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 The wonderful people at ((((wwww.Pitas.com)))) are orgasmic in that they have a really cool webservice: blogs in any style you want them. This is a great service. Highly recomended. 5 stars. Archived page <- Now there's lots of old stuff to look at. Not a lot, I suppose, but more than there was before.  [[First Day.]] [Tuesday, August 31, 2004 @ 06:55 p.m.]
Well, my first day of class was yesterday, and boy did it suck. The classes, in an of themselves seemed fine, but here's the catch: There's 6 in a day. That's Electronic Measurement, Honors Forum (which is a class only because of the mandatory attendance), Computer Organization, Signals and Systems, Engineering Economy, and Intro to Algorithm Design. There's no more than 20 minutes between classes, they start @ 0800 and go until 1850hrs. The two classes that look like they'll at least be interesting are Computer Organization and Signals and Systems. CPE321 (Computer Org.) looks like fun, because it's getting down to the guts of computer engineering: Assembly, and processor design. Gosh, I'm going to love this. MY professor stated this in a way that I find to be as true as can be: "Assembly language is what separates the Computer Engineers from the Scientists: Engineers learn it and use it as much as possible. Scientists learn it and forget it as quickly as possible. Engineers use it to write better, more efficient code (but if you don't comment, then you're still nothing better than a CS codewriter)."
Thinking about it, that's pretty true. Engineers pick one thing that they can micromanage, and manage the bloody living-but-almost-dead Hell out of it. And it is good. [[L... is for the way you Look at me...]] [Friday, August 27, 2004 @ 09:29 a.m.]
Well, school starts Monday, and that's hanging over my head like a wet, mangy, disgusting dog suspended by taffy over my head, i.e. it's going to hit me and I'm not going to like it, and it's probably not going to like me, and in the end, it'll just end up being a really big mess. [sigh] but at least I have my health... sort of. I've been really tired for the last few days or a so. I'm hoping I don't come down with anything while my immune system is sitting inert, because I've got to travel in a few weeks, and school next week... yeah, now would not be a good time for that. Well, I found out that I am almost certainly going to FL again, this time leaving Sept. 6, most likely. I'll be driving down, either by myself or with two other guys (hopefully the latter), and it'll be great fun getting down there. I'll be there until Fri. at least, if not until Sat. It won't be so bad, because I'll actually have an MP3 player, this time. Speaking of that nifty little device, I've been modifying it recently. I changed the boot screen and the loading screen, though the loading screen took waaay too long. It's a funny shaped area that it'll print, and I tried several times before I actually got the thing within the bounds that it has to be in. Now I've got a dragon and my initials plastered over my screen on startup. The dragon took for-freakin'-ever, because I made a vector graphic, and stupid me, when I made it, I didn't think to make a big one and just shrink it down (which is a really easy thing to do with a vector graphic, and it doesn't lose any quality if you do it that way), but no, I zoomed in to all get-out and tried to work this thing with a single pixel between my vectors (and in case you didn't know, that's pretty freakin' small). But, I'm really happy with how it turned out. To me, it looks really good, but maybe that's because of the hours that I spent tweaking that tribal-styled dragon to perfection, and if not perfection, then at least to livability. I've got the machine half-filled (10 GB out of 20), and the load-up times are pretty unacceptable, at this point, with my music DB turned on, because it scans all the files that it has and subsequently checks them to the database, and then checks the free space on the thing. It's supposed to make finding one's MP3's really easy, but I don't really much care about that, because I have most of my MP3's categorized by general genre, if applicable, and then by artist, so I can shuffle within my genre directory, or within that single artist's folder, if I so desire. I don't care about the albums that the songs came off of, because I didn't rip any of these, and every single song of my several thousand-strong collection has been downloaded, so not only do I not associate it with an album (unless it's a soundtrack, then the songs very obviously go together), I very patently associate songs with artist instead. I can simply browse by file structure to make things easy for myself. That's just my rationale for dumping the DB scanning feature... I haven't done it yet, but I'm trying to talk myself into it. AND B GOT A NEW PROCESSOR! It's so cool! She came home with it on, and I was probably more excited than she was (I was less nervous about it, and she was probably pretty washed out after the mapping session). We got to play with some of the toys that she gets to carry around, and change the cover, and use the microphone and all that rot. It was so cool! She's got a direct audio input jack... she doesn't need headphones anymore! And a microphone, so perhaps it'll be easier for her to hear in noisy situations, using that as a sort of directional ear. Heck, I kind of wish I could do that... 'cause this means that if she got a wireless adapter, she could leave her ear in the other room! The possibilities! Direct connection to your cell-phone, home and portable audio... etc., etc. I was all geeky and she was like "Yeah. Don't touch." But, it's all good. I hope that the little tiny box works out well for her, because I can see it being very liberating. And I helped her move her room this week... her sister's old room/her new room looks good with the walls painted and the wood trim in place. Now their house has this extra room where they'll have a TV and a computer, and they're moving the couch in there. I think that the place needs a beanbag chair or two and it'll be set as a cool little rec room. And, I'm sitting here eating this Sam's Choice trail mix. My dad brought some home one day, a month or few ago, and I thought that it was going to be stale and crappy, but it turns out that it's actually pretty good. And it's got macadamia nuts... [gurgle] They're so good... And expensive by themselves. A bag of them costs ~$7-8, but this big bag, which has a lot of them, if not quite a bag's worth, is a total of $4-5. It's really good. It's got almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, banana chips, papaya, cranberries, and golden raisins. It's really good. The only problem is that there's 30 servings in this 2 lb. bag, and I usually eat at least a 1/4 of it in a sitting. That's 7.5 servings @ 140 Cals. each. That's 1050 Calories. If my total daily intake is 2000 Cals (which it shouldn't be, because I'm pretty sedate, even with all my running around my office, and I don't think that a guy my size really doesn't merit that many), then that means that I can have a potato and a Coke for dinner. And then I have to finish off with water. Lovely. ...macadamiamacadamiamacadamiamacadamia....mcadoomcadoomcadoomcadoomcadoomcadoo... Well, I've actually got some work to do, so you kids have fun, and don't get into too much trouble, and I'll try to update a little bit more often than biweekly. [[Blah blah blah]] [Thursday, August 12, 2004 @ 10:10 a.m.]
Blog, I'm so sorry for neglecting you for so long. I'll make it up to you somehow. I know! How about a new entry! Anyway. What's been happening over the last week and a bit? Well, not too much actually. I got my grades for my CS class, and it turned out to be a C+. When that's what comes in on the progress report, you know that it was really bloody close to a B-. And so I e-mailed my prof, and he was understanding and said, "After looking at your performance, I'd say you did a pretty good job, so B- it is." I could have just bent over and took it for him, right then and there, but he didn't make me do that (Hallelujah). Now I have an A in Physics III and a B in Discrete Calculus. Which bring me to... a 3.18 GPA. I'm straining for a 3.25, which is my next goal after 3.2. I'll be so happy to have a 3.2, because I haven't had one since my second semester in school, and that was because I had a lot of free time on my hands and actually did homework every so often. I wish I was one of those completely care-free college students that didn't have to work, because their perfect 4.0 GPA allowed them to not only go to a great school, but also gave them a stipend and essentially told them to "Go, live the good life, and drink one for me, while you're at it." Well, I wouldn't drink, except maybe for a little wine/champagne (what can I say, I like sweet stuff). May I remind those out there who might say that drinking is a sin: Jesus both drank wine himself and told people not to drink to drunkeness. Consuming alcohol, in an of itself, is not a sin, but the gluttonous debauchery that may ensue after having consumed enough to alter one's personality and judgement capabilities, in my mind, is. A beer --or even two or three, pending tolerance-- is fine, in my mind. 5 or more is bad news (I just picked a number, so don't nitpick about that. I mean that whatever point you start to be drunk [which is also very subjective]). Enough about drinking. It's that time of year when everyone who came home for the summer magically disappears back to their respective academic homes and begin another 4-month long school-binge. It'll be sad to see some of these people go, knowing that when they come back, they'll be that much more alienated from me. I know very few people who have such strong personalities that college hasn't really changed them enough for me to be able to hold a conversation with them now that is essentially the way a conversation before college would have run. Well, I suppose that's a good thing for many people, who started out pretty immature and have grown to semi-maturity in the time since... And work? Well, it's picked up a little bit... I've been pretty busy that last few days. Oh, and guess what? I've GOT A NEW LEATHER COUCH IN MY OFFICE! It's pretty snazzy, what with it being a couch, and the leather and, and, yeah [insert idiotic grin here]. It's not too bad, but the arms aren't very well padded so the thing needs cushions. In this building that'd probably be kind of a hard item to find. But, I never thought I'd have a couch in here, either. [[Well, I'm going to continue doing this.]] [Sunday, August 1, 2004 @ 01:44 p.m.]
Well, I noticed that since B got back, I've been updating less, maybe because I've been spending a whole lot of time with her when I would usually be updating. But here's the dilly-o, mi compadres mucho perverse: I haven't been doing anything important. What I have been doing is a combination of exhaling and inhaling, with the occasional reading and relaxing. I've been swiftly making my way through the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I'm now on book 7. I'm proud of myself because I've gotten through at least 3000 pages in the last month (maybe less, actually) in my spare time. I've even gotten B reading the beginning of them. Heck, my sister is a book or 3 behind me. I've tried slowing down, because reading a novel in a weekend really doesn't ingrain it into your subconscious in a way that gives your imagination the bread of dreams to feast on, which is what I prefer. I have to consciously do it when I read LoTR, for obvious reasons, because I can skim through the thing and just kind of remember what it says, sometimes, but I really like how Tolkein hits that perfect balance between description and action (to me), and doesn't let the story really stagnate, and doesn't let it take on too much action, but moves it along in a sure, steady, and well-tended pace. Went to the house of my new Sunday School teachers yesterday, since they were having a grill-out for all the students (probably around 15-20 students, total). Dragged B along, and had there not been so much ruckus, I think she really might have enjoyed herself. OK, going to the dinky little community pool, now, with B. I'll probably update later, just because I really enjoy typing (one of the few really unsung joys in life is being able to do something without having to thing about it, i.e. have instant results without the necessity for work in/on the proccess). Fare well, good folk! Do good and well, and wellness and goodness shall follow you in the form of God's shelter and providence. [[Well, I'm going to continue doing this.]] [Sunday, August 1, 2004 @ 01:44 p.m.]
Well, I noticed that since B got back, I've been updating less, maybe because I've been spending a whole lot of time with her when I would usually be updating. But here's the dilly-o, mi compadres mucho perverse: I haven't been doing anything important. What I have been doing is a combination of exhaling and inhaling, with the occasional reading and relaxing. I've been swiftly making my way through the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I'm now on book 7. I'm proud of myself because I've gotten through at least 3000 pages in the last month (maybe less, actually) in my spare time. I've even gotten B reading the beginning of them. Heck, my sister is a book or 3 behind me. I've tried slowing down, because reading a novel in a weekend really doesn't ingrain it into your subconscious in a way that gives your imagination the bread of dreams to feast on, which is what I prefer. I have to consciously do it when I read LoTR, for obvious reasons, because I can skim through the thing and just kind of remember what it says, sometimes, but I really like how Tolkein hits that perfect balance between description and action (to me), and doesn't let the story really stagnate, and doesn't let it take on too much action, but moves it along in a sure, steady, and well-tended pace. Went to the house of my new Sunday School teachers yesterday, since they were having a grill-out for all the students (probably around 15-20 students, total). Dragged B along, and had there not been so much ruckus, I think she really might have enjoyed herself. OK, going to the dinky little community pool, now, with B. I'll probably update later, just because I really enjoy typing (one of the few really unsung joys in life is being able to do something without having to thing about it, i.e. have instant results without the necessity for work in/on the proccess). Fare well, good folk! Do good and well, and wellness and goodness shall follow you in the form of God's shelter and providence. [[She's coming back!]] [Tuesday, July 27, 2004 @ 08:52 a.m.]
It's Tuesday! It's really Tuesday! She's coming home! I get my baby back! Yippee! Wahoo! w00t!!!!!11one Schweetness! To my girlfriend, my heart, my best friend, my woman, my love... I shall eagerly await your arrival. [[Weekend update]] [Monday, July 26, 2004 @ 12:45 p.m.]
Well, it was an interesting weekend. First off, Diplomacy happened something like a hailstorm in Haiti, i.e. very WTF. I was surprised that Daniel got knocked out as quickly as I did... But we both let chaos reign as we saw the end approach. I had no hope, and he didn't really have a whole lot to begin with. I was pinned and he was fairly well trapped. Oh well. I did find, however, that I like Soul Caliber II. I'm really partial to arcade games, both the old 2D semi-sidescrollers and these newfangled 3D ones. This one was really cool, and I want to learn how to play well... I suppose that's something of a pipedream just like wanting to be able to Halo really well. I won't be able to get very good at either of them, mostly because I won't be able to practice either of them. What a travesty... hours on end, wasted. Maybe I'll take up a hobby that has some creative output... perhaps even continue to look for wood to make my personal set of shelves. Speaking of those, I'm rather frustrated that I can't find any 2x2" wood for them. I mean, I could try to laminate 1x2" lengths into the right width, but I mean... I just don't want to do that, mostly because I'll be using pretty cheap wood to begin with, and doing that introduces so many errors that it won't be funny. I'm thinking of giving in and using poplar, instead of some kind of redwood, but I'm still in the air... I'm going to stain it something dark when I finish, but I suppose I really have to finish first. Back to the weekend, I took Tim along to the Diplomacy game, and looking back, I feel kind of bad for not grabbing him and yapping at him more. I wasn't really a very good friend at said point, and it looked like he was just a little bit out of his element. That aside, though, he played rather well, and for my own sake, I think I should have talked to him a little bit more to be able to gain my position on the board. Next time, mon amis, there will be a next time... Other than that, I got to work today, intent on doing a week's worth of CS homework to find... there's only one assignment that took less than two pages to do. I actually had the time to do it real fast, and then copy it to make it look better. And that's it. I was very surprised. I mean, I'm going to have to go over this entire book before Thursday, which is going to be kind of hard, seeing as I have stuff that I need to attend to on Wednesday... [sigh] I don't know how I'm going to work that one out. B IS COMING HOME! WAHOO! She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, she'll be home on Tuesday. I hope I don't kill her with my innately powerful grip when I get a hold of her, but I also hope that her grip will be every bit as firm as mine (metaphorically speaking). I can't wait to hug and kiss her, and ask her how her entire trip was. I can't wait until I have my best friend back... Enough elipsises for now, as I'm going to start listening some more to my MP3 player (which I'm still loving to death). [[Travel Log]] [Friday, July 23, 2004 @ 10:56 a.m.]
Well, I got back early from my trip, and boy are my arms tired... (Sorry, couldn't help it). Anyway, it turns out that the guys we were observing had a problem with their system. The original plan was to fire early in the week, and then on Friday, if all went well the first time. We were going down to ascertain that everything we needed we had, and that we could read everything that they were putting out. It turns out that we needed some stuff, and some mods, etc., but it turns out that we did fine. Their product did funny things that it'll probably take them several weeks of "systems engineering" to figure out. "Systems Engineering." Now let me explain why I smirk when I hear this term. I sat in on an IPT teleconference meeting with some guys from BAE and GD. The guy who was kind of directing the whole thing goes through this imbecilic observation, and then procedes to create a really stupid list, and asks "Should we categorize the faults by behaivior or by hardware?" Allow me to explain that there was one behaivior. This was perhaps the stupidest process I've been witness to in my time working where I am. And on another note, the little piece of hardware that I would have liked to have last Saturday, before I left so's that I could be able to fill it with MP3's and perhaps play it in my car on the 6.5 hour drive down to FL, came in the first day I was in FL. [sigh] Stupid processing time... I ordered the thing on Wednesday, with the option for FedEx 2-day shipping. And of course, it takes over 24 hours for them to get it into the mail. I'm not really complaining, as that's actually really good, but still, not as good as I would have liked, and the next-day shipping is just too much for me. So I was opening yesterday, with my rusty knife and sliced my finger open. There's now a black gash on my right index finger, where the blood has congealed and turned that black fading to red toward the outer edges of the wound. It's not that big, but any time it comes into contact with a solid mass, it's like hitting a really sensitive bruise. Needless to say, it hurts like the Dickens. Now, for a little bit more on my trip: Well, first I went down to Jacksonville, AL to go see the JSU DCI competition. I drove down with Anna and her mom, Laura, and Andrew. Andrew rode with me, and the women all rode together. It was really frustrating that we couldn't maintain a speed all the way down there, but that was partially traffic. But, we got down there, parked, walked all the way around the stadium, bought tickets, and milled around for a bit. Anna of course heads as iron filings to a lodestone for Joseph. And at this point in the summer, he almost looks like a ferrite magnet, and almost Jamaican. And it made me cringe that his pants were just a little too tight. Anna took pictures. Then the Viviano's show up, and I hand Anna my camera and she runs, under the ruse of taking pictures from a different angle. So then, we head back up to the stands, and sit in general seating, right in front of the only screaming kid in the stadium, because everyone knows that you don't bring screaming kids to a musical performance (ok, so this is more than that, but I'd much rather hear a full chord of brass than brass feat. Screaming Child). Anyway, the shows, except for Court of Honor, I was impressed with. The Court was pretty sad, actually. Maybe it was just their size, but they were rather unimpressive. The colts did pretty well, but to me their program sounded a little less well-connected between songs than the other really entertaining programs. The Blue Knights were the most entertaining, probably, but as Joseph later affirmed, their music wasn't particularly difficult. They had several very cool audio-effects, though, like all of the drums marching with different-pitched triangles... Gosh, what a cool sound. It sounded electronic, with the echo off the other side of the stadium. Maybe because they had black pants, they looked like they had the cleanest marching. The Scouts gave them a run for their money... or maybe the other way around. I don't know who won, but I would have put it at those two. It was really cool. Then, I left @ 2130. And drove forever. I had to stop twice to look at my map in the dark, and continue. I only missed my turn twice. The first time it was because I couldn't see the sign in time to turn, and simply turned around and took it. The other time, I was in Milton, FL, and FL-87 branched out into FL-87 and FL-89. @ 0200hrs, these two signs look near-identical, even after chugging 16 ounces of Monster (Which, BTW, I was very pleasantly surprised with, as it was very smooth and both carbonation and sweetness were very well balanced. It's now on the top of my energy-drinks list.). So I wandered around Podunk, FL for half an hour, looking for where I would have lost my way. I pissed some guy off by going 35 in a 55 when I was searching for where to turn, but was happy to get out of his way and back onto the right road. Anyway, the next day I was actually pretty refreshed after an hour and a half of sleep, and my eyes weren't crossing, and I wasn't in a haze. I still got to go down to the beach for a little while before the sun went down after we got back from the test site to the condo. And we actually stayed in a condo, which I didn't really expect... It was right on the water, with three rooms and 2.5 baths. Since I was the last one in, I got the "kid's room," which was the one with two kid's beds. I probably fit the best in them, but the things weren't even 6 feet long... That means, that lying straight, my feet hung over the edge. Thank goodness I sleep on my side and curled up a bit. But, back to the beach: it was cool, except that the algae and seaweed starts getting washed in around 1700hrs, and it becomes rather squidgy until the tide goes back out. But, I got to splash and body surf for a good half hour at least before I couldn't stand it and went to try to swim in the pool. And that wasn't really crowded, but it definitely wasn't empty. I was able to do kind of half-laps for a little while, though it was difficult, since there were kids that I was trying not to run into. But still, it was warm and fun. We went to Pandora's for dinner one night, and I had a NY strip steak, and I had salad for two nights in a row, for the first time in a very long time. I made tuna helper one night, and that was really good. I liked it, at least. I left out the margarine and instead just dumped the entire can of tuna with the vegetable oil it was filled with into the pot. I boiled it forever, too, because I put too much water in it, but it turned out how I like it. I don't think I spent too much money on food, even the most expensive meal I had was at Fudpucker's. Their shrimp scampi was really good, and their rice was good, and it makes my mouth water to think about it. I got my sister a t-shirt that I think she'll like, there. And I continued reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series. It's definitely pop-fantasy, and you can tell that the author caters to both the men and women, as there's both romance and carnage in his fiction. I kinda like it, and it's really quick and easy reading. B's getting through the beginning of the series, and I think she'll like it, simply because it's her kind of pop-fic. Speaking of B, I miss her a lot. I really wanted to get to talk to her on her birthday, but I kind of missed her, called at a bad time, and couldn't really stay up for a lot longer to talk. [sigh] I think I probably could have done without the sleep to be able to talk with my baby. When I was in Jacksonville, I saw Joseph and Anna being J&A. It made me miss B all the more, and that hole in the middle of my chest that I get when she's gone got a little bigger. It wouldn't have totally satisfied me just to touch her, but I would have been elated and on air, had I been able to, just then. Speaking of which, I need to know what e-mail Joseph and/or Anna want their pictures sent to, in case you read this. Drop me a line and let me know, there's quite a few of them, not all of them great, since they were all taken at max zoom, and my hand isn't quite as steady as it would need to be to take perfect pictures at that range. Anyway, I've got them so get back to me, please. I'm still working out how everything on my brand spanking new iRiver H120 works, and committing to memory the functions of all the dials and buttons. I think I've got the hang of most of it, by now. What's really cool to me is that now I have an MP3 player in my backpack, and the remote is really cool because I can stick it up here on my desk and plug my earbuds into that, and it's small and light enough -- not to mention having a clip on the back of it, so it'll stay put -- that I can clip it to the handle of my mug and position it so that I can see the screen and twiddle with the controls if necessary in almost the perfect position. Well, I've already typed a lot in very little time, so I think I'll stop now, and get to work on my CS homework, a week's worth of which I have to take care of. I think I may be doing that Sunday and Monday, since today I'm feeling pretty sluggish. 'til then, be good and well. [[]] [Saturday, July 17, 2004 @ 11:16 a.m.]
Well, ladies and gents, here it is: an update. You see, it turns out that I'm going to have to go to Fort Walton Beach on TDY (Tmep. Duty for all you non-industry folks) for a work week. I know, I know, don't worry about me, I promise, I'll be okay. I might be burnt when I come back [gasp from the crowd] but I'll be okay [ruckus applause]. "Why," you may ask, "Are you going to sunny Fort Walton Beach for a week?" And if you were to ask that I would tell you, "Bugger off, Skeezy, not your business." But if you were to simply ask "Why?" I would say "For a missile launch and data collection and analysis shindig." Because I'll be going down there with a set of guys who know the electronics of the HWIL sector of the system, and I'm going to be looking at and correlating data. Should be fun. I WANT MY BABY BACK! [sings:] Whyyy sheee had to go, I don't know, she couldn't say... I said something wrong, now I long for yesterda-a-ay, yesterday... [/sings] I realize exactly how much I not only love her, but like her, too. I miss the way she jumps and almost does a dance move when she steps on something; the hands go in the air and the hips shift (both funny and alluring). I miss the innocent look she gets in her eyes just after she kicks me... gosh, I sound like a masochist. To remedy that, I miss the way I can walk in her front door and wrap my arms around her and kiss her soundly. I miss someone coming up behind me and wrapping her arms around me... I miss having my movie buddy with me... [sigh] I miss B. Other than that, I probably need to go find some sunglasses before I leave for the coast. It's going to be bright, and the odds are that I'm going to be outside quite a bit. I need to pack, and I need to transfer ungodly amounts of cash into my checking account. This whole trip is going to be amazingly nerve-rattling... Since I don't have a gov't credit card, I have to pay everything out of pocket, and then get reimbursed. Supposedly, that usually takes no more than a handful of days, almost never more than a work week. But... We're staying in a $100-a-night condo. That'd $500. God help me, but that's a lot of money to drop in one fell swoop. And then food and stuff... [shudder] lots of cash coming out of pocket... hopefully a lot of it coming back. Anyway, back to pre-trip laundry. [[ Well, "sportsfans" here we go again!]] [Tuesday, July 6, 2004 @ 12:00 p.m.]
I know a guy who, in his weblog, happens to call people "sportsfans" a lot... Is this some kind of sportscaster-wannabe-ism? A secret fetish for large headphones, bad jokes and stream of consciousness announcing? Who knows? In other news, I spent a good portion of my 4-day weekend (several hours a day on each of 3 days) on my knees in my garage, tearing up relatively small pieces of wood making... a thing. I don't know exactly how to describ it but I'll do my best. In my house, shoes are taken off before one steps on carpet, no matter what. Usually before one enters the house through the garage. In the garage, we have a set of cabinets that house stocks of shoes (mine is something like 2' x 3' x 1.5', my sister's is about 6'x3'x1.5', and my mom's shoes are everywhere), and they're lined up next to the door. The problem is that the garage is relatively messy and dirty. So my mom wanted something that one could walk on that wouldn't necessarily be as nasty as the floor of the garage. So she asks me to work on it, and after 5 minutes with a calculator and my yellow post-it notepad, I present to her a very basic design that she ok's, hands me cash to go to Lowe's with, and I begin the process of building. This thing is a platform, but not a solid platform. Imagine taking 1"x2" stock, laying it on the ground so that it's 2" high. Now place another an inch away from it, same orientation. Now you have two parallel lines with an inch of space between them. Now put 10 or 12 more of those down so now you have what looks likes stripes on the floor. That's the surface of this thing. But, to keep it together, I needed to use spacers in the thing, so I take 1.5" sections of stock (the same thing that I used to make the slats of the surface) and wedge them between the long strips. Screw them together, and now you have a long platform. But, that rests on the ground, and will collect dust and dirt and crap in the crevices. So now, take some of the same 1"x2" stock and lay it underneath and perpendicular to the long strips. Screw these down, and now the thing has pseudo-legs, and is not sitting on the floor. Now, it can be moved a little bit more easily, and cleaned quite a bit more easily. All I need to do is finish the ends (If I had a table saw, I wouldn't have to, because I would have cut everything to the correct length, or I could just cut saw a straight line down the end of the thing, because I have 24 uneven pieces of wood that have been screwed together and look like, well 24 pieces of wood screwed together. My goal: repeatable, adjustable, measured cutting, i.e. table saw. I'm good with the handsaw, but not that good). so now, I've been on my knees on the concrete floor all weekend, and my knees are sore. Looks like I'm going to have to go Catholic and find a prayer bench to kneel on... Yesterday, for the first time this summer, I went swimming in the community pool. I think I've mentioned it before, but in case I haven't here's the rundown on the pool: it's small, pretty shallow, and wet. It's usually pretty cool, and good to splash in, but definitely not for laps (unless you really want to do 20' laps...). I went with B, and gee golly... I have an intelligent girlfriend who is h-h-hot! Got to watch most of Master and Commander last night, and I am reminded of how much I like that movie. I've only seen it two or three times, but I'm getting used to the amputation scene, and the self-surgery scene. And though I've seen it two or three times, I still get excited when the first cannonball blasts through the railing, and when the second one crashes through the fore starboard hull... And when they get "captured" by the Acheron... yeah. Great movie. It's going in my collection, when I find it for cheap somewhere. Speaking of movies, the ultimate Matrix collection is coming out sometime toward the end of this year... It's probably going to run round about $90-100, but will it be worth it? It's going to have the movies, and then a whole bunch of crap that I'll probably never watch. What I would get the thing for, though, is for the extra footage in Reloaded, because it's got nigh 'pon an hour extra of screentime from the games, which I of course never saw. Supposedly Naiobi plays a much stronger role with the rest of the footage in place, but I'll have to wait until it comes out to be able to see it. And I'm debating what I should get B for her birthday. Not really what, but more like "which" I'm thinking that she probably wants to be surprised, but I'm keeping the receipt, just because I know that her tastes and mine vary widely, even though I've made the effort to figure out what she likes. The only pattern that I really see to the ones that she goes "Ooh!" over are that they have bright, colorful faces, and are usually completely silver in color. Other than that, the must have circular faces, and not be any kind of avant-garde. Relatively simple. I really like her taste, even if mine is a little bit broader in stylistic range... My boss I haven't seen for a week and a half, and he's supposed to be back today, but I see no sign of him, and from what I know, he usually gets into work around 0700. So not seeing him means that he's gone somewhere else to oversee something, or he's still out on some kind of vacation. My guess is that he's out on some sort of vacation, still, or getting back today, or something along those lines. [sigh] I have class this evening, and I don't really look forward to it, very much. So far, it's been more of the same, although our dearly beloved and far too incompetent instructor has been brutal. He gave us an open-book test, and most of us floundered. The test was twenty multiple-part questions. All proofs, definitions, and structures. That means that the class used, on average, a total of something around 7-10 sheets of paper, per person (turned in, not counting scratch paper). The simple logic (modus ponens, tollens, etc.) wasn't bad. Point of fact, it was downright simple. But there were a couple of doozies on there that just stumped me. I don't really remember what they were, because it's been a week since I got reamed a new one, but I'll get the thing back today. And do you know what he said the last class, when I asked him as class was starting, how the grades on the test looked? It was the most singularly bleak, uninspiring, hopeless response I have ever heard regarding a set of tests. In a possibly Russian accent: "There was blood, running in the streets." Deadpan face. Damage report: Ego (devastated). GPA (decimated). Faith in professor (0, no change). I may have to retake this class... [sob]... But, to end on a high note, I get to finish building that raised walkway tonight. Yay! No more painful kneeling! No more backaches! I'll be free at last, free at last! [[]] [Monday, June 28, 2004 @ 09:44 a.m.]
Well... It seemed to be a really long weekend, to me, when it was really only Sunday that was so long. Allow me to explain: OK, Saturday was good. Got to clean up, do what I needed to do around the house, and then got to hang out with B. B's good. I like to hang wit' my homegirl. She be cizool. Then Saturday night hits. I describe it much like a natural disaster, because the morning after (disaster, after... rhyme! Oh bloody hell, my brain is mush...) it felt like I had been hit by one. My house is arranged thusly: On the south side of the house is the AC unit. The majority of the south side of the house does, in fact, get great air conditioning. Unfortunately, my quarters are on the north side of the house, which tend not to get any conditioning at all. So, Saturday night, I was hot. I was "God, let me die, because then I can close my eyes and stop sweating" hot. You know all the things you try to do in order to cool yourself down when you're trying to go to sleep? I did them all, most of them at least 4 times, since I got perhaps a total of an hour's worth of sleep, leaving me with a good 6 hours where I was doing patently nothing but trying desperately to get my brain to log off and shut down. And Sunday? I actually had to get up earlier than usual to be able to leave the house @ 0800, in the rain. I had to sit in the van with my family for 3 1/2 hours in order to reach my ancient family haunting grounds in north Georgia. Dalton, GA is filled to the brim with my family's history, and so we hold our Babb Family Reunion (BFR) there every year about this time (because it wouldn't be a family reunion if we weren't all reminded precisely how miserable the heat in the dead of summer can make a person). This year was kind of interesting because of this: I don't remember his name, but my great great grandfather Babb had a Bible. This thing wasn't just his Bible, that thing is and always will be "Grandaddy Babb's Bible." It's massive, and the thing has the records of every birth and marriage up to somewhere in the 60's or 70's, I believe. It's a major geneological artifact for the family. That poor, massive book is almost torn to shreds, too. Exodus chapter 21 is worn down to tissue paper, same with the 23rd Psalm. There's a couple more of the notables that are like that, but to put it succinctly, that book was a Good book, and it was well-loved and used. And this year, Grandaddy Babb's stuff, which had been in storage in his last living daughter's back room, was pulled out and sorted through (great-Aunt Catherine died this past year). The guy who sorted through, though, is the son of one of Grandaddy Babb's daughters, so he doesn't carry the name "Babb." He decided, after long consideration, that the line of the family that holds the family name should keep it. So he passed it on to the oldest living male member of the family to carry the name "Babb" to have it, and so there was a short presentation ceremony, and it was actually kind of cool. I got to see some old photo's of my grandfather, who I never met, and that was really pretty interesting. They're from the 50's and 60's, and they lived in rather poor conditions (i.e., the pictures were indicative of Depression-era poverty), and he looked like a very hard man. The pictures of my dad and his sister from the same time period look straight out of a history book in the "Early 20th Century" chapter. They were barefooted and my dad (aged 6, in the picture) had on a straw hat, and slacks with a white shirt and suspenders (I noticed there weren't any beltloops on his pants). I got pictures of the old cotton mill where my dad worked when he was a teenager for a little while, too. It's a rather imposing building, with this great leaded-glass front door. It's actually quite dramatic. If I can find webspace, I'll put those up sometime. And last night I got a few hours of sleep, and so I'm here at work, now. Mir van, friends, mir van. [[]] [Monday, June 21, 2004 @ 01:01 p.m.]
Another day, another entry. Here we go: This weekend was fun, somewhat. The game of Diplomacy that we had going went pretty well for right around half the game, and then there was an incident. Not a good one. A player left, leaving a very easy kill for Player Turkey, and taking The Balkans, Austria-Hungary, and Italy gave him the tactical advantage in my opinion. If the game had been played out with 7 players, I believe that I would have had a very good chance at winning. As it was, I maintained my ranking as 2nd place. [insert shrug here] C'est la vie, I don't ever seem to be able to make it up the ladder too far, before I get smacked down. At least I have confidence in the fact that I understand tactics such that I can screw up all kinds of people. Other than that, went to church, did some homework, played Halo. I've found that I really suck at Halo. I need to get an Xbox so I can get better. Well, that'd be the nice way to do it, at least. The other thing to do would be to just suck at it for a while. I think I sucked the last time I played because my reaction time was very near to nil. I need to play and learn not to go haywire on the turning when I'm retreating. It's probably a very fine art to being able to turn your view to precisely where you want it, and a skill that I certainly haven't mastered yet... Most of the time, there's tomorrow. I have my physics final coming up, soon. Thank goodness that it'll all be over soon. I'm pretty sure I'm maintaining what would be just barely an A, but I need to make good on the final to solidify that. I've gotten two 91's on the two tests that we've had, and my homework average is miserable, but existent. It's possible for me to make an A in the class, which is something I'd really like to do, but somewhat unlikely, as I need a strong A to make it. We'll see, I guess. There's only a few points I can miss to be able to get through this with the grade I need. It comes down to the wire. I'm now fighting for my A (The odds are I won't fight very hard, I'll just look over the stuff that I've already looked over once or twice, and then put it away). [[]] [Tuesday, June 15, 2004 @ 03:02 p.m.]
Well, another day. How much fun can it be? Only as much fun as Brecken has. My family, Brecken and I went to my cousin's wedding this last Saturday. Probably the most country wedding I'll be at for quite some time. The preacher was very informal, and the music was downright country (Although the guy was pretty good, both at playing the piano and his voice was credible in a very country way. And he looked like one of the guys from ZZ Top.). The Church was Swamp Creek Baptist Church in Dalton, GA, and it was cozy. There were a whole lot of Mexicans everywhere... kind of crazy. Maybe because it's an area heavily steeped in the textile industry. Who knows? Well, the reception was also nice, the food was good, the toasts were mediocre. It was nice. I felt really out of place. I tried to hold two conversations at once, with Brecken and my sister, but that didn't work at all, because my sister and Brecken hardly said anything to each other, and I couldn't focus on one more than the other or one of them would get frustrated and angry with me. As it is, I don't pay Brecken half as much attention as she needs/wants, and I'm probably only making matters worse by continuing to go to school and work from earlai in the morn to even' time. [sigh] Work has kind of picked up, though not too much. I am getting stuff to do every so often. Class still sucks, and I have an exam this Thursday. Whoopee. I hope that my CS214 professor starts getting a clue sometime, and decides to teach instead of read off of his slides. I hope I get to spend some time with Brecken today, because I think she needs it. Got to run. So tired... [[Long weekend]] [Monday, May 17, 2004 @ 09:35 a.m.]
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I had a long weekend. Not a bad weekend, but a long one. I spent a good bit of time working on a bench. To explain: OK, so it's Saturday, see? And my parents are cheapskates to the highest degree, so they're what you would call "yardsaling people." Now, this wouldn't be so bad if they were so polite as to only buy things that they could carry, but no, you know what they did? They bought freaking exercise equipment. That's right, exercise equipment, as in, a weight bench, a treadmill and one of those older bicycle machines. And so I had to haul my sorry and tired rear-end out of bed way too early on a Saturday (Sabbath, I'll get to that in a few paragraphs) and go help my dad move the stuff into and out of the truck. But that's not what got me working on the bench. You see, my mom also went out nd bought this antique wooden table that's the perfect size for our "morning nook" at home. So she buys this "antique" for $100 (yipe), and this pair of ugly chairs. Well, she decides that she wants to but this thing up against the wall, but if she does that, there's no way that we can put chairs there. This is where I come in. I say, "Well, why not use a bench?" and mama mia says to me, she says, "Why, pepito, what a great idea! Why don't you make one?" Well, not really, as I told her that with the pile of wood that we had lying in the garage, I could probably hack one up that would look every bit as good as this silly table. And so she actually said, "Could you really?" This, of course, irks me to no end, so I am now on a crusade to make a bloody nice bench to stick in our morning nook. I have the entire thing designed, and I've got the majority of it cut and sanded to fit, not quite sanded for finishing, but I still have to find a headpiece and slats for the back. I have all of the upright pieces, the seat is two pieces: a 4-inch piece and a 9-inch piece, both cut to 40.5", which still need to be cut to accurate size, since I cut the bloody things with a handsaw (You wanna talk about hard work? These things are fricking hard wood, and I had to saw through 2 feet of this stuff, by hand). Oh, and did I mention that I'm doing all this with nothing but a handsaw, a Dremel, and a belt sander? No miter saw, no table saw, not even a circular saw, since my dad doesn't remember how to tighten the bolt on the one old Craftsman that we've got. So this is all really done mostly by hand. I don't like having to freehand it, but that's what I'm doing. I'll post pics as soon as I get the opportunity. Other than that, I went and saw Troy on Friday night. Now, contrary to the belief of some, it was a good movie. It was like The Two Towers in that it screwed up some facts, but unlike the notorious butchering that Jackson did, this piece fit pretty well, altogether, and they worked in a lot of different legends, although none of the mythology. Now, I'm going to conradict a nameless person who was arguing that there were things in this that were wrong. The movie was not supposed to be a special-effects extravaganza. I don't think it was even supposed to be a really epic drama. I think it was supposed to be a really angsty action movie, with the gratuitous shots of the naked male form (of which, I believe, there were not enough shots of the opposite naked form to satisfy the entire audience). The plotline followed a possible route, though not the one outlined in The Iliad. Homer's epic ends after Hector dies and Priam gets the body back. Anything after that would be a combination of The Aeneid and the other variations. Now, to clarify all of this: I'm not sure how common this knowledge is, but there is no definitive authority on Greek myth and legend. Oral tradition is the tradition of telling a story to a set of people, who will then be able to relate that story to another set of people. Oral tradition is, by nature, a tradition that practically invites change. Being so, the myths that have been recorded, over a period of many centuries, naturally differ in both content and connotation. There are many accounts, and many students do not take into account the fact that there are no supporting facts. What is known about the Trojan War: The Greeks came because of a woman, with lots and lots of men. They defeated Troy. The Greeks went home. Other than that, everything is hearsay. The entire "plot" is a legend that probably has hints of the truth. And I don't care how much emphasis anyone wants to put on Homer, because he wrote so early, or because he was so detailed in his descriptions of and names for people, because there's no guarantee that Homer even existed. He also a heavily weighed myth, because he was a blind poet who wrote an epic. OK, this was not only ancient Greece, where very few people would have known how to write, but, there would have been little to no way for a blind man to write his own poem. This means that something is askew. He might not have been blind, he might have had a trascriptionist, he might be a metaphor ("The blind poet," a conglomeration of the works of many poets over a period of time). We don't know he existed. That said, I'd give the movie a good old fashioned 3 stars overall. I think it ranked pretty well in costume and scenery, and the acting that we did see was pretty good (God bless Peter O'Toole, geez what a great scene), but the script was pretty bland when it came to character dev, and I think they could have cast a prettier woman than the German that did get in, simply because I don't find her to have the attractive attributes that I would expect to find in Helen. Oh yeah, I forgot to rave about my belt sander. I went out and got a cheap little $50 belt-sander (relatively cheap, it was Ryobi, and the really good ones run over $100). It's what I did most of the general shaping for some parts of my bench with, it's what I'm going to chamfer the corners on my pieces with, and it's what I used to plane the parts that are going to be beside each other (I don't have a joiner, so they're going to be screwed onto braces). Other than that, I'm sore, and tired, but feel that I had a productive weekend, including Sunday morning. This past Sunday, Kerry, my Sunday School teacher, was talking about the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. There is, in fact, a difference between the two, as one is dictated in the Old Testament, and one is the tradition of believers in Christ Jesus our Lord and saviour. Now, there are a few things that go along with these two. First off, I'm not Jewish. I believe that the Sabbath could very well be Saturday. I do not believe that I'm not to take 30 steps without sitting and eating and drinking before going on. I do not believe that "rest" consists of staying at home and not doing anything. I do believe rest means not pursuing one's livelihood on the Sabbath. The Lord's Day is the customary meeting of believers of the Way on the first day of the week, and there are several rather passing references to it in the New Testament, but we know of church history that the very early church was in the habit of it. Two different things. That's just what I learned and thought was very interesting. Anyway, that was my weekend. For WHBC news, this is Geoffrey, signing off. [[...]] [Tuesday, May 4, 2004 @ 04:26 p.m.]
I like cheese, too. I'm almost obsessive about my havarti(okay, so I'm past "almost"). I'm at work, and it's been the first decent day at work that I've had for a while. I came in, finished up editing a paper for my boss, who's working on this quaternion stuff that's a little out of my scope, since I was learning from this paper, which wasn't very well written. I can get the simpler stuff, but there's some of it that's out of the blue that I can't find details on that he has memorized from having it surgically placed in his brain. Anyway, I typed it up nice and pretty, fixed the notation, and left him to check the the more questionable math that I could only circle in red and question with that assinine "Huh?" noise that people make when they hit a neanderthal moment(you know what I mean, when you see something, and it makes so little sense that you don't even think it's Greek, it's so freakin' weird). Had lunch with B today. All is well with the world. :) Had banana nut bread today. All is well with the world. :) And tonight, I'm getting together with the notorious PHZ to go over linear algebra, God's gift to sadists. The math isn't too bad, most of the time, and can almost be interesting, but this theoretical proof stuff? Unh uh. I'm not going to be a cosmologist or a theoretical mathematician, lady, I just want to know how to solve this big ugly problem that's staring at me. This entire course could be summed up in a few words: "Go use MatLab, dip****." In other news, I could potentially get an A in Lit. And potentially, but very very very improbably, in Diff EQ (I think). Impossible in Linear. Circuits I have a B in (I can live with that, I was afraid I was tempting fate and so was pushing for at least a C). Statics, I don't know about, I think it's possible that I could get an A, but most likely that I'll be getting a B. I'm almost positive that there's no way I can get a C, but I'm praying that I'm right about that one. In forum, I should have everything covered, so a good ol'fashioned "S" there. And now, I'm debating my next big purchase, as there are several options. I'm trying to isolate the kind of things that I'd really like to have when I move out, but will be able to take care of while I'm living at home. That pretty much puts furniture out of the question, and large electronics, although the home theater I'm still considering. I really want a big TV, so's I can watch movies in full glory, and a decent little HTIB that will give me the ability to have a modest home theater. Sadly, though, all of this adds up to: nothing. There's nothing that I can really buy that I'll explicitly need in my next abode, since all of it is the large stuff. And the time when I move out is in the relatively distant future, ATM, so I can't just store stuff up. I'm thinking that I want to start some kind of woodworking though... I'll get a belt sander, and start with some stock and try to go for a nightstand that I can stain and seal (which is almost a pipedream idea, as I don't have a workshop at home, or even the rudiments of one). And my precious Diplomacy has been stolen from me! Oh wicked day that the sun should shine 'pon thee at all, at all! Oh ye beast of the Pit that hast augered my dreams and mine ambitions of conqest! How foul, how loathsome, how base and filthy thou art! Really, I am disappointed that we can't get a game together, since people seem to have these very difficult schedules to work around. Now, I have to look forward to June. Jeez, it's always some excuse... Oh well. I have better things to do with my life. Well. I should have better things to do than destroy Europe. Shouldn't I? [[He's done it again!]] [Monday, May 3, 2004 @ 04:16 p.m.]
Wow. I haven't posted for a while. How like me. Well, not a whole lot has happened. I recently realized that I'm steadily on my way to financial stability. I figured out that if I keep a nice egg of cash in my account, I'll be mostly secure about what I do with my money. That is to say, I'll horde and save more the larger the number in my statement appears to be. Because my sister pointed out to me the other day, as I was buying lunch for us, that I don't spend on anything but food, gas, and the occasional movie or something. I haven't bought clothes in over a year, and it hasn't really been necessary, I don't think. I've bought a few "big things" like my bigger hard drive, my LCD monitor (which I still love and drool over, occasionally), but I've immediately saved up after buying those, closing my pursestrings tightly. I do buy a good bit of lunch every now and again, but I don't actually eat lunch every day, so I average spending less than $2 a day for food, really. I bought K-19, my first impulse buy... well, suffice it to say "for a long time," because I don't know that I've ever made an impulse buy that wasn't a comestible item. But, I'm not disappointed in my choice of spending. I really like submarine movies, because I like that kind of suspense. Everybody knows how lily-livered Navy guys are (note sarcasm: I have a lot of respect for all armed forces guys, but as an ARMY BRAT, I'm licensed to jab fun at all the other branches), so sometimes it's funny to watch them flounder. Them Russkies! Hahahahaha! And I finished my Diff EQ final this afternoon... And boy was it a doozy. I write small. Well, maybe not small, but I write tall and very narrowly, how's that? My writing doesn't take up a whole lot of space on a piece of paper. And I'm used to using a pen, so I don't write down a lot of mistakes, 'cause I'm used to doing things in my head three times. This test, though, forced me to use a pencil. Not only did it force me to use a pencil, it also forced me to use 6 1/2 sheets of clean unlined-paper to finish 6 problems. And none of the problems took more than a total of a single line to define. They were all DISGUSTING. If you've never had to do three 4-segment partial fractions in the same problem in the same step and then take the LaPlace transform of that already inverted delta-function, you don't know what you're missing. Run far far away. The Reduction of Order method rocks my ass very gently and sweetly after it reams me a new one or two with a rusty fishhook, as it's very satisfying to actually finish one of those. And now I have a full day to wait until I get to take my last final! Woohoo! Bring on the pain! Get my surgeon on the line, tell him I'll see him soon! Linear is going to gut me and leave me for the vultures... [[]] [Wednesday, April 21, 2004 @ 08:56 p.m.]
Well... It's been a while since my last update, so I figure I should probably post something, just so that when I look back at this page that no one reads, I'll feel better about at least being faithful to myself. Well, for the last week and a little bit, I've been minorly stressing over my paper... But now, the pain is at an end. I have turned in my Lit paper about William Shakespeare's corpus of sonnets, and my grief has abated. Of course, there's still the final to do, and I have to BS a reading log, but I think I can still pull through. I got through my last Diff EQ test today, too, seemingly without hitch, which is kind of frightening for myself, since I haven't done terribly well on any of the previous tests. Mediocrely, but still... This test could not have been as easy as I thought it was. Other than that, I might actually have something to do at work... What I don't know, since my programming skills look like half-washed sand castles compared to those of the guys who have been working on this stuff. [[Decisions]] [Tuesday, April 13, 2004 @ 10:36 a.m.]
Well. It's another day, and another dilemma for me. Here's the dilly-o, yo: OK. I'm not a co-op. I'm a summer-hire that was too good. So I'm sitting here, doing nothing related to my field of choice, and rotting away in this spacious office, getting paid such and such amount per hour. But I got here through string-pulling and a few personal favors, and my boss, while a typical engineer, when not at work, is actually a really nice/kinda cool guy. Now, the problem: I go to school 15-17 hours a semester alongside the 30 hours a week I put in at work. This means that I work all day several days a week, from 0830-1700, and work and go to school the rest of the days, from 0830-1900. And that, my friend, is burning me out. If it was just work, I'd be practically relaxing. I could actually even focus on doing stuff, and getting real stuff done, instead of doing this, because I'd have enough hours and be able to pay enough attention that I could seek out work instead of not-quite-avoiding it in favor of being able to do homework in my office. And then in the off-semesters, I could work on my schoolwork full-time, which is what I seriously need to do. So the problem is this: do I apply for a co-op position somewhere, and blow off my current boss, who I have a personal connection with, and whose wife I have a personal connection with, and with whose wife's office-mates I have a personal connection with? Or do I go for something that could be potentially easier, but a longer course of study? Do I "waste" another year of my life doing this stuff? Or do I quit, go to school full-time and make all A's for the rest of my college career? I don't know. It's something that's been weighing very heavily on my mind. Oh, and I'd probably make a tad more (hourly) in a co-op position, if I got one with the government. [big sigh] I just have to think about it. That's my gripe for today. Maybe more later. [[It's been a while...]] [Tuesday, March 30, 2004 @ 04:10 p.m.]
...since I last updated, hasn't it? Yes it has! Yes it, has, hasn't it! Yesh indeedy, we haven't oopdated in a long! time, haff wee? No, we haffent! Anyway Spring break was last week. Since today is Tuesday, and I should have been posting yesterday, I'll fill you in on the entirety of the time that you've missed out on. Spring Break consisted of... not much. I should have worked on circuits, and statics... and I should have done some yardwork... And cleaned my room... and washed my car... And done laundry a second time before this week... But you know what? I didn't. Everything was fine as it was, and I got to spend time with my girlfriend for most of the week, and I was happy, goshdarnit. Well, content. Happy for some of it, content at least for all of the time spent with her. The rest of the time was a 50-50 chance of being good or being bad. My mom's birthday came and went with little or no fanfare. She didn't want to go out to Pauli's where I had gotten her a gift certificate of such a magnitude that she and my dad could go out and have a nice meal without "us kids" (Yeah, like we're loud and obnoxious). She didn't want cake. So you know what she got for her birthday? Instead of cake, she wanted wings. From Wal-mart. The kind that you get in that paper bag for $4.00. I can't say anything against that, as I think that's actually quite ingenius, and given the opportunity, I might have to request that this year, but still... it was just... weird... Oh yeah, I was sick for the last three days or so. Some kind of weird stomach virus that hit me Saturday, and then pummeled my guts on Sunday, and then relented yesterday, and finally essentially relented today. I ate the only full meal of the last three days yesterday, for lunch, and even then I couldn't finish it. I don't know if it was because my stomach had shrunk, or what, but that one plate was too much for the likes of me, without this horrible discomfort. Probably the dregs of whatever it was coming back to haunt me for one last meal. Today... Today, I had a snack-thing-bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, tha I have missed dearly since I last had them, which was I don't know when. Needless to say, they were good. Speaking of food... I had my first taste of asiago yesterday... and I must admit that it was pretty good. It'd probably work very well as a rather expensive alternative to Parmesan. Next cheese up: Gouda. By the time I'm 21, I want to have the cheese thing down, so I can move on to being a conniseur of cheap wine. Then... On to more dangerous foods... Actually, I need to work up my steak-ing skills. I haven't barbe'd any steak for a while, so I think I need to get a really nice, thick cut of something and sear it really nicely, then let it simmer in its own juices for a while. My mouth is already watering. I read something interesting not too long ago at all, and it was the concept of how can the precise communication of so many millions of neurons create such a dynamic composition of personality. And after thinking about it for a second, I can accurately determine that the only possible explanation is that it can't be as precise as is necessary for all personalities to be exactly the same. 'cause here's the thing: if our nervous systems all worked flawlessly, we would all come to correct solutions, and we'd all be able to see the value of all correct solutions and to be able to incorporate them or store them for future reference in modern design of the the world we make for ourselves. There would be very little difference between personalities if we were all given to correctness and accuracy, because then we would be much like machines: we'd have different exteriors, to a certain extent, but inside, we'd be all 0's and 1's, and we'd function like a bunch of integrated boards, all off the same line, with the essential flaw every so often that would have to be either destroyed or refurbished. It's the Sci-Fi short-storyist/novella-writer's fantasy. Stretching, this morning, for my alarm clock, I found myself thinking What's the use? What does it matter? If I go back, there's only be more things to do that will have little or no bearing on anything else that I do, and I can subsist without it? Why follow the rules? Why not ignore them? I'm tired, and my stomach is still rumbling from being empty for days, why should I go to work, and to school, and why should I bloody well keep it up, when I don't bloody deuced-well want to? And I countered: Because life is full of the opportunity to do things that way that you want to do them: quickly, simply, and with the least amount of effort, or perhaps to even completely bypass the entire thing. If you did that, your life would be composed of nothings. These short periods of very little, and then complete void. The topology of your life, when you looked back on it, in the years to come, would be not only boring, but meaningless. In art, there is minimalism to make a statement from very little, but in the abstract world where the representation of one's life is a three dimensional rendering, there is no statement to make, there's no one to comment on it and say, "My, that's a lovely point he has there, with the thing that he hasn't got in his composition." There is a God who looks at it and says, "Not worthy," and tosses that little tiny, infinitesmaly minute life into an eternal, endless, boundless, bottomless lake of fire. Why should you do what you don't want to do? Because your life is short, and the only way that your short little life will amount to anything is through hard work and gumption. If you don't do things simply because you don't want to, you have negated your existence, because you weren't asked if you would like to be a person, but you bloody-well are. Obviously, the purpose of your existence is not for yourself, otherwise, you'd have had a lot more say in your existence. So what does that leave? Do you go on for life itself? The sheer act of living? Do you live for other people who are themselves not sure of what they're living for? Put your entire being into making life easier and better for the whole of mankind? No. You go on because the One who created you told you to do a good work. It's for your own good that you go on, it's for the good of others that you live as if your life belonged to someone else, and the One whose say in your existence is the Be-All and End-All gave you the thumbs up and let you wake up again this morning. The reason for the rules is you. Now you know what not to do, get up and do what's right. And then I hit the alarm and took a shower. And the world rejoiced. So now I'm here at work, after quite a few hours (9), and I just typed out a really long and drawn out post with very little purpose to it. My days are long and filled with nothing. I need a more fulfilling job... [[I got a ticket!]] [Friday, March 19, 2004 @ 10:22 a.m.]
Well, there's this radio station, see? And they do this thing where some restaurant will give them some gift certificates, see? And they sell 'em for half-price on their website, right? And so I, like, go and get one as soon as they open up @0900hrs on Fri. morning, and so now I've got like $50 worth of sweet Pauli's goodness coming in the mail (I'm taking my mom out for her birthday). And my monitor is in town and on the truck, to be delivered! w00t! I'm so happy it made it! Now it only remains to see how many dead pixels there are... Gosh I hope there aren't any... [prays] And for all that, today would be a good day, except for the Diff Eq. test that is going to take advantage of me in a way that I don't deem completely appropriate between a male and a piece of paper. I don't like all these silly methods of differential equation analysis... and we'd better not have to know the names of them, 'cause our dear professor can't pronounce them himself, and can only half-remember them half the time. The other half, he's just floundering and guessing. Not that he's not a really intelligent guy, but he really is scatterbrained and not very prepared for class. I'm sure he's a great guy to go drinking with, if you know Chinese. I'd like to go somewhere for Spring Break this year. Birmingham at least, maybe ATL or Nashville. ATL, for no reason other than to test my driving skills, Nashville for that country-western dance club, maybe. I honestly don't know what I'll do. I'll be working at least one day next week, if not two, probably two half-days and taking off the rest of the time. But I should have a good time of it. And last night, I realized that at the bottom of my buddy list, where a person of such merit should not lie, lay the SN of Mr. J. Melvin, a rather curious gentleman of GaTech (Does anyone at GaTech add an "A" to the end of that and call it GaTecha[Gattaca]?). 'twould be a shame to continue leaving his name to reside on the underside of my buddy list. The conversation is always so lively. At the end of the day, I'll see how the day went, because right now it's looking like a 50-50 chance of being really good, or really bad. We shall see. [[OK, so that was silly...]] [Thursday, March 18, 2004 @ 10:17 a.m.]
OK, so the self-composed lyrics were a bit messy and the product of what is definitely a mind out of its mind. In which case, you can ignore them if you like. Well, today, I'm at work again. Yes, that magical Faraday Cage that allows no signal to pass through, and no two-way communication devices to be brought in from the outside world. And it's inhabited by busy people who do busy things, all the live-long day, while this lowly "Co-op" sits around, trying to learn Fortran in a vain attempt to be constructive. I haven't seen my boss in a week. My job satisfaction is at an all-time low. [sigh] In other news, I got to see Brecken yesterday. Yay! It made me happy, as very very few things do. Speaking of happy things... Spring Break is but a few days away. I'm going to go out to eat at least once. I'm going to see The Passion of the Christ, because I've been wanting to since it came out, and haven't had the time. I'm going to take off work, so I can veg and not have to wake up before noon. I'm going make money by doing nothing at all. Thank goodness for paid leave of absence... And I bought a monitor. I'm really worried about it, because it's an LCD, and I don't know if there'll be dead pixels, which will drive me up the wall... And if there's one less than the number required for an RMA... [fumes] That will undoubtedly vex me terribly. I shall have to rant, rave, stomp, etc., until I find out what low-living feces-producing, negligent, bumbling, ignorant pile of lowly corporate sales refuse has caused what my hard earned $[big number].00 went toward having brought to my doorstep. I'm going to bugger him a new one, the slime-sucking son of a mangy dog... Or daughter, I don't discriminate in my fury. And about electronics... I've been thinking of moving out since I was about 12, but I'm not foolish enough to want to deal with the financial burden of it. But lately, I've found myself pricing everything. Partially because of a lack of stuff to do at work, but the fact of the matter is that I think it would take roughly $4000 to set up any living space that I might attain in a way that I would be content with. That'd be leaving the majority of the stuff that I have (furniture) at home, and skimping around the edges of costs. Major costs would include living room furniture and dining furniture and bedroom furniture. Basically, furniture. I could probably live without a lot of livingroom furniture and instead find a washer/dryer set... Either way, if I set that goal of having $4k to move out with, I think I might be able to manage it. I just have to keep watching prices & stuff. Heck, if I was really industrious, I could build my own bedframe and bedroom suite, although I'd have to call it a "primitive" style after I was done. If I were really good, I could build the dining room furniture... Maybe just the table. Chairs would be too much work, when I could probably get them for a decent price. Well, maybe the entire thing would be easier to just buy and spruce up... A coat of acrylic here and there, a good polish, and most things will look a lot better. Unless they're irredeemable, which is not unheard of, when it comes to furniture [sigh]. I'd really like to get a nail-head leather set for my living room, and the entertainment center can be compromised on. Well, I'll just have to continue my search. Yeah, I think that after having been broke for so long, I'm in this habit of pricing things very carefully before buying, or not buying at all. Now I'm even worse, because I can buy stuff, so actually spending the money drives me to look for a way to spend as little as humanly possible. [[Sittin', just sittin'...]] [Friday, March 12, 2004 @ 10:10 a.m.]
Well, I'm just a'sittin' here at work... Just a'doin' what I do... But I'm doin' nothin'. So I think I'm gonna shirk, leave it all for some'un else to pursue... I hate work, Doin' nothing that I like. I hate work, 'cause somethin' here just isn't right. I can't wait for the clock to hit that magic time, when I'll go home for a little while. And I'll see my baby whatever it takes, and I know that that's what makes me infatuateeeeeeeed... Well, I'm just sittin' here in class, Doin' nothin' at all, Didn't learn a thing. I wanna get outta here, so I take my hall pass, cause I hate school, Not doin' what I like... I hate school 'cause somethin' here just isn't right... I don' wanna bide my time 'fore I get out of this crap. I wanna hurry up and be wherever she's at. And I'll see my baby whatever it takes, And I know that that's what makes me infatuateeeeeeeed... 'cause I want to be with my baby, I wanna be with my girl. There's nothin' that I like more in the whole world... I wanna be with my lovely one, I wanna be with my girl. There's nothin' that I like more in the whole world... the whole world... There's nothin' better than my lovely girl... In the whole world... [[Talk about a day...]] [Thursday, March 11, 2004 @ 12:53 p.m.]
Jeez. I never knew that a full 8 hours could be so freaking long. Allow me to elaborate on why this anomalous temporal phenomenon seems to have taken a distinctively vindictive hold on my current day (and quite a few of my other days): Today, I woke up late. This is nothing terribly unusual. The insomnia, of late, has been pushing me to stay awake until at least 2 in the morning, for no bloody good reason. I think I need to force exercise into my daily routine, maybe I just need some real physical exhaustion. Not body-building, as that would simply be against my morals. Don't ask, because the answer probably wouldn't make any sense. Anyway, woke up late, showered, shaved, brushed teeth, dressed, and was out the door in 15 minutes flat. On the dot. I looked at my watch, and while it's probably off by a few thousandths of a second per quarter-hour, it said that I was essentially out the door in 15 minutes precisely. I grabbed my cookies and my Mountain Dew (the two primary staples of my daylight diet, rice and meat being the two of my evening diet) and rushed out the door, got to work 15 minutes late, and sat down at my desk, thinking, "Oh good, no one noticed. Not that they ever would, all of their doors being closed and perhaps locked, my office being at the end of the hall around the corner, next to the dock elevator. I suppose it really just doesn't matter that much." And so I sat. And I sat. And I sat and leaned back. I leaned forward, then stretched. After 4 hours of this, I felt ready to retch. And so I'm sitting here, still, whiling away my time, because the code I'm supposed to look at is in Fortran, and I don't know Fortran, and my boss wants me to learn it ASAP, so that he can stick me doing something. What, I don't know, because we're still waiting for our funding to come in from the Project Office. [sigh] I also need to work up my work ethic. I think it's the fact that I haven't gotten much sleep lately, or perhaps that while I'm at work, I'm essentially cut off from all civilization as it is commonly known to man, but I think my brain is actively shutting down and slipping into 5th or 6th gear, setting the cruise control, and just cruising. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but I need not to make C's in all of my classes, because another semester of this stuff would not be enjoyable. I'm going to try to do it now. Wish me luck. Well. If anyone was reading this as I wrote it, you could, but those kind of wishes aren't exactly retroactive, so please have wished me luck at the time when I asked you to do so, and we'll be good. Thanks. [[Ringdingdiddlyah yay!]] [Tuesday, February 24, 2004 @ 02:59 p.m.]
Well, it's been a long day, and I've only been to work for 7 hours. It'd be okay if I were doing something monotonous, like stamping piles of papers, or something like that, but I'm actually trying to interact with my boss, who, while a nice guy, very obviously has placed me near the bottom on the list of his priorities. And it's not going great, since I'm trying to fight off the pain of my sinuses going from Mucus Falls to Booger Dam (that is, runny nose to stuffy nose). And my spec-sheet isn't up to... well, spec. Lemme explain what I'm doing: I'm looking at a document that someone else wrote about three times before sending it to my boss, who promptly looked at it and said, "Make a copy of this, you'll need it for when you write the spec sheet that we'll use for the interface to this thing." So I copy and pore over the document, and think to myself, "Self, I don't know how to do any of this. I don't really remember what a differential signal is, on an RS422 standard connector..." So I'm essentially writing a paper on someone's paper about a machine that someone else entire built, so that I can hand it to my boss, who will then hand it to someone else who will build another machine that will couple to the first machine and do... stuff. So yeah, work is picking up a little. And so is school. I'm hitting that point in the Spring semester where I'm thinking that if I make any C's, my GPA will be shot to less than a B average, and I'll lose what precious little money I'm getting from dear sweet UAH already. So, I have to bring my grades up, preferably with at least one A in a primary class--so that it gets weighted heavily--this semester. I think that the class that this happens in may actually be Lit. I think the class is quasi-interesting, whereas I really didn't care much for my English class that I had. I'd actually recommend the prof I have now, whereas I'd only tell a person to take a class from my honr's English prof if they were either gay or a feminist. So yeah, tests coming up, I have to read poetry and learn how to analyze circuits, trusses, differential equations, and systems of vector spaces. [[OK, that was fun...]] [Tuesday, February 3, 2004 @ 04:27 p.m.]
Well, the weekend was good, but now the week is turning not sour, but stale. I mean, after a day of getting to sit around on my can on Saturday, I had a great time Sunday. I was a real heathen and "skipped" church. You can't tell me that not going to services once a year is a sin, when you're going skiing/Super-Bowl-partying. You just can't, you know why? 'acause it's not. Well, having said that, why yes, I did go skiing and a'partying on Sunday. I got up uber-early -- or planned to at least -- at 0723hrs. That's what you might call a failure to awaken at the appropriated moment. This means that I woke up, leapt into a cold shower and did the whole scrubbing thing, brushed my teeth and very hurriedly combed my hair into a semblance of order, and dressed and packed in approximately 7-10 minutes. Thank goodness, Brecken was a little bit late, or else I might have gone nuts right then and there. Anyway. So her mom calls just as I reenter the house to go and get the watch I forgot the first time I left, and it turns out that she'd found the cell phone that I didn't know that Brecken didn't have in a place that Brecken thought not to look and took it out, but didn't leave it for her. Which means that we went back to Brecken's house, got her jacket and directions and were off on our way to Mentone, AL. Yes, the place that many a skiier makes fun of as the prime skiing spot in lovely AL. So we get there, right? And I'm in borrowed ski-pants and scared out of my wits because I have the coordination of a recently cooked armadillo, and Brecken's cool calm and used to this kind of thing. So here's what happens, right: we go in, get skis and boots, strap in and on and go out, and Brecken goes with me up to the "ski school" when I'm trying to get up this hill in skis. It takes me five minutes to move approx. 10 yards. I get to the top. The guy tells me to squat with my hands on my knees, and to slow down, I need to push my heels out. He gives me a push. I go. I go right. Continue going right, until I pass out of the little lane-type thing for the "ski school." I gain speed as I'm madly pushing my toes in and heels out. Nothing happens until my skis cross and I flop. This entire process essentially happens three times before Brecken mentions that you don't just put the skis at an angle, you have to dig the edges into the snow. I would never have guessed. After that, I can stop and essentially slow down from whatever high velocity I'm currently at. And all the while, Brecken's got this whole "Ladeedah, I'm skiing oh-so-gracefulleee!" kind of thing. She's got the poles and the whole smooth slalom motion going as she rides down the hill with ease and poise. Hell, Tyler, her little brother, is crouching down at the top of the hill and bulleting down the slope, actually getting some air over one of the bumps in the "not-bunny" slope. After a while, he puts on snow blades, and is essentially going down the slope backwards. It made me sick. But nonetheless, I enjoyed it, and got some decent pictures. Not too many, since I don't have a tiny camera that I can just tote anywhere, but some decent ones. Anyway. At about 2 we clean up, change out of the now rather sweaty and damp ski-clothing and into a more fresh change of clothes. And we're suddenly on the road again. Well, I've got to leave work, now, so I'll update again later, maybe. [[Update]] [Tuesday, January 27, 2004 @ 03:17 p.m.]
OK. It's officially Tuesday. I'm posting today. Hopefully this'll aid me in my attempt to retain my semi-constant update schedule. Or not... I'm at work, and have been for a good 7 hours... I've got but a few measly hours left. 2. Suddenly, when you look at it after having not looked at a large amount of work for the past few days, that number looks huge. It feels like I've been sitting here for weeks. I mean, there's nothing to this, I'm just allowing my gluteus to enhance itself in girth and mass. That's two hours, or 120 minutes, or 7200 seconds... When every second feels like a minute, that's roughly 5 days worth of sitting here doing nothing. That's like the heat index, but referenced to the relative feel of time passing. [sigh] I learned today that a good friend has taken heart in the face of great trial, and it's actually rather... uplifting, to see/read about someone gaining perspective on things. May your years grow long and happy, D. School is already starting to weigh down on me. I mean, I'm 2 1/2 weeks in and already I feel myself slowing down to a crawl, waiting for the next class to hit me. It's like an old-school RPG, where you wander around looking for monsters to attack, except classes are like boss monsters and they take a good hour to two hours to defeat. And afterwards you're not only tired, but you need to rest to restore your hp/mp. I sound like RPGW... Speaking of said comic, I went back and read it from the beginning today... All of it. It started in 2000, and I never realized that I'd never gone back to read the beginning of it. I like it though, I've played enough Rogue-like games to understand everything, as it relates to those tile-based games. Strangely enough, I was never into those low-graphics games, I was actually more into the no graphics games. According to Brecken, I'm old, and will have been old all through my teenage years after I get out of them in a few months. Not only will I have been old, but I will have been a graphics-less RPG player... [much weeping and wailing] Well, that's my Tuesday. Sucked pretty hard, didn't it...? [[The bonnie star his kilt did lift and show...]] [Friday, January 23, 2004 @ 02:06 p.m.]
That's a line from a song that's been stuck in my head for a while. I mean, it's a great song, or at least I think it is. It's got great potential as a simple melody, but I think it's cool because it's obviously a joke that's just been put to a simple melody that seems to have worked out just fine . Anyway. Life has been fruitful, in a way that one sees it to be after having lived that fruit. I suppose this last few weeks has been the kind of fruit that you pay hundreds of dollars for, because that's what I've done: I've completely blown away my cash. I bought a hard drive (~$150, a little less for a 200 GB WD special edition["Caviar"]), I bought books (~$350 all said and done, and that's just for the primary ones, not the readers in lit, or the answer supplements for Diff EQ and/or Linear Alg.), and have generally glutted myself every opportunity that I've had. I don't usually eat out a whole lot, not when I don't have to, but lately, I've been going out and getting food at every opportunity, so all said and done, I've spend roughly $700 this last month. That includes everything that I would usually buy, too, but still, that's a lot of money. It makes me feel like a miser, but if being miserly tops off my checking account, then all the more penny-pinching I shall do. And work. What can I say about work? Supposedly, I'm going to get the opportunity to do some kind of programming or the like sometime soon, but as it stands, I'm preparing documents for other people who are putting together hardware, that by rights I should at least have my hand in. Apparently I'm even more of "just a Co-op" than I thought, and while I don't like it a whole lot, I've recently come to the conclusion that this can be a good thing, because of all the work I'm going to have to do for school that I can take care of, all by my lonesome here in this mint-green office o' mine. Funny to think that I have the biggest office that I'm probably going to have for a long while, while I'm a co-op. There are actually guys on my hall who envy me my office furniture (cube furniture), because everything around here is a relic of the early days of rocket propulsion R & D, i.e. the 50's and 60's. Well, there's a lot of stuff still remaining from the 70's, too. I got to read for the SB tournament at BJHS. That was cool. It was emphasized by my lack of knowing some of the "kids" that I'm old. Apparently I don't look old, as I was asked what grade I was in, but nonetheless, I am inadvertently disconnected from the big red-brick building. Thinking of that, I think to myself, I think, "Self, we're going to be 20 this year. Do you know what that means?" "Why, yes, Me, I do. It means that we will no longer be teenage, but instead of being a chillun' we shall be a whippersnapper." "How intrguing. It's not a coming of age, is it?" "No, no no no, nothing so drastic as that, just the passing of another decade of breathing. You know, all that 'inhale' and 'exhale' stuff?" "Oh yes, I see. So... that means that we're old." "Indeed." "Oh my." Yeah, something like that, anyway. But, the reason that I'm writing this awfully long post is because I'm actually at work after I've been to Differential Equations, which is taught by Dr. Ai. Let me tell you about Dr. Ai: He looks like my uncle. He sounds like he's a FOB (Fresh Off the Boat). And he's a whiz-kid. He went through a problem and skipped like half a page's worth of algebra. No joke. "y' + p(x)y = f(x), then y=e^(-integral{p(x)dx)) * [c + integral{f(x)*e^(-integral{p(x)dx))dx}]." Someone actually had to ask him to go through it. It was insane. I followed it, but it was still nuts. I think most of it is just the material that he's covering, but the problems and examples that he works require you not only to think outside of the box, but to think outside of the shipping company and the general method for moving objects around large distances along continuous integrable paths. And I wasn't kidding about looking like my uncle. He looks like my older uncle on my mom's side (who, by the way, recently had a child with his recently-wedded [a year ago?] wife: a boy, 6.3 Kg). Well, my schedule isn't quite so determinedly difficult as it was last semester, mainly because I'm not taking any physics. That's what made my schedule so odd last semester, was having to go to class in the afternoon at an odd time and come back to work for an hour before leaving for home and going back to a late class. This semester, the classes aren't for quite so late, but on Mondays and Wednesdays I have a grand total of 5 classes, the spaces between which, with a single exception, are 15 minutes long. Which means that I have to hustle in and out of classrooms all day, after I've been at work for 3 hours, with my only respite being between Differential Equations and Honors Lit. Speaking of Honor's Lit, let me explain my position on Dr. Szilagyi. He looks like a relic of the 70's. He's skinny, kind of tan/dark-skinned, and wears that bling-blingin' gold bracelet and watch kindathing, and he's got Foo-man Chew (choo, however you want to call it). IT's like a handle-bar mustache, but not. It's like a goatee without any follicles on the chin. It's kind of weird. On top of all that, he's got that kind of bone-less movement that indicates homosexuality in the most seriously liberal arts way possible. That is to say, he gives all the impression of being a flaming homosexual. And yet, it would be bitter irony if he had a butch wife(moustache and all), or a wife who just so happens to act the exact same way that he does. Because if she's gorgeous, smart, and funny, there is no justice, and God is toying with me. And homosexual? There's a sort of speech impediment where a person has a certain kind of lisp, they round out their vowels, the can't properly pronounce hard consonants, and there's a guy who looks just as gay as my professor in that class, and when he speaks, I cringe. It's not that he seems to be a bad guy, it's just... grating... And that's life as I know it. Eat your heart out, Ferris Bueller. [[Bugger!]] [Friday, January 9, 2004 @ 03:45 p.m.]
Well you know what happened? I wrote the longest post ever, literally, I even copied and pasted it into Word and it was a page and a half long. And my computer goes kaput when I get up and kick my case by accident and hit the #$%^! rest button. So now you get the cut down version of the orignially quite clever and witty, not to mention long, post. Here goes: Work sucks. The engineers can be hard to work with. My boss is too busy. Wanh wanh wanh. [insert long bitching section here] I got my books. School starts soon. Yippee. I don't have to do Campus as Text for Forum. More Yippee. I only have thirteen credit hours. Quasi-yippe. That means another class during the summer. So now I'm taking at least Physics and Diff EQ. Wish I had gotten to hang out with everyone over Christmas break. As it was, I was reclusive almost the entire time. That's all for now. Maybe I'll have more luck with typing a whole lot, next time. [[]] [ @ ]
[[]] [Friday, January 9, 2004 @ 03:09 p.m.]
Well, I'm out of work early, and it's the Friday before class starts... God help us all. [[It's that time of year again...]] [Sunday, January 4, 2004 @ 12:28 p.m.]
It's that time when people have just taken back some of the horrible presents that have beset them in recent days past, to rid themselves of the horror of the day, the dread of the gift of crapola. They've gotten over the hangover from New Year's, and they're moving on, into the new year in a way that implies that it's going to be another long 12 months before we see this kind of gorging on festivities and celebration. That said, I had a good Christmas. I got a quasi-leather chair for my computer desk, a space heater, and a knife replacement. Funny enough, the knife I got is the knife I had, just 30 or so years younger, and I like it a lot. It's not so dull and rusty, so the children don't scream when they see it coming at their little eyes like they used to, but it's useful for everything else, too. [[Christmas time is here...]] [Wednesday, December 10, 2003 @ 10:00 p.m.]
...and there's no place to run, and no place to hide... Well. It was finals time, and I got through most of that, but I have one more tomorrow night. That one shouldn't be too bad, I just have to look over some vocabulary and stuff like that, general studying in the subject. My two tests today were both pretty bad (physics and EE202), but the one that really reamed me a new one was calculus. I'm surprise the speed and heat with which it happened didn't cauterize the wound. By all rights, I should still metaphorically be bleeding. And then today, I messed up with my girlfriend. She left a not on my car windshiled after my afternoon final, and I took it off, thinking it was just a bit of trash that got stuck. It was a note written on the back of an advertisement, because the paper was thick. I should have looked at it closer, and at least noticed it. And then, she waits for me outside of my last exam. I didn't expect it, and I would have told her not to do it, if she had told me she was going to do it beforehand. She did it, though, and it made me happy, it made me a little worried as to how attached I am, and she is, and how we can't really be that close, because we're both busy, and I can't live off such and such small amount of sleep. Mostly that's because I didn't feel awake enough to do anything or go anywhere. But she seemed so... well, happy. Not bubbly, but kind of quietly happy. I love to see her happy, and... I don't know, but I screwed up. I just want to be able to do everything, and make people happy... But I can't really seem to do that... [[Here we are again, sports fans]] [Sunday, November 2, 2003 @ 02:54 p.m.]
We're hailing you today from sunny Alabama! Yesiree, it's nice and warm outside, and it's only November! That being said, it really is unseasonally nice outside... It'd be perfect camping weather if I could go camping. If I had anybody to go camping with that my dear parents would trust to go camping with me... Work is looking up, because I'm finally getting to the point where I have the mobility around the building to get to where I need to go. The work is picking up a little bit, and eventually I'll actually be doing something productive, instead of vainly trying to write technical papers. Egad I hate papers... So, life goes on, and I have lots to do. [[Well, it's been a long time...]] [Saturday, October 4, 2003 @ 12:03 a.m.]
Dear dedicated readers (me): I'd like to take a moment for continuing to try to keep up with my lack of an ability to keep a weblog from anywhere. My apologies, and I'll try to remember to post more often. Anyway. What's up is this: a wedding. I have to go to a wedding this afternoon to save Brecken from complete annihilation at the hands of her relatives, who she seems to have something of a dislike for. So, I'm playing good guy and going. [sigh] No, not really. I'm going to be able to get out of my house and spend time with Brecken, which I haven't gotten much of a chance to do lately. Hopefully, by next semester, I'll be able to rectify that. I changed jobs recently. I was hoping that I'd be getting some kind of a raise, but it turns out that they just moved me over into a place where the work is harder and I get my own office at the end of the hall. It's not bad really. IF they could update my computer a little bit, like so its only 3 years behind instead of 10, I'd be ecstatic. I would be able to do everything that I needed to, and then some, like work on this technical paper that I'm supposed to write. Pulling BS out of thin air is one of my specialties, but this stuff is... dense... My boss actually laughed when he handed me the stack of stuff and said, "I know for a fact that you haven't gotten to quaternian equations yet..." He chuckled in an evil way before leaving on vacation for a week... Other than that, I have class and work, and then class, and then work, then class, and then I come home, and that's just an average day. Sometimes its worse. I'm getting to be a better traffic-driver though... But, the wedding cleanup awaits, so I'm going to go make myself presentable (shower). [[New! Improved! No, not really!]] [Monday, August 4, 2003 @ 07:34 a.m.]
Yes, indeed, ladies and gents, I've gone so far as to archive my page. The crap that was on here is now on a different, and now officiall "old" page. Now I'm back, in the digital, and yes, even more bored than ever. I'm going to have to start updating this thing on the hour every hour while I'm at work so I'll have something to do. I might at least start updating once a week, anyway... As for everything else... Let's see. I've secured a job or myself at the RDEC, which is McClaren Laboratories or something like that, and I'll be working with the System Simulation division (SysSim). I'm in limbo in my current position, because they have to get all the paperwork through to create their intern program over there, and now I know nothing at all. The good news is that I know I'll be working in the rat-warren that is the RDEC, I know that I'll be making at least as much as I am now, if not more, and I'll be working something like 30 hours a week. This is much better than my current position; well, everything except for the RDEC, most people would say that the Sparkman Center is just nicer than that place, but there are some labs in the maze that are just way cool... like the testing rigs that have something like 5 or 9 degrees of freedom... Yeah. Cool factor to the max, baby. Like I said, right now I'm in limbo. They don't want to give me any work in the fear that I'll be whisked away and unable to finish. So I have to go around to all of the other Summer Hires and try to help them do whatever it is that they are so destined to do for the rest of their eternities, IE sort through files, papers, copy things, shred things, remove multiple staples, etc. It's absolutely wonderful, in a nose-bleedingly boring kind of way. And how can I not mention my dear Brecky being gone? I can't. It'd be a sin. The bright, happy and most interesting part of my life has taken a trip to Florida, and she's destined to be back today, hopefully. [sigh.] I miss her terribly. [sniffle] That done, I shall return to my daily duty of pretending that I have something important to do. |
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