august 26th, 2008, 3:22 pm

yeah, plans!

so i'm planning to graduate in may 2009 with my master's degree. then i'll take fifteen months off from school so i can travel and work and possibly teach some classes. during this time, i'll try to pay off all of my student loans. then i'll enter a ph.d program in fall of 2010.

i'm going to start building a touring bicycle to use during those fifteen months of freedom. i'd like to tour the pacific northwest on it. i'll also get off of this north american continent during those fifteen months so that i may experience other parts of the world.

this all means that my tenure in bozeman will end in summer 2009, unless i stay here to teach classes or take local web development contracts.

okay—projects?

i live in the nelson story tower on campus. i have a reserved parking spot right in front of the building. one of my latest ideas was to build a lawn on my reserved parking spot. i'd buy a bunch of treated wood, and i'd build a platform. then i'd put black tyvek on top, a layer of top soil, and then seed it. i could also add a roof, party lights, bonsai trees, and lawn chairs.

the problem with the lawn project includes the cost (the basic platform will use $130 of treated wood alone), possible vandalism, and parking lot restrictions. i'm holding off on project lawn for now.

inside my apartment, almost every wall has been recently painted white, with the exception of a wood-paneled wall. i hate this wall. it's large and ugly, and graduate housing will not let me paint it. recently at ikea, i was thinking of purchasing some fabric and stretching it over the large expanse of ugly wall. but then i thought, "why would i stretch someone else's design over my wall?" so i've decided to cover the entire wall with stretched canvases and paint on it. i will work around the window and electrical boxes, while covering the rest of the area. i will attempt to make as many of the canvases proportional to the golden ratio as possible.