September 30, 2004

For all of you who have expressed concern about my dad this past week, I apologize for being so late in updating you on his situation. As usual, I've been busy with school and stuff, and when some free time actually came my way, I had much more productive things to do than spend it writing HTML.

So anyway... Dad spent last Friday night at the hospital, as I said, and came home Saturday. The tests indicate that he didn't have a heart attack, which is a good thing because that means there's not necessarily going to be tissue damage. They still don't know what the heck was wrong with him, though. Tests are still being run on his blood, and we should have the results in the next few days. In the meantime, the doctors say it could have been anything from a lung infection to really nasty indigestion.

As far as my neighbor goes, I haven't seen her coming or going in a few days. All she does now is walk around the garage, and around the front yard... but she doesn't actually drive anywhere! I think she might be on to me...

September 24, 2004

I went to bed at around midnight last night, and I slept til 10:30 this morning. That was pretty sweet. I would've slept in even longer, but I was awakened by a call from my mom, telling me that my dad was in the ER. It seems he had a heart attack, but they won't know for sure until tomorrow. They need to run a blood test to check for biomarkers, which are enzymes and stuff that show up in the blood following cardiac arrest. If they find these biomarkers, then that means he had a heart attack. If they don't, then I have no idea what else could have caused a sudden feeling like "someone punched a hole through my chest" that then radiated to his jaw. So I'm hoping for the heart attack option.

In other news, I'm becoming obsessed with my neighbor. I watched her pull into her driveway tonight, like that black guy watched Nicolas Cage in Gone In 60 Seconds. "Time to see if she drives over the grass!" I said as I stood in the dark street, probably looking like a real pervert.

What happened next remains a mystery to me. My neighbor pulled into the driveway, parked in the garage, and went inside her house... but I couldn't see whether she drove on the lawn or not. But even if she didn't, she sure came close. You know that portion of the driveway where it becomes the sidewalk? I think she drove over that part. So I can definitely see why I shouldn't park there.

But I still need to see her leaving the house in order to verify my original hypotheses that (1) she only backs up in a straight line, and (2) she somehow manages to drive on the lawn when backing out. Once I am able to verify these hypotheses, I will be able to further develop my theory that my neighbor is a crappy driver.

In the meantime, I think I'll park as far away from her house as possible.

Leering voyeuristically in the window with binoculars,

-Caleb

September 22, 2004

How did the DOW do today? - They're called Tweeter stores now
[EDIT: For those of you too young to remember those horrible "D-O-W DOW!" commercials, your loss. But I guess you had to be in San Diego in the 90s, too.]
There was a trailer parked in front of my house today when I got home from school, so I parked across the street in front of my neighbors' house. Later in the day, I happened to be out front, and my neighbor approached me and requested that I move my car. "I can't get out of my driveway," she told me. "You've gotta move it like, two feet. Or I'll take your front bumper off." Hmm, I thought as I examined my parking job. My front bumper was just in line with the edge of her lawn. Does this mean she drives over her grass every morning when backing out of the driveway? Probably. But even if I happened, for some reason, to be parked half way into her driveway, she should easily be able to avoid hitting me. It's just a matter of looking behind you and turning the wheel. But she seemed pretty confident that she would be trapped – a prisoner in her own home – if I didn't repark my car. So based on her insistence, I've concluded that she drives on her lawn when backing out, and she only knows how to reverse in straight lines.

And the moral of the story is: my neighbor is a crappy driver. If you see a white minivan on the road, keep your distance.

September 19, 2004

The only picture of Lauren that shall ever be used on this site
Above: The only photograph that shall ever be used on this site to depict my sister-in-law, Lauren Ruggiero. And as for the smack down you promised, bring it on, my little friend, bring it on...

September 9, 2004

My first class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is at 1:00, so I get to school at about 11:00 or so and take care of my homework in the library before class. I was reading my ethics text this afternoon when my attention was grabbed by two university employees passing through the corridor behind me, carrying on a very loud conversation about iSight. Not only were their voices beyond library levels, they were beyond outdoors and in the midst of heavy construction levels. And it didn't help that the corridor they were in happened to be quite echoey. But, being the nice guy that I am, I was willing to tolerate it for the few moments it takes to pass through. But then something terrible happened: they stopped walking. That's right, they parked it a mere ten yards behind me and continued their unnecessarily loud discussion, right in the midst of a dozen irritated students who wanted nothing more than to study in peace and quiet. I looked around the room. Some students were looking around nervously, unsure of what to do. One guy had a textbook held up against his ear to block the noise. Sigh. I knew I now had two choices: I could be like everybody else and just bend over and take it, or I could confront the loud talkers and ask them to shut up so I could study. I decided that I hate confrontations like this, so I continued reading my ethics book and just tried to ignore the talking. But then a third guy came and joined the conversation! That did it. I got up from my chair, walked calmly over to the noise-polluting triad, and said politely, "Gentlemen, could you please keep it down a little? This is a library, and you're very distracting." I was amazed at their reaction. I had barely gotten the first sentence out when they fell silent, a little bit shocked and a little bit confused. They just looked at me for a moment like deer in the headlights, and I really wasn't expecting that reaction any more than they expected to be chastised by a student, so I just stared right back at them. I was determined to come out on top though, so I turned around and walked away immediately. Score one for the common people.

But that wasn't the end.

A few minutes had passed, and I was back into my ethics homework, when I saw the skinny guy with the mustache, who was the leader of the loud talkers, approaching my table. I figured he was either going to apologize for his disruption, or be a jerk and cause trouble for me because of my confrontation. Turns out he did neither. "I just spoke with the librarians," he told me, "and they told me that this isn't a quiet area. There are designated quiet areas upstairs if you're interested." Wow. I wasn't expecting that. "Well," I said without missing a beat, "then I apologize for the misunderstanding." And with that, he walked off, and I returned to my reading, and that was the end of that episode.

Misunderstandings are always good entertainment; seven seasons of Three's Company is proof of that. But it wasn't the misunderstanding in itself that makes this incident stand out to me. It's the reason for the misunderstanding: as far as I've ever known, libraries are places in which you don't speak at all, and if you really need to, you do it as quietly as possible. So of course I assumed that the gentlemen carrying on a conversation in the middle of the library were inconsiderate jerks. The very concept of designated quiet areas in a library is so foreign to me. Has it really been so long since I've been in a library that the rules have changed, and talking is now permitted? Is it now common sense that if you want quiet in a library, you must seek out one of these designated quiet zones? If that's the case, then to the talkers I must have seemed an ignorant, unenlightened boob who never got the memo that it's okay to talk in the library now. If that's the case, then fair enough, since I thought the converse of them. Live and learn. And as long as these guys don't make a habit of conversing right next to me every day, I'm sure I'll manage to live in peace with this "talking is allowed" arrangement.

Sitting quietly even though I'm not in the library,

-Caleb

September 8, 2004

Watch for (Vanilla) IceFirst of all, I apologize for the two-week lack of anything happening on this website. As I alluded to in the previous entry, school's in full swing now, and consequently I've had little time for anything nonacademic, updating ochius right at the top of the list. But hey, I finally found a free minute or two, so happy day, I get to update you on the past 16 days of pants-crapping fun and excitement that has been my life.

"Nobody gives a damn about your knee anymore!" This is the most common statement I've heard all week. On the one hand, I'm a bit disappointed with myself for my pitiful irregularity in updating the most amazing Caleb-related site on the web; but on the other hand, I'm happy to hear such complaints because that means that I continue to carry a loyal readership, despite the fact that there's been nothing but stale, out-dated material posted for ages now.

And for those of you who are still left wondering, my knee is better now. I still don't know what caused the problem, or what the problem even was, for that matter. It still isn't up to 100% – I can walk, run, and skip as limberly as a fourth grader on summer holiday; but when it comes to supporting the weight of my body – such as jumping, squatting, and displaying my awe-inspiring karate skills – it's still somewhat weak, and consequently very painful if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing.

Speaking of doing, I must admit I wasn't completely truthful with you earlier. I said that massive amounts of schoolwork were to blame for my not having any time to post updates. While it's true that school's been consuming more of my time now than in any other period of my academic career, there is another place my time's been going... Elaine arrived safely back in America on the 25th of August, which made me very, very happy. So I've been spending as much time as I possibly can with her, catching up on all the stuff there is to catch up on after a three-week absence.

Other noteworthy events...

Some rapscallions wrote Vote 4 Bush on my rear window, causing other motorists to believe I am stupidWhile I was at a Padres game, some of my high school students wrote "VOTE 4 BUSH" in huge letters on the back of my car, and I didn't get a chance to clean it off for a while, so for a week everyone on the road thought I was a Bush supporter. I thought about writing "Don't" before it, but there wasn't enough room. At one point, I was at a red light when a woman in a blue car pulled up in the lane beside me, and yelled, "Yeah! George Bush! Woo!" and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. I didn't quite know how to respond; I thought about telling her the truth and saying that I'd rather have a platypus in the White House than another four years with Dubya, but I knew I would only confuse her and probably offend her as well, so I just went along with it. "Yeah," I said, "George Bush all right!" Then the light turned green, and I promptly drove home and washed my car.

I went on College Briefing last weekend, which is basically summer camp for big kids. It was fantastic. A few days away from school and work and suburbia was just what the doctor ordered. It was really nice to be able to go to church as well. When your place of employment is your church, you never actually go to church; you go to work. So College Briefing is pretty much the one weekend a year I get to attend worship services and not be working, which makes it one of my favorite times of the year. My God really kicked my butt about a few issues over the weekend too. It was great. Lots of growth. All in all, it was a fantastic ending to the summer. Now the challenge is going to be maintaining my decisions over the course of the year.

And speaking of decisions, you definitely need to decide to check this out!

And on that note, I'm gonna go take a shower or something.

Typing nude,

-Caleb