There’s lots of evidence to suggest that I’m not alone.  It’s been remixed, replayed, and shared with the world in dozens of different styles.  Here are a few of my favorites.

The internet will never cease to amaze me.

2009 has been a bad year for cleaning, but I’ve learned a lot about it.

It all began in May when my friend and I were forced to clean the house that I privately refer to as “Graceland.”  We’d spent the better part of a year partying in Graceland, from about June ‘08 until May ‘09.  As days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, that place started to resemble anything but paradise.  It had been cleaned before, but the clutter always accumulated faster than it could be managed, and the place generally resembled its former landfill-like state in less than a week’s time.

Graceland was the quintessential punk rock house, without the punk rock.  Broken windows and whiskey bottles, hundreds of empty beers, dozens of busted strings and drum sticks, rotten burritos, empty pizza boxes, salsa verde soaked into the carpet, an assortment of cigarette butts on the basement floor, and the grubby basement sink we affectionately referred to as “the downstairs bathroom.”  At first it hurt every part of my soul to be around that kind of mess, but by the end of the year it started to grow on me.

My favorite thing about Graceland was that after four months of practically living in the basement there, the landlords brought it to everyone’s attention that there was a mold growing down there that we would be wise to avoid prolonged exposure to.  This did not stop us from holding nightly band practices, which typically devolved into dart games and drunken shouting matches after about 30 minutes.

As one could reasonably expect, that lifestyle took a toll on everyone who frequented the house, and by the end of the year all but a few had left Eugene as consequence of various Graceland related problems.  The surviving members of the house became Kings of the Trash Heap, and we were left to our own devices.   As the lease was running up we were also stuck with the unenviable task of cleaning up the big fucking mess we all made.

Although I was not on the lease, that  ecosystem of squalor was my sanctuary from the real world.  I did my part to help it thrive, and thus I was obligated to help restore it to it’s original form.  It took almost an entire week, but we persevered through it with a simple mantra. “Never forget.”

Having a mantra like, “Never forget,” is fundamentally problematic because you will invariably forget that mantra and you will look like a fucking idiot when you do.  Unfortunately, I am a fucking idiot.  However, this time the mess I was faced with was nowhere near as catastrophic as Graceland.  This was a simple one man show that just went on for too long.  There was no structural damage.  No salsa or rotten food.  No cigarettes.  Just guitar strings, paper waste, and recycling of the cardboard, glass, and aluminum varieties.  Honestly, most of the clutter in my place was just “To Do” lists with notes like, “Clean up your apartment,” “Throw out other lists,” and “If nothing else, just throw out this list.”

The mess was never supposed to be an issue for me.  I had been living with it for months and I was ready to clean it as soon as I had some free time.  Winter break is only 3 days away now, and I had every intention of giving myself a week during vacation to tidy things up one day at a time.  Unfortunately this plan was foiled last Friday when I received a “24 Hour Notice to Enter” form from my landlord.

I’m grateful that he was nice enough to:
1) Give me notice.
2) Give me much more notice than the title of the form actually indicated.

Nevertheless, his timing was most inconvenient.  I had high hopes to work on projects all through the weekend, but instead I was forced to spend my time cleaning.  While I cleaned this mess, I took intermittent Twitter breaks to keep the world updated on my progress, and I’ve included them here in chronological order.

11:31 AM Dec 6th from web Never Forget Part II: I deemed my own apartment uninhabitable one day before I received a notice to enter from my landlord. Cleaning ensues.
11:48 AM Dec 6th from web Viciously sliced my hand on a chili can that was hiding under some garbage. There is a lot more bleeding than I expected for this endeavor.
11:58 AM Dec 6th from web Found the motherlode of chili cans. How many stitches will I require if I cut my hand on every can, and is it cheaper than being evicted?
12:01 PM Dec 6th from web So far my toilet paper and duct tape tourniquet is holding up very well.
12:13 PM Dec 6th from web Now that the bleeding has stopped I deem this cut totally stitch worthy. I will either do this on my own later or ignore it completely.
12:21 PM Dec 6th from web While clumsily Google searching “tetanus” I accidentally typed “yeanus.” This yielded 796 results. The internet amazes me.
12:26 PM Dec 6th from web Can’t remember when I got the shot, but I’m only allergic to two of the antibiotics used to treat tetanus, so I continue cleaning as planned
12:27 PM Dec 6th from web The upside is that they also prescribe muscle relaxers and sedatives. The downside is that I show most symptoms of tetanus every day.
1:14 PM Dec 6th from web I can see the floor again, I am making headway on Project Quarantine.
1:32 PM Dec 6th from web Hour 2: Sweating and irritability set in. This is either the result of my potentially tetanus inflicting wound, or a result of cleaning.
1:44 PM Dec 6th from web I can already feel my quality of life improving. I should have done this months ago. I’m thinking I could have a Christmas party here.
7:22 PM Dec 6th from web Bing Crosby Christmas jams + dishes. This cleaning thing really became an all day ordeal. Bathroom is up next.
9:50 PM Dec 6th from web Finished, now I just need to find a place to ditch these huge bags of trash. I may be coming to an unlocked fraternity dumpster near you.

It’s all over now and everything is fine.  The inspection went marvelously and I’ve been cleaning my finger wound regularly and treating it to prevent infection.  My landlord was pleased as punch to see my place looking so tidy and my hand doesn’t show any signs of rotting off.

From all the cleaning I’ve done this year I’ve learned a few important lessons:
1) Deal with perishable trash before it perishes and you will be rewarded when it comes time to clean.
2) Don’t bother making plans more than 4 hours in advance because they will change, and you don’t want to be disappointed.
3) Do not reach into bags you can’t see through, you may have put sharp things inside.
4) Lacerations aren’t necessarily a big deal.  Pressure. Elevate. Wait it out. It’s bad enough to bleed, but to have some money grubbing ER doctor suck you dry for a couple of unnecessary stitches is just adding insult to minor injury.
5) Never forget. Never forget. Never forget.

Instead of panicking about my deadlines, I spent about an hour last night trying to figure out how a Rubik’s cube works.  I still haven’t got it figured out, but I learned through my practice that I can deliberately make one side all the same color.  The problem is I can’t decide which color I’m going to make it until I have about 3 of the same one in a row.

This, for all intents and purposes, is exactly how I’m going to live my life for the remainder of the term.

So this is how my life is going to work out next week:

• One or two of the projects I have cooking right now will come out beautifully.
• A couple of the things I’m working on will come out looking mostly the way they should save for a few glaring exceptions.
  AND
• One or two of them will be a horrible clusterfuck that I have little to no excuse for.

I still don’t know which assignments will live and breathe, and which ones will die, but this term has definitely turned into the academic equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru.

No matter what the outcome, I am committed to saving the ones that die.  I’ll take them to my creepy cellar, submerge them in embalming fluid to preserve their lifelike qualities, and leave them on the shelf until I can reanimate their flesh.

AP.

This year I, along with five peers, have been charged with the duty of blogging about all of the events that our guests speak at.  So far, it’s been really exciting. I’ve only seen one presentation since they got here, but I’ve already learned a lot from this experience.

1. A blog post is never finished.
Every time I look at what I’ve written I find something that sounds clunky.  I’m continually embarrassed by the number of eyes that have crossed  my posting.  The number keeps rising, and so I feverishly continue revising.

2. My peers fucking rock.
I’m working with some really cool people.  Before this project I hadn’t been formally introduced to any of the five other people I’m working with.  They’re all very talented and so far we’ve been able to make this project go.  I won’t say our execution has been smooth, but we’re learning as we go.

3. Meet all challenges with persistence, and learn as you go.
However amateur our final product may or may not end up looking, this blog has not been particularly easy to make happen.  I will definitely take every humiliating mistake I make and store that in my memory so as to not make it again.

If you’re interested in following us throughout the week, you can find our blog at www.uoeir.wordpress.com, and you can follow us on Twitter at #uoeir09

It’s time to get back to it.  There’s plenty to think about tonight.

-AP.

I can’t say I’ve gotten too involved in the Simler community, but from my experiences using it during this Beta period it has been nothing but good clean fun.

This is sort of how it works:
Instead of having an in depth profile like on Facebook, you tag your interests the way you would tag subjects in a blog.  By clicking on tags you can see the profiles of other people who are interested in a subject.  When you view a subject Simler will show threads of discussions that people are having about it, much like on a message board.  From there you can chime in and join a discussion by commenting on it, or start a new one by posting a question or comment of your own.

The way you interact with it is kind of like Twitter, but the way you share questions and responses makes it more of a marketplace like Craigslist.  It’s much more linear, and has a lot more potential for sharing useful information.   I’m really interested to see how Simler looks in a year because it has potential for massive growth.

Here’s what I mean:
Say you have a friend on Simler.  You both share interests and have interacted before.  When they add a new tag, Simler shows you the tag they added.  It turns out you like that tag too and you add it on your account.  From that tag you make friends in a discussion.  You create a tag for your favorite movie from third grade, it reminds the friends you just made of a time when they watched it at their neighbors house and it makes them so happy that they add the tag.  One of their other friends sees the new tag you just made, and so on and so forth.

So far my favorite thing about Simler, that really sets it apart from every other social networking site I’ve used, is that there aren’t any assholes.  Almost all of the users I’ve interacted with seem to be savvy, young, professionals who work in a variety of fields.  Everyone is friendly, and everyone seems to be getting along in Beta mode.  I almost think it should stay invite only, but I don’t think that is the intention of the developers.

Simler is fun.  I’ve enjoyed every interaction I’ve had on it, and if you’re interested in jumping in and testing the waters before it’s released to the public you should send me an email because I have 10 invitations left.

-AP.

For starters, I can’t use Google Analytics.  If you don’t know what it is, learn it.  It’s awesome.  The problem is that it’s only available through WordPress.ORG.  Through WordPress.org you can install a quick and easy plug-in and be up and running in no time, but with WordPress.com you’re S.O.L.

There are tons of amazing, and free, custom WordPress themes that you can download and install at toxel.com.  Again, the problem is that you can’t upload them to your WordPress unless you have WordPress.org installed on your hosting space.   Some of the themes come with the CSS in some sort of .php file, but you’ll lose all of the images attached to said theme if you can’t install them in a specific WordPress directory on a hosting space.

The long and short of this post is that what I have here is not adequate for all intents and purposes.  These are features I would like be able to utilize within the next year, and I wish I would have been less hasty in making my decision.  If I had taken the more challenging path and built something that could be a little more dynamic, this page ultimately could have become something that would have met all of my future needs.

It only took a few hours to destroy the mountain of internet that I had claimed in the name of personal blogging.  In terms of volcanic mountain metaphors, this wasn’t destruction of Krakatoa proportions, but a little absent minded tectonic movement and an eruption of curses later it was official.

“I just ruined everything I have been working on for months.”

I rummaged through the ruins of my old home at ampeters.wordpress.com and salvaged what I could.  I packed it up, moved it out, and started to rebuild on the foundation that remained.  It’s nice to not have to start from the ground up, but it’s sad that my project is gone now.

Lesson learned.  Clowns are careless and should not teach life lessons.

Moving on.
-AP.