Still in Nebraska

My air intake controller or some air-related thing was the culprit. The car comes in tomorrow. After speaking with Mitch yesterday, I strongly suspected an air-related problem. It wasn't burning fuel efficiently, but man, was it burning it. And no fuel leak. Therefore: not a problem with the fuel system. Next likely problem: air. The repair place in town looks like a normal car repair shop. They even have a computer diagnostic thingee which will actually tell them what my car's computer logged as the problem. This is much more efficient than the trial and error approach used otherwise. I was explaining to the owner blah blah "intermittent problem" "not in the fuel system" "maybe check the air filter." He said, "is the check engine light still on?" Yeah, computers are replacing the fine art of problem solving.

Today I walked Xena down to the university in town. It was much too far for her. She was staggering by the time we got back to the hotel. And she got stickers in her feet. When she wakes up, I'm going to wash at least her feet and maybe give her a bath. Nobody can tell me if it's uncouth to give the dog a bath in the hotel and she smells ghastly and her feet need to be cleaned off at least, so there.

As to the university campus: Matthew Merzbacher, one of my favorite professors at Mills, used to tell a story about his graduate school prospective student days. He and a friend were visiting a large number of universities on the west coast. They would get to a campus in their car and not go find a campus map. Instead, they would drive around looking for the ugliest building on campus and inside it, they would find the computer science department.

I have no idea which building at UN Kearney might hold the CS program. I saw two buildings that definitely don't. There is nothing else to report. I think I have sucked up everything interesting in this town already. Honestly though, as I explained to the cashier at Taco Hell, if I were stranded in Vegas, I would still be unhappy. I want to be home. Also, I'm not a huge fan of Vegas. And I get bored easily in general. I see all the art museums and then I just want to leave or make friends and stay forever. Extended visits are not my thing, except maybe a few cities would stay interesting for a long time: NYC, Paris, Amsterdam, London are four like that I've been to. Neither San Francisco or Los Angeles make that list, but, obviously, I would move to SF, make friends and stay forever. Tourist San Francisco, however, kind of sucks. T-shirt shops, bridge, prison, dangerous ill-maintained transit line and that's it. yawn.

I'm all whiny today. I'm starting to feel sorry for myself. I should have been home by now. I left school early because I was anxious to be home and it was for naught. Although, I think this car break down was pretty much unavoidable. Getting in to this town at 5:00 on saturday, though, was the worst possible time as far as wait goes. It's like just missing a traffic light.

Tag: Celesteh