The rain has had an encore. Specifically, Tuesday. Lately the weather's been downright hot'n'humid, with highs up around 93F. The Cube O' Doom has been utterly sweltering, emergency runs to Farm'n'Fleet were made to procure more fans, the CPU fans are humming loudly, ah, it's summer. Warm as it is, I've been riding my bicycle to work, and Tuesday was no exception. I've even rigged up a small bungee cord to be a super-spiffy coffee mug holder to get my usual coffee to go. So, after work, it's light out, I rode on over to the Paradiso at the corner of Lincoln and Nevada to have a cuppa while doing some reading. The sky was full of those towering cumulus clouds, the ones where the surrounding sky is so humid that they're sorta hard to see against the background. Rain was certainly going to happen at some point. So I was reading, writing in my notebook, sitting in front of the big picture window, looking up from time to time, sure enough it was getting grey, darker grey... one final look up at 7:20 had that "the sky is about to open" feel. Thing is, for some reason the Paradiso has decided that this summer they are going to close at 8:00 PM every night, rather than 11 like all the other coffee places. So, it was time to leave, IMMEDIATELY - there couldn't be any sitting and waiting for rain to end. And so I left. Ran out to the bike racks, got my bike, uh-oh, some rain drops were starting, those big fat ones, ozone smell, I got on the bike, started riding FAST. About half a block away, turning onto the east side of Nevada from Lincoln, it opened UP. Huge lightning was everywhere, and it was like being in a shower. As in shower HEAD, except for with more water pressure than I have in my HOUSE. I couldn't see a darn thing, despite blinking furiously, my eyes hurt 'cuz rain isn't saline, I was so wet that my clothes were heavy and dragging on me making it harder to move around. But I was almost home, so I just kept on, finally arrived. Mostly I was worried about stuff in my bag. I had just sort of folded some papers over stuff. Cool thing is though, I have a porch! So I tossed that baby up there and went to lock up my bike on the back stoop 'cuz it's not like I could possibly even be any more wet. Luckily the bag turned out okay. While I was locking up the bike, the wind got even stronger, and the rain actually HURT. A bit of it was hail. Lightning was still all OVER. I went in the house, it was hard to peel my clothes off they were so wet and just standing in the door, I was leaving huge puddles on the floor. I tossed my clothes down in the basement, they were so heavy and leaving puddles all over. Even my underwear was wet. Couldn't take a shower because of the lightning so I just dried off and put on a sweatsuit. The temperature dropped 30 degrees during this little episode, and later on there were some tornadoes from it all out east. Wheee. But, I must say, I love summer thunderstorms.
The past few days have been clear again. I'm still waiting on house paint. I called the painters and sure enough they didn't forget me, but the schedule is completely smeared so they are supposed to let me know really soon when they will start. For what it's worth, in the meantime Mike L has finished with the door. All that's left is putting a bit of trim on the top of it for some added swankness.
The ajisai plant in my front garden area that I got from Laura Huth's sister is finally going to bloom this year! This is the third year I've had it, and finally I can see the tiny tiny buds. It's supposed to bloom purple blue. Eventually I hope it gets huge like the ones in Hayama. The back garden (well, the 5 foot strip of land between my house and the back fence) is completely Hosta La Vista, I will have to divide some of the hugest hostas this fall and put parts of them in the new beds.
I have poetry magnets in my cube now. They are covering the side of the bookshelf and part of my file cabinet. I lent my friend David some Harry Potter and in exchange he just gave me these. It's two huge sets of plain non-specialized wide variety of English words, and then to that I added one set of cat words I got from my sister. This will be great. I'll see if I can record some of the interesting things that emerge up here. The thing about magnet poetry is it needs to be in a place where various people come in and out, and occasionally have to kill a few minutes while aimlessly talking to people or waiting for some job to finish, so... my cube.
My cube plant is still doing great, though it needs to be repotted soon. There's not much dirt in the pot, it's all roots, when I water it the water quickly runs into the pan under the pot (but then the plant sucks it up and is happy). The idea is to do a plant run with Janine (who is now sharing my cube) and get the place nice and green. We can sort of pretend we aren't, well, where we are.
Yep, it's June. That means it's time for the annual orange baggie tours, otherwise known as new student orientation. They come in droves, getting new student ID cards made, watching lots of skits, sleeping overnight in a dorm, and finally registering for fall classes. During all this, they wander around in herds, clutching orange baggies from IUB bookstore. It's a sign of summer to me. The graduation crowds are gone and stuff is all about preparing for fall, far off though that is. For me, that means tons of database overhauling and XML phun.
Today was a day with some towering clouds that rained every so often, that was muggy but not too fiercely hot, at least in the morning. I got a little wet with some fat raindrops and thunder on the way into a meeting this morning (about university-wide netID changes, whee) but the temperature was just exactly right - feeling a bit clammy, but neither cold nor hot. In short, it felt a lot like tsuyu weather, and it IS in fact June. It really felt like summer, specifically reminding me of summer 2000 back in Tokyo. Ahhh. But then later, riding my bike home on a wide leafy green street, slight breeze going, coming home after learning stuff at work to my very own house and picking up the internet radio talking the latest world cup news on the NHK, it's best of both worlds, really. Quite a nice day. The sort of day that reminds me again I'm living a dream.
So after looking up the latest census stats, I find myself sitting at my desk, already out of the bath, windows open, wearing the newest WEFT T-shirt that arrived in the mail lately, the fan is on my legs, I'm engaged in one of my utterly favorite activities ever, which is reviewing and studying characters, busted out the barley tea, got the walkman going, quite the happiness. Mmmm. My desk light is on and so there's a regular bug party going on outside, crawling over the glass where they can't get in. Lots of little green flying bugs and one fat ladybug.
I got the happy blue spots glass last year on my August 15th trip to Chicago.
For some reason the fireflies are late this year. It's been quite wet, which might have something to do with it, although usually they're more late when it's dry. Dunno, but I'm looking forward to them. I went with coworkers and with Mike L. to a WILL Concert in the Park on Saturday at Allerton and while there Sven thought he maybe saw a firefly, but I've not seen any since, he wasn't sure then, and well, we'd been enjoying some upscale foofy beverages so no one is quite sure.
Linux Academy started today at work. It runs every Monday and Wednesday from 1:30 to 4:30 until July 31. Luckily, it's work. Today we started from the beginning and installed the OS, messed with it... supposedly by the end we should take some totally broken machine and know how to fix it, and be able to do entry level sysadmin jobs, so it should be q00l. The class is in Davenport Hall which is one of those really old buildings with creaky wood floors, old radiators, and windows that actually open. Man, I wish I had an office in one of those buildings, they beat the pants off the modern ones. Of course, anything beats the pants off the Cube O' Doom. Speakin' o' which, today started wrestling camp. No more basketball noise, but now a lot of shouting and grunting and slapping of mats and kids roughhousing around in the hall. Gotta love the Armory.
The painters have put a sign up in the yard this afternoon laying claim to the job. So, painting should happen soon. Thing is, I'm not okay with the color suggestions yet, so we need to have a meeting. Not to mention of course that the rain is baaack... I'm thinking if I leave a note on the door, I can do the meeting thing some point this week, maybe.
Painting is now happening. Took me forever to pick colors, but finally made up my mind, and we'll see what happens. I hope to have pics up soon of at least partially done color changes...
Believe it or not, the painting is almost done now. Yep, it took just about a week. I am amazed. When they first started slapping the paint on to block out the color areas, they don't much care if they get the lines right or not or if trim color is on the house, house color on the trim, etc, and so for that first day I was thinking "oh my, will it be bad paint all over again but just with better colors?" But then the next day parts were finished (like the window frames on the side) and the lines were dead straight on. I am quite happy. I mean, my house ain't the Taj Mahal, but it's looking quite nice now if I do say so myself.
I picked out the door color this morning, haven't seen that yet. I picked bright shocking yellow orange, sort of like the right end of the "Akibare" logo up there at the top. Yep, I went that crazy. The new house color, green and cream, blends in marvelously with the trees all surrounding it, and I like the spot of orange on the door like the first leaf turning in the green, in autumn. Sorta like, well, akibare about to happen.
Being able to get my house painted is awesome 'cuz there is probably no way I'd find a house this color anywhere.