Tires, Tebow, Jesus, and Hemingway

My Scion xA's been needing an alignment and a new tire for a few months now. The one tire was worn along its inside edge down to the threads. It was pretty bad. I amassed enough money over Thanksgiving weekend to finally afford the needed repairs. I figured it'd cost lost than $150 and it did. I wasn't sure how long it was going to take so I took a couple books with me:

I went to Vannoy's on 9th and had an excellent experience. I was immediately greeted upon exiting my car. The lady was friendly and informative. It didn't take long for one of the techs to come into the waiting area and inform me that I needed a new pad on the front driver side. I'm on a tight budget so since it wasn't of immediate importance I declined to repair it. Next time. I was afraid they'd be pushy as far as getting me to buy more tires than I came in for or to pay for miscellaneous other services I didn't know I needed. The tech only mentioned the brakes because what he was saying was true. I need front brake work. Once I said I'd pass he was courteous and back to work on the car. The alignment and tire mission took less than an hour and cost less than I'd expected. Sweet.

While waiting I first flipped through a magazine called Autoweek or something like that. Interesting. Sweet Porsche on the cover, of course. Then I turned to the books I'd brought. The New Testament was in my back pocket. I'd gotten it from a coworker over the weekend. I saw him catching a moment during the shift to glance at some lines in the prep room. I think he thought I was going to make fun of him but I asked him what it was and then told him I used to have one just like it that was green. He asked me if I wanted one because he just happened to have another in his bag. Cool, yeah, I'll take it.

The first Bible section I went to this morning while waiting for my car was Hebrews 12:12. Tim Tebow had something like that on his face when they played FSU and I was curious as to what it said.

Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

Um. What?

I tried to find something meaningful in it and gave up. I flipped through some more sections, ones indicated in the front of the book for explaining things like love, charity, courage, trust, et al. Then I'd had enough and turned to the Hemingway book. The first thing I see there is:

On the booze boat Harry had the last sack over.
"Get me the fish knife," he said to the nigger.

DOLP!

Talk about a change in tone. It was too jolting. I only finished the chapter because it was only a page and a half. I was done with Hemingway after that. I don't mean done forever. It was just too big of a jump after piously reading scripture.

While preparing this post I realized that Tebow's face didn't say Hebrews 12:12, but Hebews 12:1-2.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That makes a little more sense. Keep the faith. Play hard. Jesus is Lord. Go Tebow.

Don't slaughter your finest impulses

I don't want to be one of those people who used to do a lot of things but doesn't seem to do much of anything anymore.

Things I used to do a lot but don't do anymore but would like to return to doing a lot: causing mischief, playing basketball, driving aimlessly, writing, reading, playing tennis, playing in the woods, drawing, fomenting dissent, studying anarchism, crashing my computer from messing with it, long walks...

One thing I used to do a lot but didn't for a long time which I've recently returned to my life is bike riding. Julie and I got a couple cheap Huffy cruiser bikes and while we don't ride them every day, we do ride them somewhat regularly and it always feels great.

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.

From Sexus by Henry Miller

GreenPunk

Julian strode through the forest as if he owned it, which is ironic because he believes no one can own the land.

Pensacola Junior College has horrendous customer service

Way back when I first attended Penn State, I was warned by more than a few people that in such a large university I'd be nothing more than a number. Well, I never felt that way. I never had a problem reaching a faculty or staff member who could provide answers and help. My instructors and professors knew who I was. I have my issues with academia but when it came to good ol' customer service, Penn State never let me down. Whether it was questions about what courses to take or financial aid, answers were quick and easy to come by.

About a year and a half ago I began taking courses at Pensacola Junior College, and I've had nothing but headaches from the financial aid department. 3+ hour waits, phone calls transfered back and forth from office to office...heck, I can't even get a human on the phone right now. I mean, I can but she transfers me to uselessness. WTF!? Yesterday I drove to campus, waited in line for a mere 20 minutes and then was told they couldn't help me. "You didn't hear my announcement," the lady at the financial aid "triage" desk informed me. Pardon my language, but, NO FUCKING SHIT! If they knew they were out of short term loan funds, just put up a sign and save a lot of people from wasting time standing in a useless line. I can't just call and get an answer so I have to drive across town only to find out something that'd take 2 seconds to announce or even post on their freakin' web site.

I never had trouble with my funds at Penn State. I always just registered for classes and things were taken care of. No trouble with my Stafford loands. At PJC, though, I have to wait weeks for my funds to be dispersed so I have to take out a loan to tide me over until I get my Stafford loan. Fees are due at PJC over a week before classes start. That seems back-asswards to me.

People laugh when I make comparisons between Penn State and PJC and I feel a little ridiculous about it, too. There's no reason, though, that PJC can't do a better job serving the people who pay for its existence. Train the people who answer the phones. Train them better. Make it possible to talk on the phone (or IM) with a person who can answer questions about financial aid. PROVIDE MORE TIMELY INFORMATION in a variety of formats. It's easy to do.

And to the financial aid triage lady, some words of advice: people waiting in line tend to be edgy/grumpy; think about what you say before you say it. I wait tables for a living so I deal with hungry, impatient, grumpy people all the time. If someone waited half an hour for a table and then ordered the dinner special, which we ran out of an hour ago, I wouldn't say, "Oh, you missed the announcement." I'd simply say, "I'm sorry, we're out of the dinner special." In the first instance, I blamed the guest. In the second I simply provided information.

a letter to my constituents

Funny how in my last post I mentioned Live search. A month and a half or so has passed since then and Live is done, stick a fork in it. 

Now, if you go to www.live.com you get bounced to Bing. WTF is Bing? It's Microsoft's latest attempt at contesting Google's dominance of web search. I've used Bing a couple times. I can't say anything bad about it, but I also can't say that there's anything special about it that gives me reason to use it over Google. Millions of people are in the habit of googling. How will Microsoft convince them to stop googling and start binging (not to be confused with bingeing).  Maybe some of them wonder if you can google on Bing. Is Bing a better googler than Google? Will Bing become a verb? How will Bing conquer the internet?

As I type this, I'm watching the national soccer teams of Spain and the USA in the first period (or half or however soccer's split up) of their match in the FIFA Confederations Cup, somewhere in South Africa. Neither team has scored yet, at 11:45 into the match. I'm not a big soccer fan but I like watching it sometimes. I'd rather watch soccer than hockey, that's for sure. It's hard not to be drawn into the crowd's enthusiasm for the game. Soccer fans are maniacs, and I mean that as a compliment. I love the intensity. It reminds me a lot of college football.

The last 3 days I had jury duty. I was grumpy at first that I'd be taking a pay cut for a couple days (I don't get paid if I'm at jury duty) but I soon got over it and started to enjoy my civic duty. I figure it'll be one of the few times in my life where I'm directly involved in a government function. Or maybe it's blown my mind and I'll go on a quest to be the next John Adams.

I will say this, I feel a little more patriotic than I did before serving in that jury. It also gave me a little more faith in my fellow Americans. And I'd say I feel a little more compassionate towards human beings in general. I'm a better person for having served in that jury. I'm glad the founders of our country laid out such an excellent system. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it's pretty bad-ass. My fellow jurors and I were the center of the universe there for a few. Everything hinged on what we decided. I had moments with dim recollections of Kafka and Dostoevsky. Sometimes I thought I might go insane with boredom and break out of the courthouse screaming with several sheriff's deputies sprinting after me. But mostly it was an awesome experience that improved me as a man and as a person. I'm glad I didn't labor over ways out. I'm sure I could've imagined up something to get out of jury duty, but why? WTF is wrong with people that they want to get out of it? Those people should be sent to countries that don't have trial by jury.

Storms moved through the Pensacola area yesterday. They were a welcome relief from over a week's worth of heat indexes over a hundred a couple record-setting days...

USA SCORES!!!!!!!!!!! (around 26 minutes in)

...there's nothing like waiting tables outside in over a hundred degree temps and worrying that the sweat which has built up all over your face just in the brief time since you wiped it off before walking to the table will drip off your nose and disgust the guests. That sucks. Mostly I don't mind the heat (sometimes it annoys me) but I did welcome yesterday's rain. It'd been too long and we needed a break from the heat. I'm pretty sure most of the plants liked it, too...well, except for one of my fellow juror's tomatoes. He said he was going to be having a bunch of fried green tomatoes because the rainstorms damaged a bunch of his plants. Oops. Collateral damage.

Cheers,

mitchell