My Very Own Polysyllabic Spree: June 2005

June 30, 2005


June 2005

Books bought/borrowed:
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise: Ruth Reichl (borrowed)
Beowulf: Seamus Heaney (translator)
An Englishman in Paris: L’education Continentale: Michael Sadler
From Here You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and its Restaurant: Michael S. Sanders
Moneyball: Michael Lewis (borrowed)

Books read:
The Adventure of English – The Biography of a Language: Melvyn Bragg (abandoned)
Deliver Me from Nowhere: Tennessee Jones
A Year in Provence: Peter Mayle
The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life: William Brandt (not finished)
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise: Ruth Reichl

Before I begin, I have a few apologies to make. I’ve been a very bad column writer this month.

1. Nick Hornby. Aside from stealing not only your idea and the title that goes with it, I have somehow snuck my column on the second page of results when “Polysyllabic Spree” is searched for on Google. I’d like for people to think that I’m somehow associated with you by this discovery, but unfortunately, I’m not.

I begrudgingly admit now – to any new reader – that my name is Corey Vilhauer and I am in no way associated with Hornby, as much as I would like to be.

2. William Brandt. Mr. Brandt, I started your book and thoroughly enjoyed the first half of it. That’s as far as I’ve made it, though, because the public library called with two books that I had been on a waiting list for weeks to get. I couldn’t let the opportunities pass me by, so I had to drop your book. It’s still there on the shelf ready to be read, but just not now. Have patience, please.

3. Ruth Reichl. I’m sorry that I read your book after reading Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. I believe it may have dampened the effect of your writing. I’ll explain more later.

Okay. Let’s begin.

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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Mus musculus

June 29, 2005


We have a mouse.

It’s been living in our house for at least the past four days, but I’m not really that sure how it got in there. All I know is that, a few days ago, I heard a faint scuffling. I stopped what I was doing and listened. The sound had vanished.

The next day I heard a similar sound, this time from the other side of the attic. I turned off the air conditioner and strained to hear something – anything. Silence again.

This morning, however, Kerrie heard it. She mentioned something to me while I was in a coma-like state at 7 am and I quickly forgot about it – until I came home from work and something reminded me of it.

“Did you say you heard a squirrel in our house this morning?” I asked, suddenly confused as to why that thought popped into my head at that time.

The comment was confirmed, and we both tramped up stairs to search for the source of the elusive sound. We crawled back into a side closet, after reassembling the contents all over the floor, and pulled back a hidden wall to reveal the rest of our attic. It was dark.

I flashed a light inside and noticed something immediately: a stain, with rodent droppings scattered in a small circle inside of it, joining together to form a lovely piece of “excretionary” art. We asked for a second opinion, and Don gravely agreed.

A mouse. In our house.

So today I begin the battle of the attic. I have purchased mousetraps, which are every bit as stereotypical as those shown in Tom and Jerry cartoons. I’ll place them in the crawl space tonight, and I’ll await the first shot in our mammalian war. Peanut butter is my ammunition of choice.

I’ll have to kill them in an area I can catch them, so poison is out of the question – what if the mouse crawls back into the hidden and inaccessible recesses of our dormer and disappears, only to make itself known every summer when the room heats up?

Armed with balsa wood and peanut butter; some warrior I am.

–UPDATE–

After a long deliberation with her mom, Kerrie has come to the conclusion that it is probably not a mouse, but a bat. We’ve jumped the gun a little too much, I guess.

I’ll have to take my balsa wood mouse traps back.

*sigh* I thought I was so witty to put the scientific name of the house mouse as the title, but alas. Bats.

Tags: Vilhauer |

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Nick Hornby interview

June 29, 2005


Just a quick post to invite everyone to read the Nick Hornby interview over at Powells.com. If you don’t think he’s a wonderful author, then at least you can read this and realize that he’s a cool guy who you’d probably want to go have lots of beers with.

The interview is here.

Tags: Writers |

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Google sightseeing, now 50% more!

June 28, 2005


The Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France

Are you kidding me?

Just when I thought my obsession with Google Maps had died down three things happen to me.

First, Google Maps has updated their satellite views to include other countries. This has allowed my favorite blog (Google Sightseeing) to branch away from the United States and Canada just as both countries were beginning to dry out.

Second, Google Maps has released a standalone satellite program called Google Earth. It looks pretty good, and I’m sure I’ll be downloading it to the chagrin of Kerrie and my friends. I’m addicted.

Third, Chris led me to two more sites: a Google Maps scavenger hunt at Scavengeroogle.com (which is awesome, and as their catchphrase says, it’s designed to be something “to waste more of your time on,”) and Google Globetrotting, which is almost like a Google Map landmark database.

I wonder how many more times I can type the word Google.

Wow. Please help me.

Tags: Random Links |

2 Comments

Claimed currency

June 27, 2005


It’s been exactly a month since I discovered my name on an unclaimed property list for the state of Minnesota, and I had been wondering if they were ever going to get back to me. I was curious what I had left behind in the Land of 10,000 Lakes – was it a simple retro-paycheck from some unpaid hours at FuncoLand? Or was it something more significant; a forty-dollar goof that somehow landed back at my old store and was not forwarded on to me.

Today, my wait was over. I received what looked like a rebate check from the Minnesota Department of Commerce and realized that I had finally received something that apparently was already mine. I opened it up, expecting a check for fifteen dollars at the most.

The check was much larger.

I somehow had left $300.76 in Minnesota.

How could this have happened? How did I manage to find, on total chance, my name on a Minnesota Department of Commerce website for a paycheck that I never picked up from a job that I hadn’t worked at for at least eight months before I left the state? There are so many reasons that this never should have happened:

1. I gave my forwarding address to FuncoLand (which had just changed into GameStop). In fact, on my last day of work I gave my address (to send my final check) and then when I left the state I gave them my new Sioux Falls address. Why, then, was this still listed as my college apartment – an apartment I didn’t even live in when I worked at FuncoLand the second time?

2. Why was my forwarding address not followed from that apartment building through all of the apartments until we moved? I know I gave a forwarding address to every apartment I’ve lived in since my first, so there shouldn’t be too much trouble. This one is easy: I’m pretty sure that the Minnesota Department of Commerce doesn’t really put too much work into finding owners for lost money. It probably just gets funneled into some sort of huge pool of money, which the DOC then uses for their Christmas parties and Fourth of July picnics.

3. Here’s the big one. How the hell did I manage to completely forget that I had another paycheck coming? How did I not realize that I was missing $300.00 in my checking account?

I may sound mad. I’m not. I’m a little confused, but incredibly happy. This was like finding a dollar in a coat from the past winter – except about three-hundred times cooler. I just don’t get how I could have lost this in the first place.

Regardless, it’s mine now. Forty hours of unpaid work have been returned to me. It really just goes to show how important keeping track of your money can be.

Who wants lunch? It’s on me.

Tags: Career |

6 Comments

Everybody loves a wedding

June 26, 2005


I used to dread weddings. It’s true. I really never got into weddings because I thought they were dull. Weddings – at least the ceremony part – always seemed to be longer than they needed. They took place in either an overcrowded un-air conditioned church or in a large area with uncomfortable seats. They always droned on and on. They always left me fidgety; not quite bored, yet still a little stir-crazy.

It took finally participating in a wedding – my own wedding – for me to understand the importance and planning that is required to make the ceremony run smooth. Everyone had their places, and everyone needed to be there right now.

Now I can appreciate a well thought out wedding. I understand what each part means, and how each wedding can be different. I’ve been to at least two weddings per year since I graduated from college, and I find, more than anything, that the construction of the ceremony is actually quite interesting.

Everyone has their own way of making their special day even more special than the wedding they may have just gone to. Those who get married later in life and, therefore, have attended more of their friends and families weddings, have a virtual smorgasbord of choices. They can pick and choose from each wedding they’ve been in or attended and take out the things they thought were tacky.

A wedding is the ultimate representation of a couple at that point in their lives, regardless of their ideas. It’s what everyone will remember about the newly married couple for the first few months after the ceremony. It’s a grand spectacle for everyone to marvel at – that’s the idea – and it’s all anyone can really think about for a few days. It defines the newly married couple, in some cases for years, and is much more important than I ever thought it was when I was young.

Regardless, I watched two close friends of our get married this past weekend, and I remembered how happy I was and how much fun I had at my own wedding. I remembered how nervous I was to have everything go right. I enjoyed seeing how happy Ryan and Heather were when they walked back down the aisle as husband and wife.

At the same time, I’ll admit that the entire time I was enjoying being part of the wedding without having to actually do anything aside from read a passage. I looked forward to going to a reception without having to set anything up. I actually enjoy weddings now, because I know exactly what has to happen to make it perfect, and it’s a lot of hard work. So I can sit back, enjoy someone else’s hard work, and relax.

Weddings are great. They’re one of the happiest times anyone can spend with their friends or family. Maybe that sounds mushy, but I’d be lying if I commented differently.

Congratulations Ryan and Heather.

May every day be as enjoyable as your wedding day.

Tags: Friends |

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The return of O’Kelley

June 24, 2005


There’s something very refreshing in reconnecting with an old friend. It’s part nostalgia and part pure unadulterated joy. It’s the feeling that a person gets when they’ve just found a box of old pictures that they thought they’d lost; part of them wants to probe every nook in search for what used to be, while the other part seems content to just live in the moment, to appreciate the fact that a good friend has returned.

What makes it more special, I think, is that I’ve reconnected with a friend who had disappeared completely – wiped off the face of this country – and had settled down on another continent and made it his home.

Nick left for Ireland, chasing after a prospective partner, and left us all in various states of either indignation or surprise. Some of us never thought he’d make it – that he was being reckless, unrealistic, etc. Others embraced the fact that he was searching for an elusive place. Any disappointment was because he had left – because he had left us, more like it.

Personally, I was jealous. I, among others, wondered how he could dare just up and leave like that, with little to no plan. I didn’t think he’d last, but I never really knew why he left. For a while, I never bothered to discover why. I just sat indignant and envious.

When I finally got over myself, I knew that he was meant to be there, and that I had no place or reason to doubt any differently.

The power of love and the pull of a relationship can take a person to places they’ve never dreamed of. I was pulled to St. Cloud, Minnesota. Nick just happened to go to Ireland. He’s over there living out my dream of being an American ex-pat with the ability to live life with a different set of values.

I know that I would never make that leap. My place isn’t meant to be anywhere else but right here in South Dakota. I don’t have any divine intervention guiding me to any remote part of the world. I’ve found my stomping grounds and have claimed stake in Sioux Falls. I know for a lot of my friends, that isn’t the case. They’ve been champing at the bit to get out of here for years, but haven’t made the move. Nick made the move and took it to the extreme. I, for one, think it’s great.

In talking with Nick last night, I found that we’ve never had any problems picking up where we left off. We’ve always been incredibly verbal with each other, and we’ve confided in each other more than I’d ever have thought we would. Instead of jealousy, I find pride. I’m proud when my friends go of and do something with themselves. I’m proud of Nick for making a daring move and ending up in another country. I’m proud of him for having the balls to say that Ireland is now his home.

He gets lonely. But so do I. So does everyone. Even amidst a sea of friends I can feel completely out of place. It’s not easy to insert yourself into a new group of people, in a new country, with a similar but different language and similar but different beliefs. All we can do is let those people know that, regardless of where they are, we’re still with them.

For Nick, I’ll say I’m always here. I’ll always be a few hours behind, but I’m always here.

Mail me some fish and chips, Nick. I’d appreciate it.

Tags: Friends |

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