Quinquennial

Has it really been five whole years since I started this humble blog?

The short answer is yes. Yes, it has.

A lot has happened in the last quinquennium... more than I can ever hope to have written about. And so, as I've done so faithfully in the past, I whipped up another Bloggy cake in celebration of this achievement.

That said, it wasn't that easy. It's getting harder and harder to find good clip art birthday cakes. Yes, I do have certain standards when it comes to selecting clip art cakes, the biggest being that it has to be workable with the black background of this blog (which, much like the title, I've been meaning to change for a long while, but I haven't yet found the motivation to come up with anything better).

And it has to be somewhat professional-looking. I mean, clip art is vectorized by definition. For some reason, people think that the things they draw with the "pencil" tool in Microsoft Paint qualify as "clip art." (Hint: They don't.) As far as I'm concerned, they're just drawings. And while some of them are very nice, many aren't... and in any case, they're not what I'm looking for.

Still, is it so much to ask that new and halfway decent clip art images of birthday cakes be uploaded to the web and make their way to the first 20 or so pages of Google's results at a minimum rate of one per year?

The short answer is yes. Apparently, it is.

Maybe in future, I'll actually use 14 May as an excuse to bake a real cake. But for now, this digital cake is my sincere thank you to the 1160 visitors this blog received during its fifth year. Yes, that's down 53%, but it's completely understandable as I've written 66% fewer posts with 71% fewer words[1]. In my defense, for much of the past twelve months, I've been a senior at university who has neither been traveling abroad nor attempting to blog every day (and even being way too busy to write every other day, let alone more than once in April).

But "I'm not dead yet... I'm getting better...," er, something like that.

Anyway, in addition to the admittedly contrived and self-centered celebration of five years of admittedly poor blogging, tonight I'll be celebrating my friend's 22nd birthday (which was yesterday), and on Sunday my home church will be celebrating its 175th anniversary... both are significant achievements, if you ask me.

Here's hoping I'll see you again soon... whether in person or in the blogosphere!

* * *
[1] I should note that these figures were somewhat hastily calculated/estimated (and obviously do not include this post). As such, they might be a tad off. But they're certainly close enough and I don't particularly care to go back and figure it out exactly.

BE(E)DA

So, I've decided on a compromise. I totally don't have time to actually do BEDA this year. After taking a look at my schedule of exams, presentations, and performances for the next few weeks, I've noticed that many of my roughest days are going to be the odd-numbered ones. So I've decided to be clever and try to blog every even-numbered day. Hence, this year, I'm attempting BE(E)DA... Blog Every (Even) Day in April. (It'll even be pronounced the same.)

"But, Tim," you say, "what's this about posting on even days when you're posting on an odd day?" Like last year, I'm going to consider it to be the same day right up until I go to bed. After all, half of the time I'm not even home by midnight. Ah, the life of a college student!

Of course, April being what it always is, there is the inevitable case that something more important may will come up, so much like last year, I reserve all rights to amend my BE(E)DA goals, skip days, or just call it quits at any time. I think I did pretty well in 2009, considering that I got 14 days through daily blogging before, as I put it then, I had "bigger fish to fry."

Speaking of which (and I swear, I did not plan this transition), I really was looking forward to going to a fish fry tonight. Being in college, I've been in Pittsburgh for pretty much the entirety of Lent every year for the last four years. (Although I have spent a few Fridays therein traveling to basketball tournaments.)

Anyway, it's not that Pittsburgh doesn't have fish fries (they do). It's just that for the longest time, I've not known where they were. Or at least, didn't care so much to look... until earlier this year, I realized it had literally been four years since I'd been to one. So then I got this thing called a craving.

Of course, Lent came, and I forgot all about it until the last possible week (this week). So I looked up a list of local fish fries and was dismayed to find that most of the ones anywhere near me wouldn't be serving on Good Friday. But I found one in the South Hills, scoped it out, and invited Dylan to come along.

Unfortunately, life got in the way. Two reports due by midday, rent due in the afternoon, and not much sleep had drained my energy. And apparently, at the time he'd considered coming along, Dylan wasn't remembering that his parents would be in town.

Not being able to find another friend to go with me, I lacked the motivation to make such a long trip just for dinner. So I stayed home, got some stuff done, and made "Charlie shells" for dinner (don't ask). Oh, well. Better luck next year. Or maybe I'll just get fish at a restaurant some day soon.

Anyway, happy Easter to all! We'll see where the rest of April shall take us soon enough.

March-ing On...

I hate missing a month on this blog. To be fair, I'm not terribly fond of missing a week, but life happens, and you've got to go with what you've got.

Speaking of life, it's been incredibly busy lately and is showing few signs of slowing down. I mean, I'm a little over a month from donning the cap-and-gown (and yes, if you're from Girard, "cap-and-gown" is one word). And that's scary. But there's all sorts of things to wade through on the way.

April is going to be really busy. As such, I'm sitting on the fence about attempting BEDA again this year. Either the posts are going to be really short (like this one), or they're simply not going to happen every day. Perhaps shooting for every other day would be more reasonable? But alas, "BEODA" just doesn't have the same ring to it. We'll see.

In any case, I'll be March-ing on through April to see what the future May hold for me... hopefully it'll be great!

My Crazy Friday

So, today was a pretty crazy day. Here's a (not-so-)brief synopsis:

• 01:31 - Finish drafting and mapping Singing Valentines delivery schedule
• 02:42 - Finish final (printed) version of Valentines delivery schedule
• 03:06 - Bed
• 07:05 - Alarm
• 07:15 - Check for last-minute messages
• 07:42 - Morning correspondence
  
• 08:03 - Shower and morning hygiene
• 08:41 - Send schedules remotely to campus printer
• 08:44 - Briefly look over Music Theory homework in preparation for quiz
  
• 08:54 - Gather belongings with intent of being on campus early to study and eat
  
• 09:00 - Leave apartment
• 09:02 - Arrive at bus stop
• 09:09 - First bus passes me and two others (too full)
• 09:23 - Second bus passes me and five others (completely empty, but was a training bus)
• 09:27 - Third bus passes me and seven others (not headed to Oakland)
• 09:29 - Fourth bus passes me and eight others (too full)...
• 09:30 - Bus right behind it (thankfully) has room for all of us, but no more
  
• 09:39 - Arrive on campus
• 09:42 - Frantically cram in some last-minute quiz studying in what little time is left
• 09:59 - Sit for quiz
• 10:02 - Quiz begins
• 10:24 - My phone rings... probably urgent, but can't answer
  
• 10:40 - I finish the quiz
• 10:41 - See call was from John Goldsmith, Heinz Chapel Choir director
• 10:42 - Go knock on his door since it's right down the hall; no answer
• 10:44 - Listen to voicemail; he emailed some additional last-minute orders that were in his mailbox; also, he's going home (pretty early, I might add)
• 10:49 - Head to computer lab to pick up schedule printouts
• 10:51 - See that only one of the three copies actually printed, despite the fact that I was debited the sheets for all three from my print quota
• 10:53 - Use my laptop to print the other two copies
• 10:58 - Second of the other two copies actually prints and makes it to the "output" table
• 10:59 - Frantically and apologetically call Patrick, making sure everyone's already there and ready to begin
  
• 11:02 - Arrive at William Pitt Union
• 11:16 - Sing two telephone Valentines
• 11:35 - Head to a few local businesses for "Random Acts" of Valentines
• 11:51 - Leave group for class
  
• 11:57 - Send a series of advisory text messages to the second-in-commands
• 12:02 - First class (ChE 0602) begins
• 12:18 - Mind wanders briefly to "when the heck am I going to eat?"
  
• 12:40 - Class seems like it's about to end; it doesn't
• 12:49 - Class ends
• 12:50 - Ask friend if she might be able to deliver a lunch to me later in the day if I pay her back; she's not able
• 12:51 - Take long elevator ride down to Einstein Bros. Bagels to see how the line is and if they have salads
• 12:54 - Line is long, no salads; take same long elevator ride right back up
• 13:01 - Second class (ChE 0613) begins
• 13:33 - Class comes to its ten-minute break early; professor says we'll be done early; I rejoice
• 13:45 - Class resumes
• 14:23 - Class ends
• 14:27 - Arrive at Quiznos Subs; order sub
• 14:30 - Receive and eat sub
• 14:40 - Depart Quiznos Subs
• 14:45 - Arrive at William Pitt Union, discuss the past three hours' of Valentines with second-in-command
• 15:00 - Take over Singing Valentines again
  
• 15:22 - Deliver seven Valentines across campus in 40 minutes... one undelivered due to bad campus address
• 16:08 - Head to new address given at old address; recipient's office is actually elsewhere
  
• 16:31 - A few more phone Valentines
  
• 16:56 - Finally deliver previously undelivered Valentine
• 17:23 - A slew of phone Valentines... basically sing the same 90-second song repeatedly for a couple hours; people come and go, but I stay
  
• 19:36 - A number of complimentary phone Valentines undeliverable because the numbers were disconnected (very curious)
• 19:59 - Deliver final Valentine; dismiss and thank singers profusely
  
• 20:05 - Arrive at Benedum Hall
• 20:09 - Arrive at my locker, retrieve trumpet and pep band clothes
• 20:14 - Walk up hill
• 20:20 - Arrive at Petersen Events Center
• 20:23 - Change clothes, gather belongings
  
• 20:29 - Enter arena just in time to play
• 20:51 - Phone battery dies
• 21:02 - Tip-off, Pitt v. West Virginia
• 21:21 - Eat some chips I had from lunch while watching the game to try to stave my hunger
  
• 21:34 - Start to get a bit thirsty from chips and repeated use of voice
  
• 21:51 - Halftime
• 22:07 - Plan to eat a late dinner at Arby's after the game since they close at 24:00
  
• 22:57 - People start leaving, Pitt down 66-59 with one minute left
• 23:04 - Regulation ends tied 68-68
• 23:17 - Portions of voice may have been lost
  
• 23:26 - First overtime ends tied 78-78; forgo the option of dinner
  
• 23:44 - Second overtime ends tied 88-88
• 23:55 - Portions of sanity may have been lost
• 24:02 - Game ends, Pitt wins 98-95 in 3OT
• 24:11 - Spend about two full minutes at the drinking fountain quenching aforementioned thirst
  
• 24:14 - Leave Petersen Events Center
• 24:23 - Arrive at Benedum Hall
• 24:25 - Change clothes; return trumpet and pep band clothes to locker
• 24:31 - Walk to bus stop
• 24:42 - Board bus to Shadyside
• 24:53 - Arrive in Shadyside
• 24:55 - Arrive home
• 25:00 - Bathroom; settle down; ears start ringing
• 25:14 - Start writing this post
• 25:45 - Click "Publish Post"
• 25:47 - Bed
  

That said, today was really fun. But I'm also glad that my days aren't like this every day.

And with that, good night. I've got reports to write in the morning.