Ge0nicGage

Another Day, another Dollar

2007-03-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

So, I get up this morning and get to work on time (a big change from the usual 9 to 5), and get a few things done. When I say work, now, I'm actually talking about the bread-winning job wherein I have to write things and do some administrative stuff for everyone. This morning, in fact, I was a gopher, and got to go for few pieces of equipment to take back to another organization. I actually used this hardware for some testing that I had to do, but it was supposed to be taken back months ago, and it just never happened.

But, after that it was 0935 and I decided that since I had four hours of leave, I'd just take part of it early and head to the store (where I was slated to work for Judy for a few hours). It turns out that I got there around 0945, and left around 1535, so that's about six hours at the store. Today was, in fact, a fun day at Great Spirits. It was a little slow in the very beginning, but definitely picked up as the day wore on. I did the lifting for Judy and Judy handled all of her regulars and worked the floor, and I did everything else. We even had a brand spanking new wine rep come in, and I just felt so sorry for her... she kind of knew what needed to be done, and that there was a good bit of work to do, but she hadn't got a real good idea of what was going on, so I couldn't help but help her. Like all the rest of them, she was a very nice young lady who could probably have done with a heavy drink before coming to work to stave off the madness, and she just seemed so innocent... so I helped her find stuff and pointed her in the right direction and hoped that she didn't get sucked into the salesmanship void with us...

So I have to make this statement about distributors: some of us don't like to be sold to as if we were children. Talk to me like a) I know what I'm doing and b) like you know that you're trying to sell on the strength of your product. There are times I don't like reps because they try to push crappy wines just because. I mean, help me help you by bringing in product that you actually think will move; help me have the products that fit my image; allow me to sell your wine because it's good wine, not because I want to get it the hell out of my store. And that's not directed at any specific rep, or specific distributor, but its my beef with salespeople in general. Give me the benefit of the doubt and learn to understand my depth of knowledge as a buyer as well as a seller, because trying to talk down to me doesn't help my opinion at all, and spinning the truth doesn't make me want to buy from you.

We got that done, Judy got almost to tears over beer people, and then got all happy about the situation, and I think she should have stayed hardline on the guys. Some people have this thing where they'll have an opinion and then change it at the drop of a hat, but I must be a lot more cynical than that. Like, "Oh, you just did something that's a mediocre gesture that you might never repeat? I'll forgive you and give you the stars!" No, someone's got to prove to me over time that their actions aren't the immediate result of their previous screw-ups (i.e. you're not trying to just make up for the bad bits before going back to doing the bad bits again), but that their actions and/or motivations have changed such that their future behavior is based on different maxims (and in case you don't know and Kant, a maxim is a rule or law by which you try to strictly adhere to in all your actions). Like SBC needs to just change the way they do business if they're just going to jerk us around as if they had a monopoly (which they mostly do) and bad business practices (it sure looks like they have those, too).

But, my dad comes home tonight from a long business trip to Colorado, and I've got laundry to do so now I leave my office.

Salut!

ARGH!

2007-03-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

You know, I always write out this post, and it's always really long and detailed... and then either I have a system crash, or I close the window unwittingly... or something. Who knows? Either way, I'm going to keep this entry short for the sake of my sanity.

Things are good. Two jobs going well. The Office is picking up with some interesting work, and the Store is winding down a little (thank goodness!) since Steve got back from his vacation. No more 15 hour days for me!

I'm working on getting a MySpace page up somewhere, but it requires a little bit of creative design on the HTML and CSS part, seeing as Myspace refuses to do anything but use a table-based layout that makes it impossible for people like yours truly to do any really decent layout with any ease or clarity of code. Either way, there are work arounds, and I'm working around with them. Link to be posted when it gets finished.

Om-ma's leaving for Korea in a few days--on her birthday, in fact. I'm actually going to leave the Office to go look for a birthday present and I'll have to stop by the Fresh Market at some point so I can pick up some fish (I think it'll be best to get something that I can sear in a pan and serve up in less than 20 minutes. Some veggies with a light cream sauce... should be quick, easy, and colorful. Ohn-ni is doing the cake and stuff, so I don't have to worry about that.

I just got back from looking for a birthday gift for mi madre, and decided to just get her flowers and do the nice dinner thing. I'm not sure there's really anything more I could do to make her happier.

Back to the grindstone for me...

So the thought was...

2007-01-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

...that I should blog about last night's events, and I think that I will.

Every Sunday evening, B and I, as well as a large group of friends, come together to enjoy a Tuesday night dinner. That is to say, before the night got moved to Sunday, it was Tuesday on which they prepared their weekly meal, and then when B and I joined the rotatiion and the aforemention change occurred. So, we eat, and we leave at a reasonable hour (somewhere in the neighborhood of 2100hrs), and head back to her house, and sit in the driveway, chatting for a while, before we go out for a walk.

It's kind of chill night, but still nice enough for a walk. It's just the slightest bit misty, and it's still a little wet, but the temperature's okay, and the air's very clear, all adding up to good weather, in my book. So, we walk, and we go down in the area around Highland Dr. in Madison, and stroll about. We stroll past a little park, and pass a few parked cars, one of which has a small light that we can tell is a cell phone, in the back seat. So we make snide remarks when we're suitably far enough away, and continue walking.

The occupants of this car, though, lock their doors. We can tell because the lights flash and there's a little beep. They seem to be doing this on purpose, because they do it again, three times in a row. We think they're just bloody idiots and continue walking, but this car starts up, leaves its lights off and starts to follow us. They follow a short way, then stop a little bit, and wait until we're out of sight, and then edge into sight again. We're on a street with no turns in it, so I thought that it must just be some kids being asinine jerks, but B is spooked (not that I can blame her). We turn down another street as soon as there is one available, stay in the light well away from the road, and wait for them for a moment before quickly doing an about-face as they turn 'round the corner in our direction.

So B's mom finds us, and we hop in, and she keeps going down the street and we find this car sitting with its lights off at a yield sign around the corner from where B and I turned around while we were walking. B's mom rolls down the window and asks them if they're lost, and it's three teenage kids, who say that they aren't. So we tail them and give them a little hell, and they try to follow us around. We head toward the police station, and they take off in a different direction.

To sum all that up, B was frightened, and I was angry. I really wanted them to come up to us and stop so I could ask him to roll down his window and give him a black eye or rip out his windpipe, one or the other would have been sufficient for me. Just thinking about it raises my ire.

So that was our evening. I also have to point out that I got some Amarula Cream, and it's really good stuff, so if you get the chance, head down to a liquor store and look for it. It's a South African cream liqueur, and tastes a lot like Bailey's but with a fruity flavor. I say this because I'll need a drink to calm down after writing about all that.

...f***ing stupid kids...

Oh, poor blog...

2007-01-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

...neglected for far too long, I don't know how you've survived without refreshment for these many long weeks. It's been almost two months since my last post, and it's likely to be about time for an update.

Firstly: I'M NO LONGER AN UNDERGRAD!

I squeaked by in my final semester with a 2.8 GPA, which brings me down, overall to something like a 3.1. I walked across the stage on December 17, 2006, as deadpan as could be, took lots of pictures, went to dinner at Luciano's with B, and then went home. It was a little anticlimatic, because they hand everyone, as they walk across the stage, a little padded folder thingy, which contains a piece of paper, with big, bold letters at the top stating: DON'T PANIC!!! (that's a direct quote, exclamation points and all)

I have to go back sometime in mid-February in order to actually get my real diploma, while at the same time returning their stupid little padded folder thing. The only real thing I got from UAH was a stupid little keychain, which I obligingly put on my keyring. It now sits there like a miniature steel blackjack, waiting to knock someone around the ear. Thank you, UAH Alumni Association, for making me feel as if I spent four years in the wrong place.

And then there was Christmas & New Year's Eve/Day. I worked my butt off at the store, doing practically everything there was to do, and it was fun, if tiring. I'm still trying to get back into the swing of going back to work early in the morning, because I never even went into the store before 10 o'clock. But, I got to drink some really expensive (and really really good) wines this last season, and I got socks out of it, too. I got to spend time with my babe, my family, and with most of my friends. J came down from Nashville, N & E were back from ATL, SE was back from W&M, D was up from Bham, and L was up from AU (I'm still sorry about New Year's!). New Year's Eve was a little crazy... I some cognac, wine, et al (still not that much... I was good to drive home at the end of the night), and everyone else had way too much to drink. B went berserk, and I got to smoke a few very nice cigars.

Oh, and I'm telling myself to only smoke once a week, max. Like last week, i.e., the week of New Year's, I smoked two cigars in one sitting, and I smoked a shortie cigarillo-styled one (a little Fuente from the Humidor on the Parkway, which was actually a nice smoke) this Tuesday. So, I'm waiting until Sunday, at the very least, to have the next one, probably more like Tuesday. Abstinence from too much possible nicotine!

Back on the other track: I got a few nice things for Christmas. B got me a titanium ring with a celtic dog on it (I'll look up a reference for the image later) that I really liked (though it may turn out that my fingers just aren't well suited for wearing rings). My mom got me kitchen implements, and my dad gave me a Dewalt router set for graduation--now all I need is some time to use them. I got gift cards for both my parents--Bannana Republic for my mom, Home Depot for my dad, both of them $100, both of them acquired with my AmEx rewards points, of which I have just over 5,000 left.

And I got another AmEx, this one is the One. I've only had it for a month or so, so we'll have to just see how it works out. It's the one with the savings account attached to the card, with a relatively high APR (intro rate is 5%, but I hope it'll still be really competitive after the intro is over). But, so far it's worked just like the rewards card, but apparently I can't pay my balance before it registers on a new month, so I just have to pay within a two week window after I get a statement. We shall see...

Oh, and I got B a ring:

I liked it a lot, and for the price, it couldn't be beaten. I think she likes it, too.

OK, now on to the subject of employment. I'm still with the Army RDEC, but unfortunately still as a Co-op. As soon as the paperwork comes down the chain, I'll be an intern, but we still have to negotiate a starting salary. While frustrating, it's just how life goes. I'll just have to wait until my branch chief decides to come back and ask him about it.

And I'm going to a Mardi Gras ball in Mobile! That means a tux and a night in South AL for me, in late Feb. It'll be a night of debauchery and sin... or, for me, watching people sin. I intend to stay reasonably sober and partake only of what will likely be a very nice spread of food and wine, although I'm sure that will be compromised, I'm still sticking to the intent, which is to remain coherent and cognitive throughout the evening.

[yawn] and work has been amazingly boring the last few days, because I've decided to let it be the employer that comes to me for me to do some kind of work for him. It's really quite frustrating.

So that's the blitz of my life for the last two months. I'm now waiting on my permanent employment to become official, still working a few nights a week at the store, and trying to enjoy life a little bit, but still not sleeping a whole lot (something that needs to be remedied soon).

Lord A'mighty!

2006-11-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

IT's been almost two months since my last post! Holy crap, people, someone remind me to post!

Anyway, I'm well. All is well, the grass is green, the sky is a very very dark blue, as the sun has set already. For the last few nights, when we've had the moon just before and after the full, it's been really gorgeous out at night, because the moon's been just amazingly luminous. There's been a few really cool harvest moon sunsets, where the moon has been absolutely huge, and there was this one instance, where the sky was really really purple in the east, and B and her little brother and I were driving down 565 toward the rocket, and the moon was really huge and yellow, and when we went around the curve, it looks like the moon is passing in time-lapse photography behind the rocket. (Kids, don't write run-on sentences like that, only people who don't care and aren't getting graded get to do it.) I wish I would have had my old camera, with it's 10x zoom, because then B probably could have framed the picture better.

I need a new camera though. I have a beater, a little Sony that I kind of like for the money ($150 for 6MP? rock out!), but I need one with a little bit more capability. After being spoiled with a long zoom capability, the urge arises within my breast to buy one with a long zoom and some image stabilization; enter, Canon S3 IS. It's about my dream budget camera. The Rebel XTi would be nice, but I won't pretend to need to spend that kind of money on anything right now.

Of money and wine... I'm still at Great Spirits, still enjoying it. I admit, there are some days that I'm not really looking forward to it, but most times, it's not really a trial or anything. But, I've tried lots of good wine, bought a lot of good wine, drunk a lot of wine both good and bad, and generally had a good time. It took for-freakin-ever to get me a key made, because Wal-mart had the right sized keys, and so did Home Depot, but apparently the keysize is deceptive, because the key is actually a special length/slot type that isn't very common. So, to actually get the thing right, I had to get them to cut the key as a different type of blank (a 95, in case that means anything to anyone) that was too long, and just file off the end. I jabbed myself a few times with my Leatherman, while I was filing, since my utilities for the project were so limited and primitive.

But, now I have a key, and there exists a spare key. Lots of work, but what else do they pay me for? Every once in a while, I have a twinge of guilt when I think that I may have steered someone wrong in their selection of vino to gift or imbibe, but that's all quickly washed away in the wake of all the other work that the Jude always has for me.

And the weirdest thing has happened, here, lately... My dad has bought wine (not unusual) and minis of liquor (very unusual). But, I can't complain if my parents loosen up a little bit. It'll do everyone some good.

[ASIDE]
...[lips smack smack smack smack] I think I didn't wash out my glass very well, because I smell/taste a little soap in my wine... damned if I'm not going to finish it, though...

Well, let's see... Oh, I've skipped more class than at any time since freshman year physics (I and II). History 101 doesn't enthrall me, and none of my other classes (except for controls) are really that interesting. Controls is a very interesting class in a few different ways. For one, the instructor isn't really qualified, in the strictest sense, to teach our class. If there weren't any grad students in the class, he might be able to handle it, but there are grad students, and as such, he's kind of been keeping his head above water when he's teaching. But, I like Rice, he's a good guy and he admits when he doesn't know something. I can't wait for Dr. C. D. Johnson to teach class, though, because the guy is just so much fun to listen to! He's old and ornery, and always has one of those "I know something you don't, and I might not tell you all of it" smiles on his fase. And he says, "Well, I know you're questioning, but fear not, dearhearts..." That turn of phrase is enough to endear this crochety old man to me. I'm going to get to class early on Wednesday, just so I can sit up front and watch and listen closely, 'cause his lectures are an art in and of themselves.

And I decided that I might take his 605 class in the Spring, if he'll teach it. I want to learn more about controls, and systems, and their dynamics, and it'll be so cool if I can get Dr. C. D. Johnson. Dr. Shtessel sounds like a trip, too, but I'd rather have a guy who speaks English as his first language.

Let's see... Well, it's fall and besides the moon, I've been enjoying this year's fall colors more than ever. Maybe as a result of my eyesight getting a little worse (I'm almost certain that my eyes haven't gotten any better, because my vision is proportionally worse, I think, with my glasses off) I'm taking notice of colors more than usual, but it has really stricken me this year how much I enjoy the fall colors of the trees, especially the amazingly brightly plumaged ones. The oaks with their oranges, and maples with their yellows and reds, and a spattering of evergreens mocking them all with continuedly green foliage. I wanted to go for a drive into the Appalachian foothills, this last weekend, but it turned out to not be an available course of action, so I can only hope that the colors will still be there this coming weekend, when, I hope, B and I at the very least, will be able to go for a long drive, just for the sake of the drive.

[sigh] Another thing, and this is a little low... but I got sucked in by my curiosity. I started watching the lonelygirl15 videos on YouTube. I'd heard about them, I think off of Jay Leno, but they're interesting, and you should watch them if you've got a lot of time to kill. They're... I dunno. Only partially amusing because there's so much that you feel like you should notice, after you watch them for long enough. Anyway, go to YouTube and look them up. I'm not even going to post a link, because I don't want to be actively privvy to anyone else's becoming involved in watching them.

Speaking of thinking about things, I've been thinking about replacing the console in my dash. See, the actual console really sucks. The compartment lid is broken, the cup holders are a complete load of crap, and if something spills in the cupholder, everything in the whole console is just SOL. So, I think I'll get a couple of pieces of wood and make my own. Maybe I'll keep the flip-top thingy, and hinge it myself so I don't have to care about the stupid thing being attached properly (I thought about just superglue or epoxy to fix it, but I'm not sure, I'll have to look up how well it bonds metal to metal). Either way, that'd be a good semi-indoors project, right? Carve myself a new console?

Ciao, folks, 'cause I need some serious sleep.

Delayed Post

2006-09-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

The following is a delayed post from last Wednesday, saved on my laptop:

So, here's the skinny on the low-end of the tech ladder: Roberts Hall (fourth floor at least) has no wireless access. This really blows. I mean, if we could just get a single access point in the building, it'd be great. You could stick it on the 3rd floor, in the lounge... 'cause the first floor's not got a whole lot of stuff, anyway. It's got the practice rooms, the art workshop and the auditorium, so we really don't need all that crap to have access to the network/internet. And, it'd be great to have wireless access in the classrooms, for those boring lecture days.

No update for a while, so I'll jump into the last week or so: Had a drink and a late snack with Ch, the Unfamous One (which is not an insult--I just never thought about him after say, January of this year). Nothing too unusual, basically just caught up on life. Stayed up until the sun came up (~0600hrs) a few times, mostly trying to be encouraging. Have sampled what amounts to a lot of wine, including (but not limited to) the following:

Shotfire Barossa Shiraz (2004) - Excellent: inky purple color, lots of dark fruit, and a solid core of cedar/aromatic wood in the nose and the palate.

Marques de Concha (?) Syrah (2005) - Very good: dry, but with red and black fruit, big tannins. Heavy alcohol, good finish.

Windmill Lodi Zinfandel (2005) - Good (for the money, Very Good): red fruit flavor, classic zin spice and wood, but not too heavy, with some good, slightly sweet tannin.

Capcanes Mas Donis (2004 ) - Very Good: One of my favorite styles from Spain, dark and purplish, it has some leather and tar in the nose, which continues in the palate, with some very dark fruit, heavier tannins, good long finish. For $13, one of my favorites for a cool evening that needs a good warm wine!

An old-vine Garnacha from Navarra, whose name I can't recall (I think it was a 2004): OK to Good before decanting/oxidization, Very Good after: out of the bottle, full of acid, little fruit, almost caustic. After some air (an hour or so), the acid dies out and leaves some good earthy wine with some red fruit peeking through. Definitely dry.

Mark West Central Coast Pinot Noir (2004?) - Very Good (as a light pinot style): Tannins? None here! Watery mouth-feel, nose and palate of light fruit, including peaches, dark plums. Lots of white wine characteristics; tasty when chilled slightly.

Blue Oyster Pinot Noir (2005) - Good: heavier pinot, some spice, a little fruit, drier than expected. Not too shabby.

Blue Oyster Merlot (2005) - So-so (read: bad): Kind of green. Closed nose, simple. Not something I'd buy.

Blue Oyster Sauvignon Blanc (2005) - Good: Typical New Zealand Sauv Blanc, with fruity, a little floral, just a bare mineral nose. Has those melon-y, exotic fruit, (papaya? I dunno, something like that) crip flavors, and a little sweet.

Blue Oyster Chardonnay (2005) - Good to Very Good: Also good fruit here, smooth flavor without being too heavy. A chard for light fish, I think.

This afternoon...

2006-09-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

...is turning out to be a study in people-watching. I'm in the UC lobby, and there's a trio of black guys who have been talking about football and just generally shooting the breeze here for a while. There's a table of political activists, who are trying to get people to vote on something or other, I haven't actually been able to make out what, though.

And then there's one white guy, looks like he hasn't shaved in about a week, but he's doing homework quite avidly, and is apparently completely oblivious to the rest of the world. There's also this tall, thin guy who looks vaguely familiar, but also looks too young to be anyone that I would actually know from recently. There's a few people who have kind of popped in and popped out and a few recurring faces. Apparently most of these people just don't have anything specific to do, they just have an agenda of self-enjoyment.

The only thing that's really constant among the majority of them isthat they aren't focused on anything too specific, and have a general fixation on sex and related topics. There's also been some UAH staff come through, and I've recognized a few engineering grad students, and almost no engineering undergrads. Hm, funny enough, all the engineers that I've seen on this side of campus have been TA's, or are employed by UAH in some capacity or other.

Two above-average skinny white guys with very hip hair just walked in, along with a number of other young kids. It's funny how I can think of these guys as kids, but they have the young-seeming faces of kids who are much closer to having just jumped out of high school, and they have a very different sort of exuberance about them that implies... I dunno, either innocence or ignorance. Probably a comination of the two. There's definitely been more good- and almost-good looking women walking through here than I would ever see on the other side of campus, any time of day, or practically all day.

Lots of skinny kids, too. Not quite so many obese ones as one might expect of a university in Alabama. Then again, this is also a university in a very Yankee-influenced town, with a sort of anomalous population pattern.

Well, while there's this group of kids who are just sitting here, chatting, I'll elaborate on what my schedule has looked like today. I took care of classes, then dropped by the store, got my hours. Went to the Main Branch of the Madison County Library. Got some language (Korean) CD's that I'm burning right now in the hopes that I can return the things sometime tonight, and thusly not incurring the usual late fees for my trouble. There's also a Dirk Gently (a Douglas Adams creation) novel in my laptop bag, and a book about papercraft by Ogawa, and a Xanth novel in my car. After that, I just came straight to the UC, in the hopes that L calls me soon, so I'll have something to do.

Well, something more productive that sitting in the UC and watching people. I'll probably just go downstairs and look for something to sate my hunger. The problem with that is that I'm going to go eat sometime soon, as soon as L tells me that S&S are up for eating something, somewhere.

BLAH!

It's been good typing practice, though, seeing how I can't see the screen too well, since it's kind of bright in here and my laptop screen brightness is turned all the way down. I'm going to move. That'll help me a lot more than anything else I can do, since I really need the exercise. I need to work the fat off of my hips before supper starts. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd go to the fitness center, but the freaking place is probably covered over with little scabs (kids) and the really annoying big huge guys in the weight room, who are just way too intimidating for me to want to spend long periods of time in there. Also, I don't have a music player, so I have no means of entertaining myself using mobile melodic means (you like that alliteration, do you?).

BLAH!

Once again...

2006-09-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

...a boring day is at hand. I've got a few things that need to be completed today:

1.) Go to Great Spirits and write down my hours for this month. Pray that Judy isn't in, so I can get out of extra work.

2.) Buy an excellent bottle of wine to share with friends.

3.) Pay for my federal ticket (cut the check and get it into the mail).

4.) Go hang with L and S and SZ. Watch Crank (I'm looking forward to it, as it looks like a really entertaining movie).

That seems to be a pretty decent little schedule. B works in there, somewhere, but she's a priority, so she fits in wherever the heck she wants. School, it sucks. I take that back, it doesn't suck, it's just boring. Everything is still in review mode, except for Dr. Wells, 'cause he's just plodding along as usual, God love 'im.

Try this on for size

2006-08-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

In an effort to display the prowess of both my wireless connection and my nifty cheap little camera, I'm upload images of the wireless antennae that are now sticking out of the ceilings in the hallways of the Engineering Building.

This is the hallway, and if you look up in the corner...

You'll see that our overlords have granted us plastic tubes sticking out of the ceiling! Yes! They are! Wireless access antennae! Praise the overlords!

And to go along with that, here's some really cute pictures.

Finally!

2006-08-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm finally on the UAH wireless network! I just have to see if I can get a connection in the rear of the building, 'cause Dr. Wells' class is really just too much for me some days. I also need to get a copy of linux installed on this machine, so I can make coding a little bit easier. Well, simpler at least.

After that, the world!

...I mean... Well, I'll be able to do my homework and such in class at the very least. It would be nice to be able to get a connectioni in Roberts Hall so I can do my own research right then and there, and maybe look up anything that Dr. Johnson doesn't know off the top of her head. I don't know if there's an access point on the fourth floor though, and I have the sinking feeling that if there is an access point somewhere in the building, it's probably not got a far enough reach to get to the nether regions of the fourth floor.

Other than that, I'm going to a hat show/thing at the Humidor later today. I think I'm going to pick up some nice little cigars while I'm there. Nothing big and fat, and nothing too long, but I'll need to get a cutter, too. Actually, I could just drop by the store and pick one up. That shouldn't be too bad, right, and with a big huge discount that we employees get, it should be gravy, right? Right? RIGHT?!

The hats will be expensive, but I don't go anywhere without my panama hat, during the summer, 'cause I just like it so much.

CLEP!

2006-08-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

If you're happy and you know it, CLEP your psych!

[CLEP! CLEP!]

If you're happy and you know it, CLEP your psych!

[CLEP! CLEP!]

If you're happy and you know it, and the statistical average of neurotransmitters accompanied by specific electroencephalogram readings of the electric pulses in your frontal lobes indicate a general desire for your cerebellum to send positive signals through your efferent neural pathways to physically indicate it, CLEP your psych!

[CLEP! CPEP!]

So, if you couldn't tell, I'm going to CLEP psych 101 in the vain effort to not have to take the class. I've read college psych textbooks since I was just entering middle school, I don't think I should have to take some menial class that teaches me about the difference between a dendrite and an axon terminal button, or perhaps about the difference between seratonin and dopamine, or Wernicke's and Broca's areas differ, or perhaps the difference between classical and operant conditioning.

Either way, I bought the CLEP book, and it's a pretty good reference for general psych stuff, as long as you're just looking for basic knowledge, no real insights or anything. I mainly bought it for the practice tests in the back. I bamboozled a single psych CLEP out of petersons.com by Googling for it, and it came up with the actual .PDF files for the questions and answers (what great stuff!). Without any study or preparation, I made a 64 (you need a 60 to get credit, at UAH), so I'm studying now to ensure that I'm going to make higher than that.

Other than that, today's my first day at Great Spirits! I need to go get my badge renewed sometime soon (before the end of the month, but I'd like to get a good picture, and I got a haircut yesterday, so it doesn't look like a good solution to go today. You know how it is; you get a haircut and it looks like you've just gotten a haircut. If you don't piddle around the point, it just looks a little raw around the edges until it grows out for at least a few days, probably more like a week, if it's a decent haircut.

Speaking of long intervals of time... I'm a year older. Yep, growing into the old man I was born to be. Nothing spectacular on my b-day, 'cause I went to work, got some stuff done, came home at the specified time to help my mom put together the new vacuum cleaner (it's a Dyson, and I don't like it at all), opened presents, ate some really good kalbi (Korean "barbeque": I can never stop eating it until I have a pile of bones on my plate that looks a little bit ominous), then went over to J's and hung out for a while.

I'll never understand the fascination with astronautical vehicles. I mean, yeah, cool in theory, but in reality, it's kind of like looking out and seeing a new star. The idea of it is really awesome, but to me, at least, the actual viewing of the process is, well, a mediocre experience. Not like a helicopter. I told everybody about this one day last week when I was headed into work, and a Chinook comes up behind me and is essentially following me down the road at about 100'. One of the most amazing pieces of machinery ever devised by man, a lumbering, floating, zipping transport vehicle that can lift fricking buildings. But, J is fascinated by earlier space exploration vehicles, and I respect that, 'cause those things use some serious physics to get off the ground.

But, for my birthday I got... Trece del Orto (some really cool pasta) from my sister, along with an artistic collage of a wine glass with "BlubBlub" strategically written in bubbles (a really cool card). My mom gave me lots and lots of mochi (no explanation, if you don't know, you'll just have to find out about it on your own) and plastic covers for my hangers (where the hell do you come up with that? I know I don't walk along that aisle in Wal-mart and go "Gee, these would make great birthday presents!" I mean, just give me the $20 you probably spent on the, 'cause I'm sure as heck not going to be using them).

I kinda wish I'd asked all of them to pool cash and get me the hat I want... It's a Dobbs Broadstreet fedora (I think it was the Broadstreet) that's basically the same shape as my Dobbs Panama hat that I currently wear all the time. As soon as summer fades away into the reaches of chilliness that the winter months bring, I'll need a warmer hat. But, I did get a really cool hat from B: it's one of those flat caps, one of the kind that I always think of as a cab-driver hat, 'cause that's where I've seen them most often. I like it a lot, but it messes up my hair something terrible.

She also got me a seafood cookbook (lobster bisque with seafood-tossed basmati, here I come!), an eerily glowing rubber duck, and a box of... well, it's a little white box, and the sentiment was very... endearing. I'll leave it at that.

Oh yeah, and BN had his birthday recently, too. I spent a buttload on a present for him, but I think he'll have many pleasurable moments with his bottle of 1824 (I don't know if that's the right year, but it's 18-something) Angostura 12-year rum. His party was up in a cabin on Monte Sano, and it turned out pretty well. There were hamburgers and hotdogs, and there was a fire that got going pretty well, even with the wet wood. The only problem is that I came down the mountain and had 8 mosquito bites, all in very inconvenient places. I've got 4 on my left leg, all in places where my jeans rub them on my ankle and thigh, 2 on the right leg, and 1 on each elbow. How do they pick such absolutely wretched places to bite?!

We met BN's ladyfriend at the cabin, and she seems nice, but as if she was trying to figure us out. Given time, she'd probably come around and interact instead of just watching, but I can respect someone who wants to get their bearings on a group before diving into conversation with them. We'll see if she turns out for future shindigs.

Well, off with me to the badging office, then, what eh?

2006-08-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

2006-08-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Pics...

2006-08-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah, I forgot that I was going to upload a few images...

This is D from UAB. He's cool, and he stood by me while I was talking to the angry guy who was a little too trashed to drive just then. Good man.

ARR! (Really, no pirate in the history of piracy ever said "yar!").

Don't they just look mischievous?

She asked for parley, what was I supposed to do? Naturally, we posed for a picture.

PIMP THIS, YOU SCALLYWAGS!

And here's my logo for the UAH IARC team...

Lazy Monday

2006-08-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

I got nothing interesting today, but I've also got nothing better to do than to blog, so here goes.

I had sex. Lots of it. With many women (note the plural!). I saved the world from imminent and devastating disaster. Twice. I discovered a way to get the Princeton tokamak facility to produce a large net energy. I resurrected Alan Turing and had lunch with him. He declined to join me in having sex. Lots of sex. With many women (I wonder why?). He told me that he could see the pattern emerging in history itself. Unfortunately, he had a prior engagement with a young man and left before he told me about what to expect. I created a fully-functional optical computer from a pocket laser and shiny bits of aluminum foil. It operates at the speed of light in the vacuum I created for it. It found all the digits of pi, instantly. I honed my telepathy and telekinetic powers until I destroyed a possum before it tried crossing the road directly in front of my car (which I was accelerating with my mind). More sex. Lots more. With many women (Alan Turing also told me that that would happen).

Then I slept for two minutes before the weekend ended, and I went to work on Monday.

So boring.

In other news, I've been playing my low Bb whistle at every opportunity. The thing's 3 feet long, and massive. Even a piper's fingering is a long stretch on it, so it's tough to play anything that requires a lot of finger movement. I pride myself on having pretty quick fingers, but with your digits spread out like you're being tortured for information it's kinda tough. Embrace the pain! At least the sound it makes is really lovely.

I took stock of my wine last night, and I've got a pretty good bundle of alcohol, waiting to be consumed: 14 bottles, not counting the ones already opened. There's a Las Rocas garnacha that was... well, if you poured it on battery acid, the battery acid would be eaten away by the acidity. I'm letting it sit, in bottle for a while and hoping that it mellows out, because I don't want to have wasted $10 on a bottle of crap. Then again, what other kind of wine do you get for $10?

2006-08-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

Genius!

2006-07-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Gurewitch does the Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip. It's bad. Very very bad. But well drawn and funny... you should check it out:

Another day...

2006-07-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

... another chore.

It comes down to this, dear friend(s): Nothing more than complete and utter boredom. See, I've got a "project" now (complete and utter BS) that has to "be completed within 4 weeks." They basically tell me to tell someone else to get it done. What kind of crap is that? It's like middle-management Hell, but without the paycheck that's supposed to go with it. I still get paid the pittance and get to do the worst possible job that they have for anyone around here to do: nothing!

I figured out that the janitors make just about what I do. It's not a happy thought.

Pirate shirt: almost complete. Requires cuffs and side-seams, and then... fin. Then to work on the vest. I'm not sure if I'll have time for a pair of breeches, but I may try, given the opportunity. When I'm done with it, I'll have pics to post. Really, I'm quite proud of it. It looks pretty good except for the interior seams, which need to be sewn up so that they don't unravel (any seamsters or seamstresses know how to handle linen). Basting is where you tack one piece of cloth to another, I found, and then you stitch it permanently.

I found a place that sells pretty cheap suede leather by the 10sqft split-hide, but the shipping to get it here in less than three days is... well, exorbitant. Maybe for next time.

Also need to find a b-day gift for B. Really, I'm not too concerned, because I've got a few fairly easy ideas floating around, but I do need to actually get out there and buy one of them to make sure the whole thing gets taken care of.

Cor, I've been neglectful...

2006-07-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in what draweth nigh to two weeks (11 days, but still, a long time). Now be the time and the place for an update.

Life is peachy-damn-dandy, e.g. nothing has changed. B's still going to have a pirate-themed quasi-birthday party, and I'm still "dressing up as Jack Sparrow." Try this one on for size: I'm making my own costume. Last night I got the body of the pirate shirt done, and I'm kind of impressed with how good it looks. I spent lots of money on good linen for the thing, so it had better look peach-damn-dandy, too. It's got that classic, big-huge-and-puffy look, and after a few washes and some aging, it'll look great. I gathered the peak of the sleeves last night, so all I have to do is stitch them on and try to neaten things up. The collar's all funked up, so I think I'll have to pull that out and try it again. Other than that, though, it'll be good.

If only I could find a hat...

2006-06-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

[dink dink]

2006-06-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

That was me, tapping on the screen, going, "WTF, mate?"

And everything was going so well...

2006-06-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

I need to get sick again. That's all there is to it. Sleep happens when I'm sick. When I'm not, I'm always up later than I want to be. Take, for instance, last night. B was out of town (visiting her grandparents in Rogersville), and so what do I do? I stay out with friends until about 2215hrs, get home, and get to bed at a little after 2300. I need to be getting in bed by 2230, so admittedly, 2300 isn't too bed, but I felt it this morning.

Maybe its the wine. I used to drink a glass before going to bed to help me get to sleep, but recently, when I haven't needed it, I've noticed that it makes it harder to get up in the morning. I think that the extra-expedient sleep doesn't make up for the fact that the sleep probably isn't as good when I've got alcohol in my system (albeit, not much; one glass of wine doesn't give me any kind of buzz, thankfully). So, given that your body slows down your metabolism, the alcohol probably stays in one's bloodstream for a lot longer, and likely affects both brain function and sleep quality.

No more glasses of wine just before going to sleep, for me, then. Unless there's going to be at least an hour after I finish drinking it, the wine is a no-go. I suppose that means I should start eating dinner at home more often, but that would require that I not go out so much. So that means that I can't go over to B's right after work, and shouldn't go out to eat so much (although I'm trying not to do that, anyway).

And more sex, 'cause everyone knows that's the healthy thing to do, right? (Kidding, just kidding; don't have a cow.)

And everything was going so well...

2006-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Know no other boredom than this:

2006-06-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

That you must do nothing.

What a terrible existence. There's a certain amount of lounging that everyone enjoys, that I enjoy. And then there's this. It's not lounging anymore, 'cause I don't want to do it. It's just that I have a job that I can't lose, and there's nothing for me to do. I take that back... There probably is, but there's no one to give it to me. And, being a co-op, I can't just go out and look for work (that'll cause a bit of an upset with my bosses, on some kind of weird territorial ground).

So I'm stuck doing... you got it: Bupkiss.

And I'm up to 4 pieces of gum today. It's like I'm trying to crack a habit, but every time I buy gum and keep it with me, I end up chewing it constantly. Who knows? maybe it'll give me a better jawline or some optimistic crap like that.

Ho hum.

2006-06-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

Do you know what really hurts? The equations for statistics. Scratch that, this isn't the ISE-wimpy-101... this is some seriously tough stuff... I mean, OY! I'm sitting here working on it, and my brain hurts from all the integrals, tertiary integrals, partial differentials, proprietary notation, and excessive use of numbers and letters to get across a very simple point.

I mean, there are people who've already worked this stuff out, obviously. Every day, the entire class looks at the book written by someone who obviously enjoys the subject. And yet, we have to sit and go over the proofs of everything they do, in class, and out of it. There's a table of integrals in the back of the book (thank you, God! I don't remember what the integral of [x^3 * cos (ax) dx] looks like--do you?), why not just a list of equations, perhaps with some useful notes beside them, explaining usage?

Sicko that I am, though, I'm enjoying it. Aggregating numbers, taking minus infinity to infinity and crushing down into an average, a mean, a standard deviation, a variance, or whatever order moment you so desire... it's all just really powerful stuff for being able to look at any set of any kind of numbers with any purpose, and find out some very sophisticated information about it. It's really one of the reasons that our society can be so advanced: intelligent people found out the optimal way to do a thing, and then taught everyone else to do it. Then, other things can be optimized for speed, efficiency, and power.

Other than that, I've been looking up some Phillip K. Dick information. After seeing the A Scanner Darkly trailer, I really want to read the book. That'll happen after seeing the movie, of course, since the book is bound to be better. But, that a guy came up with so many really cool ideas is just astounding. I mean, there's about 5 movies based on some of his narratives (short stories and full novels), and I think they're movies with some really great premise. OK, so Total Recall wasn't the best of films, but Minority Report? Blade Runner? Paycheck? Come on, this is some good work!

Just to brag... I did 15 minutes of solid running yesterday, first on the stair machine (good if you've got short legs, but I was taking these tiny steps the entire time, and it was not at all what I wanted to do) then on the weird walker-treadmill (not a bad machine, but only goes up to 4MPH, i.e. SLOW), then on a real treadmill at 7 MPH. Next time I go into the fitness center, I'm going to try to get a better look at the weight room. It is a little intimidating, though, to go in there with the huge guys that hulk around the room just looking big.

Call me a wuss, but I really don't want to just stand around looking at these big steel machines with no knowledge of what they're for. I mean, a contraption with pads for where your arms should go and then ones for your knees, and WHERE THE HELL IS THAT BAR GONNA GO?! 'CAUSE IT SURE AS HELL CAN'T STAY THERE! That's just the feeling I get going in there at rush hour (right after work), so I'll have to see if I can drop by there for a little bit when we get done with our meeting tonight.

And B saw CH the other day, and the instance just happens to be stuck in the back of my head as a low-level worry. Repercussions? Maybe. Bad ones? Pssh. Do we ever get good ones?

Back to sigma squared...

Monday: Herald of a New Week

2006-06-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed, folks, it is a bright new week. A new, bright week... A new... week...

Drat, I just lost all enthusiasm for this coming week.

But this weekend was sufficiently engrossing... I managed to get enough sleep to recover to what I'm guessing is close to 90% of full health, so all I've got now is a stuffy nose. B and I got up early on Saturday and made our way down (in the Xterra--first time I've been on a long trip in the hulker) to Birmingham. Excuse me, not Birmingham, but Irondale, which is a completely separate township.

So we saw the tenacious D, as well as BB and SES early that morning, in time for the second half of the England-Paraguay game, but not in time to see anyone score. So, we made some eggs, made a few strips o' bacon, and sat down to have a good ol' time. We brought down a bottle of eiswein to give to D, and I feel a little bad about being... not-straightforward? Well, I was going to tell him that he needs to open the thing now, because a) it's a sweet wine and will benefit from oxygenation and b) it's a young wine that will benefit from extra oxygenation. So instead of telling him to open it, we opened it to "taste." That was just really stupid, and we should have just told him to open it ASAP, and let it sit as necessary.

We tossed around a frisbee out in the parking lot, and it was a lot of fun. I may have to dig out one of my old frisbees to toss it around when we're on campus at some point. Maybe we can go out to the soccer field and just chat it up while we toss the thing. Who knows?

I think it was SES or BB (it could have been D for all I remember) that hit a nice new Accord and gave it a pretty good scratch. It was just really surprising to see them take off as soon as the car was hit--they even left me to pick up the frisbee (or was it B? it could have been her, as I only remember jogging back to the apt.). It was the most childish display I've seen all weekend. In their defense, though, it was funny.

Surin is apparently all over the place (I didn't think they were a chain, but they are a small one in Georgia and Alabama), because they have a restaurant in downtown Mountain Brook (a little town with very big, expensive houses on the outskirts of Birmingham). Going through Mountain Brook makes me remember their represenation in high school (Mountain Brook High School). They always had the nicest stuff, and were always the best at things because their student to teacher ratio was ridiculously low for a public school system. Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind living there at all. Point of fact, I think it'd be pretty cool to have a big house in Mountain Brook, close the the more metro Birmingham area, but still with a smallish-town suburb atmosphere... kinda like Madison, in fact (but the HSV isn't so much of a metro area).

And we had some really great gelato from some very nice gourmet sweet-stuff chefs at Cakes and Confections across the street from Surin. B had this really stupendous mini-cone of strawberry, and I had a full cone of honey dew, and they were both mouth-wateringly delicious. I so want to go back for more.

Returning to D's pad, we watched another game or two to completion (Sweden v. Trinidad-Tobago and Argentina v. Cote d'Ivoire). In the first one I was with the crowd and was cheering for T 'n T to win, and they pulled off a tie, which was really cool, but I had to root for the over-dog in the second one. I don't know why, I just hates me some black folk (NOT SERIOUS! JOKE! BIG, FAT, RACIST JOKE! BLACK PEOPLE LOVE ME AND I LOVE ME SOME BLACK PEOPLE!), I guess. I was pulling a little bit more for Argentina there, because I like the way they play. Their tactic is usually a big passing game, where they can manipulate the ball position expertly, and they move in quick and take it. It's just more clean and... well, Argentine, I guess. Their style is cool.

I have to root for the mother-land, though... South Korea plays tomorrow morning and I am so going to have to record it. They play Togo tomorrow, and then France (man, that one'll be kinda tough, but they can pull it off) on Saturday. I hope they make it to the next round, at least.

Just a simple observation, but as I get older (or maybe just as I grow more aware of the various and sundry things that happen in this big spinning planet of love [note the Brian Setzer reference]) I find that I look at and have more of a love for statistics. Not just numbers on a page, but real, meaningful numbers. Engineering numbers. Social means. Business statistics, average user stats, product ratings, and all sorts of other things. Maybe my training as an engineer has just brought out in me the habit of looking for numbers when evaluating anything, but it always seems to be the most helpful to have a few numbers with a few short sentences of description.

For instance: It used to be that my notes were really haphazard. Every once in a while, I'd just something down and just kind of put a tick mark text to it--an em dash--to just kind of denote where that specific note started. Now, my notes have that squiggly double-s section mark, underlined subheadings, those same tick-delineated (but now indented in approx 1" tabs) notes and specifically indented and labelled examples, logistical notes, and diagrams. And dates. For every class where I actually take notes (usually a method of staying awake in class), I've started putting the date on the first page of the notes for that day, and let me tell you what kind of help that is--a big one.

It used to be that I could look for something by looking for the specific formula that was being illustrated or explained at the time, and that would take a good bit of work, since it was all end-on-end page-after-page notes. Now, I can guess the timeframe and go back to roughly where I think the notes should be. Pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um (the Sword in the Stone, go look it up), there we are, right when/where it should be.

And the wine of the weekend:

Long read

2006-06-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

So, I've been at work for a few hours already, and there's been nothing to do. I checked my e-mail, read a dozen webcomics, checked a few different forums, and all that stuff that you manage to do to take up time in the morning, and when I finished up at looked at the time, I had very carefully frittered away an hour. Only one hour.

One down, eight to go.

Subsequently, I dove into reading my book, the 9th book of the Wheel of Time series, which it has taken me almost a year to work up to reading. After I finish this, I move on to #10, and then continue until Robert Jordan either stops writing, or dies (whichever comes first). Hope he survives his current illness with miraculous recovery and much happiness.

To switch gears, last night I had an interesting pair of conversations. One was with B, and it was a chat. I'll summarize by saying about the first that I didn't realize how much I've come to cue off of her physical presence, or the tone of her voice. IT used to be that I could interpret her chat lines as easily as I could respond to any of her verbal witticisms, but last night we both riled each other up about a really silly topic (if you must know, it was regarding who is actually the better author between JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett--she prefers the Potter-woman, and I prefer the Discworld man). Riling each other up isn't so bad, but that we didn't intend to do it is. And about something so frivolous, nonetheless. It seems that we'll be sticking to verbal communication as a primary form of conversation.

Back to the grindstone... and by "grindstone" I mean "Winter's Heart."

2006-06-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

Your Love Style is Agape

You are a caring, kind, and selfless partner.
Unsurprisingly, your love style is the most rare.
You are willing to sacrfice your world for your sweetie.
Except it doesn't really feel like sacrifice to you.
For you, nothing feels better than giving to the one you love.

What's Your Love Style?

Your Linguistic Profile::

50% General American English

30% Dixie

15% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Dazzle

2006-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

2006-06-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

So I spent from about 1830hrs yesterday to 0630 this morning sleeping. I think it did me some good, since I don't feel quite so feverish and miserable today. No dizziness, no out-of-my-mind feeling--at least as-of-yet, since it may be forthcoming as the amount of time since my last sleep grows longer. I'm sucking down tea like mother's milk, and have drunk so much water in the last two days that I've been pissing a gallon on the hour every hour. If I'm not at 90% full health by tomorrow, I'm going to take another day off and just sleep it out.

Oh, and if you didn't know, I was at work for 1.5 hours yesterday before deciding that I didn't want to inflict my fevered presence on anyone, and so took sick leave for the day. Of course, all I could do was go to get my books from the Off-Campus Bookstore and start in on some homework. I did one set of it (what I think was the harder set, since it actually involved taking gradients, curls, and divergence, whereas the other was just simple probability that I'll try to get done this afternoon).

Other than that... I kinda want to go out and buy a bunch of movies. Listing them seems like a good idea:

X-Men 1.5
X-Men II
Indiana Jones Trilogy
Back to the Future Trilogy
Ocean's Eleven (I've been meaning to get this movie for a long time)
Thomas Crowne Affair (ditto the parenthetical note)
The Pierce Brosnan James Bond flicks
Mission Impossibles
Underworld I & II
Rush Hour I & II
Fifth Element
Shawshank Redemption
Fight Club
Shrek I & II
Mr. and Mrs. Smith

And then some... These are just cool movies. Nothing ground-breaking, and nothing heavily dramatic, I don't think, but they're definitely good sit-around and watch movies.

So the other day...

2006-06-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

I met this really cute girl, who I'm told was really into me. We chatted, and she seemed nice and polite, pleasant and all that. Gosh, I think I'll ask her out to dinner and a movie some time... Wine and dine her before getting into her pants, you know?

[So you know, no, I'm not off my rocker (and I've got a lot more class than that), I just want to see if a certain someone actually reads this at all.]

Misery and Woe

2006-06-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

Today is officially a day of misery and woe (as a precursor to tomorrow, which is the 06-06-06 day of doom). I have a sinus infection that has caused me to be irritable and sleepy, neither of which aids me in my quest to become the ultimate ruler of the E-wing. My throat is scratchy, my head is swollen, and my sinuses are killing me slowly. Someone just shoot me in the head and stop all this nonsense.

Other than that, I have to go buy books and go to class today. I don't know if I'm really up for that kind of thing when I'm a little bit out of it (which is way way out of it, if I'm willing to admit that I'm out of it at all).

Should be fun.

Blog!

2006-06-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've got nothing to do today, as I finished going through the 1,328 page budget schedule by hand and picking out the appropriate entries and collating and formatting, and sorting and... yeah, it was hellish clerical work.

So I'm just kind of surfing the net, and after doing a little bit of research for the previous post (had to find pictures, and His Eminence the Parker's actual words about the wine), I was kind of stuck on the topic of food. So, I do a little food searching and come up with some interesting stuff:

Moving along...

2006-06-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

Update time again, and only after a few weeks, this time...

Anyway, so classes ended, and classes began again. Dr. Jarem isn't quite so bad as I thought he would be, but he's definitely not great. He seems to be a pretty average professor, as far as I can tell, and he teaches straight off his notes. When you look him in the eye, he's got this kind of an evil look to him, but apparently he's a family man and a good guy (as an advisor at least). He's got homework due every week, so that means that I actually have to buy th book for this class.

And the IARC (International Aerial Robotics Competition) team has spun up again, so we did a test flight of the helicopter we were supposed to have two months ago, and it worked great, apparently it's nice and smooth, pretty easy to fly, but still gets buffeted by the wind that only seems to pick up once we start flying. There was a little bit of software planning that got done after that, so we'll be actually getting down to business in the next few days, into the next week.

[sigh] And I've resolved to give something up temporarily: wine shopping. It's ridiculous how much I enjoy just looking at bottles and labels, and can't help but thinking that something or other must be pretty good and so spending my hard-earned cash on it. So, as a farewell to the wineshops (Great Spirits and the Wine Cellar), I stopped by the Wine Cellar one last time to top off my little collection of wine with a really nice Spanish Priorat, called Mas Doix (Salanques):

The other was a cheap Côtes du Rhône (cheap being $13), whose name I can't bring to mind at the moment. It doesn't look like it's anything special, but I usually like Rhones (not to death, mind you, as Bordeaux/Burgones hold that special place on my palate), so it'll be opened in the company of people who want to enjoy it with me. Well, the same with the Mas Doix, but it'll have to be a little bit more of an occasion than just a desire to open some bottle of wine. Maybe for graduation?

And then there's the other 9 or 12 bottles... Yeah, I don't need to shop for any more wine.

Other than that... life is peachy. Work sucks (par usual), school sucks, but life is good. All I need now is a real salary and a place of my own. Six months, and it'll happen.

I'm Cyclops!

2006-06-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

You scored as Cyclops. Cyclops is the team leader of the X-Men, and a skilled one at that. He loves Jean Grey very much. He's a strict and sometimes uptight leader, but he believes in his cause and he knows what he's fighting for... Peace between Mutants and Humans. Powers: Optic blasts

Cyclops

80%

Jean Grey

70%

Gambit

70%

Beast

65%

Rogue

60%

Nightcrawler

60%

Iceman

55%

Colossus

55%

Storm

55%

Emma Frost

55%

Wolverine

45%

Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

WHY?!

2006-05-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

All right, here's the deal:

I'm looking at a whistle, the kind that's generally referred to as a pennywhistle. Now, this is a top-of-the-line whistle, one of the most exclusive makers in the world, big huge long waiting list to get one of his whistles, and I have the opportunity to get a 6-month-old model for $100 less than the new price. This is a steal, right? It's great! But, the thing is that it's still $375 + $10 S/H. Going price for new is @ $500 with the S/H.

Heaven help me, but I should get an iPod instead... Well, I would if they would just come out with the real video iPod already. That's probably a long way off, though, probably sometime close to Christmas.

And now I have to pee.

I want to wake up...

2006-05-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

... in the city that never sleeps!
To find I'm king of the hill!
Cream of the crop and top of the heeeeeeaaaap!

I wish I could sing it with the push that Liza Minelli does, but I just haven't got those kind of pipes. Or (thankfully) that warble. I'm running through another jazz playlist, and so all this stuff is at the top of my mind.

But, today I've got a packed schedule: I need to go get my oil changed (probably at the Quicklube place, or whatever it is), gotta drop by UAH, gotta pick up B and get all the way out to Four Mile Post, which is on the exact opposite end of town, see a movie, and then go to Birmingham. Should be interesting. Adios, muchachos, hasta luego.

Ahoy!

2006-05-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well, there's not been much to talk about recently, as I haven't really done anything. I can tell you about B's little brother's production of Oliver Twist, in which he was the Artful Dodger. It was about like any other elementry school production in that it was painful to watch some parts, but it was cute through and through. The singing was, predictably, child-like and piercing, as well as out of tune. Given the course though, they played at or just under par.

B did the backdrop for the whole thing, and did a pretty decent job, given the fact that they had less than a week to do it in. Looked like a real slum of London.

Other than that, I've got reliability and risk assessment work to do. Not really what I was hoping for, but simple math is still work that needs to be done. Ho hum. Back to the grindstone...

Who's the Best Man?

2006-05-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

It's me! It's me!

Yeah, baby! I get to throw a bachelor party! None of your average strippers for this one... we're getting Chippendales! It's going to be next year, so they've got a long engagement, but the timing puts everyone into the clear. Should be cool.

Well, I guess there'll be more on that later, 'cause I don't really know anything beyond that. Here's to hoping for good things!

Other than that, I'm done with my finals... and we'll just have to see how they went. I know I've got at least one A, so the worst I can possibly do is a B average this semester (there's no way for me to make anything lower than a C in 422... not possible).

Tonight is the first planning meeting for the IARC development team, and I'm... well, a little worried, to be quite honest. There's no telling who actually wants to work on this thing over the summer, and some of them might be... well, caustic. There's a handful of guys that I know who are going to be pretty decent to work with, but anyone beyond these three is a complete wildcard. A la six heur post meridian, nous allent veux (I'm guessing on the last word).

Mere hours away...

2006-04-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

From finishing with this stupid IPT crap.

[AC, if you're reading this, come get your Bailey's, or remind me to give it to you, because I keep forgetting.]

I mean, I've enjoyed the work, and the engineers that I've been working with have been really cool and pretty professional, but the whole thing's just been really amazingly frustrating. Not the work, so much as the inability to get work done becuase of logistical problems. But, they'll give us our award (probably), and we'll eat and have done with the whole thing.

On a cooler note, we took our French ESTACA mates to Beauregard's last night, and a few of them couldn't take the heat of the "hot" hot wings. A few of them thought they were pretty good, actually, but none of them ate them with the aplomb that J1 and I can muster. Even L can't quite take the Extra Hot, so we reign supreme over their delicate French palates.

And then we took them late to a baseball game. The Stars sucked so bad it wasn't even funny. There were three innings where anyone scored, and then there were 7 innings of nothing. We were there for the last 6 nothings. And then one hit in the bottom of the 10th, and we left. A few of the guys have a few French friends here at UAH, so we went and sat and talked and drank with them. The Class Six had a big sale on alcohol, so I got lots of stuff yesterday (probably a good $100 worth of alcohol for under $60--I think) and shared it with them, although we didn't open any of the wine. Not that I blame them. When they're used to Bordeaux, Rosemount Grenache-Shiraz is probably not very high on their list (or the Kaan Pinotage I had, which I thought was pretty decent).

And we had absinthe. It's really cool that we got to try it, although I didn't like it a whole lot, but the alcohol effect that it had was pretty good. Drunk as a shot, it was really smooth, a little burn but not much. J1 and L said that it hit them in the stomach, but it just burned a little on the way down my throat. Tasted a lot like licorice, but it wasn't bad. I'd get a bottle for novelty, if I could find it. I basically had two half-shots, though, so I didn't have too much. Very cool of them to let us try it, and I feel all that much cooler for saying that I've tried the contraband stuff, even if it wasn't my cup of thujone (laugh, even though it was a really bad joke).

So now, I'm off to set up for our banquet. Pick up a few things here and there, and generally get ready for a small exposition and lunch. It turns out that one of the French guys that were there last night (he's already graduted) is working at UAH for Dr. L, who I know pretty well. This world just gets smaller and smaller.

Trying this one on for size...

2006-04-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

...aaaand it doesn't fit. Oh well.

Really, I don't have anything to write about. How often does your normal person experience this? Feeling as if the humdrum isn't really important, so there's nothing to explain to other people? 'cause I've been sitting at my desk. I can tell you about everything I've done in the last 10 hours in under two minutes.

-Got to work, turned on my computer.
-Checked my e-mails (all of them)
-Checked my daily news (slashdot, gizmodo, engadget, cnn, and a few others)
-Checked my daily webcomics (not gonna list 'em)
-Started reading something or other.
-Made 3 slides
-Wrote a 3 page paper
-Shot the breeze with Mike
-Dropped off my co-op stuff at UAH
-Came back to work
-Read a blog or three
-Am now writing in my blog

Really, that's it. I suppose I could expound on a few things... Like the paper. The paper's the semester-ly co-op work report. It was so much crap that it's absolutely unbelievable. I did a good job explaining the need for cross-platform development and subsequently sidestepping the fact that I haven't done any of it for the last 4 months. The amount of absolute horseshit in the whole thing was just unbelievable for the length of the paper. There was almost no meat to explaining what I did... mostly because I didn't want to put somewhere in the middle of that "I really didn't do anything but sit on my hands all semester, waiting for my supervisor to give me a task that never came."

And it had to be in before COB (close of business, for anyone who doesn't know) tonight. Lovely, you say? Quite, because, of course, I don't get off work until after COB. That's just because I'm lazy and don't get out of bed in the morning, something that needs to change. In order to do that, though, I'd have to start going to bed earlier, and getting up earlier. Maybe I should start running in the morning, first thing? That would require getting up before 0700 (something I've been really terrible about not doing these last few weeks when there have been time crunches and minor disasters all along the way).

Maybe that's a goal I'll set for myself this summer... getting up earlier and getting off of work earlier. Getting things done in the late afternoon and early evening sounds like a viable alternative to getting things done at midnight and later. What happened to me? I was so punctual about getting to work on time, at one point. Now... well, really, there's a good reason for it. I don't look forward to the monotony of getting to work and just sitting for 9 or 10 hours. There's no good reason for it, when there's stuff I could be doing that my dear supervisor has simply neglected to give me to do. For crying out loud, the purpose of my being here is to make his job easier by doing some of it. IT's not like I'm going to replace him... I'm just not as vicous about getting some of the stuff he does done.

I know I want to try to get in shape this summer. Going to try to up the running habit (break the 3 mile marker, baby!) and maybe push to regularly bench at least 135 (the low end of what I weigh--my average weight's around 140). I've already gotten at least a farmer's tan. Woops, not a tan--a burn. My shoulders were amazingly, disgustingly burned these last 3 days, and I've been paying the price by wearing a shirt. Yes, wearing a shirt bloody well hurt on Monday. On the bright side, I'm not all pale and pasty. Hopefully the tan will last for a litle while, and not fade like so many other people's do (mine usually stick around for a while, but I'll have to make sure I do actually get outside into the sun a little bit).

Other than that, I want to get around to taking the resonators off the intake of my car (increase low end torque, hopefully, as it's mighty woeful). I also want to sort out what the odd vibration is. There's a very slight vibration in the car at odd times. I know the AC puts a weird vibration into the ride, and I can turn that off, but there's something else... like an axle is ever so slightly bent, or a rim is out of round, or something. It just doesn't ride as smoothly as it should... at least, I don't think so. Riding in B's Xterra is almost more cushy, and this is a Very Bad Thing. So, a few minor car projects.

There are some other minor goals... like finding a good cheap wine that I really like. I already know I like most Concha y Toro wines (big Chilean company), and that's pretty cheap, and Alice White, also pretty cheap and not too bad. Then there's the Mas Donis, which is a really good dark wine, and there's also a sauvignon blanc that's also really good, although I can't remember it's name beside the fact that it starts with a Q. After letting it sit for a few days, though, it turned this great dark golden color and had oodles of flavor and wasn't too dry, a little on the sweet side--nice!

I also want to try my hand at cooking seafood other than shrimp. Mussels are on my todo list, as I think my mom got some, chopped 'em up, and cooked 'em with some veggies and a Korean pepper sauce. I thought it was really good, really meaty and full of the good chewy-ness that lets you know you're eating something with some substance. It made me think of beef with the consistency of mushrooms. Delicious. So, then come clams and whatnot. We'll see when we get there.

I can't wait for my undergrad career to be over. Then I can just take one graduate course at a time and have a normal workload, like any other normal person. Gosh, that'd be nice. Oh yeah, the salary would really help things, too.

OMG OMG OMG...

2006-04-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Bump.

[shudder]

I've got a few mosquito bites from having been standing outside for more than 10 seconds (mosquitos are apparently drawn to my skin because it's so juicy and filled with whatever masquitos think of as ambrosia--oh yeah, blood). That comic made me feel way more itchy than I care to tell you, mostly because I have the urge to grab a knife and cut out the bumps on my arm.

No joke. I've cut out warts (albeit I used an Xacto instead of a standard steel blade) and removed rather large splinters (such that would impair movement if they weren't removed immediately with either a surgical procedure or some very diabolical tweezers--I opted for some very quick Xacto surgery). These things should be no problem, as long as I can swig a little of the ethanol before using it to sterilize the blade. I need an Xacto, a lighter, some iodine, and something to bite down on, stat. Then again, I don't really want my arm to be a Swiss cheese of flesh... that would suck, because I'd have to find a way to bind the holes and check them often, 'cause you know a wound that deep would develop a pustule.

Anyway... another boring day at work. I'm gonna have the willies all day just thinking about that comic...

Can I get a w007 w007!

2006-04-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

Voila! I spent this last weekend working on this, and took pictures at the end of the day Sunday:

Now, I have done a little more work to it (sanded it off, took off the sharp outer edges), and started one coat of stain and polyurethane. I'll have to go get another can of the stuff, 'cause I only just barely had enough to get one thick coat on the underside of the table. I'll probably leave it at just one coat on the underside (really, that's not too important, is it?) and turn it over to do a really thick coat on the topside (that way I can get it really dark with a few coats of the stain without the polyurethane in the mix making a hardened surface over the top).

It's the same dark mahogany color as my shelves, and I don't know if my mom's actually going to like it or not. If nothing else, I can replace my desk with it, 'cause it's definitely got more surface area. I'll have to find a floating set of drawers, but that shouldn't be too tough. I look forward to seeing it finished, both because I worked so long and hard on it, and to see how if it looks the way I envision it (dark dark dark wood coloring... we can only hope for the best). I'm going to try to get a "smooth" surface--not necessarily completely flat, but I'd like for it to not have the joints where the top planks butt up against each other exposed--with extra polyurethane. After the stain/poly mix, it'll be a few coats of straight up poly to make sure that it's got enough of a protective seal on it to make it waterproof (read: I can spill crap on it and not worry about it).

Other than that, I did finish up that final report (40-some-odd pages of information). It was about as boiled down as it was going to get, and I was really sick of reading it over by the time it got shipped off. That class is almost done with, as this Thursday there's one short presentation short run-through, and then the short presentation on Friday. Then the IPT class will be done, and there's just one 20-minute presentation to be given on May 2 to the CPE495 class as a means for Dr. Wells to be able to give us a numeric grade of his own for this semester (I'd be so awesome to have a semester with nothing but a few A's...). So that shouldn't be too tough, as I can blitz through a 30-minute presentation that we have already marked up.

So, I'll try to get pictures of the finished table up as soon as it's done.

So aggravating

2006-04-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

So, I've been dealing with this stupid little Via Epia board, and it just doesn't like me at all. I'm trying to load Debian on it, so it'll be a useful little thing, and really, it's been doing pretty well.

I finally found an optical drive that works properly. The one I was using yesterday was out of a PC in the IPT lab, out of what was apparently a pretty old system. The DVD/CD-RW drive was absolutely horrendous. It would overheat, and then just stop reading. In the middle of a large batch of reading... for no reason! And it wouldn't read parts of some of the disks that I've got, and didn't like how things went after I completed one decent installation. The thing was just ludicrous, I tell you.

And below is a test that I took off a blog whose author I know not. And it's a little odd, 'cause I just happened to click the link from someone else's blog, and just started reading. Dunno about you, but it's kind of weird to me to be reading about someone else's life, especially when I don't know that person. And this person seems... interesting is the safe way to put it, nuts seems to be more accurate. The good kind of nuts, mostly. Anyway, the results of the test:

Advanced Big 30 Personality Test Results

Sociability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	37%
Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	79%
Assertiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Activity Level	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	89%
Excitement-Seeking	\|\|\|	3%
Enthusiasm	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	68%
Extroversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Trust	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Morality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Altruism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	60%
Cooperation	\|\|\|	7%
Modesty	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Sympathy	\|\|\|\|\|\|	15%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	41%
Confidence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	91%
Neatness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	61%
Dutifulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Achievement	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Self-Discipline	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	89%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Anxiety	\|\|\|	1%
Volatility	\|\|\|\|\|\|	17%
Depression	\|\|\|\|\|\|	18%
Self-Consciousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	22%
Impulsiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	19%
Vulnerability	\|\|\|	8%
Emotional Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Imagination	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Artistic Interests	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	45%
Introspection	\|\|\|\|\|\|	11%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	99%
Intellect	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	92%
Liberalism	\|\|\|	1%
Openmindedness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	48%

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Trait	.	low score	high score
Sociability	37%	socially reserved, detached	friendly, open
Aggressiveness	79%	mild mannered, uncompetitive	predatory, domineering
Assertiveness	76%	introverted, loner	controlling, aggressive
Activity Level	89%	relaxed, laid back	vigorous, high energy
Excitement-Seeking	3%	sedate, restrained	adventurous, wild
Enthusiasm	68%	somber, pessimistic	cheerful, optimistic
Trust	40%	suspicious of others	trusting of others
Submissiveness	82%	rebellious, lawless	dutiful, obedient, compliant
Altruism	60%	selfish, cold, austere	helpful, selfless, indulgent
Cooperation	7%	argumentitive, confrontational	conflict averse, meek
Modesty	46%	arrogant, self-satisfied	humble, unassuming, doormat
Sympathy	15%	callous, heartless	empathetic, warm
Confidence	91%	not confident in work	confident in work, egoistic
Neatness	61%	disorganized, messy	planner, clean, anal
Dutifulness	78%	dishonest, derelict	honest, rule abiding, proper
Achievement	78%	lazy, unmotivated	driven, goal oriented
Self-Discipline	89%	procrastinator	responsible, efficient
Cautiousness	62%	spontaneous, daring, reckless	careful, controlled, safe
Anxiety	1%	relaxed, fearless	fearful, worrier
Volatility	17%	calm, cool	touchy, tempermental
Depression	18%	content, balanced	emotional, self hating
Self-Consciousness	22%	confident, assured	low self esteem, shy
Impulsiveness	19%	high self control	low self control
Vulnerability	8%	resilient, unphased	confused, helpless
Imagination	42%	practical, realistic	dreamer, unrealistic
Artistic Interests	45%	artistic indifference	art, nature, beauty lover
Introspection	11%	not self reflective	self searching
Adventurousness	99%	conventional, safe	spontaneous, bold
Intellect	92%	instinctive, non-analytical	intellectual, analytical
Liberalism	1%	conservative, traditional	progressive, open

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

So I'm a domineering individual? Methinks the test is a little inaccurate.

On a completely separate topic, Opera 8.54 (working build aimed at 9.0) now opens PDFs using Acrobat browser extensions. That means that they open in the same window as other Opera pages, and so it's well-contained and maybe even a little speedier. The problem, though, is that it's inconvenient if you want to get back to the page you just came from. You have to look at the PDF right then, instead of leaving the window that pops up in the background. And on the page bar, which I keep at the bottom of the screen, it doesn't indicate the fact that it's a PDF, so it's going to take me a while to get used to looking for an http://... something or other that'll actually be a PDF. Blah. Maybe they'll change this in the next build.

But, I figured out how to get this CF card to be the primary boot device for the MS10KE board. It is, in fact, a SCSI device, and if there is a hard drive connected to the machine at all, the mobo defers to the IDE drive as the primary boot. It apparently doesn't address the boot sequence in this scenario, as it just completely ignores the fact that the SCSI should be checked and booted from before the IDE. Something is going wrong there, and I don't have the inside knowledge to fix it. So I just took off the hard drive, and now I'm working on just the CF card, and it seems to be doing just fine with the little LILO boot loader. It doesn't give as much onscreen readout as GRUB, which is why I don't like it so much, but it seems to load from the CF card just fine, whereas grub gave me either an "Error 15" or "Error 17" any time I tried to boot from it.

At this very moment, I've gotten past the actual Debian install, and am now loading the "Desktop Environment" package. I know for a fact that this thing is bloated, and so does everyone else, especially for the task I'm going to have this board at. All I want is a GUI, so that I can open multiple consoles and have several processes being monitored. I do need to have gcc, too, 'cause I don't have another Debian system, and it's nice to be able to custom build this software specifically for the VIA board that it's running on. A few optimizations here and there, and it'll probably run reasonably well. We'll just have to see what real performance looks like in the end.

I'm anticipating that the system's a little pokey, due to the fact that the CF card isn't quite so speedy as a hard drive. Assuming that could be the wrong thing to do, too. It might be that whatever the hard drive gained in transfer speed was lost in lag time (spin up, seek, fragmentation, etc.). The card itself is around 60x, and the transfer is actually on the SCSI bus, it's potentially pretty swift.

You'll never guess what happened yesterday. I downloaded some Fedora Core 5 CD's, right? From a mirrored host of the files (a different server that keeps an up-to-date copy of the files) that just so happened to be in... Romania. Which is on the US Army list of "Places not to download stuff from." So the IT guys for my division came down with a little piece of paper from some IT guys for the big huge pipeline into the Arsenal that said "Run Logging Program X on this machine." So these really nice guys come in and run it, take some log files, and leave.

What should they find? MP3's (I brought in a few gigs worth to leave on this spare hard drive). And what else? iTunes. So I have to explain why iTunes is on there (I don't even use it, it just came with the stupid Quicktime software and I didn't remember to uninstall it), and that they can go through the data lists, and see that I haven't downloaded any music, all of the MP3's were brought in by myself, and are not in violation of any specific rule of the user agreement, blah blah blah, RTFM, etc. They think that my I2C bus adapter software is a game (it's in a folder called Brainstem). They also don't like the fact that I have a wma-mp3 converter on my machine.

2006-04-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

Why is boredom so tiring? Why do you just want to close your eyes and let the world fade away so that when you open them again, you've got something to do? For me, that's how it is, anyway. I'm sitting here fiddling with a presentation that I don't really have any filler for. It's crap.

And you know what sucks? I decided that our onboard machine is going to run DSL (Damn Small Linux), 'cause it should have all the drivers we need, and a few extra things that are incidental (word processing on a helicopter, anyone?). But it's small enough that it's useful. We shouldn't have any problem with the Debian core of it, 'cause that should be easy to program for (in the relative sense that anything is easy to program for). (Do you like parenthetical notes? I like them a lot [really! {They're lots (of fun!)}]).

What else pisses me off, you ask? Well, I'll tell you! Manufacturer's software that's supposed to work, but doesn't. As I say this I'm enraged to the point that I'm practically frothing at the mouth and spitting. This stupid little board that's supposed to be so easy to work with just won't load onto any machine that I've tried it on (4, count 'em, 4 machines!). I don't know if I'll accede to failure, or keep trying. I may try a completely different route.

And I'm going to the Wine Cellar, in the hopes that they'll have a nice bottle of something to take my mind of off... well, my mind. I feel like I'm eating myself up while I'm at work, 'cause all I can do is sit here and surf the web. It's maddening, is what it is.

[Argentine accet] Will drive you... will drive you... MAAAAD!

Oh what a beautiful morning...

2006-04-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Oh what a beautiful day!
I've got a beautiful feeling,
Everything's going my way!

Well, maybe not quite, but I did get a fair amount of sleep last night (w00t for 6.5 hours!)

2006-04-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

Today hasn't been anything special, but it has been a better day at work than it has been for a while.

I'm not hiding from my boss/manager, but then, neither have I been seeking him out. For the last two months or so, I've been dangling in the wind, without a care in the world, or a task. Turns out that that's because he was busy with some interesting home-life and some high-up stuff that I don't need to worry about. He got re-married! Woohoo! They're both really great people, and I'm so happy to see them back together. The fact that his new re-wife got a VW Beetle and a really huge rock out of the deal probably doesn't hurt, either, even if he did have to sell the farm. Literally, he sold his farm that he wasn't using and never visited, and came into a goodly sum of money.

So, we chatted, and he still has nothing for me to do, but will be looking for work. Hopefully. I mean, he evaded me on Friday, and on Thursday before that. He might actually have been in hiding from me (trying to put off extra work, probably, 'cause he's likely been swamped). So, the situation now stands that he is alive, and doing rather well, and I'm alive, and still task-less.

On a completely different note, someone ganked my away message... I've never had that happen before.

And, I'm going to be changing my work term from the fall to the summer semester. So, I'll have two classes with the dreaded Jarem (he's supposed to be a really sucky teacher, so it'll probably turn out that I'll have to do a lot of reading on my own), but I'll finish my CPE degree in December, and then go back and hopefully take a ta total of 2 classes in the Spring of next year to get my EE degree. It'll be a long 7 months of work, but it'll finally be over (the wait for the degree, anyway); after that, I can get a real salary with periodic pay increases, until I become a real boy! I mean, slacke--er, professional sleepe--no! civil servant! That comes with a pretty decent salary, and I'll be able to do some things that I've always wanted to do: buy tools (workshop, baby!), move out...

Ahh, how good the good life will be.

Other than that, life has been without any real speedbumps. Water is still wet, the sky is still blue, and the way of the gay man is still sodomy. All is as it has been, and so will continue to be.

This summer's lineup includes both Random Signals & Noise, as well as Electricity & Magnetism. Neither are supposed to be fun classes, and a little heavy on the math for my taste, but both should still be interesting (the subject if not the lecturer). Fall classes are Networks, Western Civ I, Circuits II, Controls, and Information Assurance. Since I won't be working at all, that should be enough to tide me over, maybe with a little bit of extra time to spare. Maybe. The IA class is supposed to be a real bear.

Leaving... now.

French people...

2006-03-30T11:31:00.000-08:00

SUCK!

The guys my IPT class is working with have essentially said that they would give us a sohphomore-level algorithm. Not what I was hoping for.

Our helicopter won't be here until the very end of the semester, at the earliest, and we don't have any of our hardware. Our software package is nil. We have a skeleton API. And we don't have any clue about who our flight crew is going to be. It's going to be pretty miserable at the end of the semester.

And I almost locked myself out of my laptop... I forgot that I put a numeric password on it that I made up on the spot... and of course, whatever memory of it might have lingered has since blown away like the mist in the wind that it was. But, recovery for that kind of thing is relatively easy, if you know how to do it.

Gosh

2006-03-29T17:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted, so I suppose I'll hit up the ol' Blogger and update just a little bit.

On March 16, I went to Indiana to go to one of B's cousins' weddings. It was a really nice event, and you could tell that they really poured money into the thing: they had an open bar for something like 200 people, and served a sit-down dinner with salad, soup, entrèe, and desert. The speeches were fair-to-middlin', and the food was okay (chicken cordon bleu was drier than I like, but still tasty for a'that). The wine at the bar was so-so, but they had Southern Comfort, B's favorite.

Really, I don't know how she can suck down the hard liquor. The sensation of drinking it is simply too much for me, from the alcoholic after-effects on your head to the taste going down the gullet. Something with more of a gentle prod of alcohol (rather than a knuckle sandwich to the incisors) is much more to my taste (read: I like wine). Speaking of my beverage of choice...

Spring Break was woefully uneventful. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but it was kinda nice to be able to work four 10-hour days and have done with the week. Went and saw Underworld: Evolution, which turned out to be a pretty good action movie. Nothing in it was really dramatic, but Scott Speedman and Kate Beckinsale(H@wt, l!k3 \\/@y H@wt, D|_|D3) made it all better for being pretty people. At least, Kate did. I didn't really care to see Speedman naked, but seeing Kate made for quite the nice gratuitous-sex-scene.

And, Iwent with Brecken to go listen to the Westhuizen Duo, yestereve. They're a young couple from South Africa, both working on music doctorates (I think they're probably music performance). They're both very talented and chose a very nice evening's worth of music: a Brandenburg arranged for two pianos (eh, it sounds better when sustained notes are bowed, i.e. strings do this one better), a Mozart duet (very lively, playful even, and well-played; the looked like they were having fun), a variation on a theme by Paganini by Ludo-something-owski (a Polish Jew who composed during WWII, for cafes and whatnot; a rousing piece with some interesting passages that held a modernistic Paganini feel to it), a neo-classical (although with more dissonance than I think a labelled neo-classical should have) concerto for two pianos by Poulenc, and finally, a set of very dark waltzes by Ravel.

I liked the waltzes for the counterplay of very light Viennese-style waltz with the chromatic undertone that gave it a tense feel, and the heavy bass with a dark undertone. Overall, I thought the Mozart and Ravel were my favorites, because the Mozart was just fun to listen to, and the Ravel was the most interesting to listen to, although the Polish piece was a close second for interesting to listen to (I know Caprice 24 well enough to pick out the melody of it, but B thought it was all kind of musical gibberish).

And I got a bottle of this stuff to the left: Shotfire Ridge Shiraz. Haven't opened it yet, because I've got another bottle of Zin sitting out (Ravenswood Old Vine Zin), which turned out to be decent. Better than some. I'd call it a hair above the average.

Other than that, all I've got is an IPT meeting, which I'm not really looking forward to. Woefully behind schedule (stupid budgeting people!), we have a lot to talk about.

Catch you on the flipside...

Done!

2006-03-14T09:56:00.000-08:00

Shelves are done! I'll post some pre- and post-staining pictures when I get home. They look good though: a lot better than I thought they would turn out. It seems that the 2-in-1 stain and polyurethane stuff really did a good job with prettying the thing up.

Yes, the front legs are tilted in. It was supposed to be the back legs that tilted in, but apparently the configuration with the shelves angled slightly just didn't do what I wanted. So, now it is that to get the whole thing to sit right, I had to take a little off the front legs. Unfortunately, I forgot that the fiddly bits sink into the carpet, and the front is now lower than the rear. So I had to prop it up with some paper jammed under the front legs. Now it sits all perty-like where my tall mirror was (I still need to find a suitable place to stick that, now that it's spot has been usurped).

My next idea is to replace my chest-of-drawers with something a little more... well, useful. And more me. The ones I have right now are what my sister has called "Hobbit furniture," i.e. they have a kind of folky look to them. Unfortuantely, the rails are also really tall plastic deals that are stapled into some pretty cheap particle board. And the front faces only look like Hobbit furniture from a distance. Up close, they look very mass-produced. So, in the same vein as the shelves, I may do some sliding drawers. Right after I get my router.

Work is slow... I have nothing at all to do, and it's been this way for months now. I'm trying to see if my boss notices, or cares. I'm less than a hundred feet down the hall. I sit by the phone all the livelong day. My e-mail updates automatically, in real-time. Why would he just let me sit down here, not earning my salary? I mean, for crying out loud...

Now on to something completely different:

The X!

2006-03-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

107.7 - the X

100.5 - the New X

Balch Rd - the only place I go where I can receive 100.5FM.

I was listening this morning, and it was so cool! There was music, there was a little funny talk... and it was good! But then it went all KRSHCHSCH! on me. Not cool. Definitely not good.

The gain on my antenna will have to be increased, I suppose.

Other than discovering this factoid about Birmingham's much more awesome alternative rock station, I also did a lot of fiddling around with my shelves this weekend. This bloody stupid project just won't finish! Since I redesigned the legs, it's been a week. I cut them to size, roughed out some notches, and threw it together, and it's okay. But, I want to dowel in the shelves, and secure them with screws. And the doweling that I have is... you guessed it: the wrong size. It's red oak, and apparently red oak doesn't size the same way that most other wood does, because the oak has apparently shrunk in the wake of tremendous pressures as experienced in my garage. So I have to get down to Lowe's or Home Depot or someplace where they have doweling and get some more 1/2" stuff in the hopes that it's the right size for the job.

Then I can finish this up, maybe slap some stain on it, a clear coat, and finally stick some crap on those shelves. Make them bloody useful for something. I mean, they're so very hideous it's not even funny... I need to go back, get some more wood and just start over. Given my druthers (for all you Yankees that's 'I'd rather,' shortened to mean my preference), I'd have all of my slots cut with a freaking router, the way they should be. I might go buy one, eventually. The shelves I make with the new tool can go in the garage, then, and hold whatever needs holding, and the new set of shelves can go in my room.

The new router would be pretty cool to use, too. All I'd really need is a straight shank bit, maybe a 1/2" wide, and I could notch out those bad boys four at a time. Clamp them together, clamp down a guide and--as Emeril would say--BAM! It might be worth the $200 I'd have to spend to get a decent one. Maybe I could get my dad to subsidize the purchase of one... That'd be so awesome.

And there needs to be meat for me to experiment with, because I want to do some beef fillet over white rice. Maybe lamb or mutton (subtle difference, but definitely noticable).

So bored...

IPTs

2006-03-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

Integrated Product Teams drive me nuts. I've generated more paper for this class than any previous class, and not much of it is getting graded! I've sent out at least three e-mails a week (that's a minimum, the average is more like 7), and all manner of other time-eating stuff.

Other than that, I'm on the road to recovery. I've been miserably sick for almost a week, now, and while my sinuses still feel weird, I don't have any aches, pains or other maladies. Really, there weren't any to begin with, so that's not really a valid point, the only thing that was wrong with me was that it hurt to swallow, and my throat got really dry really fast. Then there was the runny nose, and now it feels like its moved into my eustachian tubes (go look it up, if you don't know). I think it's subsiding, but who knows. Every time there's downtime for me to recover from this stuff, something else pops up.

The worst part is that B is probably sick as a result of my not taking precautions. I should have stayed home, avoided kissing, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do to prevent infection from a carrier to a new host. We were going to go out tomorrow, but that doesn't look like it'll happen. We'll probably go to wish J2 a happy birthday at his birthday reception (to be held at Beef O'Brady's), but if B's feeling bad off, we'll go home and commiserate. I need to think of what to get the lad, but it may not happen until tomorrow.

Heheh... I may get him a bottle of wine (he doesn't care for alcohol). He'll hate me. I'll just grin. I think I'll do it.

Oh well, back to my backbreaking civil service...

...this is so boring...

2006-03-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

It's... a...

2006-03-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

...beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor.
...would you be mine?
...could you be mine?
Would you be my neighbor?

That song, when you really think about it, is kinda creepy. Sung in the right voice, it sounds like a child molester song.

On to other news...

[notice the large blank area where there should be other news]

I am so bored. In light of that, here are some blog-type things to check out...

[yawn]

2006-02-27T17:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty boring day. A girl called me this morning and gave me something to live for instead of hanging myself by my mouse-cord, but after that, it was pretty dull, sitting there and living. I actually took a short nap, after 1700hrs, because I had to come here (UAH) after 7, to show the lab instructor the late version of my lab that I couldn't complete Friday, due to Tom Percy being late.

[yawn] and I'm going to try to get started on the next project. Wish me luck. Bon chance, buena suerte, etc.

2006-02-26T00:42:00.000-08:00

the Perfectionist
Test finished!

you chose CZ - your Enneagram type is ONE.

"I do everything the right way"

Perfectionists are realistic, conscientious, and principled. They strive to live up to their high ideals.

How to Get Along with Me

Take your share of the responsibility so I don't end up with all the work.

Acknowledge my achievements.

I'm hard on myself. Reassure me that I'm fine the way I am.

Tell me that you value my advice.

Be fair and considerate, as I am.

Apologize if you have been unthoughtful. It will help me to forgive.

Gently encourage me to lighten up and to laugh at myself when I get uptight, but hear my worries first.

What I Like About Being a One

being self-disciplined and able to accomplish a great deal

working hard to make the world a better place

having high standards and ethics; not compromising myself

being reasonable, responsible, and dedicated in everything I do

being able to put facts together, coming to good understandings, and
figuring out wise solutions

being the best I can be and bringing out the best in other people

What's Hard About Being a One

being disappointed with myself or others when my expectations are not
met

feeling burdened by too much responsibility

thinking that what I do is never good enough

not being appreciated for what I do for people

being upset because others aren't trying as hard as I am

obsessing about what I did or what I should do

being tense, anxious, and taking things too seriously

Ones as Children Often

criticize themselves in anticipation of criticism from others

refrain from doing things that they think might not come out perfect

focus on living up to the expectations of their parents and teachers

are very responsible; may assume the role of parent

hold back negative emotions ("good children aren't angry")

Ones as Parents

teach their children responsibility and strong moral values

are consistent and fair

discipline firmly

Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele

The Enneagram Made Easy

Discover the 9 Types of People

HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages

You liked the test? so please RATE it :-)

You are not completely happy with the result?!

You chose CZ

Would you rather have chosen:

AZ (THREE)

BZ (FIVE)

CX (TWO)

CY (SIX)

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 0% on ABC
You scored higher than 0% on XYZ

Link: The Quick and Painless ENNEAGRAM Test written by felk on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Ho hum

2006-02-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

The humdrum life of the civil servant. How mundane.

I'm just surfing and looking at random stuff. Like this. It would be fun if I didn't have to do this all day every day until there's real work for me. At least I have time for class-related work.

Speaking of which, I'm off to get to an IPT meeting. Should be great fun.

You know you make me wanna...

2006-02-21T15:22:00.001-08:00

SHOUT!

Put my hands up and...

SHOUT!

Throw my head back and...

SHOUT!

Throw my hands up and...

SHOUT!

Ye-a-a-ah!

YE-A-A-AH!

Well, it's been a long day full of nothing. Went to work, class, work... then tonight I'll go home and likely sit there like a lump for a while. Drink some wine. Eat some cheese. Generally be lazy. I don't know why I feel so lazy--I had more caffeine today than any day for at least two weeks (I only had one cup this last Sunday, but I don't know about the Sunday before that).

And B is stuck in my head. I'm a little worried about her getting all of her work done, because she's getting to be resistant to my telling her to work on stuff. I don't want to be just furniture she can lean on and abuse, because she needs to do her schoolwork. She already feels behind, and if she doesn't catch up, I can see at least minor depression catching up and anxiety going through the roof. And that's never good; better to suffer a little now than a lot later.

In other news, my senior design IPT is going relatively well (in comparison to the other team, that is). Apparently we've got a good idea of where we're going, and to put it bluntly, the other team doesn't.

Man, this weekend I stuffed myself silly with steak and pasta and all other manner of food, most of which I cooked myself. Fettucini rigate with a marinara sauce, baked wine-soaked mushrooms with a cheese filling (yum!), there was a salad, bread, Brie, and ribeye steak. Apparently the steak was too sweet for some people's taste. It was at least a very good cut of meat.

And do you know what bothers me? People who don't know how to tell you that your information is wrong. I know, I know, hypocritical, but I try to lay it down hard to people I know can handle it. People who assume everyone they meet can handle it are a little too presumptuous of other people's capabilities, if you ask me (also hypocritical, but it's something I don't like about myself, either [trying to change, people--the only truly bad person is one who won't realize the error of their ways.]).

Anyway, back to the humdrum.

You know you make me wanna...

2006-02-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Fat fat fat fat

2006-02-16T16:52:00.000-08:00

I feel fat. I think it's because I'm sitting here just slightly uncomfortably warm, and letting my ass grow in proportion to the number of hours I sit behind my dual-LCD's.

It's really frustrating to have no meaningful work, but then, it's also very helpful, since I had a few or four solid pages two write up before 4 o'clock this afternoon (see, not military time! ok, ok, so it's 1600hrs). Senior design is a real bitch when you have to split up a lot of work between only a few people, when the work is designed for a lot more than the few. Nonetheless, at least I know it's being done correctly, and the English is good.

There were a few guys from the MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) dept. that surprised me with terrible grammar. I mean, I thought your average engineer communicated on a 10th grade level, and I was wrong. Apparently, your average MAE still uses pictograms to get his points across, and still calls Powerpoint presentations "viewgraphs." They are patently behind the times. But they did good work for what they're capable of, and even if they're imbeciles, they're my imbeciles. There's none of them that get under my nerves, except for J1, and that's 'cause I like him and he's a smart cookie. Apparently the only people who bother me fit those two elements.

Atrophy! Religion!

2006-02-09T11:16:00.000-08:00

Main Entry: at·ro·phy
Pronunciation: 'a-tr&-fE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -phies
Etymology: Late Latin atrophia, from Greek, from atrophos ill fed, from a- + trephein to nourish
1 : decrease in size or wasting away of a body part or tissue; also : arrested development or loss of a part or organ incidental to the normal development or life of an animal or plant
2 : a wasting away or progressive decline : DEGENERATION
- atro·phic /(")A-'trO-fik/ adjective
- atrophy /'a-tr&-fE, -"fI/ verb

I've sat in my chair, letting my muscles go to water and fat, and I'm doing it again, today. There's been nothing of great significance happening, beside the usual (because the usual is significant in that it's the benchmark by which we gauge the unusual, right?). I went to a "history club meeting," which was interesting. They were showing Gladiator, and I didn't see the movie at all, but I did meet Dr. Johnson, who does, as B put it, look like the kind of woman who would hang out in a coffeeshop, and wear a lot of neutral colors. They were discussing big plans for having a storyteller come, and watching more "historical" movies, and using different facilities for meeting on a regular basis, as well as showing their movies in a facility with easier access that didn't necessitate the presence of a sponsor, etc.

And we had a conversation about religion that I didn't really like (it was B, L, and I). See, we were talking about religion and B has the guts to ask L, "So what is your religious background?" and the response is, "Well, that's a tough question to answer." This is never a good thing, because it includes lots of ambiguity and lots of "I haven't made up my mind." Not that there's wrong with either of those things, but it makes it difficult to talk about stuff when someone is liable to agree with lots of things that sound reasonable.

The thing is, with any religion, you have to take the things that are unreasonable along with the things that are. You see, L doesn't like the fact that mysticism has been removed from Protestant doctrine, but I completely disagree. The emphasis on "mysticism" is that it isn't "mystic," it's holy. The difference here is the difference between a miracle and magic. What is the difference? One is an act of God, another is... well, not. To be honest, I believe that there are other spiritual powers out there (demons, angels, and others, possibly), so the "magic" is not something that should always be looked well upon, because it's most often not of a good relation to God. I think we still place lots of emphasis on miracles, but calling them mystical gives them a different connotation.

And another thing: mish-mashing religions is not right. Holding to moral tenets of Christianity, while believing in a hierarchy of spiritual powers that should be worshipped as separate Gods and representations of nature and being (paganism), is wrong. This whole idea is one of "Oh, I can be a 'good person' and still enjoy the sensory involvement and peace of mind that paganism affords me." The basis of Celtic Paganism is the worship multiple gods & goddesses of varying importance and power as a means of affecting their influence in your life and in the world at large. There are no tenets that can be called characteristic of the "pagan religion" besides an overarching focus on the self, since the goal of all things is to further one's own position by gaining favors from the gods/spirits through worship and a kind of devotion. This explains no connection that humans might feel toward one another, and certainly doesn't allow for the explicitly non-self focus that Christianity (in theory) should have.

Christianity, by rights, is based on the concept of commitment and affection. Where affection fails in the temporal, commitment is the remainder and rekindles affection after things have been mended. There are some revelations (call them what you want, epiphanies, insights, "Eureka!" moments, et cetera) that are not things that a person can be convinced of by the speech of another person. I wholeheartedly believe that God moves people, and may use a single person to explain things, but the God of this universe and all that is in it is the one who gives people the opportunity to believe, and as such, there are lots of things that I can say to inform anyone, but there's nothing I can do to ellicit a feeling of conviction in a person.

Christianity is, at its heart, the belief that Jesus Christ the Nazarene was born as the human form of God the Father, and was brought into this world in order for him to die on the cross as the perfect sacrifice in response to all of humanity's sins. Belief and acceptance of this fact are the acceptance that the sacrifice is made for you, and thus you relinquish the burden of guilt for your sin (sin is imperfection in the perfect moral framework of God, which is only resolved through the death of a suitable sacrifice, i.e. you), and accept that a perfect sacrifice has been made in your place. It's not for us to know, here on this earth, what Jesus went through on the cross, or after his death. Conjecture is that he carried the weight of all sin for all time to Hell, and suffered the torments of eternity in a way that only the Son of God was equipped for, and returned from it to take his place as part of the Trinity (i.e. there's no presence of God lingering in Hell). All I know is that forgiveness for my sins has been ascertained, and the acceptance of that forgiveness results in the outward obediance to the word of God.

And that's where the tenets of Christian morality and rules for living come from: a desire to live in such a way that God is pleased by it. This morality is a holy thing, and shouldn't be perverted by a heretical belief in the rightness of worshipping Celtic "gods."

Just my two cents. I need to get up and walk around now, before I lose all capability of so doing.

Tired as what? All get out.

2006-02-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am, and have no idea why. Last night I got a good 6.5 hrs of sleep, and the night before a full 6. Albeit, the night before that I didn't really sleep much at all, but still, I should be able to function on 4.33 hours of sleep averaged over 3 days, right? Maybe. Tonight I'll recoup.

Tomorrow promises to be interesting... I've got to come into work as early as I can manage, and leave by 1330hrs, to get to my class @ 1400hrs. From there, my team will meet for a bit, and I'll go home before leaving to go to J2's, and then to go to Decatur for a Steak 'n Shake birthday (need to find a small gift...). Then, sleep lots.

Get up Saturday, and hopefully wash my car, vacuum, find some leather-cleaning stuff to clean the rear driver's side seat (got something that feels like it came off the back of a sticker on there), maybe even, heaven forbid, wax it. I haven't waxed a car since the first Volvo we had (in 1990), and that was only playing at it, so I guess I should get to it, now.

Oh yeah... for anyone who didn't know (like me), "After the jump" in a blog indicates information in the larger portion of the article in question. That is, the blogs that use that notation include a "read more" link under the little front page blurb. So anything "after the jump" is in the full article, but not in the abstract. Really, who the heck came up with that?

2006-02-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

81 movies I've seen... lovely.

2006-02-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

(1) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(2) Grease
(3) Pirates of the Caribbean
(4) Boondock Saints
( ) The Mexican
(5) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(6) Blazing Saddles
(7) Airplane
(8) The Princess Bride
(9) Young Frankenstein
(10) AnchorMan: The Legend of Ron Burgandy
(11) Napoleon Dynamite
() Saw
() White Noise
( ) White Oleander
(12) Anger Management
(13) 50 First Dates
( ) Jason X
() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
(14) Scary Movie
(15) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
(16) American Pie
(17) American Pie 2
() American Wedding
(19 ) Harry Potter
(20) Harry Potter 2
(21) Harry Potter 3
(22) Harry Potter 4
(23) Resident Evil I
( ) Resident Evil 2
(24) The Wedding Singer
(25) Little Black Book
( ) The Village
(26) Donnie Darko
(27)Lilo & Stitch
( ) Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch has a Glitch
(27) Finding Nemo
(28)Finding Neverland
( ) 13 Ghosts
(29) Signs
( ) The Grinch (jim carrey)
( )Texas Chainsaw Massacre (The Original)
( ) White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
(30) 13 Going on 30
(31) I, Robot
(32) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
(33) A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(34) Along Came Polly
( ) Deep Impact
( ) KingPin
() Never Been Kissed
(35) Meet The Parents
(36) Meet the Fockers
( )Eight Crazy Nights
() Joe Dirt
() A Cinderella Story
(37) the Terminal
( )The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( )Passport to Paris
(38) Dumb & Dumber
( )Dumb & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Halloween
() The Ring
( )The Ring 2
() Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies (H&K go to white castle)
(39)Practical Magic
(40) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
() From Hell
( ) Hellboy
() Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
(41 ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Day After Tomorrow
() Child's Play
( ) Bride of Chucky
(42) Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
(43)Remember the Titans
( )Coach Carter
(44) Bad Boys
() Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
(45) Se7en
(46) Oceans Eleven
(47) Ocean's Twelve
( ) Identity
( ) Lone Star
( )Predator I
( ) Predator II
(48) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(49) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss' daughter
() Maid in Manhattan
( ) Frailty
( ) Best Bet
(50) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(51) She's All That
( ) Calendar Girls
(52) Sideways
(53) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
() Ever After
(54) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(55) X-Men
(56) X2
(57) Spider-Man
(58) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
(59) Catch Me If You Can
(60) The Others
( )Freaky Friday (original)
( ) Reign of Fire
() Cruel Intentions
( )The Hot Chick
( )Swimfan
( ) Miracle
() Old School
(61) The Notebook
() K-Pax
(62) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(63) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(64) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
() A Walk to Remember
( ) Boogeyman
(65 ) Hitch
(66) The Fifth Element
(67) Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
(68) Star Wars Episode II Attack of The Clones
(69) Star Wars Episode III Revenge of The Sith
(70) Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope
(71) Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
(72)Star Wars Episode VI Return of The Jedi
(73) Troop Beverly Hills
( ) Swimming with Sharks
() Air Force One
() For Richer or Poorer
( ) Trainspotting
( ) People Under the Stairs
( ) Blue Velvet
(74) Sound of Music
() Parent Trap
( ) Parent Trap Re-make (Lindsay Lohan)
( ) The Burbs
( ) The Terminator
(75) Terminator 2
( ) T-3
(76) Empire Records
( ) SLC Punk
(76) Meet Joe Black
(77) Nightmare Before Christmas
(78) The Silence of the Lambs
(79) Red Dragon
(80) Sleepy Hollow
( ) I Heart Huckabees
( ) 24 Hour Party People
( ) Blood In Blood Out
(81) Neverending Story
() Bedazzled

2006-02-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

Afternoon delight

2006-01-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

Man, yesterday was not a good afternoon. I took my car into the NASA garage, and they had a look at it. I had to walk the mile and a half back to my office because my dad went out to lunch early. I sweated while my boss was out to lunch because I needed him to give me his signature on some co-op papers and get some objectives for this semester for me down. And I needed my dad to call me so I could go get money to pay for my car (they can't take plastic at all) and actually get to the garage. And then I needed to get to UAH to turn in the piece of paper with my boss's signature, and do it before 1630hrs. And then get back to work and stay late enough to get 10 hours.

But then I went and hung out with B. That was cool. We went and hung out with J&L and I got to play a real flute for the first time in forever. It was cool, and I remember now that I miss it. So now, after I get a bari sax, I need a flute. An Emerson. [harrumph] Yeah, right. Maybe after I get my degree and get into the intern program here, which will boost my salary to over $40K for sure, hopefully over $50K, I'll be able to afford it. First, though, the essentials.

This morning, it was so hard to get out of bed. I had to take a cold shower and practically drag myself into the car to get to work. Here I am, now, just sitting here, blogging. Isn't this lovely?

To liven things up, here's some stuff:

Nobody loves you...

2006-01-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

...like your mama does you...

The link is directly to a music video. I actually kinda like the song, but it's moderately entertaining.

New cool people this semester

2006-01-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

There's a few that I can think of off the top of my head, but Lisa and Ryan come to mind. Alex I don't know so well, but he seems like a really bright guy who would be cool to hang out with. Kofi doesn't seem like he's so much cool as he knows what's going on.

Mr. P seems cool, especially for an instructor. Kinda makes me think of a "hipper" version of Mr. R, who is the one teacher from high school that I almost kinda keep in touch with. He's a little older than we are, but not more than half a generation, so he's still got a lot more empathy for people in our stage of life than you average 50-something professor who thinks youth is a scourge and should be eliminated by used of instant aging.

Really, I hope to meet some cool people before I graduate, the kind that you keep in touch with and with whom you remain friends. We'll see who shapes up to be friend material by the end of the semester.

Sick?

2006-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not, but B is. That's not the point though.

The point is that you should click here. It's PG. PG-13, maybe. But, it's a very interesting study in the human... not condition, but the framework of human pleasure.

'cause if you make a face like that... There are some of them that are definitely happy, but there's lots that are what I would have to call grimaces of pleasure.

Big days

2006-01-26T06:24:00.000-08:00

Today's kind of a big day, because I have to skip class to go to a meeting (likely pretty informal and not very technical) with the head of the UAH Rotorcraft Institute and some guys from Intergraph. As opposed to my usual class-going, we'll be talking about the weather and whether or not we should buy some of Intergraph's latest and greatest video technology for use on a UAV. It'll be interesting to see what they tell us about it, since our dear instructor (a pretty cool guy, but sadly not in the know about a lot of stuff that he can't really be blamed for not knowing) didn't know squat about it.

I was going to wear a tie, but I forgot that bit at home, so I'm going for the more modern look of the open collar with a black undershirt (not Fruit of the Loop, so it's not faded, thank you). We'll see how it goes.

More after the jump.

(Why do bloggers say that? If they do it, it's probably very professional and all. You know, the kind of journalists that go to things like CES? They do it, so since I wanna be super-spiffy and go to CES someday, I'll start tagging like them in the hopes that my efforts will be rewarded to the magical land of New Goodies.)

Cheez-its

2006-01-25T11:30:00.000-08:00

"Baked Snack Crackers"
White Cheddar

These are what I eat out of the snack machines. Since I've tried practically everything in them, I can tell you that they're the most (1.5 oz) semi-healthy (low-sugar content) for the money ($0.55). That's why I eat Cheez-it White Cheddar Baked Snack Crackers!

Ladies and gentlemen

2006-01-25T09:20:00.001-08:00

Boys and girls of all ages! Come one, come all! See the greatest show on earth!

Not really... I'm talking about mandatory government ethics training. This schtick is the fault of all you USians who don't trust your civil servants. I hate you. You're wasting 2 hours of my life watching videos that aren't going to be well-made, and aren't going to be informative. You're putting millions of dollars down the crapper because you think that we shouldn't sell girl-scout cookies to contractors. Boo-d'freaking-hoo.

In other news, I bought a new toy: it's a Verbatim Store 'n Go Pro (2GB). It kinda bothers me that I'm getting gipped out of so much storage space because they define GB as 1,000,000 bytes (thankfully they left the byte at 8 bits), or something like that. For anyone wondering, a GB is supposed to be 2^30 bytes, which is 1,048,576 bytes. By changing the definition, you lose 48,576 bytes, if they count it that way. Really, that's 47.44 KB lost/ "GB". Not too bad, but still irksome. It means I've got almost 100KB of memory that would be available if they'd just make the darn things standard sized. I remember when that space was freaking premium. A whole 100KB?! Jeez, even on that blazing fast 14.4KBaud modem (14,400 bits/sec, or 1,800 bytes/sec, or 1.75KB/sec), you'd be there for at least 57 seconds, if you were running at full speed. If you were running at standard rates, it'd be more like 5 minutes.

Now, we think of it more as 0.1MB. That crap takes 2 seconds to download. How times have changed.

This little Pro stick has one of the fastest data read and write speeds out there. For files under 2MB, it's got a blazing fast write speed. After that, it's still top notch, if not the very best. It's just a little under the best for read speeds, and I think it'll work great for everything I have planned for it. I've listed some mobile apps before, but for my reference, this is the minimum list of stuff going onto the new drive:

You know what I hate?

2006-01-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I don't know if you know, and really don't know if you care, but what really pisses me off is people who lack the capacity for listening. If there's one thing that bothers me, it's when you start a conversation with all intentions of trying to tell someone something, and then getting lost when the someone you're trying to talk to opens their mouth and doesn't close it. Not just getting lost, but being pulled off course, your course not only fogged by the flow of perhaps useless information, but your way forcibly blocked by the unabated gush of words and narrative unbidden and frustrating beyond belief.

There's something about being completely shut out that's just... it's more than frustrating. And not having the heart to pull the trigger and tell someone that they're being assholes. It feels like being used for nothing more than dumping. Reciprocity is the name of the game, and people who overtake and overrun conversation haven't got the recirocation part of that down. People who can't take and receive in more equal measure have a problem that isn't just social, it's internal, because if you knowone of these people, you know that there's something terrible that'll happen if you interrupt.

If you take back the conversation and talk the way they're talking, there's something in the other person that's not going to snap, it's going to bend. It's going to flex, and you'll be able to see their demeanor change, and you'll see that they begin to cease caring about talking to you, because they can't listen. Their fuzzy feeling about the situation is all warm and lovely up until you've got them where they can't get away, where they have to turn their listening ear or be rude. When their options are limited once again to either listen or flee, the kind of person who's going to be angry with listening, waiting for the crack, the crevice, the fingerhold to pull their way into the conversation and take it over again, is going to flee.

And that's the most invaluable information about a person's character: knowledge of their cowardice.

Done!

2006-01-12T04:43:00.000-08:00

Thank God, my car paperwork is done! I have a registration, an insurance policy, and a Redstone decal. Now I can be about my merry way of fixing everything on it.

First to get fixed: Shifter. I hop in my car this morning, and what should happen? The shifter won't move. There's a little plastic piece that's supposed to release when you step on the brake so you can shift out of (P)ark. Now, I can't. I've been parking it in drive with the emergency brake on, but am planning to get to a parts store and check it out. I read online at an Acura forum that it may well be the brake light switch. This makes a little bit of sense to me, because the idea is that you have to have your foot on the brake in order to put the car into gear. The easiest electronic indicator of this engagement is... the brakelight, which has to come on, by law, when the brake pedal is pressed. So if this thing is gone kaput, then it means all I have to do is replace this negative switch and go about my merry way.

About the transmission, though, it seems that most '99 Acuras have a problem: their transmissions get ungodly hot, and so destroy themselves over time. I think I may have a transmission that's grinding itself into nothingness. Now, what I can do is get a transmission cooler kit, which is my favored option at the moment. It's $150, and it's probably worth it.

Jolt!

2006-01-11T16:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, I didn't know it, but Jolt has gum... caffeinated gum. It's yum-diddly-uptious, and woke me up, after not getting breakfast or lunch. The website is here. It's impressive that they had the guts to pack into a single half-sized piece of gum the amount of caffeine in half a cup of coffee. Now, if that doesn't satisfy, I don't know what will (besides a chugged Monster).

Money sucks

2006-01-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

We should just go back to the barter system.

Here's what sucks... it turns out that my secretary (the branch secretary, you know? she secretaries for all of us) put in my time for all of December. That's three weeks more than I worked. I forgot that I'm supposed to get paid two weeks after I work, so I thought it was normal to get a paycheck the day before the payday. So, it turns out that there's approx $1500 that the gov't has dumped on me that goes... well, probably back to the government. That's a payperiod and a half, so I may not be getting paid for a while

God help me. You know, though, I have to think on God's blessing of my money... I mean, it's pretty dadgum miraculous: I total my car, right? And magically, no insurance papers to be filed, so my rates don't rise. I'm all in one piece, and almost completely uninjured. And my sister's home for the break, so she can help my mom out with transportation, and I can use her van for a while. And the "perfect" (we'll see how perfect when I go to get the brakes checked) car shows up, in not one, but two places. And then I talk the guy down $400.00. I get the title and registration, open a new insurance policy (for less than what it would cost to stay on my parents' policy), and get my taxes/title taken care of. After all that... I'll be sitting on my last grand.

Now, let's subtract $1,500 from this equation. I wouldn't have been able to get this car, register it, and drive it around with the money I had, so obviously God orchestrated this for my own good. Very cool. Unfortunately, it'd be wrong to keep the money, so it goes back in Uncle Sam's coffers.

Started class yesterday, and it turns out the class I thought was going to be really interesting is so packed out that I don't really know what to think about it. I had to sit all the way in the back, and the room was literally filled to capacity... There wasn't a single chair available in the room. Apparently Gaede and Milenkovic are both so feared that everyone wanted to get in on Wells' class. And you know what? I'm thinking that this semester's going to be pretty easy, because we started going over number representation yesterday, starting with... decimal. And then moving up to binary, two's complement, and finally, hex, octal, BCD, Gray encoding, and ASCII.

And then I went to night court. That was perhaps the most harrowing court experience I've ever had (out of what, three? not great statistics, but still harrowing). First, they make you wait to get into the court. Then they make you line up to go through the metal detector. I had my knife in my pocket, and if I hadn't transferred it to my coat pocket, I would have been dead meat, 'cause most metal detectors have a kind of deadband around the waist area, because most people wear belts or something like them, so a small enough knife you can call your belt buckle (if you're ever trying to get through airport security with your relatively small pocket knife, really, put it behind your belt buckle, it works).

But, first you see the clerk and whoever it is that's just below the judge (is she just a barrister?), and she says, "OK, go into the next room," which is the actual courtroom. The judge calls me up, looks at my stub and says, "You just want to sign up for the next driving school class?" I say, "Yes, sir." He says, "You got $30 on you?" I go, "Hell yeah." He goes, "Then Tiny will escort you to the cashier." You remember Night Court, the show? It had the guy who played Dave Barry in some other sitcom, and a few other real characters, but there was the strongarm guy, the guard. That's who this guy made me think of, because he was tall (at least 6'6"), bald, and pretty big. He had a mustache, which really ruined it, but still, it was kinda funny. So now that I have a car, I can make it to driving school on a Monday night in February sometime. Forgetting the day isn't good, but I was so relieved that I didn't really care about the date.

After that, I made it to class... on time! Turns out that a guy from my church is heading up an IPT for a micro-semi-autonomous robot competition. I may or may not be working with him at any point, but that's still pretty cool, because we've travelled together, and worked together, and gone over some lesson plans and stuff. The only bad thing about it is that he's a mechanical, so everything I tell him will essentially be explaining that the work he gets out of CPE's and EE's is going to be a black box for him. Same thing with this other guy I could be working under: he's a mechanical, or an aerospace, or a civil, or an industrial. Which means that he'll be useless.

Really, what good are ME's when it comes to a system approach? Hell, I can tell you about support structures, and material properties, and harmonic resonance, and material deformation with pressure and temperature deviations, but can an ME tell you anything about electrical power dissipation given a system? Can he judge clock rates, given a set of components to hook together? Can he estimate resolution of any given sensor, given requirements? Most of them that I know, can't.

So I really don't want to deal with these guys, because I think that I can do the majority of what they'll be wanting to do. And that's the fun part, because you get to work with your hands on things that go buzz! and whiz! and move and spin and flash. You know, the cool stuff.

Speaking of cool stuff makes me think of uncool stuff. Like getting my brakes checked. Oy. And finding a way to clean out my gearshift. The thing sticks like crazy. I wonder if I could steam it out... I guess I'll just have to find out. Really, what'd be ideal would be if there was a way I could vent the whole thing out the bottom, and then just run hot water over it. The mess inside the car wouldn't be too bad, because the majority would spill onto the ground. We'll see.

Anyway, back to... work? Well, pretending to work. Today's been slow.

I'm alive.

2006-01-06T23:09:00.000-08:00

And well. Just a little tired from all the holiday getting together and stuff.

I'm also stressed because of a car. Since the old one got totalled (has now been sold for a $250 total), I've been looking at new ones. And, it turns out, the nicest, most reliable one I can find is a 99 Acura 3.2TL. Sunroof, navigation, auto-stick, reasonable power, leather, etc. It all seems to be just dandy. We'll see, 'cause the two of them I found are both pretty high miles (123K and 112K).

But, Hondas/Acuras run forever, right?

Right.

And here's the bad boy... except the one I'm leaning toward is black. I really wish that it had an extra gear (comes with a four speed transmission), but the fuel economy is reasonable with either, so it won't really bother me. I don't do enough high-speed cruising to merit the need for an extra speed, I don't think. But, if I get a nicer car, it means I will be taking more trips, since I'll be capable of withstanding the roads for much longer (the seats are quite nice).

Anyway, off to go look at it. It's in Decatur, and I need to try to look it over and give it another drive during daylight hours. The only problem is that my dad is dawdling in Huntsville, and he's supposed to be giving me a ride.

What Dreams May Come

2005-12-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

So, this is the second person I know who's died within a weeks time. The odd thing to say is that he's been closer to me than my grandfather, which really isn't saying a whole lot. But, really, I helped him move into his new house a few months ago, and I remember him lifting stuff to move me into my new house a few years ago.

Unfortunately the stroke put an end to all that. I'm not sad about him, other than that I'll never get to hear him give his prayer of blessing over a meal and "Amen-", a pause, "ok, rear back, jump in, let's eat!" He was a good man, and I know where he is, now. He's singing bass in that choir that he always wanted to join.

We'll miss you, Burl.

A new dawn...

2005-12-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

...rises to meet those who are awake to greet it.

And I was not awake to greet it this morning. I got to bed 'round about 0100hrs, and was going to try to get up @ 0600, but that didn't work, as I either turned off my alarm while still asleep, or ignored it entirely, and so woke up @ 0720, in time to rush out @ 0800 and get to work at my more usual 0830.

Thinking about it, though, there's no reason for me to bust my hump over getting in as many hours as I can... 'cause it's not like I'm going to be able to take a day off or anything, and I can't get more hours than this week is worth, because I'm topped @ 40, since my return date was the 19th. So, I'll work as much as I can to get stuff done, and then I'll be out of here like a puff in the wind.

A post?

2005-12-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

Indeed! A new post!

Well, I'm back at work, and therefore an bored again. Right now I'm waiting for my assignment to come along (i.e. waiting on someone else to finish something up), and decided that I should get back to this thing.

A lot's happened in the last few months, to say the least. My sanity returned, my sense of reason remained relatively intact... and I came out of it all with decent grades! Well, except for 305... That's the one I didn't do any lab reports for at the beginning of the semester, due to a lack of sense. Everything else, miraculously, came out to A's and B's. Thank you, God!

Um... future's uncertain on many counts... seeing as I have only a few weeks before my next semester starts, in which I have three classes (which includes the harder part of senior design), and a rather unforgiving schedule. And, I have no car of my own... which is to say that I totaled the old car. I've told the story a million times so far, and the details get shorter and shorter with every telling until now it's down the bare facts of the matter:

I'm in Hazel Green "joyriding" (it's a misery drive, because I'm contemplating the ramifications of my grandfather's death, more on that below), and am out there on Kinnard Mill Rd. (I only know this now because the 911 office could track my phone using a GPS transmission and placed me on their map), which happens to have a few 90-degree turns in it. Speed limit 40. I'm doing 45, just as oblivious as can be, not a streetlight in sight, not a sign to be seen, and then I see this bend come up. Step on the brakes: bald tires do nothing on the wet road. Twist the wheel, the car probably turns 25 degrees before it hits the first embankment (the side of the road looks like this: ___/*\_/**\__, so there's a smaller embankment, a ditch, a taller/larger embankment, and then a cotton field on the other side).

Fly over the ditch, front passenger side wheel and undercarriage hit the second embankment, the car flips once, smacks the driver's side roof in, and then rolls a second time and lands on the wheels. The windshield on the driver's side is smashed, but still in place, and the driver's side window is smashed, and there's some dangly bits around the edges. The door is wedged shut by the now-ruined front wheel well being bent out of shape, so I knock the glass out with my elbow (Looking back, I'm glad I didn't rip up my nice coat. I like this one a lot.).

I climb out of the car and realize that I don't have my glasses. I start looking for my phone, and a guy I had been talking to earlier calls me after a minute, and I pick up and tell him about it, and then call 911. Talk to the dispatcher, who patches me through to the highway patrol office, who apparently handles incidents in this area. They say it'll be a little while before anybody makes it out there. So I crawl back into my car, pop out my umbrella and cover the broken window with it, and crank up the heat and Alabama Public Radio (100.7 FM), which is broadcasting a rendition of Paganini's Perpetual Motion, done on trumpet, and badly. So I sit and critique this for half an hour or so before the cop gets there, calls me a wrecker and tells me that I don't need a report since I only have liability insurance.

The wrecker takes about an hour and a half to get out there, and when he does, the guy is all by himself and so he has to work the winch while I pull the line out to my car and hook it to the bumper, so it can be pulled out of the mud where it's stuck. It's now been raining pretty hard for a while, and I'm now a G-cicle. That takes half an hour and the ride home in the wrecker takes 45 minutes (including a stop at the Credit Union to withdraw money so I can pay him the exorbitant $150 he charges). We get it home and empty it out, and my dad covers the window with a plastic bad (and not well, either, since it came off the next morning).

That's that... Now, my uncle in Seoul called about an hour before all that started, to tell us that my grandfather was in critical condition and on his deathbed. He's an unrepentant sinner, who, by all counts, has been a lowlife for the majority of his life. I'm not sure exactly what he deserves, or how I should feel about it, since I've only met him once in my memory, and once more when I was too little to remember. Anyway, that's part of what I was thinking about. I was also thinking about the speeding ticket I had gotten the day before when I was speeding down Explorer Blvd. to get to Rosie's on time. If I had been going just a little bit slower, the cop would have let me go, but 20 over is just a little bit much to ignore. He even felt sorry for me, because he said that even he does almost that much over the limit on that road.

And my MP3 player stopped working. And my watch died. What else... Oh yeah! My USB drive disappeared somewhere over that weekend. On a happier note, I'm getting a new watch, and will eventually get a new MP3 player (or figure out a different method for toting my audio around), and am getting a new car, ASAP. If anyone knows of a nice foreign car less than ten years old for under $8,000, let me know. I've looked at a couple vehicles, and the one I like so far is the Acura, TL or RL. What I really want is a new Infiniti G35 sedan, since I think they look enough like a BMW to be awesomely sexy, and they're a more bang-for-the-buck machine than practically any other top-notch vehicle out there. That, and I hear they drive nice.

So that's what's up with me. Just waiting for the holiday season to be over, and hoping that the future doesn't hold any unpleasant surprises for me.

Let me explain to you...

2005-11-20T01:29:00.000-08:00

What this place and this other place have against each other. I suppose it's like putting two cats in a bag: either they're going to claw and scratch and yowl, or they're going to die the attempt.

That's what today would usually have been. Lo and behold, though, and it turns out to be that AU took UA to the cleaners. That offensive team took the UA defensive team and collectively bent them over their metaphoric knee and gave them the proverbial spanking. 10 minutes into the game? Man. I feel crushing defeat being bemoaned by practically all red and white wearers tomorrow, in church.

In other news, I watched my burned copy of Alexander, which I burned while waiting for the opening of Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire to open at midnight. I need to remember to give a copy to R/L, one of the two, to fulfill what word I have spoken and thusly stand by. Maybe I'll get one or the other's number from B and just try to catch up with them at some point. Or maybe I'll have to go to the next history club meeting, which I'm sure they will be in attendance for (I'm rockin' out with the ending sentences in preposition, tonight; watch me butcher good style). Both R and L seemed to be quite the chipper fellowes of both eclecticism and rectalgia (by no means a low blow--in fact, a compliment), and given the opportunity, I'd drag them out or be dragged out by them with little or no hesitation in relation to the company.

And the Coffeetree serves some bloody good coffee. I almost want to try their food, but have no wish for disappointment with the fare of an establishment held already in the nestling arms of high regard. Just a flying shame it is that it's on the wrong end of town. Eh, I have to make my way down to Krispy Kreme at some point this semester, just to hang out with interesting people at some point. Who could I con into doing such a silly thing as acquiescing to that sort of request from this sort of person...?

To the matter, I should inform you of how the movie was:

And Alexander? It doesn't get a box. I'm sure it's a very interesting take on historical facts. Interesting interpretation. You'll have to make your own opinions on this one, because I'm still riding the fence on whether or not it was any good.

It's now officially winter: we used the fireplace, and as I sit here and type this out, I'm frigid. Correction, my toes are frigid. No cold air in the summer, no hot air in the winter. WHAT THE HECK IS OUR AIR CONDITIONING UNIT FOR?! You may see me outside on my own lawn with a sign, protesting the lack of proper temperature control on this side of the house. Need a catchy tune to chant "No more bloody cold!" to.

Pleased and proud of myself, I am. I managed to only call once, and it was appropriate.

Anyway, life is still both boring and interesting... major parts are mostly unchanged. We shall yet live, and become that which we strive for: betterment.

I'm back!

2005-11-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

After several weeks of having neglected my poor blog, I come back to thee, oh mine object of... blogging...

Anyway, apologies for being both too lazy and too busy to post. You see, half the time it was that I had assignments hanging over my head, which I was either fretting about and forgetting, or just forgetting. The other half consisted of lolling about town and making an ass of myself.

Pff, no, not really. I was being lazy, though.

And what's gone down... Well, a few very big papers, which were apparently insufficient in their composition for my dear prof. He wanted us to have lots of diagrams and stuff, and apparently I didn't explain them enough. But, the thing is, explaining them would have required more diagrams, which likely would have pushed me over the limit for the number of diagrams used. So it was a Catch-22 for whether to exceed the number of allowed diagrams, or else go with just a little too little explanation.

I still got a B+, and for 5-6 hours worth of paper-writing, that's pretty blasted good.

Lessee... bought a lot of wine. I got two bottles, and my dad unwittingly got two bottle in the same day. So we had four bottles just kind of sitting there and my mom had a short fit over it. She knows we're not stupid drinkers, we just happen to snatch up wine we'd like when we'd like it. Certainly not going to drink all of it in one day. I mean, I could drain a 1.5 liter bottle, but I wouldn't be able to stand afterward. For that matter, I probably wouldn't be able to see straight either.

But shhh! I bought another bottle because it looked like a really good deal and I've never had Spanish wine before. And Robert Parker (big, well-respected wine critic) gave it 92 puntas, so I figure I can give it a swirl and a sip. It's 80% grenache, which is one that haven't tried yet.

And I shall now commence with the massive of writing of lab reports.

Makes me sound like a weirdo...

2005-11-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	64%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Female cliche	\|\|\|\|	16%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

trait snapshot:
clean, secretive, does not make friends easily, observer, hates large parties, risk averse, perfectionist, reclusive, solitude loving, more practical than abstract, does not like to stand out, high self control, intellectual, mind over heart, very cautious, takes precautions, respects authority, irritable, emotionally sensitive

Ol' Black Water

2005-10-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

The Doobie Brothers

Well, I built me a raft and she’s ready for floatin’
Ol’ mississippi, she’s callin’ my name
Catfish are jumpin’
That paddle wheel thumpin’
Black water keeps rollin’ on past just the same

Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain’t got no worries
’cause I ain’t in no hurry at all

Well, if it rains, I don’t care
Don’t make no difference to me
Just take that street car thats goin’ up town
Yeah, I’d like to hear some funky dixieland
And dance a honky tonk
And I’ll be buyin’ ev’rybody drinks all ’roun’

Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain’t got no worries
’cause I ain’t in no hurry at all

I’d like to hear some funky dixieland
Pretty mama come and take me by the hand
By the hand, take me by the hand pretty mama
Come and dance with your daddy all night long
I want to honky tonk, honky tonk, honky tonk
With you all night long

You! From the UK! WTF?!

2005-10-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Where the heck did you come from?! I mean, come on... I'm a little hurt that there have been more UKers reading my site than my countrymen. Not that I don't love the Brits and Irish. I mean, give me a hot girl with an accent any day (rawr! sexy!), 'cause you know there's nothing more alluring than that Irish lilt, or that high-class-sounding English.

Welsh? Well, we have to draw the line somewhere, don't we?

A little while later, in the lab...

2005-10-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

I might just make a habit of the elipsis in the title of the post.

But I'm actually enjoying my time in the lab... I'm doing almost what I would have done at home, but more productively. More machines at my disposal, and a good many of them with Linux on them. It's great!

On top of that... I'd like a drink. Wine. Something... cabernet. Dark. With lots of very dark cherry. It feels like pinot noir time. And I just finished a few different homeworks, so I'm actually going to go home, whereupon I will indulge in cheap merlot that tastes like cab. Really, it's got a lot of the same characteristics: heavier tannin content, darker flavour, definitely got that whole slightly-bitter thing going on, with a hint of dryness. Good with cheddar, though. I did that night before last.

And tomorrow, my life will be dedicated to getting all the reports I have to get done... done. And Wednesday is paper-writing day. All day. All night. It will likely be a very long evening. C'est la vie de le student.

Good night.

From school

2005-10-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

...I'm getting used to this thing of having several different computers at my fingertips to run different programs on. This way, I have multiple screens, and multiple CPU's to do my bidding, for compiling, testing, and documenting. So, I'm running on three different Fedora core 2 machines, and this one Windows machine so I can use my much-loved mobile Opera set-up and my mobile Trillian.

Yeah, it seems to be that I'm getting hits to this blog from all over the world... For almost no reason. Really... What is this? Who are you and where do you come from? Are you the kind of people that just randomly look at blogs? That's a little creepy, to tell you the truth. Nonetheless, it is a blog, which by definition is open to the public. I just think it's odd.

Anyway, I'm working hard, and hardly working while I'm working hard. I feel a little bit bad for it, but not really.

To be honest...

2005-10-23T15:17:00.001-07:00

I'm a little confused about the state of the world. Yesterday, I was in something of a haze. You can ask Katie, she was there. There were a few times I just went out into space and stayed there. Like at Cafe Baba, I was staring at what I realized was the coffee/pricelist on the wall, but our waiter/server/annoying guy apparently stepped in front of that. So it turns out that he had been calling "Can I help you? Do you need anything?" a few times before I woke up from Lala Land and realized he was talking to me.

And, I'm praying for Katie, because she's a sweet girl who might have heart problems. Let's just hope that whatever it was before was just a fluke. Light reflected off of Venus illuminated a pocket of swamp gas.

But, I've got to tell about the symphony. After a pretty nasty double shot of espresso, we head over to Trinity Methodist, right? Beautiful sanctuary, I'm so glad that the symphony and the Music Guild get to use it. Great acoustics. Go in, listen to Brandenburg Concerto #5, and it's great. Harpsichordist busts out some mad skills, the principal flutist had great tone and sounded wonderful, as well as the concertmaster. And then comes on Ms. Saylor. I don't know a whole lot more about her besides that she's blind, short, a little rotund, and plays the piano as if it's an extension of her fingers. I mean, she went through Mozart's 24th symphony by memory, and flawlessly; with great dignity, gentleness, and with a flowing grace. The encore that she played after a standing ovation was Clare De Lune (I think that's how it's spelled, and I'm too lazy to look it up), and THAT was my favorite piece of the evening.

The next piece that wasn't on the agenda, though, was crap. By some Estonian composer, it was some sort of awful "mood music" with simplistic chords and little or no movement. It had all the life and animation of a dead sea-cucumber. That one just got me really boiled up. I didn't want to hear it, and want to erase it from my memory.

But sat and chatted with friends for a while afterward, and then went home.

This morning, I find that it's the day of my church's 106th anniversary, and so I have to play the whistle in church. Whoopee. Got to hear lots of good singing, have some good food, etc.

But, I'm getting to the part that has me confused, now. The confusing part is B. She's not given me a straight answer about the non-physical questions, i.e. the things that aren't concrete and earthly in nature. And now... I don't know if I should stop caring or not. It'd likely be more healthy for me, but would it be abandoning her? Could I do it? I don't know. There's another sappy romantic out there without an ounce of realism in him, and he's gotten to that point after only a few months, where it took me a year and some to get there. I hope something decisive happens, soon.

Christmas Eve will be 6 months. That's my deadline. No action by then... we'll just have to see. That's not all that far away.

I'm off to nap and be confused.

Help! Help!

2005-10-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Shared memory is eating me alive! Help!

Yeah, went and got a 4-pack of Starbucks Doubleshots today, along with a 4-pack of Monster... And the Doubleshots are okay. They taste good, but they're a little bit too premium for my tank. I'm too used to having a Monster just kind of jolt me into wakefulness, being able to suck down enough caffeine and Energy Blend(tm) to give my nervous system a swift kick and a prayer.

Now, I'm living off bad sleep, caffeine, and a vague hope that I could probably describe better when lucid and alert.

Back to work with you!

Yet another Monday...

2005-10-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Passing me by like so many other Mondays have before it. Only, this one needs to be filled with all kinds of work, the like of which are not likely to be needed again. This week, at least. It may take a little bit of a late night tonight to get the Operating Systems program working, simply because I'm not the execl() king. I can fork, but my forking's not so experienced. Anyone want to teach me to fork well? Any takers? Fork me, please!

And Leif, if you're out there, get your act together and contact me, you lazy cracker!

That's only one of a few things looming large over my head. I've got the 10 page paper due not this Tuesday, but next Tuesday, the 5-10 page paper due Nov 1, and this Operating Systems lab which isn't really that bad, but is rather time consuming to someone unused to programming in parallel. But, I had good wings for lunch, and went to eat N-man and B, and that was fun. Apparently GaTech has its fall break today and tomorrow. Go Techies.

Stayed up way too late last night, and so I'm going to need some Monster to wake me up in a minute. Actually, I should go now before I drop dead.

...bye...

So there's this movie, right?

2005-10-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

... and it's in French, okay? And I'm watching it? And I can catch every other short sentence pretty well, but my French sucks pretty badly. But anyway, I just want to say "Love Me If You Dare" was at the very least an interesting French film.

I've not gotten all the way through it, yet... I'm right at halfway through it, but I had to stop it, to go take care of some stuff... practice a little music, you know.

Speaking of music, I'm going to have to tell you about our "Friend Day" at church. Now the concept of a Friend Day at a church is not foreign to me. There's usually at least one weekend a year where the church staff will look at the congregation and go, "Go get some friends, this place looks like it needs some new faces, if just the once." And so the usual suspects comply and bring whatever friends they have the courage to pull along with them to the services.

This year, Friend Day happens to be the day on which the church is paying to have the Burchfield Brothers come and have a little concert. Now, I'd heard of the Burchfield Brothers only through the church, because they're not exactly mainstream type music. They came a few years ago and did some entertainment for our annual Christmas banquet. Everyone who went who was under the age of 30 said that they were... good musicians. They were really good at what they did. One of the brothers is a guitarist, the other is a mallet-player (a xylophone player, who plays on an electronic pad). The guitarist plays classical/Spanish style guitar, and the xylophonist is obviously pretty good at what he does, as well. But the thing is... as solo entertainment, they fall a little bit short of being entirely entertaining to a wide audience.

And they're Yankees. Goodness gracious, but these guys tried to convince us that they're really from Tennessee, but they moved way too early in their lives to be any kind of Southerners. They haven't got either the sound or the mannerism. The brother who spoke the most sounded like he should have been on John DiLoberto's "Echoes" (If you've never listened to NPR late at night, you don't know what you're missing. Not that you'll necessarily like it, but you should listen, just to make sure you know what they play while you're asleep because you're asleep). I mean, New Age? He was a hippie in Southern clothing.

But, they were good musicians, and I very much enjoyed some of the songs that they did.

And today... I'm Johnny Cash: The Man in Black. For no reason, I pulled out my black shirt (my only really black button-down shirt, because the rest have faded to grey), black undershirt, black slacks, and everything else black and put it on. I look either like I'm going to a wake, or to an event where Euro-style is in. This is what I need: Another 4 of these shirts, another 4 of these pants, and then another 5 white shirts of the same type. I'll alternate the shirts every day, and I'll be the most boring, if snappy, dresser. Friends will bore of my mundane and very regular dressing habits.

Get out of my head!

2005-10-14T02:25:00.000-07:00

ROB THOMAS LYRICS

Lonely No More

Now it seems to me
That you know just what to say
Words are only words
Can you show me something else
Can you swear to me that you'll always be this way
Show me how you feel
More than ever baby

[Chorus:]
I don't wanna be lonely no more
I don't wanna have to pay for this
I don't want to know the lover at my door
Is just another heartache on my list

I don't wanna be angry no more
You know I could never stand for this
So when you tell me that you love me know for sure
I don't want to be lonely anymore

Now its hard for me with my heart still on the mend
Open up to me, like you do your girlfriends
And you sing to me and it's harmony
Girl, what you do to me is everything
Make me say anything; just to get you back again
Why can we just try

[Chorus:]
I don't wanna be lonely no more
I don't wanna have to pay for this
I don't want to know the lover at my door
Is just another heartache on my list

I don't wanna be angry no more
You know I could never stand for this
So when you tell me that you love me know for sure
I don't want to be lonely anymore

What if I was good to you, what if you were good to me
What if I could hold you till I feel you move inside of me
What if it was paradise, what if we were symphonies
What if I gave all my life to find some way to stand beside you

[Chorus:]
I don't wanna be lonely no more
I don't wanna have to pay for this
I don't want to know the lover at my door
Is just another heartache on my list

I don't wanna be angry no more
You know I could never stand for this
So when you tell me that you love me know for sure
I don't want to be lonely anymore

I don't wanna be lonely anymore [x3]

Dazed.

2005-10-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

And confused. Don't really know what's going on, but doing my best to roll with it. I wish I were a better actor.

In other news, it seems as if this semester has heated up much more quickly than most other terms have, in reference to the amount of work that seems to have amassed. In previous semesters, there's just not enough work to have amassed before the end of the term draws near, but it seems that this semester there's been not just enough work, but more than enough, so that the end-of-semester scurrying has gotten here early, and I'll probably be doing that for a good long while.

Operating Systems, which is perhaps the most over-hyped class in the world, is simply infuriating. There's very few real concepts to grasp, and I'm sure they're very simple, but I find absolutely no enlightenment in Dr. Kulick's lectures. They're spotted with some idiot's questions that throw the class into a completely different track for a good five minutes, and even when Kulick gets back to the matter at hand, he doesn't communicate this stuff clearly. Not that he's not a decent communicator, at least, but he seems to be more a stickler for the details than the kind of prof who teaches things in the correct way for students to grasp the subject: with first a broader generalization, and then debunking of whatever misconceptions come along with that. People need to know what they're dealing with as a whole before they know all the idiosyncrosies of the subject.

And then senior design... I dunno about that. Dr. Wells seems like a really good engineer. You can tell because his clothes all look slept in, all of his mannerisms point to someone who has to do a lot more paperwork than he likes, and he knows a lot about his subject matter. And he's always moving. The guy isn't spastic, but he does seem to have a lot of pent up energy. And he gives what he deems to be appropriate assignments, and to be entirely truthful, they're not that bad. Just time consuming. That class takes up the majority of the time I have to spend here at school (I'm typing this from the PC lab in the engineering building, by the way).

Watched a lot more X-files last night than I have... well, in my entire life, really. And I have to try to understand this situation: She thought I was waiting for her to go home... but the thing is, could she be right without my knowing? At the time, I was thinking, "I didn't have any intentions, and certainly no idea when I was going to leave...", but could it be that my tricksy subconscious was telling me in that little hoarse whisper, "Wait for it... wait for it..." Possible. But, I didn't intend to do it that way. I figured most of us would clear out at about the same time, anyway.

And I'm thinking that someone needs a flash drive. 'cause if you've got a flash drive, you can put OperaUSB on it...

And, I want a Razr. My phone just looks bulky in comparison, now, and not nearly so sexy or easy to carry. That and even the holster for the razr looks so much better. Grr. The thing is, to get one at a reasonable price would require a long service agreement with some carrier that likely has terrible service in several respects, but hooks people with these really great phones. Cingular's got a thing right now where you can get one for free... after $150 of rebates. That's a lot of money to throw into the pot to pull it out in a few months. We'll see. I may like having my own plan, but then, do I really want to have to plan that I have to pay for? Would it be worth the phone? Maybe. Just maybe.

2005-10-10T02:28:00.000-07:00

I'm really a psycho... I can't watch TV for a long period of time, because unless it's something informing me of something about which I didn't already know, it bores me. Reruns are only good if they're awesome, and awesome isn't a regular occurance in modern television.

You know what's weird? Have you ever looked in your closet and thought, "You know, if I just went out and bought a whole bunch of the same outfit that I really like that's really versatile, and wore that every day, I'd simplify practically everything in my my life..." That thought crossed my mind today, as I bought a pair of jeans identical to the pair of jeans I bought about a week ago, at the same place, for the same price. What can I say, I like the fit.

And king Tuankhamen was killed by a broken leg and chest wounds. Go figure.

Had too much wine Saturday...

Lifted too much heavy furniture Saturday...

Didn't sleep like I needed to before Sunday...

Must go to bed...

So tired...

2005-10-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

I spent the day helping some older people move. They're in their early 60's, so they've... accumulated a lot of stuff. They had a pretty large house, big ground level, and then a full basement and garage level. It was jam-packed, too.

Usually, a normal move job will take until lunch, or maybe one load after lunch, but this job... This one took all day, and still wasn't finished, and that was with the usual crew. There's the church moving crew, that includes a small group of folks that are always at the ready to help someone with some physical labor, and since I've been in high school, I've been on that team. Picking up items of furniture, moving them around corners, packing them as tightly as geometrically possible: all my game. Yeah, according to my old Sunday School teacher, Packmaster the Mighty.

And I have to go back and hook up their stereo sometime Monday. That's gonna suck, but not too badly, since I don't mind the work. It's just going all the way out there that's going to stink.

And, I wanted to hang out with people tonight. Or at least be there while other people were haning out. I really wanted to get away from my dad, who has been nagging me for conversation all day, and who I begrudge a little for making me work all day, when I had intended to go to UAH and get some work done. Oh well.

Fingers tired and raw... Must go rest... No, play whistle, then guitar, then rest...

Ever feel...

2005-10-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Like you need a glass of wine? Interesting thing... Last night I was really craving one. Instead, I poured a thimble of Irish creme and watered it way down with milk and ice and drank that. Trying to cut back on all the alcohol that has helped me sleep for the last weeks. It'd be a terrible thing if I had "cold turkey" symptoms, so I'm going to moderate at no more than two glasses in the evening.

That'll be difficult, though, because I recently went to Great Spirits and picked up two bottles of wine. One is kind of a novelty, an October wine from... Rumania. Not just any part of Rumania, but Transylvania. Apparently, Plato called Transylvanian wine the best in the world. I'm not sure where they have that recorded, but apparently it's well enough documented that they're willing to put it on their label. Anyway, I got a 2003 Vampire pinot noir, a popular one. It's the most abundant one coming out of Rumania, and while it's not a huge exporter, it's not that small either. Of course, this stuff does go through Beverly Hills before arriving anywhere, so it's obviously been through the marketing machine, but I've heard that it's at least reasonable, so we'll have to see.

I figure that after I get really familiar with single varieties of wine, I'll move into varietals, and then into blends. We'll see. Still up on the list are merlot and chianti. They will be sampled in time. Just wait, my pretty, you'll see...

And, I now want to invest in a wine cabinet/refrigerator. Need something to keep the stuff at a low enough temperature to keep it from aging too far while in the house. Not that the pantry isn't cool, but it's certainly not in that ideal 10-13 degrees Celcius range that it's recommended for that kind of thing. Anyone who's up for drinking wine with me, let me know. I'm almost always up for it. It's a good social experience. I feel like a snot writing about this stuff like I know it from long years of experience, but there's lots of people for the last several millenia who have found these truths to be evident upon experimentation, and thus I will follow their lead and chill my wine while storing, and upon recorking, refrigerate once more.

You know what'd be really cool? A wine-tasting at UAH. Really, there'd be a lot of people turn out, charge 'em $2-5, give them each a few tickets for glasses of wine, and let them loose. Heck, if you required pre-registration and prior payment, you could find exactly how much to get, and whatever's leftover, pocket or donate. UAH Wine Club... dues due in advance. Hmm... not a bad idea... put in the constitution that excessive drinking will not be permitted, and designated drivers will be assigned.

Gosh, that'd be pretty cool. All in favor?

But, I've got lots to do for the second part of this senior design thing. It'll take a little while, and I've just wasted a few hours sitting here and looking at stuff, doing nothing. Oh well. At least the time was wasted to my satisfaction.

Salut!

To whom it may concern:

2005-10-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

It turns out that some people happen to have had the luxury of a lot more information being handed to them than I've had. And to whom it may concern, the knowledge of things that happen and have happened is a luxury which is requisite for peace of mind. I have reformed of invading because I realize the ethics involved. The thing is, though, since there were shady ethics involved in keeping me in the dark, I don't find it to be anything other than right to know the truth, as it concerns my future.

No ownership over and person is declared or implied, but the hope that had been allowed me required substantiation, and thus concerned me in the manner in which I should ignore certain goings-on. After finding the truth as it is in real life, I can rest with what knowledge was gained, and cease inquiry. If truth was gained in the first place, it wouldn't have necessitated more drastic measures. Not denying the fallacy of my actions, I can only deny the unfairness of my actions: You knew about me; I still don't know about you. My invasion of privacy is only perceived, because contrary to possibility, most communication was well guarded and therefore not worth the effort to crack. The one instance of information gained by underhanded means was, in fact, the only instance.

It's unfortunate that acquaintances have such enmity against me-- acquaintances whose relationship with me I had no illusions about. In the spirit of being a Godly person, I did my damnedest to show this person the love of God as should be demonstrated through me, and sadly, I must have failed with such grace as is befitting of bricks. For that, I apologize as humbly and sincerely as you can force yourself to believe. In the spirit of fairness and sensitivity to others' wishes, I'll keep my distance.

Sincerely,
G

Discussion time.

2005-10-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

OK, tech-goodie talk:

So a kind benefactor who didn't realize that his device would only take MMC cards, not MMC/SD cards, kindly handed to me a 512 MB Secure Digital card. Now, I use a very similar card in my camera, so for the moment, I've got a whole gig in two separate postage-stamp sized packages. Now, this makes me itch, because for the longest time I've loved my Konica-Minolta Z1, but it just hasn't satisfied in a few areas. I'd like image stabilization, but mostly I'd like portability.

The rough and tough Z1 is about 3/4 the size of my fist, and while that's not small, it's not pocket-sized. What I really like is what I got my parents for Christmas last year: Their Canon SD300. See, that thing runs on a good 4 MP, and has darn good image quality, and the thing fits anywhere. If dime bags were that small, I can guarantee that there'd be more people stuffing crack up their butts on their way from Columbia. But really, I have carried it in my pocket, and there is no lie in the statement that I didn't notice it. Maybe when I sat down I thought, "Oh, there's something in my pocket." Not like if I did (could) put my Z1 in my pocket, if I sat down I'd think, "Good God in heaven, I pray that I don't lose my leg to all the shards of the recently shattered camera in my pocket. Ouch ouch ouch ouch."

So, that one I could take everywhere and I would probably be the kind of guy that photo-blogs. Maybe just for a week, because I'd get tired of taking pictures of the same old thing over and over again, but you never know, my life might get more interesting. Oy, but I hope not. I hope for exciting things, and things that make people smile, and things that make you smile because you want to, not because the rictus of your grin must be presented to a waiting audience of people who don't need to know you want to rip out their jugulars. That would be terrible.

But, the whole point of that is this: I want a Canon SD400.

Most discussion:

Now, it's been a bit since I've seen a movie. It used to be that I'd see a movice at least once a week. It'd be once a week that I had someone to watch a movie with. Now, that's changed a bit, and I'm needing to find time&&place&&person to watch a movice (with). Right now I have a movie sitting before me, burned from the original that was rented, since I believe having paid for it what I would have paid for it in another year or so, I might as well retain my own copy and save the intervening time. It's A Very Long Engagement. My sister enjoyed it, and as such I'm now leery of it, but I have heard that it's a very good movie.

On top of that, I'd also like to see Cold Mountain. I know the music in it was pretty good, and the thing boasts and all-star cast, with several actors impersonating people with accents that they, as actors, must attempt to immitate with whatever amount of success is given them by God's divine gift of vocal chords. It won awards, it got nominations, and the experts think highly of it, so I feel that it should be on my list of movies to at least encounter once. Looking forward to some Nicole Kidman goodness.

And then there's the schoolwork that I have to deal with... I've got a test Tuesday that's apparently composed of the sort of thing nightmares are made of... once again, the sort of thing upperclassmen scare lowerclassmen with. Heck, the prof even said she gives difficult tests. This all amounts to what? Shooting for the B, yessir, that's what I'm doing. Dr. GD (Gaede is really her name, but really, GD seems to fit her personality rather well, if not her figure) can stuff her one A in the class, and do it with such finnesse that it's an elegant stuffing, but I don't really care as I come out of these notorious classes with decent grades.

Senior design promises to be more work than I want to put into it, being that we have to get through something like 150 pages of absolutely useless tutorials to get an FPGA to work. The FPGA is a really cool device, and I see a highly adaptable form of it becoming a very very powerful tool in the future. One of those things with as many transistors as a Pentium 4, that'd be enough to implement several lower-spec processors and peripherals. And they'd be freakin' configurable... Just imagine, you have a program that has all of its computation statistics up front, and the processor reconfigures itself for a heavy ALU load, with speedy memory prefetching 30 instructions ahead, per program definition. Would that not be awesome? Well, only to geeks, I guess.

Just remembered: Stewie! The newest Family Guy DVD looks like it'll be hilarious, and so I must watch it. I must! Lives depend on it! Yours! Now get it for me!

OK, so I need to just up the number of DVD's in my collection. That's what Christmas is for, right? Right. That's what I'll do: Ask for nothing but DVD's, and hope for 4 of them.

So now that I'm off the discussion of tech stuff, I'll say that last night was mostly cool. The pool hall would have been okay, without the smoke and the people ignoring me. Right, right, you have to make first contact if you're going to make any contact, but they were... well, they were the ones smoking, and to be quite honest, it was an effort not to blow in their faces and shout, "Goodness gracious, I can see your tonsils, and they're on fire and screaming like dying frogs!"

But, we left there and went to Buffalo Wild Wings, which is not the best place for wings, although definitely not the worst place I've ever been. They had a nice and light little pinot grigio, a Bella Serra, and it was just that: nice, light. Fruity. No heavy taste at all. Apparently, it was a little dry, but also apparently, I'm not a very good judge of dryness. I can taste a lot of things, but my dryness scale isn't linear. Near the middle, It's all kinda blurry, and the marks are pretty close together, so I'm not good at discriminating the "Just a little bit sweet/dry," but when it gets out toward the outliers, it turns out that I've tasted much drier, and much sweeter than most people, and remember it. Maybe not most people, but enough people that it's always me who says, "No, not that dry. Just kinda dry."

And BS may well be angry at me. She'll get over it, after blowing cigarette smoke in my face, I'm not inclined to acquiesce to her wishes for me to feel bad about it.

C'est la vie d'G. La vie est ne fin, c'est bon.

Presently, a nap shall be taken. [Lavar Burton on Reading Rainbow]We'll see you-- next time.[/Lavar]

Werd.

2005-09-30T02:41:00.000-07:00

Chardonnay. Stonestreet. Not sweet. Not "Very Dry," but definitely at least "Dry." I kinda like it, but B doesn't, and neither does her mom. It makes my cheeks red, and goes to my head more than most, which is saying a lot for a white wine. So, I like it.

And I hope that the fingertips of my left hand callous over soon... this guitar practicing with tender fingertips is killer. And I'm only going through a handful of chords. Oh well.

There's distressing news from different directions. It's all very... confusing. And I've got sleep to get. Good night, all.

I'm through!

2005-09-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

...with the emo crap!

I am over it. I may be anxiety-ridden and panic-prone, but gosh-darnit, I am not going to keep doing this! It's been too long, and I've been eating my vitamins for a long time, so I know I'm a big kid now.

And I found a little '98 chardonnay for under $20 than I want. I'll go back for it tomorrow.

I'm well, and as such will supply points of interest: