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December 11, 2004 - Happy December, I guess

Once again, it seems that I forgot I have a website until someone else reminded me of it. Go figure.
So, let's talk about the past (almost) three weeks - but let's do it briefly, since I really don't want to type that much and I'm certain that you don't want to read it all.
First, the week of Thanksgiving. Being home for some time was pretty nice, although not nearly as relaxing as it should have been; having four appointments and a couple other miscellaneous obligations in two days will do that to you. On the plus side, it was awesome to do the whole Thanksgiving thing, see the family, see a couple friends, and basically not be in Ames for a little bit. Of course, I was working on my project in just about every spare moment I had, but we'll get to that in a bit. Oh yeah, and enormous props to Scott for putting me up for one night on the way back - we went and saw a lacrosse game, then played Halo until 8 in the morning. Remember kids, dawn is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.
That brings us to the week after Thanksgiving, which is also the week before Dead Week. Projects and papers and such are supposed to be due before Dead Week. Basically, this means that pretty much my entire semester is due this week. So, from the instant I got back to Ames until 10:00 PM Friday when my last project was due, I worked. I did almost nothing but work on Senior Design and my CS430 project in every spare moment of the week. Oh yeah, and I had two homework assignments due and a final exam on that Friday as well. This was quite the week. Fortunately, Friday night, Emily had a very fun poker night, and the very next night, Adam hosted a big shindig at his place. Big thanks to both for some much-needed relaxation after a hellacious week.
As a sidenote, I'm quite proud of my CS430 project, and I shall be putting it up in my Programs section soon - though I may have some extra revisions for it in the future.
That brought Dead Week upon us, and none too soon. See, my 9AM class (see my schedule) is the one that had the final the previous week, so it was cancelled. My 4PM class had the projects die the previous week, so it was cancelled too. Senior Design didn't meet, although we did have to show up for a very formal presentation on Wednesday, which was no big deal. So basically, Dead Week brought a couple of small assignments and only a few classes. This is the beginning of the end for me, although I did have to complete a 25-page report for CS430 that was due on Friday. Friday night, King had a fiesta over at his place, which I throw mad props for. A good time was had by all, until we got written up, for (of all the hilariously dumb things) a quiet hours violation. But since it doesn't affect me, who cares?
Finals week is next week, and the very name strikes fear into the hearts of most people. Not me, though - for having six classes, I have a grand total of two finals, one of which I need to study for. And studying will most likely involve just making a couple of cheat-sheets and heading into the test, because I'm very much at the point in the semester where I just stop caring. It's going to be very nice to have a week or so with nothing to do, followed by two more weeks with nothing to do.
My apologies for the long, long hiatus between updates. For what it's worth, I archived November - and remember to keep checking those POTD's!

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.

December 25, 2004 - Merry Christmas!

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