Harbingers of Spring
Spring is on it’s way. But in this harsh land, Spring cannot just dance in all nice and happy with flowers and bunnies and all of that happy crap. No… in a harsh land, Spring strolls in nice and slow, slapping people around and telling you to put down the ice scraper or else. The signs of Spring are slowly starting to appear, and they have nearly cost me my life.
Apparently just before Spring, my apartment turns into a giant Van de Graaff generator. I can’t come within two feet of the dryer, or any light switch in my apartment (the screws holding on the plastic face plate must be grounded) before a bolt of blue jumps out to hit me like a sledgehammer. I can’t tell if the bolt is leaving from me, or heading toward me as I’m too busy twitching on the ground saying, “fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh” in a vain attempt to curse. In just the past week, I’ve had three near-death experiences… tunnel, bright light, long dead pets… the whole deal. Strangely, it’s not my life that flashes in front of my eyes, but instead episodes of Green Acres which really freaks me out.
Of course, if the electricity doesn’t stop my heart, the explosions will…
This time of the year, the temperature spends a few days hovering around the freezing mark, then a few days around 20°, then back to around freezing. This results in massive icicles forming above the balcony outside. When these things let loose and shatter on the balcony it sounds like an explosion and shakes the entire apartment, and since these very loud bangs and sounds of shattering ice happen directly outside of my sliding glass door, I keep thinking a mortar round has hit my apartment. So, after a long dark winter, and now facing daily attacks by lightning and mortars and spending a large amount of time either hiding behind the couch or twitching on the ground saying, “FUH-FUH-FUH-FUH!!” I now have to spend a solid 2 hours and 15 minutes a night sobbing quietly before I can get to sleep.
I’m really looking forward to spring. Mostly to get the studded tires off of the GTO. I’ve completely forgotten how much power it has, because I can’t use ANY of it. In the snow and ice, even with studs on, I have to keep the engine out of it’s torque range or I’ll spin, especially from a stop. With this car, that means keeping the RPM’s under 1500 and that means practically never touching the gas petal. On the bright side, after having not hit the gas petal in so long, it will seem like I just bought the car all over again!
As for my recent projects, as you might can tell from the new scottgeek.net, I’ve been dabbling in web design. Another site I’m still working on is the Celtic band Naomi’s Fancy that features members of my family. Another project is that I’m slowly gathering parts for an electronic drum set. That way, I can practice and play with headphones and it will be silent to everyone else. Now my drums can travel with me to crowded apartment buildings and not result in angry mobs outside of my door with torches, pitchforks, and Enya CD’s. They should also be a breeze to record with, so start looking for some of my work to appear on this site within the next year.
It’s been a confusing couple of weeks. There was… something… that just didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what was wrong, or if even anything was wrong… but it wasn’t right, that’s for sure. So I spent a couple of weeks in an uneasy, “something is kind of wrong” state of mind. Then, one day, close to PT time as I was bending over to pick up my duffel bag with my shorts and tennis shoes, I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach as the realization hit me of what was wrong. I wasn’t wearing my thermal underpants that day, which meant… Oh my God! My pants are tight!!
It was a strange realization. Here I’d spent a couple of weeks with my pants tight, and since I had been wearing my thermal underpants a lot, I’d chalked up that tight feeling to them. Tight pants is simply something I’ve never experienced before and to be frank, the thought of what it might feel like to wear tight pants had simply never entered my mind. Have I actually managed to gain weight?!? I assume so, but since I don’t own a scale of any sort, you’ll all have to wait until my PT test to find out. To my older friends out there who swore up and down that I’d gain weight after I turned thirty, don’t start celebrating and sending me, “I told you so!” E-mail’s because you’re still wrong!! I’ve changed my diet on purpose to replace the hordes of calories that I lost from quitting beer.
The tight pants caused me to dig through an area of my wardrobe that is rarely visited. I don’t dig through people’s closets when I’m at their house, so I can’t prove it, but I’m willing to be that everyone has a rarely visited area of their wardrobe just like mine. It’s the “I’m never going to wear this crap, but I’ll keep it anyway” area. It’s clothes that you’ve gotten as a gift from friends or relatives that you’ll never wear. Mostly because it’s hideously ugly, or a horrible color. Sometimes it’s stuff that doesn’t fit. I had to dig through that part of the wardrobe to see if there were any pants that fit. I’m glad I’ve gained weight before the Air Force issues it’s new uniform!
Jimbo the VI is back! I can’t wait to hear some stories from Germany, a country I miss very much.
Tags: Alaska, Frontier Gazette, Spring, Static Electricity