Moving up and out

As many already know, MKD and I are buying our first place! The planets must have aligned, and we found a place we both agreed on and within our financial reach (barely). We have been working toward this for as long as I can remember by saving and searching, and on Valentine’s Day, we will close. Then it will be hell cleaning, painting, fixing, moving…

So after almost 5 years of being in a 1-bedroom apartment, we are transitioning to a 3-level, 3-bedroom, 2 full bathroom place that looks like a town home, but is technically a condo. It needs some work, but is mostly move-in ready. Given the financial strains of becoming homeowners and paying for the upcoming wedding, we will not be able to do or get the things we want right away. Just when we were enjoying (and getting spoiled by) the benefits of being DINKs, we are getting a double whammy this year. I imagine the place will be pretty bare for a while and we will have to be really good about where we spend our money. The Dollar Menu at McDonald’s will be reserved for going out on “special occasions.” Awesome.

Human Oddities - Part I

Along with my “Blast from the Past” series, I have been meaning to start a “Human Oddities” one as well. After this one, I will only have one entry of each (see July 2006 Archives for other one). It's a start and will be an ongoing project.

We humans are pretty nasty beings when you really think about it. Actually, life in general is just plain gross. But all that aside, let’s get to the heart of the topic…

Monster Hairs*!!!

Now these hairs are not found in places that are known to have hairs (e.g., head, legs, arms, pubes, etc.). In my life, I have found them on my neck and side. I am not a hairy person (I don’t think Japanese people are in general), and I realize this post would not apply to hairy people.

These Monster Hairs are the thinnest, whitest/blondest, finest, and longest hairs imaginable. They are not the type of hair I have on my person at all, and are freakishly long. The largest one I have found measured in at 4 inches! Crazy!

I found one on my side yesterday that was about 2 inches. If you ever saw it, you would think it was a long piece of lint and not a hair since you can barely see it (we are talking nano-millimeters in width here). The only way I know they are hairs and not something that I happen to find on me is because they get caught on my clothes which alerts me to their presence that they are attached to me. Another perplexing thing about them is that they appear practically overnight. I can check my person everyday and have one the next day all of a sudden. Just to clarify, I only get about one to two a year (I am not that freaky).

So yes, these Monster Hairs are a giant mystery to me and the people I know. I have found them on other people, so I know it is not just me this happens to. Hence, a Human Oddity!

We are strange creatures indeed.

*A term coined by yours truly.

Good things come in small packages

For Christmas, one of my gifts was a 1 GB flash drive. Just to give those who are not computer savvy an idea of how much space this is, I present the following examples from Wikipedia:

1 Byte is a single character
1 KiloByte is a very short story
1 MegaByte is a short novel
1 GigaByte is a pickup truck filled with pages of text

So yeah. 1 GB is a lot of fucking storage. I put my new toy to good use and archived/backed up my blog on it. It was a long project but a fun one. I went through old posts and realized that our cat used to be named ‘Gus’ and how that didn’t stick. Also, how wee he was and how much he has grown and become an integral part of the family. Not to mention, all the things that have happened to me in the last two years.

When this project was all said and done, it took up about 4 MB on my flash drive (including text, pictures, and template). I still have over 975 MB of storage left (I had other stuff on there already). So that breaks down to about 2 MB per year to cover my life’s events. I am 26 and will live to 100 (for argument’s sake), so that is 74 more years of coverage needed. By the rate I have so far, I will need only 148 MB to incorporate my entire life! That is no where near the 975+ MB I have available. I hope this illustrative breakdown properly conveyed that there is a lot of potential in a device smaller than my finger.

I know there are flash drives available with 64 GB of space, which is a ridiculous amount. I am just waiting for the 1 TB (1 TeraByte = 50,000 trees of paper) flash drive. I predict I will see that come out in my lifetime.