I'm finding it hard to have nothing to say.
Sorry about the downtime. I didn’t discover the problem until this morning, thanks to an email from Holli. I’m not sure what happened, but it appears to be sorta fixed now. If you noticed, thank you for being patient. If you didn’t notice, then … there’s absolutely nothing wrong.
The MilesRausch.com blogs will return shortly. It’s going to take some work, I think. Please be patient with things. :)
I just read this new Narnia news.
Scouts are checking out locations in Ireland for Prince Caspian, the proposed sequel to Disney’s hit fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Irish Independent newspaper reported.
Irish film industry chiefs are keeping their fingers crossed that Disney will choose Ireland, the newspaper reported. The first film was shot in New Zealand.
The newspaper reported secret talks with Irish filmmakers who, if the venture goes ahead, would be involved as co-producers of Prince Caspian. An anonymous industry source told the newspaper: “The location scouts have been here for two weeks. They have also been looking at sites in Britain.”
The movie is eyeing a fall production start under returning director Andrew Adamson.
At to that, the cast and director are returning. I have hopes (high) for the next movie. Maybe this one won’t make me leave disappointed.
Some skits are really hard to write. Really, it comes down to the fact that what helps the skit really be funny is the character. Hopefully. I wrote a skit / sketch called “Sonny Silverman, Life Extender” for Comedy Bytes, and one of the funny things is the way he says stuff. He has a speech impediment. And differences are funny. I wrote three skits last year, as you may remember, but this is my first time writing a skit that I’ll be surrounded by. This is a horrible thing.
So, here’s the deal. I printed out the skit on campus and gave copies to everyone. Then I donned my brand new suitcoat (thank you, free clothing table at St. Thomas Church in Madison!) and sat down. Then I realized that I was probably going to have to act as Sonny Silverman. So, it largely became a one man show with everyone except Mike on stage. Which makes me think that maybe I should write in another character to get the full six involved. It’s not very fair otherwise.
Last night, after setting up Tony with some FTP, I finished another skit. This one is called “Zombie General Beadle”. If you don’t know who General Beadle is, then you should click the link at the beginning of the sentence. I got the idea when Holli and I went to the Madison Revue. There was a guy there who did a “Living General Beadle” routine, where he acted as General Beadle giving tidbits from his life. It was neat, (albeit a little less than gripping) and I thought, “How great would it be if they brought the real General Beadle back?” And, of course, if they brought him back, after being dead for 91 years, he’d have to be a zombie.
This is how my children are born.
I was gonna write about the exciting upcoming stuff for The Drama Club, but Holli already did. I think that lol will be good for us. It really came together pretty quick, with everyone putting in good ideas. We also got quite a nice list of people willing to perform for the Beverly residents. I’m super psyched.
Uhh. I’m hungry. I have to figure out what my lunch situation is going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. With Choir at 12:30, it’s hard to find time when my class gets done at 12:00 to get food. I think I’ll stop by the TC after Choir at 1:20 and grab something. But you guys don’t care.
I’m out of here.
I feel more ashamed than ever that I haven’t read these books yet. I mean, I own the volume; what am I waiting for? It’s not like the story is going to get any better. Now is the time to read the books. Maybe I should do that, excepting that I have so much else to read right now. I won’t even tell you how many Time magazines I have piled up, untouched. It’s getting pretty hard to keep up with the Times!
We did it! Holli and I got all Lord of the Rings movies watched this weekend. It was no small task. All three were the special editions, courtesy of my parents for three consecutive Christmases, so they were even longer than the versions in the theatres. I even saw some things in the movies I never saw before, and we took time to look some things up.
See, her TV doesn’t have very good sound, so we really couldn’t hear what was being said in most of the dialogue, so we turned on subtitles, and then you really learn a lot about the movie. They kept calling “Gandalf”, in Gondor, by the name of “Mithrandir”, which is his Gondor name. You learn all kinds of names for stuff when you read the movie. Wikipedia actually was pretty useful when it came to Middle Earth.
Things I learned from this:
And now I can’t get the music out of my head. Quick! Hand me a sword! I’m off to save Middle Earth!
I think I use the ! in my name to show just how excited I am about loving life. Okay. I couldn’t keep a straight face while typing that.
Notice anything in this picture? My hair is nearly all gone. How could this happen? We were just getting use to the beard thing. Well, here’s the story.
I went to trim my beard yesterday morning. On my trimmer I use a setting of 2 to trim my beard. This usually works pretty okay, but I think my trimmer is fairly cheap, so it creates some issues. For one, I get these weird feathered wings out where my jaw joins to my skull. No matter how many times, or how hard, I try trimming that area, it never works out. Another problem area is my mustache. It never seems to get trimmed down enough to how I like it. This was the case yesterday.
To remedy the problem, I set my trimmer to setting 1 and did just the mustache. Big mistake. Now I looked like I was wearing fake facial hair (and thought I was getting away with it), so I brought the whole damn thing down to setting 1. Bigger mistake. Now I looked homeless. I thought, what if I trim down my cheeks a little, make it a class, thin looking beard. Well, that might have worked except I wasn’t so expert at shaving down and my right side was missing a strange notch near my chin.
That’s it, I thought, and I shaved it all off. So, I’m clean shaven, again, in winter, again. At least it’s staying warm right now. With the suddenly missing jaw hair, I decided it was time to schedule a hair cut, too. You guys know my style – 1/4″ on the sides and 1/2″ on the top. So, all in all, I have so much less hair that I hardly have hair at all. However, eating supper with Holli and David, David came to the conclusion that sometimes your hair gets so long that it falls out. So, if you grow your hair out really long, you go bald. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s totally true.
So, be warned, the next time you see me, I might look way different. Don’t say anything; that’ll hurt my feelings. Just smile and be nice, and, if you can’t handle it, walk away slowly and never talk to me again.
If you think about it, 20 seconds is way too long to microwave toast. 10 seconds, max.
I played poker at Ben Fox’s place the other night. Big come back, then one hand took me and Paul Hotchkiss both out. Holli did well. Big group showed up: Ben, Lisa, Paul, Me, Holli, Holly, Bob, Crystal, Billy, and 3 dogs. Isaac Latterell, a real intern, called me that same night doing a hautingly accurate impression of Representative Kl***t. I almost hung up on him, thinking it to be a prank call, but he sensed my panic and changed back.
Met Holli’s potential future roommates of Danielle, Kensi, and Sara. We spent a good deal of time discussing the possibility (or impossibility) of transporting objects via slinky (without flipping them over), namely, tupperware, bookbags, and Birthday cake. Despite making sketches, no concensus was reached about on the subject. More research is necessary.
I lost about 5 lbs. of hair today. More on that later.
Some of you might have heard that I upgraded the blogs here at MilesRausch.com to WordPress 2.0. I did this because I got a chance to test the product with my blog Pressing Miles Matters, and I fell in love with the new interface. As such, the transition hasn’t been entirely bug-free.
You might have noticed that the last post, for a brief period of time, had no “Comments” link. Also, the post before it had an entirely wrong number of comments listed on the front page. It turns out, after some digging, that this was a problem with a plugin I was using. I had the choice to upgrade the plugin or delete it, and I just deleted it instead. Then everything got sorted out.
The other issue that’s been noticed, and please email me or comment if this has been happening to you, is that people under DSU’s wireless network are having problems comments to the MilesRausch.com sites. It doesn’t seem to be all the time, but it’s definately a regular event.
The error looks like:
XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: https://milesrausch.com/wp-comments-post.php
Line Number 1, Column 1:
I’m looking into the problem and will hopefully have a fix for it. It seems to be DSU’s network, and I’m not sure how much control I will have over it. Never fear – I am on the case!
If anyone wants a MilesRausch.com blog, please let me know. The new 2.0 system allows importing of other blogs, so if you use Blogger or LiveJournal, it should be able to import your stuff.
What’s the picture about, Miles? Well, that’s my new photo project. I wanted to cover the glass in my doors, and what better way than with pictures of friends, family, and inaminate objects? My front door is not done, but nearly so, and then I start on the bathroom window. After that, I’m going to reorganize all my “flesh photos” (not digital) and try to keep track of the ones I like the best.
I’m sitting in my Technology Assessment and Planning class right now. We’re discussing web presence, and how important it is that you have a good web presence. Tell your employer “google me“. Get a web page. Register a domain name. And all that jazz.
I think, if you want to get into the web, be prepared to be constantly learning things. The internet is an always changing, dynamic medium. If the internet is an ocean, then it is an ocean of waterfalls. Or something. Anyway, don’t bother me right now.
First half-week of classes! It’s been a crazy week so far. On Saturday Holli and I had our one month. We hit up Sioux Falls and ate at Culver’s (and I saw a Senate Intern there!) which was weird because neither of us really eat at Culver’s much, nor was it a food place that we particularly love, but it was good food. After the food, we went to The Chronicles of Narnia. This is a movie I’ve been waiting for ages to see, but I’ve just never found the proper time to go until now. We bought our tickets and the lady announced that “The theatre is half full.” We didn’t know how to feel about this. Was it “It’s half full, so hurry up.” or “It’s half full, so you’ll have a relaxing movie experience.” It really didn’t matter because the theatre was 90% full, and we had to sit kinda close up.
The movie was good. It didn’t blow me away, but I was in awe of the job they did on Aslan. I wasn’t, however, very awed about some of the other CGI creatures. I particularly didn’t like the hooved animals pullling sleighs. They were kinda fakey. I can only imagine what the movie would have been if Peter Jackson had taken it over. I know that WETA was involved, but I’m not sure in what capacity. It was nice to see on the big screen with Holli. That girl is really something else, and she’s always doing sweet things for me and surprising me with how thoughtful she is. She’s just great.
Then Monday was my first day of classes. Actually, it was my first class: Advanced Discrete. Thanks to a book that Jeff gave me, I was all set to learn about graphs. Berman gave me a weird look. Apparently, he thought I graduated, but I assured him that I had not and dearly wished to learn from him. And so I did.
Then it was work work work. We had our yearly awards banquet at work, and I wrote all about it. Ok. Nothing happened.
That night was the first Drama Club meeting. Our big item of discussion was the election of a new secretary, to be filled by Sara Harp, as Megan Flynn moves on to greener pastures. She was here, then she left, then she realized how friggin’ kick-ass awesome we are, and now she’s back. Never to leave again. Ever. In the world…
Monday night Holli Gregg and I tried watching Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark but she fell asleep a couple times, and I’m pretty sure I did once, too. We called it quits, having no idea what was going on in the movie. I think right before we turned it off, Holli said, “There’s Nazi’s in this?” Time for bed.
Tuesday was classtime crazy. AJAX in the morning. This class will (hopefully) be neat. I think it will be. It’s a Tom class, but it’s a Tom class about stuff I understand, for once. I already know what book I want. It’s called Pragmatic AJAX, and it’s not even out yet. I’m THAT ahead of the game.
Then was my TAPpin’ class, which I started this post in. We talked about websites a lot, and so this post was live for a very short period of time, during which Bryce managed to post a comment.
Then I almost went to Choir, but I lost my confidence, panicked, and spent the time doing other errands instead. Got my check from the Man. Headed to WAPII, which should be far less frustratingly easy thatn WAPI. We’re learning ASP.Net, which is okay (at least it’s something I don’t know) and Shan is teaching it, and I like him.
Then I did tutoring with Tom Bouwman, my dream man, and Holli came by to visit. It was awkward, because Tom and I usually spend most of our tutoring time making out, and we had to cool it in front of the lady. Then CRESH, then Band, then food, then this.
And all the while, a tippin’.
You can view all the pictures from last week at my Pierre Technology Internship: Week the Second set on flickr.
You know Chuck Norris? Well, I hate his show, but’s hilarious to give him extraordinary powers. Check out these Chuck Norris facts. I’m a fan of Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice., Chuck Norris doesn’t actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear., Chuck Norris can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night., and Chuck Norris got his drivers license at the age of 16. Seconds. Seriously. You’ll laugh at least once.
The following is a horribly abbreviated version of the week’s past events. Guess what. Chuck Norris asked me to join him in his new Delta Force movie, and so this is an abbreviated version of events told haltingly inbetween roundhouse kick practice. Booyah. Be sure to read Representative R***ch’s blog!
Day One
holli fell asleep on floor. holly and bob’s, talked to holly. david called. very windy. got here, checked in. I called Jen, and asked if she wanted to go to Tabor Czech Days at the Governor’s Inn thanks to Senator Kl*****. She declined, but I called Dad and journied over. Saw train. Had a nice spread. Talked to a smattering of Representatives and Senators. There was a kick-ass traditional Czech band playing the best Czech music I’ve ever heard. Senator M**** tried his best to get me to switch side, but since I’m really more of an Independent, I signed the name “Peter Parker” to the voter registration sheet he gave me. Had good food and 7up. Then I said goodbye and came back to the hotel room. Talked to Holli on the phone, talked to Bryce on the phone, then back to Holli, and back to Bryce, and then back to Holli.
Day Two
arrived and headed to Senator S**t**’s desk to watch the network. had czech pastry. seems to be webmail unable to handle the load. setup Representative Kl***t with paperless, but he needs help from Representative P****s. Talked to President Knowlton, DSU 125th year coke cans. setup pings in house / senate, and state rejects. setup Senator ***l** for paperless. watched approp. ate at country kitchen. helped Madison carry in cans. sat in caucus and got introduced. senate session. called out to house. back to senate (still State Fair). Did a lot of walking around. fairly busy for me. Represetnative Kl***t tried to set me up with Jen, wouldn’t believe I had a girlfriend named Holli Gregg. Told dad to tell him 6 months. holli showed up when we were allowed to leave. I gave her a tour. We headed back to the hotel, and then went to the Madison thing. threatened by Steve Shirley. came back and watched TV and talked for too long. Drove over to Dad’s to sleep. He had the TV on and the lamp on. Annoyingly friendly front desk guy.
Day Three
Saw annoyingly friendly front desk guy again. back to hotel to shower. drove to capitol and walked around. updated files for approp. updated contacts for Representative D**str*. Found Lt. Governor’s office (with help from wife) with plans to help tomorrow. walked. holli made it back okay. taught the senate sergeant at arms binary. sat in senate health and human services. to dad’s weird uncalibrated shadow (that others have had) but I just resized. back to committee. then to China Buffet for lunch. everyone had ice cream at the capitol. walked around. stopped at Carol’s and gave her my passport. senate session. afterwards there was defibrilator stuff. house lasted for a long time. HB1025 and HB1026 took a long time to discuss. big memorial service, that Lou had to organize. Got some pictures. Real interns sat next to us. We walked around some more. Senator Sch***b**k called me Tip, Jr. got asked a lot to go to the beer and brats thing. headed back. kfc for supper.
Day Four
helped Lt. governor. walked around. looked for a committee. read over bills for senate floor. helped show maps to Senator D****h**. took pictures. Lou emailing about webmail, every two seconds. training at 10am, two persons. “helped” Kathryn Henning. beef day. Representative Kl***t is pretty sure Holli is cheating on me. Sat in democrat caucus. Senators H**dst**’s clock problems didn’t show up. got introduced. Senator B**tl**g – mixed family. Senator M**** – helped me out. Senator N**s**h** asked how I vote. I said, “I’m just a computer guy.” big laugh. avera lobbyist psuedo-problem. sessiion. to house. then joint session and memorial service. other interns sat by us. pages had sweatshirts. then tourism banquet. Destination 2010: Get on Board. saw Nancy Jark. packed, no more room for coats. big suv, top ten (Tippin’ and Trippin’ Tour, Ultimate Sturgis Package, Lowest Prices Underground), Krebs and Naeve hosted, three awards. video, and Hilary Duff South Dakota theme song. South Dakota!
Day Five
Started out great. up and packed. lobbyist AGAIN. Approp. Senator Kl****k – gave him flash games and ACT system. He left after the games. Lou accidentally lost a Representative’s newspaper article when she tried to print. We bough Lou flowers. 4-H job shadowing. Senator N**s**h**’s locking up, but didn’t really get it. Senator Sm**t for appropriations software. pizza party with the LRC people (good talk). more Lou stories. got a cashew thing from Lou. not too bad. session. Pages honored. computer interns honored. got a certificate. lots of handshakes. Senator N**s**h**’s hooked me up. Senator D**pst** shook my hand again. Senator Sch***b**k called me Tip, Jr., again. did some more helping. session over, then session over in House. did some more walking. Lou said we could go. hugged Dad goodbye. then I took off.
I had a good experience out there. Two full weeks is a long time to be somewhere else, on your own, doing tech support. Tech support, while lucrative, takes a lot out of me. And I was getting more and more drained. I don’t think I could have gone another week (and there was plenty of talk and panic regarding our departure). I definately developed an admiration for what my Dad does in his offtime, and I developed a deep respect for the process and institution of Government. I would encourage everyone to take a day before February 28th and visit the State Capitol.
South Dakota: Great Faces, Great Places, and a capitol building in the middle of bloody nowhere.
You can view all the pictures from last week at my Pierre Technology Internship: Week the First set on flickr.
I began my trip by procrastinating. Truth be told, I was nervous about the trip. I would be gone an entire week, working for some of the most powerful people in the state, all of whom would be constantly judging me, my appearance, my demeaner, and my lineage. So, I putzed around forever.
At around 5 o’clock I departed. I soon found that all roads point to Pierre. Well, Hwy35 does, at least. It’s a long journey, since Pierre is in the middle of the state (think “sinkhole” or “drain”), but with some Family Guy podcasts, I was able to pass the time away, away.
Upon entering Pierre, I discovered one axiom of truth that would come to dominate nearly every moment of my existance in this town: everyone knows Dad. I check in. I say, “My name is Miles Rausch. I have a room reserved.” They say, “Rausch? As in Val Rausch?” And the shadow grows darker. After meeting Jennifer Coats, a Dolandite and my fellow interner, I began to prepare. This would be quite the week.
Day One
Up at 8am. Jen drove. At the Capitol Building I met L. Lou Adamson, our supervisor. All interns are hired as part of the Legislative Research Council, or LRC. The L., I would guess, stands for “Louise” or “Loesha”, because Lou is a girl and those are the only L-based girls’ names that come to mind.
Then we got to learn the system. This year there are two new things for the Legislators: webmail and the Agenda and Calendar Tracking system, or ACT. We got some informal training from Lou on this, and then we experimented a little on our own. She gave us handouts, but we didn’t really use them. The webmail system is exactly what DSU has, so both Jen and myself felt fairly comfortable with it.
Then we got to go up and meet with the real interns. These were Political Science majors, graduates, and other ambitiously-minded students of the universities of South Dakota. NSU was representin’, as was SDSU. DSU only brought computer geeks, and there was no one from Black Hills. HAHAHA!!! We learned the basics of the website, and how things all work in Pierre. They urged us not to write anything for newspapers or publication while interning, so I think the rest of my post will be absent of names unless it’s Jennifer or Lou or Representative Val Rausch. So, I’m posting anyway (!), but I’m not going to dish dirt. Except I did hear from a Senator that Rep. Rausch is a jackass.
Jen and I ate lunch at China Buffet. Despite it’s horribly uncreative name, the food was pretty good. Upon returning to the Capitol, we got to go on a tour. The place takes a little getting used to. There are all kinds of rooms tucked away, staircases around corners, and break-away floor panels. Honestly, it took me a couple days to figure things out. I took plenty of pictures, of course. After Lou and Scott showed the rest of the interns the new system, we went back down to the LRC and began to make our rounds, helping where we could. At 5:00pm, we were allowed to leave.
At 6:00ish, Dad came by, picked me up, and we hit the South Dakota Retailers Association banquet hardcore. This was a banquet for the Retailers, but it was also a way to smooze the politicians. Dad introduced me around to an assortment of politicians. I had to inform all the Representatives that I would mostly be looking over the Senate, and I had to inform all the Senators that I would be their babysitter for the next two weeks. I think I heard the line, “I’m the worst with computers!” 32,400 times. This means, to find the person that IS the worst, I’m going to have to do a lot of digging. One neat sidenote, the guy who runs the Dairy Queen in Madison got an award at the banquet. Then Dad took me back to the hotel. I got changed, called Holli Gregg, told her all about my day, she made fun of me for saying “though” so much, my phone died, and I went to bed.
Day Two
The first day of our real job. Walked around in the morning. Gave a training session on Webmail and ACT System. This was open to everyone, and we got about 10 or so legislators in for it. Helped out Senator D**pst**, from Sioux Falls. He had just backed up his system, and then it wouldn’t start anymore. So, we tried to restore to another hard drive, but it didn’t work. Then we just swapped hard disks. He seemed quite pleased with the results, and now we’re buddies. Had to help out the lobbyists with all kinds of connection problems. This would not be the day to get them resolved, either. I had three lobbyists, however, with problems. Ate lunch in cafeteria which had hot sandwiches and then didn’t. Let me explain: when we were standing in line, they had hot sandwhiches on the menu. So I ordered one, which was met with a little consternation and confusion. After purchasing said sandwich, I consumed it, and we left. Then I chortled as I noticed that the “Hot Sandwiches” had been erased from the board.
Then there was the State of the State. Took all kinds of pictures. It’s neat to watch the session. I got a little bored, I’ll admit. And it was crowded and warm. Jen couldn’t stop stressing how important it was that we get a good seat, so we sat down a bit before the session even started. There were all kinds of formalities surrounding the first day. They had to “elect” a Speaker of the House, which was Speaker M*c**ls again. Then the Governor walked in, cape trailing like Batman. He grabbed the mic from the Speaker, and he declared, in a rough and throaty voice, that “there are still good people in South Dakota.” With a strong sense of urgency, he urged the legislature to declare a state of emergency. Not a sound came from the floor. Then, slowly, my father stood. In a clear voice he called out, “Mr. Speaker?” The speaker answered, “Yes, Representative Rausch.” Dad turned on his mic. “I would like to nominate the Governor.” “But, what would you like to nominate him for?” “How about chairman of the Kick-Ass Squad.”
The hoopla was incredible.
From there we walked the floors looking for people who needed help. We were supposed to have training again, but the one person didn’t show. Accompanied Dad to the Pierre Chamber of Commerce food event. Met some lobbyists as well as more legislatures. Shook hands with the Governor of South Dakota. Saw D***y J**ns**, the oldest 18 year old alive, who I have a hi-res picture of on my system, but we didn’t talk to him. Dad wanted me to tell him that I had a huge version of his pic (can we say Senior Picture??), but that would have been creepy. Too, too creepy.
Day Three
I discovered this morning that my brother had called me. So, up at 6:45, and with nothing to do but to get ready for the day, I figured I’d call him back. He didn’t seem game for this. I called him later and we cried for about an hour about our feelings. No, if I remember right, we both spent nearly the entire conversation on speaker phone doing other things like chatting online and reading old Balderdash definitions and saving the funny ones. But, back to that mornining, we hit the floor right away, checking for problems. Then went straight to Appropriations where we loaded a new type of software for those who wished to go paperless. Midway through the process, the meeting starts. The chairman, Senator *p*, asked the interns to introduce themselves. I figured, “We’re safe. We’re not real interns anyway.” I was wrong. He pointed out that there were technology interns at the back of the room, and could they please do the same. So, I did. “My name is Miles Rausch. I’m from Dakota State. And… I love it here….” Of course, the Senator asked if there was any relation to the bald man at the end of the table, to which I replied by turning bright crimson and burying my face in my hands.
Lunch at Pizza Hut. Not my favorite, but I made due. Breadstick heaven! Got back, and had to move a projector. Lou asked us to move a projector to room 468. So we walked up there, and we found the doors to be closed. So, Jen suggests we try the other door. We’ll be at the back of the room and unnoticed. We were dead wrong. We walked in to find the meeting paused, and every staring at us. I wheeled the projector in, set it down, and we left. How’s that for a good impression.
We walked around some more. Then we sat and watched the State of the Judiciary by Chief Justice Gilbertson. I took more pictures. The guy I was sitting next to kept asking which one was the Governor. He said he was from Wisconsin, but in my head I thought, “More like Wish-you-weren’t-bothering-me-onsin” The big topic of the State of the Judiciary was that twenty years ago, nearly ##% of crime in South Dakota could be traced back to alcohol. Today, nearly ##% of crime in South Dakota can be traced back to meth.
Did more walk arounds. I would get into long conversations with the politicians who were older, didn’t know the system very well, and were just used to talking. About everything. I’m sure that you’re children have great jobs as electrical engineers, and I know that you wish you were more computer savvy, but you are not the only person I have to teach double-clicking to. After work was over, I felt so tired. Declined to accompany Dad to another banquet and, instead, went with Jen to Guadalajara’s down the street. To tell Dad that I wouldn’t be going with him, I called while he was in Appropriations. Now, they have this rule in Appropriations that if your cell goes off, you have to buy donuts for everyone. I knew this, but I thought that Dad, having been burned before, would have his phone on vibrate and I could leave a voicemail. Oops. He had the buy four dozen donuts the next day. I told Holli about the incidents, which she found quite humorous.
Day Four
Up at 7:30 again. We had training in the morning. We had set up the projecter in room 468 (see Day Three’s events), but we had to do it again. It was all out of whack, and skewed and such. We were set up to help out the House Commerce Committee. We taught them the Webmail and ACT system. For some legislators, it takes three or four times. For some of them, they don’t pay attention the first time, so it takes a while. For some, one time stepping through it is all they need. I believe they left satisfied. Then, we moved the damn thing back.
My next task was to figure out what was wrong with Senator D**ip**n’s system, which I had to uninstall some stuff from. AOL had taken over her computer, like the red weed, and I had to destroy it. Note to everyone: McAfee and Norton DO NOT play well. I was virus scanning as a precaution when Dad came in. He needed me for Representative H**h**f. He had called me, but I had turned my phone off in the Commerce Committee. I got a donut, the fruits of my phone-calling labor. Then I had to help K**hr** H**n**g (lobbyist) again. This time, successfully. I swear I know her, but I can’t place when or where. I helped another lobbyist who had a WEP key was entered incorrectly.
Then Lou sent us to room 462, but we couldn’t find it. I paged her (my first ever page), which she ignored. Then we talked to an intern, Daniel Haggar, and the three of us still couldn’t find it. But I got them digits. Apparently there is this whole social scene that the Real Interns hit up that we had no idea about. Then Jen talked to the committee chair, Representative C**l** and she discovered that it was in room 468, not 462. We set up the projector and made our way back to the LRC to find out why Lou hates us. Room 462, we later speculated, is a closet behind the the floor of the House. What hurt most is that I had almost gone in there, too.
We ate lunch at a packed Subway. I finally watched a session of Senate, which was nice. I still missed the first part, though. Appropriations needed some help. There is a person responsible for scanning the documents and converting them to journal files, and she had rescanned all of them except what they had already heard. So, we had to delete and resave all those files for the Appropriations people. I was working on one Senator’s computer when he got an MSN message. All it said was, “What’s up, bitch?”, and it made me smile. With that done, we made our way back to the floor, walking around until we were done.
That night, at dinner, Dad took me to the South Dakota Rural Electric Association banquet. There was a large turnout here, due in part to what a great job they did during the ice storm power outages. I met and conversed with U.S. Senator Johnson, the Lieutenant Governor (who was the only person I’ve encountered all week to comment on my DSU pin), the Secretary of Public Health, and the Treasurer of the South Dakota Rural Electric Association. Except for Senator Johnson, they all sat at our table! Plus there was Matt, a member of the SDREA, and Senator Gr***f***d, from Doland. I got to hear a lot of interesting conversation, and I had a lot of interesting conversation, too, with the members of the table. The problem with Holli being from Iowa is that I can’t say, “I met Senator Johnson!” I have to say, “I met the U.S. Senator from South Dakota, Senator Johnson!” And I think I fell asleep during that sentence.
Day Five
Woke up. Finished packing. Jen said, “Let’s drive seperate.” Drove to the Capitol with horribly fogged windows and a poor sense of direction. Luckily, I never lost her. Did a walk around. Today I had to conquer WestLaw. WestLaw is a database of the codified laws and statues of South Dakota. They have all this stuff in books, and on the website, but it’s also nice to have it on the computer, I guess. I have never used or been trained in it, so the WestLaw problem would last for a little while. Then I sat up in the House Judiciary Committee, and, while sitting, got a call from my father. Man, I’m popular! He told me that Representative P***rs was having problems. I got to Appropriations, and I heard that the problem was that no one had the budgets for the Department of Personel. So, I found Lou, and she said that it wasn’t out yet. Then I get another call from my dad. That wasn’t the actual problem. It turns out I had to delete one of her journal files and reload it. It had downloaded incorrectly, and it wouldn’t let her view it.
Back in Judiciary, we listened to two bills and waited for their meeting to end, which would mean the beginning of our training of them. Then we presented, helped with problems, and packed it on up. I walked around for a bit, checking on the Senate, then the House, then Appropriations, and then back to Senate. There were some high school tours going on, and they would watch mostly nothing going on. Then came our first defeat – a smudging printer that we just couldn’t clean. I was heart broken and devastated.
For lunch we hit Burger King hard. That was nice. They have the Rodeo Burger again! That was probably my favorite Burger King burger. Then we got ice cream at McDonald’s. Once we got back, we walked around the houses. I helped my Dad specifically, setting up his new Blogger for Word toolbar so that he can post to his website (valrausch.awayken.com) right from the article that he sends to the newspapers. That is a great victory. Another great victory was determining the problem Representative T**n** was having with his Acrobat printing. He had the box “Print to file” checked, for some odd reason. I should have checked that sooner.
Jen had to help Representative Gl**s** learn the new system, so, feeling bad for her, I stuck around and took pictures inside the Capitol building. Then, with Jen done, I got my coat and stopped to say “Goodbye” to Dad. Then I got a call from Holli. She had gotten a call back from Daktronics and they wanted her to intern with them over the summer! It was great news, and it meant that she’ll be even more busy this semester, but that she’ll have a steady job doing graphic design for the summer. Then I got stopped by one more Representative before I made my way to the door and to the open road.
The ride back was relatively uneventful. I did notice some strange signs in Howard. I think that they must have an ice cream place, or had an ice cream place, because there were originally four signs reading, “I scream”, “You scream”, “We all scream”, and “For ice cream”. Now all that were left were two signs reading “I scream” and “We all scream”. Ominous, to be sure. To add to that feeling, there is a bison farm on the other side of town. Did they get out? Did they kill? Did “we all scream”?
All-in-all, I had a great week. It was long, and tiring, as we spent pretty much our entire time walking and talking, but I’m eager to see what next week brings. I’m sure there’ll be a lot less pictures to share, but I’ll take them when I can (of course). I’ll try (maybe, hopefully) to post at least midweek. Tuesday, the 17th, is Madison Hosts the Legislature, and Holli is going to come out and see Dad and I in action and attend the banquet that night. Then it’ll be my turn to introduce her to people, and then I’m sure I’ll hear, “You associate with this jackass?”
Yes. She does associate with this jackass. And you can install your own printers from now on.
It’s been very quiet in Madison. It’s been work and editing, pretty much everyday. Well, this all changed yesterday.
The first excitement came at work. The good news is, I finally had something to do that wasn’t Hyperion (which is getting old). The bad news is, it was PeopleSoft. Oh, well. It was a nice 20 minute change of pace. Then it was back to Hyperion.
The second excitement came at lunch. My kitchen light bulb had burned out the previous day, but I didn’t want to try to replace it at night, so I left it. The problem is, I am not a tall person. I attempted to use my black stool, but it isn’t a very sturdy design. So, I decided to use my kitchen table instead. Well, the kitchen table is also not very stable. I managed to stand on it, but then it started to seperate. So, the final solution was to stand on the counters.
I got up on the counter, but soon realized that if I wanted to unscrew the dome, I would need both hands, and I couldn’t possibly reach out that far with both arms free from support. What was I to do? Roll in the kitchen table, and laden it with pillows in case I lose my hold on that thing. Luckily, it worked out that I didn’t drop it, but the replacement bulb is about as strong as a keychain flashlight, so I’ll have to do the whole thing over again tonight.
The other excitement was that Holli came up to visit. She has an interview at Daktronics today, so she asked if she could spend the night on my new air mattress. I said, “Heck, yes”. So we made supper. Or, rather, she brough supper, and we reheated it, which didn’t quite go as planned, but still turned out really well. A requisite picture was taken for my Meals set.
Then we exchanged presents. I lucked out when I bought my new cologne in that they gave me a flippin’ nice free gift which she seemed to really like. Then I got a mug, some bowls, and a new shirt from her Florida trip. Then she showed me her and Heather’s pictures from the trip, of which there are about 270+. Then I set to trying to render the whole interview, which was then too big for one DVD, so I called Bob, and tried another rendering method while we watched a couple Seinfeld episodes.
Well, my computer does this thing where, if it has been in screensaver or power-save mode, and I move the mouse to bring it back, it thinks I hit Alt+F4, and closes whatever is open. This will sometimes even result in a Windows Shutdown dialog box. Well, this case it resulted in a “stop rendering and close the program altogether”. So, frustrated, and finding it difficult to burn that file in the first place, I instead just burned the original 9 minutes that I rendered for my own viewing purposes. This didn’t have the goodies of my bleeping, but that’s what made it a teaser.
We went over to Holly and Bob’s for more fondue with Matt Walker (who I’ve worked with before) and Chris Deaver (who’s work I’ve seen, but who I had never met until that moment). We stood around and talked for a while, then we watched the CANNED teaser, then we did photos. Matt was coming out with a compilation DVD similar to The Works, and he wanted some photos for the DVD cover. Because the title of the DVD has the word “Christmas” in it, there was a distinct and disturbing Christmas theme to the pictures, too. At first, when Matt said, “I’m going to take some pictures of you in costume later,” I immediately said, “Sure. Sounds good.” because I’ve learned that caving to peer pressure makes you cooler, but I was unsure what the results would be. It turns out I liked my costume: a smoking jacket, santa hat, knife, and glass of chocolate milk. The chocolate milk was my addition, because I was drinking chocolate milk, and I wasn’t finished. How did the pictures go? Don’t Ask.
After pictures it was fondue time. It went pretty well. You can’t really taste burned carmel like you can burned chocolate, so I didn’t even notice that it had burned. It did take a very long time to get it lit, again, but that’s all in a day’s work of fondue. Fondue is a confusing word because it really refers to the process or behavior, not a type of food. The problem comes in how close “fondue” is to “tofu”, which IS a food (sorta). It turns out, for those who are confused, that “fondue” means heat up some chocolate or carmel or something and dip fruit or whatever into it. And that is from the Wikipedia article.
I just now noticed that I have never spelled “fondue” correctly, so I edited both posts and all my Flickr pictures in Fondue, the First and Fondue, the Second.
At about midnight, we decided that we’d had enough fun. They decided to play Cranium, and I decided that I needed sleep. As it was, it was about 1:00 before I got to sleep, and I think that’s partly why my head hurts so bloody much today. Seriously, this headache could kill a small child. And I am very mad (!) at Premiere, After Effects, Nero, and my screensaver, but I can’t complain too much today. I had a great night.
And Holly Smith and Bob Davidson better keep that $5.00 or I will sink our friendships.
Okay. A little recap is in order.
New Year’s Eve
The first part of the night was spent with the parents, Brenna and Sue. I begged Sue to come over and to bring Star Wars IV: A New Hope. This movie is trey old, and I found some of the effects / props laughable, but I didn’t laugh out of endearment for the original Star Wars and the generation they spawned. With the movie over, Sue and I jetted to David’s house where he was having a party. He put us on the cool list. We played Beyond Balderdash, which no one has been spelling correctly online, and that was fun. I talked to Holli at midnight, and she I, but midnight never feels very spectacular. Maybe it’s the knowledge of the relativity of time that does it.
Back Home
I’m back in Madison. The drive was terrible, but I made it. It took a while to get things unpacked and put away. Then I started on the editing. A couple years ago, Bob wrote a movie called “El Camino Del Librarian” and asked me to act in it. I did. It was a fun time, and I learned a lot about amateur film making from Bob. He’s been doing this stuff for years. Well, recently, we finally got around to recording commentary for it, but the movie still hasn’t been released, because I wanted to try my hand at amateur film making. I figure that, rather than trying to make a movie and learn editing that way, why not try something easy, like an interview. So, this summer Bob and I sat down and interviewed each other about El Camino. That’s what I’ve been editing since I got home. I called the show CANNED, and I describe it as “The show that interviews cast and crew of recently finished films in Madison, South Dakota.” And I’m freakin’ lovin’ it. Bob and Holly released a DVD before Christmas called “The Works”, but CANNED will be on the El Camino DVD. That’s also why I haven’t been posting. I spend all my time editing. Just ask Holli, Bob, and Holly.
Work
I’m working mucho this week because I needs to get paid, and I’ll be gone for two weeks hanging out in Pierre. Today Morgan, the accounting person, really begins working for CRESH. She has an office (how did she get an office??) in the same part of the building that John and I work in. She’s from Kentucky, and has the accent to prove it, and I think she’ll be handling the finances for CRESH. I don’t know what those business types do. I do know that it’s kinda exciting to see CRESH slowly starting to grow from four main guys and Webster. Of course, now it’s four main guys, Morgan, and Webster, but it’s a start.
Fondue
The other night, Holly and Bob invited me over for fondue and for me to get my own copy of Comedy Bytes: Improvised Comedy Gold and The Works by Bob + Holly. We had fondue, which accidentally burned, but was good, and we watched The Incredibles and some Bobshows. We’re all set to do it again, but with carmel, when Holli visits tomorrow. It should be fun.
Is That It?
It must be. I gots supper to make and more editing to do. Plus, I want to clean the apartment before tomorrow before Holli gets here: vacuuming, laundry, dishes, supper, editing, Scrubs downloading, picture uploading, and there’s even been an update to Awayken.com.
I didn’t mention this before, but I gave my sister, Molly Rausch, a blog. Check it out. She sucks at Roman Numerals!
so this is the new year / and I don’t feel any different
I won’t recap New Year’s Eve just yet. I will say that it’s a new year with new possibilities. If I were one to have New Year’s Resolutions, I would have to make 2006 my year to add to the art scene growing around Madison and online. I won’t make a promise, but I’ll resolve to put my 2 cents in.
Well, it’s been quite some weather lately. We had fog upon fog starting Christmas Day. I thought it was bad that night, but when Bryce, Britt, Lindsey, and I travelled home the next day (after some shopping) it was even worse. And now it’s blizzarding out. Snow as high as two midgets stacked on top of each other.
By the way, if you want good funny rapping, check out The Lonely Island. They even mention Larry David in their song The Heist. They have great videos.
Well, we met Trevor, after waiting and waiting and waiting. I would say, “Where’s Trevor, Britt?” And she would say, “He’ll be here any minute.” Then I’d says, “Where’s Trevor, Britt?” And she would say, “He’ll be here soon.” And I would say, “Where’s Trevor, Britt?” And she’d say, “Ok, he’s not coming. Let’s go sledding.” But he did show up, and we had some good times. Actually, that night Tony and I dropped Britt off at the Holiday gas station and let them have their fun and food. Holli called me, but I was a little out of it. Why?
I’m sick. It started on the day after Christmas. I had a sore throat, and sniffles, then sneezing and runny nose and coughing. So, it’s been a hard time, because I don’t get sick often, and when I do it’s usually cancer. CANCER. I’m still trying to kick it, and I always seem to be doped up on NyQuil when Holli calls, which makes me really confused about her Florida trip. I’m not even sure where Florida is anymore. You’d have to ask her.
So, the next day that Trevor showed up, we hit the bowling hard. You can see some pictures in the Christmas 2005 set on my Flickr account. I didn’t bowl because I was having a hard enough time walking around, but the others sure bowled their balls off. Bowling balls. You know. Trevor did really well, I think. Then the two league ladies that were bowling (and drinking) next to us asked us to bowl with them, but they were creepy, so we used my illness as an excuse to leave after two games. I think Trevor won both. Bryce’s goal was simply to beat Lindsey, and Britt’s goal was just to have fun. My goal was to not get left.
Back at home, they played games and I slept for hours and hours. The next day Bryce chopped down a tree and hacked it up. And then he demanded I take pictures of it. Why not? I now have a Flickr pro account, so I get all kinds of perks, and unlimited storage. I also spent a good deal of time moving all my albums over from the Zen Photo gallery to the Flickr gallery. That is why, if you check my Flickr account, there are a ton new photos and sets, and my Zen Photo gallery is nearly empty. I think I’m going to make Zen Photo gallery as a gallery for graphics (wallpapers, etc.) and use Flickr for pictures and snapshots.
Anyway, then we went to Grandma’s to see Andy and Tracy with their children Nathan, Aaron, and the brand new Charlie. Charlie is a little cutie, and there are a couple pictures of him in here. We had a good dinner then we played Apples To Apples. This game was fun, and it gave me a whole new arena of comedy. Maybe when I’m feeling more verbose, I’ll write about how the game actually works. Andy won first, then Molly won. Then we went home and we had fun with the new PUPPY.
That’s right. If you know my Mom, then you know she’s a big dog lover. I think dogs are okay, but I like cats better, and I like turtles best. This is a little Irish Setter, his name is Hogan, and man does he have energy. He’s just as adorable and retarded as a puppy can be. I got some pictures, but I will probably not make a set of his pictures. I did tag him, though.
Ok. This isn’t the best post. I just feel like I need to write one post per 100 pictures uploaded. Or I could just calm down my picture taking. I need to clip my nails. Tonight is my parent’s New Year’s Eve Eve party. You have the party the night before New Year’s Eve and avoid all the other parties and avoid the cops. Plus, it’s just as fun.