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January 15, 2008 - It's been a year

Look, here's the deal. I haven't updated here in a year. My POTD is three months out of date. Various parts of my site say that I'm in my last semester, or that I'm looking to get a job when I graduate. It's pretty obvious that this place is in more than a little bit of disrepair.

Why? Lots of reasons. I spend twelve hours a day looking at a monitor. I don't have interesting activities going on much anymore. I don't feel like it's worthwhile to report on the small number of interesting things that do happen. I've got a bunch of personal stuff going on that I'd rather not discuss here. But most of all, I'm lazy. I just don't have the willpower or the motivation to create stuff for the site anymore.

Okay, great. So what now? I'm not sure, to be honest. I'm not going to take this down; I still use it for pictures, and I might come up with stuff to put here occasionally. I truly do have things that I'd like to do, but it just may not be feasible in the near future.

In conclusion, yes, I'm still alive, and no, I'm not going to be any better about maintaining this.

Thanks for reading.

January 15, 2007 - Ski trip: Success!

It's been a week, but it's taken me that long to gather pictures from everyone, honest. Astoundingly, twenty-five people went on a ski trip to Colorado (mostly hanging around at Copper Mountain, where I personally skied for three-and-a-half days) and no one came back broken. Heck, there weren't even any horrendous falls, though there were plenty of hilarious falls.

But without further ado, I present the 290 pictures of the trip, accessible via the newly-created photo gallery. The are plenty of my personal favorites of course, but have a look through all of them!

Needless to say, the trip was an absolute blast. Great people, great place, great skiing. I definitely don't want to be back at work.

Until the next update...

December 31, 2006 - Year in review

Looking back, you can see a time when I was much better about updating this. There were no multi-month lapses, no POTD's running out. So what happened? Meh, it's a combination of things. I got a job, so school stopped happening. In turn, that means that club meetings, classes, projects, and the general excitement and buzz that surrounds college (and yes, there is some buzz even in Ames) are no longer happening. Instead, I have work, which ... is insanely boring to talk about. Also, no one would really understand most of it, even fewer people would really care, and even then, I probably can't actually talk about it anyways! Oh yeah, and I moved eighteen hundred miles, which implies a new set of friends and more, all of which takes time to adjust to. In short, I simply have fewer interesting things to write about. And after I come home from work, where I sit in front of a monitor for eight, ten, twelve hours, the last thing I want to do is sit down and type up something, when that feels an awful lot like work itself. So, in short, you shouldn't expect much from the site; not that you ever should have in the first place. This may be the point where it has long since jumped the shark. I have no plans to get rid of it or anything, but ... yeah.

With that said, let's take a recap of some of the things that happened this year!

• I was the lucky recipient of several visitors! Among them were Kristi, Pete, James, Meredith, and Emily... Always a good time!
• I left Shadow out of his crate a couple times. Chalk that up to a "learning experience".
• I came to some revelations about myself. I still haven't worked my way completely through them, but I'm working on it.
• I had a(nother) mishap involving reverse gear. Another learning experience.
• There was a major shift at work. I was re-org'ed into another team, doing different things, under a different manager.
• Unrelated to that (at least mostly), I found myself in a general dissatisfaction with my job. I'm not sure why or how to fix it yet.
• I took trips to Colorado, Cayman, Florida, Florida again, Ames, and Chicago. Most of those were vacation, and they were all very, very good trips.
• Parts of America finally came to their collective senses and voted a change of power into our government. God knows it couldn't have gotten any worse, so maybe the new Congress will actually do some good things.
• Related to that, I discovered a very deep-seated apathy within myself. This was triggered by the extreme political polarization of absolutely everything, and the general media onslaught that pervades our daily lives.
• Seattle, and most of western Washington state, lost power for about four days in the week before Christmas. In some places it was as much as a week, though I was lucky and got my power back within 24 hours.

August 8, 2006 - Heading out

Check it out, it's only been slightly more than a week. Oh, and I fixed my picture of the day. Great, now that's out of the way.

The big news is that I'm headed out to Florida tomorrow! Well, Wednesday technically, as I'm leaving at about 6am. I'll be hanging out with Pete, Scott, Casie, and one person-to-be-named-later, lazing about in the sun and generally being a bum. It's going to be rough, of course. Getting there may not be so pleasant, as tomorrow is going to be about ten hours at work, followed by a Mariners game (with rockin' fourth-row tickets, courtesy of Brad), then straight to the airport where I'm hoping to fly standby on Pete's midnight flight. So hopefully you'll hear back from me in six days or so, with a slew of new pictures.

In the meantime, it's a matter of getting to 6pm tomorrow. See you in a week.

July 31, 2006 - Right, this again

So, a brief summary of the last two-plus weeks:

• Work has been insane. As an example, I was there until 2am Thursday, then ten hours again Friday. Oy. Our entire team has basically been doing the software equivalent of fighting fires for a couple weeks now. It's been tense and frustrating, and it's really getting old. Of course, once this passes, we get to work on the stuff that we should have been working on for the last two weeks. Groan again.
• Last weekend, I went with the neighbors up to some little river an hour north of here. It was quite amusing to hang out with people that I would never hang out with otherwise, but hey. I got briefly acquainted with the subculture of Nascar, big trucks, cheap beer, and general redneckery. I must say that I simply don't understand it. But that's okay, they probably don't understand me either. Interesting experience all around.
• Oh, and I got ridiculously sunburned at said river. The last three days have basically sucked whenever I'm sitting, laying down, or walking. For those of you keeping score, that's a high percentage of the time.
• And the heat has finally stopped, which means I no longer have to sleep on the couch. Huzzah.
• This weekend was pretty sweet too, with my first-ever paintball match (which absolutely rules, I highly recommend it) and my first round of golf in over a year. The golf was ... interesting, to say the least. Four solid holes played in a downpour, and about ten played in bright sunshine. I scored two pars and a twelve, and just about everything in-between. I'm exhausted.
• But most importantly, maybe you've heard a little something about the middle east. I really want to type up another You're All Wrong article about it. We shall see.

May 18, 2006 - Visitors!

I've been absent from here for a bit, but I have a good reason: Three very awesome people flew all the way to Seattle to visit Schneek and me! Emily, Kristi, and Meredith got up at 3am on a Saturday, and basically had a non-stop good time in Seattle until their all-too-soon departure Tuesday afternoon. A brief and incomplete summary of things we did include:

May 8, 2006 - Oops

A couple "oops"es to report. First, I let my picture-of-the-day get out of hand. Sorry about that; it's fixed now.

And the big oops: This past week, they were power-washing the outside of my apartment complex. I ended up having a small run-in with one of their tools, as you can see:

April 25, 2006 - Yet another week with no update

Yeah, yeah, I have a website. I know.

To start with, that trouble with people I mentioned? Meh, I'm (mostly) over it. I think it was a combination of being tired and cranky, along with my periodic cycles of wanting to change things I can't control, then getting frustrated when I can't. It's so much easier to just remove myself from the situation, is all. I think I may just end up taking my father's advice after all (audience groans) and try not to be reliant on anyone else for much of anything. Yes, that's all very vague. I don't plan on calling anyone specific out on this.

So what else? The past couple weeks at work have been pretty busy, which is kind of nice. Because of where we are in our cycle though, they're also pretty high-pressure. When you screw up, people let you know in pretty direct terms. That's a lesson I've learned a couple times. It's a delicate balance between "do it quick" and "do it right", and one that I've come up on the wrong side of recently. As with most things, I think this is just something I have to feel out a couple of times. It's no big deal either way, really.

Pete and Chad have found their way out here; Pete with Microsoft, and Chad with Avanade. It's already been pretty cool having them out here; we hung out pretty much all weekend, which included a poker game and my first bowling in forever. Bowling was a blast, until the next morning; I didn't eat much on Saturday, and then adding beverages to the bowling made Sunday morning not very pleasant. But that's okay, as it was still an awesome weekend altogether. It'll be great to have the two of them out here, and their timing is great since we're just starting to get some decent weather! With any luck, outdoorsy activities will be possible from now until October. That's not to say that I'll do them, of course, since the 360 is still humming along nicely!

Oh, and of course mister Shadow has been a good dog. Notice that's "has been", not "is". See, this morning on our walk, he wandered off like he usually does and found a luscious dead, rotting fish to roll around in. So he came back to me covered in the single most revolting odor I've ever experienced, and he was extremely proud of himself. One bath, forty minutes, and three shampoo cycles later, he still smelled like old trout. My apartment reeks, my hands reek, and my dog reeks. I'm really hoping that another couple washes tomorrow will help, but I'm not holding my breath. Pun intended.

That's about all, I think. I'll update this again when ... well, when I update it. Who knows when that'll be.

April 16, 2006 - People

Without going into a whole lot of detail or naming a whole lot of names, I have absolutely had it with people. People in general, people in groups, people by themselves; it makes no difference, I'm equally sick of all of them. Maybe I'm just too tired or cranky or old recently, but all I can see is the selfishness of individuals and absolute stupidity of groups. It's practically made me ready to lock my front door and write off the rest of the world. I never understood the people who thought this way, but I'm starting to.

And no, this does not mean I'm pissed at you. If you're reading this, odds are you're not involved.

March 22, 2006 - Welcome Back (or) Holy Cayman Pictures, Batman!

I have returned from the glory and paradise that is Grand Cayman, and arrived once again in the cold, rainy, generally depressing Seattle area. I'm wondering why I didn't just "accidentally" miss my flight, and convince the thirteen others to do the same.

Needless to say, the place is basically paradise. It was amazing. Thirteen of my best friends, some old, some new, an awesome amount of diving, drinking, and generally just being on vacation. I can safely say that this is the single best vacation I've taken. Words do very little justice to the entire experience, so perhaps the 2308 pictures that were taken will do slightly better. I hope to go through and categorize them a little bit more in the coming weeks, but no promises. Oh, and I trumped up the pictures now, so you can see them page by page. Hopefully this will make the experience much better.

Also needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted from the trip. The eighteen-plus hours of return travel were not kind to me. So I'll be heading to bed, and hopefully you'll be looking at those pictures... for a long, long time.

March 14, 2006 - Real quick

So it's three in the morning, and in a little over an hour, I leave to go to Grand Cayman with the ISU Scuba Club for a week of diving, beaches, and generally being lazy to the max. In a word, it's going to be awesome. Of course, that's assuming that I finish packing in the next hour.

So don't expect to hear from me in the next ten days; although that's not really different than normal, now is it?

February 5, 2006 - Another hodgepodge

Yikes; what to write about? There have been so many things recently that I have wanted to write something about, plus a couple old standbys that I've been meaning to get out also. I've also wanted to do a couple things around the site as well, and have been too deep in my standard combination of busy and lazy to actually *do* any of it. Standard procedure. So, you get a compromise instead: this particular entry will be a hodgepodge of miscellany, and then hopefully I'll write up something more meaningful about a few subjects soon. So...

Remember how I said I was busy? Yeah, that's because of work. Giant surprise, I know, but it's still something of an adjustment for me, coming from school to this "job" where I'm now supposed to devote the greater part of my time and effort. But the good news is that work has started to be borderline enjoyable sometimes! I guess I feel like I've just been tolerating the job thus far, mostly because I've been so ridiculously confused. But, seven months later, I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on things. I'll occasionally answer a question, instead of just asking them. I'll complete entire bug fixes without needing to consult anyone else. And the help that I do ask of my teammates is much more "help me understand this", instead of "I don't know anything; help me". It's a very nice feeling, even if it is long overdue.

I've never been much on New Year's resolutions and all that, but I like the idea of self-improvement and all that business. I noticed that I was watching a lot of sports on TV and not really enjoying it; really, the only reason it was on was out of habit. I even have a TV card in one of my computers, hooked to a monitor that's always on. So I figured I could do something about that, and am proud to say that I've since turned largely away from ESPN and have started watching a lot of the Discovery and History channels. That seems like a small, silly thing, and maybe it is, but it's a big shift in my TV habits, and I'm quite happy with it.

And right after mentioning that I've shied away from sports, I think I'll talk about the Superbowl. Aside from not having any terribly engrossing commercials, it was a pretty poor game for the first half. I'm pretty ticked about the game, also; for one thing, I think Seattle outplayed Pittsburgh by an awful lot, and have nothing to show for it. The Steelers had exactly three good plays in the entire game, and somehow ended up getting a score out of all of them. And then every time Seattle was driving or had a big play, there was some bogus call thrown in to stop them. See the "offensive pass interference" that killed a touchdown, and the "holding" that killed a thirty-yard pass to the one yard line. Oh, and Hasselbeck getting called for a "chop block" during a tackle. Absolute garbage. I really thought this was going to be the kick that actually got Seattle some credibiity. Oh well.

And lastly, I may have quite a lot of videogames to talk about soon. No thanks to Microsoft, Circuit City, or the Seattle area in general, I have an Xbox 360 on the way! Extreme amounts of props to Scott for finding and shipping that bad boy to me. So starting about Thursday, I don't think I'll leave my apartment again anytime soon.

Hooray, that's it for now. Hopefully some actual entries coming soonish.

January 26, 2006 - Another long time without an update. Oops.

So, what's been going on since last time, when I put up ski pictures and all that business? A couple things:

First, I had a pretty crazy weekend; I managed to have three friends come at the same time! Kristi and Pete both had interviews with Microsoft, and James decided to take a couple weeks off before starting his big new job, and I somehow was lucky enough to be on his list of stops. So, along with Brad, Steph, and Jason, we all had a great time, which included a Friday night dinner complete with setting off the fire alarm, a hopeless wandering through Seattle where I got ridiculously lost, and a "raging" Saturday night party that was a hilariously great time all around. With a crowd like that, I've been catching my breath ever since.

Beyond that, I've trumped up my new pictures section slightly; it's not a huge improvement, and you probably won't believe me when I say it's taken me about three nights to do, but it was bugging me enough that I had to change it. If you're clever enough to spot the difference, let me know. It's not very obvious, but I think it's an improvement.

Yeah, that's about it. Annie linked this article on religion, which I found interesting. Be warned, it's got lots of unnecessarily big words and you might well fall asleep reading it, but it's interesting nonetheless. Cheers until I actually write another update.

January 14, 2006 - Ski pictures and more!

In a moment of brilliance -- or a rare time I wasn't lazy -- I actually did something! I've made a photo gallery system that's much, much improved over my old one, and I put up about a thousand pictures into it. Most notable are the pictures from the ski trip I just went on. And if you'd like to check out Marie and Mindy's visit or last year's Spring Break, you can certainly do that too.

That's all for now; enjoy the pictures!

January 11, 2006 - Back!

I've been lazy about updating this, but it's official; I have returned. And surprisingly, I have returned intact! Matter of fact, of twenty people on the trip, not a single one of us came away with any major injuries. One almost got arrested, and another slid a couple hundred feet down the hill on her face, but you'll have those sorts of things. I had a couple pretty good wipeouts myself: Once I accidentally went down a black-diamond mogul run in zero-visibility conditions, which led to a nice faceplant. And once I was weaving through some trees on the side of a blue run and bailed in about thirty inches of powder. It literally took me twenty minutes to dig myself out of that one, recover my equipment, and get moving again.
But all things considered, it was an extremely fun trip. It was great to see my friends again, along with some new people my own age! I have a couple hundred pictures from various people that I'm still compiling, but pretty soon -- hopefully by the weekend -- they'll be up and ready for viewing.
Not much else is new. Going back to work after a vacation sucks, that's for sure. That's about all I have to report. More when the pictures are available.

December 25, 2005 - A brief update

So maybe you're wondering where I've been for some time now. Or more likely, maybe you forgot all about me in the time since my last update. Either way, I suppose I should explain this, yes? And while I'm at it, I'll even explain in advance why I won't be updating for awhile. How's that for being on the ball, hm?
As we all know, the holiday season can be a somewhat busy time. As much as I'd like to use this as an excude, I'm afraid I can't, other than some last-minute running around and online orders. But along with the holiday season comes gatherings of family, and since my folks have made the journey out here to Seattle for ten days, the least I can do is spend some time with them and put off updating this for a while. Since they'll be leaving just before new year's, you might think you'll get another update shortly thereafter. But once again, you'd be wrong, because on January 2nd, I leave to go skiing in Colorado! That should be a fun and exciting six days, and barring travel nightmares or hardcore ski wipeouts, I should be back and ready to go again about January the ninth. Huzzah.
So there you have that. What else has been going on in the meantime, minus the parents visiting? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I work, I sleep, I play video games, I watch football. That's it. Now I remember why I started doing posts with actual substance.
Merry Christmas to everyone!

December 7, 2005 - Automated phone systems

One of the necessary evils of the modern connected world is the automated phone system. All large companies have them, of course, often with disastrous results. And oftentimes, the rest of the systems the company uses are as bad or worse. Of course, there's never a "talk to a person" option, which is the only real reason anyone would call a phone number in the first place. These are some of my random observations on the subject:

The voice is (almost) always female. Go on, try and find an a utomated system with a male voice. I don't think they exist. And some of them refer to themselves in the first person; "I am your automated assistant". It weirds me out when they do that, but maybe that's because I'm a programmer. I would much rather have a system say "your command was not understood" than "I didn't understand that".

I called Cingular today. Their automated system is pretty average and standard. They list the options, you pick one, and you go on. One annoying thing (and this happens with multiple companies) that violates every rule of everything is that these systems don't fail fast. What that means is that when you know that something is not going to work out, you should stop the entire process as soon as possible. When I called the first time, I went through half a dozen menus and a few minutes of voice-overs and prompts, only to be told "our offices are closed". It should be the other way around; the first thing I hear when I call should be "our offices are closed, but you can still use our automated options".

Relatedly, I don't understand what the Cingular system does. For a phone company, their backend sure needs work. I gave the automated prompt some information (phone number, zip code), and then when a person came on the line, the very first thing they asked for was that same information. And then I had to give it again to three more people in the course of the conversation. The only redeeming feature is that it tells you what your estimated wait time is, which can be useful. Thumbs down.

Conversely, I remember calling Dell awhile back. I selected my three options from the menu, and bang, I was on with a real person. And the best part is, whatever system they're running used caller ID to get my number, then brought up all my information immediately. I never had to give the guy any information; it seemed almost magic. "Hi, the hard drive in my laptop died." "Oh, I see it's a Latitude D600, shipped in April 2004, on a 3-year warranty. No problem sir, I'll send a new one out right away. You're still in Redmond, Washington, right? I'll email the tracking numbers to you, thanks for calling!" Thumbs way, way, way up.

Maybe the worst is Panasonic. I called their 800 number today, and the voice picks up and says something like "hi, I'm your automated assistant. I understand natural language, so just tell me what you want". Oh, right. This machine is going to understand when I say "I have some questions about cantilever mounting brackets for plasma TVs, and availability through corporate partnership agreements." So I try "speak to a person." The worst part about this system is that when you tell it something it doesn't understand, it doesn't say so. It just sits in silence. So I'm left talking to this machine, trying to hit a keyword. "Speak to a person." "Talk to your supervisor." "Product information." "Questions." Finally I give up and say "Buy a TV." Boy, it recognized that one fast, and admittedly got me to the right person. Thumbs way down.

My favorite from a usability perspective is USBank's. Their system understands speech fairly well, but it does two things that make it very user-friendly. One, it tells you what your options are. "Which account would you like? Say 'checking' or 'savings'." Two, it lets you use numbers instead if you'd like. "Say or enter your account number." This system is great; easy to use, accurate, and quick. And it acknowledges when you've said something it doesn't understand. After three failures, it kicks you off to a person, which is often what you want anyways. Thumbs way up.

Finally, my personal favorite from a technical perspective is Microsoft's. I haven't used it much, but one of the options is "if you know the name of the person you're trying to reach, say it". So you say (fake name) "Mahadevan Srinivasan", and in half a second it says "did you want Mahadevan Srinivasan?" When you say yes, it calls that person. Amazing. I have no idea how this would be done, and it's fascinating that it's so fast and so accurate. Better still, if you're after someone named Charles, you can say Charles, Charlie, or Chuck, and it knows what you mean. What a project that must have been. Thumbs up.

I understand why these systems exist, and I guess there are a lot of things they can do that eliminate the need for human help; for instance, paying a bill or checking account balances. But with everything automatable rapidly moving online, often the only reason anyone would make a call is to speak with a person. Of course, that's exactly what these systems are trying to prevent, so they make it difficult or impossible to do so. Frustrating as they are, I'm finding that they're often not worth the effort; five minutes on a website and a quick email can accomplish the same thing in some cases. Maybe they just need to be upgraded.

November 28, 2005 - The transformation begins

I finally spent some time this (long) weekend and did some work on this site of mine, besides the obligatory hey-it's-been-two-weeks-so-let's-update-now. You may notice at the bottom of all the newsposts now, there are some more links. These represent categories that my news posts can fall into. Things like site updates, work, school, et cetera are encompassed in these categories, and if you click on a category name, you'll see all the entries filed under that same category. At some point these will be searchable, and I'll make them easier to get to from my archives page, but work with me for now. This is all you get to start with.
Okay, so why did I add this? Well, besides being able to see at a glance whether or not you might care about a certain entry, it nicely lays the framework for my upcoming "transition to a real blog". This way, I can keep rants and raves, video game reviews, and general updates separate, and perhaps even attract a different group of readers to each. Because let's face it, very few people are interested in the mundanities of my life, so having a way to flag my posts as largely uninteresting will be useful. Plus, since many of my posts, especially the old ones, don't fall nicely into one category, I've made it so each post can have as many as necessary. Some even have four, five, or more. Oh, and I spent probably five hours or so this weekend going through all of my old postings and categorizing them. Hooray.
So then, away from site news and into the other interesting business. First, Kelsey came back again for a day, and brought her cousin with her! Even though it was a Wednesday night, this occasion still resulted in lots of enchiladas and margaritas, as well as a trip to the local darts-and-pool bar. Good times. Then for the holiday weekend, Brad's parents took in myself and Schneekloth for Thanksgiving dinner, which was awesome of them. We enjoyed a very nice long day filled with food, drink, and general merriment, including my first experience with a deep-fried turkey. Much better than I was expecting, I must say. The rest of the four-day weekend has been spent alternating between bouts of productivity (my apartment is the cleanest it's been since I moved in) and laziness (I racked up about ten hours of video games Friday), so it's been pretty good. A trip to the dog park rounds things out nicely, although it's starting to get awfully cold to be out there for a couple hours in the mornings. I've had to scrape my car off a couple times now, and this is not a good sign of things to come. Welcome to winter, I suppose.
And to touch briefly on work, things are going pretty well there also. We have our "code complete" deadline, when everything we're doing has to be submitted, next Friday, so there may be a bit of a crunch leading up to that. Fortunately, our team is doing relatively isolated work, which means that we don't have to deal with a whole bunch of other groups, making our job much simpler and more predictable. We should be in pretty good shape for this deadline. As for what happens after the deadline, I'm not exactly sure. But I continue my slow assimilation into corporate culture, doing new and ever more complicated things as I go. It's nice to be doing some things that were originally scheduled for other people to do; it makes me feel more like it's "real work" and not "hey, this will be easy, let's give it to Jason". That sounds bad, so let me clarify: While having easy ramp-up work was a godsend for me, and a wonderful consideration given to me by my lead, there's always that nagging little sense that it's somehow second-rate stuff. I know it's not, and that it will all be included in our product, but it's a mental thing.
That's about it. Hopefully this week I should start doing some focused postings; I've had a few ideas for a while now. Of course, the track record will show that "sometime this week" usually turns into "maybe by January", but we can all pretend otherwise for now. I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and a happy Thanksgiving!

October 31, 2005 - Too long between updates. Again.

In work news, things are much better! My boss, who's pretty much the coolest guy ever, took me out to lunch last week and asked for feedback about my experiences so far. I'm not sure if it was because I seem like I need it or what, but he seems actually interested in what I have to say. So I prepared about four pages worth of stuff to talk about, which I think really surprised him, but it was pretty honest and pretty complete, covering a lot of things. He has some good advice for me, and I think I just have to slowly (and sometimes painfully) fall into the role I've taken. Altering a couple of my habits and a couple of my mindsets has been good so far, and here's hoping it will continue to do wonders. And amidst all of this trying-to-be-professional stuff, I went and lost my badge sometime between Friday evening and this morning. Brilliant.
Let's see, what else? Ah, I went out with Stephanie and her friend Jamie on Saturday night for Halloween after finding a purple hat and matching cane at the very last minute. We started out at a party in Seattle, which was pretty cool but kind of ... not very social, I guess. The girls didn't much care for it, so we left and went to a bar called Neighbors. Now, this was a pretty cool bar, I must say, especially if you're into the dancing scene, which unfortunately I'm not. The most distinguishing feature of Neighbors, though, is that for the most part, it's a gay bar. Going on Halloween provided a lot of interesting characters, interesting costumes, and a most interesting experience. 'Interesting' was a word I used a lot that night. Anyhow, it was a good night and the few pictures I took will be coming on the POTD shortly.
Another update with no site work. I would love to start a 'Stupidity of the Day' section, but I fear it would go the way of the Quote of the Day: Start out strong, then slowly fade into oblivion in a painful way...
And since everyone always asks about him, Shadow's doing fine. We took a couple trips to the dog park on Saturday, so he was pretty tuckered out this weekend. It's starting to get rainy here though, so there might be less and less of that as the winter goes on. He got a bunch of new toys recently, and if I can convince him to stop eating it, he might even get a blanket back in his crate when I go to work. Obedience school is almost finished, and it's been good for him, I think, though he does much better at some things (sitting, staying) than others (coming when called, not eating blankets).
And before I run out of time to say it ... Happy Halloween!

September 28, 2005 - The to-do list gathers dust

It's that time again. Time to count all the things I haven't done that I said I would, and make lame excuses for not doing them. Sound like fun? Here we go...

• Marie, Mindy, I have not forgotten about you. I still have all of your pictures, and they're still going to go up sometime. I'm just extremely lazy and forgetful.
• I promised some folks pictures of the recent Kelsey visit, as well as some more of Shadow. Those too are coming in About That Much Time™, and will be gotten to when I suck less. Don't hold your breath.
• I still want to redo pretty much every section of my site. I know, I know, things are out of date, believe me I know. I'm going to say that I'm working on it, and you're going to understand that when I say that, it means I'm really not. Capiche?
• The best excuse I have for not doing these things and more: Kelsey came back last weekend! Her hiking buddy ended up breaking his foot before they could go, so unfortunately for him but luckily for me, I got to hang out an extra weekend with Kelsey. This time, we actually did get around to our hike, a gorgeous place called Wallace falls about an hour north of here (actually about two hours if you drove the way I did... whoops). I started out very positive, happy to finally be out hiking in the glory of the northwest. Three miles and 1400 vertical feet later, I was quite ready to swear off this 'nature' thing forever. But the point is that we made it, it was gorgeous, and as a bonus, Shadow even got to come along!
• Work has actually started to be pretty good. It's still slow, of course, just because I'm so new and don't know anything about these four-million-plus lines of code I've just jumped into. But I have things to code up now, and it's going reasonably well, all things considered. It's certainly a step up from a couple weeks ago.

August 14, 2005 - Visitors!

And after another two weeks, I'm back. I'm in danger of falling into this not-updating habit, I think.
So the big news around here has been the arrival, visit, and departure of Marie and Mindy. These awesome friends of mine decided to take an 1800-mile vacation before school started again and came all the way to Seattle to come see me for a week, and I have to say that it was an absolute blast. Aside from the ... interesting experience of having two women share my apartment for a week (favorite quote: "It looks like two girls exploded in here"), we had a whole bunch more fun. This included a couple trips to Seattle, an awesome dinner in the Space Needle restaurant, a touristy harbor cruise, a fun night of drinking beer in the woods around a fire, a night of camping, and a whole lot of tequila. From that list, you can probably gather that we all had a great time, and I know that Marie is already planning for their next trip out here!
So besides that, it's been pretty much business as usual here. Work, eat, sleep, Guild Wars, Halo. I have training coming up all this week, nine to five, every day, which will probably be somewhat boring after about the second day, but we can hope not. Plus, it means that I actually have to get up on time! I suppose it will be a nice change from the office though, at least partly.
So now to the good stuff: I've made changes here! Woo! Let's see... I've:

• Gotten rid of the obsolete Quote of the Day, whch hadn't been updated in two months (oops)
• Added a huge photo gallery of Bert and Toni's wedding
• Changed my Picture of the Day to be better
• Added my Portfolio to the navigation

July 28, 2005 - Bon voyage, and stuff

It's a quarter to two in the morning, and I just finished packing for this weekend, which promises to be a weekend of firsts for me. These include:

• My first official vacation days from work. I'm taking Thursday, Friday, and Monday off.
• My first nonstop Seattle-to-Chicago flight. Hopefully this one won't get diverted to Boise and delayed for 21 hours like the one way back in January did. Not that I hold grudges.
• My first-ever wedding! I'm going to be going to Bert and Toni's wedding, and playing the role of an usher. I'm pretty stoked about it -- it's going to be a great time, and I'm going to see a lot of people I haven't seen in months, and some I haven't seen in years!
• My first time saying "Holy crap, my friends are getting married, I feel old." That one should be self-explanatory.
• My first time officially using my folks as a hotel. Since I left absolutely nothing behind and took a lot of my parents' stuff to boot, my room is going to be absolutely empty, if I even stay there. I might be relegated to the guest room, but who knows. Either way, it's going to be a very busy weekend, and I'll almost certainly do nothing but sleep at home. It can't be helped, I suppose.

July 17, 2005 - Settling into a routine

Ah yes, my website. The one I'm supposed to update. Right.
So what's been happening here, you ask? Not a whole lot of anything, to be honest. I get up in the morning, go to work around 9:30, work all day, leave around 6:30, come home, make or (more likely) go get dinner, and play Guild Wars until I go to sleep again. It's a pretty nice arrangement, actually. Without trying to repeat myself here, I'm really liking the company and the area, and everything has been great so far.
I'm finally doing real work! I did my first little bits of actual coding this last week, and managed to check in some bugfixes! So now I officially own a couple obscure error messages that only administrators will ever see in business software that you've never heard of. Woohoo! This upcoming week will be all about the coding, though. Since our team is apparently on the ball and has no bugs left to tackle, they're sending myself and a couple others over to a different team to help with their bugs. Net result: about four hours a day of meetings to identify and discuss the bugs, and about five or six hours a day to track them down and fix them. Should be fun.
We had a trip to Mount Rainier scheduled for today with my neighbors across the hall, who are the coolest people ever, by the way. Unfortunately, it didn't work out, so I spent the day playing Guild Wars and went for a short bike ride instead. It's pretty nice; my apartment is about a hundred feet from a riverside trail, and if I wanted to, I could even bike to work! Unfortunately, after a 15-minute ride today, I remembered just how out of shape I am, so I don't think I'll be riding the five miles or so to and from work every day for quite some time, thanks.
The last thing of interest that I have to talk about is my tour of the fitness club yesterday. Microsoft, as part of their benefits package, gives you a membership to this club. Check it out, if you like. The place is absolutely insane. They have five hundred full-time staff, and while you're working out in their absolutely huge facilities, you can (among other things) get your car detailed, your dry cleaning done, or have your kids babysat. And when you're done, you can buy flowers, have a beer, or go to their enormous spa and get your hair done, go tanning, or get Botox. Like I said, insane.
So I guess we'll see if I ever get off my ass and actually go to this place... One can only hope, right?
Off to another week of work...

April 25, 2005 - Been awhile

Yeah yeah, it's been two weeks since I updated. Let's try for a slightly less "whiny emo kid" update this time, shall we?
I've gotten (mostly) out of my funk that I was in. I think the problem was that I had just done nothing for so very long that it became impossible to start doing things again. I also think I was watching entirely too much TV, which I've tried to put an end to. Long story short, things are peachy again. My collective apologies to anyone who I might have been snippy to.
So, what's happened in the past two weeks? We had a Scuba broomball team, which won a game before losing in the second round - I have a funny story about that if anyone cares to hear it. I went rollerblading a couple times, which is always awesome. It got real cold - below freezing a couple nights ago - which is never a good thing. I've played some decent amounts of video games. Oh, and I've been in the market for a new cell phone, as USCellular, in their infinite wisdom, decided to serve most of Washington state except Seattle. That's been kind of a chore, but I think I'm going to come away with something I'll enjoy much more than my current one. It'll be nice to only have one number and not have to deal with a land line once I'm in Washington.
Oh yeah! I went down to UIUC a couple weekends ago to celebrate Jody's birthday! It was awesome to make it down there one last time and see everyone - and of course, happy 21st to Jody! I got to see Scott on the way to and from UIUC as well, and we managed to have ourselves a fun time too. Check out some of the recent POTD's for the highlights.
That's about it. The next couple weeks are going to be mighty interesting. Not so much from a schoolwork perspective as from a "holy crap, how am I going to take a final, demo a project, wrap up senior design, attend three graduation ceremonies, entertain two sets of relatives, pack all my stuff, clean my apartment, have one last hurrah with my friends, and make it home alive, all in three days?" kind of perspective. Uh oh...

March 27, 2005 - Weekends rule

Look, look! An update, less than two weeks after the last one! Man, I surprise myself sometimes.
So this weekend was awesome. If you count Friday afternoon (which I do, since my class was cancelled), then this weekend included: Two high-quality naps, a game of poker, some South Park, a couple decent movies, the year's first round of golf, and my first-ever trip to a shooting range. Madd props to Adam for the vast majority of those things. The only depressing one among those was the round of golf today; after being one over for the first three holes (double, birdie, par), I ended up seventeen over for the next six holes. Extremely harsh. But since this was the first decent weather day in Ames in forever, and I managed to get out on the golf course in the first place, it's not all so bad.
Nothing much else to be reporting. I have a good deal of work to be doing, of course, but what else is new? I'll get it all done, of course, but it'll all wait until the last minute. I'm just too lazy recently to do anything ahead of time. Example: I have an essay exam due in ... six hours that I just finished. I started it earlier today, before golf - and I consider that an advance start.
It's supposed to hit 70 degrees tomorrow, so I think that some frisbee golf might be in order. I can only hope.
Oh, and be sure to check the POTD for the next week or so - some previously unreleased Spring Break pictures await you!

February 11, 2005 - AWOL - and leaving again

So, long time, no update. Sorry. Those of you who might be looking for the tale of how I got heavily delayed in an airport will find that story here.
It's been a whirlwind kind of a week. I think I have spent more time on the phone this week than I ever have. Between all the calls home and all the calls out West, I'm pretty sure I've logged about two hours a day on the phone this week, which is absolutely unheard of for me. Why all the calls, you ask? Because I officially got a job offer from Microsoft on Monday. I'm not supposed to talk about specifics, but let's just say that it's a very good offer, and very hard to turn down. So, the decision is made; starting in late May or early June, I will be moving out to the Seattle area and working full-time as a software developer! I haven't exactly wrapped my mind around all of the implications yet, but I do know one thing - it gives you all an excuse you roadtrip out to the west coast and see me!
So that's been the major form of excitement for me here. Second only to that is the weekend-long ski trip in Lutsen, Minnesota that's happening this weekend. Assuming that I don't break myself, it should be a pretty fun time. Half a dozen of us hanging out in a hotel and skiing sounds like an awesome time to me. But since I leave directly after class this afternoon (as in, they pick me up as I walk out of the lecture hall), it does kind of put a cramp on the schoolwork side of things ... which is probably okay since, let's face it, all my motivation is now officially gone.
Which brings me to yet another point; refer to my current schedule as a reference point. I've mysteriously lost all passion for my video games class, and I figured out that dropping it will save me about five hours of class time a week, plus who knows how much in stress and out-of-class workload. And since I'm not getting much out of it and I'm not contributing much to it, I've decided to drop it. This will all be official once I talk to my advisers and confirm that it's not going to hurt me, graduation-wise. Hopefully this will bring the tone of the semester down a little bit, since I haven't even thought about playing Halo in over a month. How depressing.
And then there's been the mundanity of the past two weeks - the schoolwork, the meetings, the random junk. Senior design is most certainly not my favorite place to be right now; what a waste of everyone's time that class is. Add in a small speech, an exam or two, and you have a pretty full couple of weeks there. Oh yeah, and a Try Scuba night as well. You get the idea by this point.
Anyhow, I'll try and not let two weeks go by between updates again. If I'm not in a body cast, look for something after I get back from Minnesota this weekend. Should be a good time; hope everyone else enjoys their weekend as much!

January 9, 2005 - New Year's resolutions

I don't usually, but I have a couple of New Year's resolutions this year. One of them is to keep this updated much better than I have been. Comments about how I have failed doing this for the first nine days of the year are not welcome at this time.
So, here we go. Home was awesome, if a bit hectic. Getting my folks set up with Tivo, cable internet, and more turned into adventures in wiring, splitters, tech support, and the art of learning new tricks. It all turned out very well, I think, which makes it all well worth it. It was really great to have some time to chill with my folks too, to catch up and all that good stuff. Heck, my dad and I even got to play some Atari throwbacks!
Hanging out with the 'old crowd' for several nights was very cool too - be it chilling until 5AM at Scott's playing Halo or restaurant-hopping and watching Arrested Develeopment DVD's at Annie's, it's always awesome to hang out with some of the best friends that anyone could ever ask for.
And then of course, there's the actual New Year's event. This year, we rented out a large conference-type room at a hotel in Champaign, and we had our Geekspotting Fiesta™ there. Pictures will be coming soon, I promise. A grand time was had by absolutely everyone, and I got to see Emily for the first time in a year!
Shortly after New Year's, I split back to Ames, just after a decently-sized icestorm, and just before twelve inches of snow. I arrived into town a full six days before classes started, fully intending to take several "me" days. And let me say, they were glorious. In six days, I left my apartment three times: once to get the mail, once to get groceries, and once to pick up my roommate from the Union. I logged almost fifty hours on my brand-new PS2, and countless more playing Halo 2 online. Lots of sleep, watching sports, and general relaxation made me into a very happy kid for six full days.
But now it's time for school to start again. With my much better schedule, I'm pretty excited about this semester's light load. And the fact that this is my last semester definitely has not sunk in yet. We'll see about this semester, starting tomorrow.
I went ahead and threw December into the archives and I updated the Links page (more comics, and removed a few dead sites), but I've got some work left to do around here. These things include: updating the Gaming section, adding last semester's project to the Programs section, putting up New Year's pictures, and bringing the school and work sections up to date. If my New Year's resolution holds, I'll be making steady progress on those as time goes on. Don't hold your breath.

December 25, 2004 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! (And see the update below for actual information too!)

December 24, 2004 - Christmas Eve

And so, on this Christmas Eve two weeks since my last update, I am finally getting around to updating this. Man, I suck at this whole 'keeping up to date' thing. Ah well. So, the noteworthy events of the (very relaxing!) last two weeks:

• When we last left our hero, he was staring down the barrel of finals week. After doing a whole lot of nothing and a whole lot of sleeping on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I managed to get up and haul myself over to my CS 342 final on Tuesday. It must have gone reasonably well, judging by the grade I got in the class; more on that later. And then I waited until the absolute last minute on Tuesday night before making my half-assed crib sheets for my stat exam on Wednesday. So at 9:45 AM, I sat in a classroom with forty other kids, taking a final exam for the class that I absolutely hate. Once again, it went reasonably well; I found out later that I got a 77% on it, well above the 50% I was hoping to get. I walked out of that exam done for the semester, done with stat, and basically, I was one step shy of dancing in the streets. What a great feeling.
• Wednesday afternoon, I caught Buck Burgers with Lisa and a couple of her friends. It was awesome to hang out a little bit and drink a beer or two. What a way to finish up the finals, right?
• I cut out of Buck Burgers early so I could head back to my apartment and whip up dinner. For Emily and Alison, I made an actual, real dinner. None of this Hamburger Helper stuff, ohh no. I'm talking a real turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, the whole shebang. It tasted excellent, and it gave me enough leftovers to last me a couple more days. I may have to do this more often.
• Thursday afternoon, I woke up at about 12:30 and staggered over to the Design building, where I had my Video Game Design final. Funny thing about this class, though - the final was about a dozen of us getting together and just playing Starcraft. Good times, and I got to hit my prof with three nuclear missiles - definitely one of my finer moments!
• I skipped out of the Starcraft festival a bit early to catch Lisa and play one last round of racquetball. A good time, and it was certainly good to get in a last little bit of hanging out with her. Oh yeah, and I got a parking ticket. What a joke.
• Thursday night, I headed up to UNI to visit Marie and Sol and further celebrate the end of the semester. I got to meet a couple new people and hang out for awhile. Good times all around.
• Friday night was margarita night at my place - big props to Kelsey, Adam, Nick, Patricia, Peter, Emily, Adam, and Dan for showing up. A quality showing of Elf and an episode of Family Guy rounded out the evening nicely.
• Saturday was spent at Adam's, after a late lunch. I helped him get parts of his website up to snuff, and showed him some other neat tricks. Then we watched three movies: The Girl Next Door, Dodgeball, and The Deep. We ordered pizza in there somewhere too... good times!
• Sunday I left Ames and hit Scott's place at Augustana. Pete joined us after a great dinner out, and the three of us played Halo 2 until 8 in the morning, when we decided it was about time to crash. Getting up at 4 the next afternoon, we played more Halo, went out to eat, then watched some Family Guy after Pete whipped up some nice Long Islands. A very high-quality couple of days.
• Tuesday, I came home, and that's where I am now. A couple of appointments and suchasmuch, but all in all, it's just been nice and relaxing to not have anything to do. I'm a huge fan.
• And just last night, I checked my grades - I ended up with a B in statistics, which I am extremely pumped about! Oh, and the rest of the classes turned out fine, too. I certainly can't complain.

November 23, 2004 - Uberlong update

So, believe it or not, I'm writing this on a plane right now. I forgot to update this before I left today (well, that, and I didn't exactly have a whole lot of spare time), so this seems like as good a time as any to write an update.
Yeah, it's been awhile again. What can I say, I'm busy.
Let's talk about today first, though. What a day, really, although I suppose it could definitely have been longer. I woke up at ten, had an exam at eleven, came home to shower and eat, had another exam at two, came home to do some last-minute scrambling around, packing, etc, and then left at about 4:30 to catch my flight(s) down to Austin for my interview tomorrow with National Instruments. I'm quite brain fried, and I think it's just going to be worse after the technical questions that I'm sure I'll be answering tomorrow.
But, on the plus side, it's more or less officially Thanksgiving Break! This, of course, means a whole week with no schoolwork, no classes, lots of sleep, and general happiness and relaxation. Yeah. if you're a business major. For me, it means about 24 hours of traveling, four appointments, miscellaneous obligations, and getting caught up on all the projects, homework, testing, etc. that I'm behind on. Still, it beats school, so I guess I can't complain.
What about this week? Not much, really ... projects, videogames, class, homework, etc. Boring stuff. But last Friday I made the Ultimate Purchase™ - I bought Halo 2. Needless to say, it killed my entire weekend, and portions (small portions, but portions nonetheless) of this past week also. Playing it online is amazing, when it works, and I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. Right after these projects are done.

And now I'm writing this on a different plane. I'm on my way back now, and I didn't have time to update this while I was in Austin. To avoid confusing some of my ... more easily confused readers, shall we say, I'm posting this all togteher as one entry.
My trip was an absolute blast, though... I went in not really knowing what to expect, but not really expecting much. To be honest, I wasn't really all that interested in the company, but I have to say that that's changed. NI did a wonderful job of selling their company, and it seemed like they truly cared about recruiting us and matching our needs to theirs. Let's do a recap of the trip:

• I got in to the motel at 1:30 AM on Friday morning. A little bit of unpacking and chilling, and it was 2:30 before I got to bed. Of course, I had to be in the lobby at 7:30 the next morning, so that meant that I had to get up at about 6.
• Friday was quite the day. Up at 6, on a bus at 7:30, arrived at NI at 8. I met my host - a most exceptional fellow by the name of Dan - and had a quick breakfast before a couple of company representatives gave the obligatory "welcome and here's why we're so great" speeches. Then came an interview, the first of three for the day, each of which was an hour and fifteen minutes long. They were mostly technical questions, too, which suited me just fine. After the first interview was lunch, then two more interviews, a quick walking tour of the campus, and a goodbye speech. They took us back to the hotel briefly (where I thankfully grabbed a quick nap) before rounding us up again for a very nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant. My host was tired, I was tired, and pretty much everyone else was tired too, so Dan dropped me back off at the hotel and I crashed at about 9:30. Most excellent.
• Saturday morning, Dan came to get me and a couple other ISU'ers at about 10:45 We went over to a sports bar and watched Iowa State win its sixth (!) game of the season, a thriller over Kansas State. Oh yeah, and the company bought us lunch and drinks again, which rules. After that, the bus tour of Austin was cancelled for some reason, so another host by the name of Jim picked us up and took us to a local hangout, where we basically sat, hung out, and drank beer until about 6:00 when it was time again for dinner. This time, we went to the Spaghetti Warehouse, where we all got awesome and hugely large Italian meals. Then, Dan and Jim started doing their jobs very well. They were supposed to show us around the city, show us some of the landmarks, the hangouts, and the places to go. So basically, we went to Sixth Street and hit about half a dozen different bars. Great times, but I didn't get back to the hotel until about 1:30.
• That brings us to today, where I'm writing this on a flight from Dallas to Des Moines. Oh yeah, and my flight from Austin left at 6:00 AM. This implies being up at 4, which, after a Saturday night like the one I'd just had, is not a happy experience. Regardless, I'll be back in Des Moines by noon, and have this first on-site interview under my belt.

October 21, 2004 - Oh boy

It's the old refrain: "We're back to a week between updates!" Maybe I should stop even thinking that I'll ever update again in less than a week. Oh well. This one comes at 3:00 AM, and I have a class in six hours. This makes me not happy.
So, let's talk about the last week, shall we? In absolutely no particular order:

• On Tuesday morning I had an interview with Caterpillar for either an IT or a software-engineering-based position. I thought it went pretty well; the interviewer and I got along well, and I don't think I flubbed any of the questions. We'll see, I guess.
• I got an email yesterday morning from National Instruments inviting me to an on-site interview on Friday, November 19th; that's right before Thanksgiving. They'll fly me down to Austin, Texas on Thursday and fly me back on Saturday. I think I'm going to go, because, let's face it, a free trip pretty much rules. Oh yeah, and I got a phone call today from IBM, wanting to set up a phone interview for a possible summer-fall co-op position. I guess it's kind of cool to be wanted, but it would be nice if Microsoft would get back to me!
• Last Friday, I met with Ronald, a student in the HCI program here. He's working with Augmented Reality, which is pretty cool. He showed me some videos and demonstrations of what he's working on, and I must say it's intriguing. I guess I have to decide pretty quick if that's what I want to be doing.
• This is the busy season for HKN also. Last week, we had an informal meeting for the new recruits, and last Sunday we had a formal meeting - shirt and tie and everything. Oh yeah, and in two weeks, there's an initiation ceremony that I'm supposed to go to, though I might be out of town.
• SCUBA Club had a meeting this week, too - it seems that for once, we're actually going to get shirts made! We have some planning to be starting for our Spring Break trip - and we have a Try SCUBA coming up on Monday. More fun.
• I registered for next semester this afternoon. I got into all the classes I wanted; a schedule will be up soon. More details about this when that comes about.
• This week has been absolutely heinous with homework. I've had one or two assignments from virtually every class, and ongoing projects from those that didn't give me homework. My to-do list is pretty intimidating right now.
• Senior design is quite a bit of work, especially now that we've gotten out of our documentation phase and started coding. I can't remember if I've linked it before, but check out our team's website.
• My 409 class is a lot of work, too - coding and documentation and trying to figure out a whole bunch of things that are completely new to me - graphics and sound terminology - and trying to remember things I've long forgotten - vectors, rotations, and matrices. But hey, at least this one is fun.
• And we haven't seen the sun in about three days. I've been in Iowa long enough to know what that means: We won't see it again until April. Hello, winter. How many days until the Christmas decorations come out?

October 3, 2004 - Weekly. Again.

So, another Sunday night, another website update, and a lot more time that feels like I should have been doing something more productive. There might not be a correlation between all of these things.
So, what to say about last week? Not much, really. More of the same boring school-type junk that no one wants to read about. And it got cold. Real cold. We had a couple of frost warnings and one night in the upper 20's. This does not make me happy.
A couple cool things, though: For one, I went to a seminar about applying for National Science Foundation fellowships for grad school - more because I had gotten the invitation a couple weeks ago when I was going through my HolyCrapWhatDoIDoNow phase than because I actually had any interest. But they fed me, so that was cool. Secondly, at that seminar, I met Melinda, who is a current HCI student, and she had some very interesting things to say about the program and her experiences in it. Cooler even than that, she invited me to come to a 'club meeting' of sorts for a semi-official HCI grad student club that they are trying to form. They had a guest speaker, and I got to wander briefly through some of their facilities, so that was pretty cool.
Skipping over the rest of the week's boringness, that brings us to this weekend, when half a dozen of us went out to Ledges State Park (about twenty minutes away - apparently it's a big thing here, but I never knew it existed) on Saturday afternoon to chill, hike a little, grill out, and make s'mores. Quite the fun time. This was followed by a showing of Napoleon Dynamite, a very unique independent film which I greatly liked, but felt that I missed something. It's not for everyone.
Big surprise, Sunday was pretty much a wasted day. Watched a whole lot of football, did some work, played a round of Frisbee Golf, and then did a whole lot of nothing. Whee.
As a sidenote, maintaining a POTD is actually quite challenging, and I am running out of pictures. I think I'm just going to have to start taking more random ones.
And as with every month, we have archived September. Until next week...

September 20, 2004 - ... And back to a week. Crap.

Yeah, yeah, I know. So I've forgotten about this again. I have a way of doing that when I'm busy, tired, and confused. None of which I am at the moment, mind you, but this past week was most interesting. I'm hoping that I can pound this update out in the twenty minutes that I have before class. Here we go:

• Basically, last week was pretty much nuts. I had homework assignments in four of my six classes, pending and long-term things to do in the other two, meetings and appointments galore, a website redesign (which you really should check out, as I am rather proud of it ... some minor tweaks still needed), and on and on. It seemed like I was awfully busy for most of the week there.
• Sleep tends to take a back seat to other things during weeks like this, and so my schedule was massively screwed up towards the end of the week. Here's the rundown: I didn't sleep much Wednesday night. Came home from a meeting Thursday and slept from 6-9 PM. Slept that night from 5-8 AM. Came home from class Friday and slept 11 AM till 2:30 PM. I think that the end of last week actually happened, but I don't really remember that much of it. Go figure.
• Fortunately, the weekend hit, and while I still had some pending things, it was pretty laid-back. I went with Kelsey and crowd to DQ for a birthday treat Friday night, but opted not to hit the bars, as I really needed to get my schedule back on track. That, and the part where on Saturday morning, I got up at 8:00 to start tailgating. Funny (long-ish) story about that, feel free to skip it:
  • Friday night I was informed that I'm responsible for bringing the beer to the tailgate the next morning. Okay, sure. So I get up at eight, go to Hy-Vee, and buy a case of Bud Light. (Note that the choice was the group's decision, not mine!) As I'm putting it in my car, the handle on the case breaks. Well, crap, now I can't carry it to the tailgate. Okay, so I need another way to get it there. So I go back home, unload the case, and put all 24 cans into my backpack. It's a little heavy, but no problem. So I start walking towards the tailgating lots (a long ways, by the by - likely a mile and change). I get maybe a quarter mile out and ... hmm, that feels kinda funny. Golly, that ... that almost feels wet on the back of my leg there. I look down and, crap, my backpack is dripping. The left side of my shorts is soaked, my sandlas are soaked, the whole deal. So I stop and start digging through the backpack... Yeah, one of the cans had broken. Crap. I fix it and move on. Well, inbetween there and the tailgating lots, I lost two more! So I'm walking through the courtyards by all the residence halls, across main roads, through parking lots filled with tailgaters, looking like an absolute imbecile with my dripping backpack, soaked shorts, and smelling like an alcoholic. Oy. Even better, after getting home from the game, I ran my clothes, sandals, and backpack through the wash, and apparently I left a black gel pen in my bag. Of course, it came to rest wrapped tightly inside the white t-shirt I wore to the game, so one whole side of the formerly clean, white t-shirt is now very permanently black and cruddy. But hey, at least I don't smell like beer anymore. :)
  So after the lovely tailgating experience, we hit the game, which was by far the best game I've been to here. Huge momentum swings both ways - at one point, we were down 15. We came back in the third quarter, and in the early fourth when we hit a very nice third-down touchdown and then the two-point conversion to tie it up, the place went *nuts*. If it would have happened more toward the end, I think that we may have rushed the field. Granted, Northern Illinois is not exactly a football powerhouse, but it was still an awesome game. The recap, in case you want a slightly more thorough and objective take on it. Oh yeah, and I came away with a scratchy voice and a sunburn, so you know it was a good game.
• A good portion of Saturday was also spent in tech support. Computer people may not want to continue reading, as it may cause actual physical pain to you. Robert's computer has been running, for three years, with Windows ME (bad enough in itself), using Internet Explorer, without a firewall, without antivirus, without spyware detection, on a static IP, on a campus connection. For the non-computer people, this is roughly as safe as riding a rusty bicycle, naked, the wrong way into traffic on the autobahn, except instead of wheels you have sawblades, and instead of a seat you have a bayonet, and instead of handlebars you have red-hot stove burners. Needless to say, his computer basically has herpes, and it finally started acting up on Saturday. So after a lot of work and a lot of frustration, I think we've restored it to a usable state, though there are some things that I can't seem to get rid of.
• And then Sunday, I slept in, went to a meeting-slash-training-session for Senior Design, and then played another Flag Football game. Man, that is a fun sport. Again, we whooped up on the opposition, something to the tune of 30-6 or so. Next week's game actually matters, though, so we'll see how it goes then.

September 12, 2004 - Ha! Less than a week!

Another Sunday night, and the prospect of another week starting. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, though - while last week was insanely busy, it was also strangely satisfying to be feeling so productive some of the time. Yeah, I know, strange - especially for one so lazy as I. And maybe it just seems that way because right about Friday, things just sort of stopped, and I was left wondering what to do for most of this weekend.
And another strange thing about this weekend: I felt highly antisocial for most of it. I don't really know why, or what happened; I'm only reminded of my (rather extended) period of self-discovery I had about two years ago. I wonder if this whole "What do I do with my life" episode is affecting me in the same way. I hope not; I'm certainly going to be making an effort to not be so damn irritable and antisocial for some time. Although, I have a very convenient excuse: The medicine(s) I got on Friday (Prednisone and Zyrtec, for a very severe allergic reaction to something; current theories include allegries to pollen, ragweed, and life) came with warning labels that they may affect one's mood. So hey, what can I say, I was doped up this weekend.
I spent a good portion of Saturday night watching old Family Guy episodes, which suited me just fine. What a great show; I was just about rolling at several points. Highly recommended if you like the Simpsons, you like random humor, and you're impossible to offend. Of course, in that case, you probably know about it already.
The big news for Saturday was the ISU-Iowa football game, which turned out to be much closer than expected. It was actually pretty decent to watch, and we only lost by one touchdown to the twenty-six-point favorites. Perhaps this emphasis on defense might actually pay off for us; we shall see this next weekend when Northern Illinois comes to town. It should be an interesting game, at least from my perspective - Adam and Kelsey have informed me that I am going out with them to the bars on Friday night, then getting up at 8AM on Saturday to start tailgating again. It might be a long Sunday.
Back to news of today, Lisa needed another guy for her co-rec Flag Football intramural team, and it was awesome to finally get outside and get some exercise, something I have been severely lacking for a week and change now. Incidentally, we pretty much whooped up on the other team, winning in a severe fashion.
And lastly, fantasy football has pretty much embedded itself into my brain. Something so silly is awfully addicting; I was much happier than I should have been tonight when Quentin Griffin, my recent acquisition, rushed for 150+ yards and three touchdowns. Praise be for football season!

September 8, 2004 - Right, I have a website

I think I may actually have forgotten about this at some point during this last week. Things turned amazingly busy amazingly quickly there. A brief recap:

• Last Thursday I had two meetings in addition to all the normal classes. Well, almost all the normal classes; let's not kid ourselves about that 8AM recitation. One was for Senior Design, and I got a couple of responsibilities right off the bat revamping documents and looking over code. Good times.
• Friday was a good day. Take another look at that schedule, and then guess whether or not I got up for that 9AM class. After rolling out of bed at about 1, going to the one class, and whipping up some dinner, the SCUBA Clubbers and I had a DDR festival over at Emily's. Very good times, even if Jared did bust one of my pads in a fit of overzealousness. A lot of duct tape and a six-pound SCUBA weight later (no, I'm not kidding about that), it worked fine again.
• Saturday was a hell of a day. Marie and Matt came down for UNI in the morning, and met up with Scott and Renee, high school friends of theirs and fellow computer-engineering classmates of mine. Small world. The five of us did a wee bit of tailgating, went to the game, watched ISU actually get a win, got very sunburned and probably heat-strained, came back, ordered pizza, played board games, and had a make-your-own-sundae party. Then we were joined by about eight other people for a whole lot of DDR. Saturday was a good day.
• Sunday, I did a lot of work. And watched some football, too. That's about all I can remember.
• Monday I worked pretty much the whole day, but I did it in front of ESPN, watching baseball, football, the World Cup of Hockey, and more. It's amazing how much homework you can actually get done if you put half your mind to it.

August 16, 2004 - Wow

Allright, I haven't been a good boy and updated this is awhile. But I have some very good reasons ... at least I think they're good reasons. So, the highlights of the last week go like this:

• Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were crazy days at work. I gave eight separate training sessions in those three days, trying to teach 100+ people to use the new system that I put together this summer. Some people were more enthusiastic than others, of course, but hey, now I don't have to deal with them anymore. I kinda feel bad for Nate and Travis, who I hung out to dry - "If you have any questions, call Nate or Travis" was at the end of all of my training sessions.
• Thursday we had our Intern Appreciation Banquet at Pella. They treated us all, and all of our managers and mentors, to a very nice lunch, a couple good speeches, and they gave us all a nice picture frame with a group photo of all the interns and co-ops. And then was the big event: the presentation of the $5000 grant awards. Pella gave out five this year, and Solomon, my RAGBRAI-training partner and fellow IT buddy, got one of them!
• Our remaining group of six (myself, Sol, his wife Jessie, Janet, Lisa, and Mike) had made previous arrangements that if one of us won an award, that person would buy drinks for everyone that night. So we raced out of work Thursday, went golfing at Bos, then headed over to Dr. Salami's for dinner and drinks. Huge props to Sol for buying the drinks - and I must say, I very much enjoyed my first couple Jagerbombs.
• Friday was awesome, too - Travis and the team took me to lunch out at Bos, and then we left work at 3:00 to go golfing! Madd props to Travis for covering the round of golf and the beverages - even if he and his brother destroyed Nate and me in our improvised best-shot competition. I'm glad we made it out to golf at least once, though.
• Friday night brought a whole ton of cleaning and packing - note to self: Next time, start packing sooner. I crashed at about 2:00, and was up again at 7:30. Saturday was a long day.
• I rented a minivan from Enterprise to move myself, which worked out wonderfully. I left Pella at about 11:30, got into Ames, unloaded all my junk, ran over to Emily's house, got my junk from there, unloaded that, and then headed back to Pella to grab my car, the last of the stuff, and do a little bit of cleaning too. Finally got completely out of Pella at about 5:30, tagged Ames real quick to drop my stuff off, and then headed up to UNI to hit Marie's birthday party. Stayed there a couple hours, then headed back to my apartment, which had nothing but boxes everywhere. I slept on the couch in my sleeping bag because my bed was covered in boxes. It was mighty interesting; all told, I drove well over eight hours on Saturday. Like I said, a long day.
• And then yesterday was a whole lot of unpacking. I got up at nine, and twelve hours later, I pretty much had my apartment in working order. With any luck, pictures will be forthcoming.

August 7, 2004 - More pictures

Since not only did I not put up any more pictures last night, I also didn't even have the common courtesy to put up a message about it, I decided to put up two days' worth for you. So do check out Day Four and Day Five of RAGBRAI 2004.
Marie moved out today, and Ryan left last night. Those are the first true signs that this summer is coming to an end. It's been awesome though - I don't think that there was a dull moment the entire time. I basically did nothing but have fun every moment I wasn't at work - and much of the time that I was. I met some awesome people and did some amazing things... it's kind of upsetting to see it come to an end. But, this is what happens with everything I suppose.
Oh, and Solomon and I golfed today. I was horribly inconsistent; one birdie, one par, two doubles, a triple, and a nine. Yes, that's nine strokes on the same hole. Oh yeah, and two twenty-plus-foot putts. And two missed three-footers. I felt pretty good about the round, and it was a perfect golfing day; I just wish I could be more consistent. Oh well.

August 4, 2004 - .... Nope

Yeah, I lied. no more pictures tonight. Sorry, but I'm tired. Goodnight.

July 1, 2004 - I'll archive when I get back

So things are more of the same. Pella pretty much rules. Prime examples: Monday, we went out to eat, followed shortly by Ultimate Frisbee, and a movie. Fortunately, Marie, Janet, Lisa, and I had some artsy-crafty things to be working on while we watched Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, so I didn't actually have to watch it.
Tuesday night, Solomon and I went for a twenty-mile ride north of town; we just took main street north until we got tired. It was pretty cool; We went down a hill that brought us to 34 miles an hour. Of course, coming back up it sucked, but you'll have that. It was also an interesting and far more RAGBRAI-like experience, riding on the county roads, and not having a sidewalk, and coming within two feet of a car going 60+ miles an hour. Good times. Oh, and then I made an interesting cajun chicken dish for the girls for dinner - and peach smoothies on Dan's new blender. I'm sure everyone reading this is absolutely hungry for these meaningless little details.
Wednesday night was pretty sweet; Lisa got a voucher for two eighteen-hole rounds and a cart from Bos Landen, which we instead cashed in for four nine-hole rounds. Bos is a hella tough course, for those keeping score at home. I shot a 55, and lost at least seven balls. The course has no leeway at all; you hit a second shot ten yards to one side, and it's gone. We're talking long gone. On one hole, i got an eleven. Yes, eleven. Gorgeous drive, second shot ten yards right and lost. Penalty out. Fourth stroke duffed. Fifth into the bunker. Six, seven, and eight to get out of the bunker, and nine, ten, and eleven to putt. And then on the next hole, I got a straight-up birdie on a 160-yarder. Ah, golf.
And tonight, Marie, Solomon, Sarah, Neil, and myself participated in the City of Pella's Corporate Challenge, which entailed such activities as a three-legged race, water balloon toss, carry-a-ball-between-four-of-you-down-the-road, and much more. I have pictures to be put up at some later date.
Speaking of pictures, you should all definitely check out the intern pictures mini-site I made. Check out the pictures from the ropes course, the intern olympics, the Iowa Cubs game, and then the scavenger hunts we went on last week. They were definitely fun, and we came out with some good pictures from them too. Don't miss it.
I'll be gone for some time now; tomorrow, I'm leaving work at noon to go home for the long weekend. I'll be coming back sometime Monday night. Should be cool to see the friends, family, etc. Until then, hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend!

June 26, 2004 - Activities

I'm leaving that placeholder up - with the exception of the last hour, we've had probably 5% uptime on our internet this week. Yes, five percent. Way to provide crappy service.
But, that aside. Life out here is more of the same; go to work, come home, do a lot of fun things, go to bed, do it again. It's really a quite enjoyble thing; this summer is pretty much my ideal life, I think. Some of the highlights of this week include a couple Ultimate Frisbee games, two nights of grilling out, a photo scavenger hunt (pictures pending), volleyball, cards, and a whole lot of DDR, since I got my new pads in on Monday. And then today, Marie, Ryan, Katie and myself took part in the Pella golf outing at Edmundsen in Oskaloosa, a four-person best-shot tournament. We had a lot of fun, shot a 66 (that's four under, with five birdies and a bogey), and beat the two other intern groups soundly. Good times, even if I did have to get up at 7:00 on a Saturday to do it.
Work was interesting last week. They put me on a BPI team - that's Business Process Improvement - with a dozen other people, sat us down in a room for the week, and had us analyze and improve a process that happens somewhere in the company. The whole point is to get some outsiders in on it too, so they can have an objective look at things and point out some obvious inefficiencies. It was pretty cool - we worked with the Lowe's credit process, from the point that a damaged or wrong shipment arrives at a Lowe's store, through the communication and processing, to the point where Pella issues a credit to the store. It did get a bit tedious near the end of the week, but we got free breakfast and lunch every day, and a really nice shirt at the end. It was awesome to be more or less fed for a week, and to be up and on my feet, going to and from peoples' desks, through the factory facilities, etc. A very unique perspective on another aspect of the company that I would otherwise never have thought about.
As a sidenote, I'd like to mention that some of my friends' websites need to be updated. *ahem*
I'm thinking the color scheme needs an update for summer, but I don't have any ideas, really. Hook me up if you do. Until then, get outside and enjoy summer!

June 16, 2004 - Recreation abounds

So, probably my favorite things about this summer are the forty-some-odd fellow interns and co-ops who live in the same apartment complex that I do, and all the stuff we get together and do. Prime examples: Monday night, we all went out to eat, then after coming home, a dozen or so of us played four games of sand volleyball. Lastly, after a quick shower, we played a solid hour or so of peanuts before giving up for the night at 11:30 or so. Tuesday, Marie and I went golfing (back to Edmundsen again; shot a 46 this time, which was splendid, save about three shots) and then ate dinner. Today, seven of us played an awesome game of Ultimate in the rain, which was a massive amount of fun, and then six *different* people got together, hung out, and ate Lisa's very good homemade pizza. And on the docket for tomorrow, we have Marie, Chris, and myself working at a booth at Thursdays In Pella, a 'family-friendly' party that happens every week in the square. Saturday we're slated to golf and then work 'community outreach' (not sure what that means, but hey) at Juneteenth in Des Moines.
So I've certainly been keeping myself busy, and it's been great. I am really digging this summer.
Oh, and you should really check out the QOTD, too.

June 7, 2004 - So busy

So things have been insanely busy around here since the last update. I have some pictures to post, hopefully soon, but since I'm on my laptop right now, it's 10:30 at night, and I'm insanely lazy, it's not getting done this update. But day by day, let's give the breakdown for those who care:

• Tuesday, June 1 - Solomon and I went for a 20 mile bike ride ... man, was I sore the next day. This RAGBRAI thing is going to kill me.
• Wednesday, June 2 - This is my birthday! My folks came out here, which was awesome of them, and took me to dinner at a place called Udder's where you grill your own steaks. It was awesome, although I have to admit that it was a little strange to drink a Coors Light in a restaurant. But yeah, my folks did the whole birthday thing to an awesome degree, with decorations and champagne and cake and the the whole shebang. Again, very cool of them to come out.
• Thursday, June 3 - After a long and semi-boring day of work, Marie, Solomon, and I hit up Edmundsen golf course in Oskaloosa. It's a real nice course: very open, very forgiving, a little on the short side, a par 71. I really enjoyed it, though; somehow I managed to rack up three pars (which is really good for me) on the way to a 48. Take out some of those three-stroke chips and four-putts and it'd be a bit better, but I'll definitely take a 48.
• Friday, June 4 - Pella reserved the "leadership ropes course" at the YMCA camp in Boone, IA for us for the whole day, and we took a company-sponsored trip up there for the day. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds, despite being a lot of work. There were a lot of different things to be done: leadership excercises, teamwork stuff, trust stuff, etc etc. Quite a workout for all involved, and again led me to being a bit sore the day after.
• Saturday, June 5 - Nick Williams, our head intern/co-op organizer guy, put together an awesome series of stuff for all of us to do on Saturday morning, collectively called the Intern Olympics. With a lot of teamwork-based challenges spanning a whole range of disciplines, it was quite a workout for all of us. After the four-hour event, about a dozen of us stayed and played a couple of extra hours of snad volleyball, which was an amazing time. Then after a quick lunch and a shower, it was time to leave for the I-Cubs game, which Ryan joined us at, which was also awesome. We volunteered a bit before the game and helped put Pella logo temporary tattoos on kids as they came in the gates; that was a good time. And when we got back from that, it was Tiffany's 21st birthday, so there was a bit of a party for that also; definitely a good time.
• Sunday, June 6 - After getting up at noon (yes!) and doing some of the necessary things (you know, bills, emails, phone calls, yadda yadda), a dozen of us played an hour or so of Ultimate Frisbee before Marie, Jeff, and I hit up Edmundsen again, this time for 18 holes. I hacked my way to a 95 (that's 46/49), with five pars along the way. I have to say, I'm pretty happy with the way I've played the last 27 holes; four-putts notwithstanding, of course.

May 31, 2004 - Happy Memorial Day!

The official start of summer is here, and with it, a chance to put off archiving yet another month's worth of entries, and to satiate all three of my readers with an update. (Yes, I know it's not the official start of summer. Work with me here.)
Both of my roommates have moved in, and they seem like pretty cool guys. It should be a good time out here this summer. And as a bonus, Dan brought a GameCube, so I'm totally hooked on Mario Kart Double Dash. Perhaps an update to the Gaming section soon? You never know...
Now I suppose I should blather for a bit about work at Pella... So for those of you that don't care, skip this paragraph. I'm on the Data Warehouse team - basically the point of which is to house and analyze all the data that comes through this company. Sure, no problem, right? Wrong. I never realized how much data making windows generates. And I just work with quotes, sales, and shipping; this is to say nothing of manufacturing, receiving, payroll, HR, pricing, documentation, customers, parts, units, installation, returns... It's mind-boggling. But anyway, my job for the summer is basically to recreate the system that Customer Service uses to look up order information when someone calls in with a problem with their window(s). You know, basic information: Here's what's on the order, prices, how and when it was shipped, who bought it, yadda yadda. The current system pulls data from an old database, and my job is to make a new system that pulls from the Data Warehouse databases instead. This wouldn't be bad... if it wasn't for a woman who is not even in my department and most assuredly is not my boss. This woman is absolutely militant that I will use a tool called Oracle Install Base to do my project. Now, Install Base tracks individual parts, using Bill Of Materials data. It can tell you everything about every last screw that went into each window. This is great - but it's not even close to what I'm trying to accomplish. She has an intern under her whose job it is to get this up and running, and so obviously I need to use the same tool. I have this analogy: She is giving her intern and me a set of hedge trimmers; she's telling her intern to trim the hedge, and telling me to dig a ditch. A perfectly valid tool being used for the flat-out wrong thing. So until we get that resolved, I'm not really doing much of anything; just trying to "research" this tool that I know isn't going to work. Bureaucracy.
And now I should wrap this up. Huge props to King for throwing an awesome barbeque and football game for Memorial Day today, even if I did miss my interchange and take the long way home. Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekends, and now it's back to work. *audience boos*
Oh yeah, and check out the finally updated QOTD!

May 15, 2004 - Oh boy

Right. So, where to begin, hmm? Well, I like bullet points, so:

• Dead week passed relatively uneventfully, if busily. Part of that is probably the part where I spent almost all of my downtime doing absolutely nothing and watching a lot of hockey. I worked a ton on those group projects. We gave two demos in dead week, and the final one during finals week. Again, to make a long, boring story that you really don't want to read short, everything went fine after a lot of work.
• That brought finals week onto us. But since the projects had been done since the Thursday of dead week, and my finals didn't even start until Thursday of finals week, and on top of that, I really didn't care about them at all in the first place ... well, finals week wasn't bad at all. I played a ton of frisbee golf, a little racquetball, helped Erin move, and had a hilariously fun night at King's (big belated props, by the by!). My two exams went fine on Thursday, especially for having spent a grand total of about an hour studying for them. Then the one on Friday morning (At 7:30 no less; how cruel is that?) went fine too, again, considering I spent about twenty minutes of "studying" for that. What can I say, it's Senioritis. Mine is chronic.
• The rest of Friday (and some of Thursday night now that I think about it) was spent packing up all my crap. Getting to bed at 3:30, then getting up at 6:30, then packing for a day is not necessary fun. All things considered though, it went surprisingly well. My folks helped a lot with the whole packing endeavor too, which was awesome. This was followed immediately by another late night, this time about 5:00, involving our annual tradition of going to Perkins at 3AM. This year had a slight change; we yoinked a couch, put in the bed of Plummer's truck, and rode it to and from Perkins. And then we left it in a parking space. Hilarious!
• That Saturday (after another three-hour night) was the big move to Pella. More or less uneventful, getting settled into the apartment (which is very nice; pictures pending) was kind of a chore, since there is nothing there. I don't know why that surprised me so much, but ... yeah, not something I had thought through all the way. Anyhow, it worked out.
• And on Monday, I started my job at Pella! A couple days of brainwashing orientation went just fine, and now I'm in my little half-cube for twelve (perhaps fourteen?) weeks. I have a project, though some of the details are kind of nebulous. More pending.

April 22, 2004 - The aftermath

Again, a week with no updates. What can I say, I'm a bad person.
I feel like I'm so far behind in a lot of non-school-related things. Specifically, people. I owe a whole bunch of people an email or three (Patty, I haven't forgotten about you, I promise!) and it feels like I'm losing touch with some friends of mine, mostly the ones I only get to talk to now over Instant Messenger and the like. Yeah, I know this happens, and it sucks, and there's nothing you can really do about it, but ... yeah. That's about it.
My laptop came on Friday! It's awesome and I love it. I will never pay attention in class again.
You may have noticed our university in the national news as well as the local news after some 'extracurricular' activities this past weekend. On the one hand, I'm kinda ticked that I wasn't down there watching (how cool would that have been?), but on the other hand, I'm going to be really pissed if they straight-up cancel VEISHEA because of this. I guess we'll see.
I saw Stomp this past week too. It was amazing; if you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it. Very Blue Man Group-ish, if you're into that sort of thing.
School-wise, this week sucks, and next week is going to be worse. I have a group project due on Monday. I have a group project due on Tuesday. I have a group project due on Thursday. I have a paper due on Thursday. I have a lab due on Tuesday. I have four finals the following week I'm supposed to study for. Crap.
Maybe this whole Pella thing isn't going to be so bad.

April 15, 2004 - VEISHEA is here!

Well, ladies and germs, it's time for that lovely festival of getting drunk, pretending you're not drunk, and watching a parade: It's VEISHEA time again. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm working security this year. What this means is basically, my partner and I walk around in our bright orange "Please Make Fun Of Me"™ t-shirts, tell people to put their beer down, and get laughed at. But hey, we get a t-shirt out of the deal, and we get to feel important and break the kneecaps of people we don't like. At least I think that's what they said; I was pretending not to be drunk.
This week has been full of work and projects. Whee. It's been a decent amount of work, but I think the projects might actually turn out pretty well. Oh yeah, and I had a quiz Monday, a test and quiz today, and another quiz tomorrow. Also whee.
But, with any luck, I plan on hitting the VEISHEA production of Fiddler on the Roof this Saturday and having some fun in the meantime. Here's hoping it goes well.
Oh yeah! And my laptop is in the mail!

April 7, 2004 - Been a week. Again.

Right, so I'm bad about updating. Not as bad as, say, Kristi or Ryan, but still pretty bad.
Regardless! It's April, and that means it's amazing outside. The last couple days have been 70 degrees or more, and I've worn shorts around for both days. It's been amazing. SAA had some free food on central campus today, which when supplemented with a couple of friends dropping by, a little bit of frisbee, and an amazing amount of laziness and chilling, makes for quite a good afternoon. The part where I'm sitting in a Coover lab and updating this because I have, literally, nothing else to do right now notwithstanding. Sad how we get let out of my 485 class after about 20 minutes every day because there's nothing to go over. Ah well.
Last Thursday night, Emily, Ryan, and I went to see Rent down at the DMCC. It was an awesome show, and I'm really glad to have seen it. Highly recommended.
Oh, and last weekend, Raina came out to see us! We had a great, if incredibly lazy, time just hanging out and mostly eating. Huge props to her for making the drives!
Let's see, what else? The group projects are coming along, if slowly. I'm actually in much better of a position that I thought I would be at this point; maybe I'll actually get to enjoy VEISHEA in ten days. Tonight is a Try SCUBA event, so I'll be able to get back under the water for at least a little time, which is awesome. Beyond that ... spring's arrival makes everything seem better, so I can't complain too much about anything, really.
Oh yeah, and I ordered a laptop last night! Details pending.
Hope everyone enjoys their week, and check out the brand new March archive. Word.

March 31, 2004 - Busy and yet somehow satisfying

I discovered the coolest thing ever today. Academic InfoTech, long my nemesis for things such as crappy Internet connectivity and network restrictions, has redeemed themselves in stellar fashion. It turns out that any old student can walk in there, and for the low, low price of free, check out a laptop for three business days. So, in return for showing my ID card and signing a piece of paper, I have a laptop until Monday afternoon. What does this let me do? Well, my primary reason for getting it is so I can do actual work in my classes, where I usually don't pay the best of attention anyways. I'm really liking it thus far... and I have discovered anew my desire to have a laptop.
But, that aside, I have more SCUBA pictures to display! Check out the gallery of underwater pictures from this break, taken by Eric Smith. There are some amazing pictures in there ... especially for someone like me, to whom all this is still a new and incredibly awesome experience. I still can't get over the trip, and some of the awesome things we saw. With any luck, some of the other members' pictures will get scanned and put up here at some point, but we'll have to see about that one.
Switching gears back to school, the group projects are still chugging along. We have much work to do for them in the upcoming weeks, but I think if we can stay relatively on top of it, it should be a reasonable load. Again though, I guess we'll have to see how everything comes out. Heck, if they're any good, they might even get thrown onto my Programs page.
Check it out too, I redid the bottom props section! I've been wanting to do this for some time. Let me know if it looks strange or wrong in your browser, please! Otherwise, please send me any suggestions for things to put on here!

March 22, 2004 - I'm back!

I've returned from Spring Break... and I am not happy to be back. It was incredibly nice to not think about work, school, classes, projects, roommates, deadlines, registration, ... anything for nine solid days. And now we come back and are immediately thrown back into the thick of it; this doesn't sit well with me.
But enough of that. This trip was seriously the most amazing thing I have ever done. Seven of the SCUBA club's members (Adam, Eric, Emily, Brendan, Megan, Susan, and myself) rented a Suburban and trailer and drove the 1700-plus miles to Key Largo. We had rented a house there, and lined up a boat to do some quality SCUBA diving. The weather didn't cooperate with us in the beginning of the week, leading to one dive in the marina, one terrible dive, and four cancelled dives. However, it cleared up and we had excellent diving for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I can't wait to get my underwater pictures developed and scanned; for now you'll have to settle for the above-water photo gallery I put up tonight. In short, the trip was awesome, we had an incredible group, and it was probably the most amazing experience I've had. I can definitely see myself getting way into the tropical SCUBA stuff.
For an amusing story in which I suffer, I ended up with a pretty nasty case of what I think was Sea bathers' eruption last night. It basically involved me being covered with a lot of red, extremely itchy bumps. Not a fun experience, but thankfully it was gone this morning.
I'm sure I'll gush some more when I finally put up some underwater pictures from the trip, but for now I'll try and contain myself.
Back in Ames, things are pretty standard. That is to say, they're insanely busy. I have a list of running around to do that fills a page, and all the professors have suddenly just realized that there are only six weeks left in the semester. I have three group projects to do by that time, and none of them are started at all. This could prove to be a very large problem.
And I have my registration for next semester figured out: 18 credits, in six courses. We'll see how it goes, since I have time conflicts that I can't get out of. Hopefully this will end up working out, though, since there are one or two courses in there that I really, really want to take.
So for now, I'm going to bed, since sleeping in a Suburban isn't the easiest thing to do, or the most restful. Perhaps the million things to do can wait until I'm well rested. *waits for laughter*
Oh, and you might notice one small change in the links page.

March 11, 2004 - So yeah. A week. Sorry.

After an awesomely relaxing weekend, consisting of movies, parties, racquetball, and other things, we're back to the week. It all seems so long ago.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were about the busiest days ever. I spent the majority of all three days running around campus, trying to figure out such things as class schedules for next semester, group meetings and projects, homework assignments, intramural results, donating blood, meetings and flyers for HKN, and the like, which is to say nothing of the homework, websites, updates, etc that needed to be done at home. Case in point: I was printing off HKN flyers at 2:30 in the Computer Science building. Wow.
In summary: I had two advisor meetings on Monday. It looks like, through some fancy scheduling maneuvers and loopholes in the system, I am in fact going to be able to get out of here in four years, and I am going to be able to take the video game design course I desperately want to take, and I am going to be able to take it twice. This puts me having eighteen credits in the fall, and fifteen in the spring, which includes three-fourths or better technical courses, and senior design. I guess those will be two rough semesters, but since my absolute number one goal is to take this game design course, it's just something I have to do.
Those tests last week turned out quite well; I got a 94 on both of them and that's fine by me. There's somewhat of a fiasco with the Sociology test though; apparently our cool professor thinks that giving half the students an extra hour (mind you, the test was only 50 minutes in the first place) to finish, but not letting the other half have this time, is completely fair. She says "she doesn't have any control over our schedules, so if we have a class afterwards and can't stay to work on the test, it's our fault." After a rather large uproar about this, she's trying to figure out a way to even the grades, and she said, "The most fair thing would have been if everyone opted to take the extra time." Fact that some of us had required classes immediately after notwithstanding, I guess. You have to be kidding me.
But on to the more fun stuff. We're heading to Florida for Spring Break this year, and we're doing it right. A 27-hour drive each way, leaving at 4:00 on Friday and coming back on Sunday night. With seven or eight people in a Suburban, plus all their stuff, plus all the SCUBA gear, it's going to be mighty cozy. I promise there will be some pictures when I return, but you're going to have to wait until after the 22^nd.
So I hope everyone has a great week and a half! And finally, a shout out to Patty for a happy birthday!

February 29, 2004 - So apparently we're doing weekly updates now

Last week seemed awfully busy as I was going through it. Looking back on it, though, I can't really remember what exactly was so captivating. Go figure.
Let's see. I had a test in one of my Computer Engineering courses; whoopee. I did a lot of work, too. For the first week in a long time, I went to all of my classes (I usually skip at least one of the Computer Engineering classes in the afternoon - see the schedule). I took at least three naps, and played some Final Fantasy 3.
Coming up this week, I have a test in Sociology on Wednesday, a test in Computer Science on Thursday, and a Sociology paper due on Friday. It's not looking to be a fun week, but the rest of the classes shouldn't be that bad.
This weekend was quite fun. Friday night, I stayed in and did a whole bunch of work, which I didn't really mind. Saturday, I watched us lose to Nebraska, then King and a whole bunch of people came over to play Halo. Huge props to Jackie and Adria for an awesome dinner, as well! After that, Kristi hosted a very entertaining game or two of Outburst. That brings us to Sunday, when I decided to get up at about 3:00. I did a whole lot of work, then headed to Ryan's for some quality Secret of Mana, which was a grand time.
So we're back to Sunday night. Hope everyone enjoys their respective weeks.
Happy Leap Day to all, and to all a good night.

February 16, 2004 - Weekend, weekday. Day, night.

The computer is back up and fine. Huzzah.
So, this weekend was great. I did a ton of work (*gasp*), had a ton of fun, and managed not to let the lack of sleep affect me too much. All this in spite of Singles' Appreciation Day on Saturday... Not that I even thought about it. To me, it just meant cheap candy on Sunday!
First of all, on Saturday I went to the best basketball game ever. It was back and forth the whole time; really a great game. I had a front-row seat, courtesy of King, which was amazing by itself. Then, as we were up by one with 5 seconds left, and their 81% free throw shooter getting two foul shots, the arena practically collapsed from the noise. It was absolutely insane... And when he missed both shots, and both putback shots, the place went nuts. We all stormed the court, the whole deal. Absolutely insane.
Oh yeah, there was some racquetball on Saturday morning too, and then some madd fixing of some Internet outages on Saturday night.
Sunday we were scheduled to go sledding, but upon waking up and finding it to be minus-four degrees outside, we decided maybe that wasn't such a great idea. So instead, four of us had breakfast here, then we all went back to bed.
Funny story about breakfast. So we're cooking the bacon on this new skillet my folks got me for Christmas, right? King mentions that it smells funny in the kitchen; I tell him not to worry about it, since, in our apartment, it always smells funny when you turn on a burner. Five minutes later, I walk past the stove and notce what looks like a half-burned page of a book on the stove. I lift up the griddle ... and ash goes everywhere. Everywhere. Apparently you're supposed to take the label off of the griddle before you use it! Who would have thought it??
Anyhow, this week is looking kind of hectic. I've been doing a lot of academic work already, and have gotten a lot done. But we have a group oral presentation on Friday that we haven't even met about ... and more. But I spent about four hours tonight doing an assignment I thought was due Wednesday ... Yeah, turns out it's due next Wednesday. Stupid, stupid.
Yeah, I know I haven't done anything to the site in a long time. I've been hella busy. I'll get around to it ... maybe. Suggestions?

February 8, 2004 - Balmy!

Check it out, it's a whole ten degrees here. I actually wore shorts for the last two days ... But maybe that's because I was busy playing DDR. (Props to Emily for hostessing on Friday night!) Whatever, it's still a comparative heat wave.
This weekend was pretty fun. I have this real bad habit of making Fridays and Saturdays my days of fun, in which I do no productive work whatsoever. That, of course, makes Sunday my day of never-ending work, by which I really mean that I sit around and procrastinate all day because the amount of stuff I have to do seems so daunting I can't seem to start on it. Ah well, I get by, I guess. I spent the majority of today working on a project for one of my Computer Engineering courses; despite it being a rather large pain, it's pretty cool to see the results. Sure, maybe it's pointless, but it's still cool.
I'm down to two ridiculously overdue things on my To-Do list, so I'm improving. I'm very proud, especially considering one of them says "Read four chapters." Oh, and it was due two weeks ago. Damn.
An upsetting note: We got stomped on Saturday. I'm talking seriously, 100%, outright, hardcore stomped. Bad times.
In place of doing any work on the site, or anything productive at all really, I'm just going to mention that my computer has been up and running for four straight weeks now, and expect you all to be satiated. So there.

January 28, 2004 - Brr!

Yeah, so it's cold outside. Really, really, freaking, cold. This is the third straight day with minus-twenty wind chills or worse, and I for one am starting to get sick of it. When does May get here again? (Yes, I know May gets here on May first. It was rhetorical. Thank you.)
I've discovered recently that I hate reading. I've had about two dozen items come onto my to-do list since school started, and eighteen have come off. The six that remain are reading assignments, and the eighteen that I've done have had no reading involved whatsoever. Notice a pattern? I do, and it really bothers me when I'm in a Sociology and Religion class... And both of the professors think the only way to learn anything is to read. Booooooring.
On a positive note, I am really enjoying the couple programming classes I am in, however. I really did miss having things to code. As soon as I get an assignment or something that involves coding, it's pretty much the first thing I do, even if it's not due for ages and I have much more pressing matters. Not sure what to make of that, but hey.
I changed my current schedule page a bit, to reflect a change in the lab time for my Computer Engineering class. Yeah, that's about it.
Basketball game tonight; we'll see if we can keep up the decent play at home.

January 13, 2004 - And so it begins... Again.

Yes, classes have begun. Which means that I now have a whole lot less free time than I did when there was nothing to do but laze about all day and play racquetball. Funny how that works.
Even so, classes are allright, and I'm thinking that they should be okay through the semester. I only have one difficult-to-understand professor, and at least two classes have homework that will be enjoyable. The only thing I'm leery of is the projects; many of the courses seem project-based rather than homework-based like I'm used to, and I'm hoping that they won't all be due at the same time. Ugh.
I forgot a couple of important things in the last update. For one, we moved! We switched apartments at semester, moving from a 4-person, 2-bedroom apartment into a 4-person, 4-bedroom apartment, which is really nice. Robert came with me, but Eric and Lee both got spring-summer co-ops, so they'll be coming back in August. The two new guys, Paul and Justin, are great. Pictures will be up ... in about that much time.
And, I forgot to mention that I added a Computer Science degree, which makes me officially a "Double-degree student in Computer Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Sociology." Blech, I just think of myself as a kid who likes computers, but whatever. Resume updates will reflect the change ... again, in about that much time.
But, check it. I went through and did the pictures from New Year's! Be sure to take a look at those for a glimpse of the craziness that was the evening.
I gotta get back into some video games, too ... I'm thinking this is my semester project. You know, the one that really matters.
Hope everyone has a good week!

January 9, 2004 - Oh boy

It's definitely been two weeks or more since an update. Crap.
So, I suppose that means that I should say what I've been up to. (pause) Want me to say it again?
No, seriously though, break was awesome. It was great to get home, spend some time with the folks, with the friends, and with the pillow. New year's eve down at the University of Illinois was incredible, and an awesome time. (Pictures coming soon; Wicked-madd props to Jody for hostessing; For some glimpses, see certain pictures on the new link I put on my links page) I did a smidge of work, didnt play nearly enough games, and got together with people a lot. That was pretty much the entire three-week break.
Oh yeah, and the small detail of me getting a car! A white, 4-door, 1997 Honda Civic to be exact. Her name is Montecore; ten points if you can tell me where that comes from! Took her down to UIUC for new year's eve, took her back with me to Ames, and she runs smooth as butter. Couldn't be happier with her, and now I don't have to gank Ryan's or Kristi's cars anymore!
Anyhow, now that I'm back, updates should be semi-regular again. I'm looking forward to this semester, or at least some of the classes. We shall see.
Oh yeah, I archived December and added a link. Check 'em.

November 16, 2003 - YAPOTMTTDLWNU

That's "Yet another period of time more than two days long with no update".
Right, about that. Things have been relatively busy. Friday, Ryan and I went to see Ruddigore over at Fisher Theater, and I have to say, I was very impressed. Right next to Kiss Me Kate as the most entertaining of the semester. Immediately after, we played some racquetball, then came back here, where he and my roommates got into a multi-hour political discussion that I for sure stayed well away from. Then Saturday, I woke up early to go tailgating, then watched us get destroyed, not that any of us were surprised. It's high time to can our offensive and defensive coordinators. After that, I played another round of racquetball in the evening, and then went and watched Finding Nemo over at Emily's. What a quality flick. Sunday, I basically got up at three and sat around all day, watching various combinations of football, my schoolbooks, and the insides of my eyelids. A good weekend.
But all those good vibes are about to change, see. I have a test Thursday morning, but more important than that, I have a huge final project due the week after Thanksgiving break ends, and my partner and I really need to buckle down and do something on it this week so we don't get hosed at the last minute.
In the meantime, though, you could take a look at some pictures Annie has taken over in Europe!One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve
And with that, I dive into the week. Huzzah.

November 9, 2003 - Uh oh...

Right. So this got real ugly, real fast.
Monday: Class, 8:00. To/from/in Pella, 9:00 until about 4:00. HKN helpdesk: 4:00 - 5:00. Computer Science Test (note, I have studied for this about one hour thus far...): 8:00 - 10:00. Computer Engineering homework, due Tuesday at 8:00 AM.
Then for the rest of the week, I get to bust my ass on a Technical Writing presentation (yes, a presentation in a writing class, I don't understand it either) which we are doing on the following Monday. Agh.
So, about lighter things. This weekend was awesome, though of course I didn't do any studying for my CS test (damnit!). Friday night I accidentally fell asleep from 7PM until 11PM, then went down to Larch and watched The Bourne Identity with some friends. Saturday, I got up at ten to go tailgating and watch us get obliterated on that big green thing with the chalk marks. Apparently our team was supposed to "play", or something, when they went out onto the big green thing? They obviously didn't know, and I'm not sure either. Anyhow, after that I hit the grocery store, then went and took over eighty pictures of campus (which I will hopefully sift through and put some up soon-like), then played some racquetball, then had some video game action over at Ryan's. Sunday I got up at two, studied a bit, then went to the HKN induction ceremony, came home and went to Emily's Inner-Tube Water Basketball game, which was ridiculously amusing to watch. Home again, study and miscellaeous chores, and now it's bedtime and I am feeling thoroughly screwed.
So, I will likely post something here on Tuesday describing my (mis?)adventures in Pella and in Computer Science. Until then, here's hoping I stay sane.

November 5, 2003 - I'm a slug

I swear, I haven't done a damn thing for about three solid days now. Schoolwork-wise, anyhow. A big part of that is that I seem to not have anything to do, believe it or not. So, I have been enjoying my free time by taking a couple extra naps, playing a couple more videogames, and goofing off on the computer a lot more.
However! I did manage to actually do something for this site, though it's nothing incredibly large. I just added a couple of new games to my gaming section. This is the easiest of the things I was hoping to accomplish, so we'll see if I can muster up the energy to revamp my school section (like I did to the work section) or add the hobbies section I've been talking about. We'll see.
I have been making progress on another Super Secret Project™ of mine, and with any luck, it will be up and active by the end of the year! I'll be sure to keep updates on that one coming as they happen.
Anyhow, nothing else is happening here until I go to Pella on Monday, which happens to be the same day as my next Computer Science test. I'll throw an update about both of those events here after they happen.

November 3, 2003 - Another week begins

This weekend was a good one. As I said to one of my roommates earlier tonight, it seems like I was either working hard or playing hard the entire time; there seemed to be very little 'downtime'. Of course, that's probably good, but still.
I busted out a full assignment from each of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science. I also did some more work on random little things, ran some errands, made an English website, etc. On the play side of things, I played a couple solid rounds of DDR this weekend, watched Van Wilder with a whole group, scored tickets to Stomp in April, played some quality Halo, and slept a lot. Hooray for great weekends!
As for the site work, let's see. First, I archived October. Then, I went through and completely re-did my work section! I'm much happier now with its layout and function; be sure to check it out.
That's it. This week is looking to be below-average in craziness, but as always, it remains to be seen.

October 27, 2003 - I did stuff!

Yet again, four days sans update. Deal with it.
But, to make up for that in some vague fashion, I actually did stuff! For one thing, I fixed my administrator script, so I can *do* things now. For another, I captioned the most recent fall pictures, so be sure to check those out! I also updated both of my resumes, and added next semester's schedule onto my schedules page. Things left to do include work, school, gaming, some new pictures, and my hobbies page. Look for those ... eventually. Yes, let's go with that.
Tonight, I went to see Kiss Me, Kate over at C.Y. Stephens. I have to say, it was probably my favorite event this year. Although the music and production were better for Sound of Music, and Cats has a certain appeal to it, I was entertained more thoroughly by this presentation than by any other. Good times.
What else? This weekend was amazingly busy, it seemed. Though I did complete a Computer Science assignment, and a Computer Engineering assignment, I managed to fit in about four separate bouts of videogaming. One for DDR, two for Mario Kart 64, and one more for Halo. And I got some quality sleep, and some free food tonight, etc, etc, etc.
Oh yeah, and props to Ryan for taking me down to Pioneer on Friday to talk to some people there. Good times, and more free food!
This week is looking pretty easy, I think. Some activities, but not too much. We'll see how it goes.

October 19, 2003 - Enjoyable weekend

I have to say, this was one of the busier weekends I think I've had of late. Of course, this makes it fun, but it doesn't seem restful. Anyhow:
Friday night, I went to the hockey game with Robert and a couple of his friends, then came back, played a couple videogames, and went outside for the fire alarm at 2:30 AM. Huttah. (Yes, our building is still standing. Think more of an "I'm drunk and stupid" alarm than a "fire" alarm.)
Saturday, I got up at 9 (*gasp*!) to go to the football game, in which we (*gasp*! again) got destroyed 40-19... Though that was a better showing than I was expecting. After that, I came home and worked some with my pictures section ... and by "worked some" I really mean "broke very badly". I broke the first ... several rules of programming (i.e., back things up, have the program tell you what it is going to do before it does it, etc, etc...), and the end result was that I lost about 60 pictures, and screwed up the rest. Fortunately, the fixes were relatively simple, and all the pictures except for Niagara Falls and Crystal Lake frolf are back. In the end, though, this change I'm making will be a good thing; you'll see. Once I restore all the pictures I lost in the first place, that is. Oh, and then in the evening, I went to Ryan's to play some madd videogames, which rocked pretty hard. After that, another impromptu trip to Perkin's, which also rocked pretty hard. A late night, but a fun one.
Which brings us to Sunday. Up late, then watched some football for awhile before my lab partner for Computer Engineering got ahold of me, which led to several hours spent in the labs, working on some ever-so-fun (read: vague and ridiculous) homework. After that, straight to an Eta Kappa Nu meeting (that's an Electrical and Computer Engineering honor society that I am thinking I should join), then straight to The Sound of Music, which was a really great show. Thoroughly enjoyable. Let's hope Kiss Me, Kate is as good.
So yeah, it's been a good weekend. Unfortunately, 'good weekend' is synonymous with 'didn't do much schoolwork', so this next week might be slightly busier than I'd hoped for. We'll see.
Lastly, I went around campus and took some twilight/nighttime pictures, some of which I think turned out really well. Once I get the whole pictures thing squared away, I'll be sure to post them up. I'm thinking I need a decent tripod though... Taking shots from the middle of the sidewalk using my 10-inch tripod just doesn't cut it. :)
Anyhow, hope everyone has a good week!

October 16, 2003 - Interviews, interviews, interviews

Just got back from my Union Pacific interview, and since I promised to mention something about this week's interview-ish activities, here goes:

• On Tuesday afternoon, I had my interview with Cargill, for an IT position of some flavor. Keep in mind that this interview was at Jack Trice Stadium, almost literally the furthest on-campus point from me, and I don't have a car, and it's at 4:30, and I have a lab that goes until 4. So I did my lab largely ahead of time (which I don't think you're technically supposed to do), and managed to bust it out pretty quick and get back home by about 3:30. After some furious changing of clothes and re-organization of my not-so-professional-looking Telesciences binder, I stole Ryan's car (huge props!) and hauled down to the stadium to be on time. So, after waiting a solid half-hour, I was finally called itno the room; the interviewer lady was nice, but I feel like I miserably failed the interview itself. There were no 'standard' interview questions (ie, what skills do you have, why are you pursuing this position, etc); instead, it was all "So, tell me about a time where you were pro-active in getting the requirements from a customer, where you went above and beyond to help the project" and "Tell me about a time that you were on a project team with someone who had an opinion different than yours, or maybe made a decision that you didnt agree with. Tell me how you handled that". Since these were questions I was not prepared for and had not thought about, I looked like an idiot as I racked my brain for an example (often not finding one) after each question. Graaa. "We'll be in touch". Yeah, right. But hey, I guess I learned something, right?
• Then Thursday morning I had my interview with Union Pacific. Again, this one came on a tight timeframe, since it was at 9:30, and my 8:00 professor doesn't like to let us go until about 9:23. Fortunately, this one was at Marston, not the stadium, so I made it on time. This also means that I had to get up at about 6:30 to shower and put on decent, non-slept-in clothes. This one seemed to go better, I thought; I seemed to have a better rapport with the interviewer and I think I was quicker on the draw, so to speak. Plus, the questions were more 'normal', which I think helped me a lot also. Unfortunately, I'm not really digging this as a first-choice for a summer thing; it's in Nebraska (yarg), for one thing. Anyhow, the interview itself was sort of uneventful, though I thought it highlighted my strong points much better than the Cargill one. They'll be letting me know in three weeks if I'm of interest to them or not.
• As a sidenote, this whole interview process seems absolutely ludicrous to me. I mean, here I am, getting up early and/or busting my ass to get somewhere by a certain time, taking ridiculous amounts of effort to dress in a completely artifical manner in some vague effort to impress someone I don't know in the hopes of getting a corporate-drone-style job at some company that I have no vested interest in solely to get a paycheck that you end up spending 90% of just to maintain your job. I suppose my ideal of having a job that I enjoy, while learning things, accomplishing actual useful work, and being informal and self-directed isn't exactly realistic, but ... this whole 'real-world' thing just disillusions me from time to time.

October 13, 2003 - Monday, how I loathe thee

Right, no weekend update. Whoops.
Well, what happened this weekend, hmm? For one, I replaced my old (and recently broken) Nikon Coolpix 775 digital camera with a shiny new Canon A70. Huge, ridiculously large props to someone for that ... You (or more likely, one of your roommates) know who you are.
What else? Props to Kristi and someone for coming to play DDR with me on Saturday. Robert, Emily, and I went to see the Drummers of West Africa show on Sunday; it was neat, and I'm glad I went, but it was not what I was expecting. Still good to go, though. Next up is The Sound of Music, which I have yet to get tickets for. Hm.
Once I get on the ball, I'll have a nice gallery of fall campus pictures taken by a friend of mine. Once I get on the ball, that is.
I'm also thinking about making a hobbies page, since, as it stands, this whole friggin' site is pretty much about me anyways. Good idea, bad idea? Shout out.
That's about all, aside from the 'Clones getting destroyed again. Here's hoping my two interviews (Union Pacific and Cargill) go well this week; I'll be sure to post about them.

October 5, 2003 - As predicted...

Yep, big surprise, we lost. Big time. But, since everyone's expectations were realistic, no one was crushed.
Not a whole lot to report, really. This weekend was decent - a lot of videogames, and a decent amount of schoolwork, mostly in preparation for tomorrow's upcoming Computer Science test, which I am not looking forward to in the least. Wish me good luck on that one.
My schedule keeps getting worse; both Friday and Saturday night I was up until 5:00 or better, and today I was awakened at 2:00 by my lab partner calling. Meal times are even worse... ~6:00 PM and ~2:00 AM are becoming standard mealtimes for me. I'm certainly glad I'm not at Dining Service anymore, with their restrictive schedules.
Anyhow, I added a weekend countdown to the Flash clock in the upper-right. It seems appropriate somehow. Hope everyone enjoys it.

September 23, 2003 - Weeks, not so great

A semi-regular update. Huzzah!
My schedule is so screwed up. For example: Saturday night I went to bed around 4. Sunday afternoon, I got up around 2. Sunday night, bed around 3. Monday morning, up at 7. Napped 11:30-1:30. Monday night, bed at 4. Tuesday morning, up at 7. Tuesday evening, napped from 8:50-9:50. And now it's just shy of 2, and I'm hoping to crash soon. Ugh.
Anyhow, Cats was awesome. A very catchy show, great music, great acting/prowling/dancing, etc, etc. I can see why it's been playing forever. But, the best part about going to see Cats was that Robert and I decided that we should go and see more things. So we got ahold of the year's schedule of events, and ticked off a bunch that we want to hit. These include the drummers of west Africa, the Sound of Music, a Scottish Christmas, Saturday Night Fever, Othello, and Rockapella. Also, Stomp is coming in April, and Rent is coming to the Des Moines Civic Center in April also. Those should be fun, and maybe they'll give me some small amount of culture. ... ... ... Nah.
This week is getting pretty crazy ... The Career Fair was today, and I think I may have gotten a couple solid leads ... Pella and Kingland Systems are the ones I feel the best about. We'll see what turns up, though I got a lot of responses like "Oh, summer intern? Yeah, come back in spring."
Hopefully I can squeeze in a game of Frisbee Golf tomorrow... Though I'm sort of bummed, since I haven't played racquetball in two weeks; this is a situation that needs rectifying in the near future.
More details about this upcoming weekend will be posted as I get them... It might turn out to be very interesting.
Oh yeah, and check out the Quote of the Day - it's a good one.

September 21, 2003 - Weekends are great

So, yet again, I haven't updated in ages. So sue me, etc, etc.
This last week was pretty long, though I can't really pinpoint why. I didn't have any exams, nothing went overly wrong, and yet it just seemed ... long. Maybe it's because of my Computer Science class; it's irrelevant, it's theoretical, it's inexact, it's peculiar, it's counterintuitive, it's complicated, and it's meticulous. Yeah, yeah, tell me what you really think.
The Scuba club's event was really fun; I have to say that I am seriously considering spending the dough to get certified and go on trips with these people. They're all great people, and the diving itself was incredibly fun ... even just in a pool! The next Try Scuba event comes highly recommended from me, to any interested Iowa State parties.
As for this last weekend, it rocked. A hockey game, some DDR, some Trivial Pursuit, a whole lotta football, and watching a friend of mine swing around the stripper pole she and her roommates put up in their apartment about sums it up. And yes, you read that right.
It seems like I should mention that I also recently switched to use Mozilla Firebird as my standard Web browser. It just seems better; not to mention it hasn't crashed on me yet. Tabbed browsing is far and away the coolest feature I've seen recently. If you're good enough with computers to switch browsers, I highly recommend checking it out.
Anyhow, I'm checking out for the evening. Going to go see Cats tomorrow, so that should be fun. I'll update again about that .... sometime.

September 16, 2003 - Sleep deprivation

8:00 AM classes are the work of the devil. Really.
But aside from that uplifting (and extremely common) complaint from me, things are going pretty well. I've had some time to dink around, some time to do some work, etc, etc. I really should be doing more work, as I have a couple things planned for the next few days/weeks. I'm planning to hit the Scuba club's Try Scuba event, where you strap on Scuba gear and they throw you in a pool and take bets on how long you'll last. I'm going to try to hit the DDR Club's meetings starting next week, and I'm trying to get in with a computer-security-slash-information-assurance club that's starting out.
Classes are still going fine, despite the timing. Not as challenging as I expected them to be ... at least, not until I tried some of my homework earlier tonight. Heh.
The apartment still rocks, too. I'm really digging on this whole cooking for myself thing. I had my first experience tonight with Hamburger Helper, and I must say I was rather impressed. Should yield three solid meals for me... And it's much better than my last attempt, which yielded some tart, dry, awful chicken. Live and learn.
Again, no site work. Tough proverbial bananas.

September 14, 2003 - Sadness reigns over Ames

What can we say? We got destroyed this weekend. And man, was it an ugly game. Sure, we lead in just about every statistic, but when I left at the beginning of the fourth quarter, it was 33-7 and we had just turned it over on downs after having first and goal from the six. In about five minutes, we had two punts blocked and we threw an interception. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
The Game was just a precursor to the rest of the weekend, though. I came home, ate some food, took a nap, watched another college game, and played some videogames on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I finally decided to get up about 2:00, and proceeded to watch football more or less straight through 10:30. (Good news though: Broncos won and Bears lost!) I'm hoping this is going to be an easy week for me :)
I have nothing in terms of site updates, or anything interesting to say. So there!

September 7, 2003 - It begins again

Our football team won again, in a much better performance than last week. And tailgating was awesome too. A full Saturday, to say the least.
Then, this morning afternoon, I didn't even bother to get up until about 2:30. Since then, I've watched the Broncos win, the Bears lose, and some of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on TV. And done a whole bunch of homework, since I didn't really bother to do any for the first two weeks.
Speaking of school, I have my first 'quizzes' this week. One is in Religion, where I'm guessing three questions will be on the difference between Monotheism and Polytheism. And the second is in EE, which I'm also thinking will be easy - and if not, we get to drop the scores for two out of our seven quizzes, so who cares? :)
Played racquetball tonight - that's five times on the year - and reorganized, added, and changed the links page. Weblogs and comics are among the new features. Enjoy.

August 15, 2003 - Laziness abounds

So I haven't updated this in a week, since I've been mostly sleeping, reading the Wheel of Time, and otherwise being a slug. It's incredibly relaxing, and definitely something I have needed, but it's about time for the back-to-school preparations to start. Hopefully moving into the new apartment will be relatively painless.
Other than a poor game of frisbee, the only exciting thing to happen of late was a great trip to the Chicago outdoor film festival on Tuesday. Big props to Emily for organizing.
Might be the last update until after I'm settled.... But maybe not, too. :)

August 5, 2003 - Week, no update, too bad, so sad

Frankly, I just haven't had the will to update this recently. So kill me, in the words of a brand new Geekspotter.
Not much has been happening, anyhow. Played a quality round of golf, some frisbee, still obsessed with Wheel of Time, doing some work, etc. The Mystery Project™ is coming along very, very nicely.
The summer is drawing to a close...

July 29, 2003 - Likely the last update of July

As promised, the CalCon D2-fest was a blast. Big thanks to Dan and Patty.
I realized that I haven't really done anything with the site of late. I should work on that, but I don't have any/many more ideas. Once I wrap up a couple things, I should have another addition to the Programs section, but no promises. I have an idea beyond the one in progress also, but I seem to have trouble bringing things to completion. Ah well.
Back to school in about three weeks; it's amazing how fast the summer went from "just started" to "almost over". We'll see if we can cram in some of the stuff we've been wanting to do.

July 14, 2003 - Great support

The only reason that the site wasn't down for any appreciable length of time is the efforts of Dan, over at Caliber Connections. Big props to him!
And even more props to Dan for hosting a Diablo-II LAN-filled afternoon of gaming goodness. And, of course, props to Patty for the cookies!
I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Well, not really, but I'm going to say I did. Anyhow: It really sucks when you sleep until noon, then nap from 3-5, then have to get up the next day at 5:45AM. The whole falling-asleep thing doesn't happen at night. Bad mojo.

July 7, 2003 - Back again

I have returned. Sorry to disappoint.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, though certainly not beyond the control of others (though it is not clear exactly whom to blame), my site may very well be down for ... an unspecified time. Apologies.

June 11, 2003 - Yep, still here

Still nothing to say.
Summer is nice, I guess, but I can safely say I'd rather be at school. Not necessarily doing anything, mind you, just there. Again, home's not bad at all, but for some reason this summer doesn't seem very ... summery.
*shrugs* Oh well. Still enjoyable.

June 6, 2003 - 0wnz0r1ng teh updates!!!1

This is about the best I've been about updating since summer started. Three cheers for me! Hip, hip, okay, I'm bored.
It's amazing how little I have to say ever since school got out. Which is not to say I'm bored, or discontent, it's just ... there's nothing going on. Except Matt finally updated his site.
Another lazy weekend, I hope... Maybe I'll get to catch up on all the sleep I haven't been getting because of Motorola...

May 29, 2003 - Nothing to say

An eight-day update drought.
And the funny thing is that I still have nothing to say.
Big props to Emily for the Memorial Day bash!

May 18, 2003 - Failing miserably

So I haven't been updating this at all. Maybe we'll shoot for once a week over summer, huh?
Nothing much to report, though. Haven't been doing anything, because I can't, due to a minor foot surgery thing that's going to have me inactive but not incapacitated for two solid weeks. Probably good for the shin-splints, but terrible for the spring fever.
Basically, I've been playing a lot of Diablo II, and that's been it.
Hope everyone else's summer is as good as this :)

May 4, 2003 - Nothing profound

This is more of an update for the sake of updating than anything else. Oh yeah, and to put off studying for my imminent finals.
Forgot to mention in my last update that on Wednesday, I was involved in a roadtrip to Ottumwa and back. By far the most fun (?) part was getting caught in the middle of not one, but two hailstorms involving just-shy-of-golfball-sized hail. And being in the middle of a giant tornado warning for an hour or so. And a thunderstorm warning. And having the restaurant we almost went to be almost hit by a tornado in the time we would have been there. I love Ottumwa so very much.
Back on the active kick, I played frisbee golf a couple times this weekend, before it got all rainy and crappy on Sunday. I'm really starting to enjoy the whole 'frolf' thing... I actually took a bunch of pictures the last time we went, so once I get around to it, I'll pop them up here.
Like I said, a weak update. Out of here in six days!

May 1, 2003 - Stress. Relax. Repeat.

Good timing on my archives section, as I just added April to it tonight. Trumped up the work page with the latest project that the Daily had me do. This one will be the last one of the semester, but I think it's the best one to date. Oh, and I added a bit about the site in the about me section, for lack of a better place to put it.
I can't decide if I should be stressing about finals (which I sometimes do), or if I should just concede that I really don't care all that much (which I often do) and take whatever grade I end up with. Those two 10-page Sociology papers really took a lot out of me. Studying just doesn't seem worth it sometimes, but then I'll stop and have a little fun (example: an hour of tennis tonight, despite the shin-splints) and suddenly I'll care again. I'm just not sure.
So I'm stoked about my imminent summer job at Motorola. They sent me a lovely hundred-page (or so) packet today, detailing my options and obligations for things like ethics, rewards, discipline, insurance... I guess they haven't thought about my status as a summer intern. I guess all this is standard procedure, and I understand it for a "standard" worker, but for a twelve-week worker, it seems a bit over-the-top.
Tonight's madd shout-outs go to Emily for a kick-ass batch of cookies, just in time for finals week! I have a new personal hero; it's official.
One more day!

April 28, 2003 - Again with the slacking

Right, so I haven't been updating this every other day like a good little Webmaster. So, let's face it, I'm not a good little Webmaster.
Instead of updating, I spent most of this weekend insanely occupied, and as a result, it was probably the best weekend I've had in a long time. Counting Friday afternoon, I played racquetball, played frisbee golf twice (once 'the real way', and once not so much), tossed a regular frisbee around, played five solid innings of softball, went on a short rollerblading jaunt, attended an orchestra concert, did half a dozen class assignments, had a meeting or two, and played a solid eight hours of Dr. Mario. What a classic game, and what a full weekend. Is it any wonder I think I'm getting (or already have) shin splints?
Of course, this leaves me with one more ten-page paper to do before Thursday, with plans for a mini-road-trip and who-knows-what-else in the rest of this week. Oh yeah, and it's Dead Week, and we're supposed to be studying (or something) for finals. So much for that. Speaking of, I popped my finals schedule onto the school page.
So basically, this update is an excuse for not having updated recently. And a realization that suddenly I can't get outside enough, or do enough stuff. Crazy. The absolute antithesis of what I used to be...
Regardless, four more class days, and counting!

April 22, 2003 - So I lied

Turns out I lied about the regular updating. Another week-long stretch, but I haven't even noticed. Been way too busy. I have a to-do list that occupies a complete whiteboard... And very little (read: none) of it is fun. Of course, this doesn't stop me from dropping the busywork and doing fun stuff... Racquetball and video games, mostly.
On the plus side, I definitely had my most productive weekend ever. I sat and pounded out a ten-page Sociology paper comparing my hometown and the town next door, and it was actually enjoyable to write. Some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I have another one yet to do (in leiu of a final)... Tack onto that completing the Independent Study, a weekend induction for my honor societies, community service activities scheduled this weekend, Daily work, Sociology reading, a Computer Engineering project, and all the small crap that I'm used to by now, and you see the plight.
Speaking of the devil, er, Daily, I have a new project up! Check it every day this week for an update, fall in love with it, and send me flowers. Or just go, I'll be happy either way.
No site work done. I'm going to bed instead. I know you're crushed.

April 15, 2003 - Back To The Update™

After leaving my small homage to Justin up for several days, I figure it's probably time to resume the regular updates. Again, deepest sympathies to all those affected.
Strangely enough, I've been busy lately. This last weekend was VEISHEA, the largest student-run, alcohol-free (yeah, right) celebration in the country. This is a tradition, and people are hardcore about it. Since I was gone for this last year, I figured I should probably get out and do some stuff this time around.
And do stuff I did. Friday night, a couple of us went down to Welch Avenue in Campustown to check out the Taste of VEISHEA vendors, Battle of the Bands, and the whole atmosphere that surrounds the event. Not too involving, but a good time nonetheless. Oh, and then I played pizza deliveryman to Erin and Carli at 2:30 AM. That was quality (if a bit cold).
Saturday, I got up (*gasp!*) early and went to see the parade. Fortunately for youall, I took my camera, and ended up getting over sixty pictures of the parade! A gorgeous day, and I have to say, it was very neat to see. I'll definitely be going back next year. Be absolutely sure to check out those pictures.
Then on Sunday, I went to the VEISHEA-sponsored production of Brigadoon, courtesy of Erin's free ticket. It was thoroughly enjoyable, and very well put-together. I honestly didn't expect to like it that much (I mean, come on, it's a musical, right?), but I came away having enjoyed it very much. Plus, we all know I can always use a little more culture.
So with the busy weekend comes little time for schoolwork, which definitely got pushed to the side. With a formal lab report due Friday, and two ten-page Sociology papers due next Friday, I think I'll be hunkering down over my computer a lot more than I'd like to be this week... especially considering the (once again) extremely nice weather. I can always spare time for racquetball and tennis though, right?
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys their week. I'll try to get back to updating this semi-regularly.
Oh, and now 63 entries in the Mystery Section™.

April 8, 2003 - Even stupider Iowa

I repeat, what a screwed-up state.
This time around, on Sunday night, we got about four inches of the heaviest, wettest, nastiest snow you've ever seen. Great for pegging people you don't like (or people you can beat up on, which are few and far between for a guy built such as I am) with a snowball or five, but such a pain otherwise. And it's still in the 30s.
Weather notwithstanding, the weekend was good. With Erin's help, I rediscovered the glory that is Dr. Mario, especially when you have someone to beat, er, compete against. Pretty relaxing, and productive too. It's frightening how much I've been doing recently.
And since I failed in putting up the latest Daily project, here it is! Again, I think it's pretty slick-looking. One of these days I'll put all these on my work page...
58 entries in the Mystery Section™, and I've decided not to release it until all 76 entries are complete, just to antagonize those of you eagerly awaiting its debut... you know who you are.
Finally, I'm absolutely disgusted by this so-called "war" and its civilian casualties. If I thought I had a remote chance to change anything, I'd be part of those weekly protests we have on campus.
On a happier and final note, Happy Birthday to my dad! :)

April 4, 2003 - Stupid Iowa

By far the biggest story around here is the weather. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we had highs in the 70s or 80s, and everyone was outside, playing frisbee or whatever, just loving the weather. On Thursday, it was maybe 65, but still sunny and an awesome day. So I wake up this morning, and, running late, don't look out the window or check the weather, and just run off to class instead, in a short-sleeve shirt and pants. Turns out it had been hailing since about 9:00 AM, with the temperature at about 35. Over lunch, it started hailing again (just small stuff, no damage or anything... maybe it could be better termed as 'sleet'). Then at about 1:45 we had a couple nice cracks of thunder, and it was hailing/sleeting pretty heavily when I walked into my 2:00 class. When I walked out at 3:00, there was (literally) an inch of snow on the ground.
It's April friggin' fourth. What's it doing sleeting and snowing on April fourth?
What a screwed-up state.
Otherwise, things are fine. Classes, organizations, social events, etc just keep going along... Got into an apartment for next year (woohoo!), so that pretty much made my week. Finalized next semester's schedule with the lab time I actually wanted. 52 entries in the Mystery Section™, with more happening all the time... should be ready for launch within the week.
Enjoy the weekend!

March 31, 2003 - Pretty tame lately

Things have been pretty tame around here lately, I guess. My parents came out for the weekend (hence the lack of updating, or at least the excuse I'm using), and it was good to see them. The first leisurely-type weekend I've had in awhile. Not a lot of sleep, but that's getting to be fairly standard.
Classes are progressing. I'm about ready for this semester to be over. I actively dislike two of my classes right now, and I'm not thrilled about any of the other three, either.
The Daily Challenge is over and done with, so that's one less thing to be doing. Look for a new project on Friday, though!
You may have noticed that I added a current count of the Iraqi civilian death toll underneath the navigation on the left. Be sure to check out that site; it has lots of information. Just my little protest against the "war" and the media's one-sided coverage of it.
Did about 90 more minutes of work on the Mystery Section™ tonight... It's progressing!

March 25, 2003 - Conflicted

Spring Break is over, and it was good to be home, if uneventful. I don't feel very rested, but that could be due to the ... turmoil in both the world at large and my own little life.
But that doesn't stop the terrible carnivorous machine that is Iowa State, oh no. It's already hitting me full force, though it's looking to get better once I get Wednesday's test out of the way. What's that you say? Didn't I have three tests the week before break? Yes. Yes, I did.
Similarly, I talked to an advisor this morning, and I have 8:00AM classes every day next semester. Sucks to be me... But I imagine I'll find a way to deal with it. Schedule should be up soon.
I wish the best to our troops over in the God-forsaken desert, and I wish the worst to Bush Jr.

PS - New section coming soon; it's all coded and set to go, I just need to do some serious data entry.

March 16, 2003 - Spring Break, baby!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Spring Break is officially here. You all know what that means: By the end of this week, my ass is going to be sore from having sat on it so much. Oh yeah, and no updates.
The day-and-a-half of Spring Break thus far almost makes up for the complete and total crappiness of the last two weeks. What a couple of days.
I wish everyone a good week; I know I'll have one.

March 11, 2003 - Oscillations

Things seem to be going back and forth between Very Bad™ and Very Good™. I'm not really sure where I stand.
I do know for sure that this week has been and will continue to be very busy. I know that my Sociology test didn't go nearly as well as I would have liked it to today, and I'll be thrilled if I pull an 80 out of it. I know I have two labs, six classes, one test, and one meeting until spring break. It really needs to be 3:00 Friday afternoon, now.
I made a lot of progress tonight, though. Did a couple Electrical Engineering assignments, filled out my entire (ten-page!) official application for summering at Motorola, worked on my Independent Study, had a house meeting, Daily meeting, did some stuff on the Daily Challenge.... (Speaking of, be sure to check out the Big 12 Tournament site if you haven't; lots of new stuff there.) So I guess it was a productive night.
It's looking like I'll make it through the week, but damn is it going to be good to have a week to do nothing.

March 9, 2003 - Weekend update, but not the good Saturday Night Live kind

This weekend didn't turn out to be all too bad, though I haven't really started studying for any of my three tests this week. Yikes.
Went and had some very good pizza with the Harwoodians (Laura had a birthday) on Friday night, which was quite fun, despite me spilling a whole glass of Coke, complete with ice and everything, right into Patricia's lap. Fortunately, no permanent damage; one load of laundry and a shower later, she was fine.
Then I hosted a DDR party on Saturday night, which involved, again, mostly Harwoodians, plus some floormates and other friends. Good times there, but when has there ever been a bad time playing DDR? ... Which leaves, of course, today as my study day. So it goes.
Just to keep you all placated, I put up a neat picture I took on Friday. Enjoy.
Lastly, I don't know how I ever lived without a set of wireless headphones before. I love these things, and I really can't say enough good things about them. I'm rarely found with them off anymore. I would most definitely recommend them to anyone who listens to anything, ever.
I'll see if I can't update this later on this week.

March 3, 2003 - Apologies

First off, I apologize for not having updated this in the last week. I've been struck by a very large apathetic streak, and I've been having enough trouble completing class-related assignments and other obligations, let alone updating this site. I hope to make up for it with a fairly long update tonight.
Let's start off with the site changes. Tonight, I:

February 25, 2003 - Disenchanted

I'm becoming bitter about some of my classes. Electrical Engineering confused me for nigh on five hours today, I never have a clue what's going on in my Matrix Theory course, my Sociology class has very interesting material but the professor makes it so very, very hard to stay awake through, and my Computer Engineering courses move either way too fast or way too slow. I'm just buried under stuff to do right now, and I guess I'm finding fault with anything I can. So naturally, the classes take the brunt. Oh, and I have a lab at ten tomorrow. Good times.
But hey, at least we won our basketball game tonight, in decisive fashion. We seem to be starting to come out and play, now that there are a whopping two games left in the season. However, the last two home games have been very fun to watch.
Another huge project for the Daily is done, as of tonight. That should take a load off until our next project, which is due sometime early next week. Of course, that big project means I haven't had time to do anything else, but hey.
On a similar note, I'm thinking of starting a new project - but this will be something I want to do, so I'll actually work on it. See, there's a bunch of Christian organizations on campus that have all sort of rallied behind this website, called everystudent.com. (I'm not going to link to it, because that would imply endorsing it, which I simply can't do.) Given my sharply opposing views, and my general bitterness toward in-your-face proclamations of religion and telling me what I should do with my life, I'm thinking of starting nostudent.com as sort of an anti-everystudent.com site. Let me know what you think about that idea.
In the meantime, it's the same thing as always: Try to survive this week so I can sleep on the weekend. Lather, rinse, repeat.

February 23, 2003 - *gasp* A site addition!

Well, I finally did something for the site. Should I have been doing something else? Yeah, probably. But so it goes. Amazingly enough, I'm mostly caught up on schoolwork, but it's the out-of-class things that continue to mount and throw a wrench into the whole deal. The Daily has a big project for me to do by Tuesday midnight, I'm supposed to be working on a small program for my building, my Honors application refuses to die, and my Independent Study isn't getting the attention it should. Perhaps one day I'll get industrious and actually do some of this stuff.
Right, I was talking about the site addition. Lo and behold, I bring unto you, a Links section! Complete and rather long, it took me a good couple hours tonight. Of course, it's open to suggestions, and I would encourage anyone and everyone to contact me with their proposed additions. All are graciously accepted.
This weekend was good; went to our thrilling basketball game, by far the best this year, went square dancing with a big ol' group, had some late-night pizza, and bummed quite a bit. A nice change from last week.
Aside from being really cold, all is well here. The week isn't looking too bad once I get past the Daily project. I hope everyone enjoys their week.

February 21, 2003 - Lightening?

So I took a couple big steps this week toward reducing my stress level, and a couple nice things happened.

So I might actualy be surviving, or something. Still very little recreation time (read: video games ;)), but I might actually get through this semester, which is not to say that there's not plenty still to occupy me. Guess it's a good thing I didn't take that extra Sociology class I was thinking about.
No site updates tonight, but I really do hope to be implementing some other stuff soon. Once I get more time....

February 19, 2003 - Update from my 10:00 Lab

I've still been slacking. Okay, not really, as I've had nothing but crap to do, among them a new feature for the Daily, lots and lots of homework, a test tomorrow, living arrangements, honors applications, Australia crap... The list goes on. Oh, and night before last, my computer crashed and I had to reinstall Windows. That kept me up until 5:30, and allowed me to get a grand total of about two hours of sleep that night. Good times.
So I hope everyone is doing well. Until I dig my way out from under this pile of sh*t that I've been wallowing in recently, expect little to nothing here. Not that you do anyways ;)

February 13, 2003 - Technical difficulties

It seems there have been some technical difficulties over the last couple of days... For example, I posted something late Tuesday night, and then on Wednesday it was gone, and all my scripts (pictures, Quote of the Day, etc) were broken. More on this situation as it develops. For now... I survived the week. Yahoo.
Now I get to be on cruise control for a couple days.
Nothing else tonight. Happy V-day, all!

February 9, 2003 - AWOL

I've been AWOL for a couple of days. So sue me.
This weekend was cool; A little work (but not very much), a little play (probably too much), and a little sleep (quite a bit actually, but it's never enough) make quite the well-rounded weekend. Saw One Hour Photo, a psychological-type flick with Robin Williams, and I would recommend it if you saw and liked Memento and/or The Bone Collector, though it's not scary/creepy like those; it's more of a realistic/creepy.
So for my first three semesters, I wasn't quite sure about this whole college thing. I mean, most people say, 'Oh, you're going to be so busy, I never had a free moment, yadda yadda yadda' - and, well, it just seemed like I always had all the time in the world. Everyone else was constantly studying or working or running frantically from place to place, and I always sort of thought I was doing something wrong, because I wasn't. Well, now I think I'm falling into that trap. As an example, Tomorrow's schedule is:

February 4, 2003 - Another new section

Two updates in two days. Don't get used to it, but I've actually been working on the site recently.
Case in point: another updated Quote of the Day (okay, I'll stop mentioning it, since you all should have it bookmarked by now), a small addition to the work page to reflect yesterday's Flash, and a brand-new Programs section. For now, there's only one there, but I think it's release-quality, and I have many more ideas for some others in the near future, if this homework ever lets go of me. Enjoy, kids.
We got absolutely slammed with snow today. I went to eat lunch at noon, and it had just started with a few small flurries, and by the time I got out of class at three, there were near-blizzard conditions, with upwards of three inches of snow on the ground, and it was just generally hazardous to be out and about. So what did I do? I went back out at about four and took a bunch of pictures... Hopefully I'll have them all up here tomorrow. (For now, I need to go to bed; it's 3:45, and I have a 9:30 class...) It's really pretty, if more than a little hazardous. We'll see what campus is like tomorrow morning.
That's it. Big, big thanks go to Mr. Tom Robinson for helping me resolve some issues I've been having with my Palm Pilot.

February 3, 2003 - Back to the grind

Wow, this weekend was a flurry of activity. Things included playing racquetball, attending a basketball game, playing cards, watching movies, going to Target, getting my hair cut, going rollerskating.... And, starting at about 2:30 this morning, some homework too. Oh, and I installed a second hard drive in my computer, for backup purposes. Thanks again, Chad!
Tonight's update consists entirely of pictures - I have one telling shot of the condition of my floor, and a whole gallery of our Friday night spent rollerskating in Ogden. That, and I changed the Quote of the Day, but I'm going to stop mentioning that pretty soon, as it's sort of perpetually changing.
Very bad deal about the Colombia this weekend. Best wishes to those who survive the fallen.
I have a Flash up at the Daily already - it's not a 'special feature', and it's nothing really special, but humor me and check it out. On the minus side of things at the Daily, I have a total of five meetings there this upcoming week, plus the Flash work that I guess I'll be starting soon. Wow.
Somehow, I managed to get all my homework done tonight, despite starting at 2:30, so I think it's bedtime for now. First test is Wednesday; I'm not too concerned.
I hope everyone has a good week!

January 22, 2003 - Winter is definitely here

It's really frickin' cold here. Tonight's wind chills are supposed to be in the 30-below-zero range, and I, for one, believe it. I walked around campus just a little today, and it was incredibly cold. Spring can't get here fast enough.
Very little of interest is happening, other than a little bit of work here and there. My stint at the Daily should be getting into full swing soon, and I'm stoked, because I'm supposed to be doing some more Flash work for them. Ideally, I'll also have more hours and be doing more work, and consequently being paid more. The perfect situation. :)
I've determined that I'm at somewhat of a crossroads in my life... About now is the point where I should be figuring out who I am, how I want to live, what is important to me, where I want to go in life, et cetera. However, I have none of that figured out. I have no idea what I want to do for a job, where I want to live, what my 'purpose' is (assuming there is one in the first place, which I'm also not sure of), what I value, what I think, who I am ..... The list goes on. People tell me not to worry about it, that I'll figure it out, but it seems like I should at least have a starting point here. I'm making decisions that will affect the rest of my life without knowing where I want to end up, or how I want to get there. It just seems like I'm taking shots in the dark, and any one of them could ricochet back and hit me.
No site updates for now.

January 13, 2003 - Welcome back

I'm back at school, and things are already in full swing. I went to two classes today, and got two homework assignments. And, in true form, I probably won't start either of them until after midnight Tuesday. My classes seem to be far away this semester; I even have one in Howe Hall, at the far end of campus. I have a couple labs in Coover Hall also. As such, I plan on being very lazy and taking the bus whenever possible.
The holiday break was excellent. I expect to put up some pictures of Christmas and our trip to Florida sometime soon, as well as some pictures of the New Year's party we all had. All in all, over break, I really didn't do very much, and it was most excellent to be able to just chill for a couple of much-needed weeks. Big thanks go to Emily for hostessing New Year's, and to Patty and company for hostessing a D2-fest.
Now to recreation: I acquired Xbox Live and Unreal Championship over break, and I must say it's one of the most addictive combinations ever. The play is incredible, and it's been eating a lot of my time. Fortunately, I don't see it losing its appeal anytime soon... :)
Things to do for the site include updating the school page and putting up the winter-break pictures. Possibly more if I get industrious.

December 16, 2002 - Big changes that you may not see

I'm back on the every-other-day updating. That means Wednesday and possibly Friday... Then I'm done updating this until mid-January. I know you're all crushed; both of you.
Anyways, I made some relatively big changes here tongiht; I probably spent four-plus hours on the site. Don't I have finals to study for? Yeah, but who cares? Regardless, the biggest thing you'll notice is the complete change of the photos section - it's now organized by galleries (which are easier to navigate through) and individual pictures, instead of being a haphazard conglomeration of pictures like on the old pictures page (which is still available). Plus, I made another admin-style utility that lets me easily and painlessly edit the captions on pictures (which used to be the biggest pain), so maybe there'll be more frequent picture updates. Also, enjoy the new shot of Deenaree, in full gallery form.
In school-type news, my Diff-Eq final was easier than I expected, but one problem still gave me some trouble. I think I'm okay, though; now to study for the two on Wednesday and one Thursday.
And on the social agenda for the evening (morning?) was a 2:00 AM run to Perkins; myself, Deenaree, and two guys from first floor. We did this last year in May, and it was a blast, so we decided to do it again. Last year, we went in a flatbed pickup, and on the way back, myself and Plummer (one of the guys) rode in the back the whole way, and though it was May, it was still hella cold. Well, in keeping with tradition, tonight we rode back with the windows down and our heads out them, like so many dogs. I quite literally couldn't feel my face when we got back. Once Deenaree gets her film developed, I might get a shot of our outing up here.
Four more days until break!

December 7, 2002 - Bad Webmaster, no biscuit

Yowch. Five days, no update. I'm such a slacker... Not that there has been that much going on recently...
I've gone to the last couple of basketball games, which we won (against powerhouses in the basketball world such as Western Illinois and Binghamton... Who's ever heard of Binghamton??), and those were cool. Unfortunately, our pep band (probably eighty people or so) feel the need to piss everyone off by doing ridiculous chants while the other team is shooting free throws. Example: "Stop! Your sock's untied." Completely unnecessary, though they do a decent job at making their actual music.
Next week is dead week, and since my Diff Eq test on Friday went better than I expected it to (basically, the professor was nice and didn't throw us any real curveballs), it should be a pretty slow week, once I get my three last-minute oh-crap-the-semester's-almost-over-so-I-have-to-assign-you-loads-of-work-over-stuff-we-haven't-covered Sociology assignments done.
I finally got paid from the Daily, and I threw my finals schedule on the school page. More updates later; ideally Monday.

December 2, 2002 - Back at school

So I'm back at school after a very nice, very short, very relaxing, and very short break at home. It's amazing how much stuff there is to do as soon as you get back ... and it's also amazing how much of it I haven't done. Whoops :)
My accomplishments for the night were finishing up my DiffEq homework, finalizing my four-year plan (yeah, right), and finally beating Dragon Warrior 2 (old-school, 8-bit, Nintendo RPG ... please tell me if you remember it). Not altogether too thrilling of an evening, but it's nice to be slacking off a little bit. Okay, a lot.
So my finals schedule is looking good, I think. It's two weeks from now, and it goes something like this:

• Monday, 7-9 PM : Diff Eq
• Wednesday, 4:30-6:30 PM : Computer Science
• Wednesday, 7-9 PM : Computer Engineering
• Thursday, 12-2 PM : Sociology

November 27, 2002 - Mid-Week Update

Being at home is great. I spent all Sunday on the couch, watched nine straight hours of football, and basically have done nothing but relax and chill since I got here. It's been very nice. I've gotten a lot of real food, a lot of sleep, caught up with some friends of mine, and had a lot of fun. This week is just what I've been needing, but, naturally, I still haven't done my math homework. Go figure.
Not much to report; this is basically just showing off the update procedure to the family (and apparently, they're impressed). Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

November 16, 2002 - Lazy weekend

So I lied about doing anything with the site. I had my couple days of fun this weekend in leiu of actually doing anything productive here. So sue me. So, the same items remain on the checklist. Timeframe: who knows! :)
Patricia and I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night - it was quite good, and (from what I can remember, anyways) followed the book nicely. It's definitely worth seeing if you enjoyed the first one. Our moviegoing turned into quite an adventure, though; we called right before we left to make sure they still had tickets for the 8:00 show. We were dropped off and went to buy our tickets and they said the next available showing was 9:50.... Which kind of killed our plans of taking the bus back (which stops running at about 11:00). So we had two-plus hours to kill... And K-mart is a great place to do it. It turned out well, though the (unanticipated) walk home was long and very cold.
Back to that annoying school thing - I got my Computer Engineering test back, with a 92, which I'm happy about. That just about wraps things up for before Thanksgiving; I have a program to write and a Computer Engineering assignment to do, but that's it. I'm so looking forward to this break.

November 14, 2002 - The calm after the storm

You know that feeling when you've been swamped for two weeks or so, and then once you finally get through it all, you sit down and go, "Damn, it's great to be done with that!"? Yeah, that's what's happening right now. Nothing at all going on this weekend - I'm bankin' on a lot of sleep and a lot of fun. Amen.
More concretely: I got my Sociology test back yesterday; 91, which is a bit lower than what I was expecting but still good, so I'm not complaining. I also get my Computer Engineering test back tomorrow morning; I'm honestly not sure what to expect on that. *shrugs*
Maybe I'll not be lazy and do something with the site this weekend. Work, pictures, the new layout, and making different titles for all the pages are some of the things on the checklist right now. Got an idea? Let me know!

November 10, 2002 - Trounced again

What was the football score? Something like 58-7 or something. We just cannot play on the road. Way to bomb out on national TV, guys.
How have things been going, you ask? Well, as I wrote Patty tonight, "Well, Diff Eq, for one, had a test a week ago and a couple of work-intensive homework assignments since. Sociology (normally uber-easy) had a test Friday (which I felt ill prepared for) and has two assignments due Monday and Wednesday, respectively, both lots of busywork. CompE has a test Tuesday, which again I don't feel prepared for. Computer Science has a huge, very strange programming assignment due Wednesday. I'm doing a little bit of ISUDaily work, maintaining a few websites, pretending to have a social life, being involved with a club or two.... Ugh."
That about describes it.

October 13, 2002 - The end of a short weekend

I finally got Patricia hooked on Jedi Knight II. There go both of our GPA's.
Homecoming football game was fun, as we beat Texas Tech 31-17. Cold as all hell, but fun nonetheless. Note that we're now #9 in the AP polls, the highest we've ever been. At halftime, the game was a whopping 3-3, but we busted out in the second half, including Seneca Wallace's hundred-plus-yard run that was really only twelve yards. Overall, a good game to watch.
Still working on some Daily stuff, but nothing tangible yet. A few new pictures in the school section, but no other big updates. Did altogether too much homework this weekend, but it's good to have some of it out of the way. The room is still a hellhole, but I hope to clean it up .... sometime. Right.
Sitewise, I made the links have backgrounds when you mouse over them.

September 26, 2002 - The official dilligas.com (re)launch!

Welcome to Dilligas.com! This is my little corner of the Web. Don't get me wrong, I realize that no one's going to come here, and even fewer people are going to care, but when they offer domains for 15 bucks a year, how can you resist?

Right now, my site is kind of weak. I know this. I don't really have any content, and odds are that it'll just end up being a not-very-often-updated Web-log kind of thing. If anyone has any ideas for content, please let me know.