Much geekery to be had here.

I always like to keep a few spare vacation days for the end of year, just in case something unexpected were to occur and I'd need the time off. Usually this just means I have a couple extra days to burn come December. Last Friday, MoPo and I pondered whether we should spend our day off sleeping in and being slackers or whether we should be ambitious and cultural and head on over to the Museum of Science and Industry. Astonishingly, the museum won out.

I've never been there before and was really, really impressed. I'd count these amongst my favorite things (be warned that there is much geekery beyond this point):

• The U-505 Submarine exhibit, the only real German submarine in the United States, now a national war memorial. It was definitely one of the most memorable exhibits I've ever been to because, you know, it's a real German U-boat.  The exhibit starts by acquainting you with the Battle of the Atlantic and describing how the American capture of the U-boat took place. Then you turn a corner and, remarkably, the submarine is right there, so close you can reach out and touch it. The Museum employs volunteers who go around talking to visitors; the one who approached us had served on an American submarine in the 1950s and chatted our ears off for a good 10 minutes (you could tell that this guy was the talker type--he even gave us a recipe for homemade muffins; how's that for random?). Interestingly, we found out that one of the POWs from the U-505 actually came back to work as a guide when the sub was moved to Chicago. However, while the standard exhibit is impressive enough, paying the extra $8 to go inside the sub is where it's at. You start to appreciate the living conditions of the 50-60 men who lived on that sub for 100 days at a time.  They had to sleep in rotations in order to share a limited number of cots, could not shower while only possessing one set of clothes, and had only two ridiculously small bathrooms for their use (of which they had to "eat" their way into the second one, since enough canned food for the entire tour was stored throughout the ship). The most telling realization I had, however, was that the Germans tried to recruit men under 5'6" for a very good reason, as I spent the majority of my time on board hunched over to avoid hitting my head.  
• The temporary Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit, which displayed many of his conceptual drawings, storyboards, and puppets (Rowlf! Gobo!). I didn't realize that Henson got his start by making short, eight second commercials. Nor did I realize how rough of a time it must be to man that Big Bird costume on Sesame Street.  A full body costume, Big Bird's head is operated by the puppeteer's arm (wouldn't his arm go numb after having it elevated for so long a period of time?) while using a camera wrapped around his stomach, located inside the costume, to navigate around the set. The exhibit didn't just address the creativity of Jim Henson but also the themes of much of his work, such as how people can work together and reach unique compromises because of their differences. I guess there's a reason why I own the complete Fraggle Rock series on DVD, despite it simply being awesome. :)
• They had smaller exhibits dedicated to tornadoes and tsunamis (where people could "control" the movement of the tornado or the strength of the tsunami), had a baby chick hatchery where kids can witness these little birds pecking their way out of the shell (I couldn't find anybody to ask what they do with all these baby chickens after they hatch), a really intricate electronic train set that was massive in scale, and so many other really cool things.

It was a good time, made even better by capping the night off with a delicious Indian meal.  Not a bad way to spend a day away from work!

-KP

Randomnicity (12.12.10 Edition)

Hello, all!

Another Thanksgiving come and gone; another Christmas *thisclose* to being here, and all that holiday family drama that drives a person like me, who tries to remove himself from any and all kinds of drama, absolutely crazy. To be fair, the drama wasn't all that ridiculous during Thanksgiving--it's just that my tolerance for drama ebbs and flows, and my threshold for it wasn't particularly high for it this last go around.

Anyway, let's get to it.

• I finished reading Lamb last week and while the middle third of it was a touch slow, on the whole I rather enjoyed the approach (what did Jesus do for that missing 30 year time period in his life?) and humor ("What is this thing?" / "It's a Yeti. An abominable snowman." / "This is what happens when you fuck a sheep?" / Not an abomination, abominable.").  Christopher Moore says upfront that he's not trying to change anyone's religious views; rather, he is trying to write an entertaining story that anyone would enjoy. I think, for the most part, he succeeded (I do think that the uber-devout and the serious may not appreciate it as much as those folks who can laugh at life).  Personally, my takeaway was this: that true faith and religiousness spans across all walks of life, no matter what institutions you belong to or what rituals you practice--and that it is man who had a hard time accepting Jesus' preachings that the Kingdom is open for everyone. I'd recommend giving it a read.
• Keeping on the theme of religion, can I say it's a pet peeve of mine when people tell me that they'll pray for me? Unfortunately, I recently had a conversation with a family member about my religious world view. Mainly, that while I'm not convinced a God exists, I'm also open to the possibility of a God (in any shape or form). I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist. And, truly, it bugs the crap out of me when people talk about "God's plan" when it pertains to my own life. My successes are due to my hard work; my failures are due to my shortcomings. Sure, there are things that are out of my control (I may get killed in a fiery car crash by a drunk driver) and I am entirely OK with that, but don't try and take away my accomplishments by attributing them to somebody else. During this conversation, I tried to explain this sentiment, how I possess an internal locus of control (vs. the need to believe that my life is determined by fate or God, etc.), and how I believe my decisions are all my own, and I was informed that all this means is that I just don't believe in God. Fine. Maybe not. But like I said above, I don't don't believe in God, either. But now I'm hearing a lot of "I prayed for you on Topic X."  Even if I were an atheist, why would you tell me those things? It does nothing but irk me.  I will support you and understand it if you you are religious and believe in a God, but if I'm entirely OK with leading my life as I am, why should it bother you? It doesn't affect you at all. OK, rant ended.
• Let's shift this to something far less serious. How about fantasy football? This is only my third year playing fantasy and it is as every bit as life-consuming as you've heard. As reigning league champion (yep, that's bragging), I couldn't believe my atrocious 2-5 start to the season. The supreme worthlessness of Randy Moss (first round draft pick) and the injury of Pierre Thomas (third round draft pick) heavily contributed to that start, but somehow I managed to go on a six game tear and currently sit at 8-5 (thanks Michael Vick and Jacob Tamme!), ranked second out of 12 teams but, because of a divisional format, only hold a potential wild card berth at the moment. The real kicker of it? MoPo is in the same division (hell, the top three finishers from last year were corralled into the same division) and we go head to head this weekend. She's a game behind me at 7-6 and I'm fairly certain we're the only teams duking it out for the wild card. Everyone else would finish with seven wins or less. If she wins, we're both 8-6 and she advances to the playoffs because of the divisional record tiebreaker. If I win, I'm in. And in no way, shape, or form are we a competitive bunch and egging each other on (anyone seen the FX series The League?)... 
• I think I may have been the only one who actually liked the Packers' throwbacks last weekend.

• Oh, and because I keep forgetting to blog about this--I saw one of my favorite people at Lambeau when Green Bay played Detroit!

• Definitely taking two vacations next year. We're pretty committed to spending 7-10 days on the Big Island (I love Hawaii) and then we're trying to take another vacation with some good friends of ours. Getting that full extra third week of vacation is going to be awesome--if only the American capitalist mentality would provision for more vacation days!
• I just looked outside and all this blizzardy snow that the midwest got slammed with must have missed the northwest suburbs of Chicago (though it didn't miss the Metrodome---hahaha). Either that, or the wind has blown it all out of view from my apartment windows--it just looks like a light dusting out there.
• The next book I'm attempting to conquer is The Passage which, at about 180 pages in, seems pretty well written and is creeping me out.
• MoPo keeps asking me when I'm going to shave off my beard. I keep finding ways to prolong that decision. Truth be told, I'm not keeping it because I necessarily like it, but rather because I like that it's different (much like I grew my hair out to a ridiculous length last year).
• I finally succeeded in getting back into a gym routine over the course of the these last four weeks. If anything, the vacation planning was the final motivator I needed to accomplish this.  Now, if I'm just sitting around the apartment with nothing productive to do, or I partook of the beverages the night prior, I actually feel a little bad if I haven't exercised.  In essence, that need for external motivation has led to a new set of internal motivators, and that's kind of cool.

 Alright, time for my pre-game ritual of video game playing.

-KP

Hallows or horcruxes?

It was a relatively low key weekend, which is probably a good thing to have before the constant back and forth of the holiday season begins. The only real piece of excitement?

After seeing the IMAX version of Deathly Hallows late Friday night, I was left with these following thoughts:

• I rather liked Deathly Hallows, just as I've liked all the David Yates directed Potter films.  I feel the creative teams have really figured out how to appropriately condense the stories from each book.  And, more importantly, they're doing their best to overcome J.K. Rowling's horrible style of storytelling (that is, telling and not showing... there's way too much damned exposition in her books).  Truly, most of my issues with the movie were issues I have with her book.  
• The only somewhat awkward scene was the softcore wizard porn (which may have only been awkward because there wasn't more of it).
• The score of the film was spectacular.  I already bought the soundtrack (much to MoPo's chagrin; she doesn't understand my fascination with film scores).
• The $17 per IMAX ticket was a complete waste of money. Is this what all theatrical movies look like on IMAX? I've never seen a "real" movie on IMAX before (just the more environmentally-themed films they tend  to show at the Milwaukee Public Museum). There was nothing remotely 3D about this -- truly, it was like the Marcus UltraScreen except every seat in the place felt like it was 5 feet in front of the screen.  It was not comfortable and it wasn't even close to an ideal movie-going experience.  Horrible.

-KP

Romanes eunt domus.

This is one of those nights that reminds me of my youth--video game in hand, I'd spend the entire night with my face glued to the computer monitor. On more than a few occasions, I'd actually greet my mother, my eyes glassed over, as she left for work in the morning. (Incidentally, another amusing anecdote: I also had a tendency in those days to gulp down an entire 24-pack of Mountain Dew, with my cousin, as we stayed awake all night). You know what? Growing up was awesome. And why shouldn't I have a Saturday night where it's 3am, I'm not tired, and all I want to do is continue playing Fallout: New Vegas and say, "Sleep be damned"? Probably because I know I'm going to regret it Monday morning. Stupid adult responsibilities.

Unfortunately, I replaced the Mountain Dew of my adolescence with coffee tonight, and since I'm not tired whatsoever, I thought a night cap in blog form may help relax my mind.

1. I'm re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in anticipation for the movie. I had been trying to make my way through Lamb, but a lot of the religious references fly right over my head since, while growing up, I was pretty successful at avoiding church. After sloshing through that book for more than a few months, I'm getting through Deathly Hallows at quite a brisk clip. It's refreshing since my tendencies to buy books outpace my tendencies to read them.

2. The first two episodes of The Walking Dead have been tremendous! Yeah, I'm an absolute nerd when it comes to the comic (it's so good!) and I have an overall fascination with zombies in general, but I feel that the show gained a lot of cred with "normal people" when MoPo said she really liked it. If you're not watching it, you really should check it out. (Disclaimer: I have been having more zombie-related dreams these past two weeks, but rest assured--they are walking zombies, not running zombies; that makes a lot of difference!).



3. Speaking of zombies, zombie pub crawl!




4. MoPo and I are trying to brainstorm vacation ideas for next year. We did the "adventurous, out of your element" trip last year, so I'm currently thinking a tropical, warm weather, relaxing theme for 2011. Suggestions? Hawaii is always tops on our list (we've been there twice) but we also don't want to get in a rut (however, there's definitely a reason that Hawaii vacations are so cliché).

5. How about some not-fun news? Last Monday, in all their infinite wisdom, my employers decided to lay off 50% of my department. The layoffs weren't surprising--we've known for 6 months that this was coming (Nielsen brought in a guy over 3 years ago whose sole job was to outsource American jobs to India--dude's even got stock in the consulting firm we use), however no one really expected such magnitude. Of course, a lot of this is money-related (how couldn't it be?)--the venture capitalists who own Nielsen want to take the company public. But you know what's scary? The consultants who will now do the tasks traditionally done by statisticians are not, in any sense of the word, statisticians. To say it will be "interesting" to see how this all unfolds would be an uber-understatement.

6. For better or worse, I've grown a beard! MoPo does not approve. I find it amusing.

Alright. 3:04am. Still not tired, but I think I'll try my hand at reading myself to sleep. Or maybe I'll just go back to playing Fallout (and possibly encounter more Monty Python references like the title of this blog post).

-KP

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I feel I've gone quite a bit bonkers recently.

I suppose it boils down to a fundamental dislike of making Big Life Decisions and that, within the last six months or so, it's become clear we'll need to be making some of those BLDs. Let's rehash some key points, shall we?

I received a double promotion and started a new job in April. This was awesome because I hated the role I had been forced into and I was still making the same salary that I had been hired in at.

While the subject matter of my current role is more interesting, the primary fun factor of working in this department, and in this company, is the people I work with.

That becomes problematic when those people start leaving.

I'm tired of renting. We pay a lot of money per month to avoid the responsibility of home ownership. I'm starting to question whether that trade off is worth it.

The housing prices around here are nothing short of ridiculous.

The salary vs. housing costs vs. job happiness issues become more aggravating when I learned that some of my peers, with similar enough backgrounds, job titles, and current responsibilities as I, are making quite a bit more than me. I am not a greedy individual but I do not like feeling being taken advantage of.

I was informed that there really is no hope of me "exceeding expectations" this year given my new role is primarily research-based. I disagree with this. It also peeves me off because I've exceeded expectations for the last two years when, of course, there were wage freezes.

My friends are one of the most important components of my life and I love being around them. Unfortunately, most of them reside in Waukesha/Milwaukee, with a good number of others located around Columbus and Chicago. (I'm not forgetting about those of you peppered around Green Bay, Minneapolis, etc!).

I absolutely, unequivocally, passionately hate change. Also not a fan of large scale decision making.

So this rapidly becomes a series of fundamental questions: Should I stay? Should I go? If I go, where should I go? Unfortunately, the side effect of all of this is that if my future comes up in casual conversation, I start to become irrational and, well, stupid. I start reading too much into things, as if I can discern some hint of the decision I'm supposed to make through the current conversation. Quite frankly, I've forgotten how to be awesome and how to make awesome decisions and that drives me absolutely crazy. I think it drives those around me crazy, too.

I'd much rather feel awesome than feel crazy. Unfortunately, I think that might mean I have to seriously contemplate what the hell I want to do with my life.

Or I could just have a drink and procrastinate on thinking about BLDs some more.

Auto Fail

Sometimes I fail at being male.

Unlike most of the guys in my family, I'm not mechanically inclined; changing a burned out headlight is about the extent of my car "repair" skills. Apparently, now I can't even do that right.

I went out to dinner Tuesday night with some senior leadership from work (I'll save those details for a separate post) when I noticed one of my headlights was out. The next day I popped the hood, took out the bulb and went to the store to get a replacement. Once returning home, I put the new bulb in only to find out I had erroneously removed the bulb for the brights instead of the regular headlight.

*sigh*

Of course, the two require different bulbs so I returned to the auto store the next day to get the correct one. Success!

However, that doesn't end the story. What happens next? MoPo tells me one of my brake lights is out.

ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!

So, over my lunch hour today (since we're leaving for Columbus right after work), back to the auto store I go...

-KP

The in-between.

Today marks a very important date in my summer—it is officially the midpoint between two of my most awesome (and perhaps drunkest) weekends. Factor in the Green Bay scrimmage game and I’m truly having a pretty spectacular August.

Last weekend MoPo and I hightailed it out of IL for our 5th annual Team Vodka/Team Captain camping excursion. Those who know me realize that when I say “camping” I really mean “pitch a tent, build a fire, and drink all weekend.” There is very little actual camping involved (especially since we were rained out on Friday night this year and slept indoors). Amongst this year’s Rated PG highlights:

I’m a beer guy. Ever since MoPo’s oldest brother coaxed me into overdoing it with Jack and Coke, I haven’t been one for mixed drinks. I decided to break the mold and live dangerously and drink mugs of Captain & Coke. Let’s just conclude that liquor definitely takes a different toll on KP than beer does.

The copious amounts of Apple Pie did not help. But oh were they so delicious.

I got my second wind Friday night after “rudely” being awakened by two of my closest friends and their spouses, who somehow managed to stay up far later than MoPo and I. Everyone was finally asleep by 5am.

I’m surprised I didn’t kill anyone with the super-sized bull horns I found laying around the neighbor’s garage.

Most of Saturday involved sitting around the pool, recuperating from the night before (unusual in the sense that Fridays are normally our low key night). Pool time probably sounds awesome and relaxing, right? Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were simply atrocious. I got bit so bad that I look like I have the chicken pox.

This weekend we are hightailing it out of IL once again to visit JC & P* and their new house in Columbus. This is one of those things were I’m uber-excited that things worked out for them like they wanted, but at the same time things have been notably less fun around here since they left. For instance, it doesn’t really work having your work spouse be your real spouse. Having a work spouse in addition to your real spouse leads to far more fun (and frustration—I can’t forget about all that frustration!).

Now if I didn’t have to drive through that horrid state of Indiana to get to them…

-KP