5.27.2005
6:51pm

Couple of tidbits this afternoon:

Liberals only please - The Decemberists' 16 Military Wives. Courtesy of my old friend Albert Ren.
Humorous script / review of Episode III. Very worthwhile.
More Darth Side entertainment, with new back-stories.

Still working on Hitchhiker's, then it's on to some Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Also some fanfiction readings if I have time.
Florida is getting really hot. The rain from two days ago didn't help much and soon it will probably be above 90 during midday. Good thing I'm inside... all the time. Yeah. Tonight I'm going over to Adam's new apartment to help him set up a wireless LAN, then over to Cory's to try and borrow "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," then back here for a movie, either "The Aviator," "King Arthur," "Toy Story 2," or "Back to the Future 2." It's still a toss-up as to which one will win out.

On a side note, work is getting even more interesting. I've gotten to the point now where they're actually having me work on small assignments with another more experienced intern. We got some new customer equipment in today that we'll be setting up on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday), so that should be exciting--or at the least, engaging. I still don't care much for Solaris but it seems to work well for their application, being multi-user and all. I'm sure within a few more weeks I will be liking it a bit more, even if it does do stupid things like not recognize my terminal type or keyboard layout.

5.26.2005
10:42pm

December 9th:

There are many doors, but only one leads to another world.

5.25.2005
8:09pm
R.E.M. - Best of REM in Time (DVD-A)

So it's been a few days. Nothing tremendous has happened, just from some pretty complicated work at Harris and some pretty mindless work at Best Buy. This week I've been working with the graphical administration part of NetBoss, learning how to create equipment views for customer layouts. I'm actually doing troubleshooting, not so much original creation, but it still takes a long time and requires using a mouse almost all day. Then I come home and sit on the computer even more... At least I'm gonna know quite a bit about UNIX/Solaris by the time I'm done with the summer. I've been trying to keep myself entertained with a different DVD every night, taking advantage of Rolando's Blockbuster movie-pass since he's not around. I talked to him yesterday and he's planning a mini-vacation to Chicago for 2 weeks so it looks like it will just be me for a while, although I'm sure Tim and Chris will come by occasionally. I've also been slowly making my way through the Hitchhiker's books, but can't seem to sit down and read it for any extended period of time--there are too many other distractions with forums, music, movies, etc.

I got a new National Geographic today and read through the entire thing after work. It's nice to enjoy something academic once in a while, and the photos are always amazing. Cover story was a new analysis of King Tut's mummy using CT scans; pretty interesting stuff. It finally rained here so I get to avoid washing my car for a few more days :).

If you haven't had a chance to check out 5.17.2005
7:50pm

First of all, happy 25th anniversary to my parents today. I'd say that's a pretty impressive milestone.

My second day at Harris was even more interesting than the first. I started off reading some more documents on Solaris version 8. It was easier than a Linux installation but still took over an hour. After that he found me some Sun computer-based training discs and I went through those, which were mostly about basic UNIX commands. I went with Chris, Matt, Scott, and Nate to Taco Bell for a cheap lunch after we played some ping-pong; it's nice to have an hour for lunch instead of just 30 mins.

Chris Tanner and Tim are coming over tonight to watch Star Wars I. I can't wait to see Revenge of the Sith tomorrow at midnight. Chris Barnes (now I've got 2 Chris's to refer to), Cory, and I are going to see it together, assuming that Cory is feeling better. He's had a fever for a couple days.

5.16.2005
6:55pm

Woohoo, done with my first day at Harris. The orientation part lasted from 8am - 2pm then I went to get my employee badge and met my department supervisors. They were actually the same guys I interviewed with before. To my surprise, Chris Tanner and I have our desks right across from each other in the same cubicle area. There's a third guy from FIT that I hadn't met before who is also working with us on NetBoss. We had a nice tour in Harris's Customer Briefing Center which displayed all the different communications technologies they are working on. The most interesting to me was the new HD Radio technology which allows 5.1 channel digital FM broadcasts, and the HD television gear. They had some of their Falcon II radios on display which are used by the armed forces and actual examples of their space fold-out antennas and microwave communications transmitters. They told us they just re-did their tour arrangement and it was the most impressive I've seen, with voice-interactive displays, automated lighting, and NEC plasmas all around. But that's just because I'm a geek and like that sort of stuff.

5.12.2005
5:21pm

Earth - Mostly Harmless.

I'm currently reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I saw the movie two days ago and was thoroughly entertained so I wanted to check out the book that started it all.

In other news, Big Dan is in town on vacation so I spent some time with him, Chris, and Cory the past two days. They came over to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was a very unique movie about Hunter S. Thompson. Last night we all got together for pizza at Chris's place. We got to play with Cory's samurai sword and Chris's complex bow, and Cory also had a 7.8mm Russian rifle he bought off Ebay or something. It's always entertaining at their place. Tim finally got around to packing his stuff so Ron and I helped move him over to Sunset Trace--popularly dubbed Shotgun Terrace according to Tim. He didn't get the job at Citrix this summer but he'll be working at Florida Tech instead. My sister got her first real job at Ben and Jerry's recently, and from her blog it appears she likes it pretty well. I'm glad I never worked at an ice cream shop because, well, I'm fat enough as it is ;)

If you've got some time to kill check out the McDonald's Trip Planner which will allow you to locate all the McDonald's along any route in the United States. It's actually rather humbling to see just how many of those damn yellow arches you will pass by. I say this like I have something against McD's, which I don't. I still eat there occasionally. I tried out a route from Palm Bay, Florida to Los Angeles, California, around 2600 miles. On this trip I would pass within 0.5 miles of 120 McDonalds. So never fear, regardless of where you are heading you will never be very far from a Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets.

5.10.2005
1:45pm

I forgot to post that the teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is up at apple.com. Might be due for a re-reading before the movie release in November.

2:06am

So, exams are over, school is over, and I'm still in denial that summer is here. This week should provide some enlightenment with four days with nothing to do. I just worked Fri-Mon at Best Buy so I don't go in again until Saturday. I'm planning to spend part of tomorrow helping Tim move into his apartment but aside from that nothing is on the schedule except for brushing up on my *nix commands for Harris. I've been watching a lot of old Family Guy episodes. Victory is mine! There's not really any yard work or house work to be done, so I'll probably be moping around for the most part, enjoying my short break until the full-time job grind sets in. I think a viewing of Office Space is in order before Monday. Do you have my stapler?

PAWS is down now for updates so hopefully final grades will be posted tomorrow so I can check them out. My scores in history and Circuit Theory 2 will depend rather heavily upon how well I did on the finals, and of course they refuse to email grades because of "privacy" concerns. More like teachers procrastinating on grading until the last minute. Nah, just some of them. I bet Dr. Patterson graded them the very same day. We had fun in Dr. Ports' office before his final, asking last-minute questions, going over old quizzes, and playing with mind puzzles--those kind of things you find in rare mall gift shops or "unleash your imagination"-type Discovery Store places. I'm always the pessimist with things like that, saying they can't be solved and then proceeding to solve them after a few minutes' labor. I guess that's the sort of mentality we've been raised with--promise nothing, and if you can work something out it's like a bonus payout.

Ron's had a setback with Northrop so I don't know if he'll be working there for the summer. He did have a backup lined up doing produce research (yes I said produce, like fruit) for some local firm. Rolando's still at home until further notice. He was waiting for a call-back from Northrop after doing his phone interview last Friday. Looking back at my previous post, our "big party" after exams never happened; in fact, Matt and Ron were the only people to come over. Rolando and his friends went to a club so we just watched National Treasure and then played Xbox. Matt is more or less a Halo addict and plays Xbox Live, so he beat me and he beat Ron with crazy high scores. Speaking of gaming, I was over at Mike's last night to drop off a DVD and saw that he has a mint in box Nintendo. As in the first NES console. Apparently he bought a second one for the Duck Hunt gun and never used the system itself. It's worth about $200 on Ebay which is about an 80% appreciation in value from what he originally paid.

I saw Kingdom of Heaven yesterday. See it. If you don't like Orlando Bloom, see it for Liam Neeson, Edward Norton, and Jeremy Irons. If you don't like any of these actors then see it for, umm, its educational value. Hahaha. Oh yeah, the bad guy from xXx is also a bad guy in this movie. Notice I didn't use his name, because you won't remember it either. You will recognize the director Ridley Scott, unless you live in a bubble and have never seen Matchstick Men, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Hannibal, G.I. Jane, Blade Runner, or Alien. There's lots of typical Ridley Scott elements... horses, arrows, explosions, blood, swords. It's not been doing too well at the box office so I hear, but hopefully they at least recap their investment.

Mom told me that my sister bought her first car just a couple days ago. So if you're in Blacksburg, Virginia, watch out for a blonde 16-year old driving a Chevy Cavalier. It will probably have a Dr. Pepper bumper sticker applied somewhere on the back. A lot of people wear their personalities on their cars: my logos happen to consist of Monster Cable, Pioneer, and Rockford Fosgate. Big surprise there, eh? I might as well plaster a big sign on there that says Best Buy Geek, no wait, Electronics Enthusiast, that's much more flattering.

Commiserate - because Ron used this SAT word in an AIM conversation today. There is hope for the world. I should make 2am posts more often.

5.3.2005
10:16pm

Complete and utter waste of a day... but it felt so good! I did manage to leave the house for a while to get lunch and stop to check my schedule at Best Buy, so I guess that's a small accomplishment in itself. I spent a lot of time browsing forums, gotta stop doing that. I did some history reading today in preparation for my exam tomorrow at 3:30, and I'll need to do some more review tomorrow before the test. Rolando rented National Treasure so we're probably going to watch that tonight.

Less than 48 hours until exams are over and the big party here at the house. I'm not sure who all will be coming but quite a few ECE majors we know don't have exams Friday so it may be quite a few. Chris also wanted to watch Ghost in the Shell 2 Thursday night but that may get delayed until a more appropriate time. I'm gonna blow the rest of my flexcash Thursday on pizzas to bring back here--probably have enough for 4 or 5. Now if we could just get Adrian to come over we could get almost all the people from 3rd Roberts back together.

I'm still mad at the post office because they seem to have lost my mail. I shoulda just had them keep delivering to my old apartment since I knew Chris and Cory would get my mail for me. Oh well, not much I can do to complain about it.

5.2.2005
10:07pm

Two exams down, two to go. Circuit Theory 2 wasn't all that bad; I didn't know 100% of the material but I'm pretty sure I got an A on the test. I spent a little while reviewing for my Econ test at 3:30, and spent all of 15 minutes taking the actual test. It was only 30 questions and they were a mixture of multiple choice and true/false.

Family Guy started up yesterday with the same debut episode that leaked on the Internet a week ago. I watched it anyway with Dan, and we caught American Dad afterward. It doesn't have the charisma or excellent jokes that Family Guy does, but it's still entertaining. "You don't own that, Trump!"

Tim's birthday was today, but not enough people were available to get together and do something. Fortunately his residents did something for him, I'll get the details later.