RyanHarne.com

I took off this evening. I wasn’t working at Bollo’s to take off. I wasn’t specifically working on assignments to take off, although I may classify it somewhat as such. But I took off my life. I took off the indescribably frantic, voluntary workhorse mindset. And I took off.

Once I returned from the gym, I sat around in the apartment debating the whole issue. And by debating, I mean to say that I took my shoes off and put them on. A lot. I was simultaneously unpacking and packing my bag to go relax somewhere. And I thought about dinner. What to do.

Though I am not building another Great Wall, I have the inner driving momentum to do so. It’s not a mechanical mindset, but near one. So, tonight, I decided to get away. I put my shoes on, grabbed my bag with camera and current book, and left. (making sure I had my keys with me this time).

I ended up at Gillie’s, not entirely by random. I really wanted a good meatless burger. The “Gillie’s Burger”, properly titled, is wundervoll. While I waited, the local bluegrass musicians were nearing their steady stride for the night. Gillie’s lets any local people come in Tuesday nights and play whatever they want; at this point, the crowd of players is a score large with more coming in after the customers leave. Dancing ensues. Fun, fun dancing. After my burger, and also after wasting precious Gillie’s employees’ time with chatter, I left for Bollo’s to talk to those people. Once that objective was complete, I was ready to walk back to my place. I wasn’t enraptured with a passion for living, but I was breathing through my nose and my heart beat steadily. That matters. A lot.

On the walk back, a car slowed down beside me on Main Street, a small, 5-seater Subaru (seating five), and guy in the back seat asked me what time it was. My workhorse mind went into action. In one second, I remembered the face of Meg when she asked me what time it was at 9:47, recalled Michelle sitting on the stairs outside when she asked me the same thing (9:51). After that flash (I was probably blankly staring into the guy’s face during that second), I said, “just about ten o’clock”. The car was still moving, it hadn’t stopped for the question; the guy said ok, looked up and ahead, and shook his head approvingly. Then he said thanks and the Subaru kept rolling.

I didn’t stop walking during the ordeal, but a moment after they drove off I looked up and a few feet ahead of me.

It was a bank sign, complete with clock/temperature reader.

It flashed 10:00.

Zehn Uhr. Guten Abend.

I was listening to my ninth lesson of Pimsleur for the second time while walking back to campus in the bright, bright sunny afternoon. That was yesterday. Today is bright, bright sunny, too, but now is today and my tale is about yesterday. Back to yesterday .

A few graduate students in Norris take their lunch break outside in the shade. It’s a nice choice, considering how non-well-air conditioned that building is. Just about the time I passed Norris, I was stopped by a guy reading a novel in the shade of a tree. He asked the time. Both of my hands were full at the time, so I walked over to him and told him where my iPod was in outside pocket of my bag. Then he read off the time.

One o’clock. There you go, I said. Quick thanks and then I began walking away. At that moment, I realized what I was listening to in my lesson. I quickly turned, he had yet to return to his book, and I said, “ein Uhr”. There you go, he said.

Any bright, bright sunny afternoon is better with some German. Also, afternoons are futher enhanced with soldering success. Or “success” as loosely termed as it could possibly be. Soldering success for me is getting two pieces of metal, that were not previously stuck together, to stick together without burning myself in the process.

There is an urgent need for me to not consider Heat & Mass Transfer. A test tomorrow promises a thorough pummeling with thermal resistances, finite difference methods, and other stuff that I can’t believe I’m actually starting to mention here. Particularly since I stated that I was trying to change my mind’s topic.

So, I began to think about bird dynamics. It’s quite fascinating, actually. The most curious point is the bird’s equivalent take-off. While on my morning walk a few days ago, a bird began flying from a lawn it was hopping through. Its launch was horizontal and ridiculously fast. Consider: a bird rapidly accelerating in the horizontal direction while its feathers/body structures are made for massive vertical thrust. It truly confounds me.

I understand that bird weighed a mere fraction of a kilogram. but how could it achieve such vigorous horizontal acceleration unless it fully rotated its wings by 90 degrees? Or maybe it did. That is certainly feasible since, as I mentioned too many times now, that it happened very quickly. Bird hopping, sees me (perhaps sees my inner wrath towards heat & mass transfer), experiences instinctive humanphobia, flies far away in a half-second at most.

Topics like this are likely why I waste such an unbelievable amount of time in thought during any given day. And why I have very little difficulty exhibiting complete attention deficit disorder without having once been diagnosed. Clever guy, clever.

After that test tomorrow, I am going to learn more Deutsch.

I slept just over 15 hours in the past 20; the remainder being when I woke up, made dinner with a friend, and did homework that I should have done in the earlier part of that percentage. Those 15 hours are equivalent to how much I had slept during this week leading up to that purge. For some, 15 hours over 5 days is manageable, or maybe expected, but it took a toll on me. I really can’t explain why, but from 1am to 5am Friday morning, I tried to teach myself how to solder. I mean to say, I know why I was trying to teach myself how to solder, but I don’t know why I was trying to teach myself when I could have gone to the woodshop during hours and have them teach me. Perhaps, that was the final blow to any sleep regularity I may or may not have been pursuing.

But, now, I think I am doing alright. An iced latte, some pre-toasted bread, and a banana are waiting for me in the kitchen, waiting for me to stop blogging and do some real soldering in studio. But the joke’s on them, because my lapse of getting to studio actually prolongs their lives. And technically, the banana’s already dead, as are the wheat granules and the coffee beans. Hmm. In the company of the dead. But, they’re so tasty.

I took a pitstip into Cowgill yesterday morning to drop some items at my desk prior to getting to my early class. I noticed some coffee and cookies sitting in the lobby, the coffee waiting to be put into miniaturized 8-ounce cups. There was an older lady pouring herself a cup. I stopped behind her and waited as she delicately poured cream her cup. She turned, spotted me, tilted both her neck and head, then asked, “Ummmm [her eyes actually rolled as she said that]… are you a new student here for Orientation?” I explained no, very exhausted from my soldering episode only hours before, but politely didn’t mention that she was likely not a newly oriented student. She told me that I may not have any, but whatever that is left over around noon I am free to scour through. I was far too tired to get snotty or clever, so I thanked her and left.

I believe denying me a quick morning cup was what prodded me to get real sleep. And I did, not too long after that class. Yet, now I must off to studio.

Oh, oh yes. Guess who is the latest Apple Campus Rep at Virginia Tech.

You could argue I had more difficulty putting together a baseline collage about my ID money project than I did making the project itself. I guess I’m not cut out to make collages.

But, these were my results of many hours of detailed graphic design and geometric entanglements. The layout of the bills are heavily influenced my the current Swiss money and also my the walls down here in studio, which have an oddly asymmetrical and appealing allure to them.

Truly, I’ve exhausted myself just putting together a collage for this that I frankly don’t want to talk about it at the moment. In hindsight, I would have chosen a better presentational format, but this medium is simple to look through when scrolling down a browser window.

I will say, though, that American money is in serious need of a design overhaul. Sliced ovals and sometimes obscure (maybe, just plain debatable) governmental figures adorn the bills of the most prosperous nation in the world, confounding a well-resourced design community that would appreciate some changes, at least for safety’s sake.

Oh, but I should comment that the circular bit in the middle should be a hologram; however, I could not find a quick and cheap way to acquire them for the models. I do have some POGS, somewhere, that had holograms, but, alas!

Ok, sleep soon. Let’s do this again.

My current schedule has permanently affixed a “to-go” status to my lifestyle. I don’t mind it, the walking is pleasant, though sometimes sweat-inducing, but it keeps my heart moving at a rate that I am somewhat leary of. My caffeine input has declined, actually, since there is usually enough momentum in me to not necessitate the extra boost. The induced breeze of speed-walking is ok, too.

But I have been finding my toothbrush stuck in my mouth too frequently. When I begin to brush my teeth, become distracted or rushed and require myself to multi-task while brushing, that is a perfect sign of my current time constraints. And lately, I have been walking all over the apartment, doing all types of things, washing all types of dishes, all the while toting a toothbrush inside a mouth of toothpaste froth. I put brushing on a temporary hold. It is somewhat comical, yes, but I just noticed its presence and I realize the implications.

Anyways. So, I kind of missed the entire World Cup final today, but I was working at Bollo’s throughout and could hear the cheers from the restaurant next door. The customers during the game were also great - some rushed, some with eyes full of anticipation, some wildly intoxicated - all of which I took a chance to speak to, per the usual customer interaction. Santiago, a particularly drunken soccer afficionado, repeatedly asked me if he had paid for his coffee; since there was no line behind him, I answered each of his interrogations in a perfectly identical manner. You could have recorded my first answer and looped it every three minutes or so. At least, he will be more likely to remember me when he tells his kids of The Great 2006 World Cup when “his” team went all the way. But he kept jumping back and forth between Spanish and English; but I didn’t mind because I kept jumping back and forth between German and English to try and throw him off.

Oh, and what luck!, a few scenes of a film were shot in Bollo’s also while I was there. In hi-definition anamorphic widescreen, of all things. Kind of neat. Plus, it has been ages, but someone finally ordered a breve latte which allowed me to again experiment with defined latte art. The result was a spiral/snowflake. However, the receiving end only gave a weak smile and then popped a plastic lid over the drink. Talk about a kick in the pants.

But, back to my last attempt at making monies.