Manhole covers are round. There are lots of stupid reasons for this (they can be rolled, they can’t fall in, etc), but the most obvious and probably correct reason is that PIPES ARE ROUND.
Why are pipes round? Would be a better question
1) cylinders are one of the strongest 3d shapes (I think behind the sphere)
2) they can screw together if they’re round
3) no corners for crap to get caught in
4) a round pipe is much more efficient than any other type of pipe, because the amount of material that it uses to achieve a cross sectional area is smaller than any other shape.
for example, a pip that would like 1 inch of cross sectional area (to achieve a certain flow) would require a square pipe of 1 inch x 1 inch – that’s 4 inches of material to make 1 inch of cross sectional area. For a round pipe to get one inch of cross sectional area
a = pi*r^2 = 1; so r = sqrt(1/pi), circumference = 2*pi*r, so C = 2*pi*sqrt(1/pi) = ~3.5

Sorry, for some reason that was bothering me.

The purpose of Alex is...
?

At Scrabble tonight I got my first bingo (use all seven letters at once) in a while:

regainer
with A, E, G, I, N, R and a blank. I wanted an eight letter word that ended with E so I could hit the triple word score (just left of the R in the picture) but I couldn't come up with anything. If you think of something that makes it, post it and I'll send you a candy bar of your choosing.


Johns Hopkins Film Fest in 2.5 weeks

I went home for Grandpa’s funeral, I’m glad I did.

The funeral was not very religious, he was not a religious man and the family isn’t in general. One of his son-in-laws has acted as "MC" (as my mom put it) and was able to co-ordinate a very simple service where mostly we shot off stories about the character. It was not a sad event. It really wouldn’t have been fitting to have a really teary eyed funeral: he wouldn’t have wanted it that way – even my aunt said "he told me he never wanted his funeral to be a sad thing, he said it should be a party and there should be a dinner."

The obituary in the Chicago Tribune details the exploits that honestly I couldn’t tell you much about other than stories from being a naval aviator.

At the funeral my mother and aunt had dug up a ton of pictures I’d never seen. Grandpa was a strapping young lad at some point, triple varsity letters in HS, honors student, musician – a well rounded person. He the navy to become a fighter pilot for WWII though he finished training as the war ended. It was odd for me to see these other sides of his life, as I had a different view obviously, which I remarked on when I spoke:

Good afternoon, I’m Alex, grandson... number one (we introduced ourselves that way, it sorta became a joke)

I didn’t know Grandpa Miller as a father, husband, an aviator, a police commissioner or even as a salesman. So I hope I’m adding a new perspective on him as a grandchild... I knew him as "funny grandpa".
...
Even though he was still working as a chemical salesman when I spent time around him at an early age, I had no idea he was working. The reason was that he would sit in his chair – the image of him I’ll always remember, with his lap desk and whatever (as many people had already mentioned). I always thought that he was playing, like, that’s what he did for fun – because he was never irritable while doing it or mad when I interrupted him. My impression of adults working at the time was they’d always be irritable, so it was surprising to me later when I found out he was working.
...
People have talked about his great ‘bear hugs’ – I think all the grandchildren know that if you were going to hug grandpa, you had to go to him, cause he wasn’t coming to you.
...
I also remember that while we were concerned about him getting seconds of dessert in the latter years of his life, I was worried about it all my life as he was my main contender for that last sweet roll.
...
I’ll always remember him as funny grandpa.

(this is what I recall, i dont write out speaches before hand)

Other good moments:

I saw this picture of my aunt Susan (who I’ve got a funny relationship with) from 25 years ago with her dad (grandpa). I motioned her over and was like "at first I was like, ‘WHO is this cute girl?’" She hit me.

While taking the things from the service back home, Susan was taking Grandpa’s urn to our car to take back. She carried something else and had the urn (a nice cube shaped one, which I’ve never seen before) under her arm, halfway to the car she looks at me with a funny look and says "Grandpa in a box!"

Long time neighbors (37 years, woah) came by afterwards and swapped storied about their childhoods growing up together with my mother and company. The Miller family had five girls and one boy, the family next door had five boys and two girls, that’s a lot of kids and a lot of trouble. And they grew up in the 60s. It seems like my childhood definitely pales when compared to theirs.

I took seconds in dessert in his memory.

This summer: kayaking on the harbor!
awesome

with so much stuff going on this summer (XUS, other travel, miscellaneous fun) I’m canceling my tentative plan to take summer semester courses for my masters, screw you master’s program!

I saw this summer photography program in Prague when paging though B&W magazine for inspiration
I want to do it someday. Stupid... work.

My grandfather died early this week. It's hard to say what I think or feel about it. I didn't cry. I wasn't surprised.

We used to have to guard him at the dinner table so he couldn't get desert when we weren't looking. Here was a guy with gout, blood pressure problems, heart disease and bad diabetes who was obese and all he wanted was a plate full of cheese fries and a big piece of chocolate cake.

And it didn't really... hurt, you know. This was/is a bit disturbing to me.
Death is not something I've had to deal with much. This is the first blood relative I've had die. I think I'm too far away for it to register in some senses. Hearing about it on the phone and not being around those who loved him too makes it seem so far away. I was in a way expecting it, I had time to prepare.
We went to see him last March, he was in the hospital again and things looked pretty bad, I took a picture of him and my mom. I felt a lot more when I dug up this picture.

He was pretty diminished. I don't know that I fully appreciated that then - I guess I took it for granted that he was never really in good health (since I was a baby), but even his mind was on the fritz.

Grandpa Miller taught me how to play chess poorly when I was really young, or at least I am pretty sure he did, this was back when memories can be pretty fuzzy. He introduced me to the wonders of the mechanical pencil. The kind you had to twist the end to get the led to come out, they had terrible erasers. He's the one who suggested Rose-Hulman. I doubt if I would have heard about it otherwise. He used to call me "wise old Alex" when I was a kid. He got me a subscription to National Geographic every year for my birthday for a long time. I used to look through them cover to cover when I was younger. His stories of training to be a fighter pilot for WWII were absolutely hilarious. I can't even attempt to retell them.

rest in peace

Okay
So I got my ass dumped for real this weekend, whatever
On the plus side, I’ve got a new line to use on the dance floor, "don’t you feel like you’re surrounded by assholes?" awesome
Yeah
So... I guess I can only get up the nerve to blog when I’m intoxicated now. Wonderful

Life’s pretty neat over here
I finished up my project at work (for the most part) and now I’ve moved to a new project that’s pretty neat. This weekend was cool, I went out with Kiefer in Georgetown, I called up my friend Alexis from high school and she met up with us, Kiefer cratered early and wanted to go home but I wanted to dance, so we went dancing and I stayed on Alexis’s couch. Then I met up with Shultz and Katie Saturday afternoon because they live right by Alexis – after that I got over to Kiefer’s to pick up my car... my tire has a screw in it so I idle over to the sears and they’re like come back in an hour, I go hang at the mall. Yeah... hanging at the mall is something I don’t do. I was walking around and all I could think about was: I totally don’t want any more things. I got an iPod for my birthday. iPod! Awesome. Anyways, I have so much crap I don’t want any more. I don’t need any more things. They had these cool dress shirts and kakis at the gap that the water beaded on instead of being absorbed.

It was neato. The had these little droppers that you could drop on the shirts. I think I dropped about 50 drops on them, and it beaded on the shirt! it was amazing every time, the bottle of drops ran out, the counter lady laughed at me, tee-hee. But I don’t need anymore shirts, and I don’t need any more kakis. Yeah. I also stopped by some store and sat in a massage chair for like half an hour. Awesome. So then I rushed my ass back up to Baltimore because there’s this Federal Hill Foodies event going on, a dinner party a few blocks away. Awesome. I took one of my friends from work. Yeah. The food was really good and really nice company too. You eat and meet and talk and drink wine and have fun and yay. The food was really really good. This picture doesn’t really show that, but here:

When that was all said and done we got some people to go to this lounge that’s in Federal Hill, I had never been there before and I really liked it. After a bit I found the dance floor and stayed on it till like now. Awesome. Tomorrow I’m making dinner for some people I met at the Foodies thing.

Dancing, lots and lots of dancing. Let’s go dancing. Awesome. Yeah.

Oh yeah, I’ve been doing Scrabble night at Whole Foods on Monday. There are some really good people there, I’m pretty okay at Scrabble but definitely not as good as these people and have been learning some new tricks, did you know "eh" is a word? "ex"? yeah. This one person played a word such that it opened up the triple word score but in a hard way, because it was a J, and it was like: triple word score, blank, J, blank, blank, blank, blank, triple word score (along the top of the board). I had an F, two Es, two As, an I and a T. I made an AWESOME play:

yeah

perhaps something more coherent tomorrow.

dude! another alex lo left a note on the Alex Lo Network wiki page. awesome!

I don't need no tv, I don't need no news
All I need is a bumpin beat to bump away my blues
I don't give a damn what the people say
I'm gonna do it, gonna do it my way
Gonna let it all out an do my thing
Boom boom boom an a bang bang bang
Oooh-do your thing
Do your thing, make my body sing
Do your thing, your thing, my thing, oh oh oh oh
Say shut your mouth you're in a fatal tiz
Free the mayhem in your mind, release the need inside of you You're gonna suffer
Do your thing, do you
Boom boom boom an a
Oooh-Do your thing
Do your thing, make
Do your thing, your
Give me ying-yang
Do your thing, make
Do do do

I went dancing alone after I met up with some people to see Army of Darkness and go bowling. Bowling rocked. Dancing was awesome. I went to Club One. I like that place. I spent a lot of money. My belt is on the floor where I threw it. "What’s up now, bitch!" I yell at the computer when I beat it at backgammon. This is my favorite thing to do when drunk. Backgammon that is. At Club ONe I had something new happen, this girl came up and threw her ass right into me, I did what I could and she pulled away, I pursued (I figured it was the thing to do) and she stuck her elbow into me. Ow, what the fuck is that? Right. I still had a good time. When I was walking home I called up everyone who probably wouldn’t get pissed. Not many people answered. Every time I got voicemail I yelled "useless!" yeah, great. Okay. I’m such an adult. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Hi Mom.

a big fuck you to the xenophobic population of baltimore
i cant believe i'm being discriminated against in an irish bar when i'm more irish than most people there
okay, i'm really drunk