I Am An Idiot

Not locking my bike, and letting it get stolen

2008-07-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

Man. So, I go to China, and before I go I put my bike in the stairwell, inside my building, where you need a key to get inside. I've already locked the wheel on Jingping's bike, and so naturally I tell myself to lock my bike, but apparently I forget. I get back from China 18 days later, and my bicycle is gone.

Now, it is my fault, and I am an idiot, for not putting the lock on the bicycle wheel. I know this. But I also blame one of my neighbors, though I don't know which one. Either 1) someone propped the outside door open so they could move something, or because they were too dumb to take their key with them, allowing one of the wandering neighborhood thieves to wander by, walk in an open door, and find my unprotected bike, or 2) one of my neighbors is himself a thief, or closely associates with thieves.

Muggings, break-ins, car windows smashed in, stuff stolen, bike seat taken. I am an idiot for living through all of these things and still not locking my bicycle.

Getting my bike seat stolen, and buying an inadequate replacement

2008-05-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

Oh gosh! Someone stole the seat right off my bicycle last week while it was locked up outside the building where I work every day. This brings us to the first point at which I am an idiot. At some point late in the afternoon I walked over to the music building to play the piano for a little while. The bicycle seat thief was probably at that very moment stealing the seat off my bicycle, and all I would have had to do was turn my head to the left, to see the spot beside the building where I had locked said bicycle, thereby catching the thief red-handed and giving myself an opportunity to interrupt him and given him a good talking to. So, I am an idiot for not casually checking on the status of my bicycle seat a good hour or so before I noticed it stolen, since I would have had some tiny chance of saving it.

Next, I waited a week to buy a new one, punishing myself by riding everyday to and from school without a seat, which is both dangerous and very difficult, since you basically have to stand the whole time, raising your center of gravity and making your legs do more work than usual. It also makes it impossible to pedal constantly, so you have to pedal in short bursts, which makes it even more difficult.

Anyway, I waited a week to buy a new one, and when I did, I bought a twenty dollar one at a bike shop, and it seemed comparable to the original, which was a pretty good seat for a $100 Walmart bike. Only when I got home with it did I explicitly realize that I couldn't attach this new seat, since the post connecting seat and bike had also been stolen. I went back to the bike shop, and asked about this, and they said I should bring the bike in since the post is measured in millimeters, and there are 18 different sizes, and it would be pretty tough for me to get that precision with an old wooden yardstick. At this point, I got a parking ticket for not paying the meter, and the guy was in the process of calling in a tow truck at the moment I came out of the shop, so that was close.

So, I return to the bike shop a third time with my bike, and they tell me it's $16 for the post thingie. I think to myself, at this rate replacing all the parts in my bike would cost probably $1000 dollars, so this is already an imprudent course of action, spending $36 for a new seat. So I get all cheap all of a sudden (yeah, right), and ask to exchange the $20 seat I previously bought for the cheapest one they had, which was just $10 and is basically a piece of hard plastic. So there's the second part: I am an idiot for thinking a comfortable bike seat is not worth $10, though my idiocy may be vindicated if someone also steals this new seat. Maybe they would have been more likely to steal the nicer one. I'm still an idiot. Idiot.

Playing computer games when I should be studying

2007-07-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

I have lots of things I should be doing. I should be working on my qualifying exam, which is this long paper which has to be researched and all that stuff. I am writing it, but it's pretty slow. Also, I should be constantly designing new experiments, and recruiting subjects, and running in my own experiments. I am doing these things, but it all feels kind of half-assed. What I'm all about is playing with this WWII strategy game I downloaded a couple of months ago. It's really hard to stop, and I've wasted many, many hours playing with it instead of reading/writing/programming. I am supposed to be a grownup doing work, not a kid playing video games. I am completely and hugely an idiot.

Going to the grocery store and buying almost nothing

2007-04-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

The original post was much too long. I went to the grocery store and didn't buy anything but a quart of heavy cream. Went back later that night, and still didn't buy groceries, just bought some weird cheese. Finally went back again today, and bought groceries. Idiot.

Insurance is for crap

2007-03-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

So I had a toothache, and I figured I ought to go to the dentist. Before going, I go real quick and sign up for some extra plan on my student health insurance because it promised that it was very likely that it would cover "up to" 50% on dental work. It cost like $25, I think. So, I wind up going to the dental school because it will be cheaper anyway, and they pull two of my teeth out after taking some x-rays, and charge me some money, and I wait to see if the insurance will cover anything. A while ago a very nice lady at the dental school calls me to basically tell me that the insurance won't cover anything. I have to pay for all my tooth-pulling, which is fine with me, but I paid $25 for nothing. I sure am an idiot.

Waiting in line for coffee at the starbucks in the library next to the robot librarian monstrosity thing

2007-03-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Also too long. This is the short version. Read the title. I am an idiot.

Waiting for the bus instead of riding a bike

2007-03-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Today I waited for 45 minutes to catch a bus to the garage just about 2 miles from my house. I could have ridden my bike and gotten there in less than 15 minutes. I am really an idiot.