In three weeks, I'm giving a presentation in one of my classes about the current state of research about self control. I didn't get to choose the topic, but it's of mild interest to me.

The point: there's a whole bunch of evidence to show that when we exercise self control, it depletes some sort of self-control reservoir, making it less likely that we'll able to control ourselves when another temptation presents itself in close proximity (in time or space) to the first.

Imagine you're on a diet. At work. You've got some down time, and you can either slack off and check your personal email, or you can finish the report that's due not due for three more days. You choose to do the report. Later that day, there's a birthday party. Your self-control reservoir is depleted because of your positive choice to finish your report, and you have two pieces of chocolate cake and screw up your diet. Nice work.

Conclusion: fat people must be getting a lot done, and I don't think anyone's giving them any credit for it. I'm off to find some cake.

Happily, I found out yesterday that the train schedule is going to change in mid-September. My commute in the morning will be shortened to an hour, and the ride home will be 1 and 1/2 hours. (The difference, again, is because I'll have to wait at the train station on the way home for a while).

In other news, I don't get why everyone is so freaked out about the proposed changes to our health care 'system.' For as long as I've been paying attention to the news (days now), people have only been complaining about health care. First it was about how HMO's are the devil. Then it was about how the rising costs of health care and the burgeoning presence of probably 4 trillion senior citizens in the next 20 years was going to bankrupt the world.

Then, somebody had the bright idea to try and fix the system. "Hey, I know, let's fix the system." Then somebody else came around and said, "What!!!!!!! The moderately well-off people in my social class already have semi-adequate health care that usually covers a few things most of the time. I won't let you kill senior citizens and puppies with your dirty Nazi death panels!!!!!! Over this hockey-mom's dead body." And somebody else whispers under his breath, "If only." Then everybody freaks out and starts yelling at each other, bringing guns to protests, and spreading less-than-accurate information all over the place. It's as if some sort of information terrorist (you know who you are) set off dirty bomb of ignorance. Too much ignorance fall out around here.

What the heck? Right? Right? But I think there's a bigger issue here that nobody's talking about. Some sort of conservative/liberal split? Not exactly. Have you considered that it might be an upper-middle class/lower-middle class thing? Ah, duh? The UPC's have all the health care they want, and it doesn't cost them much. The LMC's could have all the health care they want, but they'd have to ditch a few of their luxury items (e.g., cell phones, too-big houses, high-speed internets, cable TV subscriptions, etc). "But those are our RIGHTS!!!!!"

See the difference? And that's why everybody is arguing: cable TV.

The short of it is that most of us have access to health care, even though some of us choose not to sacrifice for it, but some of us don't have access to health care at all. In the best-of-all worlds, health care reform would lower costs of health care for us middle-class folks, and ensure that it's widely available to everyone else who couldn't normally afford it (or was unwilling to sacrifice their cable TV for it), but we're too into this argument, this us against them mentality, to realize that we're fighting about something for which we all want the same outcome.

So let's put aside our differences and recognize that all of us share one very important philosophical ideology: we all want to live forever. If we can get our heads out of our proverbial butts, we might be able to figure out a way to ensure that all of us can get all the pills we want until the wrinkly and shriveled (yet fatter) versions of our former selves can pass on in some sort of a drug-induced stupor with the dignity we deserve. It's our right as Americans.

Now go play nice.

Today is my first day of classes, and it hasn't been all that exciting so far. I had statistics at 9:30, a canceled class (conditioning and learning) at 2, and then later I'll have a seminar in social cognition (thinking about groups, or the ways groups influence thinking--I'm never really sure; I guess I'll find out soon enough).

On that note, I need a nap.

I'd been working on the house all day yesterday when I decided to take a 'break' from putting together office furniture and install a new fluorescent light above the sink in the kitchen. It wasn't a really complicated job, but when I finished, I saw that the electrical chord was dangling in an unsightly way under the cabinets. Easy fix, I thought. I'll just take that staple gun I found in the garage and staple the chord to the underside of the cabinet. Mistake #1.

I was careful not to put a staple through the chord--didn't really want any loose electrical current discharging near running water--but when I pressed the end of the gun into the wood and squeezed the trigger, nothing happened. Strange, since the gun appeared to be both loaded and brand, spanking new. I pointed the gun at the floor, and since I didn't have much leverage without pushing its business end into the wall, I squeezed it tightly with both hands. Mistake #2.

No staple shot out, but I felt quite a bit of reverberation in my hands, especially my right hand. Suspiciously lots of reverberation in that hand. I looked down at it. Crap. As it turns out, this particular brand of staple gun SHOOTS OUT THE BACK. Mistake #3.

Upon seeing that the staple was lodged in my palm at the base of my middle finger, pressing my flesh against the bone, my first thought was singularly this: HOW MUCH IS THIS GOING TO COST!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried to pull it out with my fingers, but it didn't budge. Double crap. I turned to needle-nose pliers, but they didn't work either: when I pulled it, it felt as if it was wedged inside a bone. Triple crap.

Unfortunately, Sarah wasn't home, so I had to call her and ask her to come home so she could take me to the hospital. I iced it with a bag of frozen vegetables until we made it to the emergency room about 45 minutes later. When I told the intake nurse that I had a "staple in my finger," it didn't really get me much attention, and she ushered a little girl with a potential owie into the back in front of me. When it was finally my turn and the nurse took a look at my situation, I got A LOT of attention, and she was very apologetic at not having me go first.

The X-ray indicated that the staple missed all the important structures in my hand, but its prongs were completely lodged in the space of the joint between my finger and knuckle. Several people crowded into the room to watch as the doctor tried unsuccessfully to pull it out. He ended up having to inject a VERY large amount of lidocaine (a pain med) into the space around the staple. He was doing it to dull the pain, but I suspect that the fluid lubricated the joint and tissue, allowing the staple to slide out with some more yanking. I felt it scrape the bone as it went by. The doctor lamented that we didn't record the procedure "for YouTube." He said it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing for him as a doctor. Hopefully it will be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing for me as a stupid idiot.

So now I'm on antibiotics for the next two weeks, and my finger is super sore and has a limited range of motion due to the swelling, but I think I'll be fine. I definitely don't need the Vicodin they told me to take. I'm saving that particular prescription, though, for the day when the bill comes. I just signed up for my new school's insurance plan last Wednesday, and I suspect it will be a headache getting them to pay--if I can get them to do it at all. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, 10 days of home ownership, and I already wound up in the ER. It wouldn't be nearly so humbing if I didn't think I was so smart. So you say you're studying for your PhD? And you shot yourself with a staple gun? What's your PhD going to be in: dumb-dumbery?

Apparently, not everyone should do their own home maintenance.

The good news is that the train has free WiFi. The bad news is that my commute between home and school will vary between 2 and 3 hours each way. You heard me right--each way.

The actual ride time isn't too bad on the way to school. Total time door to door is about 1 hour and 40 minutes, and I can spend the majority of the reading and working. Coming home takes a little longer, somewhere between 2 and 3 hours depending on the bus and train schedule, because I have to take an extra bus to get home (Sarah drops me off at the train station in the morning but can't pick me up in the evening). Still, I can spend the majority of my time working, so it's not as bad as it might seem because I'm going to be working anyway.

Worst case scenario, we buy a second car (it's a 50-60 minute drive) and spend the estimated $6,000 a year it costs to maintain and use a car. Best case scenario, I do most of my work on public transit and tell people that I'm getting my PhD by riding the bus.

I realize it's been quite a while since I last posted. Quite a few things have been going on. Go ahead and feel free to blame the interruption on our internet service provider for installing our internet five days later than they were supposed to. Here's a summary of what's happened in the last week or so.

1. We returned from Europe and spent a few days in Michigan saying our goodbyes and prepping for our move.

2. We got a new (used) car.

3. We moved to the South, driving all 22 hours and 1275 miles with three cats in the back of the car.

4. We closed on our house.

5. We rented a U-haul truck, got our things out of storage, bought a washer, dryer, refrigerator, 2 chairs and 2 ottomans, and a non-motorized push mower (think green!).

6. We set up our new place: cleaned, unpacked, hooked up the washer/dryer, mowed the lawn, and turned on the water (by myself, with a crescent wrench, no thanks to the city but thanks to the city office worker who told me how I could do it so I wouldn't have to wait for a technician).

7. Made about 56 trips to Lowe's.

8. Went to our new schools for our first days.

9. Passed out.

On the way home, we stopped in Salzburg, Austria, known best as the birthplace of Mozart, the place where much of the filming was done for the Sound of Music, and the real-life hometown of Maria von Trapp (the nun whose life on which the Sound of Music was based).


Above and below: Salzburg castle.




Above and below: near the city center of Salzburg, another UNESCO World Heritage site.


And that's it. Tomorrow, Sarah and I fly back home from Frankfurt to Michigan. It will be a full 24 hours of travel, so we're not exactly looking forward to that...

We took a quick day trip from Bratislava to Vienna, Austria. It probably turned out to be my favorite part of our trip, as evidenced by the many photos I've posted. Unfortunately, the Vienna leg of the trip wasn't exactly planned, so we didn't have tons of information about the buildings we were looking at.

Above: the Imperial Court Theater, whatever that means.

Below: soaring above the trees the towers of, get this, the mayor's office (Rathaus, in German).


Above: Hofburg Imperial Palace.

Below: more of the palace.


Above: I'm not sure, more palace?

Below: Karlskirche (St. Charles Church), commissioned by Charles VI. There was a terrible plague, he prayed and vowed to build a church if God would take away the plague. And so it was built.


Above and below: the city center of Vienna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Above and below: more from Vienna's city center.


Above and below: the city of Vienna.


Above and below: Votivkirche (candle church), one of the most important neo-Gothic religious architectural sites in the world (so says Wikipedia). Apparently the site was chosen because of a failed assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph (Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary).


Above: more Votivkirche.

Below: we parked in Vienna, I hit "points of interest" on the GPS, and the first item that came up, 200 yards from our parking space, was the home and office of one Dr. Sigmund Freud. Of course we had to stop by.


Above: look closely at the picture, and you may actually spot a Sigmund look alike in the background.

Tomorrow, finally, the last few pictures (from Salzburg, Austria).

So I was going to try and put in all the pictures from the last leg of the trip today, but as it turns out, I have way too many. Instead, I'll do Bratislava, Slovakia today; Vienna, Austria tomorrow; and Salzburg, Austria the next day.

Bratislava is an interesting city. Sitting along the banks of the Danube, it's the capital city of Slovakia and the only national capital (e.g., Washington D.C.) that borders two separate countries (Hungary and Austria). In addition, it's only 37 miles from Vienna, Austria, making them the two closest national capitals in the world.


Above: Michael's Gate: the only remaining structure from the city's medieval fortifications. It was built around 1300 and renovated in the 1700's.

Below: one of the narrow, crowded streets.



Above: the banks of the Danube from atop a hill in the city.

Below: note the Novy Most bridge, topped with a UFO-shaped restaurant, in the background.


Above: Bratislava Castle. The site has been inhabited since about 3000 B.C. Also, the back of some lady's head.

Our next stop was Wroclaw, Poland, a city that, over the years at various times, has been a part of Germany (formerly known as Breslau), Prussia, Austria, and Bohemia.

Above: one of our first stops was to climb a cathedral tower. This particular tower was actually attached to a church that became Lutheran during the reformation in the 16th century, but it was reclaimed by the Catholic church in the 1940's.

Below: but we only reason we knew to climb the tower was because of a recommendation from our waiter at lunch (tasty authentic Georgian cuisine--the former Soviet republic, not the southern U.S. state).



Above: on the way up.

Below: from the top.


Above and below: more from the top.


Above: more row houses!

Below: rival cathedral.



Above: another cathedral.

Below: a lady I saw.


Up next: the last leg of our trip.