Ash the Mighty

SIK Enterprises has officially made it (vaguely-)big! We’ve apparently had enough links from outside pages to qualify us to exist within the hallowed pages of Google, which is nice! Don’t believe me? Well just click here to run a search for SIK Enterprises (didn’t even have to use quotes to get a hit!). Now I know we’re not at the top, but that’s because some major Chinese company called Pak Sik Enterprises takes that spot. Just keep up your support and we’ll take them over!

On other fronts, you can click here to view several pictures of my new flat. I can officially start moving in on Monday, but since I don’t technically have to be out of my current place until June 20th, I’m thinking that I can take all the time I want, which is a good thing since I’ll basically be making a couple of hundred trips walking back and forth between the new places. At least this new one isn’t at the top of a long hill and is on the ground floor, rather than the other way around!

I also realized that I haven’t updated everyone on my dissertation! I will indeed be writing the thing (it was a small worry for me that they’d let me, what with my grades and all), and my advisor will be Dr. Stephen Driscoll. The dissertation itself will be concerned with the locations, re-locations and general designs of armorial decorations (coats of arms) in various Scottish Royal Palaces (ie; Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, Stirling Castle, and Linlithgow Palace). I realize that that probably sounds extremely boring to you folks, but if you think about it, it’s really a study in medieval propaganda. Not everyone could have these coats of arms, and their design and location could be extremely valuable in giving an insight into the motivations of the nobles and royals during various periods. That said, it’s still probably going to be really really really boring. But what can you do?

That’s my news for now. Check back later for more fun and excitement.

Slainte.

“Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody’s coming to get me.
Just say you never met me!
I’m runnin underground with the moles,
Diggin’ in holes.
Hear the voices in my head,
I swear to God it sounds like they’re snoring
But if you’re bored then you’re boring
The agony and the irony, they’re killing me, whoa!”
~Harvey Danger – “Flagpole Sitta”

So I told you folks that I hadn’t taken many pictures with my SLR, and compared to, say, my field trip (7 rolls), I didn’t. However, I did take the better part of a roll, and I must say this may be the best color roll of film I’ve taken yet!

Since I had staying in my flat a subject such as Meggan (who, for those of you who don’t know, used to be a professional model, as evidenced by this and this picture), I couldn’t resist snapping a bunch of pictures of her most striking features (namely her beautiful face and unreal eyes, made even more noticable by her newly-red hair) . . . mostly while she was lying around getting steadily more annoyed at me for shoving a camera in her face! Therefore in this album (viewed here) you will see more of Meggan’s face, eyes, and hair than you may ever want to. But when you’ve got a subject like her, you don’t just satisfy yourself with one picture!

So, I hope you guys like. I’m off to run even more errands, so wish me luck!

Slainte.

“Hey Doc, tell me something I don’t know.”
“When I was in fourth grade, I dropped karate because some kid half my size made me cry.”
[Pause]
“I meant about the body.”
~Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) and Dr. Al Robbins (Robert David Hall) – CSI

. . . here are a couple of pictures of Meggan and I from her trip. I still haven’t gotten around to developing the half-roll from the SLR camera, but these are still pretty nice. Enjoy!

Meggana beautifying herself after the winds of Edinburgh Castle
Meg loves her cannon! (no dirty jokes)
Ash and Meggana beside the Sir Walter Scott Monument
Rob, Meggan, and Chris on Ashton Lane
Meg and Ash outside the Solid Rock Cafe
Slainte.

P.S. I’m not trying to confuse people here. The name of the girl who came to visit me is Meggan Ladewig. However, for some unknown reason her name lends itself rather well to nicknames. Hence the “Ameggan the Hun” and “Meggana” (which I think is rather pretty and sounds vaguely Italian or something). Just so you understand . . .

“I’m gonna get out of the car and drop you like third period French.”
~Turk Malloy (Scott Caan) – Ocean’s Eleven

It took them about seven months, but it appears that someone in a position of power in this building has begun to notice that there is indeed only one person living in this flat. I got the tip off about a week ago from Rob, who is friends with an RA in the building. Apparently she’s been asking around seeing if anyone had ever actually even seen Carly before. This girl isn’t the type who would just idly wonder about such things, which means she’s been asked to find out . . . which means I’m in trouble!

So I have had to change my mind/plans once again. I will be moving after all. I’m not thrilled about it by any means, but I would rather leave before a very embarrassing confrontation which results in me being forced to leave (along the lines of “quit before they can fire you”). I’ve actually already started looking at flats, and may have found one straight off the bat. I found a new website which just does a few lines about each property, and on there I found an advertisement for a 2 bed 2 bath that is just down Byres Road from me. Meg (who has now been dubbed “Ameggan the Hun” due to her post below) and I went to take a look at it a couple of hours ago, and it is amazing. And the Hun would like it pointed out that it does indeed have a huge soaking tub, but alas no fireplace. All hardwood floor laminate, huge kitchen with a ginormous fridge (which is nice compared to the half-size ones I’ve seen in the other flats). In short, it’s just perfect.

I’ve told the realtor lady that I’m really really interested. I’ve already made an appointment to go see another place on Wednesday, and she’s agreed to hold it until then, so depending on whether or not this other place suits, I may have found a really nice new flat for people to come and visit me in!

Now I must go. Must fix dinner before meeting Chris et al for one more night of Scottish drunkeness for Ameggan before I have to put her on the plane tomorrow morning. She’ll be sleep deprived and either still drunk or REALLY hung over!

Slainte.

“My ancestors sent a lizard?”
“Hey! Dragon. Dra-gon, not lizard. I don’t do that tongue thing.”
~Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) and Mushu (Eddie Murphy) – Mulan

Daniel is making me write in this and all i have to say is that I HATE CARLY!!!!!!!! But in all seriousness i’m having a wonderful time visting Daniel. oh- and i hate carly. Yesterday we went to go see Edinburgh (spelling?) Its such a loveyl place and Daniel bought me a sparkly he’s the best. Then we went out for drinks and stayed out way too late. but apparently i’ve made his two friends fall hopelessly in love with me- lol now if only i could get daniel to do that. (wink wink) Tomorrow its off to go apartment hunting or flat hunting as they call it here. I have everyone’s best interests in mind as I give my oppinions on his new flat. I’m thinking he needs a fireplace and a roman soaking tub for starters. *carly sucks* then who knows what we shall do on satruday and then sunday i leave which makes for a sad meggan. i’d write more except i have no idea what to say except that Carly- if you’re reading this- how dare you hurt my daniel and you are scum in my book. other than that i hope every has had as lovely of a day as i have so far.
ok luv ya buhbye
megs

Yes that’s right, I had an adventure on Saturday! An ambulance adventure!!! No, I did nothing stupid, so don’t go down that road. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. What I did is I left my bedroom window open. That tiny little action (or inaction, depending on how you look at it) resulted in my trachea almost closing on me! Yipee!

OK, here’s the dealy-oh. So a bee must have flown in that open window. It’s really the only way in from the outside world. I’ve found a few in the flat thus far, but have managed to kill them before too much chaos insued (yes, I kill bees on sight . . . read on to find out why). So this particular bee just happened to settle itself on the edge of my chair, where I just happened to sit down while wearing my very light weight pjs (I had been typing my essay, so I was in comfort mode). Well, true to nature the damned thing stung me.

Now my dad is alergic to wasps. VERY alergic, and so it’s only logical that I am too. When I was a kid I was stung by a bee on my belly and it swelled up to the size of a dinner plate, but then none of my alergies had really surfaced by that point. So, needless to say I was nervous. At T+3 minutes my left leg had swolen considerably (I was stung on the back of the leg just above the knee). I decided that if it was still getting worse at T+5 minutes that I would call the hospital. Well, at said time I started breaking out in hives. So, “999″ was called (learned that lesson the last time), and they sent out an ambulance post-haste. They arrived in less than 9 minutes (I timed them, so at this point I’m about at T+14), and they made me drop trou in my hallway, and they administered a shot of epinepherin (sp?) directly above the sting. It hurt. A lot.

So the guy said that judging from the swelling, hives, and the tenderness of my neck, my throat was getting ready to swell shut. Yes, that means no air, which means a not-so-slow death by asphixiation . . . one of my biggest phobias (I wonder why). Now here’s where the ambulance part comes in to the adventure. Those poor not-so-big-and-burly EMTs (do they call them that here? I don’t know) had to help my huge ass down the stairs, into the ambulance, and down to the hospital for like three hours worth of “observation” (which looked remarkably similar to “sitting in the waiting room” to me). After that was over, they proceeded to not tell me to get an epi-pin/pen, and that alone sets them apart from doctors in America who once offered me one because I mentioned that I might be alergic to bees. I wish I had it now!

And as an added bonus they made me walk home. OK, so it wasn’t much of an adventure. Hey, at least I got to show my butt to complete strangers . . . so that was fun.

Also, I was sick yesterday, so all those people I didn’t get a chance to talk to, please accept my apologies (you can call me Maximus. Vomitus Maximus).

And as a small side note, I would like to add that I have now put the riveting tale of the birth of SIK Enterprises online. I’ve also put up a small Bio about yours truly. I’m fully aware of the narcissism inherent in that act, but I think I can handle it.

Slainte.

“Kaylee, what the hell’s going on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?”
~Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) – Firefly

I just had to take a quick break from the continued torture which is my Data Analysis Essay. I’ve been actively writing/avoiding writing it for over a week now. I’m pretty close to being done though. I’m got all three data sets either graphed or tabulated, and I’ve written 2,038 of the 3,000 words describing in minute detail everything I did and why I did it. That’s part of why I’ve hated doing this. I don’t really mind putting things into the graphs and everything. At least the math parts are pretty basic. No, what bothers me is having to go back and quantify all those tiny little decisions that you make in trying to make things look nice or understandable. Then there’s the fact that I’m not entirely sure I’m doing any of it right in the first place (which makes you sound really stupid when trying to justify it) . . .

So insomnia struck again last night. Third time this week. I think I finally passed out at about 6:30 am. I would say congratulations (<--I've never been able to spell that word. It looks wrong, but I'm too lazy to go spell it on Word to find out) to me, but the end result is that I slept until about 2:30, 3:00. Which means that even if the insomnia doesn't get me tonight, my out-of-synch sleep cycle will. That's not too bad now I guess, since I don't have to go to classes anymore, it can still just be damned inconvienient at times!

On the happy side of things, Meggers is coming to visit soon! Yayyyy! I have NO idea what we're going to do for a week, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. I can almost guarantee that it will involve Edinburgh and movies though. And the renting of Mulan. Inside joke, don't ask. So anyway, hurry up Meggan! I'm so bored over here! Entertain me.

Almost forgot! You guys need to ALL go and check out the latest SIK Enterprises original website. It's Nate's new yet improved music page at: www.nateandamy.com/nate/. Not only can you find out all about Nate and his music, but you can also download clips of all his songs and even order a P-CD (a Personalized CD with your choice of songs, title, and even album cover!). And if you’re curious, pretty soon there will be information on Amy’s and Nate’s wedding under the, yup, you guessed it, wedding section. To just kinda explore, go to www.nateandamy.com.

I guess that’s probably enough of a break. Why did I go to grad school again?

Slainte.

“Underneath the starlight, starlight
There’s a magical feeling so right
It’ll steal your heart tonight”
~Meggan Ladewig (and LeAnn Rimes) – “Can’t Fight the Moonlight”

I am well aware that there really should be exciting things happening when I write these things. That I owe it to all you folks to keep you entertained by my crazy hikinks (or is it hyjinks? Hijynx? Who knows? Who cares?) in the realm of rain and sheep. This, I’m afraid, I cannot do. If I tried to tell you all my insane antics involving colorful locals, well . . . I’m afraid I would be lying. If nothing else the locals, while certainly colorful, are also exceedingly surly, and I don’t really feel the need to get my nose broken . . . again.

I can tell you that a few things have happened this week. I finished my paper that was about two weeks over-due. I’ve started on my next one for the same class (which, believe it or not, is actually even more boring than the first. I know I say that about all archaeology, but it really is just graphs and bar charts on the relative sizes of fragments of pottery and what-not . . . not exactly my cup of Mountain Dew [still don't drink tea]). As soon as I finish with this one, I’ll have two others to write. But you know something? After that a couple of things will be true! I won’t have any other papers beyond my dissertation to get my degree, and also there will only be a few more days before Meggan arrives to visit me! Yay!

Unfortunately I have two pieces of bad news as well. First, I have to let you folks know that Dr. Ken Roepke died on the 22nd of March. For those of you who don’t know about it all, I grew up with Ken’s daughter, Mary Jo (who happened to be the officiant at Carly’s and my wedding). He’s been sick for quite a while so this isn’t the unexpected blow it might have been, but that doesn’t stop it from being extremely sad. The second bit of news, while not as bad, is still upsetting for me. It appears that my bar-none best friend in Scotland, the incomparable Jennix Sim, is splitting from her husband of several years, Steve. It’s been a really long time since I have been able to spend a really large amount of time with either of them, so I had absolutely no clue that this was coming. If either of you are reading this, please feel free to give me a buzz at any time. The situations are vastly different, but I have indeed now been there! I love you two!

So on that note, I’ll just sign off. I can hear “007: Everything or Nothing” calling my name. I think I’ve almost beaten the thing. I REALLY hope so!

Slainte.

“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!”
~James Bond (Sean Connery) and Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) – “Goldfinger” (also from Moby’s “James Bond (Remix)”)