Missing: shoes

I just finished taking my very first test of the semester. I've gone about a month without a single test, and now I have 5 in just 6 days. I still consider myself lucky, though, when compared to many of my friends. Just about everyone I know is trying to get into grad school, and right about now is prime grad-school-entrance-exam taking time. Abbie will take the LSAT tomorrow, and I know that her one test is more important than the rest of mine. But I my easy weeks now will come back to haunt me when I have to take 8 actuary exams over the next several years.

About a week ago, my tennis shoes decided not to be in my closet. This baffled me, but I just assumed they'd turn up somewhere, and I wore my older shoes. Time went on, and my shoes still had not appeared. This means that I had been wearing my old tennis shoes with bloodstains (see below) on them for a whole week.
Every time someone has asked me what is covering my shoes, I have tried to make up a new story: I created some roadkill while walking down the sidewalk; I dropped a set of knives on my foot; I dropped some of my loot while robbing a blood bank. Little do these people know that the real story is much more gruesome: I spilled deck stainer on my shoes while staining a deck. Luckily, the deception can finally end, because Abbie's roommate Julie had my regular shoes hidden in her car.

Rome revisited

Not many exciting happenings have been happening lately, so I'm gonna add one last post about my visit to Rome over last spring break.

On the second day in Rome, Abbie and I mostly walked through the ruins and then toured the rest of the city on foot. During one memorable moment, Abbie and I heard music wafting through the city. Looking into the distance, we discovered that a parade was taking place about a mile away. Abbie quickly told me of a parade she had seen in Europe in which ordinary people could walk; they just hopped in line and strolled down the street along with the marching band and the Shriners in their go-karts. Excited about our chance to take part in a parade, we raced through the streets and alleys, always running toward the music.

When we finally arrived on the scene, we exuberantly sprinted out into the street to join the hoi polloi in the parade. About two seconds later, we looked at our co-paraders, listened to the speeches being said, and swiftly exited the street. We had stumbled upon a monstrous Italian Communism parade which was rallying the comrades for the upcoming elections.

Later that night, we wandered through half the city looking for interesting sites. We found one that struck our fancy.
Legend has it that telling a lie while sticking one's hand in the mouth of this Mouth of Truth will cause your hand to be bitten off. Abbie decided to risk it anyway, and you can see that picture here. I was not quite so lucky.

If I already posted about either of these things, then I apologize. I will try harder the next time.

coincidences

I hope that the title of this post doesn't trick you; I only have one coincidence about which to blog. Today as I was walking out of the bank, I walked into a fella I know named Andrew. I said "Hey" and went on my way. On my bike trip home from the bank, I next encountered a guy in my fraternity named Peter. Again, we exchanged greetings and proceeded on. Next, I arrived at home, only to be welcomed by my roommate Sara. Coincidence? Certainly, after you consider that my three siblings are named Andy, Peter, and Sarah. As an aspiring actuary, I have calculated the odds of this happening, and they are 1 in 231893254.

I guess that I can think of another coincidence. I have had the song "Count It Higher" by Chris and the Alphabeats stuck in my head for the last two days after watching this video four times in a row. I also calculated the odds of this coincidence, and they are "pretty good." For your enjoyment, here is the video. For best results, watch only three times in a row.

In which I try for some sympathy

I was gonna post a pic of my bloody, gash-ridden feet, but Abbie beat me to the punch, so I stole this from her blog. Zoom in to observe the gore that coats my foot anew with every step.
Update: Chlorine water burns a little on bloody, blistery feet.

In which Abbie and I are beasts

6 a.m. - Wake up
6:17 - Force myself to open my eyes and actually get out of bed
6:30 - Drive to 1000 Hills for the race
6:52 - Drive back home for a forgotten bike helmet
7:18 - Return to race course
7:19 - Realize I have no socks
7:40 - Ride shuttle to beach before the swimming portion of the race; scare Abbie with my competitive intensity
7:53 - Work up the nerve to enter the 74 degree water
8:03 - Begin swimming8:43 and 1200 meters later - Exit the lake to a crowd of cheering fans and a trio of bagpipers; force Abbie to run with me to the bike corral
8:44 - Worry briefly about the sand coating my feet compounding the lack of socks; begin lengthy bike race with nobody in sight
9:24 - Realize that Abbie and I aren't actually in last place; we are totally smoking a 74-year-old woman
10:01 and 18 miles later - Amid more wild cheering, begin running portion, observe people already finishing the running portion10:04 - Notice that sand in my shoes has begun to chafe
10:22 - Stop to clean out my shoes to absolutely no effect; notice that my feet are bleeding in several places
10:31 - Pass old guy who is barely walking yet still cheers us on
10:35 - Struggle through a wall of exhaustion to hear Abbie ask, "David, do my eyebrows look all right? I don't want them to look bad on the pictures."
10:35:02 - Pretend that I am hallucinating from the tiredness
10:39 - Pass second old guy on lengthy downhill
10:51 - Cross the finish line at a blistering sprint amid much more wild cheering and many photographers

I must say that this triathloning business brought back a lot of fond memories of my racing days. I absolutely love the communal racing atmosphere, and how everyone is so encouraging throughout the day. Another triathlon probably won't be too far distant, I hope. Or maybe a marathon. I feel like I could tackle just about any competition after our performance this morning.

Not as exciting as I had anticipated

Remember that hidden cavern beneath my house? The one housing escaped prisoners and a slew of other vagrants? Apparently they all skipped town before we actually looked around inside, because the only thing in there was a pair of lamps. There were no bloody fights against pirates over buried treasure, not even any large rats. Hopefully my next adventure will be more adventuresome.

Tonight Abbie and I hit up the pool again. This brings our number of swimming practices up to three. Some might say that this is a sure sign of disaster on race day, but I actually am not all that worried about the swim anymore. I discovered tonight that if I get tired, and if I don't mind water in my nose every 15 seconds, I can just coast along on the backstroke.

This week and next week both of my fraternities are having their fall rush. This means that I have multiple mandatory events just about every night on top of my work and homework schedule. Plus, I am planning on joining another fraternity in the next week or two. I don't rightly know when I'm gonna find time even to sleep these days, much less play World of Warcraft, but I'll have to make do.

something scary enough to drive me back to blogging again

Hello, all. Nice to see you again.

We just had a bloody adventure at my house. I got home from Abbie's, walked in the door, and encountered all of my roommates standing in the kitchen in a serious manner. My "something's amiss" detector went off immediately. My roommate Josh led me over to the water heater in an obscure corner of the kitchen to show me some mysterious light shining through two holes in the floor. Everybody is bewildered by this, and some chalked it to homeless folks, meth dealers, and even the neighbors' running of an underground theater between our house and theirs. I considered these rather unlikely, as I had never heard any sounds emanating from the floorboards before, but the rest of the roommates were still concerned. We decided to investigate. By "we," I mean everyone except Amy (another roommate), who stayed inside with a broom for defense and shouted to us to give her updates through the windows.

I grabbed a knife and a flashlight, Josh picked up a short sword thingy, Sara (the last roommate) armed herself with a cigarette, and we set out to explore the base of the house outside. What did we find? Nothing, at first. Further inspection led us to a door in the side of the house, one which has always been firmly secured to the house so that it doesn't open despite very persistent urging. It looks sort of like this, only much lower quality and less obvious looking. As far as we knew at this point, it led nowhere. Josh and I decided to double check this conclusion, which was quickly disproved by my lifting the door completely away from the house, after which it promptly fell to the ground.

At this point, I'm getting a tad concerned, because these are freaky goings-on. The door's absence didn't reveal a hole in the house, though; a large block of styrofoam-like material was still blocking the doorway. Josh snuck up and shoved his sword into the foam and yanked it out of the doorway, revealing a little hideaway under our house. It's entrance is underneath the stairway that leads to the upstairs of the house. We perused the crawlspace from a safe distance, observing a light shining from some unknown source, several cinderblocks, two new-looking extension cords, and a dirty towel. Sara convinced us that, despite the mace that Amy was offering us through the kitchen window, further exploration would not be in our best interests at present, so we promptly resealed the hole.

Another diagnostic exploration is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Amy suggested a slumber party in her room tonight because it is the most defensible, but I think we are just contenting ourselves with locking the doors. Hopefully tomorrow's searchings will be more fruitful.

I suppose that'll do it for me for now. Perhaps more awaits as this mystery unfolds.