After class I'd scheduled getting myself an ice cream cone. Freshens is this place in the MC, next to this bagel place in this corner, both just sitting there for some reason. They do frozen yogurt, even in cones, so I'm all, I'll go there, but I also need to hit the frozen custard place Nielsen's; Freddie's is the new place which has alright frozen custard (but awesome burgers and really thin fries,) but it's Nielsen's I need to hit again. But Freshens is the most pressing on my circuit of ice cream cone hitting, so I check that out. Think I'll get a... yeah, vanilla-chocolate swirl with, maybe strawberries on top. Only... the vanilla machine needs to freeze its vanilla. Should be ready within 10 minutes, and meanwhile checking the Walmart shuttle app there should be enough time for both- until a large line magically forms, and well I guess I should get the Walmart stuff first, otherwise wait 45 minutes for the bus's circuit to repeat.
I rush out to the bus stop- there's a Walmart employee there, waiting for the bus so he can start his shift. I decide to go up next to him and ask him, wasa, b? The buses, he says, have been on time lately. So the bus should be here in three minutes.
We wait much longer than three minutes. Another guy comes up to wait for the bus with us. He has the shuttle app (I just used the website,) and while I scout ahead for the bus the app reports that the bus should be there. When I get back, the employee is using the guy's phone to call in a ride for himself. Alright. Maybe the bus is just... actually late today?
I go back to Freshens to check on the vanilla. The vanilla button is glowing red, unlike the healthy green button of the chocolate side. The employee resets the machine. Guess I'll go back to the bus stop?
There's a girl there. She reports that she called in, and the phone reports that the bus is operating normally. The bus does not come. It may have been here, that I spot a box blowing across the street in the paths of cars (it is very windy and blowing sand to boot, and the weather here is an important fact for later.) I run into the road, nab the box, what the heck am I supposed to do with this? I cross into the Snow building and tuck the box (which is an empty apple box labeled on several sides SPELL BOOKS) into a corner by the fridge in a green room. The world, I reflect, is truly a magical place. Maybe I'll blog that.
The vanilla should have reset by now. I go back across campus to Freshens, and... it's still a pimply red color. Heck it all to heck; I'm going to Nielsen's. I meet Blaine the Roommate as I exit the MC- how's your day, he asks, and my reply is noncommital. I think everyone's day's been like that, he replies. We talk for a few more sentences, not terribly long, but like everyone in his class this morning was super sick as well, like in mine, and, yeah, just not a winning day for anyone.
I head left through campus, beelining for Nielsen's, which I of course know the exact location of, because really their frocust is el primo stuff, and their diner staples are also pretty good as well. I have on my cardigan, with its shallow pockets- just enough room to fit in a cell phone, as long as it's turned sideways. I ponder my cell phone- is the data on? Do I have "data?" I've got wifi and everything, but isn't there this "data" thing as well? Does it use that if I have the wifi switched off? On? Paranoid, I decide to power down the phone until I can look into the situation further, setting it securely into the shallow pocket where it can be buddies with my debit card on the left side there.
I pass by the track, where there's a guy running. I have a song about music, maybe it's who performs "Come On, Eileen," but I can't specify the details anymore. I don't ask him, either way. Wait for the car to pull out of the parking lot as I'm about to cross in front of it.
I can feel the Nielsen's getting closer. Past the track, across the street (next to a construction area,) across from the Willows now. The Willows has this car out front, which has a sign saying, you could win this car. Wow, I say, as I see that. Win that car. As opposed to that car, or that car, or that car. (It's the city. There are many cars. Some parked, some being driven. But those aren't the ones available to win.) All my hopes and dreams lie on the other side of the street, I say aloud at the stoplight waiting for the pedestrian signal. Well, two hopes and dreams, at least. The signal signals, we cross (there's me and there's this girl also there crossing.) Turn left, past the car, some red, mini Fiat I think.
There's the strip mall place across from the construction zone. This hot dog cart at the froyo place. I sing some song to myself. Motown or something- I am beginning to think I've got magical powers over the radio, what I sing will be soon played at some point. Past the mall, the Deseret Book on the corner, as a guy or two make(s) a break for it across the street corner toward the park on the other side of the street, red light but no pedestrian signal. But I turn right, staying on the sidewalk. There's the Nielsen's right there, nearer to the other side of the block but still in view, with its ice cream cone in neon.
I get a Rexburger, make it a meal, and the custard of the day- cheesecake, with cheesecake cubes ordered special on top. I've got my phone, I've got my cards, I've got my camera. The frocust arrives, in a cup instead of a cone. Hadn't I ordered it in a cone? I could just explain the mistake but that would lead to a perfectly good glob of custard to get thrown away. I can always order another cone later.
There's a family, three generational, in the corner booth. Could I get some photos of their custard, which is in cones? Or is taking photos of strangers' children just creepy? I don't risk it. I lie down on the bench, fatigued, for a bit. My burger arrives- I set the frocust out of the sunlight, which is streaming in quite hot from the window behind me. I eat a few fries, bite into the burger. The cheese strings out of my mouth as I pull the burger away from my lips and set it down. It's pretty good. Not mind blowing or anything, but pretty good. I can get in maybe a bite or two; I guess the custard was rich and filling enough. Get myself a clamshell, throw away my two napkins into the trash bin behind the counter- they part as they twist through the air, but they both make it in nothing but net. The dude standing in the kitchen complements me as he observes this.
My meal in a clamshell and my frocust in its cup inside the larger cup of my drink, filled with ice so as to keep the ice cream cool, it's now onto the second of my two hopes/dreams- I also have my thumb drive with me, and across from the Jimmy John's next to the Nielsen's is AlphaGraphics. Finally time to print off and mount that project for Information Design which was due a month or so ago.
It's around 2:00 at this point- I remember because I tried to get my thing printed off when it was first due, but they'd said then that the foamcore guys go home at 2:00 and I was inquiring past 2:00. But this time there seemed no problem, no guys to be going home in the first place or anything, why would the time of day matter. Interesting. I also inquire about the cardstocks they've got- CS5 I think is what they've got that most closely matches what I want, some playing card-ish textile. It's for my mailer for Business for the Professional Artist, another thing that was due a week or so ago. Aside from the two prints-and-mounts I order, I order two sheets of that.
It takes a while. Not sure how long, an hour or so. Other students arrive, with printout jobs to be completed so they can have their stuff in on time. On time. What a quaint notion. The size that I need the project printed out at turns out to bump up the cost, now paying by the square inch or something- but I'd misheard the total cost as being seventy something dollars before I requested a couple C5Ss get thrown in there (18x24s; I'd calculated out, on the clamshell, the size I'd needed to print two eight-inch-squared mailers with margins,) so when the price turned out to be only thirty something for the two prints and the $.50 each papers, I was okay with it.
It's still quite blustery out there, and holding these big broad printouts is no picnic in this weather. The lid of my cup blows off, into the parking lot of the church across from AlphaGraphics, and is soon out of sight. How do I grip these printouts? I don't want to damage my papers... I cross the street and consider asking that girl there if she could- no wait she's gone, I can still call after her no that's okay.
I'd asked at the print place on campus about playing card-style paper (I'd asked after class, still in the Romney building (Business for the Professional Artist is in the campus science building for some reason) and one of the people there said their spouse worked at the print shop and there was some there) but it wasn't what I needed, and heading here by this strip mall there's Zippy Ship and Copy, I could head in there and see what they've got, though I already have some. At least it'd get me out of the wind.
Out of the wind (and there was a woman coming the other way out who graciously held the door open for me, with all the stuff I was holding) I could re-consolidate my stack, ask about the paper (the same stuff that the campus had I think) and dig around in my pockets for loose change to donate to the animal shelter (none, though I think I still had everything in my pockets at this time, maybe?)
Out in the wind again, leaning against the strip mall sign, I braced myself for the walk up ahead, back to the apartments- zip my camera under my cardigan, secure my papers. Only to be undone by two friendly girls offering to help- we re-consolidate the material among ourselves, ready to get going- only to be undone again by a friendly lady offering a ride to us. But it's just me who needs it. I take back my camera, take back my printouts, get into the car.
She's the wife of, someone who works at the school, whether as a teacher or employee or something is ambiguous as I didn't ask. I buckle my seatbelt finally, as we turn the corner by the Snow building. She's got long black hair, olivish skin. The sedan is black I think. She drops me off. I take out the food first, setting the cup of frocust on the ground and nudging it out of the way as I pull the rest of my stuff out too. Say thanks again, and she pulls off. I grab my stuff, head up the stairs into the apartment.
Place down the printouts onto the loveseat, the clamshell into the fridge and the cup into the freezer door. It's while I'm unloading my stuff that I discover that my cellphone is no longer on me.
It could have dropped out at any point along my route- if at campus it would be turned in to lost and found, so immediately I turn my focus on retracing my steps to everywhere else. Nielsen's. AlphaGraphics. Was it not in my pocket as I rifled for change por las mascotas at the Quick Ship? Was it in my pocket as I reached across my belly putting on my seatbelt in the car? I know too much about memory to be able to trust anything, and much of the rest of the day is spent in search for it. Of course I'd turned it off before losing it; it's something of a hobby of mine by this point.
I swing by the Snow green room and meet a couple of familiar-looking faces from plays I've seen, who are hanging out back there. Tom from The Glass Menagerie, and, shoot in retrospect that was Laura wasn't it? Because, you know, maybe I'm misremembering the order of events, and maybe I'd lost my phone at that time. But it's not there.
At first Austin (the actor's name) thinks I might be there to cover Big Fish, seeing my camera, but that's not what that's for. I head to Porter's, and use photographic reference to match colors for stamps, for my mailer for Burrbiz class. I work on that for a bit, back at the apartment.
I'd meant to get on my Concentration class coursework early, too, starting it Thursday instead of last-minute Saturday the day it's due. But the most pressing homework to do is getting on making a guide sheet for the Mesoamerican art test for Friday morning, the next day, not to mention the reviews of the two movies I'd watched on Tuesday...
Whatever. I can do that in the morning. Early bedtime, tonight. I write up my Tzolk'in thing, at least, and hit the sack.
Friday morning. 4:15. Wake up. Fully awake by 4:30. Have the rest of the burger for breakfast. Write everything, print it off by 9:00, when the test starts. Do pretty well on the test, but I've reported the one boner I made.
Plasma donation scheduled for 10:00, which is usually when class is getting out, but it being a test day I knew it'd get out thirty or forty minutes early. Wait for an hour, should have brought something to read, all there is to watch is an Adam Sandler comedy I've already seen too many times, played on the internal TV system. My protein levels are too low, and I'm deferred for the day. Saturday's still good for me, so it isn't that bad, but there goes my entire morning.
11:00 to 1:00 is spent re-retracing my steps. My memories are snowballing new details, but the lost and found office still hasn't received anything, nor any of the establishments I'd spent time in had anything found. Try back at 5:00, when we close, says the lost and found office. Maybe somebody will have found it by then. We don't open again till Monday morning after that.
So 5:00 is when everything's going to go down.
I head home, collapse on Ryan's bunk, the bottom one: nap starting at 1:00. At 1:50, there's a knock on the door. I'm alert, immediately knowing what it is. The UPS man. My package has arrived.
Make that, my nine packages, split over two cart trips. It's the four-color, two-station entry-level-but-top-of-the-line serigraphic press I ordered, three and a half thousand dollars' worth of business expense. I take photos. The UPS man lugs them up the stairs, and I sign and drag them into my room.
Ah, yes, my room. Ryan's cool with having the press in there, if the rest of the room is clear and clean. So I've got some organizing to do. I take the next available Walmart shuttle (it's running today,) help out a lady with the stuff under her seat as it's time for her and her small son to get off at the stop across from the flower store. The bus continues on. I realize out loud that I'm now a small businessman, converse with the green-garbed girl on the seat in front of me and on the other side of the aisle (I'm heading to Walmart for the same stuff I'd been trying to get yesterday, a laundry basket and some plastic drawers so I can actually have stuff organized instead of just miscellaneously thrown into boxes; she's just heading to get milk, but hers is still a good story because she's lactose intolerant only to when she drinks milk, and so she's getting three kinds, two of them almond, for different purposes.)
Walmart. I space the laundry basket, but find about what I'm looking for plastic-drawers-wise, and a beanie, and discount Walmart exclusive comic books, three in a bag for like just a dollar I think. The new Great Lakes Avengers book is awesome, and as I grow older the world gets happier yet sadder at the same time, because I realize more and more that Zac Gorman and Will Robson and everyone, they're all just mortals trying to move ahead in the world, like everyone else.
Home. Realize about the laundry basket, check the shuttle times- I'd have to wait half an hour, and take a potentially 45-minute detour, just for that. I make my own laundry basket, then, out of a cardboard box, taping the lids up as an extension of the sides.
I spend the next while organizing everything in the room. Missing the 5:00 close of the lost and found, which I am aware of, but what I'm really focused on right now is having the room clean for when Ryan gets home. Pizza also arrives, meanwhile; I've got cash in my pocket after cashback at Walmart, but am too busy wrists deep in hot glue (a secondary project in cleaning the room) to arrive promptly when Jonathan wonders aloud about cash, so the delivery guy goes tipless I guess, me arriving too late.
6:00 is a D&D session planned at the apartment across from ours, though up a completely different flight of stairs- the bedroom is clean by this time, save the monolithic boxes taking up much space in it. Ryan's not in, and we can't start until he gets here, so I've got the Winter '99 Critique magazine that I discovered in my room cleaning up, which I accidentally took from one of the graphic design studios once and need to return- it's just in the Spori, so they give me permission to return it. But I spot Ryan, and follow him up the stairs into the apartment, instead. I want to see his reaction when he goes into our room.
The room is clean, and full of boxes, but still clearer than it'd be otherwise, so he's cool with it as long as I keep everything in good condition. He gets a call inviting him, and me, to dinner at the girls' place- I am basically starving by this point, plus I really really don't think I've got time for D&D because after all I didn't get any of the stuff I'd meant to start yesterday and due tomorrow done at all yet, so I accept. In telling Jonathan (who's DMing,) though, we feel too bad to let him down, so we D&D instead, and there's pizza and chips and pop there I guess (you know, health food.)
My character is a gnome barbarian named Mongar Ymsdweller. My Intelligence is very low, while my Wisdom is very high. Go figure.
Once our characters are generated, we peel out (Blaine, having his rock band he practices with in the lounge (I'm pretty sure he's literally a member of Jimmy Eat World,) can leave to do that when it's not his character being generated.)
I'd mentioned 5:00 being when everything goes down- I'm in correspondence with Ellen Natalie, of Furry Experience, and she'd gotten to me around 5:00 when she'd done so Wednesday. She doesn't get back to me here, but that's okay I guess, unless... unless oh gosh I screwed it up, I said too much she blocked me oh man I'm such a moroooon...
(It's totally chill though, she just doesn't always have access to Facebook, and the interview is 100% going forward now.)(Though it looks like it can't be over phone, not only for, phone reasons but also on her end, so I'll have to switch to plan C.5 as far as phoning someone for Burrbiz class goes.)
That's how Friday ends. I write:
I am way too fatigued right now to really report on anything of the day, or of yesterday- if the situation ever resolves itself, I'll report what it was, but I'll just say for now, I meant to get on doing homework this weekend, meant to get anything done yesterday, but I didn't. Today things resolved themselves more, but there is one outstanding concern from yesterday that I'm absolutely helpless to allay. I mean, at least today I resolved the fact that I'm helpless to allay that outstanding concern, so it wasn't a total bust.I was also going to mention how even messing it up in Mesoamerican art class was somehow going my way, but it really wasn't, plus that was way too good an idea with all the writing I'd already done for that class that day, just have that and post that as my blog post.
In fact, today was a good day. It's just that one thing, really; other than that everything actually went my way, even when it didn't seem like it at first. Forgot to buy a new laundry basket while I was at the store? It's okay, I'll just tool one myself made out of a cardboard box.
Saturday. I sleep in a full hour, till 7:30. It's glorious. Saturday morning is a ward social, closing thing. Burritos. Breakfast enough to power me with protein for plasmapheresis, and that goes smoothly- I've got reading material this time, though I'd meant to bring my laptop and finally get started on Concentration class finals. Ryan, disassembling his old computer and having spare RAM chips, had offered to soup me up though, and I didn't have time to argue by this point- sure, why not?
There's no room in 2.0 to put in an extra 2 gigs of memory, but opening her up at least we find out why she's had the blue meanies- the chip there wasn't fully attached for some reason, just a-floppin' in the breeze. Ryan attached that securely this time, and (though I haven't handled her roughly, and it's only been a day since then) she hasn't crashed or anything, so, yeah maybe that was the issue?
I unpack boxes, piles of styrofoam and bubble wrap and newspaper and steel stacking up everywhere, while alternating doing the readings for Concentration class. We get in a couple of hours of campaigning, as well, from 5:00-7:00. Jonathan's got a campaign planned out, but it was all improv this time, as there was an unexpected detour camping out the first night (our halfling ranger sleephunts, apparently, and so wasn't there when it was time for him to take over my watch... and that was when the wolf attacked...)
While it's still light out, I decide to head out maybe search for my phone one more time, I could probably go till 9:00 and do the last of the assignments (due at 11:00) then, but it darkens quickly and Big Fish the musical is going on so I can't double-check the green room at the Snow just in case I AM remembering the order of events incorrectly and maybe I did lose my phone at that time, so I watch the senior projects get put up onto the walls. I know these people, whose projects they are. They're members of the Spori basement computer lab gang.
Doing the last few things for Concentration class, my gloodness, I didn't think I'd be able to make it. Emailed the professor to maybe get an extension; I reported how that went yesterday. There was a PowerPoint I had to make, AND give, including a video in there, and then receive a review from everyone I'd given the presentation to. And there was a test that someone else had to administer, seeing if I could remember the answers to the questions in my Cornell notes. And there was a test on top of that as well, going over the material. But I did it all in time. Just didn't have time to do makeup work for the stuff I didn't get done earlier in the class- a cautionary tale for what might happen in other classes of mine.
Sunday. I'd gotten up fast and testimony meeting a week ago, sat up at the stand, but never gave my testimony then, so they allowed me to do something this week.
I said sorry I don't have a tie on; I was busy looking for my cell phone and when I realized I had no tie it was too late to go back and get one. I said, anyway, I'm not so good at receiving promptings. (Which might be, after having been prompted to go up to the stands last week, but receiving no impression after that, why I was up there. All the stuff I told you a week ago, minus the idea that maybe I need to give something back, because I'd been introduced to a different idea in that time.) And so, after my badness-at-receiving-promptings last week, I was offered another chance to bear testimony this week. I'm bad at receiving promptings; I'm not even good at finding something that's lost, praying for it- it's supposed to work, but I receive no impressions over that.It may work for other people- so please, if my prayer doesn't work, maybe yours will, in finding my cell phone- but not for me. Only, in religion class this week, there'd been a Richard G Scott talk, Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer, from Conference 10 years ago now, where he said that that's a sign that God trusts you. Which is funny, because I hardly trust myself. So God answers prayer, but sometimes his answer is "...". But with faith you can move mountains... I've got, at least a little faith, and so that's my little testimony.
One of the promptings I mentioned in the testimony was to have Ryan call my phone because maybe magically it got turned on. He called it after sacrament meeting, but checking Google's device manager for my account, it was last synced, not Thursday around noon when I turned it off, but at 10:07 this morning, which was, around the time I received the prompting for Ryan to call the phone? So it looks like someone may have found it (which is good, because I'd hate for it to be lost outside; it's wet out there right now) and had it turned on this morning? 10:47ish when Ryan called, the phone was off, so. I've since activated this notice that locks the phone and tells you that the phone's missing, with the only option being to call Ryan's phone, so we'll see if that does anything/goes anywhere.
I guess that brings us to the present. We cleaned up all the styrofoam and everything, now. The empty boxes are neatly in a corner. Still got a couple of misces I guess:
I did the math, and it'll take 25 points worth of papers, turned in by the end of the day tomorrow, for me to receive a C- in Mesoamerica class. I'm not sure the exact number, maybe I've got a C- already, because of the early bird special at the beginning of the semester awarding extra credit for work turned in early, but adding up the credits I've received so far and expect to receive, that's what it's looking like. Maybe I would have been able to get in a couple of papers tonight, on whatever subject, if I hadn't spent time writing this.
There's no religion class this week. But there's still the scripture readings. Still, two fewer hours of class means two more hours of doing homework that once more I should have been doing this weekend.
We played Somerset today. Breakdown of the final scores, hope this is the kind of thing you're looking for Andrew:
| Player | Coins at end | Points from buildings | Points from tiles | Points from spellbook | total points |
| Eric | 0 | 12 | 21 | 8 | 41 |
| Elijah | 8 | 4 | 23 | 2 | 37 |
| Ryan | 9 | 8 | 13 | 4 | 34 |
| Emmalynn | 5 | 16 | 7 | 12 | 40 |
All told it came pretty close. I went first; players are listed in clockwise order. Elijah took the first player marker just a turn or two after the start and had it for the rest of the game. Emmalynn (sp?) ended the game by purchasing her fourth building during building phase; I then built my third building and that was game.
The spell that allows you to take the action of a tile a wizard is on or next to is awesome. There was confusion again over the numbers in the upper left corners of Camelot tiles, thinking maybe that meant how many points it was worth for building next to, though this thinking was quickly set straight, and I wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't for the stuff from Board Game Design. I wonder what Somerset would look like with squares instead of hexes?
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