3-2-1-Contact

Got contacts today.

I learned several things that were non-contact related.

I have larger than normal pupils. The significance of this? Studies have shown that peoples' pupils increase in size when the owner of said pupils sees something he/she likes. The pupils dilate in order to increase the light intake and get a better view of the object. (Seriously, no joke!) On the opposite side, the object (in this case, another person,) sees these dilated pupils and sees a person that's attracted to them. My pupils are, by default, put into attraction mode, and when I really am attracted to somebody, they grow even larger. I'm a super-being. I look more easily approachable and emotionally open than most.

This isn't just a coincidence. I get a lot of compliments on my eyes.

Secondly, I have a slight astigmatism. So slight, in fact, that I don't even know why this gets second mention. It's probably to draw attention away from the fact that I passed out in the exam room.

WHAT?!? (is what you must be thinking right now)

The doctor insisted on putting the contacts in herself for my first time, and got them in okay. She checked my eyes through the optiscope (for lack of a better term in my optometry vocabulary,) and then left the room to get (my prescription? eye drops? I don't really know, I lost a decent amount of time.) She came back and I was about to fall out of the chair. "You're a big guy," she says, after calling my name enough times to bring me back to awake-ville. "I'm lucky I was able to tip you back into the chair!"

Boy, did I feel stupid. I wore a sweatshirt to the office today. It's usually too cold for just sitting around coding, so I wore it all day and wore it to the exam because it wasn't as hot as normal. Between that and having someone else's finger poking me in the eye, I was probably just overheated and overstressed. The doctor had the (cute) receptionist bring me a bottle of water, which was welcomed half heartedly. I was glad to have the water, but felt extra stupid now that everyone in the office now knew that I'd passed out..

My mom is now joking that I'd better be lying down before I try to take these contacts out... She's a pillar of support, that woman.

In other news, a few places in Sugarhouse have caught my interest. I've got a couple viewings of some pretty cute houses tomorrow evening so we'll see how that goes. I'll bring water this time..

Extended Sleepovers (Extended)

House hunting is hard alone. I think I may have found out that it's even harder when you're trying to please somebody else as well. (Not to mention that their parents also need to be pleased (c'mon, you're a full grown, independent adult now, is it really necessary that your parents check off on where you feel like spending your money to live?))

That being said, I'm just barely hitting the month before school starts time on my deadline. I'm hoping to be moved by the end of the month, but that might be too much to hope for. Word is that there's a group wanting to rent out the entire basement of the Aves house that I liked. If that happens, that'll either get me into the top floor or looking for a new place. They must be having a bit of a hard time though, prices dropped $20/mo for every room in the house.

Fingers crossed, we'll see where this goes.

--Edit--
I didn't believe it myself, so I won't expect you to, either. When I drive, I sometimes sit with my right foot on my gas and my left foot crossed right, with my ankle turned such that my leg's weight rests on the left side of my foot. It's a bad habit, and usually leaves me feeling sore, which is what I was feeling after I passed out, as well as when I got home and got out of my car. I shrugged it off as the bad habit in action, both in the car, and the exam room.

Nope.

I sprained the damn thing. I'm not totally devastated about it, I'll miss a few days of biking, and I'll walk like an idiot for a day or two, but I'll live. I'm just bummed out that I didn't sprain it doing something cool. Oh well.. I hope my toolishness provides my readers with a few laughs. At the least, a few chuckles. I know that in a week, I'll be laughing too.

These contacts are also settling in. They recommended a wearing schedule, with only 4 hours for the first day. The only side effect of not following this schedule is the possibility of irritated/red eyes. I've gone overnight with a piece of glass in my eye (another story,) I think I should be able to handle a pair of contacts.

Extended Sleepovers

In other news, (I'm putting the other news at the start of the post, deal with it) my ever-changing job description has refreshed once again and I've become a database engineer building dbases for inventory, shipping records, and quality control, as well as programming the front-end GUIs for entering and editing the data. Pretty neat stuff, and although I sometimes feel a little out of my depth, I really appreciate the fact that my manager is cool with me learning on the job. Last month, I scratched the surface of Python, creating a few scripts that converted our existing excel spreadsheets to our wiki format. Those were fairly simple, but being able to pick up the code so quickly was what gave people the confidence to trust me with the database and front ends. Well, that and the fact that our IT guy has his hands full with other projects, and rather than deal with setting up databases for me, just gave me full admin privileges. [=


In original news, today was the beginning of a (hopefully short) series of interviews with people who wanted me to spend my hard earned money to come and spend a year sleeping over at their place, contributing to chores, mowing the lawn, all that fun stuff. In other words, I need a new place to live.

The first place was alright, occupied by a grad student and -get this- a falconer working at the Tracy Aviary. The place was okay, fairly clean, but a bit beat up. Both guys were bike commuters, and had home-brewed beer on tap in their basement bar, which was pretty neat. $375 a month + utilities, so at the upper end of my price range..

Next place was in the avenues, where I met Herschell, a Native American stoner/party animal. The place was fairly priced, and was actually really nice, but occupied by a bunch of party animals and fairly trashed. Partying is alright I guess, but I don't want to be the only non-stoner in the house. Whatever..

Third place was even worse.. A musician, which I respect, but this dude's house was even more trashed, junk everywhere, and every room in the house was basically a mini studio. Everything about the room was depressing, small, stained carpets, trashed walls, tiny, grated window.. About a hundred dollars cheaper than any place I could find, but it'd be made up in therapist bills from living there, not to mention that the guy himself and his girlfriend were kinda gross.

On a whim, I had written down a couple of numbers in case the first three places were bust. One was a six bedroom place with three girls there currently, another was a flat downtown, but an email instead of a number, and a bit pricier, and someone renting an upstairs bedroom and a downstairs bedroom, no other info..

Can't email from my car, and the upstairs and downstairs apartment were too cheap to be good and I get the feeling that it's some family renting out the top and bottom. Students tend to write semi-descriptive posts.. Called the number, made arrangements to drop by later, and hung out with the guys for a bit. The place turned out to be small, but really nice. It was a little house in the aves, and turned out to be one of the historic houses with the badge and everything. I only got a tour of the downstairs. Each floor has a separate lease, and the girls didn't have a key to the upper floor yet, but they're moving upstairs over the weekend. I'm a fan of sunlight, and the upstairs has a dining room also, which the basement apartment lacked.. I'll definitely be back to check it out on Monday, but the two girls were pretty chill, but were definitely not party animals or anything. No drugs, no smoking. Awesome.

-Light stoners don't bother me, I just don't like living around the stuff-

Either way, I still have a few weeks if things don't work out. A bit of a wait is definitely better than getting stuck in a year lease in a crap place because I was impatient to move out..

With that, I'll leave you with a strip from the world's best geek comic. Brainchild of Randall Munroe, xkcd.com has provided me with tri-weekly geekjoyment.

This is probably the type of father I'll make if I ever make a kid..

Things I Want to Accomplish or Learn

Here goes a list!

-Screenprinting
-Welding (Amateur at this point)
-How to Ride a Sport Bike
-Play in a Rock Show
-Record an Album
-Travel to All Seven Continents
-Couchsurf, hosting and traveling (www.couchsurfing.com, look me up! http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/devinkye )
-Take a bike trip through Oregon and Washington
-Backpack to a lake in the middle of nowhere and do nothing for a few days

-More coming soon!

Danger-kun

Danger-kun?? What is that?

I hang out with too many Japanese and half-Japanese people, just ask Josh.

kun is a Japanese honorific, used between men of about the same age (peers), or used by a teacher speaking to a student.

I see the world as full of people who are all my peers, and also a world full of people who all have something to teach, so I find it appropriate to see a kun(like) relationship with everyone that I meet.

Hopefully I can use this log not only to share my experiences and thoughts, but to remind -myself- as well.

Oh yeah, lists as well. Lists are handy enough that they get their own mention, even before being written.

-Edit- I just realized that to anyone but friends, the first part of the title doesn't make sense. My nickname is Danger. Don't know why, but people have been calling me that since High School. Hope that clears things up.