Freaking Lasers!
You know how sometimes when you are having a long conversation with someone about random things, you sometimes stop and try to retrace your conversation topics to see how one thing leads to another? That happened to me today, but not with a conversation. Just an interest. I have been very interested recently in the Cline family roots, which pretty much originated in a tiny town called Tomahawk, West Virginia.
It started with that really sad ER episode where Mark dies, and it had "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" playing at the end. It was a really cool version, so I looked up who did it, and it was this Hawaian dude named Israel Kama... something. Well anyway, I downloaded his entire cd, and one of the songs on it was a remake of "Take Me Home, Country Road" by John Denver. The lyrics to the Hawaian version were all about places in Hawaii, and so then I wanted to know what the real version sounded like, so I downloaded that too. Then I found out that the song is about West Virginia, and how old and pretty it is, stuff like that.
Anyway, that led to me reading about West Virginia on Wikipedia for about an hour, and then trying to find information about Tomahawk. Unfortunately, the town is so tiny that there is pretty much no information about it online. I have come to terms with the fact that my family came from definite Hillbillies. I mean, these people lived on a little farm in the Appalachian mountains. I also discovered, when trying to determine my Great-Grandmother's maiden name, that it also was Cline. That's right, my great-grandmother Cline married my great-grandfather Cline. I don't know if that means that my family is inbred or not, but it's certainly weird either way...
For any of you who have ever met my Papa Cline, this won't be too surprising. He only listens to bluegrass, sells guns from his basement for a living, and basically hunts anything that moves. I'm not saying any of those things are bad, it's just that I never really realized how extremely hickly my family is. But I'm cool with that. And as if you needed any more information to convince you that I'm a hillbilly, look at the names of my Grandpa and all his brothers: Burnnis Vernon Cline, Thelmer Anderson Dwindle Cline, Raymond Hunt, and Ursel Hunt. I'm not sure, but I don't think Dwindle is ever supposed to be used as a name...
Also I learned that West Virginia is like, the most impoverished state in the US. 30% of the state is under the poverty line, and their biggest city has a population of 53,000. Damn. Pekin is bigger than 99% of the cities in that state. That is weird. And what seemed even weirder to me was that it's basically a dry state. What?! Maybe they still make moonshine in the woods??? I don't know, dude.
I had my last lab today, with the wonderful TA, Patricio Jeraldo Maldonado. What a sweaty little hyperactive Mexican... You will be missed, Patricio.
I better get back to writing this program... more updates tomorrow!
It started with that really sad ER episode where Mark dies, and it had "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" playing at the end. It was a really cool version, so I looked up who did it, and it was this Hawaian dude named Israel Kama... something. Well anyway, I downloaded his entire cd, and one of the songs on it was a remake of "Take Me Home, Country Road" by John Denver. The lyrics to the Hawaian version were all about places in Hawaii, and so then I wanted to know what the real version sounded like, so I downloaded that too. Then I found out that the song is about West Virginia, and how old and pretty it is, stuff like that.
Anyway, that led to me reading about West Virginia on Wikipedia for about an hour, and then trying to find information about Tomahawk. Unfortunately, the town is so tiny that there is pretty much no information about it online. I have come to terms with the fact that my family came from definite Hillbillies. I mean, these people lived on a little farm in the Appalachian mountains. I also discovered, when trying to determine my Great-Grandmother's maiden name, that it also was Cline. That's right, my great-grandmother Cline married my great-grandfather Cline. I don't know if that means that my family is inbred or not, but it's certainly weird either way...
For any of you who have ever met my Papa Cline, this won't be too surprising. He only listens to bluegrass, sells guns from his basement for a living, and basically hunts anything that moves. I'm not saying any of those things are bad, it's just that I never really realized how extremely hickly my family is. But I'm cool with that. And as if you needed any more information to convince you that I'm a hillbilly, look at the names of my Grandpa and all his brothers: Burnnis Vernon Cline, Thelmer Anderson Dwindle Cline, Raymond Hunt, and Ursel Hunt. I'm not sure, but I don't think Dwindle is ever supposed to be used as a name...
Also I learned that West Virginia is like, the most impoverished state in the US. 30% of the state is under the poverty line, and their biggest city has a population of 53,000. Damn. Pekin is bigger than 99% of the cities in that state. That is weird. And what seemed even weirder to me was that it's basically a dry state. What?! Maybe they still make moonshine in the woods??? I don't know, dude.
I had my last lab today, with the wonderful TA, Patricio Jeraldo Maldonado. What a sweaty little hyperactive Mexican... You will be missed, Patricio.
I better get back to writing this program... more updates tomorrow!