life in chicago

Post office drama:
Customer: I want to mail to Palestine.
Clerk: Where?
Cu: Palestine. West Bank.
Cl: (does stuff) What country was that again?
Cu: West Bank. Palestine.
Cl: (looks in a book. I wonder if the listing might be Palestinian Territories.) I don't see that.
Cu: Israel? Via Israel?
Cl: That's a completely different matter!

I still can't decide if the clerk hadn't heard of Palestine, or was obstreperously making a point about Palestine not being a country.

Movies seen: Bird People in China; Big Night; Crash.

Reading: William James (ongoing), Douglas Adams 1 and 2; Dream of the Red Chamber (Chinese classic, ongoing).

I tried but failed to get a Totes umbrella which folds out to golf-size. Sears had some Totes but not that size. In the process, I found that an umbrella I measure across as 36" is claimed by totes.com to be 43". My 48" is claimed as 55". I suspect they're measuring the curvature.

Thursday I take Megabus to downtown Indy. Then I try to get to Bloomington at 2:something PM. Waah.

great timing

Posted on the CS webboard, which I don't even check usually:

Date: August 23, 2006 at 14:50:26
AI Teaching Staff Meeting, Wednesday, August 23 @ 4:15
This is required for ALL Associate Instructors. LH 102

Note the relative times.