Taking public transportation has the distinct advantage of exposing me to areas of the American culture I'm not completely in tune with. The train ride to the airport, although similar to the train ride out with the mix of people frome bums to young people, scrawny to beyond obese, gorgeous to butt-ugly, was interestingly more pleasant than the ride out from the airport.

Instead of catching the red train from the convention center, I caught the blue, and took it to where the two line separated. Near the exchange point, a black man came by and asked for my change. His request was different from most change requests I normally get: his eyes were missing the usual "deranged" (in quotes, because that's not quite the right word) look, his manner wasn't desperate, and he was softspoken. When I gently shook my head no, he nodded thanks and moved on.

I watched him for a moment, and did something I rarely ever do: I dug the change out of my backpack and handed it to him as he walked back to the back of the car. He nodded thanks again.

The change wasn't much: maybe fifty cents. Money I would most likely never miss. At least I sincerely hope I would never miss.

The change started me thinking: I had one hundred dollars in my backpack from a trip to the ATM yesterday. It was my lunch and spending money for the week. Would I miss twenty of it? Handing it to a beggar wouldn't be the best use of it, but losing twenty dollars isn't any better.

I dug the twenty out of the back of my pack, folded it into eighths, and handed it to the man as he was eying a woman's three bags of recycling.

He didn't realize it was a twenty, but saw that it was paper, and thanked me. A minute later, recyclables in hand, he came up to me to thank me again.

Would he spend that money on drugs? Would he buy alcohol or cigarettes? Would he buy something I generally disapproval of, or something he needed.

I decided I didn't care.

If he needed that cigarette to get him through the day, then that's what he needed to spend his money on. Because it was his money now to spend.

I needed water.

It wasn't that big of a deal, but the first cooler was empty. Then the second one. And the next one and the next one. These tech people sure could drink their water.

One of the coolers had a full bottle of water next to it. It was only five gallons. I've lifted these things before. No big deal.

I warned the guy next to me that if I missed, I'd spill water on his electrical cord, he was forewarned.

He looked at me like I was crazy.

I flipped the bottle over, hefted it up, and let it drop into the waiting neck cup.

I didn't move my fingers out fast enough.

I dropped the bottle on my finger caught in the cup edge and crushed it. The lip of the cup is about a sixteenth of an inch wide, and set right at the end of the bed of my middle finger.

It hurt an unbelievably large amount. It bled for about forty-five minutes after the crushing.

About an hour after the incident, my mom IM'd me to chat. I was typing oddly, so she asked about it. I explained I was missing my left middle finger, and why.

"Never a dull moment with you, kiddo."

Kris told me I should just give people the finger and tell them, I crushed my finger, and "IT'S THIS ONE!"

I like his suggestion.

My first tutorial of OSCON 2006. I wander into the conference room, look around, find a seat, plunk my computer down and notice the smell.

The room is musty, humid, and smells like Bella's butt.

And I'm in here for another 3 hours.

Ugh.

After a struggle to wake in the morning, I finally made it to the airport for my fifth quickest trip turn around, heading out to Portland today for OSCON 2006. I had managed to sleep fairly well, if shortened hours, waking only to hear Kris yell, "Stop her!" at me, referring to Bella, who was eating the remains of Heather's underwear she had just thrown up. I'm not sure which was more amazing: that I managed to miss the first 6" round pile of vomit on my way around the bed to Bella, or that the vomit covered elastic band was actually tasty enough to her to re-eat. I had the distinct displeasure of pulling half of it from out of her throat by grabbing the other end and pulling.

Yeah. Good times.

At the airport, before my flight, I used the restroom, following my standard modus-operandus for air travel. As I sat on the toliet (having wiped it off, of course), I started smelling cigarette smoke. It took a moment to register, as it's not a smell I associate with airports any longer.

I left the stall, and washed my hands, trying to decide if I should do anything about the smoker. Who smokes in an airport? In the bathroom? Yesterday's sandball altercation made me slightly shy about progressing along my personal development of standing up for myself, doing the right thing, and confronting fears, so the moments at the sink washing my hands were crucial moments.

I turned to the stalls, and my best Voice Of Authority, ordered, "The person smoking in these stalls should stop immediately." To my surprise, my heart didn't race, I didn't get the sick feeling after confronting someone. I did very little, but I at least expressed my displeasure of inhaling the smoke from the inconsiderate smoker.

As I left the bathroom, in a very small voice, I heard the reply to my order:

"ok."

At dinner tonight, Mark started telling one of his college stories (his story to tell, but the summary is: he and his friends killed a rabbit with a BB gun from the dorm balcony, cooked it at a barbeque (tastes like chicken!), was tattled on by the women downstairs, ordered to volunteer at the local Humane Society, tried to do said volunteering at the local Humane Society but were refused because of the reason why they had to volunteer, and ended up volunteering with the campus gardener, who offered them $1 for every rabbit they killed). At one point, Kris leaded over to Megan and asked, "Have you heard this story a million times before?" She laughed, then said yes, but it was okay, because she listened for differences in the stories, to see how they grow over time.

She asked me if I did the same with the stories from Kris that I hear over and over again. I laughed, and said, "No, I just pull out my phone and try to keep up with him while typing it in." I then asked, "Want to hear one?"

I figure Kris isn't going to blog his stories, but some of them are just so so funny. The best part is, of course, the fact that Kris just laughs when he tells the story, so, yes, a lot of it is in the delivery. If he starts typing up his own stories, I'll stop. Until then, I'll keep transcribing.

Megan said, yes, she'd like to hear the story, so, in his words, Kris' story of Stuart Foreman:

Stuart Foreman was the name of our catcher in high school.

We had a rule that a runner heading to home had to slide if there was going to be a play at home. They had no choice, they were rwquired to slide.

my junior year, we were playing our arch rival, James Wood H.S., In one play, the runner starts coming into home. Our catcher caught the ball, and turned to meet the runner. The runner was this 6" 200 (220 in one version of the story) pound guy. Our catcher was like 5'7", 170 (180 in a different telling) pounds, stocky and built like Eric Newman.

So this runner comes in, and our catcher is holding the ball (out in front of himself, both hands around the ball) when the runner keeps charging.

So our catcher goes HUNH! picks up the runner, body slams him to the ground, touches him with the ball, spikes the ball,and walks back to the dugout.

The guy immediately stands up, like he wants to fight. The whole bench is waiting at the end of the dugout, just waiting to rush the field, while the umpire is throwing warnings around.

Immediately warned both dugouts to stay in their dugouts.

Someone asked, What were you doing?

Me? Oh, I was laughing hysterically.