I don’t know if I mentioned I now w/ork about 35-40 hrs/wk instead of the planned 30. I really haven’t stopped to think about how that means I’ll be making more money. I’ve been too busy to think about it. the work is somewhat intense at times and it takes me an hour or two or three in the evening to regain humanity, and some evenings I barely get there.

another & now black tea. maybe I’ll pour out the bottom half.

I tried to apportion an amount for about a week. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I’m a little ahead of schedule.

I did become a little concerned the eagles might draft robert griffin the third. briefly. but those concerns are unfounded.

I watched some educational tv the other day. I watched 3 straight hours of whales and dolphins. I turned on the tv to see if I could watch any educational tv, and there was nothing on but the commercial said there would be back to back to back whales and dolphins starting at 8. I was very sleepy towards the end but watched the whole thing. whales have big eyes. whales do things we can’t comprehend. the bubble net is such a striking thing because it appears not to have evolved biologically as teamwork in other cases could be said to have evolved. I imagine ants evolve their teamwork but whales seem more to have invented tactics and passed them down through the generations. whales seem to have an oral history. whales in some cases may have learned things recently.

the cork samples did not test well. the wrench drop test. the thumb nail test. cork does not immediately regain its shape as advertised. not as advertised. but I ordered cork samples from another place just to see if maybe these were bad quality. and I ordered marmoleum samples and engineered wood. might eventually just bring some floorers in here and say I’ve researched everything and have no idea what to do. see what they recommend, including materials. still need to know the floor decision before painting, as I have reasoned and re-reasoned. and maybe unreasoned at some point.

I ordered some bamboo samples and another cork and some engineered wood again. only thing left to order would be some oak shorts.

Update: Nothing has changed. We still have rg3 going to the skinskins with the second overall pick. Browns will stick with Colt. Browns will hope to trade down. Vikes will stick with Ponder. Skins trade up.

Skins will never have a better chance to get an elite young QB prospect. Mike Shanahan expects to have a worse slot in the draft next year. A much worse slot. He is not thinking they are going to win 5 or 6 games again. He is thinking they are going to win 9+ games and not have a chance at an elite prospect next year. The 77/17 career TD-Int ratio does not lie. That 77 does not include his 32 rushing TDs.

been workin

+ the odd party.

Also, today I ordered some cork floor samples.

serious grocery shopping today.

Also, I threw away some very old food.

I don’t mind devel/oping the we/b. what else am I going to do.

might take a walk in a minute. mild out. warmish tomorrow.

I do recall what it was like when I watched more educational tv. I’ve had an educational tv block for some time. Problems to have.

Peanut butter is not cheap.

“Someone brought it to my attention, and quite frankly it’s unbelievable.” — Robert Griffin III after throwing more touchdowns than incompletions during the first three games of 2011.

Griffin’s throw is perfect in the above clip, and it’s a difficult throw to make. Griffin doesn’t have time to get his body in the perfect position for the throw, but squares around just enough and releases quickly. Griffin’s TD-Int ratio is gaudy, and it’s not because of any hesitancy to make difficult throws. Griffin has a live arm. The ball comes out with velocity, though it never appears he is exerting himself.

This is why I will trade up for the 2nd pick and select griffin. I will give up this year’s 1st round pick, this year’s 2nd round pick and next year’s 1st round pick.

The Browns are the main competition. Hopefully they will decide that McCoy + an elite WR prospect + a 1st round O lineman is better than Griffin + no one to throw to + no one to block. As many holes as the Skins have, the Browns have more. Greg Little is their best WR prospect. He caught 61 passes as a rookie last year but had 14 drops, 2nd most in the league. Hankerson is a better prospect. Browns left tack Joe Thomas is better than Trent Williams at this point. Browns have an average center and uncertainty at guard and right tackle. They have no right tackle. They’re roughly in the same position as the skins. Really the only area where the skins are perhaps deeper than the browns is at running back, tight end and perhaps wide receiver. Otherwise the teams are a lot alike. Except that McCoy is at least a plausible starting QB prospect. I see McCoy’s upside as being around the Matt Hasselbeck level, which is really not bad. Someone who will have a 5 year prime where he could very plausibly win a championship if the rest of the roster is solid and defense is top 5. I would expect both teams to inquire about trading up and it will come down to who is willing to give up more. It’s conceivable the skins would be willing to give up more.

let’s face it, since last we spoke I’ve become a good bit wealthier.  by sheer magic i.e. refinancing I will birth a chunk of free spending.  this will go directly into non-DIY home improvements.  rates are low.  a full percentage point lower than when I bought the place.  thus, the vast glacier of airy nothing will calve an allowance, at virtually no cost except pushing back amortization an unnoticeable smidge.

I read an article in the post (?) the other day.  I suppose it was in the living section or real estate section.  wherever they put articles about people renovating their mid-century modern homes.  and the headline of the article was something like couple blah blah DIY renovates blah blah home.  It had DIY in the headline.  so I read the article, and it turns out they did almost none of it themselves.  DIY has so been devalued that *hiring people* now counts as DIY.  provided you do not hire people to hire the people.  I can’t seem to find the article online.  it’s possible it was redacted due to shame.

whispers on the horizon of, the b a double g.  and I don’t mean the kind with shoulder straps that you put books in.  it’s out there.  life will begin anew.  springtime in february.  I don’t mean the weather.

cleaned 1 1/3 bathrooms yesterday, and the kitchen floor.  arnold is biting my hair vehemently.  these new garden salsa flavored sun chips are now my favorite sun chip flavor out of all the ones that don’t have a lot of dairy.  I spoiled my dinner.

I’ve become a big nerd.  I’m going to be rich.

I looked into switching to a 15-year mortgage.  decided against it, I think.  I would save perhaps $30K over the life of the loan.  that won’t be a lot of money in the future.  the psychological appeal of being done with house payments in 15 years… that’s significant.  but is not matched by the actual financial appeal.

actually I would save about 50K in interest but since interest is tax deductible that’s more like 30K.

hm.

one thing is for certain.  I need to cancel my gym membership.

by this point in winter one can tell oneself that because it is the worst part of the year it is in some sense the best part, since the worst part will be over before long.  one can tell oneself one is on a slide that leads to the end of winter.

the main reason to get a 15-year mortgage would be for the smugness.  but I could take the same money and pay people to make my house nicer and be smug about that instead.

I can’t rule out constructing a squirrel-proof tomato growing cage.  chicken wire on all 6 sides.

half-wittingly I provided a contrast that points to my habitual emotive displacement (especially in writing).  I tend to express (seemingly) exaggerated intensity about things like, a burrito.  and a degree of detachment re: things like, a parent.   perhaps emotive displacement in either direction serves as testing.  it’s part of a habitual distrustfulness about anyone’s ability to know exactly where they stand on anything, and why.  but that’s not exactly what I was thinking in the shower.  trying to get it back.  the shower modes.  well, anyway, testing in the sense of how someone blind would test where things are in a room if they aren’t familiar with the room.  it’s something I do in writing but not always otherwise.  iterative blogging tends toward experiments.

on the other hand the detachment is real in some sense.  it’s a real facet.  not a totality.  likewise with the burrito.  exaggerations can provide space for facets to be real.   exaggerations are also a cloaking concurrent with publicity.  exaggerations are a reticence concurrent with exhibition.  seems so.

though I like the word displacement better than exaggeration.  exaggeration is too…………….. exaggerated.

I was reading blogs last night.  something I did very little in, months.  it brought me back to something like reality.  I get very caught up in myself.  very myopic.  which is not reality, and not even a desirable fantasy.  reading things in the mass media is no cure for that.  facebook is no cure for that either, because it’s so regimented.  so artificial.  all the forms are determined by the venue.  but people’s blogs don’t resemble one another.  visually they are quite different and the forms of writing vary wildly.  so it actually does succeed in giving one a sense of the variability of other people out there, and their energy.  because my blog links stopped working I went to ian’s blog and used his blog links, and then from there used the blog links of those blogs.  wow, the internet.  it does what it’s supposed to.

oh, it’s funny to see how the blog environment has changed since… they were at some kind of peak.  pre-facebook/twitter/tumblr.  it’s funny to go to someone’s blog and see that their last post was in 2008, but also funny to see when they have very recent posts.  both scenarios are striking.

I came.  I saw.  I compartmentalized.  20cent said my post was “detached”.  I concurred.

I opened a beer.

I was sharp today.  A good week overall.

The week is over, as I am taking the day off tomorrow.  Going to visit family.  Looking forward.

I like the kontract.

and I *HEART* the new burrito place.  oh boy, my prayers have been answered.  I have a close burrito source.  I’m already embarrassed in advance about how often they are going to see me.  I went there today for lunch.  it’s across the street from gallaudet.  I could crawl there.  it would take about 45 minutes.

now I’m going to paste the entire contents of a draft I wrote two nights ago, right-justified:

I scraped.  I scraped and scraped.  I scraped this; scraped that.  I got a bit together.  it worked.

yeah, really worked.

I don’t usually make such a thorough and systematic effort like that.  but these are the times I live in.  it worked if anything better than expected.  and why not steal a bonus.  it’s all just a series of stolen bonuses.

and I’m in my living room.  it’s not a place where I often sit lately.  some of that is winter.  higher temperature upstairs.  I like it here.

some poetry of mine will be in a magazine, and I don’t know what.  I provided an extended thing and said go ahead and excerpt.  not a major deal, but it’s something I haven’t done previously.  I gave no direction.

I’m trying to let things be included that I’m not sure about.  really, I’m trying to be inclusive when that works and exclusive when that works.  whatever makes it go forward.