Week 11 - Halloween

In absolute contrast to last week, this week was much simpler and straightforward. I spent all of my free time counting down the days until political season was over and praying we could really get a break from all the rhetoric. We got visited by a con artist who was probably trying to rob the house. Luckily, I was late at home working on data management from some projects and so I encountered him in our driveway. He messed with the wrong guy. The real cap on the week was Sunday night when my family moved over 7 sheep to our place to start grazing down the weeds and tall grass before it is destroyed by winter.

Over the weekend, Illinois came into town and was solidly thrashed by a 10-0 Buckeye team. As always, we went to the game and had a great lunch beforehand, and as always, we stayed until the Carmen was sung at the end. This didn't stop people from leaving ahead of us and traffic was actually pretty light on the way home. Most notable of all was the scoreboard. This past year our school's leaders decided to purchase a new scoreboard with $7 million in donations from the public. This is all good and well but the scoreboard was spazzing out when we walked into 30 minutes prior to game time. The situation worsened as we had no announcer for the marching band entry, recognition of veterans, singing of the national anthem or recognition of the F-18 flyover. At the start of the game, the board was flashing the BSOD and I was betting on no score the entire time. However, with 11 and change left in the 1st quarter, the scoreboard and announcer were finally fired up, to cheering and applause of the crowd. That's a new one.

Blacked out scoreboard at Illini game.

Prior to going down to the game, my wife and I overhauled our house since it's been a few weeks since we last cleaned it. This included sweeping, vacuuming, washing bathrooms, mopping floors, folding laundry, doing dishes, putting away belongings, etc. The house was in great shape when we left, minus one failure on my part. I tried my best to unclog our upstairs bathroom drain, but the masses I removed with a wire coat hanger were not enough. Next step is some hardcore Drain-o, before resigning to having to purchase a new product. I really don't want to cut into the wall and disassemble the drain. I do all the practical thinking at work and by the time I get home I'm pretty burned out on hands-on thinking. I just wanna go outside and chop up trees.

Friday was our graduate student chili cook-off and while I didn't win, I did make a pretty fantastic chili with a little kick to it.  Ingredient list was simple: 1 lb breakfast sausage, 32 oz. kidney beans, 32 oz. black beans, 32 oz. diced tomatoes, 2 splashes of Frank's Red Hot, 3 habanero peppers, 3 teaspoons of chili powder, 1 Bud Light, and 8 oz. tomato paste. Recipe was even easier: 1) Cook sausage and drain grease, add to pot. Add everything else to pot. Slice habanero peppers from top to bottom to allow juices out, cook in pot and leave in to serve. Total cost of the chili would be a bout $10 and it serves a hungry family. One thing that I have decided is an absolute necessity though is a slow-cooker liner. This saves so much time and money; my wife is my hero for buying them.

I think the habaneros scared away voters.

My wife and I's pumpkins this year. Mine is on the right.

Halloween was of course this past Wednesday and we again had no trick-or-treaters, although we did carve pumpkins together and put a shirt on the dog. I hope this isn't a permanent trend. It's unfortunate that we don't live in a development but we live across the street from one, so I hoped we would have some kids drop in. Even when we lived in our apartment complex we didn't get any takers. I'm still trying to see where we fit into the holiday these days. When I was younger, our parents made sure to dress us up and get us out around our neighborhood. I was often Davy Crockett, once a dinosaur, once a cheetah, etc. My parents helped make the costumes and you'll have to take my word for them being awesome because this was back in the pre-digital days before we could document everything like we do now.  Then in highschool we blew off costumes to hang out and carve pumpkins. College was a time to dress up, get drunk and get laid. Unfortunately, my process often ran in reverse and ended with very disjointed costumes (a few of which I will share below). When I was into a serious relationship, our costumes got progressively better but then we lost the excitement of going out. For a couple years now we've just been dressing up the dog and carving pumpkins but it feels like the holiday has died for us a bit. It has so much less allure when you don't have kids to dress up but you're too old to go out yourselves.

2006. I thought I left the dorm wearing a costume. Turned out I only brought a sword.

2007. Me cheating and dressed up as a cowboy.

2007. Nobody knows who the guy in blue was. That was a rough night.

2007. Only photo to document why you don't cross-dress for Halloween - too much friendly fire.

2008. Lots of time at the bar, but only 1 pic with costumes. Halloween bowling.

2009. Halloween in Flint. Year Boondock Saints II released.

2009. Best group costume ever.

2010. Elven warrior on right. Face-off with Leonidas.

2012. Our older years have brought along dog costumes instead. Redneck Betsy.

It's weird being stuck in the middle like that but this is exactly how I feel at work as well. I'm still working on trying to break free and take responsibility for my own thoughts. I'm used to being able to check in with someone and see what they think about my research, but in your doctorate work with my advisor, you're supposed to cut loose and lead yourself while using him as more of a reference. After being checked and pulled back so often during a master's project, it's hard to get in this habit of leading and answering your own curiosity.