Pseudopodia

As is typical, my Superintendent sent us (read:  the whole district) a very nice note to signify the end of the year.  Included was this link to a short film meant to inspire us.  Profound, no?  Yeah, you're right...it's not.

So, I needed a new PC laptop.  Admittedly, 'need' is a relative term.  But, it was pretty close to need.  Want played a bit part, too.  I don't need much cajoling to buy tech. 

A good portion (50%) of my summer vacation will be spent at the local National Laboratory, working in the field of bioinformatics.  Actually, 'working' is probably too official for what I'll be doing.  I'll be more like 'learning how to work.'  Most of that will involve me using a UNIX-endowed computer to learn how to script in PERL.  So, that's my summer.  And a computer is required. 

To be fair, I have a linux laptop, dual-booted with XP.  It gets very little use and has grown very old by laptop standards (six years).  It is so old that it is now threatening to undergo spontaneous, irrevocable decay every time it is turned on.  Not really the machine that one wants to depend on for an entire summer.  Plus the fan sounds like a category 3 twister.

So, I found myself at BestBuy, looking for a relatively cheap laptop to take home, wipe, and load ubuntu on.  And I found one!  2.2 GHz dual core pentium, 4 gigs of ram, 320 gig harddrive:  $750.  Specs equal to those of my macbook pro, for one-quarter of the cost.  Of course, there was that useless Windows Vista install that had to be removed, and a few hours of loading my prefferred applications onto the Jaunty installation.  Still, not too shabby.

For anyone who wonders about these kinds of things, Ubuntu went on to this laptop with out any problem.  Everything worked right out of the gate.  Simple.

So...anyone want a 6-year-old Gateway with a crazy loud fan? 

Even though the weather around Long Island this month is best described as "Pacific North-Western," our new living space is still a gorgeous and restful location.  Gone are seemingly all of the issues that we had to deal with in Port Jefferson;  the difficult parking, loud drunkards in wee small hours of the morning, occasional outbreak of tire-slashing/random assault.  But this is not to say that the new place is perfect.  All living spaces have some sort of issues and ours is no exception.  I offer the following example.

We live in as wooded an area as one can get on Long Island anywhere west of Route 347.  It's really nice.  To see the various wildlife that still live on the island on a regular basis is an extremely comforting thing...with the possible exception of raccoons.  Raccoons are not comforting.  Raccoons are devious, omnivorous, clever little fuckers who have a penchant for garbage and a reputation for nastiness when cornered.  They also have the honor of being the mammals most closely associated with Rabies in North America (apologies to all of the bat fans in the audience).  When I was a child, we had the occasional raccoon problem and when I was a child, we did not live in anywhere as wooded as where we currently reside.  Raccoons come with territory.  True to form, on our third day in the new space, I awoke to find our garbage over-topped and strewn about on our lovely brick patio.  Raccoons had found an easy fix. 

A quick trip to the hardware store solved the problem.  Bungee cords were purchased and the trash was secured to a post on the house with the top firmly tethered to the can.  Raccoons would not be getting in anytime soon. 

Or so I thought.  Until Thursday when I was on my way to Manhattan.  Being in a rush, I hurried out of the house, garbage in tow.  Pausing at the secured trash can, I undid the bungee cords, opened the top and was flabbergasted to see a living, breathing raccoon groggily looking up at me from inside the can.  Startled as I was, I let out a single, sustained baritone note, dropped the garbage and removed myself from the area.  Pausing to collect my thoughts, I regained some measure of clearheadedness, and returned to the scene of the encounter.  The unfastened top was still on the can.  I removed via remote removal device (read:  stick) took the garbage that I had left and went around the side of the house to the other garbage can.  As I put my trash in the second, raccoon-free, refuse, I paused to look across my lawn, where I saw a very surprised raccoon running for the nearest thicket of trees with an alacrity that spoke to the uncomfortability of a nocturnal lifestyle suddenly thrust into diurnal action.  I went back around the house, paused to see that the two racoon sightings were in fact the same beast, and resecured the lid of my now empty trash.

So...that was fun.  Startling, and unexpected, but a pretty good story which I'm sure will have legs for years in my classes when the subject of raccoons is broached.  And though it was a bit frightening, I have to say that I would happily take a sleepy raccoon in the trash, than anything that the village of Port Jefferson has to offer in its stead.  

Apple shit the bed today with the iphone 3.0 update.  The "activation server is temporarily unavailable."  I guess the big granny smith of the computing world didn't anticipate the load on the server today what with all of the increased demand for the update....sad.  Oh well, I guess I'm waiting in the virtual line with a few million other of my close, personal friends.

Just another regrettable side effect of living in the glass prison that is all things apple. 

One of the issues that comes with teaching high school (and, I suppose, being somewhat liked among the students) is that this time each year brings many yearbooks from many seniors my way, with the expectation that I will leave some collection of various and inspiring words that will serve to be reminiscent of their experiences with me for years to come.  This probably doesn't seem like an issue to those readers who are not in a similar situation, but consider that every year I find myself signing many yearbooks in a small time window and the issues that stem from my desire to write something interesting and non-boilerplate in each book and you can probably begin to see where my problems begin.

Regardless, I try to have fun with it all.  Especially the yearbook itself.  As a personal game, I annually attempt to get the most ridiculous image of myself possible somewhere in its pages.  This year, I am happy to report, has eclipsed all others in the attempt. 

The yearbook staff had the idea of including a page of teachers engaged in their various personal hobbies.  The request for participation was disseminated and photos were collected.  Somehow, among all of the photos of colleagues singing in their various bands, and showing off their collections of presidential campaign buttons, I was able to get the following photo printed, along with a brief statement as to my fondness for hairless cats:



Success!  How will I ever top myself next year?

So, we sold the apartment.  Which in and of itself is pretty amazing, given the real estate climate around here these days.  But it sold fast.  It was on the market for ~10 days, had ~10 interested parties (and sold for ~17K less than we were asking).  Still, this has to be the only area of the country where a 540 square foot apartment goes for just under 250K.  Insanity sauce...big time.

Anyway, the sale of the apartment necessitates a move.  Should we buy a house?  That was the dominant thought for a few months.  But given that we are both living on one salary, it was a near impossibility to find a suitable place for the mortgage we could qualify for.  How many circa 1972 splanch's can one look at before they grow too weary?

So, the decision was made to rent for a while, put the money we are about to clear in the bank and wait until we have two salaries to qualify for twice as much house.  Onward to the world of rentals...and onward to a stream of disappointments.  No washer and dryer.  Too expensive for what it offers.  Part of someone else's house.  Shit location.  It never seemed to end.

Until yesterday.  When the wife and I were taken to a magical place that I would never have imagined to exist previous to seeing it with my own eyes.  Or rather, I would never have believed that we could live in it:  2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, Kitchen, Huge living room, tile floors, large sliding glass doors in every room looking out on one of the most scenic bays on this side of Long Island Sound, exquisitely manicured grounds, beautiful brick pathway leading to a private beach.  Completely affordable.  We took it as soon as the tour finished.  We move in next Monday.

And so I have gone from the impending threat of being homeless, forced to live with my mother or in a place that I detest to being privileged enough to live in what could simply be termed a "dream house" in the span of 24 hours.  We have gone from talking about finding a place that we could stand to live in for a year to plotting how to live in our new house for as long as we can.  It is quite possibly the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me outside of convincing my lovely wife to be my lovely wife. 

I only wish I was already there.

Behold! What might look like an ordinary California roll and Sapporo to the casual viewer, is, in actuality a $20.75 California roll/ sapporo combo that can be yours, too, if you go to the new Yankee stadium. I wonder if Brewers fans have these kinds of experiences?
 
Editor's Note: While the author is actually a Met fan, he is certain that the pricing plan encountered in the Bronx is idiomatic of those found in Flushing.

David