Remember senior year of high school? Remember applying to various colleges and universities, perfecting essays, taking multitudes of standardized tests? Remember the anticipation and anxiety while waiting to receive admission decisions? Well, then certainly you, dear readers, must remember the Golden Rule of letters from schools: thin envelope = bad, thick envelope = good.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about taking a test from Mensa to see if I qualified for membership. Today, I received an envelope in the mail from American Mensa – and it was thick. “Congratulations!” the enclosed letter began. “Your Mensa Admissions test has been scored and, based on the percentile rank, you qualify for admission to Mensa.” Well, great: I feel vindicated now – I didn’t buy the world’s most expensive fifth of water!

To celebrate, I decided to purchase a new dictionary. All of my previous dictionaries have been relatively small (roughly 70,000 entries), so I’ve always resorted to Dictionary.com for definitions to obscure words. However, there is a certain warm intimacy present in a physical book that a web site lacks. With that in mind, I went to Barnes and Noble (the brick-and-mortar version, not the web site) and found “Webster’s Universal Encyclopedic Dictionary,” which, based on the copyright information, appears to be a Barnes and Noble printing of a Merriam-Webster dictionary. I knew I had found the perfect dictionary when I saw that the entry for “euphonium” included a line-art drawing; the 330,000 other entries helped seal the deal.

Other random stuff from the past week: I went on a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi, complete with catered dinner, courtesy of Medtronic. I had lunch with the Medtronic Neuro Division president. I played hockey again on Thursday. This article is amusing, especially in light of the Ways and Means tiff last week. Minufo posted a link to the Political Compass Quiz, which I found rather interesting. In case you were wondering, I’m at (1.12, -4.21). It appears that Aymond might be coming back to Rose, which would be cool. Voda is stirring things up. Hmmm… what else… Well, how about we finish with a cartoon? Aw, crap: It looks like Doonesbury, my favorite comic strip, has sold out to Slate and the archive is fubar, so I can’t link to the strip I wanted. D’oh! Amuse yourself with Dilbert instead.

After many months of searching, I finally have replacement brake lines for the Pike 1949 Maxim fire truck. A long time ago – was it September? – several of my Brothers were driving the truck around the grounds when the brakes failed. It is unclear whether the brake line was severed by the resulting crash or whether the severed line caused the crash. Either way, the fire truck got well acquainted with a medium-sized wooden plant. That relationship left nobody satisfied, as the outcome was a bent bumper and a horizontal tree.

The ensuing hunt for replacement brake lines proved more arduous than even the protracted quest for a clutch master cylinder, which we needed to fix our other fire truck. While I found the clutch master cylinder after only three months of searching, the brake lines have proven enigmatic – until now.

During my jaunt to Indiana, I picked up the severed brake lines for the Maxim. Earlier in the year, we determined that nobody in the Terre Haute area could help with replacement parts. Fed up with the ineptitude of the Terre Haute shops (I mean, one would think that a hydraulic hose shop would be able to make brake lines, but nooooo…), I took the severed lines home with me on the return leg of my weekend road trip. I brought them to Brake and Equipment Warehouse in Minneapolis, hoping that the required fittings were still in existence. Rob, in the Shop, said, “No problem!” and today I picked up two brand-new, custom-made brake hoses.

I’m looking forward to getting back to Rose to install the lines on the fire truck and play with the hydraulic ladder. Fun fun fun!

Last night, I gave hockey another try. This time, unlike last, there were a bunch of people there. Despite my lack of hockey skills, they were friendly and welcoming to me. I had a fun time, and I look forward to my next chance to play.

In following up on my previous statements about Uptown and the Lakes District, I decided to go to Lake Calhoun on Sunday. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny summer day. People young and old were at the lake, walking, running, biking, blading, playing volleyball, sailing – enjoying all that summer has to offer. I did a lap around the lake – in my car – and decided that I wanted to get outside and do something too. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my bike with me, so I went home and settled for a ride around Maple Grove. That sort of relates to one of my unwritten goals. I’ve been fairly ambitious as of late in trying new things. I generally express these ‘things’ as goals. You’re probably getting sick of hearing about these goal lists so often, but, hey, I’ll say what I please.

Anyhow, the newest additions to the goal list, ranging from the material to the ideal, are:

• Become a liquor connoisseur. I imagine that the best way to learn the difference between a fine spirit and mediocre booze is to take a class. In the meantime, I’ve started a small collection, based primarily on the visual appeal of the bottles and opinions expressed on epinions. The problem I see is that, for the most part, I’m not a big fan of the taste, or really even of the induced feeling. For me, I’d rather sip on a fine cognac (well, not quite as fine as I previously considered, but then not some V.S. monstrosity either).
• Figure out how best to apply my engineering education. The more I see of the business world, the more I realize how versatile Electrical Engineers are. I enjoy playing with, designing, and building technology, but sometimes I wonder if it is not merely a means to an end. What is my true calling? I am searching.
• Identify the organizations I would like to be involved with following my entrance into the “real world.” I definitely want to become active in Scouting again. I want to pass on the knowledge and experiences I treasured along my journey to Eagle Scout. I want to become involved in some sort of amateur road racing club, be it with sports cars or sport bikes. I want to become involved in business and politics. I want to read more. I want to write a book. I want to lead a fulfilling life. I want to change other people’s lives for the better. Now, the challenge lies in changing “I want” into “I will” along the path to “I have” and “I am.”

As I have mentioned in the past, I have several short-term goals relating to new experiences and skills. I have made progress on some of those topics, such as snowboarding, but others have been heretofore stalled.

Several weeks ago, Mutak informed me of a casual roller hockey club in the Twin Cities. I found the prospects of a relaxed atmosphere to learn hockey appealing but had some reservations about potentially making a fool of myself. My hockey experience is practically nonexistent, and I don’t like being bad at something, especially in public. However, I finally accepted that there is no way to get good at something without first being bad at it. Learning new physical activities won’t get any easier as I age, in fact the contrary is most likely, therefore I made the decision last week to get involved with hockey.

I became, as Mutak so eloquently phrased it, “fiscally vested” in the sport following several trips to local sporting goods retailers. Properly equipped, I headed to the arena on Thursday night, expecting to play an informal game with the rest of the club. I was somewhat surprised to find only three other people at the rink, especially since there were no less than a score present when I stopped by weeks earlier to check things out. In hindsight, the lack of people was a benefit: I had plenty of space to skate around and only limited potential for embarrassment. It was fun, and I look forward to doing it again, although I hope more people show up.

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So, after that little soiree, I decided to purchase a start fruit. “Star-what?” you say? Star fruit. It vaguely resembles a football, is about the size of a pear, and has deep ridges that run the length of the fruit. When cut across the longitudinal axis, the halves have a profile in the shape of a five-point star.

When I set out, I originally wanted to buy a passion fruit. Unfortunately, passion fruit must not be in season, since Byerly’s did not stock them. Hence, I swung towards another fruit I had never tried, the aforementioned star fruit. I made the purchase ($4.00 for one star fruit. Yikes!) and brought it home, cradling it in my lap, lest it be bruised by a rapid turn or stop.

Once at my abode, I carefully rinsed and dried the fruit, cut it into slices, and took a bite. The taste was… anticlimactic. It tasted somewhat tart, with a thin skin and firm yet yielding texture. In fact, it tasted almost exactly like a Granny Smith apple. Yup, an apple, except it had that neat star shape. Man, was that ever a let-down. Here I was, expecting some sort of zen fruit experience, and all I get is an expensive, star-shaped apple. Live and learn, I guess. Despite the star fruit disappointment, I am still keen on finding and trying a passion fruit. Surely, with a name like “passion fruit,” it must be utopian.

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In a previous post, I claimed Lincoln Park is a peer to Minneapolis’ Uptown. Mutak refuted this idea in a comment (though ironically he caused the comparison in the first place, thanks to a discussion at Kahn’s). I responded in the same comment thread, defending Uptown as trendy, affluent, and clean. However, the exchange got me thinking, so I took a quick trip to Uptown to reassure myself that it exists in reality as it does in my memory.

With that quick jaunt and my stay in Lincoln Park still fresh in mind, I would like to alter my Uptown defense with several caveats. Yes, Uptown is nice, but the really nice parts are between Lake and Lagoon along Hennepin. No, Uptown is nowhere near the size of Lincoln Park, neither in acreage nor building height. I concede that Uptown is more ‘bohemian’ than Lincoln Park, but I don’t see that as a fault, but rather as a different expression of character. One similarity between the two neighborhoods that I failed to mention before is the absence of parking space. So, in conclusion, Uptown is not a Lincoln Park wannabe, but it’s the closest thing Minneapolis has to a trendy city locality.

My commenting system has a slightly cleaner look now, so try it out!

Also, my blogroll is now competitively sorted. The question is, what’s the criterion? (Cue Jeopardy music)

Enough of this administrative stuff; look for a real post late on Saturday.

LATE UPDATE: One more new feature: an XML RSS feed. I haven’t verified that the output is usable, but everything looks pretty good.