I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

I have been busy doing a lot of behind the scenes work on my dissertation and a dynamic map project that Birgit and I signed ourselves up for. It has been pretty fun, actually, even though I feel behind constantly.

I ordered a book from eBay on Visual Communication that should help my dissertation come along nicely. So I've been spending the last several evenings reading about art and thinking about how I can apply the analytical techniques to maps. I've been spending the days running through hours of Flash ActionScript tutorials. They are really great! I am finally figuring out how to program my website and maps rather than hack my way through the process. Birgit and I have to create an animated map with 242 buttons that will bring up different data. This is a nasty project any way you look at it, but particularly if you were to do it the way I have made my website -- one button at a time. But I've learned how to program and cut corners... so it should only suck mildly now. At least the client pays really well -- and by the hour!

Birgit and I went to the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) conference in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. It got my head spinning about maps -- both how to make them and how to publish them. I ended up drinking wine with a professional cartographer from California who runs a business from his home with his wife. They make maps of California State Parks and National Parks for a living and do really well. Turns out he just uses some programs I learned years ago, but he figured out some great techniques for bringing in shaded relief. He shared those with me, and I am forever in debt! I also got to hang out and meet a bunch of Mark Harrower's prodigies from UW-Madison. Mark is beyond a doubt the Flash Map guru. He was at Penn State the first year I was there before graduating and taking a professorship at Madison. His students were great! Awesome people -- heavy social drinkers and poker players. They gave me some tips too and showed me how to incorporate Google Maps images into my Flash projects. Brilliant!

Oh yeah, the dissertation. After waiting a month for feedback, I am back on it but a bit disheartened by the whole process again. Still, I'm reading and thinking about it when my brain settles down from thinking about map production. To be honest, though, I've been a bit remiss this past week, as I was busy selling my Star Wars toys on eBay for extra cash. I can't believe people bid so high for a bunch of brittle plastic! Brilliant! I now have more than enough money to buy Birgit a new zany iPod -- she doesn't read this blog, luckily, so I can say that on here -- or order a slew of Sid Sackson games!

Been playing games with the Department Coordinator a lot recently. Glen is really cool. I've met up with him and his wife, Carol, at the Spyhouse Cafe to play Sid Sackson's "Venture" game. Brilliant card game of financial risk. Also play games with him every Friday during lunch. Birgit argues that I have hit my stride as a bonafide nerd, and that she thinks it's cool. I don't care if it is cool or not -- playing games with chill people like Glen calms me down and makes me feel good. Beats snorting cocaine. Well, I wouldn't know, but I just say that to make myself feel better.

I am now officially in the biz. Game selling business that is. Last night I posted two vintage board games, that look boring and dumb as hell, on eBay. They were only a buck each at Half Price Books. I calculated shipping, tacked that on, and said someone could have them both for $10 if they didn't feel like bidding. This morning... Bingo!

I couldn't believe how easy it was. And now I notice that there an abundance of crappy board games selling on eBay for upwards of $50. So my new goal, until I hear back from my readers and I actually have to finish this poster, is to go around to thrift shops and make a living selling crap that I buy cheaply for an exorbitant fee online. It's so easy. May be trashy, but hey, virtual capitalism got Mark Cuban the Dallas Mavericks and on Dancing with the Stars. Maybe it will get me my own wheels someday soon.

Also sold a game called Alhambra that Birgit bought for me several years ago. It is critically acclaimed but also critically flawed as a game. We both thought it was a dud. So I ditched it on eBay and bought the newest Ticket to Ride Expansion (Switzerland) yesterday -- the day it came out, which only further exemplifies my nerdy status. Ticket to Ride is quite the game... I highly recommend it to anyone bored in Europe right now, as it is huge in Scandinavia and Germany, especially during the long dark nights of winter.

Goodbye, Gambler and Careers. Thanks for helping me make room to rebuild my board game empire! Ha, ha, ha... [exit stage left]

I am stuck in one of those ruts where you know you should be working on something, but you can't get yourself to do it, because there is no imminent cost for not finishing it now. Does that make sense? Let me explain...

I'm supposed to make an academic poster for a conference in St. Louis next week, but I can't get myself to work on it. I leave on Tuesday. What this means is that I will no doubt spend Sunday and Monday freaking out, attempting to get this thing done at the last minute. I will curse procrastination. I will curse academia. I will curse just about everything that moves, even perhaps, my innocent canine friend. I am a bastard for this, but at least I know what will happen and am not too proud to predict this outcome.

Birgit understands, thankfully. She has already written off Sunday as a social day, because she knows what is about to go down. I will be upstairs ripping my hair out, screaming out that I am a failure as an academic and that I made a mistake switching my major from English Lit back in 1996. I will probably start blaming my predicament on the fact that her family dotes on us too much; the fact that my father and I are estranged; the fact that the sky is often blue, but it would be so much more unique if it were periwinkle... and then maybe maid of honor's dresses could be blue or something...

I am already ticked that I was offered a 5th row seat to Wilco next week, but I will be in St. Louis, recovering from the rush to finish the damn poster. Wilco... 5th row?! Damnit! This is like being offered a ticket to ride Noah's Ark and realizing you can't make it because you promised your boss you would help her build a swimming pool that weekend. Or something like that, I am positive!

I am losing my marbles waiting for people to give me feedback on my new research design. I submitted it to everyone on the committee two weeks ago but have only heard back from one guy. I've heard back from him twice, actually, and had a really good conversation with him to boot. To tie this back to the fact that I am irked I can't go to the Wilco concert... Waiting to hear back from people before proceeding on something you really want to do is like arriving at a concert venue hours early, waiting for the band to take the stage, and then being told the band hasn't arrived yet and no one knows when it is going to.

No wait, bad analogy. Just bad all around... I'm not with it today. I shouldn't be writing. It is coming off the tips of my fingers poorly. But at least I am venting.

Tomorrow should be better... playing Kahuna with Glen at lunch; meeting Ben in the afternoon; and then meeting up with Adam. Skipping coffee hour. Still not working on the poster... priceless.

Zombie pub crawl on Saturday. Half-tempted to go...

Should get back to work now. But work on what? Hmmm...

Labels: damnit