Heppy Freedom Day!

Freedom!

I didn't do a lot this morning when I really needed to. I did get some work done this afternoon, and I'm in a good place to run a lot of MATLAB cases. I should have done those today, but instead, I went to the UTSI Independence Day cookout. Nothing spectacular there. I met Amy's boyfriend and another of her friends from college. I also met Tim's wife. I talked to her for a while, and she seems nice. I also talked to Erin for a while, which is weird because I didn't think she talked. Tim's wife asked the new German student if he'd ever had a fourth of July before. His answer was correct: of course they have the day in Germany, but he had never participated in an American Independence Day celebration. I told him we were lazy patriots. I mean, come on, no flags, no bunting (whatever that is), and the fireworks had been cancelled (something about a drought - what is this? We can't celebrate with a little forest fire?). I blame our SGA VP of whatever Amy's office is. Oh, while I'm piling on blame - the school has four grills out in the picnic area, and they only used one of them and couldn't keep up with the demand for burgers at all. Amy also said they had lots of food, and while no one went hungry, there wasn't just a ton to spare. Her definition of a lot of food, and my definition of a lot of food are significantly distant. Granted, there was a decent turnout (probably 20+ at the peak), but I could have easily polished off another burger and a hot dog, and another Coke or two (which needed more ice). Nothing wrong with what we had (and I ate plenty, I didn't need the extra food), but I was under the impression she'd bought out the frozen hamburger patties at Kroger. Tsk, and tsk again, Amy.

I did have to bite my tongue at one point when Katie (Tim's wife) and Erin started talking politics. Both claim to be uninformed, and happily so. Katie had seen An Inconvenient Truth and said it was really convincing that global warming existed. I didn't say anything, but of course it was convincing. When you only present one side of an argument and make up facts where none exist, it's fairly easy to be convincing. Erin did say she hated Michael Moore (who she thought had made that movie), so at least I didn't have to walk away and shun her for the rest of my time here. Shhhhuuuuunnnnnn.

I guess I better try to get some of my stuff packed up if I'm going to try to make it to Memphis tomorrow.

Away Message of the Day:
Take that, King George.

More tomorrow.