The Astros owe me $386.50

As a Cubs fan, my largest foe, most despised team is the Chicago White Sox. The only thing worse than a White Sox fan is a bandwagon-ing, son of a bitch fair weather White Sox fan, which they now have in abundance in Chicago. After the Sox, many of my comrades take on the Cardinals as they’re not only closer but also a very talented team in our division.

However, I chose the Astros and their fans. Only five years in Houston could make me care as little about the Astros as I do now. Too often they disappointed many a Cubs fan, only to blow it in the post season.

So I entered this post season with very few worries...at least one of my two least favorite teams would lose, hopefully both.

Of course as the playoffs advanced (as did the Sox and Astros) I became more and more disappointed with the results. Granted, they were both good teams, and it was nice to see everyone in Houston in such great moods so I was not very vested in the post season at all…my hatred of both teams coupled with happier environment around Houston lead to plain ambivalence on my part.

Foolish was I to think I could not be hurt by these two teams.

Around the time of the NL Championship series, I entered the ticket lottery for World Series tickets in Houston, as did apparently, everyone else in Houston. When I didn’t win the first round, I was certain it was Northern carpetbaggers, if you will, who registered online to buy them and sell them on eBay, etc. Mind you my only reasons for wanting to go to the series are because 1) it’s the World Series and 2) they tend to be good ball games too.

So now with no tickets, I swear off every caring about the Astros…if they could offer me WS tickets, I could find it in my heart to root for them; at least to get to the WS…but no, they had spurned my love.

Astros saving moment #1: I’m offered two tickets to game five of the NLCS, the last game of three in Houston at cost from by a coworker. Houston’s up 3-1 in the series and if they win this, they’ll go to the series for the first time ever. These were fun seats; right field just next to the Cardinals’ bullpen. You can’t see the full scoreboard, but other than that they had pretty good view lines.

The game was awesome. The crowd was outrageously loud as soon as the Astros took the lead. Between the eighth and ninth innings the deck above us, essentially concrete and steel beams, was shaking. A lot. Like easily a foot. The beams would bend up and down as I (the only person not intently focused on the Astros’ warm up) gazed at it, thankful that this was a new stadium and that my family would get a large settlement out of my untimely death.

Anyways, when Pujols hit what must be one of the biggest home runs ever, it was unreal...again, as the only divested spectator, it was amazing. Luckily, the deck above stopped shaking.

Afterwards I took a break from the post season…I was really concerned with who was playing, who was winning, etc.

Sunday noon, I got an email from the Astros…I had won the last chance lotto for the rights to buy tickets to the World Series. 10 am on Monday was the zero hour.

I come out of the mess with two tickets for Thursday’s game five…field level, section 132 (half way between first base and the outfield wall), second row. I’m psyched.

All that is needed: one Astros win…they have two games at home to pull it off and the previous games have been close, so it looks good.

Too bad the Astros were all like, “We don’t want to win. We much prefer going up by four runs and blowing it to winning. Winning is for losers.”

All I wanted was good seats to a good game on a good night. I wouldn’t even care who wins.
I should have known my two least favorite teams could stick it to me one more time this season.

Calvin's brush with death

Two blogs in two days, amazing I know. Anyway, I have a story I had to share. So today I wake up at 8 AM. This fact is made important since in order to get to my lab on time I had to be at the bus stop at 8:10 AM. So it was definitely a no-shower, no-contacts, throw on my jeans that have been on the floor and a shirt that isn't too dirty kind of morning. On my way out of the door, I notice that only about 10% of the water in Calvin's bowl is still there. A problem has arisen.

I have about two minutes to figure out wtf just happened, save Calvin, and catch my bus. All while feeling extremely unclean and just overall icky. Somehow Calvin's bowl had developed a leak. How does a glass bowl leak you may wonder, well so did I. Calvin was a little spastic (understandably as the water level had been declining all night). I got out some tupperware, filled it with a mixture of warm and cold water, hoping that would equal room temperature so Calvin wouldn't die of temperature shock when I put him in there. I treated the water so he wouldn't die of chlorine poisoning either. But I couldn't actually get Calvin out of the damn bowl. When I would get him into the net, he would jump out. Too many seconds passed. I just said fuck it. I figured if about 6 hours went by and he still had 10% of the water, I'd be home by 2 so if I filled it up again all would be fine. So I dumped the water from the tupperware into the bowl, fed him, and bolted out the door.

At least I made the bus. In the morning. I missed the bus I normally catch after work, so I got home 20 minutes later than normal. The plot thickens.

I get home and Calvin is dead. Like not moving in a bowl devoid of water dead. Leigh happens to call me as I eye my dead fish. I'm like- my fish just died. I didn't even name him until 2 days after I got him because I didn't want to get attached. And then he died the next day.

To avoid leaking on our stuff, I had put the bowl in the tupperware before I left in the morning. I figured why not. So I pour the water back into the bowl, and Calvin kind of moves. Turns out he wasn't quite dead, but was trapped underneath the plastic underwater ruins that had fallen when the water left the bowl. So I moved the ruins, and Calvin kind of floats to the top. Hmm. I figured he can't fool me twice. So I drop in some food and he eats it. I ran to the pet store, got a new bowl, and now all is right with the world. I just hope he doesn't have internal bleeding or something.

The old bowl has two large cracks at the bottom. How the hell they got that big overnight I have no idea. Perhaps Calvin is an unhappy fish with super-fishy strength and was trying to escape and fucked it up big time. Or maybe someone was trying to steal my fish in a most peculiar way. I'm still investigating.

Don't ever let anyone tell you fish are boring pets.

Yeah yeah, I'm posting

I'm a bad person- I read everyone else's blog but never post. Throw your proverbial stones at me now. Anyway, life has been busy for me up in Ann Arbor, but at least I'm enjoying most of what I do. Though I'd still like to sleep. This semester I'm only signed up for 4 classes- 2 in my department, one in policy, and one in biostatistics. There's an insane amount of reading and writing going on, but it's made more bearable by the fact that I find it interesting and actually useful. Unlike writing a paper about how Simba was closeted in The Lion King. But I guess that got me to where I am now.

When I'm not in class or studying for class, I'm at work. I work at University Health Service in Health Promotion so I pretty much design programs for the undergrads here. So far I've facilitated alcohol interventions for two different frats on campus (SO glad Rice isn't Greek), counseled students getting HIV testing, programmed a series of STD prevention and screening workshops for minority students on campus, designed a nutrition and avian flu website, and now I'm working on a physical fitness website. It's pretty neat stuff if you're a dork like me.

Meanwhile, I also do research over at the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health. There's a center on the UM campus for everything. It's some exciting stuff. My actual advisor blows major chunks so I've stolen one that I met at CRECH and am doing research with him. More like for him- that's the grad student/professor dynamic. Of course, not entirely interesting to you, but I figured I'd let you know why I haven't been blogging. I'm also co-chairing a conference on minority health in the winter (that means March here) so I'm excited about that too.

I also manage to have a social life. I've got a solid crew at SPH, and a few friends from physics thanks to Dan. I've also just stumbled upon friends in other departments so it's been a blast meeting other people. I even ran into a friend from middle school who's up here. As much as I love this school and the quirkiness of Ann Arbor, I'm already a little sick of it. Ann Arbor is tiny, but I guess I'll just have to deal with that. Hmm, what else. Oh yeah, UM football decided to suck this year. We're not even ranked anymore. How obnoxius, after I posted about my season tickets and everything. I'm glad to see the Astros made it to the World Series though, I'm excited for Houston. This weekend I'm going to a corn maze (no pun intended) and a haunted house. This house is supposed to be so scary that you get your money back if you make it up to the 7th floor. Bring it on!

And in other news, I have a fish. His name is Calvin. He's a red male betta, and his hobbies are eating, swimming, and contemplating his existence. If you want to see him you'll have to come visit me. Which you should before the entire state become a large block of ice. And you should come since I've become quite the little chef. Dan and I actually cook food every night so I've gotten pretty damn good. We'll see if I can go an entire semester as a grad student without eating Ramen. Well that's it- I need to get back to studying like the good little student I am.

Everclear bath

Ummm, you can't buy Everclear in Washington. We went to the liquor store today and found out that you have to have a special permit for it- and its supposed to be used for cleaning, not consumption. Well fine, I'll just shower in the Everclear then. How crazy is that? Apparently, many states have banned the sale of it- and many other states only allow the 153 proof to be sold. That's the 3rd thing I've found that I like about Texas better (the first two being large lanes on roads and cheap liquor/lower taxes- it's like 9.4% sales tax here or something crazy.) Also, all the liquor stores here are run by the State of Washington. And they are all small and suck. And the people who work there are barren. When I come back to Houston in April, I'm so stocking up.

No job yet. Bleh. Big dent in my front bumper- stupid narrow garage door. Heard my neighbors having loud sex this morning- they need to WD-40 their bed and she needs to put a pillow over her face. Going to Portland on Monday to see my old roommate Peter who will be there for 2 days. That's my update. Somebody else post. It's been like 2 weeks.

-Phill

No, it doesn't wash off

So my latest impulse buy was a tattoo. To answer the most common questions I've gotten, no, I don't know what made me decide to get it; that's why they call them impulse buys. It was an impulse. Yes, it hurt, but not as bad as I thought it would. I might get another, but I don't know what it would be. No, I don't know why I got this particular one other than the fact that I think it's a dead cute design, and I've always liked suns. Yes, it's still healing. I got it last Friday and now it's itching like a mo. And finally, no, my parents do not know, nor will they ever. Anyway, that's all. Hope you guys are doing well.

Over the hills and through the woods...

... to Mount Rainier we go!

Before I begin my Mt. Rainier post, here's a little update on my life: 1- My two biggest job leads rejected me at the end of the week before last. Great. 2- Then Eric came for his visit- YAY- I played tour guide and it took my mind off of stuff. 3- I hung out with Greg a lot that week- he came over and wallowed with me. 4- It took me a week to pull myself together. I got a cookie. I got a coffee. And on Thursday and Friday I went over to the public library to use their wifi and apply for jobs (I have a cable modem here, but I just get so distracted.) 5- I applied for 11 jobs on Thursday and Friday. 6- On Friday Greg took me to a Chinese restaurant. I asked if they are open on Christmas. They are :) My friend Adam (Jewish, just graduated Cornell) and I will be going there for our traditional Jewish Christmas dinner. 7- I will be at the library all this week applying for more jobs. Will work for food.

Now here's my real post:

So on Saturday Della, Greg, and I drove down to Mt. Rainier National Park. Yes, yes, I went to do something outdoorsy! I actually love outdoorsy, as long as it doesn't include uncaged animals or spending the night someplace that doesn't involve at least 3 stars. We had been planning it for a few weeks, before weather reports were available. There were highs. There were lows. Here, point by point, is our story:

- We arrived. We parked. We went to the bathroom. It was a hole in the ground. Della was fine. Greg was fine. I was terrified.
- It was foggy. It was cold. It was raining. So basically, we were on the mountain, but we couldn't see it. The summit (and mostly everything else) was totally blocked by all the clouds and fog. All day. Oh well.
- We did some trails. Saw some waterfalls. Ate lunch. Drove around, the usual... it was a lot of fun, even with the weather.
- The leaves were various colors: Green, Brown, RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, PINKISH! Greg and Della were like "and...." and I was like "WHOA!" I've never seen fall before. Palm and cypress trees don't shed their leaves. And any leaves that changed color in Houston went straight from green to brown. So yeah. It was exciting. I have lots of pictures of just awesomely colored plants.
- Then we drove up to Sunrise, the highest point on the mountain that you can reach by car. 6400 feet up. We did one of the nature trails. A few minutes in it started to snow lightly. I got all excited because I've only seen snow twice, and most of that was just on the ground- the snow was overnight and I missed the brunt of it. I took some pictures... snow on my arm, little bits of snow sticking to the ground... etc. Then it got harder. And harder. And windier. And harder. Woohoo! We got back to my car and it was coming down hard and my car had snow on it! So of course I had to take a picture of my Florida license plate in the snow. It was hot! (but not temperature hot...)
- We also passed a Ruby Tuesday on the way there. I thought it was just a southeast thing, but apparently not. I got all excited. Between that and the leaves and the snow and the company, it was a VERY exciting day!
- We're gonna plan to go back next summer... once the Seattle clouds are gone and we can actually see the mountain. Yeah.

There's some pics below, because once in a while I can be worse than Della with the camera. Also, Charles needs to post. And respond to e-mails. Eric, I place you in charge of this. I'm offended. Also, happy Rosh Hashanah to everyone. And by everyone, I basically mean just half of Jenny.

-Phill

Me in front of Narada Falls

Della with mountains and fog in background

Della and Greg standing on glacially-polished rock

Della and I with rocky and glacier-covered parts of Rainier in the background

Greg and I in the snow

My Florida license plate in the snow!