and my handwriting doesn't look too awful. At least relative to my previous writing.

I finished watching my Watch Later list on YouTube so I moved over to Netflix. I started with Lilo & Stitch because I saw a couple cross stitch patterns and pictures with quotes from the movie and that made me want to watch it. I am fairly certain I haven't actually seen the movie since I previewed it in the middle of the night the day before it came out way back in 2002. I have been at the theater far too long. The movie was funnier than I remember and it made me think that maybe I shouldn't wait another twelve years before watching it again.

After that I watched Secrets Of The Tower Of London. It appears that Netflix was recently mildly inundated with PBS stuff and I am okay with that. I learned a lot about the Tower that I didn't know before. Considering my previous knowledge was miniscule, this increase in knowledge was to be expected.

Next was Tesla: Master Of Lightning. Tesla was a fascinating dude. He was very similar to all those artists of years gone by who's genius wasn't fully appreciated until after they were gone. I'm sure a lot of people were aware of Tesla's genius in his lifetime but he was constantly getting screwed over. Edison was a huge jerk to him, he got screwed out of trillions of dollars by Westinghouse when Tesla apparently tore up his rights to a percentage of money based on watts produced with his technology in order to save the Westinghouse company, and Marconi not only beat him to a transatlantic radio transmission (using 17 of Tesla's patents but claiming it was his idea) he also got a Nobel prize, also on the back of Tesla's efforts. There are numerous other instances of Tesla getting screwed and it was kind of sad to see it happening over and over again. The show was interesting and at some point I'd like to read a book or two about Tesla.

The last thing I watched was Mile... Mile & A Half, a documentary about a group of people hiking the John Muir Trail in California while recording their experience with video, still photography, and sound. It made me feel very nostalgic for Philmont. And Colorado. It would be really nice to go back to my Boy Scout roots and get out in the wilderness more often. I like the individual motivation to get out there but hopefully someday I'll fall in with some people who are more motivated to camp and hike and are willing to put up with whatever it takes to get me back out there. Nature is pretty much the best thing and I miss it.

The World Cup final was today between Argentina and Germany. I wanted Argentina to win and several times throughout the game it looked like it might happen but none of the Argentinian players could find the back of the net. Germany was having the same problem, even getting two shots to bounce off the goalpost. This went on for the entire 90-minute match and it looked to be the case for the 30-minutes of of extra time but then in the last few minutes Germany scored. Those bastards. It hurts me to say that the better team probably won. And I am being hyperbolic there because I am not hurt in the least, I just find it unfortunate that Germany won, even if they did play really well throughout the World Cup when their players weren't diving.

Last night I went to bed before midnight and work up this morning around 7:30AM. And I didn't take a nap so that made for a long day. But I think I did alright with all that time. I could have done more but I feel like I did enough. All this week we have a early-ish show at the theater (10:30AM) so I have to be at the theater around 9:45AM. Not too much earlier than normal, and later than when we have kid shows, but I like when are first show is at noon. Less money but more sleep. It's also weird because during the school year when I'm used to getting up when a '6' is still the first number on a clock, even the earliest theater times feel really late. Perspective. Anyway, despite waking up fairly early this morning I'm not that tired yet so I think I'm going to hang out for awhile longer and see what happens.

Tomorrow at work I would like to continue working on my book cross stitch and continue reading my books. Books books books. I also might turn my phone back on. I turned it off because I wasn't hearing from anyone and I was tired of the urge to check my phone. Life is so much nicer without a phone. At least being voluntarily without a phone. I'll probably turn it on sometime tomorrow just to see what I haven't missed but then it'll go back off. I don't think it will get to the extent that it was last time I turned it off but I need to squash the urge to constantly check my phone for texts and phone calls that I'm not missing.