I was trying to remember this morning what I did with all my summers in the past. When I was a kid I did stuff like summer camp and tennis lessons and things, because I liked them and my parents liked to give us opportunities to do stuff and because my parents liked to get us out of the house.

1992	Outward Bound in Maine.
1993	Burger King?
1994	scary convenience store on Cape Cod, run by a bitter angry family who smoked like chimneys, all the way down to the 11-year old. since that summer of walking out of an air-conditioned, ventilated warehouse every day with cigarette smoke clinging to my clothes and skin like crude oil on a penguin, I've been able to detect the slightest hint of cigarette smoke in the air.
1995	another Cape Cod summer: washed dishes at a sketchy restaurant, worked at Cumberland Farms, and finished off the summer at a deli (inside a general store which was later bought by a Pakistani man).
1996	worked for a temp agency doing indoor construction, assembling a Montgomery Ward offshoot store at the Holyoke Mall. got my first concussion by dropping a heavy steel shelf on my head. after a month of that, I moved to Wisconsin to become a professional a cappella singer.
1997	lived with the healthy family of my nutty girlfriend, worked in a gourmet deli.
1998	stayed on campus, worked full-time at the helpdesk while writing software for a co-op grant with a professor.
1999	graduated, did a paid internship about 4 blocks from my current job. never left.

Nice commentary on "intelligent design". Apparently Bush is being an asshat again.

I didn't shave for a couple days and decided to have a go at growing a beard. It occurred to me that what I haven't liked about beards is the look and feel of the hair below the chin, so I've been shaving that and it looks really good (8-10 days in the below picture). I've gotten a steady stream of compliments, and I think it looks good, so I'm keeping it for now.