I feel like I ought to do a quick post, if not just to let everyone know that I’m still alive. I’ve been busy the last few days, working at the store, and doing two days’ work for Ray, the man from church that I mentioned earlier. He paid me for the work, which turned out to be mainly moving LOTS of wood chips from a pile in his driveway, and spreading them in his flowerbeds and yard. It’s not that hard, physically, but doing it for 5 hours makes you tired. (He starts at about 5 in the morning, so by the time I got there both days, there was only about 5 hours left in his workday.)

Not a whole lot else going on. Tomorrow at church is the “Never On Mother’s Day Mother’s Day Breakfast”, a longstanding tradition. This year they have recruited the high-school age kids from the church to work as servers, while some of the men do the cooking. I’ve been asked to help with the serving, so that happens tomorrow.

I’ve been slowly cleaning my room, I expect that I should have most of my stuff unpacked by the time I go back to UP. 🙂 Honestly, I don’t know where to put part of the stuff, but I’ve been going through all my old high school stuff and tossing some of it. The trick is to sort through it long enough after you did it that you don’t remember what it was, and soon enough that you can still throw it away and not feel like it is some sort of antique, or keepsake. I have two boxes of papers under my bed full of that sort of thing, and all sorts of papers from high school. I know I’m probably never going to use them for anything, but I want to keep them anyway. Oh well, sooner or later, I’ll probably just decide to throw it all out.

I suspect that this summer, I will be posting less, unless things happen. At this rate, there won’ t be much news this summer, which means not much to write about. So until next time, whenever that is.

–Nathan

As I’ve been mentioning over the last week or two, I’m planning to go on a bit of a road trip starting tomorrow. I was hoping to stay with Cean for the night, but he called me back last night, (actually, while I was on my bike ride) and it was just too short of notice for him to work out. I was online, intending to get a hotel reservation, when Nathan R. messaged me, and he ended up looking at my site, and saw the earlier post about Cean. I told him that it hadn’t worked out, and he offered to let me stay at his house. Plans were made today, and so that’s where I will be tomorrow night. It’s a bit further than Cean’s would have been, about 40 minutes drive, it looks like, but it should be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the Y&G people, and to setting off on my first solo road trip. Should be fun.

Had a bit of a disagreement with my mom about how much I can use the internet, mainly becuse I stayed up until after 2 last night. We had a talk, and I’m a bit limited on the time that I’m supposed to be online, at least until “I prove that I can stay up late and still get up in the morning”–I’m supposed to be off by midnight for the next few weeks, but I expect things will get better in time. I may stay up late now and again, but when I start needing sleep, I will start turning in earlier, if I can’t sleep in. Now that I know what she thinks of as “get up in the morning”, I should be able to do so with pretty good regularity. Of course, starting work again, with my shifts early or late, should serve to jumble up my clock a bit. And get me off my mom’s nerves. 🙂

Well, off to bed, so I can get up in the morning.

–Nathan

I’ve started several posts talking about the last few days of school, after finals were done, but I can’t motivate myself to talk about it. Must mean that it would be too boring to read, so I guess I won’t post it. I’ll just say that I had mixed feelings about leaving for the summer, and will certainly be glad come August 28 when I get to see everyone again.

Still thinking about that Youth and Gov trip. I had been hoping to travel along with the high school, and be some sort of an “advisor”, but the state office for the program mandates that “advisors” have been out of high school for a year at least. Maybe next year. I still want to go, and have been thinking about driving up for a day and just being a random visitor. Cean, my roommate for next year, lives about 10 minutes from the capitol campus, so I’ve been trying to call him today to see if I can maybe spend Thursday night with him. Makes things a bit easier, and I can spend a night without paying for a hotel. He hasn’t been answering his cell, so maybe I need to look up his home number and try him there. I think I’ll call Sunday afternoon. I’m just a bit concerned about the short notice. I really didn’t think of staying with him until Friday, so we’ll see how this progresses. My mom’s not terribly wild about me setting off on a trip all by myself, but I’ve gone there three years in a row, so I know the area, and I’m old enough to wander Portland on my own if I so choose, and she realizes that. If I’m staying with Cean, I think she’ll be more comfortable about the whole thing, and I still haven’t decided for sure that I’m going. If I get a hold of Cean, and they’re ok with me staying the night, I’m going, otherwise I’m not totally sure.

Not a whole lot else going on. Unpacking continues next week, and I intend to sort through the stuff that has been sitting unused in my room all year and see what I really need. Other than that and Y&G, my week is pretty empty. I start work at the store again on Wednesday the 11th or so, but until then, I’m mainly poking around the house, setting up and sorting out my room, and generally being lazy. At least until Mom decides that I’ve had enough.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was named as Pope, at about 9am Pacific (6pm Rome). He chose the name Benedict XVI.

—-

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

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

Time for another content update. I know that if I don’t do it tonight, I won’t get to it for another quite a while. There’s a bunch of stuff going on this weekend, and I need to sit down and finish an essay for a scholarship application. I’ve already got someone working on a letter of recommendation, so I definitely have to get this off. That and my mom is threatening me if I don’t. I need to get a good quality essay, too. There’s also an all hall (but optional) service project tomorrow morning, which I may attend, and my uncle has invited me to his house for dinner Sunday. Which reminds me, I need to remember to call him back about that. I told him that I was interested, and he mentioned picking me up here, but we never finalized a time or location.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing this week. I have a partial draft of the scholarship essay, and Monday, I got my first essay back from my English class. He didn’t like the paper terribly well, partly due to paragraph structure, partly due to a thesis he thought was too specific, and partially because it was about 4 lines short of filling the third page. I got a C-, with instructions to resubmit the paper on Wednesday. He suggested I visit the writing center to get help on the paper, which I did Monday evening. Rewriting the paper was made more difficult by the fact that I got the paper back exactly one month after I last turned it in. On the flip side, I was able to look at the paper from a new angle.

I turned it in Wednesday, and I now have the potential to score as high as a B-. The paper is one of two shorter ones for the class, and there is one longer paper for as the take-home final. He has said that a good second paper and final leaves open the possibility of an A- in the class, but it looks more likely that I’ll get a B or lower. While I’m told is not unusual for college, I still prefer getting an A to a B.

As a side result of all this thinking and writing, every time I tried to answer Kitten‘s five questions I just didn’t feel like doing them. So no, they aren’t forgotten, just greatly delayed.

The last few weeks, I’ve been suffering from some sort of laziness disease. Sometimes, I just don’t want to do my work, and I feel like I should just go to bed. This happens more often in the afternoon, so perhaps, I’m just down on sleep. It’s not spring fever, because I don’t want to go outside, although I do like getting out in the nice weather. It can’t possibly be senioritis, as I’m nowhere close to graduating. It’s spilling over to other things, too. I would like to get a decent blog post going, but I just don’t feel like it. Midway through this post, I just got up and left, going to the Cove for a snack. Then I got back, and talked to people for a few minutes, and finally got back. All I can muster the urge to write is this last paragraph. I’m warning you now, future updates may be a while on coming. (Of course, by posting this, I virtually guarantee that I will have 2-3 posts in the next week.) At any rate, it’s off to bed for me.

–Nathan

As part of the latest craze to hit the blogosphere, I asked Cel to give me five questions. Here they are, now with answers, too!

1. You’re at an ice cream bar, with every type of ice cream and topping imagineable. What do you put on your sundae?

Surprisingly, I saved this question to last. I would definaltely include chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and some chocolate sauce. Probably some vanilla, too. I’d skip the cherries, and whipped cream doesn’t really make the ultimate list, either. Probably chocolate chips, and maybe a caramel sauce, or a Heath shell. Not necessarily all at once, though.

2. What’s your favourite colour, and why?

Red. I don’t remember why I chose it in the first place, but I remember (at a young age) thinking that I should change my favorite color to red. Actually, I think was related to the fact that Benny, the youngest character in the Boxcar Children series, liked red. I really liked those books when I was younger.
I still like red, partly because it stands out. I have a few red knit shirts, and I like to wear them. Some years ago, my parents let me choose the color of my room, and I chose red. I liked it then, and never minded it. My room was painted an off-white color when I left for college, though.

3. How would your closest friend/family member describe you? How would you want them to describe you?

You don’t know how long I spent, trying to figure out who would know me best. I think I would be described as nice boy, book smart, it not sreet smart. A good worker, and a good friend. Perhaps a bit of a procrastinator, and maybe a bit easy to read, but a nice guy.

Obviously, I wouldn’t mind most of those descriptions. The book smart thing and the easy to read things are somewhat related. When I look at my communications with other people, I sometimes feel like I’m not getting what they mean. I understand what they say perfectly, but as soon as I try and analyze why they said that, or how they really feel about me, or something else, I feel like I’m just guessing. On the contrary, sometimes people will react to me in a way that makes me think that they can read me like a book. I actually had a rant going about this, but I left it as a draft. It’s like times when I’m nervous about making some silly announcement over the intercom at work, like announcing that a customer’s lights are on, and then I do it, and three people will compliment me on making a good announcement. I know that it wasn’t good enough to be worthy of a compliment, so it must have been that they thought I needed encouragement. As it turns out, I appreciated it right then, but I very soon got to wondering how well I can be read. There have been other instances of this, too. All in all, I’m happy with myself, and my image.

4. What tv show do you never miss? What’s the big attraction to it?

Here is one area where I differ from most folks my age. I have never been really big on television. My family hasn’t, either. We even went almost a whole year without TV, about 3 years ago, after the cable rates went up again. Basic cable now comes with about 50 channels here, and we mainly watched the news, and a few shows, maybe 3 things per week. Later, we got satellite, which was cheaper, and has more channels.

Consequently, I’ve never had a show that I would never miss. For a while, though, I was watching every episode of “8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter”, which I thought was pretty funny. That was before John Ritter died. I haven’t seen the show afterwards, yet. A few summers ago, TV land had The Three Stooges on every afternoon, and I often watched that, but then they stopped showing them.

I guess, actually, my family also watched “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, and watched most episodes until ABC decided to have it on about 9 nights per week. Then we just kind of stopped watching. We aslo watched “Diagnosis Murder”, “Touched by an Angel” and “Kids say the Danrdest things” regularly, while they were on. Both Cosby and Dick Van Dyke are rather funny.

5. What are your top 5 books of all time?

If you asked top five Authors, this would have been a much easier question. I would probably list Agatha Christie, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Stephen Coonts. Books is harder. I think I’ll just list some that I enjoyed.

Seven Dials Society, by Agatha Christie (or some similar title with “Seven Dials”)
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie (Also published as “Ten Little Indians”)
The Client, by John Grisham
Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy
The Borrowers, by someone who’s name I’ve forgotten

So there you have it, my 5. I’ve put in for another few, over at PDP, but I think the craze may be over. If you want a set for yourself, give me a holler, and I’ll do what I can for you.

(I’m too lazy to go to Celtic’s Blog and get the official ending, so this will have to do.)