this is probably the funniest site i've seen in a long time.

when do you know you're broke? when you have to borrow $200 from your younger brother to pay tuition, and give him your over-21 driver's license for a weekend of fun in Mankato. ouch. this sucks. peter has the upper hand in this situation and there's nothing i can do about it.

if you are an idiot and voted for tim palenty and his tuition increases you can borrow me money next, cause I'll be needing it for rent in a few days, and then for my cycling tab when scottie-2-hottie gets fed up enough. it'll be fun to see if he ends up muscling me into paying like nick did last year.

So i got a new job it sounds like. no more TA for next semester. i'll be doing numerical modeling of mantle convection. I suspect I'm in over my head, since I'm a terrible programmer. Whatever, I'll learn alot, and i'll get to work with supercomputers i think. i've also been trying to appy to grad schools but the paperwork is almost as bad as filing for taxes. They call the tax forms "EZ forms", but no way are they easy - more like hellishly complicated. At least, they're hard when you lose all your pay stubs and whatnot. last year the IRS busted me, and i think they're going to get me again next year.

yeah, so life has been hard. at least sci-fi had some great movie marathons this last weekend to help me get through. Dino-croc and Basilisk Serpent King= quality.

ed

I've learned alot lately. Yesterday I found out what a pyramid scheme was - I'm not impressed. I also realized that I'm 23 years old and I've never made a resume, nor do I have the slightest clue how to do it. These may seem like big deals to you, and it's true they really rocked my world, but not compared to the realization that I have three weeks left with Mikey. First screech, now mikey. Seriously, what am I going to do? Probably study more, stay home on Friday nights, and rarely drink. Ok, so things won't change much.

I got an invitation to a physics party at some girls house tomorrow night. i would normally consider going just to see how ridiculous it probably will be, but I think I'll just stay in...

Golden Gopher Cycling '07 will dominate the conference again for the 5th straight year, that's my prediction. Kansas and Nebraska have no chance. Also, i've started my annual tab with the team early this year.

Ed's Current Outstanding Debts to UofM Cycling team:
Cycling Vest ~$50 July
Team Dues $85 September
Sweatshirt and t-shirts $30 tonight

Total ~$165 that I don't have.

Last year, I don't recall how high I got my tab up to, but I think it was close to $500 (Tucson, dues, jerseys stuff)

Scott if you read this, you probably didn't know about the vest. ahaha ha ha.

but now you do. damn. does that mean i have to pay?

ed

I am brilliant. I'm probably the smartest person on the globe. I've only made about four mistakes in my life, unfortunately they all culminated this morning into near disaster.

Mistake #1 - This summer at field camp in Colorado I noticed as I was walking across a hydrothermal deposit a piece of asbestos lying on the ground. And this wasn't your run-of-the-mill asbestos either, it's a mineral called tremolite, which of course is highly carcinogenic. Most industrial asbestos is made from a more common mineral called chrisotile, which is not carcinogenic. Naturally I took the asbestos back to camp.

Mistake #2 - I took the asbestos back to Minnesota, wrapped in a shirt.

Mistake #3 - I threw the asbestos-in-a-shirt into the same corner of my room as my dirty cloths, and left it there. When I was unpacking my bag, I was scared to unwrap the shirt, since the asbestos was probably mashed around alot on the trip and would probably send up all sorts of particles into the air. Hence my solution.

Fast forward ahead 3 months

Mistake #4 - I put the asbestos in the washing machine. I was doing wash this morning and I totally forgot about the asbestos shirt and threw it in the washing machine. As I was unloading everything, I found the piece of asbestos at the bottom of the wash.

Ok, so I'm pretty sure alot of the asbesots got on my cloths. The real problem is the nature of this asbestos. It's not that hard to get this stuff to circulate in the air. Tremolite is made of micron-ish diameter fibers packed together which can splay off very easily. These little fellows can pierce your cells and cause all sorts of problems. Why do I think they got on my cloths? Well the cement keeping the tremolite rods in place is probably carbonate, which is prone to dissolution in water. And I can't imagine the spinning and whirlling the washer did helped much either. Plus, the shirt origainlly holding the asbesots contributed its load of asbestos to the wash. I know I'm probably overreacting, but I'm still a little nervous to wear those cloths again.

On a completley different topic, if anyone is looking for a really sweet paper weight I have one I'm trying to get rid of. It's very clean...

Ed