soapbox

I had one of my wisdom teeth pulled out almost exactly a year ago. To figure out where exactly the roots of the tooth were going, they did a panoramic x-ray (which showed that it was a simple tooth to extract) and the surgeon said “did you know that you have a huge cavity in your other top wisdom tooth?” In my visits to the dentist over the summer, she confirmed that I was going to have to get that tooth out too, but since it wasn’t hurting and since the removal would hurt, I put things off. (Also, she wants me to get the remaning three wisdom teeth taken out all at once and that requires more recovery time and my bottom ones are doing just fine.)

So, I could have gotten things taken care of last year, but selling the house and moving too precidence. I could have done it over the summer, but I was watching Sarah full time and just didn’t feel like it. I could have gotten it done a couple weeks ago during “October break”, but I had better things to be doing.

Now though, it’s kind of hurting. Well, more than just “kind of”. My mouth hurts! And, of course, now I can’t get an appointment. The surgeon I was referred to does all of his extractions on Fridays, which would work with my schedule. However, he has to do a consult with you first and he only does that on Mondays and Wednesdays when I’ll be out of town. The semester is rapidly coming to a close though and I don’t want to miss any classes because we need to get through all the material for the semester. Of course, if I’m crying and rolling on the ground in a week or two, I’m not sure how effective of a teacher I’ll be.

Now I’m thinking that I should maybe find a doctor here in Walla Walla. Make an appointment for early Thursday afternoon. Get the tooth extracted, give myself 2 hours to clot, and then hop on the plane home. That, however, strikes me as being somewhat insane.

I’ve got to say that I’m pretty happy with how my car drives. You put it in sixth, set the cruise for about 5% over the speed limit, and just let the miles unwind. My mileage would be even better if I didn’t have to climb over a mountain pass.

One thing though, remember how you used to be able to spot the expensive BMWs driving down the road in the early 2000s? They always had the blue lights. Now I just notice that everyone on the road has yellowish headlights. My eyes are adjusted to the color of my own HIDs.

When I think of Arby’s, I think “Mmm, tasty roast beef sandwich, but even worse for you than McDonalds.”

That’s not what the Arby’s in Yakima, Washington, thinks though. (Yakima, by the way, is “the Palm Springs of Washington” which is worth a separate post some day.) According to the roadside sign, at the next exit is “Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant.”

Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant. Makes me think I should wear my formal overalls go go get something. Kids, put on your good shoes, we’re going to a fancy restaurant, Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant! Or, I suppose it could be where you take a date that you don’t like. “You have to take me to a real restaurant this date!” “Ok, we’ll go to Arby’s Roast Beef Restaurant!” I’d imagine that that date ends early though.

I’m getting lots of seat time in my car driving back and forth between Seattle and Walla Walla. The low point was driving over the pass in the dark on Sunday. Weather backs up when it hits the mountains, so I drove through a thunder storm, in amazingly heavy rain. The road is extremely rutted too from the truck traffic and the ruts were full of water, so driving with a normal lane position resulted in instant hydroplaning. 50 miles of white knuckle driving.

The high point comes after you get over the pass and into the desert of eastern Washington. No other cars on the road so you can light up the high beams and speed up, the light cutting back and forth through turns revealing the farmland nearby. It’s really very peaceful.

Well, summer seems to have produced a lull in the ever-exciting soapbox blogging, so I thought I would fill in the gap with a question. Does anyone know why the northeast region in good ol’ VT is called the Northeast Kingdom? The barn girls & friends had the opportunity to spend some time on beautiful Lake Willoughby and I couldn’t help but ponder over “the kingdom”. The only explanation I found was that a beloved VT senator exclaimed that area was so beautiful that it should be called the northeast kingdom. However, I feel like this explanation is a bit sketchy and certainly anticlimactic, so if anyone knows a better story or just wants to make up one, I’d be all ears.

Lake Willoughby: You should all spend time here if you can.

An imbalanced gender ratio is not a surprise to any physics conference veteran, and I’d imagine that the female-depletion phenomenon is common across the non-biology sciences. Or maybe that’s generalizing too much?

Anyway, at this week’s conference I was really surprised by the demographics; I’d guess not more than 15-20% female, and 50+% were 50+ years old… which meant that between session breaks the lines stretched out the restroom door.

Perhaps unrelatedly, I’m wondering if the inter-session snacks were sponsored by Medicare, since I’ve never seen a more calorie- and saturated fat-intensive collection of cookies, brownies, ice cream bars, cheesecake, etc at any conference. Meanwhile, the CS conference in the other side of the complex got to have fresh fruit and muffins: maybe not an upgrade in the eyes of some, but some variety would be nice. I almost ate something that had 87% of the daily saturated fat requirement, yikes.

Finally, I really wish my phone had a better camera, since I’ve seen some truly spectacular fashion mistakes this week. Many of the usual three-inches-too-short khakis with white socks and black sneakers, but also some impressive attempts at hair, including a rather quality mullet on an otherwise normally-attired attendee. But I really wanted to get a shot of George McFly’s twin brother and his slicked-down, icky-feeling-inducing bangs.

(Note: this is a pretty dull post, but would be way more interesting if I’d had a phone with a decent-quality camera. Sorry y’all.)

Yesterday we took a trip to the County Clerk’s office to get a marriage license, our second attempt after encountering an out-the-door-and-down-two-blocks line a couple weeks ago. This time, armed with an appointment, we were more/mostly successful.

Really, the whole thing was simultaneously both easy and frustrating. The DMV parallels were obvious in terms of long lines and lots of people just hanging out, filling out paperwork then waiting in another line, etc – except that it was a much more positive and more cheerful kind of clientele. Almost half of the couples there looked to be getting married on-site, including several girls/women/brides in pretty fancy-looking dresses and an entertaining mish-mash of suits, sport jackets, one tux, one blue-on-white pimp-stripe suit with blinged-out baseball cap, and a cute little 2-year-old in a tux with light-up LA Gear sneakers. Had we not had an appointment I suspect the entire process would have taken all afternoon – as it was, we were in-and-out in a little less than an hour.

Without getting too much into the politics of marriage and how they shouldn’t be mixed, it’s a weird experience. Cali does not require a blood test, nor is CA residency a requirement; you just have to show some kind of ID and list your parents and their state of birth. K had been planning to add one of my last names to her middle name, but apparently that’s not allowed – you can change/add something to your last name, or replace your middle name with a last name of your spouse, but apparently that’s it? dumb, I say, but oh well.

The parties may choose any of the
following middle or last names as the name they wish to be known as after marriage [FC § 306.5(b)(2)]:

♦ Current last name of the other spouse
♦ Last name of either spouse given at birth
♦ A name combining into a single last name all or a segment of the current last name or last name of either
spouse given at birth
♦ A hyphenated combination of last names