Blog – Page 23 – john paganetti

That time again

I guess I’m lucky to say that this hasn’t happened to me in years. But it is happening again. And I remember last time sucked. Well, when it happens, it doesn’t suck that much – sometimes its even preferable. But the time spent preparing really sucks. That’s why this is such an unfortunate week.

I have four midterms on Thursday. The one class I don’t have a test in, has one scheduled for next week. I don’t know if there’s a right way to do this, but my method is going to involve a lot of dew and trance music. That should do it. Tuck and roll.

Come to think of it, I don’t think this has happened to me before. What I was thinking of was a single week that was packed with tests. And then I had a two year grace period where that didn’t even happen because I was taking classes from so many different departments. If I ever claim to know what I’m doing, I’m lying.

This is my happy face

More info on their site.

Party?

So living at Carriage House, every weekend is a party. There isn’t really an option here. In fact, I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the lease it specifies that each weekend must contain a certain amount of partying. The thing is, I couldn’t care less about parties. That’s half true – if there were interesting people, I suppose I could get into it, but since that isn’t ever going to happen I’ll stick by what I said.

I think my lifestyle is very anti-party. I take every day pretty easy, so no day is really more or less stressful than any other. The idea that one day should be more fun than another just seems really stupid.

A girl I know came up to my room the other night while the party was going on downstairs. She mentioned how boring it was downstairs, and I asked if it was ever not boring. “Ya, when I’m drunk.” I think drugs lower standards on life, and let people lead boring lives without complaint. There are exceptions, but there is a problem with something when it is not fun unless you’re drunk.

Make life interesting.

Moving the Bus

Yesterday I moved the bus from my backyard to Cheney Tech in Manchester. After FOX did that thing on us, I got an email from Joe Hollay, the instructor in the diesel shop at Cheney Tech. He wanted to help us convert the bus! So the school year has started up, and the students are back, and they’re ready for the bus. So the bus is in Manchester, waiting to be operated on. I finally met Joe, after talking to him on the phone for months, and he’s an incredibly cool guy. I probably should have guessed that since he offered his services to us in the first place. I don’t know what it is about this project that attracts interesting people, but I’m grateful for it.

I’ll be dropping by the diesel shop to learn and share more about the veggie conversion, so you can look forward to that. There is a little video from me driving behind Anne that I’ll try to get online soon, but until then there are a couple pictures on Flickr. Much more coming soon.

Jim

Jim is this really cool guy I met at Grey Fox when I started volunteering. He taught me how to cook fries just right, which is good because I was making really shitty fries before he arrived. He is an incredibly nice guy, who used to teach art to kids (elementary/middle school). He’s shown me a Christmas card he drew, and made me a really cool print of my name, with just magic markers he had in his car.

Jim is always pretty easy to spot – he has a shirt that he uses for festivals. It has seen many, and I’m really amazed it still holds together. He’s usually wondering around the hospitality tent doing odd jobs and helping people out. Every time I saw him he would say how much he loved it there. He’s in his late 70s, lives alone, and doesn’t go on vacations, so Grey Fox and Rhythm & Roots are how he relaxes.

I didn’t see him this year, possibly because the new location is an hour farther away. I didn’t make it to Rhythm & Roots, so I don’t know if he was there either, so I wrote him a letter. A real handwritten letter. Certainly the first that I’ve written in a long time. I hope I hear from him soon – he’s a good dude, and if he won’t be making it to festivals anymore, I’d like to go visit him.

Carriage Cans

After a Friday or Saturday night at Carriage, there are loads of empties strewn about the lawn. There aren’t any public garbage cans (except for the dumpsters, which for some reason people don’t think of using) so unless you know someone in an apartment, the cans are usually just thrown on the ground. And there are lots of them. We’ve all heard stories of people making hundreds of dollars a weekend off of cans, and we’ve all entertained the idea of actually going out and getting them before anyone else.

The empties are in high demand. Usually after cops disperse the parties, people will clean their immediate front yard so they don’t get shit from the landlord. Then, early in the morning, locals come by to collect cans. That is, people who don’t go to UConn, but live close by. They know about this place, and come back each weekend. So by the time we wake up (around now) there aren’t any cans at all. You’d never know anything happened last night.

But what is the most interesting to me are the two groups that make this whole thing happen. There are the college students, who are here on their parents’ dime, and enjoying the hell out of themselves on the weekends. And then there are the people in their 30s and 40s, who we see as being in the real world, looking to make a little extra money and giving up part of their weekend to do so. Each group does this without batting an eye – there’s nothing weird about this. But to me it’s absolutely incredible.

The Case Against Beds

For about a month now I’ve been sleeping on the floor in my apartment. I couldn’t justify buying a bed that I would only use for a year, so I didn’t. I bought a bed roll instead. The only problem is that no one really knows what a bed roll is, and very few places sell them. The majority of places that carry bed rolls are selling them for outdoor use. I don’t need my bed roll to be waterproof, just comfy. The one I found was at Bed Bath & Beyond’s website. I was going to drop in and buy one, but I called first to see if it was in stock. When I got through to the bedding department, I asked and he replied “What’s a bed roll?”

One thing I’ve noticed about sleeping on the floor is that I remember many more details about more dreams. Another thing I’ve noticed is that it isn’t all that uncomfortable.

So on to the bed roll. A bed roll is like a comforter, except firmer and the approximate size of a mattress. It costs a lot less than a mattress, and can be moved around a lot easier than a mattress can. I may fold mine up during the day to reclaim that floor space. Last night was the first night I spent on it, and its really nice. And cost under $100. I’m pretty damn happy with it.

In praise of Apple

I’m writing this post on my PowerBook G4, which I got shortly before freshman year. It is still going strong, and I love it – it is a wonderful computer to use. This school year, it is going to be my main computer, since the beast has issues. So far, it has been absolutely incredible.

There are some small quirks about it that set it apart from the newer Macbook Pros (little things like the behaviour of the laptop and the placement of keys). I really do prefer mine (though I would like a build-in iSight), not just out of habit, but out of functionality. They really thought the PowerBooks through, and the fact that I can still use it for everything I need three years later is really testament to that.

When I got the PowerBook, as part of a promotion I got a iPod mini as well, which was great for a while. Then, one summer, I left it in a car sitting in the sun, and it got fried. For a long time, it didn’t work, and just lay around my room. This weekend, I saw it, and got the notion to give it a try. I managed to reset it, and get it working again – and I found that all the music I had added was still there. All this great classic rock that I haven’t heard in a while.

So now I have my iPod back, and lots of cool tunes. Though, I don’t really have a use for an iPod, its good to have (with our stereo setup downstairs).

Spore and Computer Things

Spore came out today, which is pretty cool. Also cool, GameStop actually honored my pre-order from nearly two years ago. I haven’t picked it up yet, because I’m still in Storrs, but I will get it sometime this week.

I’m not in a big rush to get it because I don’t have a functional computer that can play it. At the end of last semester, my desktop shit the bed, and I didn’t really bother trying to fix it. I used Cassidy all summer, which was great. This fall, when I tried to get the desktop running again, it got worse, and started re-ordering drives. I’ve been using Cassidy as my fulltime computer here at school so far. I even got a new battery, so I don’t have to stay near an outlet (the battery Apple shipped to me to replace the one that was supposed to explode died a few months after I got it).

But Spore won’t run on a PPC Mac, so Cassidy can’t help me there. And the desktop had formerly run Linux, which seems to only slightly support Spore (at the moment). So I might actually install Windows, just to run Spore. Weird.

Winged Eye

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IMG_0162, originally uploaded by mrs pag.

Last week, Christian (a friend of the Tour) went to work painting more of the bus. The result is mind-blowing. In case you’re wondering where it is: it […]

IMG_0162, originally uploaded by mrs pag.

Last week, Christian (a friend of the Tour) went to work painting more of the bus. The result is mind-blowing. In case you’re wondering where it is: it is on the top at the rear of the bus.