I'd better start drinking

Well, I'm doing it. I'm going to Russia.

Unfortunately for you, fellow Metro East player, this is during the summer.

Anyhow, here's the deal. There's this group called Learning Enterprises, a student-run organization mostly active in the Northeast/D.C. area. Their mission is to provide conversation-based English classes in different countries around the world. I applied and was accepted. I'm accepting because I really believe it'll be a great way to experience Russia for the first time. Here's some reasons why.

First, it's not Moscow or St. Petersburg. I really want to visit both places at some point in my career, but this is a great opportunity to see non-European Russia... i.e., I'm going to Siberia. I'll be teaching in and around Biysk, Russia. Here's a Google map of where it is. The city itself is comparable to Amarillo, TX. In the middle of nowhere, but a quarter-million people or so live there. The city itself is, according to highly dubious Wikipedia, considered the gateway to the Altai Mountains, an absolutely stunning mountain range in southern Siberia. It's really green and hilly and pleasant -- that is to say, it's temperate nice Siberia, not GULAG Siberia.

Secondly, I'll be there from early July until mid-August. So if it turns out to be miserable, I only have to brave a month or so of suckitude before returning to the Land of the Free. Also, it allows me to have a semi-normal summer, and to visit everyone before I leave. The one snag I can foresee is if I have to move someplace far away for grad school (which is quite likely, given where I applied). Then, I'll get back from Russia and basically have to pack up my whole life (again) and move to God-knows-where almost immediately, depending on when school starts.

Thirdly, I stay with a family and they feed me and house me for free. This is really good, given that I have to pay for my own airfare, which will likely be over 1200 dollars. I also don't get paid, which sucks, but honestly, I need to do this, even if on the whole I'm losing a shitload of money.

Fourthly, I really just have to do this. I've studied Russia so much, it's time to actually go there. I didn't before because my commitment to the ultimate team trumped all. I'm not trying to play up my reputation or whatever, I'm just saying that's why I never studied abroad. But now it's time. And I've always been a grammar asshole, so why not teach English abroad? It's been a possible career aspiration for a little while, too. Especially after all the great stories that Aras has from teaching English in Lithuania. Furthermore, as Ashley said, I'll be sure to come home with a lifetime's worth of absurd stories, since Russians are among the most absurd people on Earth.

Anyways, I need to be in Moscow on some day in early July. That's the only travel requirement. What I'm thinking is that I should fly to Moscow a couple of days early, bum around there for a little while, and then fly into Siberia. Basically, this is just so I can avoid a 22-hour plane ride. Blargh. The travel is the only thing that scares me at this point. I can't sit still for that long, seriously. But I'm going to do it anyways. As Max said, there's probably few other times in life I'll be able to do something like this.

So there we go. From the beginning of July until a few days into August, I'll be in the Russian Federation, teaching English to little Russian cretins. I am honestly quite excited. Now we just need to see where the whole grad school adventure leads...

P.S. if anyone wants to accompany me to Russia, that is to say, to Moscow for the few days before I have to be at the program, I'd be willing to help pay for your plane ticket. I am dead serious about this. Get in touch with me for more details.

You clowns want to know what happened in Vegas?

Fine. Not a whole lot happened, and most of it wasn't very interesting.

Day 1. Transit.

To get to BWI, we took the Metro to Union Station, then took the MARC train (a DC-Baltimore commuter train) to BWI. Lasky missed the Metro, prompting Tufsky to say that his money is on Lasky finally catching up to us five minutes before the flight leaves. Once arriving at the station, Reed decided to be that special kid and go on ahead of everyone, get his ticket, and get on the train. This he does, and ends up on the wrong train (the non-express train, but still a train that will get him to BWI). To make matters funnier, Lasky had caught the next Metro and hauled ass out to the platform, thinking he had just achieved great success. Unfortunately for him, he got on the wrong train as well.

Lasky and Reed showed up at the gate five minutes before takeoff, confirming Tufsky's earlier premonition. Scary stuff. I'd say Tufsky's a lucky guy, except everyone knows that the day will come when a piano will fall out of the sky and cause his untimely demise.

On the plane, people were drunk and obnoxious. I never really understood the idea behind getting drunk on a plane, since it just dehydrates you and makes you get up and down a lot to pee. Either way, Pete was trashed, and everyone on the plane knew it. There were incidences of seat pounding, hat-taking, and a hilarious attempted SkyMall crossword. Revenge would be mine, however.

For whatever reason, Pete ended up the custodian of the boarding passes for our connecting flight. While in the Atlanta airport, he wandered off with some other chumps to go find the airport bar. On his way there, I pickpocketed him flawlessly and snatched the boarding passes. Later on we did a pretty good job convincing him that he had lost them, and even tricked him into going back to the airport bar and asking people there if they had found our tickets. Meanwhile, I distributed everyone's boarding passes and told them to keep quiet. Pete came back and Tufsky and Linc convinced him that the flight was overbooked and that we'd lose our seats if we didn't have our boarding passes. Finally, as he was frantically rummaging through his things, he stood up and turned around, where I was waiting, holding the boarding pass a few inches from his face. The charade ended and we all had a hearty guffaw.

The rest of the flying was uneventful, and then we hit rental car country. In all honesty, just not ever having to deal with Thrifty is a good enough reason to keep my car here in D.C. Seriously. Just as with every frigging time we try to rent cars, they tried to charge us the under-25 driver fee. Around two hours and several employees later, we have minivans and we roll into Sam's Town, the surprisingly nice off-the-strip hotel at which we were staying, courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. The Rook (big ups to The Rooks). Linc lost $75 upon arrival, and we all went to sleep because it was 1:45am local time.

Day 2. Clowning.

Our second day was pretty relaxed, with a chill practice/drill-session at 4:00 that afternoon. Lasky and I hit the penny slots, where we discovered the joys of Pay Dirt, possibly the most entertaining of the penny slots. I ended up losing maybe $25, but it was at least fun. Everyone else was being really lame later on that night, which would start to become a theme as the weekend progressed. Instead of going to The Strip and enjoying fine all-you-can-eat cuisine, the rest of the clowns thought up a much better idea: rotisserie chickens from the Wal-Mart next door, washed down with a 30-rack.

After discovering that this had transpired, I found that Pipes wanted to go eat on The Strip, too. So we both tried to rustle up some crew and go. Three others indicated interest, so I told them I wanted to leave ASAP. We agreed I'd wait 15 minutes. The time comes, and the group has decided that they'd rather stay and drink more beer. I was absolutely starving, and I had just waited another 15 minutes for no reason. Just. Fucking. Great. Of all the annoyances to follow, this was the closest I came to having an aneurysm. A short time later, Pipes and I were at the Excalibur buffet and I was feeling a lot better, but still pissed at my teammates who had proven themselves completely useless in the area of enjoying the city outside the hotel room.

After dinner, I had to go pick up the rest of the guys from the airport, and help them get rental cars. Sure enough, Thrifty gave us the exact same song and dance from the previous night, and even when confronted with my receipt, were still incapable of understanding what needed to happen. An hour and a half wasted there again, and we were back to the hotel. The rest of the night was uneventful.

Day 3. First day of spring ultimate

We beat D-III National Champs Las Positas for our first game and first win of the 2007 campaign. It was a sloppy game at first, but we picked it up and beat a team we should have beaten. Next up, runners-up to the real national championship, Wisconsin. This was the best game I've seen g-dub play since... well since a long time ago. We were down 10-9 at one point, and ended up losing only 13-10. Unlike last year, Wisconsin didn't pull any of their big boys for the end of the game. This game was very encouraging and a whole lot of fun. Next up was UC-Berkeley, who were a weird team. They were douchy on the field, but pretty nice off the field. The guy I guarded most of the time noticed that I was stretching like a Romanian circus performer, and asked if I wanted some of his IcyHot. I told him I would have taken him up on it if I hadn't sustained a GROIN injury, but thanks anyhow. We came out on the losing end of that one, by two or something, and then we packed it up for the day.

That evening, yet again, people were super lame. I, of course, went to The Strip for buffets. This time, I went with Rhino (the only other person willing to hit the strip rather than drink Busch Lite in the hotel room) to the Luxor. I was pretty disappointed yet again by our team. There are people I expect to be curmudgeons and penny-pinchers. But even those who I thought to be fun-loving decided it was better to stay in the hotel room. Assholes. The food was pretty good, though not as big of a variety as the Excalibur. Eventually, some people showed up at The Strip, and Rhino and I ended up meeting a group of g-dub guys and girls. We walked around, ostensibly to see the Bellagio water show, but we arrived too late and had to walk all the way back to the MGM Grand where I had parked our car. I drove all ten or so of us back to the hotel in the minivan. Not a bad end to the night, at least people came out.

Day 4. Day 2 of playing.

Losses to Colorado State, Texas A & M, and Wisconsin-Whitewater. All of these games were irritating, and I'd rather not relive them -- thus I'll leave it at that.

On the evening of day 4, our last night there, people finally got their shit together. Unfortunately, the night centered around a boob show, in which I was not interested. Even so, I would have been the only person not in attendance, so I said I would go. Furthermore, other people had decided to go based on the fact that I decided to go, and even though I wanted to bail at the last minute, I was pretty much stuck.

In preparation for said evening, I sat on video poker and penny slots for a while, getting comped Tom Collinses and starting to get nicely tipsy. Pete had a Nalgene of some horrid citrus soda plus some equally horrid vodka, but knowing what I was getting into, the more alcohol the better. I imagined, like, the Maison Derriere from the Simpsons -- feathered costumes, singing, dancing, etc. This is not what I got to see. No amount of alcohol could have prepared me for the boob show, even though I continued pounding drinks throughout. Feeling thoroughly isolated from everyone else, I left the boob show, after punching Tufsky in the head for some remark he made.

We were at the Riviera. My one goal in this entire trip, besides not tearing my groin in half, was to see the Bellagio water show. Last year, I missed it every night I was on The Strip. So this year, I had to see it. Not only that, but I wanted to gamble at the Bellagio, just to say I had done so. Thus, after the boob show and thoroughly grouchy, I hauled ass to get to the Bellagio in time for the last two water shows before they shut off at midnight. I made the two-mile walk in good time, and arrived to see the show. Then, I learned some more people were behind me, so I waited around for them. A good group of people arrived, including my main man Max, Super Grover, Christina, and some others (I was kind of tipsy, and this was a while ago, so I don't really remember everyone involved).

Anyhow, we got some pictures of the water show, and went to explore the Bellagio. I sat down at one of the roulette tables, $10 minimum, and started playing around with $40. Well, through some good luck, I ended up winning an additional $35, more than enough to compensate for the boob show debacle. This also put me at -$15 for the whole trip, which is more than acceptable. My number didn't come up at all, but Tufsky's and Jack's did, so I won some good cash on those. Red was also very good to me when I needed a quick score. It was pretty fun, I would have continued except that a lot of the younger guys were waiting for me. In the end, being around my friends is more important than gambling, so I took my $35 and left.

We walked around The Strip some more, saw some sights, sobered up slightly, and headed back to the hotel. At this point I learned that Nightcrawler had gotten even sicker than he was before, and had yarfed in Mr. and Mrs. Rook's room in the Wynn. I had been taking care of him earlier, but honestly, there were things I really needed to do, and I knew he was in Graham's capable hands, so whatever. The only inconvenience was Pipes, whose place Nightcrawler eventually took upon returning to the hotel, when he knocked on our door at around 3am to take Nightcrawler's spot. Somehow, when I woke up, Nightcrawler was sleeping in his spot, and Pipes was nowhere to be found. I didn't ask questions, and suited up for our final day.

Day 5. Last day of playing

First we had Cornell, a regional opponent. Much like Regionals last year, we pw3ed them with our trap zone. I footblocked a guy three times in a row, two were "fouls" and the third popped up, only to be dragged down by a tall guy on Cornell. Even so, I had a good day on the mark, with I think three footblocks in the two games we played. There was drama though, as always. One of our players decided that his disagreement with one of our other teammates was more important than the success of the team, so he stopped playing. The second game would have gone a lot better if not for this, but in the end, we let Dartmouth come back from a 7-4 halftime lead. It was crazy windy this day, which worked to our advantage on defense, since our trap zone was working well. Unfortunately, our offense was miserable, and filled with inexplicable mental mistakes (drops, turfs, silly shit). Anyways, that was it for playing.

The rest of the story is mainly boring, so I won't get into it. I got sick on the plane, and touched down with a 10-page paper due on Thursday and the worst flu-like symptoms ever. This continued for a week. But in the end, it was a worthwhile trip. Unfortunately, our team was pretty disappointing in the getting-out-and-having-fun department, but I guess not everyone realized that you inevitably spend money on vacation and the hotel is not the best part of the trip. End rant.

Death to library cops

I am so pissed off right now, it defies description.

I just got kicked out of the Georgetown Library because I'm not a Georgetown student and I don't have a "GO Card."

I should be writing the essays I was working on while I was there. But no. I am that irked.

Dateline, main Georgetown library (L-something), tonight, 11:15pm. I am sitting at a table in the middle of the fucking stacks. Not a soul within 20 meters. That is, until Officer Asshat shows up. He is standing a good 5 meters behind me, saying "Excuse me. Excuse me," or something, I really was kind of busy with what I was doing. Then, instead of approaching me, Officer Asshat decides instead to call me by what's on my shirt. I'm wearing my All-State track shirt, which has a Coca-Cola logo on it, and a Powerade logo on it. So he's yelling at me "Hey Coca-Cola, Hey Coca-Cola, Hey Powerade...!" I turn around because I figure this person must be deranged, and who doesn't have a compulsion to stare at the deranged?

I have to admit, my first thought was "Where did this crazy homeless person get a security uniform?" That's the honest truth, I really did wonder that. He didn't help his case when he asked for what sounded to me like "go-cart." "Where's your go-cart?" asks Officer Asshat. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," I say. Officer Asshat proceeds to explain in a most unprofessional way to me that he means "GO Card," and that I need to have one if I want to stay in the library past 11:00. I said I was from GW and that I was just using the Consortium service we have with them. This does not satisfy Officer Asshat. I am told to pack up my things and leave now.

So here I am, sitting at home with basically no work done. Revenge may not be swift, Georgetown University. But it will come. I don't care how drunk I have to be, or how far I have to walk while in such a state, but revenge will be mine. Death to library cops. And Georgetown University has made the list.

Seriously, pipe down in there

People:

I thank you for your continued interest in my blog. But seriously, stop making demands for a Vegas post. It's in the works. But when I have proposals for my thesis due, and drafts of 25-page papers, the blog takes a back seat. Actually, the blog gets bound up with duct tape and stuffed in the trunk. Furthermore, writing a recap of a five-day event is not the easiest thing in the world. Put a fucking cork in it, will ya? I'm working on it. Finally, if you're going to be a jackass demanding that I do a Vegas writeup, please maintain some notion of propriety and sign your name. None of this anonymous or fake name bullshit, that's just cowardly, and only makes me want to post less.


-DJhS

My dad is goofy, part two

Another recent email from my dad. This needs a little explanation first. My dad is most assuredly a conservative. He doesn't believe in global warming (for the record, he is educated in that field, so he's not a complete crackpot), supports any and all tax cuts, and supports the war in Iraq. Ironically, he did attend the 1973 protests against the bombing of Cambodia, but that's only because he got a free trip down to D.C. and his professors gave him days off from class. So he says anyways.

What follows is his discussions of for whom he is going to vote in the democratic primary. How is this possible, you ask? Well, the year was 2006. Incumbent senator Joseph Lieberman faced challenger Ned Lamont for the Democratic nomination to run for Senator in Connecticut. Since Lieberman supported the Iraq war, and since Connecticut is a hardcore blue state, my dad made a decision. Previously, he had been an independent who always voted Republican. Since any Republican candidate would be assured of defeat, and since my dad agrees with more of Lieberman's policies than he would have agreed with Lamont's policies, he registered as a Democrat so he could vote for Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

He is still a registered Democrat. Knowing all this, I present to you another email from my dad:

"As a Democrat, I think I'm beginning to get an idea who my favorite Democratic candidate for president is going to be. It won't be Walking Eagle unless everyone else dies. [Hillary Clinton. Long story. Essentially he forwarded me a fictitious email with a story about how Hillary attended a Native American rally, and they gave her the name Walking Eagle because she could be compared to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly.]. It won't be Mr. Clean [Obama], because he's too green. It won't be The Dude (Dodd), who looks like he's trying to please Lamont supporters. I'm thinking Joe Biden, especially after he came out with those statements he made about W. E. and Mr. Clean the other day. I'll vote for the one that's farthest to the right on primary day, but that will probably be the last time I vote for any of them.

Have a good weekend. We may be heading out to RPI tomorrow. I have a feeling it'll be more of a shopping trip than anything else.

Love,
-Dad"

My dad is goofy. Part two.