Apple Foot

Sinking Feeling

Over the summer, I moved into a new apartment. I love it. I like the location, the layout, and especially the fact that there are no more roommates. I love that I own a sofa, and am no longer forced to endure other people's tacky figurine collections or hoarded shampoo bottles.

This morning I woke up to the sounds of the radiator (yeah, I know--it's only October 8), oddly mingled with a dripping noise. Radiator in my bedroom leaks. In fact, when the pressure in the pipe goes up, it gets a good trickle going.  So I got out my phone, where I've programmed the Maintenance Guy's number, and call. No answer. Not even a machine. I got out my lease to check the number: xxx-xxx-0660. I called the number again after half an hour, when I was sure Maintenance Guy must be on duty. Still no answer.

So I went back to my lease, found the phone number for the property management office, and called them. She told me I've got the wrong number and that I should call -0600.  Whew--that's a relief, I thought Maintenance was totally unreachable! So I called -0600. No answer. Not even a machine.

I called the management office back and told them I can't get anything/one to pick up MG's phone. She asked me if I've been calling -0600. Absolutely I have. So she gave me the maintenance supervisor's phone number, and I left a message on his machine.

Naturally, nobody called me back during the day. I got home tonight to find a note on the kitchen table telling me that MG had been in the apartment and couldn't find anything wrong (apparently the damp, rolled back rug in my bedroom, next to the radiator, was not clue enough). He suggests I call him back in the morning. At -0060.

Let me see if I've got this straight:  the Maintenance phone number is incorrect on the lease and has been given to me incorrectly not once but twice by the management office? My head is starting to hurt.

So I've wrapped a towel around the pipe that was leaking this a.m. Presumably, in the morning when the heat comes on in earnest, it will drip again. Then when I call Maintenance, I can say, "check out the sopping wet towel under the radiator."

It's still way better than my last apartment, where the landlord was extremely responsive, but my roommates were narcissists and hoarders.

Recently Misinterpreted

It's a banner day for mis-reading things. Here's two of the more noteworthy:

• In an article on online advertising, I saw a reference to "dick-through rate". Oddly, since I was looking at FaceBook ad information, this might not be the wrong term to use.
• An article on batch processing items in a certain database was titled "Bringing Up Batch." I read "Bringing Up Bach". Thought maybe the company had a new product line named for the composer.

Jump Rope

The Kings Firecrackers, a group of 4th-8th graders from Ohio. The best part is watching the audience full of midshipmen lose their minds.

Recommend you click thru to watch it at full size.

(Via Metafilter)

Gleeful

I have found my new love, and it's on Fox.

Old forgotten words or ancient melodies

I just think this is a lot of fun. I don't think I much liked Toto the first time around, but I've grown very fond of this tune a capella (via Metafilter).

Tough Times, charitable division

Article headline in this week's newsletter from massnonprofit.org:

[organization] Launches Five-Year, $63 Capital Campaign

I know times are tough, but I had no idea expectations were so low.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Fooling around, I discovered the NYU N'Harmonics excellent cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Art, autism, history

I was reading an article in today's Boston Globe about an artist with autism, since the article dovetails nicely with my sister's interests and concerns, when I came across a throwaway line about the artist's sister, a Harvard professor of the history of science. I had a professor by that name at Wellesley, and her specialty was the history of science. Sure enough, it's the same woman.

When I was a prospective student, I spent a couple days on campus, staying on the floor of a sophomore double in Severance. The student I was staying with took me to her history class. The professor was Katie Park, and the course was a survey of medieval Europe. I was still supremely confident (if not arrogant), and so when she asked a question of her class, I, a guest, did not feel awkward offering my two cents. This was my first, humbling, step into college. The professor showed an ancient (Viking, I think) map of the world--it basically consisted of a circle with a couple lines dividing it into two or three vague sections--and asked what did it mean when people drew a map so lacking in detail?  I answered that it meant those people knew the area well, and didn't need a map. She looked at me kind of oddly, with that look that says you've startled your professor with something so incredibly stupid that they're concentrating very hard on not looking stunned. The real answer, of course, was that you draw a vague map when you don't know the area well, and you've no idea where things are.

As a Wellesley student, I wound up taking that same course with that same professor, and my senior year I took a course in Renaissance history with Park. I didn't really know much about her, but there ways in which I wanted to be her. She seemed young, and slim, and she wore these sort of nerdy glasses that looked very hip on her, and she was very, very smart. Top of her field. By the time I came to Wellesley as a student, I had less confidence than I'd had in high school. I knew that I would never be anything like Katie Park.

During the first semester of my senior year, a student on exchange from a women's college in California lived across the hall from me. For some reason she latched onto me. She wasn't a bad person, but she tried too hard, and I can't imagine how she must have felt, alone at Wellesley. She was also in the Renaissance history class. I remember she sat the next row over from me, and she was always trying to get my attention, whisper things to me. I think at first I smiled tightly, trying to convey that she was being very rude to our teacher. Eventually it got to the point where she was speaking at a near-normal volume, waving her hands and trying to get me to respond, and I sat stone-faced, staring intently at the professor, while other students around us shifted uncomfortably and my friend Lauren, behind me, hissed "Shut up!"

Last summer I spent some time clearing out a file cabinet at my parents' house. Going through my old college papers, I realized that my memory had glossed over my academic career. The evidence in my hands suggested I was much less smart than I remember. I didn't need to see the papers to remember my embarassing failure in Katie Parks' class senior year. She suggested I use a play as a basis for a history paper... oh, hell, I still don't understand what I was supposed to do. I turned in a fairly dull English major paper, in which I tried to stick a few historical facts. Even her assignments were way smarter than I could deal with.

Flat Stanley in Boston

Dear J,
Thank you for sending Flat Stanley to visit. We had fun walking around the city of Boston. I'm sending you some photos so you can see what we did.
Love,
Aunt AppleFoot

I sent my nephew a selection of photos, but you can see the complete, annotated set right here, if you're so inclined.

Enterprise Finale

Slice of SciFi quotes an IF Magazine interview with Brannon Braga, who admits:

“I think that final, final episode [of Enterprise], I may be understating it when I'm saying it didn't turn out as well as I hoped."

Thanks to io9 for categorizing this as "too little [too late]".