def jamz

Monday through Thursday I do a round trip from Durham to Greensboro as I attempt to carry a full load of classes at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  So far (at about halfway for this semester) my four classes are going well.  Monday to Thursday I'm on the highway around two full hours give or take.  I see some strange things.

Today I saw a Hummer, strange all on its own, but this one was a company vehicle for a company which was touting something called "4-D" imaging for sonograms or whatever those wierd in-the-womb pictures are called.  So this Hummer has, across its wide rear, the name of the company flanked by two mirror image "4-D" scrunched-up in-the-womb baby faces, each at least two feet tall and appropriately wide, which were an unnatural amber-gold computer screen color.  The face was repeated on the side I passed, but just one image there.

Then I saw a gas tanker for the Sheetz gas station.  Sheetz is a newcomer to the milieu of oversized trucker-oriented, car friendly, restaurant bedecked, megaliths which cozy up to the shores of I-40/I-85 between Durham and Greensboro.  Sheetz is new to me and I have yet to get fuel there.  I stopped once but they weren't open yet, it turned out all the cars at the pumps belonged to people who were learning how to work at Sheetz.  For a place that wasn't open they seemed to have an awful lot of people working there.  Training is a big job, and just from what I saw on that drive through and from what I can intuit from there billboards, Sheetz is quite an operation.

I have heard rumours that one of there selling points is more, maybe better, food with the option of ordering it via your gas pump.  I guess it was just a matter of time before someone put together the fast-food drive-through sqawk-box and your smart, helpful, friendly 21st c. gas-pump.  With the gas truck Sheetz again caught my eye with their bold red color scheme, but I realized that they had done something I hadn't seen before.  They had turned their gas tanker truck into a billboard for their luscious food-oriented gas-station-convenience store.  Something about seeing food so brightly and boldly represented on the side of a tank full of gas was unsettling to me.

Maybe Sheetz will eventually patent a gas-pump which will include a hose we can stick down our throats and for three bucks get super-food-slush pumped down our gullet while we feed the needs of our autos.  Hey, as long as I can use my card at the pump and avoid all human interaction, I'm all over it.  Sanitation would be an interesting issue but just think of the millions to be made off whatever disposable plastic solution is come up with.

In other notes:  Dr. Marc Bregman, my professor in the class devoted to the story of Abraham and his offering of his son to God, whom I like very much as a professor and who seems to be a generally likeable and good person,  had worn the same shirt, or  set of identical shirts, to every class  up until last week.  The class meets once a week, Tuesday nights.  So for 5 or 6 Tuesdays in a row Dr. Bregman sported the same shirt, or indentical shirts.  I like the thought of such wardrobe discipline and organization.  I've heard stories of eccentrics who wear the same outfit daily in order to save time, etc.  But I've never managed anything near such a state of discipline or organization.

The shirt Dr. Bregman wore wasn't one I would chooose to wear for six Tuesdays running, but it suited him, and regardless our differences in taste, I respect his consistency.  However, last week, he wore a different shirt.  And this week he wore the same different shirt, or one identical to it.  Maybe he is on a six week rotation.  How many shirts would he need to cover such a rotation?  My girlfriend thinks I have too many shirts.  But I'm not sure she would be down with the daily shirt plan on a six week rotation.  Maybe some day, when I'm older and wiser, I'll enjoy the wardrobe discipline and simplicity of such men as Dr. Bregman.  I could do a lot worse, I reckon.  Stay posted for updates of the Dr. Bregman Shirt Watch here at The Feltonian Institute, of random observations and rambling cogitations.

So, I'm going to use a time limit.  Yeah, that's it, a time limit...  So I give myself ten minutes to do a post and I can't edit it, yeah, that's the ticket... 

I'm now into my 2nd week of full-time undergrad schooling.  Last time I did this it was 1993, was Clinton president, was anyone other than a member of the Bush family really president, it seems a long, long time gone, whole lot of muddy, muddy water under the bridge, in so many ways, I was 21 years old, holy moly, writing that makes it all more real.  So at that time, 1993, the last time I was a full time student, the Fall semester of '93, I had about five months of legal drinking under my belt, and now I have about ~13 years of legal drinking under my belt.  Unfortunately at this point I literally have more under my belt.  I think I'm averaging about a pound a year added to my waist since then.

And yet I still wonder if I can pass as a 'traditional undergrad' rather than the 35 year old 'non-traditional undergrad' that I am.  Well, no underage folks have asked me to buy them a six pack of ZIMA (or whatever the current execrable equivalent is these days).  Maybe I should get a t-shirt that says 'I can get you beer', shoot, I might be able to fund my college career with such a scheme...  But, really folks, it is weird being back as a full-time student.  I can't stop chuckling to myself as I walk around campus, I have the deja-vu thing in full effect cause hey, I've been here twice before, dropped out after first two years, then returned a year later, lasted another year and a half, then split again and stayed gone for ten years, now I've been back in four full semesters doing one class at a time and now my fifth semester I'm full-time with four classes.

The first three times I went to the campus bookstore I heard nothing but '80s music.  The B-52s' 'Love Shack' was blasting as I searched for my Religious Studies books.  The B-52s played homecoming or some such University sponsored event when I was a Freshman in '89.  On my fourth visit I did hear some stuff I didn't recognize, one hard rock thing and one hip-hop thing which I imagine were both from the 21st century at least.

Yesterday as I drove around Greensboro reorienting myself I discovered that the count of places-I-used-to-live-which-have-been-demolished can now be raised from two to three, and it seems like I may be forgetting a place.  Maybe I'll take my girlfriend's digital camera and take pictures.  Everybody loves pictures. 

Well, of course I've gotten all worked up and gone over my ten minute limit and now I'm in danger of making myself late for my 'Masterpieces of Cinema' class.  I'm doing the car commute thing from Durham to Greensboro so far, but I really, really, really want to ride the train some.  Right now I'm loading my Pathfinder with junk  from my storage unit in Burlington on my way home so it makes sense for me to keep driving, at least until the storage is cleared out, but then, then you will all hear grand stories of commuting by rail...

No, really, slap me.  Maybe then I will post more.  I want to, but why?  The other day I was reminded of the I-don't-know-what-I-think-until-I-say/write-it school of thought while reading some of author Michael Ruhlman's blog posts over at Megnut.  Ruhlman says he is in that school of thought and I think I am with him.  Blogging seems like it could be a good vehicle for doing some work on what one actually thinks.  But that puts pressure on the act.  I am bad about putting too much pressure on myself when I engage in writing of any sort.  And I do mean ANY sort.  I have been known to break out in a cold sweat over filling out the simplest paperwork if it involves me actually writing anything more than my own first name.  But web log posting should be different.  Yeah, different.  But why?  I don't know.  Maybe I'll make some halting progress towards answering that question if I post more...

But meanwhile I think I need some sort of hook for myself as far as what to write about.  The best one I can come up with right now is that I'm a 35 year old college student.  I started college in 1989, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  I made it through two years then dropped out for a year.  Did some fun stuff, then got bored, then went back to school.  Made it through another year and a half and dropped out again.  Cut to ten years later and I decide to re-enter school at UNC-G, or just 'the G' as some refer to it now. (I can't figure out if any students actually call it that or if it is simply some administrator's attempt to inculcate a 'hip' nickname for the school which seems to suffer self-image problems.)  Now, in a few days, I will begin what could be my last academic year of college.  I'm going to be a full time student for the first time since 1993.  I'm freaking out a little.  But I'm excited to get down to it and do well and get it done, at long last.  Stay tuned, maybe keeping the wide world abreast of my adventures as an 'adult' student who is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on my millenia spanning, multi-decade encompassing, may-have-a-shot-at-a-world-record-for-being-a-college-senior-the-longest attempt to gain that diploma, will provide decent material for this little web log of mine.  CLASS OF 2007, watch out...

Thanks to my friend Elizabeth I am in danger of becoming a web log monster.  Alas, I should be scraping paint in the sunroom of my girlfriend's house, which I just moved into, but here I am on a tangent prompted by a friendly invitation from Elizabeth to start a web log here at Vox. 

I have a web log over at Blogger, but this appeals because I can control who sees it.  I'm guessing that this access-control feature is a big drawing point for many participants. I must say that so far I like the design and ease of use here at Vox better than over at Blogger. 

With the access-control aspect I may be more free in my writing, which could well mean that this blog is just the worst thing ever, but I have been pleased to find that blogging has actually gotten me to sit down and write a little, something which I am glad for, because I enjoy having written.  (The actual writing can be rather tortuous.)

If anyone sees this and has any interest in other things I have written and inflicted upon the blogosphere I would be pleased to have you visit my blog, The Feltonian Institute, on Blogger.  Talk to y'all later.