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Oct. 4th, 2007 @ 09:31 pm
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Current Mood:  quixotic |
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For a day at least, global warming may be down.
Mike "Arrr, it's driving me nuts!" Friedman
Current Mood: quixotic Current Music: Black Eyed Peas - Rap Song |
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Putting bad Bond lines aside, this is what I was thinking yesterday because Erin and I decided to have passover dinner a second time this year. Last night we had matzo-ball soup and harroset with matzo. It was delicious.
Otherwise there is naught much to relate. School is going well - this has been an all together better year then the last (so far (knock on wood) so good) and Erin and I are hard at work in general.
Erin sent me a great work and so here's your word for the moment:
Tmesis (tê-'mee-sis): The insertion of words between the constituents of words, e.g. "abso-bloody-lutely" or "fan-fucking-tastic"
More when I find the time :)
Mike "Friedman, Mike Friedman" FriedmanCurrent Mood:  busy Current Music: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Rocket Man |
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Thursday marked the coming of students to the new school. The Southern Lee Cavaliers. I'm actually pretty enthusiastic about this semester. The students I have seem good. My class sizes are small and the new school is nice. The principal is cool and we have a good deal of school spirit. Check out my first and second day school uniforms.
 
That's the emblem on the chest of a bright orange t-shirt. All the teachers basically dressed the same last week and it worked out well.
After 2 days of students, Erin and I did two days of baby sitting. Friday after school from 6:30 to 1:30 and Saturday from 2:30 to 6. Not my favorite thing in the world to do, but I did get paid to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That's my kind of movie, as is just about every Charlie Kaufman film. I know I'm probably behind the times with this, but if you haven't had the chance to see it and you feel you mind isn't quite as messed up as it could be, I highly recommend it.
Here's a word for today:
Cavalier: a gallant or courtly gentleman.
Mike
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd"
Friedman<br?Current Mood:  okay Current Music: I hear the Gorillaz in my head |
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So yeah, I've been missing in action for... um... all summer pretty much. Sorry for those of you who read this and might even maybe look forward to it.
Up until about a week ago, you weren't missing much from this end. I've just been working for Alan all summer. A week and a half ago was my birthday though, and it was a great one. I wish all you folks from home could have been here, but the calls and e-mails from everyone were greatly appreciated as were all the gifts I got and as will be all the gifts people have said were in the mail. If you want to know what all I got, let me know, but I would like to highlight that I just got a camera phone, so send me pictures. We had some Chapel Hill (bio department) people over and ended up playing asshole and eating cake till the beer was gone. Then we went out to He's Not Here and then to Linda's. All in all a great night. I took the weekend and monday off and then Tuesday I took the GRE. My verbal score could have been better, I got a 540, but my math score couldn't have, I got the 800. I didn't care about the writing going in, but I feel like I did an admirable job and want to know how I did.
Wednesday was supposed to be my last (second) day off for the summer, but I got called in for some training (all day an hours drive away), and Thursday we were due back at school. I'm teaching at a new school this year and it's so nice and clean. I haven't had a minute to do anything to prepare for the return of students (two days, though they were in the school today to pick up schedules today (more on that in a bit)) as we've been busy with classroom stuff and all the goes on with opening a new school. That's OK though because until this morning I didn't know what I'd be teaching. As it turns out, I'll be teaching Honors Geometry (following in one of my favorites, Harrison's, shoes) and two sections of Algebra I (which is at least better then Algebra Ia). Someone remind me and I'll try and post some pictures of my classroom (taken with the camera phone :) ).
So yeah, students showed today and I saw a lot of friendly faces and people happy to see me. It was a good day and thankfully so far I haven't had one repeat student walk my way.
Aside from that, I'm over 50% done with the classes I have to take for the school to pay me and that along with planning and grading will keep me overly busy, but I'll let you know how things go day to day if there's anything interesting to report.
Mike "Is anybody out there?" FriedmanCurrent Mood:  excited Current Music: Katamari Damacy Soundtrack |
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Lets start with the word of the moment before I forget. Dad just sent
this to me in an e-mail and I think you should all know it, even if I
don't have a clue how to pronounce it.
Borborygmus is the rumbling noise produced by the movement of gas through the intestines. The plural of this word is borborygmi.
Second - check out this van. My birthday is coming up :)
Oh, and how things are going. My classes are in progress. 4
lessons submitted in one and 3 in the other. I spend a very large
percent of my free time on it and I damn well better be done before the
end of September. Working in Alan's lab
has been... educational. What I've learned - bench work is
boring, I don't know as much statistics as I need to do the work I was
hired for, I'm not doing the work I was hired for, a lot of people are
interested in a simple weed, I'm getting interested too, and
something about G-protein Coupled Receptors. I'm taking the
general GRE on the 16th of August. That's about it.
Lastly, Erin developed the pictures from Julia's wedding and look how we've grown.
Before:
After:
Man, do I miss you guys.
MIKE "NEAR... far" Friedman
Jul. 27th, 2005 @ 06:13 pm
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| » I'd like to thank Beetleguese and the Sun |
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I've been super busy working in Alan's lab and doing my coursework, but I thought I'd post a quick though.
I heard someone say "thank your lucky stars" and I got to thinking who has lucky stars? Wouldn't pretty much everyone's lucky star be the sun. I think I'm picking beetleguese.
Mike "Some people call me the space cowboy" Friedman
Jul. 13th, 2005 @ 07:35 pm
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| » It's lie this and like that and like this and uh. |
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I haven't had a lot to say lately and I don't see that changing any time soon. Sorry.
What you've missed:
- summer school ended last thursday. I started with 16 kids, ended
with 8 and I think only 6 passed. That kind of sucks and makes me think
it wasn't worth all the hassle (and driving), but at least I got paid.
- Lynnette and Steve spent a week here in NC. It is always
nice to see them and we just relaxed, watched movies, played cards and
ate.
- I kind of started working for Alan today. More on that as I know what I'm doing.
- Oh, and happy 229th birthday to America.
While L and S were here we saw War of the Worlds and Mr. and Mrs.
Smith. War of the Worlds wasn't bad... but it wasn't really good
either. Mr. and Mrs. Smith I enjoyed, but then again, how
couldn't I have? I like Brad, I like Angelina, I think Vince
Vaughn is hilarious.
That's it from this neck of the woods. I've got to get started on
my course work - a couple of classes that I have to have done before
the fall semester starts or they won't be paying me my salary.
Mike "the truly educated never graduate" Friedman
Jul. 5th, 2005 @ 02:59 pm
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| » FRUCK! |
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So we're back from Howard Lake. Not the most fun of trips for us,
but it had to be done and I think that we managed to make it through
unscathed. To get the long story look to Erin's blog. As
for me, the actual travel wasn't too bad except for the AADD
guy in front of me that was crushing my legs for the second leg of the
trip. Oh, and the incredible amount of U-turns we made getting
lost in our rental car train.
I have a new number one fan though. Our cousin Jonah is rounding
on 3 years old and for some reason he took a liking to me. It's
almost always Erin or Jason that gets the attention from the
younglings, but after our first play time, Jonah didn't want to go
anywhere without me and every time he saw me a great big grin would
play across his face. That definitely improved my weekend, though
I hurt all over from him biting and bouncing. He seems to be a
really bright kid, but he's just a little behind on the speaking
front. He understands everything people say to him, but his
vocabulary is a little limited currently. He's got yes and no
down pat and of course he can say Yosh (that's for Josh). His
favorite thing is the chu-chu (train), on top of that he knows car and
truck, but a lot of the time the tr in truck comes out as fr or even
just f. For instance we were outside a restaurant and I was
asking him what stuff was and I said what's that red thing over there
and he yelled fruck/fuck at the top of his lungs around a bunch of
strangers. It's the little pleasures in life I so enjoy.
On our way home I saw a curious thing. United has a new small service. Drop the Uni and you get:
And for those of you that haven't already read it on Penny-Aracade, here's the word of the day:
lexiconnoisseur - It describes the sort of person who would make up a word like that and then tell everyone about it.
Mike "Say what one more time" Friedman
Jun. 28th, 2005 @ 08:49 pm
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| » Today's entry brought to you by the letter F |
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Let's start with yesterday's Fs. My receiver kept fritzing out, so I went out and bought a new receiver. Happy birthday to me from the parents. It only took about four hours to get set up properly. This was mostly due to the fact
that I had more than a little bit of trouble getting the speaker wires
hooked up in the right place or even hooked up at all. I ended up
getting 10 crimp on banana clips and putting them on the ends of my
speaker wires for a better connection.
After that we went over to Daniel and Leslie's new house for some time with friends and free beer.
They live quite a ways out, but it was worth the time as I had a great
time. Daniel and Leslie are cool and they did a great job of
hosting. Everyone took a turn at the grill in their nice
backyard. We had hamburgers and sausage and roasted some veggies
on kabobs. Erin may have had a little too much fun.
She had quite a bit to drink, and when it was time to go (say about
11), Nick asked us if we wanted to go out and Erin jumped on it.
We went to these two clubs, I think the first one was called Wetlands
and the second was definitely called Kryptonite. Wetlands was ok
- there was a pay pool table, but there was no glass over the balls, so
you could just pull them out. Erin is an amazingly good shot when
she's drunk as are Nick and Jan. We left there pretty quickly,
and went over to Kryptonite, a much freakier club. Nick knew the guy spinning there and he was on the guest list so we all got in free.
The music was really good and Erin wanted to dance, so I had to
also. We checked out the beds, but it was right about closing
time. I was designated driver, so I got everyone home and we got
into bed about three or four.
This morning I got a fone call from Jason (6 our time, so 3 his time). I didn't understand all of it, but apparently he was in "the most fucking beautiful place on earth."
I'm going to ask him about it later today. Shortly after that, I
got up. Erin was still sleeping it off, so I put in Fight Club
and worked on one of the afghans I've been chartered to make.
Erin got up and wanted coke and subway so I went out and came back and
we ate and then Erin decided it was time to get back into bed and we
(well mostly just me) watched Fifth Element.
Let me also say a quick happy father's day to my dad and any other dads reading. Have a great day.
Now she's up again and I'm feeling filthy so it's time for a shower.
"We just had a near life experience" -Tyler Durden
Mike "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" Friedman
Jun. 19th, 2005 @ 02:59 pm
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| » R. I. P. Vernon Munson |
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Erin's grandfather died last night. He will be missed. The small amount of time I did get to spend with him was more then enough to know how nice a man he was and what a loving father and grandfather.
Mike "..." Friedman
Jun. 16th, 2005 @ 02:56 pm
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| » All the news that's fit to print. |
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I haven't found anything recently blog worthy, but enough small things
have happened in the last few days that I thought I'd let you know.
First and foremost, it's Matt's birthday.
In other good news, it would seem that this fall, Tommy joins the ranks of public servant and starts teaching at Garland High. Congrats man, hope you enjoy it.
That's the good news. The interesting news is I now personally
know yet another person to spend some time in jail. From Ed and
Shelley going for bouncing a check to Brian Smith going for, man I
don't even really know. Both Adam and Rick have been there and
Grant is there right now. Last weekend, Jason was picked up while
sleeping in his car (not that he doesn't have a home, he just didn't
want to drive home drunk) and spent a night in jail. I don't feel
like a person who can't count on one hand how many of their friends and
family have been to jail. So it goes.
"So, you're my uncle Joey. Better get used to those bars,
kid" -Back to the Future
Mike "What the hell's a gigawatt?" Friedman
Jun. 16th, 2005 @ 02:55 pm
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| » Where we're going we don't need roads. |
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Last night Erin and I went to a house warming/bachelorette party. Long story short, we drank a lot and since it was right down the street, we walked home. We woke up this morning and didn't feel like getting out of bed and guess what was on TV. Back to the Future. It just ended and guess what's on now - Back to the Future II. It's going to be one of those days.
Mike "Think, McFly, think" Friedman
Jun. 12th, 2005 @ 10:51 am
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| » So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause |
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Erin and I saw Episode III last night (again) with Phil and Amanda and
another of Erin's coworkers whose name I know but don't want to butcher
in spelling. I said I'd give my review, so here it is - I liked
it.
My action quota was surely met. My requirement that Mace Windu
kick some ass and then have a reasonably good death scene was
met. Most of the loose ends were tied up. I wasn't
expecting much in terms of good plot progression or plot and I was not
taken by surprise. All in all an enjoyable time. You know
what I like best about the star wars universe (aside of course from
light-sabers)? Every planet has but one climate and
geography. One planet is basically Alaska, that'd be Hoth;
one planet is basically New York - Coruscant; one planet is just
a giant lava flow - Mustafar; one's just a desert - Tatoine; and an
entire moon of Endor is a forest.
Mike "Mace "BMF" Windu" Friedman
Jun. 8th, 2005 @ 03:34 pm
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| » Back to school... |
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Today was the first day of summer school. As it turns out I (so far)
have 21 students split 5/17 between Tech Math and Algebra IA
(respectively). Yes, that means that in the 4ish hours each day I'm
supposed to teach two separate classes at the same time. We'll see how
that works. Actually, we'll see how the whole thing works out as I have
some return students - one of my least intelligent, but favorite
students (the one who tried the gallon of milk in an hour challenge)
showed up unexpected today... I don't expect him to do well, but at
least I'll be entertained. Also one of my worst behaved students from
my hellacious 4th block last semester arrived - I don't expect him to
make it through the 4 weeks, but he was OK today. It's kind of weird
that we've had one day and I can already say "19 more days left."
On a completely unrelated note, as of saturday
it is some how freakishly hot outside. It doesn't bother me that much,
it's nothing really compared to Texas heat, but it seemed to come on of
a sudden.
Word for the moment - I saw this in the list of moods and though just
from the way it's spelled you kind of get the idea of the meaning, I
thought I'd look it up and share it with you.
Exanimate: lifeless: deprived of life; no longer living; "a lifeless body".
Mike "I think I'll go for a walk" Friedman
Jun. 6th, 2005 @ 08:54 pm
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| » 30 is a nice round number |
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Putting aside the fact that I think only one of my regular readers will get the reference in the title,
we're back from Indiana. We drove home on the 30th - Memorial
Day. Guess how many cop cars we saw on the 10 hour drive - you
guessed it, 30. All in all it was a nice visit and the drive home
was uneventful. The last work day of the spring semester was
yesterday - I finished with my room and what not and helped the other
teachers move furniture and plan for next semester. It looks as
if I might get away with only teaching juniors next semester (Honors
Algebra II and Advanced Functions and Modeling). I'm trying not
to get my hopes up. Today is my day off and tomorrow I go back to
school for the pre-summer school work days. I have no idea what
I'll be teaching, but I don't think it matters too much.
"There's that word again, 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the
future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?" -Doc
Brown
And to go with my theme, two words for today:
Flux: A flow or flowing.
Capacitor: A device that stores electrical charges and can be used
to maintain voltage levels in power lines and improve electrical-system
efficiency.
Mike "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." Friedman
Jun. 1st, 2005 @ 02:09 pm
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| » All quiet on the eastern front |
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So I haven't done this is a while, but then again, I haven't done
anything in a while. This week Erin has been in Indiana while
I've been home. It was nice for a day, just chilling out by
myself... some good alone time, but the rest of the week, I haven't
really know what to do with myself, so I haven't done anything.
The school year ended - tuesday and wednesday I gave finals and my kids
did... well, better then expected. Now I'm at school cleaning
house.
The weekend in Indiana was nice last weekend and I'm looking forward to
another starting when I get there this evening. Last weekend we
went and saw Episode III. I enjoyed it, but I'll give you my more
in depth opinion after we see it again with Phil. His wife doesn't
want to go and he doesn't want to go alone, so we'll be going with him
next week.
Also, before I forget, Matt has a blog now too, so check it out.
Mike "only through me can you achieve a power greater than any Jedi" Friedman
May. 27th, 2005 @ 07:27 am
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| » 1, 2, 4, 5, 6! |
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So I haven't posted in a week, but I have a good excuse - Danny (and Sarah) went to see Episode III
last night and before hand they decided that they'd watch all the
previous movies, so on Friday night we went over to Danny's and watch
episode I, then saturday episode II. On Sunday they came over to
our place for A New Hope, and Monday for Empire. Tuesday we
wrapped it up at Danny's. That's enjoyably eaten up most of my
free time. This time through I enjoyed I and II a lot better and
am looking forward to seeing III on Sunday. Why wait till
Sunday? Tomorrow, after a full day of class (my second to last
btw), we're driving to Indiana to see Adam graduate on Saturday.
Mike "I have a bad feeling about this" Friedman
May. 19th, 2005 @ 09:03 pm
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| » The Crystal calls |
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Who knew anyone would have ever thought to do it, but they're making a sequal to the Dark Crystal. No Henson (at least not Jim) and no Oz - but how can I not have my hopes up.
"Another World
Another Time
In The Age Of Wonder
Another World
Another Time
This Land Was Green & Good
Until The Crystal Cracked
Once More
They Will Replenish Themselves
Cheat death again
The Power Of Their Source
The Crystal"
Mike "to the crystal chamber" Friedman
May. 15th, 2005 @ 08:19 pm
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