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Back to gerritt.net HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT ALL THIS CANDY? October 31, 2004. 8:50 PM Welp, it is now after eight o'clock on Halloween, I've been here since 4 PM without a single knock, and I have an entire bag of individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Let's face it, my quiet, dank, creepy basement apartment isn't a highly attractive place for trick-or-treaters. Anyone want some candy? And speaking of creepy child-abusers, I found out that a guy I went to high school with was arrested last week in New Jersey for having sex with a 13-year-old girl from Columbia who he'd met on the internet. Please be careful who you talk to on the net, and watch out for perverts like him. What a loser. On the brighter side, I'm reminded of last year's hysterically funny Homestarrunner.com Halloween Special. -G * Email Gerritt THE COLORS OF AUTUMN October 29, 2004. 2:55 PM It certainly has been a nice and busy week. Last week the weather had me fooled into thinking we'd gone right from summer to winter, but the last few days have been crisp, sunny, and mild here in Maryland, and this weekend looks to be nice weather for my sailing trip. This week saw the grand return of championship baseball to Boston, and in blow-out fashion as the Red Sox won eight postseason games in a row. How often does any sports team win eight games in a row? Well Boston fans, the New England Patriots also have a streak going, only theirs spans two seasons and 21 games including the post-season and the Super Bowl. While these are great, strong, record-breaking streaks, they pale in comparison to my hero, Ken Jennings. Ken has now won 62 consecutive Jeopardy episodes, and stands only days away from breaking the world record for most money ever won on a game show ($2,180,000, by Kevin Olmstead on Who Wants to be a Millionaire), and most consecutive days on a game show (75 days, by Ian Lygo on 100%). I heard a very good cover of 'Werewolves of London' by Adam Sandler on the radio today, supposedly from a Warren Zevon tribute album due out soon. I suppose it only got airplay since Halloween is this weekend, along with the Monster Mash, Thriller, and a dozen other songs that only get played this weekend. Last Saturday I made my one yearly trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and took some weird pictures of weird people there. I also felt inspired by the clear blue skies and colorful trees yesterday, so I snapped some pictures of the season changing here in Rockville. Take a gander at the new photos. -G * Email Gerritt ADD TO FAVORITES. . . October 26, 2004. 5:55 PM As promised last time, my favorite songs for each hand-selected category (feel free to dispute on my comments board): Favorite cold rainy day song: John Mayer- Covered in Rain Favorite warm rainy day song: Garth Brooks- The Thunder Rolls Favorite summer song: The Drifters- Under the Boardwalk Favorite winter song: Fountains of Wayne- Valley Winter Song Favorite Christmas song: Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLaughlin- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Favorite song about dancing: Veggie Tales- The Dance of the Cucumber Favorite song to dance to: Frank Sinatra- Cheek to Cheek Favorite really stupid song: Styx- Mr. Roboto Favorite song in Spanglish: Gerardo- Rico Suave -G * Email Gerritt SOUND OFF October 22, 2004. 5:55 PM I'd like to take advantage of the new comments section. (Did you hear I have a new comments section?) If you feel so inclined, pick your favorites from one or more of these categories of song and add them to my comment board. If you want, you can even make up your own category. I'll post my favorites for each next time, so check back soon. On to the categories: Favorite cold rainy day song Favorite warm rainy day song Favorite summer song Favorite winter song Favorite Christmas song Favorite song about dancing Favorite song to dance to Favorite really stupid song Favorite song in Spanglish -G * Email Gerritt THINGS I ENJOY October 20, 2004. 1:45 PM I've enjoyed working the nightshift lately because we borrowed a tiny TV from a coworker so my team and I can watch baseball while we work. This is particularly exciting since the Red Sox and their rival Yankees are head-to-head in the seventh game of the pennant race tonight, having come back from a three games to none deficit in the best of seven race. The winner tonight goes to the World Series. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't planned all along, like maybe Major League Baseball has started scripting their post-season games just to keep the fans interested, hmmm? I enjoy playing my twenty-year-old Nintendo and my fifteen-year-old Sega Genesis on my wood-grained twenty-five-year-old television. One day I'll have the patience to really beat Mario 3. I enjoy watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The latest 'Your Call' poll on their website asks what would make this election more interesting: A) Candidates have a rap battle like in "8 Mile"; B) Each party builds their own super robot to fight in The Ring of Death; C) Every voter gets a free Chalupa. I know where my vote goes. What about you? -G * Email Gerritt FIVE DAYS LATER October 18, 2004. 9:45 PM A a great cold and windy weekend in Blacksburg, but the Hokies roughed up on a lowly Florida A&M team, shutting out the division-II Rattlers 62-0. I also went to a church service at Blacksburg UMC on Sunday morning and was pleasantly surprised that Bishop George Irvine, a white South African, was there to teach the sermon. Bishop Irvine is a methodist bishop in South Africa, and is a great teacher and speaker as well as a key leader in the peaceful South African democratic revolution that took place in 1994. He spoke of his ties to Nelson Mandella, the former South African president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and freedom activist. He spoke of his friendship with Desmond Tutu, also a methodist bishop, freedom activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. To say Bishop Irvine is an inspiration would be an understatement. Some other parts of the world could take a lesson from the South Africans: peace and forgiveness are easy if we realize we need to open our eyes to the rest of humanity. An update to gerritt.net: now featuring a comments section. I hope it works. -G * Email Gerritt REM HATES MY TOWN October 13, 2004. 9:45 PM Remember the band REM? The artsy-pop geek rock group that made every song a think piece and now is intensely speaking out in favor of John Kerry? It seems they're not only on the charts again with their 13th album, they're also touring with a group called Vote For Change, a group of dozens of musicians doing huge concerts to promote the democratic presidential candidate. The biggest news for me from REM involves this article from the Washington Post, which certifies my claim that REM songwriter Mike Mills wrote their 1984 track "Don't Go Back To Rockville" about my new hometown here in Maryland. In fact, he claims that the song was written for his college girlfriend who planned to go back to Rockville, MD to spend the summer with her parents. Mills says of Rockville: "Going where nobody says hello, they don’t talk to anybody they don’t know- You’ll wind up in some factory that’s full time filth and nowhere left to go." I guess he's not all wrong. Read the rest of the lyrics from remrock.com. LITTLE OTEY IN THE BIG CITY October 11, 2004. 9:45 PM  NUMBER MUNCHERS October 8, 2004. 10:45 AM Driving into work each morning I have to pass through a guarded security gate, where uniformed security personnel check my ID badge and the sticker in the lower corner of my car's windshield. When I started working here, I was issued the three small registration decals in an envelope with no instructions except where to apply them on the car. I fit them together and carefully applied them in the proper spot, two stickers with my division and site name on them and one small square sticker with a number on it. My number '90' didn't seem to be a big deal to any of the guards for the past four months until I drove in this week to a confused rookie security guard. "Ninety!?" he exclaimed. "Your sticker is expired!" Yes friends and neighbors, my number 90 sticker was just a setup for idiocy and embarassment when I finally realized it was supposed to be a year, actually signifying that my car is registered to be on base until '06'. For those of you now turning your heads upside down to read your computer screen, I know how you feel. BABY NAMES October 6, 2004. 10:59 AM In case you're living under a rock, not on the east coast, without a TV, and not a sports fan, the Major League Baseball head-honchos voted and announced last week that the pathetic Montreal Expos will be moved to Washington, DC next season. The Expos, a stupid name adding insult to a 95-loss season, drew an average of only a few thousand fans per home game. Now the DC area is excited about the new Washington Baseball Club, and ready to take on the challenge of re-naming the future of major league sports in the District. Many people have their opinions on what to name the Expos, and I'll leave my opinions to myself and let you decide. You can head to the Washington Post's poll and vote. Here's a list of some of the popular names for the new team: - The DC Snakeheads (that'll inspire fear in the hearts of our opponents.) - The Washington Metros (sounds too much like 'Metrosexuals', and no one wants their baseball team wearing pink.) - The Washington Bullets (that's what our basketball team used to be called until it was determined to be too violent.) - We could go with something racially offensive like the Redskins; I'll leave you to come up with your own suggestions. - The Washington Monuments (yes, let's steal the name of something powerfully symbolic and historical and make it meaningless.) - The DC Senators (the two old baseball teams that used to play in DC were known as the Senators, but what about the House?) WE SAVED A FEW COUCHES October 3, 2004. 10:59 PM Saturday I was back into Hokie Football action, and through some contacts and old friends was able to get tickets into the game in Blacksburg. The team did not let me down, but the weather did. It rained so hard during the first half (not to mention Stephen left his raincoat in the car) that we left during a downpour at halftime. Watching the second half on ESPN while we ran our clothes through the dryer wasn't so bad, although the rain had stopped by the end of the third quarter. Our team looked much improved over last week, bringing heavy defense and special teams to defeat our old rivals West Virginia, the seventh-ranked team in the country. Nothing goes better in Blacksburg than a blocked field goal to put our team up 13-0, and when all was said and done the Hokies prevailed at a nail-biting 19-13. Plus I spent the weekend with some great friends and good fun. Last year when WVU beat #3-ranked Tech their fans and students went into such a victory frenzy that they burned old couches and tables in huge celebretory bonfires outside their houses and dorms. On the way out of Blacksburg this weekend, our students dragged couches out onto their lawns and sat on them holding signs saying "we helped save some couches today". I'm headed back to Blacksburg for the homecoming game on Oct 16 against Florida A&M, a small school with a lousy football team. I'm looking forward to it. NEWS FROM THE DISTRICT October 1, 2004. 11:59 AM I am among the small yet multi-national group of people known as Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Each year our professional society gathers together to discuss papers, present ideas, and make ourselves known. Following a large and successful conference in San Francisco last year, SNAME chose my new local city of Washington DC for this year. Half of my senior design team and other VT students and alumni showed up, and we were asked to present our first-place senior design paper at the conference and receive our awards. A pleasant trip on the metro later I wandered towards the DC Hilton, where the conference was held, near the Dupont Circle neighborhood. The presentation went unremarkably well, and soon the 30 or so Tech alumni were crammed into a small basement room in a place called the Brickskellar, claiming to be the oldest condemned building in the country. The Brickskellar has more beers then anywhere in the country, a whole wall of bottles and cans inside glass refrigerator doors. After dinner and some weird foreign beers we wandered to the Clarendon Ballroom in Arlington, where a live band blared some great rock music and the cool night air of early fall called us out onto roof deck for the evening. Late last night I finally made it home and then up again at 6 AM to be back at the conference to receive our awards. Walking back to the metro at Dupont I was passed by three different police-escorted vans and SUVs, undoubtedly carrying important dignitaries on their way to downtown DC. Complete with screaming sirens and a low-flying police helicopter overhead, I assume that these people are headed to the World Bank/IMF Meeting that closed a third of the streets in northwest today. I also got my first glance at the new observation and recon blimp that the government is testing in the DC area as it puttered slowly just over the roof of the Hilton yesterday evening. I'm sure that the enemy will be trembling in their boots as our giant, slow, unmanned, poppable airship target tries to collect information on their snakeholes. |
