We got the apartment! It’s a top-floor apartment close to Capital Mall on Olympia’s west side, only a bus ride away from the College itself. I’m going down on September 3rd to complete my paperwork and secure the room — my roommate will be joining me later. I’m still figuring out furniture and stuff, but I think I may have it. I’m unsure.

The latest furniture research seems to suggest that both my bed and my desk may be an online purchase through Target, if we can figure out any way to do that in an efficient manner.

No, not really. But I know what I did this summer so far.

Let’s recap: Got my driver’s license (finally). Started working for Evergreen’s Access Services and Evergreen’s Web Team while continuing my site manager work with the Writing Center. Started reading the books for my Fall quarter program Power in American Society, taught by Larry Mosqueda. Hmm.

I have done something recreational this summer, at least: Amanda and I recently celebrated our one-year anniversary by taking a four-day camping trip to Larrabee State Park. We had a nice, expansive 5-person tent which made this a real pleasure. We took walks, hiked up to a place called Fragrance Lake, watched the sun set over Puget Sound, took zillions of pictures (okay, fine, hundreds of pictures) and generally loafed. We’re hoping to do that again sometime this summer if we can.

That’s not the only thing we’re doing this summer — we’re headed over to Port Townsend to visit with a friend of ours from Evergreen on August 13, where we’ll be going to the Jefferson County Fair and hashing out the possibility of a road trip next summer. I’m hoping we can do a road trip, but without a car, this could be an interesting endeavor. We’ll see what happens — I’m still hoping to get a car before the school year starts, but since I’d be the one carrying all the costs (maintenance, gas, tabs, registration, emissions testing, insurance, taxes, the actual purchase cost, etc.), this might be a little hard. College students don’t tend to wallow in the millions like some people.

So far, it’s been a semi-productive and semi-relaxing summer (no, not necessarily in a 50-50 ratio). At least it’s a break from Data to Information and an opportunity to get ahead for next quarter so that I don’t get absolutely swamped. It should be interesting next year — between serving on the Enrollment Coordination Committee and the Enrollment Growth DTF, working 19 hours a week as a senior tutor in the Writing Center, taking classes, and doing things with Amanda, my time’s damn well booked already. Should be interesting — but hopefully not as mind-implodingly hectic as last year. We’ll see what happens.

Despite not really wanting to mix and match my furniture from different stores too much, I’m finding that there are some pretty good deals in some places. Thus, I’ve updated my furniture listings for my room next year:

Sauder L-Shaped Work Center, Black and Cherry (Walmart – $80)
QBits Dark Alder Combi-Cube (Target – $26)

This is in addition to the papasan chair I’ve still been planning on. I have yet to select a bed or make any considerations for the dining area or living room (the exception being the Dorel Deluxe Futon at $180 from Walmart that looks pretty nice). I’ve decided on a $500 budget for my own room, which includes EVERY item in that room, so hopefully I can stick to that. The real dent will be the bed and the mattress.

Related posting: Furniture, Pillows, Chairs, and CSI

We went to see King Arthur in theaters yesterday. I won’t even bother to rate this movie — don’t see it. At all. Here’s why:

• I yawned through half of it. This is never a good sign (and no, I wasn’t tired before we walked into the theater, either).
• The characters are so one-dimensional that you never establish any connection to them.
• The plot is somewhat predictable.
• Battle scene followed by battle scene followed by battle scene interrupted by an inconvenient love scene followed by glorious battle scene…
• Jeez, how much damage to the environment did they do in that last scene shoot? (Okay, so this is a dumb one, but still…)

The only thing I can really give this movie some credit for is a moderate amount of ingenuity in designing the execution of the more major battle scenes. They had interesting tactics.

All in all, I repeat my conclusion here — don’t bother seeing this movie unless you have some desire to enjoy a one-dimensional battle fest for about two hours.

Additional Links

Seattle Times Review: King Arthur
Roger Ebert’s Review: King Arthur

Well, this is absolutely not what I started out to do within the last 15 minutes or so, but here you go.

I’ve been looking around at furniture most of the day and have decided that most of my apartment room furniture will come from Target. Wait, now, before you get all annoyed at me for thinking cheap and on a budget, I’m talking a desk plus hutch plus printer stand only, which comes out to somewhere around $250. The stuff does look pretty good. I’m looking mostly at their Mission Collection Computer Desk ($100), File Cart ($50), and Hutch ($60), plus a QBits Maple Combi Cube ($50). This seems like a good start (all of these are listed on my target.direct wish list).

Amanda and I were mostly wandering around waiting for my mother to finish donig what she was doing, so we wandered over to Cost Plus World Market after looking at Target. I’m in love with papasan chairs. Seriously. I’m thinking about buying a frame from Cost Plus ($50 or so, wondering if I can get it cheaper) and a cushion from Pier 1 Imports (the Loden papasan chair cushion is the one I like best from there – item number 01973195). Seems like it would make a really nice living room chair.

After visiting Cost Plus, we went over to Linens and Things (all in walking distance, which was nice). I got Amanda a blue Moshi pillow. These things are cool — it’s a therapeutic pillow with little microbeads which is absurdly comfortable. She only got a square pillow, but apparently they sell Moshi neckrests too. I might want one of those for myself as well, since I do have problems with neck support when I’m sleeping. We’ll see on that one. I did, however, pick up a metal mesh colander and a spoon rest for the kitchen next year. Drove home after getting a nice raspberry mocha at Barnes and Noble, then watched the remainder of CSI Season 3. A good night, all in all.

Well, I just got back from spending two days in Olympia sitting through meetings. It was nice-bordering-on-uncomfortable weather – 88 degrees Fahrenheit late Thursday afternoon. Quite nice for me, though some seemed to suffer. It’s nice to be home after sitting through all that information and discussion about information and agenda planning. I have to go all the way back down on July 1st and 2nd. More of the same, I’m afraid, though to say I’m not enjoying myself tremendously would be a lie.

I spent a lot of the time reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which I’ve read part of before but never read in full. I finally decided that I might as well read the dratted book so I know what it’s about and can claim I’ve waded through its 500+ pages. It really is quite an engaging piece of work � I’ve always enjoyed Kingsolver’s novels, particularly Prodigal Summer. I’m hoping that this summer doesn’t mean death to my reading habits, as it has been in the past due to academic burn-out. Of course, these habits would necessarily pick up again next academic year, but I do so little recreational reading now that it’s almost embarrassing.

Almost.

On an unrelated note (or maybe related, if you consider my hobbies), I’m still really enjoying using my laptop now. I can watch DVDs, compile documents, screw around on the Web, and read e-mail with relative impunity. I only wish I had my girlfriend with me – she opted out of coming down this weekend, although she didn’t need to and would’ve been completely welcome. She always is. (Yes, that is a hidden message. Whoops.)

1. Our peephole exists again. Yay.
2. All that’s left now is evaluations on Tuesday and then I’m gettin’ the Hell out of Dodge.
3. Fear the packing skills of girls.
4. If you’ve never seen Reduced Shakespeare Company and you call yourself a literary muse, shame on you.

That is all.

In case anyone was wondering how to feed people over at Google, here’s what it takes. Seesh. Anyone want to feed an army?

In the continuing saga of the adaptation of alternate energy technologies, another page has turned. I’ve written before about hybrid cars, but I’ve never mentioned biodiesel, a substance usually made out of cooking oil. Wired reports that the number of biodiesel stations nationwide has grown. This is great, since it continues to increase the amount of options drivers have over petroleum. A number of bus companies — the one I know of being Intercity Transit here in Olympia — have adopted biodiesel fuel for a cleaner fleet.

In other news, Linux is having a tough time in Iraq, which some contend is a bad thing, since it means that Iraq may spend millions of dollars to maintain its information technology resources that it could commit elsewhere. I find this an interesting argument, considering that Iraq is just now forming a new interim government who will likely look to keep costs low while the country stabilizes.

Well, it looks like I get to see some more plays and shows in the next couple months than I originally expected. I’m going to see Cabaret, put on by the Capital Playhouse in downtown Olympia, on May 22 for my girlfriend’s birthday.

We also have tickets to see A Night of Improv at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, also in downtown Olympia, on June 4. The show features the stars of the ABC (originally British) TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (minus Wayne Brady, unfortunately, but including the other players — Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, Chip Esten, and Jeff Davis). Should be fun (to Stephen O.: neener neener).

Yay! First entry in a new blog!

So, for those who don’t know me, my name’s Peter. I’ll use this space mostly for my own random thoughts, ideas, discussions, and whatnot — think of it as a creative space and a place where I will work out ideas and thoughts, with the added benefit of an audience.

I make no assurances as to whether this will be kept up-to-date or not; this is another attempt at blogging in the hopes that it works out better the second time than it did the first.

Want to find out a little bit about me? Check out Apeiron: Systematic Expansion.