Incidentally, preliminary research also suggests that if I'm going to haul my ass all the way to Vegas, I'll stay until July 6th. Which means, since the reunion ends on like the 1st, I'd be delighted to have stateside family and friends join me out there for the remainder of that time.

I have received word that my tenth high school reunion will be June 30th, 2006, in Las Vegas. No, I didn't go to school in Las Vegas, but it's a very popular place for Hawaii high school reunions, particularly for my school. The reason being that (a) most of my classmates were also military brats, and ended up coming back to the mainland after high school, and (b) every resident of Hawaii loves Vegas. Unfortunately, they ("they" being the two people who actually were good enough to get this thing off the ground) figured the Best Western as being the best place for the reunion. Which I suppose makes sense, since it does cost a lot of money for people to go to Vegas. And I can get just as sloshed at the Best Western as I can at the Bellagio, and probably lose less money doing it. However, a couple friends and I are probably going to stay somewhere on or close to the strip. Preliminary research (i.e., spending 5 minutes on Expedia.com) suggests that Treasure Island and Monte Carlo would be the most economical yet decent alternatives. (I'd love to stay at the Hard Rock, but it's a bit out of my price range.) Anyone who might have any knowledge of Vegas and happen to be reading this (and maybe know where I can get a good deal on a nice room), feel free to throw out your recommendations.

Bad news for my brother's marathon aspirations. I just redid my own marathon calculations, using my latest numbers. Ran 6mi at an 8:06 pace yesterday, and 3mi at a 7:55 pace today. Came up with the following:

Let pace = v
Let distance = x
Assume v is a function of x (as opposed to a function of time).

Assume (∆v/∆x) is linear. Because I don’t feel like doing calculus.

v_3mi = 7:55 = 475 sec/mi
v_6mi = 8:06 = 486 sec/mi

∆x = (6mi – 3mi) = 3mi
∆v = (486 sec/mi – 475 sec/mi) = 11 sec/mi

So it’s pretty easy to figure (∆v/∆x) = 11/3 sec/mi²

Assuming a straight linear function (y = mx + b), 11/3 will obviously be the slope of the line (m).

So y = 11/3x + b

Substituting to solve for b:

475 = (11/3)(3) + b (alternately, 486 = (11/3)(6) + b)

Therefore b = 464 (yes, for either substitution; that’s why we call it “linear.”)

So for a marathon, (x = 26.2 mi), solve for y (v_26.2mi):

v_26.2mi = (11/3)(26.2) + 464 = 8401/15 sec/mi

Which works out to a 9:20 pace over the course of the run.

Which means a time of 4hrs 4min 32sec for the marathon. Not quite as impressive.

The only problem with using a linear function is that the fastest I could ever run would be a 464sec/mi pace, which is like a 7:44. Which means that it'd take me over 26 seconds to run 10 yards.

Remind me again why I don't have a hot Italian girlfriend?

In other happy news, Tom Delay got himself indicted. Hey, it's a grand jury from TEXAS for crying out loud...how can you possibly cry "Democratic conspiracy"?

In other less happy news, some group of conservative House Republicans calling themselves the "Republican Study Committee" are rolling out a plan called Operation Offset in order to pay for hurricane relief efforts by making spending cuts in other areas. Now, I'm all for fiscal responsibility, but let's see what kind of things these guys want to cut...:
-Eliminate Subsidized Loans to Graduate Students (hey, who needs scientists and doctors anyway? They'll probably just teach our kids about that evil theory of evolution.)
-Increase Medicare Part B Premium from 25% to 30% (who needs old people?)
-Eliminate all kinds of foreign aid, and level expenditures on the Peace Corps and the Global Aids initiative. (We can bomb the bejeezus out of 'em, but heaven forbid we give them a little cash to feed their kids and raise them to the standard of living of a decent, peaceful nation. My favorite quote from this section: "Current military obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including U.S. peacekeeping efforts in the region, are not deducted from what the U.N. assesses the U.S. in dues." Maybe because the UN said, "hey, we don't think you should invade Iraq?")
And it just goes on and on, getting rid of things like the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Program, community grants for energy conservation, federal grants for wastewater infrastructure, NASA's moon/Mars initiative (which I think is just a cool idea), the Neighboorhood Reinvestment Corporation, National Parks Heritage Areas, the Minority Business Development Agency, grants for Safe and Drug Free Schools, the teen portion of Title X Family Planning, funding for AmeriCorps, federal fiscal assitance to DC, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (you know, the $3 you can check on your 1040 form for the closest thing we have to fair campaign financing), federal funding for PBS ("CPB and PBS continue to use federal funding to pay for questionable programming, such as a documentary on sex education funded by the Playboy Foundation," which confuses me, since, if it was funded by the Playboy Foundation, how did federal money pay for it?), funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and so on and so forth to the point of making me ill. They also want to reduce funding for a number if useful environmental and social programs. (If I worked for some sort of national non-profit organization dedicated to the well-being of our nation's children, that list up there would set off some bells and whistles in my head....)

Basically, if any program is a semi-worthwhile investment in the country's future or culture, it seems to have made the list. And to be fair, there are some things on their plan that deserve to be cut. And a lot of things that deserve at least a good heated debate about their value. But to try and pass off this agenda as part of hurricane relief? Disgusting.

Hm...just re-read this. I'm getting more and more liberal in my old age.

Just got done watching the nightly fireworks display in my backyard. It's pretty cool--happens at least 2, usually 3, sometimes 4 or 5 nights a week. So long as it doesn't happen after I go to bed, I usually go outside to watch. I've seen it enough times now to realize that it's pretty much the same display every time. Or at least, the finale is the same every time. But it's still worth watching. Of course, it makes all the car alarms in the neighborhood go off because it's so loud. But it's yet another reason to come visit me.

Finally, Internet at home. Just like a regular, civilized person. Of course, I still don't have TV. Although the more I think about it, the more I may just not get TV. Turns out radio is pretty good. One of the AFN radio stations broadcasts NPR every night from 8-midnight, so I get my full dose of "Talk of the Nation" and "All Things Considered" every evening from dinnertime on. And I can read while I listen. I just feel so stinkin' intellectual.

I should be joining the regular Internet world again shortly. The other night, my landlord came over to fix my front porch light (naturally bringing along a plate of chicken for me) and I asked if he knew a good place to go for DSL. Turns out his brother-in-law, who lives upstairs from me, works for Telecom Italia, the national phone company. So twenty minutes and three phone calls later, he tells me it'll be e20 a month, and my package should be here within ten days with my DSL modem and filter. It arrived yesterday, but for some reason it's not getting any signal, so I'm going to have to ask my landlord to figure out what's up.

Went to Oktoberfest on Friday. Well, the toned-down version of it. The Germans at the NATO base here put it on every year, and they did a great job. And by, "great job" I mean, "there was a ton of cheap, good beer and a lot of bratwurst." And some music and other cultural stuff.

Of course, I'm sure it was nothing compared to Colchester's "57 Fest."

Ran six miles yesterday evening, at the same pace that I normally run for three miles. So taking those two data points and extrapolating out, I've mathematically determined that I can run an 8:12 mile for an infinite distance (meaning I could run a marathon in 3:34:54.4). Right?

Had a rather interesting multicultural experience last night. Karaoke with American songs in an Irish pub in Italy. First of all, the only thing Irish about the pub is that it had a lot of dark wood, a painting of Ireland on the ceiling, and a really good beer selection. Which, really, is all you need to be an Irish pub in my book. No Irish people to be seen, though (although supposedly on the first Thursday of the month they have traditional Celtic music and traditional Irish dishes, so I'll have to check that one out). So we go in there and we grab a seat near the giant TV showing the soccer game because it's the closest thing to real football we can get. And after about ten minutes, the DJ turns off the game and fire up the karaoke machine. Turns out the DJ does most of the singing. He actually did a couple Italian songs, then found out he had a group of Americans in the crowd, so he switched over to some songs in English. And of course, he picked one of the worst songs I could ever imagine for karaoke (or for listening to)--Michael Jackson's "You are not Alone." Ouch. Then he made one of the guys in our group get up and sing with him, much to our amusement (although apparently he used to sing in the Glee Club at the Naval Academy, so he did pretty well). It was very entertaining.

Went to a birthday party on Saturday. For a one-year old kid. He seemed to be having a good time. Mostly I went so I could play with the big slobbery dogs that a couple people brought with them. Also managed to get in a couple pretty serious games of bocci.

I'm delinquent in posting it, but my great-grandmother, a pretty impressive lady, passed away on Saturday. My brother has the obituary and a very nice photo tribute.

She was a ripe old 93, so it's not like it was unexpected. But it's still sad. She still lived on her own in her old little cottage until about two months ago--adamantly refused to let anybody move her out of there until she was just too weak to stay. And she always had her fridge stocked with Budweiser (mostly for herself, even in her 90s) (although I was recently informed that she upgraded from Schafer sometime in the 1980s). And every year without fail, including this year, she always sent me a card for my birthday with a check for $10 scrawled out in her nearly-illegible old-lady handwriting. And she always apologized that it couldn't be more, but she had to give all the great-grandkids the same amount, see. And of course once I got too old to feel like I should be taking my great-grandmother's money, I wouldn't cash the checks. And then the next time I visited or called, she'd scold me for not cashing it yet, because I was messing up her accounting and how could she balance the checkbook, and so I'd feel guilty and go deposit it. She could be pretty fiesty when she wanted to be.

Kick some ass up there, Great-Grandma. Say hi to Pop for me.

I have the best neighbors ever in the history of neighbors. My landlord's sister and her family live in the apartment above mine, which means their balcony is right over mine. They have a basket attached to a rope that I guess they use to pass things up and down from the ground to their balcony. Turns out it's a pretty useful device. In that last night, they used it to pass me down a very nice, very large salad. And the night before, they used it to pass me down desert. I could get used to this. I think they invited me to go out to pizza with them sometime this week. I think.

F-ing blog spammers. I had to turn word verification on for people making comments to keep stupid crap like the responses to the last post from popping up. Hopefully this works. And doesn't deter people from commenting.

That's wierd. I'm logging on from the library and for the first time ever, Blogger is talking to me in Italian.

And the librarian says time to leave.

Got another free dinner last night from the neighbors, for mowing my lawn. Which I thought I had agreed to do anyway.

So I get home last night at like 7, exhausted from killing myself at the gym and running all kinds of errands. As I'm opening my shutters and windows, I'm thinking to myself that the last thing I want to do is go to the trouble of making dinner. So as I'm thinking this, I hear out my back door, "Chreeeees" (which is Italian for "Chris"). And over walks the Italian grandmother from next door with a nice bowl of pasta. And some kind of desert. Not sure what it was, but it was some sort of fudge/cake/something, and it had roughly the same density as a block of lead. Or maybe a black hole. It was all nice and chocolaty until I swallowed it and felt it go "clunk" to the bottom of my stomach. I could only eat like 3 bites. It's like the size of a Snickers bar and it'll last me for a week.

Spent the holiday weekend in Florence. It was awesome. You should all go. It's exactly what you picture when you think, "I'm going to vacation in Italy." Great art, nice little piazzas, great restaurants on the banks of the river, cool bridges, Pinocchio, etc. Oh, and hundreds of American and British college students studying abroad, which makes the nightlife that much more fun. Bought a reproduction of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" to hang on my wall; it's being framed at the moment. Because nothing says, "I'm a classy guy with a kick-ass bachelor pad" like having naked Italian art on the wall over your projection TV.

Turns out the wine is pretty good up there, too.

Safely back ashore after my less-than-exciting sea voyage last week. It was a nice homecoming; my landlord and his family had come back from vacation and they were very happy to see me. I guess the landlord's mom had told them that I had been doing yardwork, so while I was gone, they came over and finished sprucing up the garden for me. Which I thought was very nice of them. It's actually a lot of fun living there with all these people around; I didn't realize there were quite so many people living in my building, so it gets noisy, but they're all very friendly. The landlord's sister, who lives upstairs from me, gave me a bottle of wine they had picked up in Sardinia. I guess I'll have to pick up some nice Chianti for them while I'm in Florence this weekend.

Got home at about 7 last night and there was music coming up from somewhere in the town at the bottom of the hill. Then at about 10, whatever was going on was capped by a spectacular fireworks display practically in my backyard. I asked my landlord what was going on, assuming it was some kind of festival or something. Turns out it was somebody's wedding. I wonder how much it costs to get your own personal fireworks display for our wedding. Because I'm so having fireworks when I get around to it.

Speaking of getting around to things, I've dropped 9 lbs in the last week and a half. I could probably lose more faster if I tried, say, South Beach. But let's face it...who wants to do the South Beach Diet in Italy? Practically impossible, I would think. And I'm not about to start cooking up some crappy whole wheat pasta with a German name on the label.

And speaking of German names, I'm going to Vienna for Columbus Day weekend. Turned out to be easier and (surprisingly) slightly cheaper than Prague.

Anyway, I'm heading off to Florence this afternoon. I promised my landlord I'd have a drink for him, so I'd better get going if I'm going to drink wine for him and me.