Baby it's cold outside

Wow, look! Its snowing! Lets go light up the Christmas tree because the temperature is below freezing! Oh its so Christmas like. Especially this time of year.

Thats all fine and dandy when your not a tuba player. I'm standing on the steps to the state capitol building with a frozen mass of silver plated brass. As you could imagine this is quite unpleasant to hold on to. Luckily for me a nice soldier let me use his gloves. That sure helped a lot. It seemed to help until I had to put my lips on that frozen musical instrument. Every time I have to put my lips on a below freezing mouthpiece I think of that movie, A Christmas Story, where Ralphie puts his tongue on the frozen flagpole. Of course the fire department comes to rescue him.

What would happen if my lips or my tongue stuck to that frozen mouthpiece? Who would rescue the pathetic tuba player who is literally stuck on his instrument? I'm sure the fire department would not come running. They have better things to do, like putting out fires. Perhaps I would just be stuck to the tuba until I could blow enough air through it to warm the mouthpiece enough to free myself.

But alas, that has not happened thus far. Maybe Ralphie being stuck to a flagpole was merely a Hollywood stunt that never happens. Maybe I could talk a young elementary school child into trying it out.

I Totally Wiped Out

So I'm on my way to class, peddling along and minding my own business, and I totally wiped out. Yeah, thats right. I crashed on my bicycle.

Let me give a little background. I have been riding a bicycle since i was 5 years old. Yeah, I remember riding around before I went to kindergarten on my sweet ride. Oh it was a good bike, and it was black! I suffered a terrible crash on that particular bicycle when i was 6. I scraped the skin off most my leg. I lied on the couch for two weeks until the scabs started falling off. In the process of that same crash I also ruined some of my favorite corduroy pants. It was a rough crash, it caused a lot of pain and grief. Not only because of the scabs, bleeding, and rocks that fell out of my leg, but also because of my ruined pants.

That was my first real bicycle accident. I suffered another tragic accident the next summer. I was riding along and tried to stop my bicycle with my foot on the front tire. This caused my frail little body to fly over my bicycle and fall ass over teakettle. That crash especially hurt because it knocked the wind out of me. Hitting my head on the road was also quite unpleasant. And to top it all of the friendly neighbor lady came out and asked me if I was O.K.

I have been crash free from that time on. At least I had been crash free, until today. My front brakes stuck on as I was turning a corner causing me to fall ass over teakettle for the first time in twenty years. It isn't all that bad that I bit the dust in such a terrible way. The thing about this crash that will stick with me and possibly cause me future grief is that I crashed in a crosswalk. I crashed in front of a whole line of cars. Some lady asked me if I was O.K. Well, that made me feel like I was 6 years old again. I had a flashback to twenty years before when I flipped over my handlebars.

So I'll suffer with these bruised knees for a few days and in the meantime I'll also try to come to terms with my flashback to when I was six.

Class Evaluations

Its that time of year. Oh yes, the time when professors hand out worthless class evaluations that neither help or hinder the class. They simply waste time. However, for my Ethical Dimensions of Technology class we get to do these wonderful course evaluations on-line. So here is my comments to the question: "Overall, how would you rate the quality of this instructor?"

How good can you be in a class this size? [sarcasm] Sometimes listening to Dr. Haws was like listening to nails scratch a chalkboard. If the subject matter was any more dry we could use it as a preservative. The subjects and lectures were often so dry that I almost chipped my brain on them like one would chip a tooth on hard candy. The subject matter was so dry I nearly died of dehydration every time I went to class. It would have been easier to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica than to dredge through another chapter concerning pleasure and pain. The lack of excitement in the lectures now causes me to go into slight seizures whenever I hear Dr. Haws' voice. [/sarcasm] But hey, nice job on showing some sweet Star Trek.

And a note to Dr. Haws:
I know this will upset you. It would upset me too. However, before you go through and nit pick the grammar at least consider how true it is. And I'll be driving around if you need to give anyone the bird. ROTFLMAO!