Pray For Rain
Art 1101W runs until 10pm on Wednesday. That’s four hours of trying to stay awake in a dark room while a smooth-voiced professor talks quietly about art. Like most of my classes, it’s a fight for consciousness. Nothing against the class, but I could have the art book in the bathroom for a week and get all the way through it. Actually, that’s not a bad idea.
During the seventh inning stretch of the class it started pouring. If you live here in Mineapolis you probably heard or saw the impressive thunderstorm that stopped by to knock down trees and power lines. As class ended I called home to inquire about a ride, but the rain seemed to stop, so I threw caution to the wind and jumped on my bike. Riding at night on wet streets lends a special feeling to the commute. Spray from my front tire leapt into the beam of my headlight as a continuous fountain.
Unfortunately another deluge hit just after I crossed Broadway. I slipped into shelter at the EZ Stop. Stan picked me up from there, but the rain seemed to let up as soon as I got my bike into the back of the station wagon. The drive up Johnson was eerie. Traffic was absent and the shops slept in silent blankets of darkness. Our headlights seemed to disappear and buildings slid away into fuzzy blackness as we swept by. One of the branches of one of the elm trees bearing an orange “X” on our street was blocking the entire width of Ulysses. At least the power was on by the time I got home.
My beer at the Nomad was a little disappointing. The bartender carded me with a serious look in his eye, but my Beamish was pulled hurriedly. Only a handful of patrons stood amidst the bar stools. No music was cued up, or the music was too quiet. I couldn’t quite get settled, so I drank up and headed to the deli to pick up my gyro. I got a shocked look when I responded that yes, indeed, I did want all the hot sauce that was offered, but it was worth it because that gyro was spectacular. My bike and I shared some of the cucumber sauce. It’s a good thing that it rained, because I didn’t quite get all of the sauce wiped off of the bike before parking it.
Tonight Zach and I went to Stub and Herbs. He had a beer and and I had an Summit Oatmeal Stout and the flavorless pasta special. We managed to talk for a bit about the Whittier project. I think that I am going to have to bust out some prototype code for restaurant location management and mapping to get the ball rolling. Imagine Google Local but more specialized: neighborhood (and/or city) specific, with hand-tagged data, and with a focus on restaurants and bars.
Before I get to work on another web project I have to work on homework and some sort of Gallery stuff. At work I will be making a new site that blends text posts with image, video, and sound management. I think. Maybe.
P.S.: I wrote this entire post in class, and I have answered so many of the teacher’s questions that he called me a kiss up, despite the fact that I have been mostly ignoring the teacher for two hours. Did he not notice the laptop on which I have been furiously typing?