So I’ve been trying to understand this economic thing we’ve gotten ourselves into, and I’ve found a few things that help a lot. I thought I’d link them, so that maybe someone else might find them.

Planet Money — The podcast is the most interesting part, but they have some blog posts that help, somewhat. Every weekday, they give a rundown of what’s happened, and what that means–no jargon, no degree in economics required. For an ongoing understanding of what’s happening, I recommend this.

This American Life — A weekly radio show, tells all sorts of interesting true stories. They’ve done two really good shows about the economy that I want to point out:
The Giant Pool of Money, from back in May, on how the housing crisis came to be. (Free streaming on the website)
Another Frightening Show About the Economy, aired just this last weekend, which explains the current crisis, and what they see looking forward. If you have a spare hour, I highly recommend listening to this one. (Free streaming, or free download on the podcast through Sunday.)

And on to the title subject. At work the other day, one of the checkers was telling of a dream she had had. She was driving a semi truck on a freeway and had to take an exit because the headlights weren’t working and she couldn’t see. When she investigated the problem, she discovered that it was because her dress was covering the headlights. She still hasn’t figured out how exactly that came to be. I’ve heard this story 3 times now, and each time the bizarre factor has caused me to crack up completely. I felt that I should share this with my (by now) non-existent readership.Which reminds me. A week or two before school, I must have had the same sort of non sense dream, because I woke up with the deep conviction that “Amy doesn’t understand the concept of a day job.” I have no idea where this came from, but I was cross with Amy for it for almost an hour after I woke up. I still haven’t gotten around to telling this to her.By now, you can see that this is a completely random post, with no underlying point. I guess I’m back to normal. Don’t be expecting very frequent posts–I may not post again until school is starting.

Until I do, though, have fun, be safe, and God be with you. –Nathan

The premise is simple–look at the first word, and type the first thing that comes to your mind:

1. Displacement::shift
2. Grease monkey::wrench
3. Vacancy::open
4. Conquer::ceasar
5. Payroll::check
6. Personal::life
7. Housewife::life
8. Lateral::line
9. Tissue::kleenex
10. Multiplication::times

List provided by :

(File was lost when AudioBlogger closed, sorry.)

If it isn’t clear yet, the Dollar Challenge is essentially a dare, in which the participant gets a dollar upon completion of the event. Friday night at dinner, we were trying to get someone else to accept a challenge, and somehow or other, we all decided that we would pressure Brett T. to accept the next challenge. A number of challenges were proposed at dinner, none accepted. On the way back to Villa, we stopped by Mehling, for Lindsey to get her glasses. Originally, we were just going to continue to Villa and meet Lindsey there, but we ended up deciding to wait for her to come back down. While we were waiting, Jake was talking to the Hall director of Mehling, and a few RAs that were in the hall office. Somewhere in this interval, Matt P. accepted a challenge to roll an apple into the office as if it were a grenade, shout “fire in the hole”, and tackle Jake to the ground. For this, he became the new owner of the Dollar Challenge Dollar.

Somewhere during this time, a new dollar challenge was thought up by the RAs, that Brett would wear a pair of boxers on the outside of his pants and parade around Mehling. We eventually gave up waiting for Lindsey, and returned to Villa, only to find that as she was not expecting for us to wait for her, she’d gone out the back way, and was already in Villa. Brett got on some boxers, and we decided to watch the first episode of Firefly–a very good series, but I digress. After it was over, we prepared to head over to Mehling.

It was decided that Brett should have an escort, and we all decided to dress in kahaki pants and black shirts. The group assembled, and we escorted him to Mehling. There was a brief scuffle, and we were unable to convince him to remove his coat, so we decided he could leave it on.

We proceeded to escort him through all the floors, one at a time, and then up the stairwell to the next floor. All eight floors. We protected him from any stray threats in the rooms, as we stood in front of any open doorways until he had passed by. There was a small disturbance on the seventh floor, but we were able to protect him from it. Upon reaching the eighth floor, we descended, again, passing through each floor. (Mehling has one central hall, and stairwells on either end of the building.) This time, the insurgents on the seventh floor had obtained weapons, and we just barely saved Brett from being hit by a barrage of foam rings. Upon reaching the 2nd floor, we realized that the stairwell at that end of the building connected only to the outdoors, not to the first floor, so we decided that we would have to go back, and ended up detouring via the seventh floor, where we were able to quell the insurgency and got a few photo ops.

Upon reaching the ground floor, Brett tried to escape to Villa, but we were able to catch up with him, and escorted him back to his room, where he collected the Dollar Challenge Dollar from Matt, his roommate. The guards decided to return to Mehling to offer to guard the RAs on their rounds, as we weren’t quite sure they would be safe on the seventh floor. Jake was chosen as negotiator. They felt that they would be safe in Mehling, but suggested that they might not be safe traveling to Wendy’s for frosties. Driving a hard bargain, Jake was able to get them to arrange a dessert date for us, with some Mehling ladies, at Papa Haydns at some date near Valentines day. (It did help that Jake is behind on planning events again.) With that agreement, we proceeded to pile into 2 cars, (By then, we numbered only eight, plus Jake, who stayed with the RAs.) Only the drive thru was open, and the fellow had to verify that Michael wanted to order 10 frosties. They were obtained, and we returned to campus, delivered the frosties, and returned to Villa, and watched another episode of Firefly. All in all, quite a memorable night–and I must say, the best Dollar Challenge Ever.

More pictures from this event can be found on Page 3 of the Sophomore Gallery.

…in meditating on your life, and any issues/events that may be happening.

The danger is in doing both at the same time. I always walk away from one of those sessions feeling as if life is just a big, but trivial, game. Not exactly the best outlook.

I haven’t really been doing anything this break. I was intending to work at A&J for a few weeks, and the manager had at one point indicated that he was likely to be in need of additional help over the break–but that apparently didn’t come true.So in lieu of working there, I’ve been keeping fairly busy around the house, doing all sorts of stuff. I helped decorate for Christmas, and then this last week, helped un-decorate. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff we have that goes up. There’s garland that hangs in both hallways, in the family room, and upstairs, too; about 40 different wall/window hangings (flat, paper things, whether commercially produced, or made by my sister and I in school); several stuffed Christmas characters (Father Christmas (3 sizes), and two dolls, “Merry” and “Chris”) as well as 2 nativity scenes; two Christmas trees (one artificial, one real); about a dozen small stuffed, umm, ornaments that are traditionally spread out through the house, and a whole load of other things that I’ve forgotten. All goes up, and then it all comes back down. Oh yeah, there’s the Christmas lights outside, too. Luckily for me, my dad put the lights up before Thanksgiving, but I got the job of taking them down and packing them away. Have you ever tried to put a string of icicle lights back into the box? Let me tell you, it’s not exactly easy. I’ve actually gotten pretty good, after I paid very close attention to how a new set came out of the box.

One of the family mysteries comes up every year when we take down the ornaments from the tree. Everything is boxed up, back into the boxes that we have been using for as many years as I can remember. One of the boxes has the cryptic message “slouch” written on the side. No one knows how it got there, or what it means, but every year someone or other makes a comment about it. Okay, that’s a pretty lame family mystery, but it’s the best I can do.

I also helped with some baking this break, and my sister and I put together this gingerbread house. She had received it as a kit (everything but the icing) from a friend last Christmas, and for some reason, decided to save it until this year. It was “fully edible” according to the box, but after sitting for a year, in a non-airtight container, everything was pretty hard, and I certainly won’t be trying to eat it. I like my teeth as they are.

I upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.0, from 1.5. You won’t notice much change, except in the way images are handled, which allows me (and thus you) to comment on the pictures.

As it is now 1 am, I suppose I ought to be getting off to bed soon. I haven’t exactly been getting to bed early, because I’ve been reading books ever since I got home. And you know how it is when you’re toward the end of a good book–you just don’t get as much sleep. I brought home from the UP library a book by Phillip Pullman, called “The Amber Spyglass.” It’s the third in a 3 part series, so when things finally slowed down it was one of the first things I read.

I’ve also been reading the Narnia series, and have read three of the books. (I also saw the movie a week ago–it was very good.) Our family got the first 2 Harry Potter books for Christmas, and I read those, too. And then this morning, I finished “The Aquitaine Progression” by Robert Ludlum–a very good read. At the beginning, I was expecting it to read rather like a John Grisham book, but it ended up being more like a Tom Clancy–both of whom I like a lot.

And now looking at the clock I must really go.

–Nathan

I see that the last post was back over Thanksgiving break, after the soccer victory over Notre Dame. As most people must know by now, the team went on to win over Penn State in a (nerve-racking) shootout, and then to beat UCLA 4-0 in the championship match. It was hardly a game, with the first goal scored at 1:32 into the game, and the score 3-0 by the half. Still, there was celebration. The Drum Squad had showed up in force at the live “watch party” in the Chiles Center, and after the game, we went outside to ring (and actually, break) the victory bell that we traditionally ring after a win, and then we paraded all around campus. We went by the 6 dorms, and even decided to go into the commons and walk around the perimeter. Let me tell you, all those drums in there sounded impressive, that’s for sure. About 20 minutes later, we arrived in Villa. Certainly a day to remember.

When I get to thinking about my college experience, at least in social terms, I see that I have had three more or less distinct semesters. The first was perhaps a “getting to know” (the school and myself) sort of semester. People I was likely to hang out with were Nik’s friends, generally. Somewhere near the end of the semester, things must have changed, although it was a pretty gradual change.

Second semester last year was a beginning to “fit in” sort of semester, where I found a group of friends I was more comfortible with, and attempted to integrate myself into that group. As Jake had asked me several times, I decided to go to Stible Buddy (the dorm Bible Study) for the first time, and rather liked it. I began to make a few friends through there, and would often come away with several things to think about. By the end of the semester, I was no longer an outsider, although I was neither a core member of the group.
Third semester (this last one), I began more or less where I left off, and advanced from there. For a while I was feeling as if I was back into the old routine, as Cean was better friends with about everyone that I was friends with, or so it seemed. But as time went on, I developed a few of my own friendships, and activities, and so on, and also got to be better friends with many of the people I was with last year.
This next semester may well be different again. I should begin where I left off, but there’s one more person. Michael R. has spent last semester studying in Granada, Spain, and will be back next semester. He’s good friends with several people in the dorm, and has kept in touch with them, but I have not been in touch with him. I don’t think his coming will be bad, but I think if will change the dynamic enough to make this next semester distinct from the previous one. There’s other issues with him coming, too, but I think they’re mostly in my head. In fact, I think a lot of what I notice occurring is actually just me forcing my hypotheses on the situation, and thinking that it fits. But I digress.

–Nathan

I went home over thanksgiving break, and I made sure to come back in time to go to the socccer game. The team is ranked #1 in the country, and is now heading into the semi-finals at Texas A&M, next Friday.

1 dorm
1 charity
10 groups of guys
10 dates for sale
1 water tower in Tanznia
$10,000 goal
Chiles Center Mezanine
504 screaming girls
hundreds of hours work
and lots more by people who weren’t Ryan Hendricks
$10,200 raised
1 anonymous matching donor
————–
$20,400 raised
1 awesome night