17 posts tagged “qotd”
What's the story behind a time when you got locked out?
Some may find this hard to believe, but I was an RA in my college dorm for 3 years. It was perhaps one of the easiest jobs I have ever had. You see I worked in the all male dorm which had one of the lowest lock-out rates on campus, which meant that when I was "on duty" it rarely meant more then me having to be in my room for an evening. I rarely had to let people back into their room, or break up a conflict. Men you see tend to avoid involving other people in their personal drama. Men also, I suspect, are more unwilling to ask others for help when they are locked out and would rather just sit and wait for their roommate then admit to an RA that they were stupid enough to lock their keys in their room. On the flip side, the all-female dorm, Stern Hall, had the highest lock out rate on campus, probably due to the fact that a large percentage of the rooms were singles which meant there was never a roommate to let you back in when you were a nimrod.
Now, back to my story... on weekends the chore of letting people back in their rooms when they locked themselves out was taken on by a single person. This person was responsible for making themselves available to anyone in one of 10 buildings across three dorms: Bowles, Foothill or Stern who had locked themselves out.
In one day, I remember letting one Bowlesman into his room, one person from Foothill, and 8 people from Stern. And one of those people from Stern locked themselves out FOUR TIMES IN ONE DAY.
Bedtime rituals are about all I get with Harper on weekdays and they are sacred to me.
So what about other Voxers with kids? What does your child do that gives you a similar sense of parental euphoria?
What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why?
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.
Whatever my friend Cynthia tells me to, of course.
What's your musical horoscope? (Put your music player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up.) Inspired by Stephanie.
Thank god for Last.fm that can actually track this kind of crap for me.
- Simon and Garfunkel - Heart in New York
- Mark Mothersbaugh - Kite Flying Society
- Frank Sinatra - Mam'selle - as a kid I never thought I would like Frank. Boy was I wrong.
- Death Cab for Cutie - The New Year
- William Shatner - That's Me Trying
- John Lennon - Oh Yoko - from the Rushmore soundtrack
- Ennio Morricone - Carlotta - From The Mission soundtrack - truly one of the best contemporary scores in existence
- Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
- Bassnectar - Replentish - thanks to Rob for introducing me to this Rob J Jensen
- Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire
If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?
About a month ago I realized how long it had been since I actually watched Star Wars. I didn't care as much as I thought I would. But then last night I saw an ad on television for the new Star Wars DVD boxed set (with the original theatrical versions) and seeing the AT-ATs, and hearing the music made me want to pop in a DVD and go. But not any Star Wars movie: The Empire Strikes Back, which we all know is the best one.
Star Wars will never get old to me.
Now if only there was a way to keep Harper from seeing Episodes 1, 2 and 3... which never happened.
What are your personal memories of September 11th?
How can I possibly answer this question... easily? Just the sounds of the words "september eleventh" stir up this feeling.
But what I think about most, is how will I answer this question when Harper asks it? How will I explain it to him? How could I not explain this to him? Do I tell him as soon as I think he is old enough? How old is "old enough?" Do I wait till he learns about it in school? Probably not. I simply can't because the events of that day are at the root of so much of what is wrong in the world and country - things you can't avoid.
I am truly daunted by the responsibility of explaining that day to him.
Of course the only world he knows is a post-9/11 world. But maybe that is a good thing in the way that our generation was the first generation that really could look at the Vietnam War without bias, in such a way that we were able to see through the politics and the fear of the time and see the War for what it really was. Perhaps Harper will be a part of the generation that will even be able to teach me something about this time we live in because he will see it in a way I never could.
I can only hope. I can hope that one day we can look back as a nation upon the last five years with a focus, sanity and rationality that will allow us to overcome the very things about our country and our world that perhaps contributed to events leading up to September 11th, and every evil thing that has transpired since.
What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.
Most favorite word: serendipity.
Least favorite word: moist.
What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?
You think this is hot? Oh please.
Without a doubt in mind the most extreme weather I have been in was in Asia. First was Thailand where I learned the true meaning of the phrase "sweating through your clothes." While treking in Chaing Mai I was literally dretched head to toe in sweat. It was insane.
And just when Arin and I thought it couldn't get any hotter we landed in Cambodia. As we exited the plane it felt as if we hit a wall as we felt the hottest air on the planet. While we were visiting Ankor Wat we woke up at 5:00am just so that we could get to the monuments by 6:00am. Then at around 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning you have to return to your hotel to seek shelter from the blistering sun. Then at 2:00am or so you would venture out to see the ruins again until the sun set.
Oh yeah, and then it would rain. And I don't mean, "hey look honey, the rain is beautiful" - I mean, "holy shit honey, we are going to get washed away at any moment" rain.
And just when we thought it could get any hotter we went to Vietnam. Remember Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams making jokes about the little men in orange robes bursting into flames it was so hot?
He wasn't joking.
It was so hot in Hoi An that it felt like our skin was literally catching on fire. It sounds melodramatic, but holy crap - it was seering hot. We got sun burned through 60 SPF sun screen in 30 minutes. It was unholy hot.
So while I will be the first to complain about the incredible temperatures in the Bay Area right now, I am always reminding myself, that this is nothing.
What's one thing that you hope to do or accomplish before the end of this year?
Release Test Run. It has been a labor of love for too long without being 100% complete.
What's the most recent vivid dream or nightmare that you remember?
Just the other night I had a dream that woke me up in the middle of the night, and kept me up for hours. Bare with me, as I tend to dream in wide-screen.
I was staying in hotel somewhere in New York. I was there for work, but Arin and Harper were with me. A fire alarm went off. We made our way to the lobby and noticed smoke coming from one of the ball rooms and a ton of what I assumed were wedding guests pouring out of the room. Curiosity got the best of me and I went to go look. I did see smoke, but I didn't see a fire. Oh well. We made our way outside, where buses were waiting to pick everyone up.
I thought this to be weird. Busses? Again, "oh well," I thought. As I was about to fall in line I realized I had left my laptop, not to mention everything else I owned upstairs. I grabbed Arin, who was holding Harper and told her it would only take a second, and the buses would still be here. Plus judging by the hotel, everything was really fine. In fact, other then the fact that there were buses everywhere, the hotel looked perfectly normal. One would never suspect it to be on fire.
Seeing no better opportunity I headed back inside the hotel. It was deserted. Totally empty. It was eary quite hotestly. But more odd was was the fact that there was no smoke in the air, and looking down the hallway, I saw no smoke coming from the ball room I was just in moments before. Again, I was puzzled because I never remember seeing firemen - so how did the fire get put out? And even if it was out, why weren't there firemen everywhere anyways? Why wasn't anyone telling me to get the hell out of the building?
We started back to our room. We got in the elevator.
Ding.
We arrived at our floor. The doors opened and we walked down the hall and entered our room. I looked outside at the New York City skyline and down at the courtyard of the hotel where guests continued to file into buses and buses were pulling away from the curb.
Then I heard a distinct rumble. The kind made by a jet flying low to the ground. The glass began to shake and I saw a fighter jet scream by the hotel - practically at eye level. It was a couple of hundred yards away. My heart raced the way a little boy's heart races when they go to an air show the first time.
The thought, "why is there a military jet flying through the middle of the city" had barely entered my mind when I realized what was happening. I quickly turned on the television to CNN. There was a breaking news story already underway. It showed a picture of New York - I didn't understand what the reporter was saying, but the words "terrorist attack" and "New York" were clearly visible in the ticker scrolling by at the bottom of the screen.
Then another rumble - it was another jet. I turned back around and scanned the sky for where the sound might be coming from. The jet zipped by, but at a much slower slower speed then the last one. This jet from what I could tell looked as if it was trying to avoid something. I looked back at the television. It was surreal seeing on TV what I was just looking at through my window. There was the jet, but from the vantage point of the camera I could see that it wasn't trying to avoid something, it was chasing something. And it was firing.
Then out the window I saw what it was firing at: a missle flying at low altitude. A big missle. I could see the muzzle flare of the fighter jet's machine guns firing away.
Then the missle arched up suddenly and then started to pitch back down at the earth.
Then the gravity of what was happening finally hit me.
I muffled a scream and I ran to grab Arin. We had no time. She had yet to put the pieces together, or was simply in denial - I couldn't tell. She kept screaming at me, "what is going on?" And frantically asking, "what is happening!?" I pulled her into the bathroom and yelled at her to get into the bath tub. There was no room for me. I looked out the window in the bathroom in time to see the missle now disappear behind some buildings a mile or two away.
I thought to myself that we were lucky. That it is doubtful the explosion could harm us from so far away. Surely the buildings would act as a shield of some kind. All we had to do was hold tight for a little longer.
A flash.
A plume of smoke and a fireball slowly emerging above the silhouette of the buildings in the distance. Then I could hear a rumble... and then I could feel it. The glass was shaking ever so slightly... and then I could see creeping towards us, a fire, as one building after another became engulfed in flames. It was almost in slow motion, but not quite. The fire was not spreading the way I thought a fire would normally. The fire was pushing itself through the city.
People in the hotel courtyard were running.
The fire was now two blocks away. I could see the windows shattering as the fire engulfed the building in flame.
I grabbed Arin and pushed her head down into the tub. I told her to hold Harper tight.
She way crying, she was still asking, "what is happening?!"
I looked back out the window. The fire was now across the street. I could see it pushing itself towards the hotel. I curled up into a ball by the side of the tub, and placed my hand over the edge and into the tub to touch Arin.
"I love you both" I screamed as quickly as I could - I wanted to make sure I said the words completely because I didn't know how much time we had.
I looked up, the fire was at the window - the glass was breaking.
I screamed, "we're dead!"
And I woke up.
Scariest fucking dream I have had in a long, long time. I can't impress upon you how real it seemed.
It made me think of all the things we are unprepared for. Earthquakes, catastrophe, you-name-it. And it made me worry about being away from Arin and Harper if something catastrophic did happen. It made me scared for what I would do, what we would do.
It still scares me.
