Every day? Every day I have to write something?

Today my dad and I drove from Amarillo to Houston. It took about ten hours, and it was pretty much the same drive it’s been all the previous times we’ve made the same trip, which is . . . many. We ate lunch at Cracker Barrel, which, if there was ever a place that was the same at all times in all places, would be it. Everything is just as I remember it from twenty years ago, and nineteen, and so on, from the checkers to the restrooms to the maple sugar candy, except that the golf tees in the little triangle puzzle are made of plastic now. But the sameness is their shtick, so, you know, mission accomplished.

Now I’m home and ready to go to bed. Samson is farting up a storm over here, in case you’re wondering what that smell is. Christ it’s awful. Oh, but speaking of dogs, John sent me this picture a few days ago: panda dog! Hope that brightens your day a little.

Are you all (those of you who eat at Subway, at least) aware of this problem? Every Subway I’ve ever been to, even after the supposed “fix” in July of last year, has arranged their cheese in the obviously sub-optimal “overlapping corners” fashion. I really think it has to be some kind of conspiracy, or at least part of the training, because it would never have crossed my mind, seeing those triangles and that bread, to lay them out the way Subway does it.

Tonight my dad and I stopped at a Subway in Clayton, New Mexico, on our way home, and our Sandwich Artist put those cheese triangles on that sandwich the sensible, obvious way. And it made my whole day. Way to go, Clayton.

Snowboarders. They remind me of hipsters, but without the irony. They also seem to enjoy a general camaraderie, instead of the special uniqueness that hipsters cultivate.

This afternoon I shared a gondola cab with a trio of snowboarders. (Boarders? Riders? As as skier, I’m too square to keep up with the terminology.) One of them, my hand to god, used the word “gnarly” without a hint of irony. As in, “They went out to [some cool place], but they couldn’t do anything gnarly because there wasn’t enough snow [or something, I forget exactly what she said].”

Earlier in the day I overheard another boarder use “gondy” for “gondola” and “pow” for “powder,” again, completely seriously. This must be what it’s like for people who come to the South and hear us say “y’all” like it’s no big deal.

In related news, I skied today for the first time in almost four years. Good snow, decent weather, and I didn’t fall down: a good day.

I’ve been almost fully-employed for three days now, and I already feel overwhelmed. I just want to quit everything and go back to bed. I am bad at working, you guys.

A vacation would be great, right? Except that I’m going on one basically now, and it’s only increasing my stress. I’m getting on a plane in four hours to spend the weekend with my parents in Colorado to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. As much as I love my family, I’d rather stay home, honestly. First, I have to get on a plane. Then we spend a day skiing. Then I drive twenty hours back to Houston with my dad. But I know my parents will be happy to have us all together, and I don’t want to disappoint them. So I’ll go.

Well, I failed the Bar Exam. That’s probably enough news for today.

What did I do today? Oh right, I started a new job. It’s my third part-time job, and it puts me at around 35 hours a week total, which is close enough to full employment (minus the health benefits) that I’m no longer overcome with shame and despair when someone (my parents, say) asks what I do for a living.

This one’s more or less a legal job, in that I’m doing some research to support the development of new legal-type software. And when I say “legal-type,” I don’t mean software for legal typesetting (how awesome would that be?), but rather software that helps businesses do things that they might sometimes pay lawyers to do. How’s that for vagueness?

Anyway, my job today consisted of looking up information online to enter into a big empty spreadsheet, and that, seriously, is an enjoyable way to spend six hours. Plus, the office, unlike most, was not teeth-chatteringly cold. What more could I ask for? Again, seriously. This is not sarcasm. The job is a good fit.

Oh, and have you seen this new video of an awesome superconductor demo? Physics does some pretty amazing things. I mean, there’s everything in the universe ever, which is pretty neat. And also superconductors.

(Also also, watch the video that comes up in the top left when that one finishes. Zoom zoom!)

Hey look, it’s the first day of NaBloPoMo! Instead of writing a whole new post for the occasion, I’ll publish this old draft I’ve been saving in the hopes I’d someday fill it with more content. That counts, right?

For one of my three part-time jobs, I translate engineering reports into documents that managers and the IRS can read. The firm I work for has many clients, so I get to skip around and see reports from all kinds of industries. Usually I have to Google a few terms of art per report to understand what’s going on; this is the best part of my job. So far I’ve learned a tiny bit about molding plastic parts for car interiors, packaging peanut butter, assembling wooden doors, and a bunch of other fun-sounding things. I try not to burrow too far into Wikipedia, but, you know. Here are some crumbs of knowledge I’ve picked up along the way.

There exists an instrument called a swellometer*, whose name reveals a difference between engineers and physicists, I think. Physicists will go full-on Greek or Latin when they make up names for things; engineers, being more practical, I suppose, aren’t afraid to throw a little Anglo-Saxon into the mix.

An individual stalk of bamboo is called a culm.

There is an engineering unit called pound-force. My physicist’s eye first read this as pounds multiplied by force, which makes little sense because pounds already measure force (weight is the force of gravity pulling you towards the earth). But Wikipedia tells me that no, in engineering-speak, this unit should be read as “pound (the force kind, not the mass kind).” Apparently pounds are sometimes used to measure mass—who knew? Also, how confusing.

Related Wikipedia knowledge: When you use pound to mean force, the preferred unit of mass is the slug. At least it’s consistent: a slug is the mass that a pound of force will accelerate at 1 ft/s^2.

Oh wait it gets better: There’s also an version of the slug that uses inches instead of feet, called . . . wait for it . . . a slinch. Or slugette. I prefer slinch.

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* Upon further research, the swellometer appears not to be a measuring instrument at all, in spite of its name. It’s more like an apparatus that causes wood to swell, after which the swelling is measured by an ordinary micrometer. I’d call that a swellifier. Swellator?

Anyway, you can see why a job like mine exists. Engineers, however rigorous they may be in their measurements and spreadsheets and 3D models, can be a bit imprecise with language.

I’m ordering new checks over the phone. While the robot lady is looking up my information, there plays, not a beep-beep-boop sound, but the sound of someone mashing on a computer keyboard. What? Why?

I would think that the small benefit of the occasional person being amused by this sound effect is far outweighed by the confusion of many more people thinking the robot lady is a live person and trying to talk to her.

Aaaaand I’m still on hold. I’m not sure the script that’s played about ten times so far is clear on the definition of “momentarily.”

I’ve had so much going on over the last few days that I haven’t even had time to read my Twitter feed, much less the rest of the internet. Whoa. I feel a little out of touch with the new memes and whatnot, but at the same time I am intrigued by this . . . what do you call it? . . . “real life.”

Faced with 500+ posts in my blog reader after a few weeks of neglect, I skimmed 200 or so before deciding to choose one blog to actually catch up on before marking the whole lot “As Read.” My choice? Okay, so I cheated and picked two: the Baby Name Wizard blog and Penelope Trunk’s blog. What does this say about me?

And you can just stop your tippy-typing fingers right there, because it emphatically does not say that I’m pregnant. Babies are for later; I just like reading about names is all. It also doesn’t say that I hate my job—I’m still unemployed, more or less—though that’s closer to the mark.

Three, actually. The Daily Puppy, duh.