One More Inch

Okay, this one needs an explanation. Cean W. (my roommate next year), and Matt K. are trying to put the velcro covered bean bag they’re holding on the central velcro thing, and whoever puts it further wins. The bungee is quite strong. It looks like Cean (left) is winning by a mile, but he actually only won by a fraction of an inch, as Matt kept on chugging. A photo finish.

[Edited to put the missing words into the sentence, and to fix the link to the large picture.]

My Birthday Details

So after I posted the last post, I had Physics, and then went to dinner with a whole bunch of people. I’m starting to become friends with this crowd, and hanging out with them is fun. After dinner, I was in my room playing a video game when Andy, Jake, and I think Michael came in and started shooting me with a little cap gun. (Jake bought a few at the dollar store the other day, and there have been several minor skirmishes in the last few days.) I think I mentioned Jake having shot at me early in the morning. Someone tosssed me a gun, shouting “defend yourself” I started shooting at them, and they ran down the hall. I chased them, and soon we were out into the lobby. Then Jake looked inside, because the doors were closed, and said something like “the obsticle course isn’t quite ready” I didn’t know anything about an obsticle course, but it sounded decent, and then Jake said that Andy and I should go in one door, and he and the other preson would go in the other. We went in, and I saw that the couches had been moved a bit. Then everyone stood up from behind the couches and said “Happy Birthday”.

It was a surprise party. All told, there were about 20 or so there, and they had a cake and a card. We ate some cake, and everyone was still shooting at one another. There was also a pillow fight. About the time the cake was served, my parents called me from San Diego on their vacation. I talked a few minutes, and returned to the party. I called them back later for a longer chat.

All in all, it was a really good birthday. Having that many people show up for my birthday really is a boost to the self esteem. I really like it here.

Happy Birthday to Me! (100th post)

Yeah, so I could have certainly have come up with a better title, but it serves its purpose.


Registered today, so I have classes for next semester. The online registration wouldn’t accept my PIN this morning, so I went to the Engineering building and registered in person. I discovered that theology 101, a core (and thus required) class, was almost entirely reserved for freshmen, with only 10 slots left available. Kitty, the lady who does Engineering registration, was going to talk with someone to see if I have to wait until after May when they know how many freshmen we have, or if she can register me anyway. I just sent her off an e-mail.


I remember being surprised last year, but this year I more or less expected it–I’m a year older, but I feel pretty much the same as I did yesterday. Nothing all that special about 19 in the States, although everyone keeps pointing out that I can now drink in Canada. That is, of course, when I go to Canada, which could be a while. Like, more than 2 years…


Yesterday after the hall mass, I brought down the cake my mom sent me when I came back from Easter, to share it with everyone. It went over pretty well.

Today, several people have wished me a happy birthday, and I’m wondering if I should be worried about later. I was up at midnight, and about 12:15, Jake and a few others came into my room with little cap guns, trying to sneak up on me. Jake fired, and pegged me right between the eyes. (There was no chance of injury, the rubber bullets don’t really get going very fast, but it is still surprising to see it coming.) Everyone keeps warning me about my 19 birthday spankings coming, but I’m pretty sure that they’re joking serious, as opposed to really serious. Nevertheless, I’ll keep an eye out for the rest of the day.


I did have one pretty good birthday present today. I had a CS test, and after the test, the professor gives you the answers as you head out the door. I got all sis questions correct. There was one thing I forgot the syntax for, so I guessed, but I got that right, too. Not bad for a present, if you ask me. Now I just need to repeat that for my calc test tomorrow.

Not too much new to report.

–Nathan

Weeds

—-

I’ve decided that my 100th post will be a birthday present to my self, or something. Anyway, it will be posted on my birthday, April 6. Content will likely be the same old stuff, because I’m not very creative.

Speaking of creative, it you have an hour or so to spare, go check out the Shadow Line series that Ben wrote. The screenplays are rather good, despite his disclaimers on the site. They are a work in progress, so there are a few minor parts that don’t make sense, but all in all, it’s a good read.

—-

I’ve been limping around campus this last week. About a week ago now, I was riding my bike, and noticed my knee was a little sore. I didn’t think much of it, but last Wednesday, I didn’t leave myself enough time to walk to class, so I took my bike. My knee hurt again, and when I went to sit down, it really hurt. So I’ve been trying to take it easy, avoiding stairs where possible, and not doing anything more strenuous than walking. My knee was getting better until today, when it started hurting more again. I’ve gotten a few strange looks taking the elevator up only floor, as I look fully healthy. Sometimes I don’t feel like waiting for the elevator, and so I take the stairs–I did that this morning, which is one of the things that made my knee worse. I’ll just take it easier in the future.

—-

My family is on vacation this week. Ever since my third grade year (95), when we went to Disneyland, our family has traditionally taken a bigger vacation every other spring break. This year, since I’m at college, it’s just the three of them. This year’s vacation is to San Diego.

I talked to them last night, and they’re already into the swing of things. Sounds like it’ll be fun. I really don’t miss it as much as I might sound like I do, although I wouldn’t mind coming along.

—-

I think spring has sprung on me. I have mild hay fever, and h ad taken a pill and a nasal spray daily the last few years. I stop for the winter, and I never got into the habit here. Honestly, I haven’t really needed it, and at nearly a buck a pill, I wasn’t in any hurry to start again. I have a large supply, but I’m just waiting to see if I need it at all. The past few days, my eyes have watered a bit, but only for a few minutes, and then it goes away. Today in Physics was bad–maybe there’s more flowers outside those windows than some others. I’ll keep an eye on it, but I’m not starting up on the allergy medicine until I need to.

—-

Went and saw my advisor today, got signed off to register, and got my PIN for online registration. I am allowed to register starting tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll see how full the classes are today. They were pretty empty this morning, when I was finalizing my schedule, but none of the incoming Sophomores had registered. I’m in the third group of four to register, but for the main part, I’m taking first year classes, or classes that have several sections offered, so I should be okay. If not, I go down and ask the registrar nicely. 🙂

—-

I had a stupid moment today, when I deleted about 30 of my pictures. I had transferred them to another folder, and then pressed Shift+Delete to delete the folder that I had transferred them from, as I didn’t want it cluttering up my Recycle Bin. The first thought I had was “You know, since I’ve accidentally sent the wrong file to the recycle bin while transferring photos before, I really shouldn’t use Shift+Delete.” The next thought was “Dang, I really was right–I just deleted the wrong folder.” I tried to shut down any programs that would write to the hard drive, and I though I had a recovery program installed. I didn’t, but was able to install it to a networked drive, and ran it, but it kept giving me a memory read error, at address something or other, even after a few installs. I don’t think it was designed to be run from a drive other than the boot drive, and I didn’t want to install there for fear of overwriting the deleted files. Unfortunately, they are gone, and even the tech genius from down the hall couldn’t work his Linux magic to retrieve them. They weren’t SUPER important, but were some pictures taken at the hall retreat, mainly. I had been planning to submit them to Nick for the Villa video, but I guess not.

—-

Last week, I was toying with the idea of a moustache or a beard. I didn’t shave for a few (okay, several) days, but then I wasn’t able to deal with the beard, it was just too annoying. Plus, i felt more like I forgot to shave than like I was growing a beard. I shaved it off over the weekend, but left the moustache. So for two days, i had a thin moustache. I got annoyed with that, too, so I shaved it off this morning. So I am once again back to being clean shaven. Which I will probably remain for quite a while now.

—-

My room reminds me of a Bill Cosby joke right now. It went something like this:

“I listen to a large variety in music. For example, just the other day, I was listening to rap. Not because I wanted to, mind you, but because the car in front of me had his music on so loud.”

I do listen to a variety of music, and the last few days, I’ve been listening to a lot of Michael Bublé. (Pronounced boo-BLAY) Jake just bought the CD. It’s actually pretty good stuff, and I saw him on one of the late shows a month or so ago. I think it was Letterman, but I’m not too sure. Anyway, good music, if you are into more of a old style, Sinatra type sound.

—-

Sad news about the pope, but I’m glad that it didn’t drag on forever. I’ve never seen the process for electing a new pope, so I’ll be watching the news often.

—-

Stibe buddy in 2 minutes, so I’m going to call it a night.

[Edited because A HERF doesn’t work the same as A HREF.]
–Nathan

April Fools

I thought about posting an April fools joke yesterday, but I couldn’t think of anything clever enough, and I was too lazy, anyway.


So it’s been a while since I last posted. I went home last weekend, for Easter, and that was nice. The knowledge bowl team at my high school was competing at state last Saturday, and my sister is on the team, so my parents and I went along to watch.

I was in Knowledge bowl last year, and the team did really well then. Actually, the previous year, the old advisor quit, and there was a mixup over who would be an advisor, and the league ended up being told that we didn’t have a team. Due to that mixup, and the lack of experience of the new advisor, last year, we only had a JV team for the regualr season. We rocked the JV teams, winning all four meets by a lot. For regionals, one of the schools with a lower scoring Varsity team offered us their spot, probably more to improve their chances at a JV championship than as a nice gesture. We came into the championship round in 1st or 2nd place, and 3 made it to the championship round. However, only 2 teams advanced to the state level. Aftr the 60 question round, we were tied for second place. A tiebreaker round was held, and the other team won the tiebreaker by a considerable margin (6-2 out of 10, or something). So we never went to state.

This year, my sister has joined, and they also have a freshman on the team, as well as the genius that carried the team last year, Ray. The whole league is afraid of him. He is very smart, has been to the state geography bee twice, can do math in his head faster than I can do it on a calculator, and is pretty good historically. He has a few chinks in his knowledge, but they aren’t very deep.

This year’s team advanced to state, and went into the championship round in first place. After 59 of 60 questions in the championship round, it was 12-12-12. Whichever team got the point on the final question won the state championship. Unfortunately, another team rung in just a bit faster than Stevenson, and answered correctly, taking the championship. Once again, Stevenon found themselves in a tiebreaking round. Unfortunately, once again, they were unable to take the victory. Stevenson took third place in state. An immense improvement from the JV team last year, and from the team’s performance my freahmn and sophomore years.


After I got back to UP, I returned online, and discovered there had been a bit of a dustup in one of the forums I visit frequently. (I’m not going to bother with details, but rather post an oversimplification) One of the longtime posters stepped a bit out of line in one forum, and other things had been happening. The person who runs the website was offended by the posts, and told her so. Another person took offense, and left in a huff, only to be banned by the owner of the site. I don’t totally agree with the reasons for all this, but I don’t deny Ben’s right to kick people off his site, and Velvet was indeed a bit out of line.


I’ve been typing this in small bits all day, it is now about midnight, so the title is now even less appropriate.


At school, we are in the middle of registration. I’m still not sure what major I want to be, but I’m thinking that I probably don’t want to major in CS. A minor or something, perhaps. I’ m still debating between mechanical and electrical, which has the computer and the electrical tracks. Computer track electrical engineering is actually kinda similar to CS, and I’m leaning that way if I do decide to go electrical. However, now that I’ve decided that I’m not doing CS, i discovered that I have at least next semester, and maybe even until Junior year before it makes any difference which way I’m going. EE and ME have several common classes, so I don’t have to make a decision yet.


I’m tired of blogging right now, and so I declare this a complete post. Until next time.

–Nathan