Last week dragged on a bit too long (between 6:20 a.m. Monday and 1:00 a.m. Thursday I got seven hours of sleep). Granted, most of the pressure came from procrastination on a major Digital Systems project (oops), but the non-stop barrage of 10th-week loose ends didn’t help things either.

So, in an effort to relax away from the pressures of school, I decided to grab a bite to eat with my new [fraternal] little brother, Vince. I thought that at one point I had overheard Kiefer mention a place called Pino’s under the context that it was a deli. I like delis, and Vince had no objection, so we proceeded on our merry way.

We arrived in the parking lot, opened the door, and immediately knew something was amiss. Everyone in the restaurant was dressed nicely. There was a live person playing soft music on a grand piano in the corner. Each place setting had multiple forks and a bread plate.

It turns out that Pino’s Il Sonetto is most definitely not a deli; in fact, it is one of the nicest restaurants in Terre Haute. I wanted to take Vince to a place a bit nicer than the usual Rose-Hulman ARA, but man, I really overshot the mark.

Surprisingly, even though we walked in waaaay underdressed (think jeans and t-shirt), they still served us. I looked at the menu and didn’t recognize anything. All of the entries had fancy Italian names, and even the English descriptions did little to apprise me of the culinary content. I sat befuddled for a moment before I ordered something that I think was made with chicken using a corrupt, anglicized pronunciation of the fine Italian name.

A short while later, I received my meal. I think it was some sort of chicken breast stuffed with Parmesan cheese, covered with some interpretation of tomato sauce. Whatever it was, it tasted good. That’s the important part, right? Vince went with the rib-eye steak, which I guess was very good as well. All the time while eating, we did our best to avoid committing a fine dining faux pas. For the most part, I think we were successful, but then again, we were already so out of place that I don’t think anybody would have noticed had we used the wrong fork or forgotten about the bread plate.

At the end, the bill confirmed yet again that we were not in a deli. Ah well. Now, if I find occasion to impress somebody with a fine restaurant, I will think of Pino’s Il Sonetto.

I’ve been quite busy with school and other activities as of late, but last weekend I found time to go to my Fraternity’s Halloween party. It’s been a running joke for the past year that I would go to this year’s party in costume as my roommate from last year, Scott “Minufo” Mollan.

And so, I did.

Two of my Brothers joined me, so we had a total of three fake Minufos and one real one. We followed all of the key visual cues: Plaid flannel pyjama pants, “boat shoes” without socks, red Fast Track t-shirt, glasses, and red chaotic hair. Of course, the costume wouldn’t be complete without an aural impersonation, so we added that too. You might be interested in seeing a photo or two of us. Can you guess which one is the real Minufo?

Our costumes seemed to go over well at the party, although nobody “got” the joke except for Brothers. That said, I had a fun time doing it. Now what will I be next year…

Many years ago, as a child, I asked my cousins to play “Duck Duck Gray Duck.” Instead of forming a circle and smiling with glee, they stared at me as if I had just asked them to play Gazordinplat (*see below). Imagine my shock when I found out that they all played “Duck Duck Goose” instead of the obviously correct “Duck Duck Gray Duck!”

Years later, when the topic came up again, I surmised that only Minnesotans play “Duck Duck Gray Duck,” whereas the other 49 states play “Duck Duck Goose.” Even the 51st state, Canada (eh?), plays the Goose corruption.

Now that I live most of the year in Indiana, I often need to defend the Gray Duck tradition against Goose insurgents. Unlike the great soda vs. pop debate, Minnesotans fight a lonely battle on the Gray Duck – Goose battlefield. Fortunately, all true Gopher-state natives will vehemently oppose any uprising against this polarizing game. Encounters between Minnesota zealots and ‘those other guys’ can turn messy, as more than one cafeteria food melee has shown. I hypothesize that the source of the rift can be traced back to the childhood story, “The Ugly Duckling.”

In “The Ugly Duckling,” a gray duckling finds itself in a duck’s nest, surrounded by yellow ducklings. The gray duckling is an outcast, even more so as the yellow ducklings develop into mature ducks. Eventually, the gray duckling discovers it isn’t a duck at all – rather, it is a swan. The swan is more refined than any of the ducks, and the story ends with a moral about not judging people by their looks.

Based on “The Ugly Duckling,” the gray duck is the oddball amongst yellow ducks. Hence, it would make sense to drop the ‘yellow’ moniker and call the true ducks, ducks. Therefore, we have a bunch of ducks and a single gray duck. Duck, duck, gray duck! Then where did goose come from? The rest of the world no doubt saw a picture of the gray duck when it grew up. Instead of recognizing the mature gray duck as a swan, the duck-duck-goose founders saw a goose. At which point, one of the founders, being from ‘down south,’ pulled his 12-gauge from the rack in the truck and blew a hole through the photograph. Well, maybe not the gun part. Unlikely scenario? Think you know your geese? Pop quiz: Which is correct: Candian Geese or Canada Geese? Yep, the latter is the proper version. This is not to imply that those playing duck-duck-goose think of the goose as a Canada Goose. In fact, the above factoid has nothing at all to do with my primary argument: that duck-duck-goose is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, the rest of the world seems not to agree.

So why doesn’t Minnesota change? We’re very zealous about our Minnesota-ness. Minnesotans, in general:

• Play duck-duck-gray-duck
• Drink pop
• Let slip an occasional, ‘ya know’
• Consider a foot of snow a light dusting
• Eat (or at least know of) bars, hot dish, and lutefisk
• Enjoy talking about Minnesota
• Go for vacations ‘up north’
• Consider 5 F ‘a bit cool’ and 85 F ‘really hot’
• Make fun of Iowa
• Respond to “Thanks!” with “You bet!”
• Know that the Vikings are always better than the Packers

After all, we have a book called “How to Talk Minnesotan.” Does your state? That’s what I thought.

So, Minnesotans, unite! Proclaim it often, proclaim it loud: Duck, Duck….. Gray Duck!

* For those of you scratching your heads, ‘gazordinplat’ is a made up word finding its roots in a “Garfield and Friends” cartoon episode. This page marks its first (and only) appearance on the World Wide Web

That’s right – it’s been exactly one month since my previous post. I’m still extremely busy, so here’s a quick update. I built a recessed bookcase. Classes started today; they are going well. Work is going well, and though I am finished working full time, I continue to put in a few hours per week. Rush starts next week. Too much to do!

This past week, the forum on my web site dedicated to the Pontiac Bonneville, www.BonnevilleClub.com, surpassed 2000 posts. At this rate, it should break the 3000 mark sometime in early September. We already have 147 registered members, a number of which seem to really appreciate the site. Knowing that I made something that can be enjoyed by so many gives me a good feeling.

As almost everyone reading this web site knows, I am a college student at Rose-Hulman. If you didn’t know this, I want to hear from you. Anyhow, college students tend to be tempting targets for credit card companies. The students think: “Wow, free money! I’ll spend now and pay it back when I get out of this school thing!” The credit card companies (a.k.a. CCC, not to be confused with the Civilian Conservation Corps., which ironically, also dealt with money and the lack thereof) think of students as nice juicy steaks. “Mmmm… there’s a filet mignon” is roughly translated to “Hey, that kid is living in a materialistic society and appears to be down with the current styles! Let’s hit him up for some debt!” Paradoxically, the more long-term debt [student loans] that one has, the better one’s credit rating, and thus one becomes an even more tempting prize for revolving-credit issuers.

I have a not-insignificant student loan debt (almost enough to buy that Porsche that I constantly lust for) so I am constantly stalked by big CCC’s. Let me tell you, having a multi-national conglomerate following you home is a hair-raising experience. It’s hard to overlook a forty-story office building with a company logo emblazoned on top when it’s peaking around the corner. I got my first credit card a short time after my 18th birthday. It had an absurdly low limit (a couple hundred dollars) a high interest rate (about 20%) and no perks other than a lack of annual fees. Despite the restrictions, I was happy. I was finally recognized as a player in the great American financial institution. I was a minion of Visa. For two years, all through freshman and sophomore terms, it was the only credit card I carried. I used the card occasionally, and with such a low limit, I never had a problem paying it off. Sure, I received many other offers in the mail, but none caught my eye. The overtures were usually loaded with strings: high interest rates, annual fees, low limits, no grace periods, fees for inactivity, security deposits – nothing that I wanted a part of. Two full years went by, until one day I got a letter from one of my student loan banks. The proposition was sound: no annual fee, no fine-print “gotchyas,” an interest rate half of that with my other card, and a credit limit an order of magnitude higher than my then-beloved Visa. I applied and thus received my first Visa Platinum card. I promptly cancelled my old card and stuck the new plastic in my wallet.

Okay, so I did it mostly for the status symbol. Frankly, plunking the Platinum down at Bar Abilene is a whole lot cooler than a boring debit card. The Platinum is all shiny and silvery and, for some reason, tends to give the impression that you’re making it in the world. It’s not a store card, regular Visa/MC, or even Gold card: it’s platinum.

I continued to receive card offers by mail. In the month after I left Minnesota, I acquired nine credit card offers: one GM card, one Discover Gold card, one pre-approval for the Discover Platinum card (same day as the Discover Gold card), one Platinum MasterCard, one Platinum Visa, one Gold MasterCard, and a Visa business card from my former card issuer. Whew… that’s a lot of paper. Into the shredder it all went. My single Platinum Visa would need to stay lonely in my wallet.

But wait! What’s that an ad for? Blue from American Express? Ooo… the coolness factor is sky-high on that one. I need to get it; it just looks so neat! Browse on over to AmEx/blue … apply … Woohoo, accepted! Of course, I went for the full, regular Blue, not the Student Blue. The normal Blue looks better than the Student (clear as opposed to white). A week later, The Card arrived in the mail. (AmEx refers to all of their credit/charge cards as singular proper nouns, similar to The Artist except with more plastic.) I needed to get some stuff to spiff up my room, so I thought I’d give The Card a test drive.

Skip ahead to the Menard’s checkout line. I have a trendy cable-track halogen light system under my arm and The Card in my hand. I am feeling quite effervescent as I hand over The Card to pay, when I feel the blow of six words: “Sorry, we don’t take American Express.” D’oh! Gotta save face – maybe I can still impress the chick working the till. Out comes the Platinum. She rings it through and completes the transaction.

The following day, I decide that I need more low-voltage halogen lights. I still have yet to use The Card, so I head over to Lowe’s. I approach the register with various halogen lamps, electrical wire, wire nuts, tools, screws, faceplates, gang boxes, and switches in my basket. I have The Card in hand but the Platinum nearby. The clerk rings through my purchase. I present The Card. Without a word of rejection, she swipes it through. “Cool card” she remarks. “I’ve never seen one like that before.” “Thanks,” I reply, tacking on a smile. She returns the smile, hands over the receipt, and we part ways. I repeat the experience later at Ace Hardware. It seems that the ladies are fond of The Card. Hmmm… Maybe AmEx should emphasize this in their advertising campaign.

As I mentioned above, I bought several strands of Halogen lights for use in my room at the Pike House. One was a cable-track light system (similar to Mutak’s) while the other three were under-cabinet strands. I mounted the cable lights near the ceiling for an indirect glow. The cabinet lights found home underneath my loft. In all, there are now twelve 20-watt halogen bulbs burning in my room, three per strand. Of course, lights need electricity to work, so I drilled holes, mounted boxes, and ran line so that everything is powered in a neat, orderly fashion. At the same time, I eliminated a hodgepodge of extension cords and power strips that had been in place for the better part of a year. The room looks much cleaner and brighter now that the installation is complete. I’ll post photos as soon as I get new batteries for my digital camera.

The lights were only phase one of my master plan for the room. Phase two involves installing more storage nooks (shelves, book cases, dressers) and acquiring a decent couch. Phase three might mean repainting the room, getting a T.V., and further improving the lighting situation. Phase four is to take over the wo… But wait, what would I do tomorrow night?

Two hours, 1200 words, and an intervening load of laundry, and this post is finally drawing to a close. I keep a list of things I want to write about, and this week, here are some quick thoughts about things that didn’t make it into the main post: Last Thursday, I was so hungry that I ate at Arby’s. I enjoyed one of their heavily-promoted Market Fresh sandwiches which, surprisingly, tasted reasonably good. Arby’s takes Visa and MasterCard, but not The Card. This weekend the Brickyard 400 stormed into Indiana. Judging from the traffic, I think every man, woman, and child who considers himself a Hoosier converged on Indianapolis for the race. No word on whether or not the Brickyard takes The Card. The Simpsons, my favorite T.V. show, continues to get better after a pitiful Season 12. Due to scheduling conflicts, I missed most of the last episodes of Season 13. Due to the poor quality of Season 12 and the beginning of Season 13 (most of the punch-lines revolved around the fate of the show), I had low expectations for the later Season 13 eps. However, I have been very impressed thus far.

With that, this installation of Keacher.com draws to a close. Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!