Goodbye Kentucky!

This will be my last post from the Commonwealth.

Time for a new blog title. Hmm…

The blog has been silent because I have been packing. And cleaning. And in the midst of the stress of moving, my 60 lb pitbull has decided he’s a lap dog.

Saturday night, I took a break to go to a BBQ hosted by one of the first year grad students. We got to talking about the crazy way people pronounce words around here.

Kentucky Pronunciation Guide

Athens = eh-thens

Versailles = ver-sails

Chinoe (my personal favorite) = shin-oh-way

The BBQ was good time, but afterwards they persuaded me to head out to the Fish Tank. There was some sort of hippie-reggae-rock band playing, and they were loud. And awful. The people in the bar were a strange crowd – a mix of 40-something hippies and preppy college kids. All were drunk, and we guestimated (by the dancing) that approximately 80% of the crowd was high, 25% hadn’t showered that day. Oh man.

In honor of my last day, my super-fantastic boss invited the students in the lab and my friends, Josh and Bill out for pizza dinner at Mellow Mushroom. It was delicious, and a nice way to wrap up my year in Kentucky.

The Green River Lake Bug

Josh and Kim and their friends Jeff and Liz took me with them to Green River Lake (about an hour south of Lexington) on Sunday. Jeff’s mom’s fiance let us borrow his new speed boat for the day, and we had a great time sitting out on the boat. I even tried wake boarding (although, I wasn’t able to get up). It’s harder than it looks. Here are some pics:

Green River Lake 9-16-07

I think the excessive amounts of water up my nose from my wakeboarding attempts may have given me a sinus infection (or maybe the moving-induced stress has weakened my immune system).  I am in a whole world of sinus/ear pain.  Oh man.  And the phenylephrine that they now put in cold medicine doesn’t do much.  I ran to Walgreens today to beg the pharmacist for pseudoephedrine, and I was not only looked over to determine whether I was a methamphetamine user, I was also informed that the phenylephrine is an “isomer” of psedoephedrine (which it is NOT) and I was interviewed for a complete list of my symptoms so that they could determine what to give me (apparently asking for something with pseudoephedrine in it is not specific enough).  Then, I handed over my license and signed my life away.  Bye bye privacy, hello cold medication.  Thank you, meth makers, for completely taking the fun out of buying NyQuil.

$110 in 20 minutes

7 cars at $15 a piece.  Not bad. 

 

I love college football.

Barley is not impressed, as evidenced by his uncontrollable firework-induced shaking.

 UK won!  And I am happy to report that unlike Minnesota students after a winning hockey game, these kids don’t riot after their team wins.

a special goodbye treat

As I was packing up my desk today (our lab is moving from the 2nd to the 4th floor of the building we’re in), I noticed a little surprise under the desk.

It was a mouse!

Don’t worry, it was smooshed in the spring-loaded trap that killed it.  I was informed that I had to pick it up and throw it away (thank goodness there were gloves handy).  Even worse, I was expected to pull the mouse out of the trap, reset the trap, and put it back under my desk.

Does anyone else find that a little ridiculous?

(FYI: I donned lab gloves and threw out the entire trap.  You can’t tell me that the University doesn’t have $0.20 to buy a new trap – especially since I’ve got their rodent extermination costs covered.)

I’m going to file this one under things I hope I don’t have to do at my new job.

shocking things i learned today

Look what they’ve done to Monopoly:

They’ve changed it so that you don’t even get to use the play money anymore – you use debit cards.   I can’t help but think this is a bad idea in a society that is plagued with credit card debt.

Another bad idea?  Flavor of Love, Season 3.  Starring Flavor Flav and 20 trashy chicks.  You know I’m going to waste hours watching this crap.