My nemesis

Notice that the battery is being drained to power the electric motor, which then turns the front wheels. This is the genius of the hybrid automobile -- it can propel itself without relying on the gas consumption of a typical engine. This was also the reason why I could never get that battery to 100%. More a curse than salvation if you ask me.

Checking in.

In case you didn't realize it, whenever I'm not sitting at my laptop, composing a post for this blog, there are real life events transpiring, some of which involve me. Sometimes those events happen at such a break-neck pace that I have no time to record them for publication. This post is designed as an update to inform you of those events.

At the outset, you should be aware that most of these tidbits are mundane, poorly written, and barely worthy of your attention, but, as the early European explorers discovered, you must sometimes brave months, even years, of flat seas, dried meat, severe boredom and debilitating scurvy to reach the spices which you seek. Until then, a warning: I'll sink this vessel in a second if I even catch a whiff of mutinous behavior.

1) Resurrection. Without doing anything more productive than bemoaning the warranty terms of my Canon SD100 and hitting the power button over and over again, I managed to bring the little-digital-camera-that-could back to life. The cause of the malfunction still remains a mystery, but I refuse to question good fortune. Still not going to buy an Ipod Nano, though – the Ipod Shuffle has taught me that I actually prefer an Mp3 player that never has to leave my pocket.

2) Landed a job offer. Looks like all the hard work paid off and I'll be spending next summer in sunny California. While I am certain I will reside in San Francisco, I still need to decide whether I'll be working at an office in the city itself or one down in Silicon Valley. The decision is not to be taken lightly, because, assuming I don't single-handedly sink the firm with my incompetence during the 10-week summer stint, I should be receiving an offer for permanent employment status from whatever firm I ultimately choose. Thankfully, recent information indicates that if I decide to strip and jump in the Pacific Ocean as I had originally planned, I should be well on my way to receiving that offer, and the adoration of law school students nationwide.

3) Captain Planet. During the course of my stay in California, I did my own small part in saving the world from terrorism by driving a rental Prius. Despite the near impossibility of turning on the vehicle and the difficulty presented by its array of odd appendages, I came to enjoy the hybrid's eccentricities by my trip's end. In particular, the center console touch screen, which as you drive displays the distribution of power between the gasoline motor, the electric engine, the battery, and the wheels, proved highly entertaining.

Because that screen was visible at all times, charging the battery to its full capacity -- 10 bars -- became a sort of game to me. Well, at first it was a game, an amusement for those times when the song on the radio did not sufficiently capture my attention. But then, after a day or two of driving, when I managed to get the battery to 90% and the screen reacted with an affirmative noise, celebrating my achievement and changing the color of the battery meter from dark blue to fluorescent and lively green, it became something more. Something that had to be accomplished. At any cost.

From then on, I put everything I had into battery charging. Through a combination of accelerator pedal positioning, hard braking (slowing down provides charge), and innate driving skill, I worked tirelessly and relentlessly at refilling the battery. It's likely that I put many other drivers at risk during this time that I spent staring intensely at the center console, brow furrowed, awaiting that final noise which would announce my supreme victory. This didn't occur to me at the time; I was preoccupied.

Alas, sometimes a dream is nothing more than a waste of time and effort that should be ridiculed by your closest friends until you give up on it, thereby saving you inevitable disappointment. As the foregoing hints, none of my driving maneuvers or mechanical manipulations were successful. I had to turn the car in to Hertz with 10% -- an insurmountable barrier in the context of hybrid battery charging -- separating me from my goal. I knew then that the defeat handed to me by the Prius that day would sting more than rejection by any law firm. (This was later confirmed.)

4) Looking forward. We all know that not everything can work out in our favor or in accordance with our wishes. For better or worse, that's life. Uncertainty abounds; nothing is set in stone. But lack of change, while possibly comforting for the risk averse, is just like knowing the future. And what could be more frustrating -- and more boring -- than that? To have your entire life mapped out in front of you, every surprise ruined, every disappointment felt before it occurs, every tragedy suffered in anticipation until it finally happens. Nothing could more easily destroy the human spirit.

It's the unexpected changes, the unforeseen bumps, the windfalls, the losses, the infinite possibilities -- all of them, negative and positive -- which make life interesting and worth living. Sure, I have to work hard to convince myself of this sometimes, especially when I really want certain things to work out, but if I were faced with the option of clairvoyance, I can honestly say I’d choose to keep my future unseen and unlimited.

Not such a happy ending

I'm not sure how it happened, but last night my camera lost its will to live. One minute we were taking pictures in Happy Ending and the next it couldn't turn on. I suspected that the battery had run out of juice, but even a fully charged battery cannot force it into operation. Upon closer examination, I found a bit of moisture in the battery compartment, but I'm fairly certain that is from my investigation into the problem last night, not the cause of it.

Canon says that they can resurrect my camera for the substantial sum of $160, but considering I purchased the camera for only $40 more than that, I think I'll just buy another one. Damn, now I can't justify buying an ipod nano.

It’s my elevator

When faced with the prospect of ascending a building, I usually prefer the stairs to the elevator. This is in large part because I, more than most Americans, realize that exercise is good whenever and wherever you can get it, not just when it is provided by a treadmill or through an instructional video. But now that I live all on the 11th floor, I find to my dismay that taking the stairs is altogether impractical, especially if I want my knees to last another decade or so.

Last year, I was on the 7th floor –- high enough that I felt justified in taking the elevator but low enough that the option of taking the stairs was ever-present. Moreover, since most of the residents in that building didn’t use the elevator for the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floors, the maximum number of stops I would ever have to endure during any elevator trip was four, a perfectly acceptable amount. If ever the trip was too slow for my tastes, I could always hop off on the 5th or 6th floor and walk up the stairs the rest of the way.

Traveling by elevator here in Mercer –- a more heavily populated building than D'Agostino –- inevitably results in riding with people who live on almost every floor between the ground level and my own. While I'm normally a very calm, even-tempered person, this can be highly aggravating.

When I am blessed with the fortune of stopping at 8 floors or heaven forbid 9 because of the absolute slug of a human being who is unwilling to walk up to the 2nd floor, a strange and unfamiliar darkness falls over me as the trip progresses. With each stop I grow more angry and impatient. At first I didn't fully understand what was happening, but then I realized that I am experiencing the elevator-equivalent of road rage. This palpable and destructive force could, if the right pieces were in play –- a long day, an 80-page reading assignment, the corner bodega closing before I could get dinner, and an overly talkative elevator occupant –- culminate in a brutal and savage beating. Thankfully, the animosity has thus far led to little more than obscenities muttered under the breath and heavy sighs at each stop.

Even more bizarre than my violent tendencies, though, is this phenomenon: when I am the sole person in the elevator, I sometimes develop an attachment to the device, a sense of ownership justified by nothing but my being in there alone. Whenever someone enters the elevator, I look at them as if they’ve just soiled my couch with dirty cowboy boots. How dare you! This elevator is mine – and has been since I got on 30 seconds ago! Can’t you see my floor, not yours, is already lit, and I had my hand on the ‘Close Door’ button as you approached?

If you haven’t experienced this (I’m sure some of you have but won’t admit to it), it's similar to how you would feel if you were forced to pick up and drop off an unwanted hitchhiker every time you were on your way home from work (minus the worry that you might be slaughtered en route, of course) .

For those without cars, it can also be analogized to a situation such as the following: you and a friend are the only people in a movie theater, looking forward to watching whatever flick you’ve come to see without distractions, relaxed and as comfortable as you might be in your own living room, and, suddenly, right after the previews end and just before the movie is about to start, another group of people saunters in. Regardless of whether they are loud and obnoxious or well-behaved (the latter is unlikely in this day and age), their intrusion nevertheless interrupts and – most of the time – ruins your experience.

So, the next time you get on an elevator and someone is standing there, arms crossed with a disapproving look on his or her face, quickly step off and wait for your own. It’s the right thing to do – and the only way to avoid ending up the subject of a newspaper headline that reads: “One Too Many Stops: Elevator Rage Claims Victim.”