Tim Peterson's Blog

This quarter I have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time in which to do it, so I’ve been wondering exactly how to manage it all. However, I got a nice and unexpected reprieve from that this afternoon.

When my last class got out at 5, I was in the engineering building preparing to head out to the car when I noticed that the doors were open to the new wing they’ve been building for the last many months. It looked fairly finished, there wasn’t much in the way of construction in sight, and someone was walking through on their way out, so I decided it was safe to have a look. Only a few rooms are inhabited at this point, the others still being in the process of having their furniture and the like installed. There are lots of glass-walled labs, as well as lots of glass to the outside. It looks like a nice place, and I had fun exploring all the hallways, including the slightly twisty one that finds its way back into the third floor of the old building. I ran into no one until I reached the third floor, where there’s a big room with a big glass overlook. There were three people in there, so I didn’t go in. I shall have to return sometime soon to complete my exploration.

I’m not sure exactly why I found it fun; perhaps it’s the combination of the novelty of having a new building on campus, the sneakiness of wandering around in an empty building, my interest in behind-the-scenes type things (seeing as not everything was finished yet), and simple adventurousness. I emerged happily onto a new sidewalk, where I was greeted by unexpectedly warm weather and a shining sun. Everything was still wet from the thunderstorm earlier in the day, which I had only heard from inside a classroom and wished I could enjoy it. I strolled happily out to the car (once I located it), and headed out. I opened all the windows to enjoy the air, and noticed, among other things, the sound of cars driving on wet pavement. Ahhhhh.

About half-way home, what did I spy in the middle of the road but — what else? — a rubber snake! I had seen it on the way in this morning, at first thinking it was a real snake but then realizing that it was coiled too neatly and was too non-squished to be real. So I turned around and came back to grab it. I then resumed my course, laughing at the fact that God had provided this fine day with not only building exploration and nice weather, but also, as if those weren’t enough, a randomly-placed rubber snake! Excellent, wouldn’t you say?

Thursday night Jackie and I went to the free showing by CAB of Back to the Future at RIT. There were very few people there, so we had plenty of choice in seating, but I followed Jackie to a seat without looking much at where other people might be nearby. We sat down, and then heard the person behind me say, “This guy’s too tall; I’m moving over.” I thought that was rather amusing, and turned around with a grin to see if she had been successful in moving over. When she saw that I had noticed what she said, she said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, that was rude.” I really didn’t mind, and I just found it funny, but Jackie thought it was pretty rude.

Maybe it was just my tired state, but when I got home around 12:30 I still thought that was amusing. However, I wondered why it was I reacted so differently from Jackie. The next day (at about the same late hour, in fact) I discovered part of the answer. First, I find a lot of things funny. I’m always seeing the humor in the little things people do or the situations that occur. Secondly, and more to the point, I didn’t consider the comment rude because I tend to tease people with possibly-rude comments myself, intended to amuse rather than to offend. Therefore, I’m used to such things, so the effect of such comments toward me is usually amusement rather than taking of offense.

I’m curious: How would you have reacted? A laugh? A retort? (Perhaps an incapacitating glare, like someone I know?) What is the typical response to rude comments by strangers? And just how unusual am I, anyway?

Well, that was an adventure.

For several months now I’ve been taking some extra sound equipment to IV every Friday to augment the sound system IV owns. I borrowed the church’s old sound board, which has been floating around since it was replaced several years ago (and by old I mean 1979 vintage). That, as well as several other large parts of the church’s system, came from the original church sound guy who used to run sound systems for concerts and such. He happened to have a spare snake in his garage. (For those unfamiliar with the term, let me clarify that a sound snake is a long, thick cable that carries a dozen or more microphone signals a long distance, with a bunch of connectors on each end. The snake in question is 50-75 feet long and has 12 inputs and 4 outputs.)

The problem with IV’s system is that the mics have to plug directly into the mixer, which has to be right up front below the stage. This means that I have a hard time hearing what’s coming out of the speakers to be able to mix it well. I’ve wanted for a while to remedy the situation, and it was only recently that the pieces all fell into place. I now run the snake from the stage up to the back, where I set up the borrowed mixer. The mics go through the snake into the board, where I can mix from the comfort of the back row, and the results go back down the snake to the old all-in-one mixer, which is now functioning simply as an amplifier. The other advantage of this arrangement is that I now have more auxiliary outputs, meaning I can control my recordings better (two channel recording, etc.).

In addition to those large items, I also borrow a bunch of mic cables and several direct boxes (to connect guitars to the mic cables). The latter aren’t all spares, so I have to grab them after worship team practice on Tuesday and return them on Sunday morning. I have IV small group Thursday nights, so lately I’ve been dropping by church on the way home to pick up these things. This week, however, I forgot about it and went straight home. So, once I got all my stuff inside, I headed back out.

This is where it gets interesting. As I drove in the driveway, I looked through the windows of the sanctuary and saw that there were some lights on in one of the classrooms in the next wing over. I figured somebody had just left them on by accident, but just in case I thought I’d drive around the end of the parking lot to make sure there wasn’t somebody like the pastor parked on the other side of the building, out of sight. Then, as I entered the parking lot, I noticed a flash of light from a car driving past, like a spotlight. This, also, I thought was a bit strange, but I continued on. Nobody was in the lot, so I circled back and parked in front of the sanctuary door. Walking over to the door, I turned to see a car zipping up the driveway. That was even more weird. Who else would be here at 11 PM? Regardless, I turn back to the door and begin to insert the key.

Then the car stopped and a guy called to me. I turned around, and realized it was a police car. He asked what I was doing, and I clumsily replied that I was borrowing some sound equipment, because I ran the sound system. I didn’t really understand what he wanted at first. I started to ask, “Is everything all right?” He got out, directed me to keep my hands where he could see them, and asked a bunch of questions. One of the first was whether I had ID. I paused momentarily, smacked my forehead, and replied that “I’m sorry, I don’t.” You see, I keep my wallet in my backpack, which goes everywhere with me at RIT. But I had taken it out when I got home, and forgotten to bring it on the one occasion when it mattered. He asked more questions. I tried to answer that I was allowed to be there, that I had a key, and that I was even listed in the church directory. He said that there had been a number of church break-ins in the area recently, so he wanted to see if I was trying to break in.

He asked me to get in his car. He looked up my driver’s license information and the car registration on his laptop. he asked where I lived, who else lived there, where I worked, and so on. He asked the dispatcher to look up contact info for the church. I chimed in with the street address, since he didn’t know the number. They couldn’t find anything, though. I tried to be helpful and tell him whatever he wanted to know. He got out and looked in my car. Then he came back in, and I suggested contacting the pastor or secretary. I provided him with the pastor’s name, and had the dispatcher look him up in the phone book and call him. A few minutes later, we heard back that I was clear to be there. So, he let me out, thanked me for being cooperative, and warned me to keep my ID with me at all times. “At least you’ll have a story to tell,” he said. Then I went in, completed my mission, and headed home. (I noticed that I was shaking a little as I started driving.)

After I went to bed, I went back over the experience in my head. I thought about it from his perspective and wondered what else I could have told him to help verify my identity. It’s his job to not trust me, so I’d have to suggest outside sources. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, so I had nothing to hide, and I was rather calm through it all, which probably worked in my favor. I wondered if when I said I was “borrowing” sound equipment he might have thought, “Yeah, right, more like stealing it.” I also wondered if my surreptitious check of the parking lot might have looked suspicious (if he even saw that). I stayed awake far longer than I wanted to, and eventually got to sleep after 1.

I had on previous occasions wondered what the neighbors might think if they saw me at church late at night and bringing things out. This is the most convenient time for me to do it, but I may want to consider doing it on Friday morning so as to avoid drawing this kind of attention.

Update: After church on Sunday, Pastor told us his side of the story. He got a call from someone who said, “Hello, this is Officer So-and-so.” Now, whenever you get a call from the police you get scared and wonder if someone died or something. But no, they said, “We’ve got a guy here who’s trying to get into the church. He’s got a key, and we wanted to find out if he’s supposed to be there.” “Who is it?” “It’s a guy named Tim Peterson.” “That tall, lanky guy? Oh, he’s all right.” And that was that. He then said, “That was the strangest call I’ve ever gotten. I’ve never gotten a call like that before.”

Update: That mischievous family I work with to run sound at church, after being involved in the above conversation, took it upon themselves to cull some pictures from the church photo gallery and… modify them. Not quite up to my usual standards, but they’ll do…

“These exclusive pictures show the tragedy of what happens when a fine young man turns to the dark side…”

Tim the jailbird runs the prison sound system

Tim the jailbird at hard labor

What, oh what can we do about Tim the jailbird?

When I came home from work on Wednesday, my brother yelled from out of sight upstairs, “Intruder!”, as he so often does. I commented on it, and my dad said the house’s immune system must be reacting to me. He continued by saying, as Dan came down the stairs, “Here comes the antibody!” “No, I think he’s more like an uncle body,” I quipped.

At dinner my mom pulled out a book on rocks she was reading. She started to read about Pele’s Hair , thin fibers of glass that can form from molten lava. Not all of us heard the name right, thinking she said Paley , a Christian philosopher. I asked, “Is he the guy for whom paleontology is named?” “NO!” exclaimed my dad, laughing. “That’s pretty bad…”

At small group Thursday night we were going through part of Colossians 3 . We got to verse 12: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Allison noted that it was interesting how it says we are to put on these things as if they were clothing, completely covering ourselves with them. I piped up, saying, “That’s some nice compassion you’re wearing there.” This caused everyone to start laughing and then make comments of their own. For example, quoth David O.: “I think my humility is getting a little threadbare.” And Harry: “I’ve got a hole in my patience.”

I finally got around to finishing this, regarding my birthday on Saturday the 6th.

On the Wednesday before, Jackie called to say that she was back from seeing her family for Christmas and to ask if I wanted to do anything on the weekend. I explained that I might not want to, since Saturday was my birthday. (She proceeded to berate me for not having told her sooner. I didn’t quite understand the reason at the time…)

Until then, I hadn’t really thought much about my birthday. We usually don’t do much for my birthday, just dinner of the birthee’s choosing, cake, and presents. But I realized that this year I actually have some friends that I know well enough to invite over (female though they may be). So, I acted upon this on Thursday. Ruth and Jackie both said they could come, but the latter said she was planning something for me afterward, for which I’d need to come over to her house. (Suspicious, eh?) I also asked if they had a preference between French toast and lasagna. My mom had suggested the former, since it’s one of our traditional Saturday night foods, but one that we don’t have very often, thus making it more special. The latter was my sister’s idea, since she likes it and has had it for her birthday before. I didn’t have much of a preference between the two, so when Jackie requested French toast, it saved me from having to make such a difficult decision.

On Saturday morning, my dad and I went to church to practice our quartet for Sunday. All four members of the other family were involved, but they came in two cars because of their scheduling for that day. Or rather, they tried to. One car arrived on time, carrying the mother and one son. She called home, and was told that the others had car trouble. One wheel of the car had frozen up, so it wasn’t going anywhere. They had, however, managed to get it from its parking place on the lawn onto the driveway, where it was blocking the exit of the other car (which they could have taken) in the garage. Stymied, they called AAA, leaving the remainder of us to practice our parts alone.

I spent the afternoon doing things I felt like doing, rather than the things I felt like I needed to do. I worked on my map viewer a bit (and banged my head on somebody else’s bugs), watched some I Love Lucy with the others, and built with my Zome (five intersecting cubes forming a dodecahedron with their vertices). Then I went to pick up Ruth and Jackie at 5.

We sat around in the living room for a while while my parents prepared dinner, looking at my siblings’ Lego constructions, observing my Zome creations, bouncing a balloon, and reading books. Finally, it was ready, and we ate. In addition to the French toast, there was turkey bacon, applesauce, and cranberry applesauce. Somehow I got full after only five slices. Then we had cake, lovingly prepared (well, mostly; see below) by my mom and sister. Then I opened my presents, as well as a card I had been given at practice earlier. From my parents I got a pair of pairs of pliers, as well as Brainiac, the book by Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings (which I had requested).

After hanging around for a while, we went over to Jackie’s house. She wanted to watch a movie, but things didn’t work out at the rental place, so we didn’t get anything. Instead, we ended up watching a few somewhat fragmentary episodes of M.A.S.H on TV Land. I had never seen this show before. The one thing I did know about it was that it contained Alan Alda, who I know better as the host of the Scientific American Frontiers program.

After lounging around for a while watching that (as well as whatever else we could find during the commercials), the girls started muttering amongst themselves, and then went in the kitchen. Not being interested in the TV, and knowing that they were probably working on whatever it was Jackie had planned, I lay back and closed my eyes for a few minutes. When they returned, Jackie was carrying a cake. I blew out the candles (in the shape of the number 22), and we returned to the kitchen. Jackie cut a large piece for me, to which I objected, citing my still-full stomach. Ruth helped by taking a few chunks of mine and eating them (somewhat messily, I might add). I ate the rest, which was good.

I’m often more practical than emotional, which means sometimes I may inadvertently hurt people’s feelings with my practicality. My initial reaction was, “No, I don’t need that much cake. I’m still full…” But Ruth quietly pointed out that Jackie *had* actually made me a cake, so I should be nice and accept it anyway. I really am thankful that she cared about me enough to do that, but I didn’t express it very well.

I knew beforehand that Jackie was planning something, but I didn’t know what. She had mentioned on the phone something about who was cooking dinner that night, but, having only that much information, I didn’t think a whole lot about it, and didn’t come up with anything. Honestly, I hadn’t even considered that she’d bake a cake, appropriate though it is. Maybe it was a foregone conclusion in my mind that we’d just have cake with dinner, since that’s what we always have for birthdays. Thus, it seemed a little excessive to be having yet more cake afterward. But nonetheless, it was very nice of her to do that. I only wish I had made sure she knew I appreciated it.

While we were eating it, Ruth commented that she liked my sister’s cake, except for one part: the frosting in the middle. I started laughing in the middle of her sentence, since I knew exactly what the problem was. “Yeah, I didn’t warn you about that…” See, last week my sister was making something that required frosting. Unfortunately, she used granulated sugar rather than confectioner’s sugar. (Culinary mishaps by her are not unheard-of.) Thus, rather than being your typical smooth frosting, it was gritty and crunchy. This wasn’t acceptable, so she made another batch for the job at hand, leaving the imperfect stuff for later use. As time passed, it found its way onto some cookies, but still wasn’t completely used up. So, they finally got rid of it by using it between the two layers of my cake. (The outside of the cake had chocolate mocha frosting.) I didn’t warn my guests about it, though I quietly joked with my sister about it as it was being served, but being the polite type, Ruth didn’t complain — until now. (Jackie didn’t eat the frosting, period, but that was just a personal preference.)

Once we finished our cake (while I tried to be grateful about it), we returned to TV-watching. Later, Ruth got a call and had to go, so I took the opportunity to go as well. I thanked Jackie for the cake as I left, hoping she wouldn’t still think me too ungrateful.

And then, once I was alone in the car, a strange thing happened. Actually, it’s probably only strange to other people, given that I do it all the time. When I’m around other people, I tend to be calm and reserved, saying little, expressing little. I’ll talk somewhat, smile, and occasionally laugh, but that’s about it. And that’s around friends — strangers are likely to get even less out of me. When I’m alone, however, it’s a completely different situation. All the stuff going on in my head is free to come out, since there’s nobody around to overhear it. I’ll talk to myself, sing with the radio, laugh maniacally, etc. So, on this particular drive, I found that I was extremely happy about the evening’s events.

I’m so happy that God’s given me friends like this. For many years it’s just been me and my family for my birthday, occasionally including my grandparents. We’re quiet people, so it’s not a bad arrangement. But this year I’ve finally gotten to know a few people well enough that we can actually do things together, including having them over for dinner. I’m acquainted with a bunch of people at IV, but they don’t usually invite me specifically to things, nor do I have anything I’d feel comfortable inviting them to myself. However, after the camping trip that brought about the beginning of this blog, Ruth and Jackie have taken an interest in being friends with me, for which I am very grateful. Even if I’m not so keen on eating a lot of cake, it still shows that they cared enough about me to do it. Thank you both.