(Phaysis)

So the apartment saga grows more absurd. I’ve been without an Internet connection since Thursday because of the actions of idiots. There is a small construction crew doing work on the apartment complex; they’re rebuilding the supports for all the upper-floor walkways, replacing the rotting wooden vertical beams with steel. Fine, I say.

But Thursday, I noticed that my ssh connection to my house had gone dead. Nothing I could do from work would bring it back. OK, I thought. So after I finally get home, I take a look. The power to the apartment is on; it didn’t burn in a fire; the server was running and was responsive; but the cable modem was offline. So I log into the cable modem, the signal level was low enough that it basically said “Hey, I’m physically disconnected.” So I grab my flashlight and look outside, tracing the cable line as far as I can. Didn’t take long before I found the problem: the construction crew intentionally cut my cable line. They cut a lot of people’s lines. Intentionally.

So I called Time Warner and let them know what was going on; they’ll send me a tech to service the line, but the soonest he can come out is — get this — Sunday. Three days without Internet at my apartment. I had a nice little chat with the landlady about it the next morning. She basically covered for their stupid asses and made excuses. Blowing smoke, basically. “Oh, they had to do that, it was in the way…they’ll fix it today.” Like I trust welders to repair my telecommunications lines. By end of Friday, you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. They didn’t fix it. Why did she feel like it was necessary to lie like that?

At least I know I’m not the only one inconvenienced by the debacle. There were at least ten other lines cut. My only hope is that Time Warner will take notice and see fit to fine the apartment management for letting this happen, and that the management will pass the buck on to the contractors. It’s a damn good thing I’m moving out; this whole things just feels like a final “Fuck you, get out” sort of thing.

On a positive note, my lease application was accepted at the new place, and all I gotta do is sign the lease agreement, decide on a move-in date, and write a check. Can’t wait. Been slowly moving stuff out of my apartment and into the storage. Now that I’ve gotten a lot of stuff trashed, given away, or stashed in the storage unit, the amount of stuff I have doesn’t seem so unbearable.

Math is the foundation of abstract thought. Actually, they go hand-in-hand.

I faltered years ago and skipped over some important mathematical fundaments and got lost, sowed the seeds of confusion and grew the crop of poisonous mental ineptitude that killed the young abstract thinker in me. I have trouble thinking past my immediate surroundings. It knocked me out of architectural school, a computer science degree, electrical engineering. I have always been technically-minded, but my weakness in math has been my stumbling block.

I was listening to this woman talk to a kid here in the allergist’s office. He was saying that he wanted to go to architecture school. The woman (not his mother) asked what grade he was in, what math class he was taking. Ninth grade, algebra. She went “Ew, algebra. I don’t think I need to know what X and Y are doing.”

That hurt my brain to hear that. I wanted to speak up in defense of math, but held mute. Damn my shy nature. My behavior is annoying, but hers is terrifying. Don’t revel in your ignorance.

Maybe I should heed that lesson.