I’m not participating in national novel-writing month this year, but I do enjoy writing, so I figured I’d settle for writing a little about why I chose to switch from a career in computer programing to emergency medical service.

When I was little, as my mother can attest, I fell down. A lot. It seemed like we would have to go clothes shopping once a month because I would wear out the knees of my jeans, and she had a huge stock of square bandages for when the pants didn’t provide enough protection against scrapes. Learning about how to patch myself up took away some of the sting of the injuries. I also got the usual childhood illnesses and spent many a late night in a waiting room, so I was pretty used to dealing with doctors and nurses.

As I got older, I loved to read. I began reading through my father’s old Boy Scout manuals and found the first aid chapters fascinating. I would read through them, digesting the words and diagrams, imagining scenarios when I might need to perform some of the skills while on a hike or camping trip. From there I began reading field medicine guides for the Army and books from the Red Cross. I took a CPR class and learned a little about being a lifeguard.

I continued to study field medicine informally on my own off and on as a hobby, but chose mostly to focus on my computer studies. In my last year of college getting my CS degree at Georgia Tech, I decided that I wanted to join the Marine Corps, and as part of my preparation for Office Candidate School I once again dove into that subject. The Corps didn’t work out, but I continued my firearms training and figured I knew enough to control bleeding if someone got shot until the ambulance arrived.

I moved to California and back, and after a year or so the company I was working for went under, and I found myself with some time on my hands. I had written code to make international phone calls cheaper for people. Some of my code runs in car fuel injectors, some in microwave ovens, some in medical equipment. Some of it runs on Google’s web servers. Thousands of my programs have been downloaded and used on iPhones by people around the world. I’ve built websites and servers and all kinds of computery things, touching millions of people in a tiny way. I thought, hey, I’ve done a lot of stuff with computers, I wonder if I’d be as good at something else?

I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, and while we were there two of the kids sustained injuries, and I was on the front lines treating them with the knowledge I’d built up over the years. I loved the adrenaline, the feeling of helping someone in particular in a big way, rather than many people in a small one. I loved the connection.

When I got back, I found an EMT program and signed up. Since then, I’ve learned a huge amount about myself, the human body and how to fix people when they break. I’m certified in CPR by the American Heart Association, I’m making the highest grades in my class, and I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve been to class 28 days, covered 22 of the 45 chapters in our text book, and lead several study groups.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with my certification when I get it in March, but until then, I’m going to try to make the most of this opportunity to learn and practice.

Hello there! The year is 2010, so be sure to update your calendars. In a move sure to shock many of you, I have purchased an Xbox360. Yes, that’s right, a Microsoft gaming console. Why this major departure from discounting all things Microsoft? Two reason. First, our Nintendo Wii is broken to the extent that it is unable to play Rock Band 2, and with an Xbox360 we can play again (albeit we need to get new instruments etc, but that’s roughly the cost of what we can sell our existing Wii equipment for). And the second is the soon-to-be-released Final Fantasy XIII. Though only the main title theme of 13 is being composed by Nobuo Uematsu, I still think the game will be pretty ok. 12 wasn’t a total letdown and it’s in the same musical situation. Thankfully, Uematsu has been signed to do the entire soundtrack for 14, so I’m looking forward to that, now that I’ve finally finished playing 12.

I’m thinking about taking some Japanese courses at the local community college this Summer. Could be fun.

I have a pretty big deadline at work this week, but hopefully after that it will be smooth sailing until new years. I can’t wait for my mini-vacation and to see my family. Living so spread out makes that a more special occasion than it would be otherwise. Downside: 7 dogs. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. Still have shopping to do! More to come soon.

Well, maybe not "done" done. But I did manage to hit my goal of 50,000 words during the month of November. Now I’m sending copies off to my four editors, so there will be lots of rewriting in my future, but for now I’m just glad that it’s finished.

About five minutes after I was done and had copied it to several different servers in different states, my main computer crashed. After almost a week of working on it, it’s finally to the point where it’s usable, but I’ve had to order replacement parts that aren’t here yet. They’ll be delivered between today and Wednesday, so I’m looking forward to having this completely fixed.

Christmas is coming up! I haven’t done any shopping yet! Onoes!! Presents to come soon?

Ok, so I’ve been back here since July/August and I haven’t bothered to update this thing since then. Too bad. I am back in Atlanta now, working for i2telecom as a system engineer and programmer among other things. I’m working part time to pay the bills, and it’s pretty fun. I’m also still doing iPhone games and other side work, and generally slacking off. Being back in Atlanta is great, I get to hang out with family and friends, my roommates are awesome, and there’s actual real weather! The novelty of 35 degree nights is starting to wear a little thin, but it was fun at first anyway! And the rain, wow. I’m sure you all saw on the news/experienced the Great Flood of 2k9. Chunks of interstate were under water or mudslide. It was pretty incredible.

I’m spinning up to participate in this year’s National Novel Writing Month competition. It’s not really so much competing against other people as it is the deadline. Participants have exactly 30 days, starting November 1st, to write a 50,000 word short novel. You can write outlines and notes beforehand, but you’re not supposed to start writing your story until the first, and you have to average about 1400 words a day to finish on time. My novel is titled Drexler One and is a Sci-Fi book set in the future, sort of. I’ll be posting updates about my progress on that site as I go, hopefully more frequently than I post here. So, if you don’t see an update here, head over to the novel blog!

We’d all be eating steak. At least that’s how the quote goes. Anyway, my time in sunny Sausalito is coming to an end. Friends from Atlanta are going to be helping me make the drive across country, with a brief stop in Las Vegas on the way, with a possible additional stop at the Hoover Dam, since we’ll be nearby.

My time in California has been very educational in many ways. I got to learn about what’s involved in making console games with my work on the Sony Home project for the Playstation 3. I’ve gotten to learn what’s involved in writing games and apps for the iPhone, and started a small company with my partner Zack to do just that. I’ve also gotten to practice making friends and dealing with them moving away, and how to work with people effectively over the Internet. I’ve made several good friendships (an increadible feat in such a short time, at least for me), and I think they’re strong enough to survive this transition. I’ve also learned that ignorance leads to oppression and exploitation by those with power, at least to some extent. I very much disagree with how this state handles its gun control laws, environmental laws, and its governmental cash flow. It’s been very enlightening to watch how a different state handles the issues involved in running their government and policing its citizens. There is a definite big brother atmosphere out here. Either that or I’m paranoid.

So what will I be doing when I get back to Atlanta? In the short term, I’ll be trying to find a house to rent with a roommate or three (rent for my 500 square foot apartment here is about as much as my mortgage payment was in Atlanta), and continuing with my iPhone business plus any side work that comes up. At the moment I don’t have a definite plan to run out and get a 9-to-5 job doing web programming or anything like that. Being my own boss is a very liberating experience, and I’d like to stick with it if I can convince myself it’s economically viable. The company that I came out here to work for has less than 60 days of operating capital left, so I would have been moving home pretty soon regardless of other circumstances that are prompting it now.

And finally, in closing and conclusion, I should be pulling into my parents' house in Roswell on the evening of the 22nd of May, making the following morning (Saturday of Labor Day weekend) a wonderful opportunity to invite you all over to help me unload the truck into my parents' basement and do some grilling! Details coming soon.

I quit my job. More about that in the next news post.

My mom and dad and two sisters and their husbands, a total of six people, flew out to San Francisco to visit over the long Thanksgiving weekend / combined Christmas. We went on a boat tour of the Bay, rode the cable cars, walked through China Town, saw the Muir Woods, went to the Legion of Honor museum, attempted and failed to stop in Golden Gate Park because there were too many people, some of us went to the zoo, we went shopping for Christmas presents, toured Alcatraz Island, saw the Museum of Modern Art, ate a lot of good food and had a great time.

More about other topics to come soon.

It’s that time again. I was a little worried that my voter registration wouldn’t catch up to me in time for the election, but that seems to have been needless. A few weeks after I got my California driver’s license, I received my voter registration information and I registered to vote permanent absentee. This means that when election time rolls around, they mail me a ballot and I mail them my choices. Now, when I moved to California I made a deal with myself not to discuss politics while I was physically located in this state. This may seem a little odd, but it has actually been very beneficial. Instead of telling other people what I think and explaining my reasoning and showing supporting evidence for my positions, instead I just kept my mouth shut and listened as the people around me expounded on their own political beliefs. Most of the conversations revolved around the office of the President, of course. I noticed a few interesting themes among the conversations I heard:

• Most of the comments and conversations were derisive of a particular candidate based not on the candidate’s espoused position but rather on a particular turn of phrase used by the candidate.
• The conversations tended to be derisive more towards one particular political party affiliation than others.
• There were only ever two possible vote choices mentioned, debates were always held between "the" two sides, and no mention was ever made of other entries in the Presidential race, other races, voting without looking at party denominations.

This was an unsettling realization for me. Regardless of which party is being praised or disparaged, I like to think of my fellow Americans as posessing some ability to reason and discern and base decisions on rational thought processes. Granted, I have no idea for whom any of the people I’ve talked with are voting, nor would I ask. The part that unsettles me is the complete void of mention of any other political party or candidate aside from the candidates supported by the official Democratic and Republican parties, and the lack of any substantive discussion about issues and positions on them held by any of the candidates. It’s even more unsettling to me that no one so much as mentioned, not even once!, the senate and house seats in congress that are up for grabs. Do they not realize that the President doesn’t get to make laws or control spending or taxes? All he can do is veto bills, lead the military (but not define its budget), influence foreign policy and appoint Justices of the Suprime Court. Granted that’s a huge amount of power for a single man or woman, but people seem so caught up in the Presidency that they completely ignore the power of congress.

There was no mention of state, county or local government races at all, which I can somewhat concede because they don’t have as far reaching effects as federal level elections, but they are still important and worthy of discussion and reflection and research. The bills and ammendments included on my ballot also got research and reflection time from me, though I wonder if any of those I’ve heard wax poetical about political intrigue bothered to do more than read the summary of the item before casting a vote yay or neigh.

I’m all for voting, but come on. Discuss the topics, have thoughtful discourse, realize that there aren’t just two candidates for any of the positions on the ballot! I don’t know if I’d rather have an American abstain or vote from ignorance, because both are equally insulting to the country that men and women have bled and died for.

In closing, VOTE, and VOTE INFORMEDLY!

Just temporarily. I’m flying home for a few days to see family and friends, and hopefully get some rest in before diving into the next several big projects at work. My own projects are all humming along nicely, and may eventually even see the light of day. Most of my projects don’t, since I abandon them before completing them but after learning what I set out to learn about. As Fred Brooks said, build one to throw away.

Video conferencing is cool, and wikis are a great vehicle for writing documentation. The spell checking in firefox 3 doesn’t work very well, though. And I got some incredible news the other day: they’re remaking Ghost in the Shell with modern animation and sound! I’m so happy I could fart a rainbow. More to come soon.

Well kids, as you may have heard, I moved. There was a really cool opportunity out west to work on video games for some of the biggest names in the industry, and it was just a little too good to pass up. So here I am, sitting in my tiny little apartment in Sausalito, California, finally updating this website after a seven month absence. For those of you interested in this sort of thing, you can check out my flickr page to see what I see when I get up in the morning.

I’ve been walking to work, through the old / tourist part of town and down by the water front. It takes me about half an hour each way, and it’s surprising pleasant (not to mention good exercise). Some of the deadlines at the new job keep me at the office until midnight sometimes, but not very often, and I’m having a good time with my new coworkers. If any of you readers happen to have a PlayStation 3, you may want to go sign up for the Home beta so you can see what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

I’m still feeling a bit homesick. I’m going to try to come home for a week in January to see everyone, and though it’s still almost a year off, I’m still planning to move back to Atlanta. The best laid plans of mice and men often don’t line up with what God’s got planned for us though, as my presence in this most gun controlled of states clearly exemplifies. I’ll try to keep you all up to date with future happenings rather than than ignoring this site for another 8 months. More to come possibly soon.

In preparation for the inevitable rise of the zombie hordes, I’ve been updating my emergency preparedness kit. It now includes some military field rations, water purification tablets, some parachute cord (really strong stuff), and other miscellaneous things. A small step closer to surviving the apocalypse. I’m going to visit my old roommate Brian in Charleston next weekend. We’ll chat about zombies and computer stuff, just like old times. I’ve decided that Battlestar Galactica is sufficiently sci-fi for me to be interested in it. Kevin and Brittany come over on Friday afternoons and we watch a few episodes of that, along with an episode of the new Terminator TV show that we lovingly refer to as River Tam Beats Up Everyone. I haven’t started rewriting my novel yet, but it’s on my list of things to do. My weekends of late seem to have been consumed trying to get my two Internet connections (long story) to work together towards peace. It’s been an uphill battle, and things still aren’t settled quite yet, but we’re getting close. The next LAN party will be within the month, I hope. Everybody go buy a USB joystick! It’s going to be a fly-space-ships-and-shoot-aliens LAN party this time around! More to come soon.

Yeah, I know I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve had too much fun to have the time. As you may have noticed, it’s 2008 now. I managed to get to my goal of 50,000 words in my novel by the end of November, and while it’s a horrible mess, I’m eventually going to get around to rewriting big chunks of it into something I’m not totally ashamed to show other people. My new job is still going well, and I’m finally familiar enough with the code I’m responsible for that I’m actually able to make a big difference to the people that use the stuff I make, which is a good feeling. My new tires haven’t given me any trouble yet, although I’m still suspicious of them and occasionally prod them with my boot to make sure they’re not going to explode or anything. Christmas with the family was good; I hadn’t realized how much I missed hanging out with them, and having two chefs married into the family made for good eats. Tomorrow night I’m taking some of my coworkers to the shooting range to participate in IDPA, which I’ve been looking forward to. I think that’s about everything. More to come "soon."

I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of tires. While they do tend to go round and round, like my thought process, sometimes they explode. I hadn’t replaced the tires on my truck since I bought it about 15,000 miles ago, and they were getting to be pretty worn. On thursday night at about 11pm, on the giant interstate the circles Atlanta, my rear-right tire popped, sending me skidding onto the shoulder. It was very exciting. Then I spent the next half an hour trying to pry off the overtightened lug nuts and get the spare out, and the jack wasn’t really tall enough to get the new tire on which caused additional difficulties. Then I had to drop over $250 on a new set of tires. I figured replacing them all was a good idea given their state. I am also teaching my computer how to play checkers and I just passed the half-way point on the novel I’m writing. More to come soon!

This year, I’m participating in National Novel-Writing Month. My goal is to write a 50,000 word novel between the beginning of November 1st and the end of November 30th. You can keep up with my progress over at You Will Die a Slow, Painful Death.com, which coincidentally is the title of the novel. I chose it on the spur of the moment; hopefully the plot will tie in with it somehow. Speaking of plots, I should probably have one of those. Only 2 days to plan before writing begins! More to come soon.

If you are reading this, that means that my DNS changes have propogated and you’re looking at the new server. Please let me know if you see anything amiss.

The new job is going well. In case you didn’t hear, I have one. I also have a house, which is still standing (somehow), and though less pink and purple than it was originally, it still has some pink in the office closet. I appear to be a little too lazy to fix that part. My first house payment shuffled out of my checking account today. It was roughly the size of a paycheck, which is somewhat depressing. But anyway, this cake is great, it’s so delicious and moist. I still have some stuff to move, but I’m mostly done. More to come soon.

For various reasons, it seems I’m have not one, but TWO cookouts in my new backyard. One is this Saturday, on the 6th, and one is next Saturday, on the 13th. Both start around 4pm. Come one come all! Bring mustard or salad or something, all I have are meat and buns. Call for directions, more to come soon (though probably not on this topic).

After 20 gruling minutes of signing my name over and over (fastest closing ever), I am now the owner of a house and 189,640 dollars in debt. Yay! I’ll be moving over the next couple of days, getting everything set up, and then the new job starts wednesday. So much to do! More to come soon.

Hey, check it out, I’m actually posting again! The house I was most interested in over the weekend of looking is now under contract by me. The inspection was this morning, and unlike last time, there were no surprises, and the stuff found was certainly not enough to deter me from proceeding. The family currently living in the house is moving "out west" to start a horse-related ministry of some kind, and their timetable fits perfectly with mine, such that I get to move in on the break between my two jobs. I’m actually starting to think this will work this time. More to come soon.

Things are changing. I’ve landed a new job with a computer security company, making rougly twice what I was making before, plus benefits and other wonderful things. The office is about 20 minutes away from my parents' house, instead of the 45 for my current job, but that won’t matter for long. I’m also drafting a contract on a little yellow house that’s about 15 minutes from my new job. This past week has been a real blessing. It feels like the timing up until now hasn’t been perfect, but now God has aligned things to work perfectly in my favor. I’m sure there’s plenty of twists ahead, but the road is looking pretty fun at the moment. New job starts on the 26th, hopefully I’ll know about the house by then, and possibly even moved in. More to come soon.

I’ve been playing with the idea of starting my own company for a while now, and I finally decided to do it last week. I am now the proud owner of Yume Software. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to get everything set up. The side projects I do for friends will now have an official entity I can route the money through as far as taxes go. Fun times!

As far as houses go. I’m putting that project on hold until stuff either comes together or falls apart with my job. One of our employees resigned recently, and while we’re transitioning, I’ve had to pick up some of the slack that was left over. Most of the slack involves stuff I’m neither good at nor interested in, and if it degenerates the way I suspect it will, I may be looking for new employment. But hopefully everything will get straightened out and all will be well with the world. More to come soon!

I better stop this before it becomes a habit. There was about $20,000 worth of damage to the house in a lot of different places, and there were some other issues, so the house contract is off for good. The $300 for the inspection was the best money I’ve ever spent. Hopefully the next houses I look at will be more what I’m looking for. Anyway, no moving on the 18th, so you’re all off the hook. More to come soon.

Ok, the contract on the house was off, but is now back on. I’m heading out in a few hours to attend the inspection. If all goes according to plan, it’ll be mine on the 16th. I spent a good chunk of yesterday shopping for stuff I’ll need at the new house. So very exciting! More to come soon.

Yeah, I don’t post often enough. I know. Here’s what’s going on. At my job, we’re releasing a new version of our software, which is a nice face lift and partial rewrite of our existing software. The internal release was today, a major deadline, and while we technically met it, we still have a lot to do before we release it to the public. It’s pretty exciting to see what three guys can do when they lock themselves in a conference room for 2 weeks. I feel pretty good about what we were able to accomplish.

The side project is picking up some steam; we’re starting to get some traffic, and we’re testing out the basic business model strategy. So far all is looking good. We’re about to launch a few more sites in our portfolio in the next few weeks. My contracting work, which is a whole separate thing, is also going pretty well. I have some work to do for a Friday deadline that I’m confident I can make without everything spinning out of control.

As for the house, things are moving pretty rapidly. Last weekend, I went all over my target area with my two realtors and my mom, looking at various properties. The one I liked the most was half of a duplex in Sandy Springs. I enjoy how spacious it feels inside, and when I’m done living there, the property is positioned to rent well enough to cover the mortgage payments. The financing is a little tight on my current pay, but it’ll work out.

Anyway, that’s where things stand. I have some other news coming along shortly. I could be a home owner in about 2 weeks! More to come soon.

Well, as seems to happen every year, I’m a year older now than the same day last year. Funny how that works out. Some things seem to be making some progress. The management at work has announced some pretty interesting changes to our business model that make it look like we could actually make some money. Hopefully it will lead to bonuses/raises by the end of the year. I’ve built a few servers for various people over the past few months, which is a nice way to help friends and earn the occasional bit of additional income. I’m also working on a side project, and online mass-product commerce website where you can get gift baskets and just about anything else. Hopefully that will help me generate a bit of additional revenue. Still living at home, so most of my money is going straight into the bank, but hopefully in the next few months things will be in place for me to get my own house.

And, for those of you who both care and are technically inclined, I finally added an RSS feed to my website you can subscribe to, so you don’t have to actually come to my website anymore. Very exciting stuff! More to come soon.

Tonight is, according to some definitions, a blue moon. You can read more about the various definitions in this WikiPedia article. The definition I’m using today is the calendar blue moon, where tonight will hold the second full moon in May. I figured I may as well write a second news post in May to recognize the event.

Useless stuff no one cares about, I’ve added a gallery option in the navigation over on the left. It has some anime pictures, and some image editing work I’ve done (with the GIMP). Also put a link to my resumé, in case you’re reading this and thinking about offering me a job, and to get it in the Google index again.

I’m turning 25 in a few days here, which is kind of scary, but I haven’t been dwelling on it. Instead, I’ve been looking forward to the LAN party coming up tomorrow, the shooting class I’m taking next week, and a possible trip to visit some friends of mine out of state.

As for my job/house/etc situation, there’s been some movement inside the company towards a plan that may actually generate profit (!!), but no visible results yet. Hopefully more to come soon.

Pepperoni is tasty. My friend’s modem got zapped by lightning over the weekend. Which brings up an interesting point. When it’s lightninginging outside, computer-ish part actually tend to attract lightning, if you can believe that. So, when it’s lightninginging outside, you may want to just go ahead and unplug those expensive devices. Not just the power cords either, no, you gotta get the network cords and the speaker cords and the telephone cords. Lightning can travel through very small wires.

The opening theme song for the anime Nodame Cantabile will most likely get my vote for the best opening anime song of the year. Nice use of harmony, and a dash of piano in an otherwise normal upbeat pop song is always pleasant. For various reasons I can’t watch that particular anime yet, but I’ve listened to the song a few dozen times today and I’m not sick of it yet.

I’m rambling, but I think that’s ok. There’s a LAN party coming up on June the 2nd, for those of you who read this and may be interested. Things are still up in the air with my job, and therefore I also can’t get a house yet. I’m thinking about upgrading to a vehicle with air conditioning though. More to come soon.

First of, congratulations to my sister Kate and her new husband Kory! Kory, you know what happens if you screw up, so... don’t. All good things come from God, not from your spouse, though God may use your spouse to deliver them. Don’t get confused!

I spent the weekend up in Tennessee for the wedding, meeting extended family and so on. There was a lot of non-sleeping involved, but it worked out OK in the end. One of the downsides of having the wedding on Saturday was that we had to leave early Friday to make it to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. This meant I needed to take a day off from work, but work being how it is lately, that wasn’t much of an option. I ended up working until the wee hours of Friday morning trying to finish up the day’s work before the sun rose. It almost worked.

Speaking of work, and house buying, I’m going to stick with my current company for a few more weeks and hope that the funding issues clear up. Things are looking hopeful on that front, and if it comes together we’ll be in a very good position corporately. If they don’t come together soon, however, I’ll have to find some other employment. A few companies have unofficially offered me jobs, and people I’ve talked to about them have asked me why I’d stay on with my current company in light of the other offers. It really boils down to the perks involved with a small company. I can work at 2am, come in to the office 2 days a week, and I never have to talk to clients on the phone. In fact, I’ve unplugged the phone on my desk. There are very few working environments that allow for that kind of weird behavior. Plus I hate wearing ties.

So, until my paychecks improve, I’m not really in a position to apply for a loan for a house. I’ve had several people suggest a short-term apartment rental while I’m waiting for things to come together (or fall apart), but I don’t want to go through all that if I can help it. My parents are very understanding about things and are letting me continue to live at home. Here’s hoping it gets figured out soon!

Girl Scout Cookies are very tasty. I need some nieces so I can buy in bulk easily. I only got a case this year. It’s already halfway gone.

Things are progressing with my house purchasing plans. I’m working on my document and getting the wheels in motion with the powers that be so that when the middle/end of April comes around I’ll be in a position to start the process.

I find that, since I’m not in school anymore, my brain has started craving the feeling of learning again. Not that I’m considering grad school or anything, just a feeling that my mind needs expanding. I’ve taken to listening to Japanese lessons and software development lectures on my ride to work a few days a week, and that seems to be helping. I find I’m more creative and productive at work, too, though I’m not sure there’s a causal relationship there. Anyway, fun times! More to come soon.

I am 24 years old. I live in my parents house. This needs to change.

In the next few months, I intend to purchase a house of my very own. This is a massive undertaking, and like any true geek/engineer, I’m writing up a full specification document detailing step-by-step how to do it. The first step is to get a raise so that I can afford it, and I’ve got the wheels in motion to make that happen. My goal is to be running computer network wiring by June 15th, which isn’t a whole lot of time, but I believe I can pull it off. What a great 25th birthday present, eh? More to come soon.

I’m both happy and frustrated with how things are going at work. On the one hand, last week I got to tour an incredible facility that provides electricity and internet access (very very reliably) and cooling and so on for computer servers. My company is looking at moving our servers into such an environment, and I’m taking on a lot of the responsibility for the planning of how to do that, including being in charge of architecting the server layouts and so on. As nice as it is to have my technical opinion sought and accepted, it’s still really frustrating to realize that, even if I were to provide the exact specifications for how we should go forward with it, I know nothing is going to happen with it for weeks because the people upstairs are not committed to the course of action. Even though it’s clearly, to me, the right move for the company, and it’s something that they’ve said to people outside the company it’s their intention to move forward with, they’re sitting on their hands and doing nothing to move it forward despite my promptings.

On the other hand, sometimes when I take the initiative things work out pretty well. Over the weekend, I took it upon myself to take one of our servers that was having trouble keeping up with the requests on it and gave it a tuneup. I upgraded software and tweaked some performance options and got it running a lot smoother. When I came in this morning, the boss complimented me on the job and asked me to do similar tuning on some other servers that were starting to give us some trouble. I put forth the effort and moved things forward and they accepted it and it all worked out. So why isn’t it that way with everything?

Not quite what you expected when you came to my website, eh? I’m moving some things around. For now, my personal news posts are going to be hosted at johnplaxco.com, while I restructure ignisobscurae.com to be more of my experimental playground. I intend to post articles there on computer-related topics, have sample code and some other nifty things. I’ll use johnplaxco.com for stuff related to me and what’s going on with me personally.

And while we’re on the topic of me personally, I’m postponing joining the Marines indefinitely. My legs simply can’t handle all of the running. My bones aren’t strong enough, and I keep getting shin splints which make me take two weeks off from running while they heal, and I’m not making any progress towards my running goals. I’m not giving up on getting in shape and being able to run, but I think I need to shift my focus away from the Marines so that I can build up my running slowly instead of trying to get in shape for something as strenuous as the running involved in applying for a commission. By the time my legs get there, it will probably be past the normal window of entry into the Corps, and I’ll probably move on with my life.

I’m completely at peace about all of this. I’m sure God has something in mind for me when he gave me the goal of the Marines, and I’m definitely in better shape and healthier than I’ve been in years. Whatever He’s planning, I’m sure I’ll find out about it in His time, and it will be perfect for me. Thanks for all your words of encouragement and your prayers for me while I’ve worked towards and through this. More to come soon.

Can you believe British people put the ? outside the quotes? That’s just weird.

Anyway, soon is obviously a relative term. Speaking of relatives, my little sister graduated from college on Friday. She double majored. She’s really smart. Then on Sunday, my big sister (in the sense that she’s older, don’t kill me!) got married to Ian (who is big, and my bother, but not my big brother). Several people had comments along the lines of “who is that?” referring to me, since almost no one had ever seen me in a suit before. Ah, the look of surprise and recognition. Good times!

Well, I have graduated (for those of you who missed that announcement), and I’m working as a web programmer while I get in shape. Once I’m in decent shape I’m joining the Marines, assuming they’ll have me, and who wouldn’t want me? I have to do things like swim 6 miles with a cinder block tied to each foot and hike up Mount Everest barefoot to prove my worthiness, but I’m getting there. I’ve now had several pistol classes and a rifle class, and I’m getting to be a pretty decent shot if I do say so myself, though there’s plenty of room for improvement in all areas.

And what do I do to unwind after a hard day of 200 pushups and making the world safe for e-commerce? I usually like to relax with a little computational theory work, like writing a program to calculate the numeric constant e to one million decimal places. Yes, I do these kinds of things for fun. More to come when I feel like it.

First, I was a groomsman at Kevin and Brittany’s wedding. I was wearing non-black and was hatless, showing how much I respect them, and they had milk for me to drink during the toasts, showing how much they respect me. I had a blast. A few days after, it was off to Japan with my mom. We had a great time, and saw the traditional and the modern sides of Japan. Almost as soon as I was home, I was an usher in Taylor and Erika’s wedding. Taylor gave me a great card , and I organized a few friends to sing a Klingon drinking song from Star Trek. It was fitting, since my earliest memory of Taylor was at a Star Trek-a-thon.

Aside from my travels and weddings, I’ve been offered a full-time position at work, and I think I’m going to take it. The more cash I can put away for later, the better. I’m not sure what my financial needs will be once I’m in the Corp, but having some money in the bank certainly won’t hurt. The downside is that if I’m not careful, I may end up spending too much time working and not enough time getting in shape.

It looks like I won’t be in shape enough to pass my fitness test and submit my application in time to make the January class, as I was originally hoping. This is due to getting a later start than I anticipated (graduating delayed starting the fitness program until May), several minor injuries, and my trip out of the country. However, I’m still making good progress and I know that eventually I’ll reach my goal and be able to submit my application.

I’ve also been improving my pistol accuracy, as you can see here and here. Both of these targets were 21 feet away from me, and the distance between the 9’s is about 6 inches. I’m trying to work out a time with my instructor to do some shotgun and rifle training as well. More to come soon.

It’s been a while, and I have a lot to report. I’ve joined a small group of people online who subtitle Japanese anime in english for english-speaking fans (such as myself). I’m serving as an editor for the scripts that the translators produce. At work, I just got a raise and became a full company employee instead of a private contractor, so I get more money and less of it goes to income tax.

As for Marines-related news, I’m in much better shape than I was when I started working out 14 weeks ago. Here are graphs of my progress with pushups and situps, which I’ve been working on pretty hard. On the graphs, the bluish “Max” colums are how many I actually did that week, the maroon “PFT” column indicates how many reps I did all at once, in the same style that the Physical Fitness Test for the Marines would require. And finally, the cream “Target” column is 3 times the PFT column, and I use it to calculate how many I should aim to fit in the “Max” column for the following week. The pushup PFT number I’m aiming for is 50, and for situps is 100, which I achieved this past week!

I’ve also been working on my pullups, but they’re harder to gauge the progress of. I’ve been practicing my running, and actually managed to run a set distance at a rate of 10 minutes per mile, and I’ve gone a maximum distance of 2.15 miles. This may seem like a lot or a little, depending on how well you know me, but I consider it a pretty big accomplishment with a whoooooole lot of improvment ahead of me. My goal is 20 full pullups in a row from a dead hang, and to run 3 miles in 20 minutes. These are lofty goals, but they’re standard scores for Marines entering training, and they’re reachable for me within the next few months if I work hard.

I’ve also been visiting the local shooting range every week. When I first went, I was happy to hit the human-sized silhouette target at 21 feet. With a lot of practice and instruction, I’ve gotten to where I can put 10 shots inside a space the size of my hand, as you can see here. The 9’s on the left and right are about 6 inches apart. I’m still pulling down and to the left a little, but I’m working on correcting that. I’ve also been practicing with my new rifle, which I’m getting better with. I’ll try to get some pictures of my rifle targets soon.

And finally, because I know you all just love looking at me (and who could blame you!), I decided to get my mom to take some pictures of me in my new suit that I purchased for the sole purpose of being an usher at my friend’s wedding next month. The safe pictures can be found here. If you like guns, you may want to check out the more dangerous gallery here, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Ok, back to training! More to come soon.

I didn’t get to run the Peachtree, but I did get to go down and cheer for my friends. I was inspired! Now that has given way to tiredness. I’ve been working, working out, running, swimming and so on non-stop for a while now, and waking up at 4:50am every day is pretty hard on me. Somehow I’m managing though, and I’m seeing steady improvement. I did 85 pushups Monday.

I think I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month in November; it sounds like fun. I also purchased a rifle, and I’ll post some pictures of it at some point. More to come soon.

On Monday morning, during my swim, I managed to strain my left hamstring muscle, such that I have pain whenever I extend my left knee. I’ve had to skip all my leg-related training for the past 3 days now. Since I was worried about being in shape enough for the Peachtree as it was, it looks like I won’t be running it. I’ve got to take it easy and make sure my knee is fully healed, or I could injure it irreparabely. More to come soon.

Hey guys, thought I should let you know I’m not dead or anything.

I’m working for Radius3 again. The guys and gals there are great to work with, and they understand I can’t stick around forever but want me to work there anyway. I couldn’t ask for more.

I’m still planning on joining the Marines. I’ve got most of my paperwork done, and I’m focusing now on getting in shape enough to pass the physical tests. My parents got me a Bowflex-type home gym thing to aid me in that regard.

And on a final note, I just got my packet from the Peachtree Road Race, a 6.2 mile race I’m running on July 4th. I am runner number 62151. See you there! More to come later.

Combinatorics: C. Probability and statistics: C. Earth and atmospheric science: B. Technical communication: A. Computer graphics: A. Operating systems: A. Overall GPA: 3.11, highest ever. Cumulative: 2.27.

The heavens opened up and the angels that weren’t playing instruments were singing the alleluia chorus at the top of their lungs as I turned in the last final I should ever have to take. Joy to the world! I am a college graduate! Now, on to the celebration! LAAAAAAN PAAAARTYYYYYYY!!! This saturday and every moment til then.

Today, I demonstrated my mostly-working project to my operating system’s professor, and he gave me an A in the class. Then I went to my technical communication class, where the professor gave me another A. 5 out of 18 hours are finished, with 2 classes and 4 finals, and whole lot of studying, to go. By this time next Thursday I’ll be done, for better or for worse, and I think for better. And of course, Saturday is the ginormous LAN + Graduation Party!! starting around 5pm. Show up! Help me celebrate!

With 2 weeks, 8 hours left in my college career (I hope!), I thought I’d give you an update on how things are shaping up. I finally got grades from my graphics professor, so I have something to base my grade on now.

Probstat is a C, dispite my getting a 42 on the last test. Believe it or not, that’s a B. That class is pretty bad. The final is 50% of my grade in it, so it’s still pretty up in the air. In my operating systems class, the professor has allowed me to finish the last lab, and as long as he’s satisfied that I understand it, I get an A on the final and thus an A in the class. That saves me the trouble of implementing the giant final project for that class. For my technical writing class, I’ve gotten perfect scores on everything so far, and I have 2 points of extra credit. I turned in my last assignment for the class today, and don’t have a grade on it, but I don’t think it’ll be less than 90, so my A is safe. No final in that class either. From the grades I’ve gotten back in my graphics class, I have an approximate A. Let me stress the approximate part, since I only have about 20% of my grade back. The final only counts 16% of that class, so no huge worries. I have a project for graphics that I have to turn in at the final, and I don’t think it will be very difficult. In Earth and Atmospheric Science, my grade is a high B. The final counts 30% of my grade, and I’m not worried about it at all. To get a B in the class I have to get a 60 on the final, and I don’t forsee any problems doing that. A 30 is a C, and I cannot fail it. And finally, in my combinatorics class, all I have left is my final exam, on which I have to make at least a 48 to get a C, or an 80 to get a B. Lots of studying going into this one and the probstat final.

Basically it looks like I’m going to pass everything, and end up with a 3.0 for the semester. Happy news! Now I just have a graphics project and OS project to do, and studying for my 2 hard finals, and I have 2 whole weeks to finish it up. LAN + Graduation Party on May 6th at 5pm. Be there or be square!

So far, this semester has been an amazing ride. Current state of my grades: Probstat: c. Graphics: b. Combinatorics: b. EAS: a. Operating systems: a. Technical writing: a. This gives me an overall GPA of 3.3, which is probably the highest I’ve had while at tech. I’m not sure I can hold my probstat grade up though. Now it’s past drop day, so I’ll have to give it my best shot. For the Marines, I’m still working on some paperwork and trying to get myself in shape to pass the entrance physical fitness test. More on that as it develops. And finally, spring break! From friday afternoon to sunday night, I worked as a videographer and photographer at an anime convention on tech campus. It was a blast, I had a great time. It was the first anime convention I’d ever been to, and I think working on staff would be more fun than going as a participant. I’ll post a link to some photos when they’re up on the convention website, here. A lot of stuff didn’t go quite as planned, but I think the guests had a good time and that’s what’s important. I, on the other hand, got about 6 hours of sleep total over those three days. Now I’m going to go return the video equipment I borrowed from the campus library, get my gun fixed, and other random stuff. LAN party this Friday!!! I’ll try to post a few times before graduation. More to come eventually.

Ok, I got a 98 on my first combinatorics test, a 92 on my first OS test, full points on my first OS project, full points on my first probstat homework, 100 and 98 on my two EAS labs, 25/30 on my first 3 EAST quizes, 68 on my first EAS test (with a class average of 71), full credit on my first written assignment for techcomm, and full credit for my presentation in techcomm. I haven’t gotten any grades in graphics yet, which annoys me because I turned in the first project over 2 weeks ago, but I have an email in to the TA to check on it. I’m stoked, things seem to be going really well. More to come spring break-ish.

Oh, and happy single awareness day / national day of annoyance.

I guess I should post something now, since starting tomorrow I won’t have time. Due to some spiffy juggling of credits, the D I received in networking last semester is going to count towards graduation after all. That means I just have to retake probability and statistics in addition to everything else I was already supposed to take this semester, bringing my load up to a whopping 18 hours. This is more hours than I’ve ever attempted and will easily be the hardest semester in my illustrious (read: long) career.

As if that wasn’t enough pressure for this semester, I’m in the proccess of applying to become a United States Marine officer. While my academics are where I need them to be for this process, my physical training scores are basically as bad as they can be. I have a few months to bring myself up to spec, and that’s going to take a lot of work. I’ll be waking up before the sun, studying, going to class, working out, and going back to sleep again. I won’t really have time for anything else except maybe on Sundays. Oh so much fun! More to come, probably at spring break.

Research: A. Senior Project: B. Terrorism: B. Video Game Design: B. Networking: D. Probability and Statistics: F.

Well, who wants to graduate anyway.

All of my classwork is finally over for the semester. My internet is now supposedly fixed. I’ve got two finals: one tomorrow and one thursday, and then I’m free! Lots of studying to do for now, though. More to come soon.

Sisters can be so nosy. Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived (and continue to survive now) living in such close proximity to these people. Only 2 weeks left in the semester, just gotta hold on a little longer.

Today I registered for the last classes I’ll have to take in my undergraduate career, assuming that I don’t fail anything. That puts me on schedule to graduate in 174 days 21 hours 8 minutes. I’m pretty excited about it. One of my professors sat me down today and spent about 20 minutes explaining to me why he thought I should be a Marine instead of an Air Force officer. Much to think about. Current classes are going ok. I think I’m going to pass everything. Lots of stuff left to do and only about 4 weeks to do it in. Next week is playtesting for my cell phone video game (promo poster) (commercial), and I also have to finish up my research paper on Cyber Targets of Terrorism, not to mention we still have a lot to do on our senior design video editor project. And of course I still have to keep up with networking and probstat. So much to keep track of! Back to work, more to come soon.

Sorry for the longish gap in posting. The last post sort of wore me out. I’ve been hard at work, trying to pass things. For my video game design class, we had to make a sort trailer/commercial video. Check it out here. It took me about 30 hours to do all the capturing and editing, and I’m still not thrilled with it, but I think it’s ok. Now I just have to finish writing the game, write 20 pages for my terrorism class, finish the video editing program I’m writing for senior design, do my research credit and pass Networking 2. Oh, and probability and statistics. What was I thinking when I signed up for all this? More to come soon (haha, if I have time).

Three very strange and wholey unprecidented things happened yesterday. First, I spent the better part of the day in a tuxedo, including tie and jacket shiny shoes and no hat. Second, I danced with 6 different girls, only two of whom I was related to. Third, Nathan got married. I’m not sure how all this came to be, but it involved lots of running around. Outside. In 80 degree heat. At twilight. Yes, you read that right, no hat. And dancing. Reports are coming in of record lows in hell. More to come soon.

This semester is going to be the heaviest load I’ve ever taken... but it is so exciting! On the one hand, I’m taking Networking II, in which I have to develop an orderable reliable network protocol. Networking happens to be my emphasis, so obviously I’m happy about getting to do such a cool project. Then there’s my Terrorism class, where I get to do a bunch of research into the different types of attacks that have been used so far, target selection, organizations, media coverage, and just about anything else related to the topic. That class gets a term paper. Then there’s my Senior Design Project, wherein I’ll be working with a small team to develop a video editing template program. It’s kinda hard to explain, but it’ll be a fun little project and will look good on my resumé. And then for desert, in my Video Game Design class I’m working with another group to develop a cell phone-based multiplayer video game, and the icing on that cake is that it’s turning into a research project as well, and it’s likely that we’ll be spending time with the embedded systems lab playing with cell phones donated by Cingular. As if that weren’t cool enough, if the research looks promising we may get a grant and do a mini-term graduate research course tacked on to the end of my time at Tech. And then I’m also taking some stupid math class that I don’t like. But the code!! The beautiful code! Ah, this is what college was supposed to be! Lots of hacking! More to come soon.

I know this won’t make sense to most of you, but I just got my C+Java combination computer program to compile in linux and windows and behave the same way. I’m pretty happy about it. The program allows me access to the SDL sound functionality, so now I can use high-quality music and sound effects for the video game I’ll be writing this fall. What fun! Don’t forget the upcoming LAN party coming up in just 11 days! More to come soon.

Well, it’s not like it was totally unexpected. I failed combinatorics. Again. This means I get to take it during my last semester of college. At least I hope it’ll be my last. Sigh. 22 whole days until school starts back. Maybe I’ll get my act together.

On another note, LAN party on August 20th!! More to come soon.

Another one bites the dust. Microeconomics final is over, and I’m almost positive I passed the stupid class. Now I just have to pass combinatorics and I’ll be set. More to come soon.

The concert was increadible, both nights. The LAN party was tons of fun. The company I work for, Radius3, just moved into a new facility, so I’ve been working hard to get the network and all the servers configured properly. I’m coming up on the end of my microeconomics class this week. Keeping up with school is always a struggle, but I think it’ll end up ok. After econ is over, I’ll just have combinatorics to worry about. And to top it all off, I’m moving to my parents house, starting right after my economics final. So much to do! More to come soon.

The concert occured. There were 2 songs played that I’d never heard before, one because it hasn’t been released yet and one because I’ve never played Final Fantasy XI. The rest I’d heard before, but heard tonight for the first time, as it were, especially To Zanarkand and You’re Not Alone, which happen to be two of my favorite pieces. Heh, just like all the other ones. It was so excellent, and the crowed was so excited and happy and impressed and so on, that they had to play the encore piece twice. I’m going to try to get them to do more when I go to see it again tomorrow night, after the LAN party. This ranks as one of the best nights of my life. More to come soon.

On tuesday morning, I was woken by the sound of two of my harddrives going KACHUNK! over and over, ruining themselves. It’s now friday night and I’m just now finally getting things back in order. I’m glad this nightmare is finally over. I rescued most of my data, thankfully. Two drives, on the same day at the same time. That’s just sad.

On the other hand, things are really starting to spin up for this Final Fantasy concert next weekend. My mom is singing in the chorus, which will be singing in 2 of the pieces, and since she’s in the chorus I get discounted tickets. And so do my friends. All 12 of us. So friday night I’m going to see it with my dad, and then saturday morning we’re going to have a LAN party for a few hours and then me and 11 of my merry friends are going to see it. And, to top it all off, we got the best seats in the house both nights. But it gets weireder!

A guy called me up this afternoon who works for the Atlanta Journal Constition, the local Atlanta newspaper. He has a friend in the chorus my mom sings in, and he’s writing an article about the Final Fantasy games and their music, and so tomorrow afternoon he’s going to come visit me at the lab (aka my room) and watch me play for a while and talk about it. Such oddness and excitement! More to come soon.

Well, I felt mostly prepaired for the two tests I had today, but I still had this sense of “Utter, Impending Doom.” But once I got there and sat down, things settled down some. I think I did ok on my combinatorics test, and my economics midterm was much easier than I was expecting. They weren’t supposed to be that easy. Now I’m not sure if I’m just smarter than I thought I was, or if the tests were hard and I screwed up while taking them. Yet another mini-LAN party this weekend. More to come soon.

I didn’t realize I was starting so many of these blog entries with “Well,” so I’m not going to this time. Monotony is the spice of life, but I don’t like spicy food much. In case you hadn’t noticed, a bit more of my Japan trip is posted, and I added a nice “anime” theme (available from the dropdown, then hit Try). School is pretty rough, but I think I’ll pull through. Work is steady. I’m going to be moving in with my parents in August for financial reasons, which is a semi-bummer. LAN party this weekend for my birthday (Friday), updates as they occur. And I found my drill!!!! More to come soon.

Well, over the weekend I went with some friends up to Nashville to see other friends graduate college. We had a lot of fun. I feel a little left behind, as it’ll be another year before I graduate, but I’m really proud of them. Classes start back tomorrow. Woopeee. More to come soon.

Well, my grades for this past semester finally came in. And the results: C in networking, B in databases, and a VERY SURPRISING B IN CALCULUS. I have no idea how I got a B in calculus, or why I got a C in networking, but I’m very happy to not have to take any of the classes again. 5 more days of non-schoolitude before summer classes start. I’m working hard (or hardly working?) so time is flying. More to come soon.

Well, that’s done! No more school for..... a few days! <Sarcasm>Yay!</Sarcasm> Maybe one of these days I’ll actually get around to graduating and it’ll be years off from school instead of days. More to come soon, maybe with actual grades.

Well, according to my algebra and confirmed by the professor, I am guarenteed a D (as in DONE) for calclus 3, regardless of what I get on the final exam. I’m still going to do my best on it though. Databases is over. I just sat down to start studying for my networking final, starting off with taking the practice exam, and I got an 80 on it. Still lots of studying to do though. Tuesday afternoon there will be much rejoicing. More to come soon.

Well, ladies and gentlmen, it’s been a fun semester, but now it’s drawing to a close. Yesterday I had my final database project demo, all possible points, therefore no final exam to take in that class. Yay. In calculus yesterday I demo’d my last project, a spinning cube. All possible points. Now I just have to make a 40 on the calc final and that’ll be over. That just leaves networking, but as that’s my specialty, I don’t think it’ll be too much trouble. 4 days to study! I got advised too, to top off the day, and I am confirmed as on target to graduate May 5th, 2006. Just one more year. More to come soon.

Calculus test on friday. Yay. I actually don’t think it’s going to be too too bad, since it’s just plugging numbers into stupid formulae and doesn’t require much thinking, just remembering the formulae. I’m close enough to the end of the semester where I’m pulling out my calculator and figuring out what kind of grades I have to get on my finals to pass the classes because I don’t want to study unduely hard and give myself an anyurism. Cause that would be bad. Soon I will get my blissful 1.5 weeks off, during which I will hopefully working a bunch to beef up petty cash for when my truck explodes. Oh and of course a trip to Nashville to see people graduate. More to come soon.

Another not so great test, this time in databases.

<rant>I am really frustrated with how little the lectures and homeworks and projects and practice tests do to prepare students for the actual exam. It may as well have been over cooking for how it related to what we’ve been learning. I really wish they would just give me the stupid piece of paper that says I know what I know so I can get on with USING my knowledge, instead of “learning” what I learned 5 years ago.</rant>

That said, 2 more weeks of class and I’m on to the summer. Where I’ll be taking.... classes. Ugh. More to come soon.

That means summer break, which for me is going to translate into about 2 weeks since I’m taking summer classes. I just finished registering for combinatorics and microeconomics to take this summer. These aren’t fun classes, but at least they’ll be out of the way. The scheduling works out much better than it has before; this way I only have to go downtown 3 days a week instead of all 5, saving me about 5 hours of driving time. Still working out, amazingling, and I can actually get close do doing a real workout. Work is going well. I’m pretty sure I failed my calculus test Friday, but I was kind of expecting that, and the projects I’m working on replace the grade so it doesn’t really matter much. Supposedly the rest of the class is easy. More to come soon.

I’ve stuck to my self-designed “workout” schedule for an entire week. I think this may be a first. Workout is in quotes because it doesn’t entail the amount of exertion normally associated with the term. The reason for this is my total lack of in-shape-ness. But after a week I can honestly say I can tell a difference. I just feel... stronger. Pretty cool. I’ve officially got a job with Radius3, a web application company (sort of). The main problem I have with it is the office is an hour away from my house, but I’m working on setting up some software so I can work on my laptop from home or school, instead of having to go in to the office all the time. I tossed up another day on my Japan page. Don’t whine about it being short; it was a travel day. I added a map to each of the travel days, highlighting where we traveled to and from, so be sure to check them out. More to come soon.

My parents “strongly encouraged” me to look for a job, either something part-time that I could handle with school, or something full-time to do over the summer and delay my graduation. I’ve been in contact with a programming company I heard about from a friend at school, and I think I’ll probably end up working there doing some part-time programming work. Since I’ve been on break, I’ve been taking some time to think over “the future,” and I find myself considering military service. Those of you who know me somewhat (and why else would you be reading this garbage?) know that I like computers, guns and going fast, and the military, specifically the Air Force, would allow me to have all of those incorperated into my every-day life. So, I consider. LAN party was awesome, break is fun, more to come soon.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. This morning I drove to Marietta and removed the carputer from my dead '92 Toyota Corolla, and signed the title over to the dealership at which it sat. At least I didn’t wreak this one. New truck is doing ok, but is lacking in technological sophistication. I have a plan to fix that, of course, but it requires a source of funding, which I hope to secure in the near future on a part-time basis. Too bad life didn’t come with a hint guide or something. Oh, and FFX-2 is awesome, and LAN party Saturday. More to come soon.

I love coding. I can’t imagine doing anything else as a career. I wish I could start my career already but I have to finish up school first. And to that end, I just basically finished a 4000-line java program for my database class. Just a little touching up left to do. I’m also really looking forward to the LAN party coming up, even if only a few people show up, it’ll be a lot of fun. More to come soon.

80 on my database test. The test I thought I had today I didn’t. The proffesor said something along the lines of “in writing up this test, I realized how much material in this section is left to cover, so I’m postponing the test until 2 weeks after spring break.” Such is life. LAN party March 19th!! More to come soon.

Beyond the Clouds is one of the best anime movies ever. That is all.

98 on my networking program, 90 on my networking homework, 105 on my first calc program, 100 on my second calc program, 92 on the first phase of my database project. This may just be the best semester I’ve had yet, gradewise. Still lots of stuff I can screw up though. As for other updates, I tossed another page onto my Japan trip, including the pics of Universal Studios Osaka. I also updated my firewall rules today. More to come soon.

Oops, I mean 1996. Updated my aircrack patch to include the rewrite I just finished so it uses threads instead of processes. According to my benchmarks, my patch decreases total run time by about 30%. Good times. Networking test today. At some point I need to get rid of my old car. Yeah. More to come soon.

Well, I now own a 1994 Mazda pickup truck. Not my first choice, but a good deal, and hopefully it’ll serve my needs. I’m very releaved and thankful. More to come soon.

Still no car. I’ll be looking heavily for a car this weekend. Since the bike belongs to a friend, I’m spending a very small amount of cash on fixing the cheap stuff, so if I end up buying it it will need less to get it ridable and if not, my friend gets cool stuff. The “ups” part refers to the B I got on my calculus test. I am ecstatic. Even though I somehow thought that dividing by 4 was dividing by 2, I still got a B. I’m really happy about that. Thanks James! More to come soon.

On my way to chattanooga saturday, the transmission broke in my car. Broke solidly into pieces too small to be put back together, even by toyota-certified technicians. So I’m now faced with the choice of getting a new transmission for $3400, getting a “used” non-warranty transmission installed for goodness knows how much so it will “hang on another year” or I can get a new vehicle. As the car has 200,000 miles on it, I’m leaning heavily towards the last option. I spent most of this morning carshopping, but sadly found nothing. One guy even laughed in my face and then slammed the door in it. Maybe I’ll get a motorcycle? If you have any leads on a vehicle for me, let me know. More to come soon.

Well I had my first calculus test yesterday. It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, mostly because I forgot how to do basic triganomatry. I understood all of the calculus involved though, and I hope that shows in the work I did on the wrong trig, allowing me to get a grade of at least a C. The professor also changed the number of problems on the test from 5 to 8 without extending the time, which was unfortunate, so I felt a bit rushed. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. In other news, the lan party consisted of Kevin coming over and us playing for a few hours, then Mike and Katrina coming to visit and us going to Frys and dinner. Sadly about normal, but still fun. More to come soon.

Well, my hands really aren’t very idle these days. I’ve got this calculus business that I’m trying to take care of. I picked up some side work writing web applications, which has been taking up some of my free time (what little there is). Then there’s the database project that got assigned today, which I’m supposed to work on with 3 people for 3 months, but instead am working on by myself and am about a fourth done with. Did I mention my networking project which I had two weeks to do? It’s done. I am in a coding mood. More to come soon.

Well, today I ended up dropping my Japanese minor to dedicate more time to actually passing classes required for me to graduate. Calculus 3 is harder than I thought it would be. While unfortunate, this doesn’t mean that I’ve given up studying the language, it just means I will no longer do it in a formal setting. It also means I cut about 94 days off my time-til-graduation. It probably means I won’t be going to Japan in the summer though. More to come soon.

Well, today was the first day of class. As usual, there were unexpected details that cropped up that needed to be dealt with, like an unexpected No Left Turn sign on your way to your wedding or something. Maybe not that drastic. In my case it’s a slight scheduling conflict. I’d originally given myself half an hour to get home to attend my online Japanese class (or more accurately, I gave no thought whatsoever to the travel time), but when I timed it today it was over an hour. After conferring with my professor, I am going to use the language lab computers if they’re not in use, and if they are, I’ve procured internet access through the nearby residence of my good friend and Japan travel companion, Kevin. Kevin had jaw surgery and looks like a whale, I’m told. LAN party was awesome, if slightly few-numbered as half the people that said “probably” ended up saying “no.” Class is going to be rough this semester, check back weekly for whining. More to come soon.

Well, here I am again, less than a week before the new semester starts. It’s been pretty breaklike, with the exception of things like Opthomologist appointments and work. I’m really looking forward to this LAN Party coming up on Saturday. It will most assuradely be good times. More to come soon.

Well, most of the holidayness is over, with just newyears left in a few days. Power tools are a lot of fun. Jackhammers wielded by overweight gentlemen at 7am is NOT a lot of fun. So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Easter, Thanksgiving and Canadian Boxing Day et cetra. More to come soon.

It seems like every time I try to upgrade the software running on my webserver, I always break everything. I decided I was going to upgrade my web server on Monday. By Monday night, the server was completely useless. It wouldn’t serve web pages, the database was down, encryption was being flaky, basically it was nightmarish. And it took about 20 hours of work to get it to where it was actually working correctly again. Granted it’s “better” now, but from now I’m going to try to be more careful with what I upgrade and when. More to come soon.

I took a drawing class once, many years ago, in which the instructor talked about “negative space,” or drawing the empty space around the object as a way of drawing the object. In a more philosophical sense, it’s sometimes easier to see who we are by identifying what we’re not. I’m not a very good gardener. I have trouble understanding people. These aren’t things that necessarily need to be fixed, they’re just glimpses into my character that are perhaps easier for me to see than my “positive space” qualities. What negative spaces do you see around yourself? More to come soon.

A in Japanese, B in programming, C in ethics and D in physics. Nice spread, and all above F. I’m happy. In addition to that, I saw the Return of the King Extended Edition DVD last night. A bunch of stuff was still missing, of course, including huge chunks of the Shelob story, but overall it was pretty good. The 50 minutes of additional footage was almost exclusivly character development which I really enjoyed. It doesn’t make up for the utter ruining/villanizing of Faramir in The Two Towers though. I’m still bitter about that. More to come soon.

Well, it’s finally over. The only final I know the grade for yet is physics, which I’m as close to ecstatic about as I can be while this tired. I think the rest of them went pretty well; we’ll see. My tire has supposedly been replaced, maybe I’ll get it back today.... more to come soon.

Tire plugged a second time, but I haven’t been outside yet to see if it’s flat like I thought it might be based on last night’s driving performance. I got back the results of my physics final, a 51.7%, leaving me with a 65 in the class, which means I’ll never have to take physics again. Praise God! Japanese written final is this afternoon, last one. More to come soon.

2 more finals down, 2 to go, yayish. I think I may actually pass all my classes for once! Wouldn’t that be something. The tire that got plugged yesterday is flat again today, another chance for my spare to prove its usefulness. Sigh. More to come soon.

... and 4 to go. Physics is an evil subject. I could have gotten anywhere between an 89 and a 2 on that final. Now to go get my tires replaced. More to come soon.

I was involved with the production of a movie a bit ago, and since I’m the tech guy, I was called upon to help the guy doing the score to play the DVD with the video footage on it. He’s using a mac. I hate macs. That was speedbump one. Two was when I went out to get in my car to drive to my physics final study session, and found I had a flat tire. I hate driving on my spare. I’m getting a ride to the final tomorrow. So much studying left to do, so little time! More to come soon.

Just finished my last class of the semester. Now all I have to do is take my 5 finals. “But!” I hear you say, “you’re only taking 4 classes!” Right you are. But Japanese, being a language class, has both a written AND a verbal final. But it’s not Japanese I’m worried about, except the written part, and the verbal part. It’s the rest of them! More to come soon when I’ve studied more.

3 days of class left. My previous estimate was a bit exaggerated it seems. Getting it all finished in time is still going to be a stretch. Late night ahead! Hopefully over thanksgiving I’ll be able to put up more of my Japan pictures. More to come soon.

9 physics homework assignments, 1 physics test, 1 systems homework, 1 systems project, 1 ethics paper revision, 1 ethics homework, 24 pages japanese homework, 1 japanese presentation, 27 classes and 4 finals left this semester. I posted a countdown clock on the left. More to come soon.

Well, one physics homework down and physics test done, 4 pages of Japanese homework finished, and my last physics lab done. Too bad for me the test was on different chapters than the ones I studied. But I think I did ok anyway. I’ve even got about half of my paper written! Second physics homework starts now, more to come soon.

This week, I have 3 physics homework assignments, a physics test, a 10 page paper on national ID cards, a systems programming project, and 16 pages of Japanese homework. And yet somehow I have time to post this note, and add a day to my Japan trip. Be sure to check it out, it was one of my favorite days! More to come soon.

From electronic voting to national ID cards, physics to hardware interrupts, my nose is pretty well glued to the grindstone. I managed to poke at my car a bit more, but my skill at soldering is pathetic, so the carputer doesn’t quite work yet. Hopefully that’ll be adjusted tomorrow, when I call in the experts. I managed to throw up another day of my Japan trip, so be sure to check that out if you’re so bored you’re contemplating ripping your own eyes out for some excitement. But you must be bored if you’re here, so I guess that works out well! More to come soon.

Little being the key word. First a correction, I had midterms last week. The breather part came from my fall “break” which consisted of Monday and Tuesday off. Gee, thanks Tech, 2 whole days! Everyone else I know got 5 days off between 2 weekends, and went to Florida. Ah well. I did pretty well on my midterms, and am happy with the way the semester is shaping up.

So this afternoon, while taking a short break from studying, I went outside and re-installed the power supply for my carputer project. 1 reel of solder later, it seems to be installed correctly, but one of the wires is too short so I’m going to have to undo some of my handiwork to get it positioned properly. If I ever get my camera fixed maybe I’ll take a few photos and start up a projects page. More to come soon.

A few quick notes. I’ve tweaked the css on the site again, hopefully it’s bearable. I kinda like it this way. Added a day to my Japan trip log as well, so be sure to check that out.

I’ve got finals this week, so I’ll be pretty busy. More to come soon.

You didn’t think I could spell miscellaneous, did you? Well, I couldn’t, I had to look it up. But that’s not the point. One side of our country has earthquakes, the other has hurricanes, and right down the middle come tornados. There is no safe place to live. Which brings me to my first point: Life is full of risk. Sure, this may seem obvious, but if you think about it, you knew (or figured out) what you were getting into when you signed on for this. The unexpected happens, so you better get used to the idea. Which brings me to my next point: Expectations begets (not bigets nor begits) disappointment. This has been a recurring theme in my rants. But there’s my final tie-it-all-together point: Unfulfilled expectations are simply wrong expectations, and/or a faulty understanding of the situation. God will ultimately leverage everything to His glory, so that’s what we should be expecting. We shouldn’t be expecting life to go perfectly, and we shouldn’t go around blaming God for when our faulty expectations aren’t met to our satisfaction.

Wow, my rant ended up having some kind of coherent logical structure. That was certainly accidently and unexpected ;) More to come soon.

God is full of interesting coincidences.

No, not that I’d be committed to an assylum or anything. “The state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action or to another person or persons.” Maybe it’s not so much that I’m afraid of it as I don’t get along with it very well. Whether it’s a new car, a new house, a new school, a new major, a new city, a new job, a new computer, a new anime, a new anything fills me with a certain excitement and expectation of wonderfulness. Failure to have these expectations fulfilled leads to a sense of cabin fever, like I’ll be trapped in my current circumstances for the rest of forever. Maybe it’s a fear of bordom; of monotony. I don’t know. But I’m starting to feel the walls creaping in. It’s time for a change.

More to come soon.

Yeah, I can’t think of anything to write except this. More to come when I think of something.

Yeah. Wow. Just like the Dish Network commercials. Wow is the best word to describe it. Maybe great..... but NO. WOW. Holy cow. Looking at my last post, you’d rightly surmise that I had high hopes and expectations about Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Let me just tell you. This movie was everything I had ever dreamed it could be and more. It was the best animated movie I’ve ever seen, and maybe the best movie period. It’s above the Matrix, if that’s any indication. It was absolutely increadible.

Wow.

More to come soon, after I wipe up this puddle of drool...

8 years ago, Mamoru Oshii released what’s been called “the film that defined anime.” I agree with that description. I’ve watched it many times, most recently this afternoon. The film is increadible, thought-provoking, beautiful, and certainly one of the best animated films I’ve ever seen. It’s called Ghost in the Shell.

Now, 8 years later, after waiting so long, he’s releasing a movie composed on an unlimited budget, with almost the entire cast the same, many of the same animators, and a whole lot of experience and finess added on to one of the most brilliant production companies operating out of Japan, Production I.G. And, to top it all off, it’s being co-produced by Miyazaki’s brainchild, Studio Ghibli. This is gearing up to be the best movie of all time.

And it’s coming out this Friday.

Semi-continuing my previous post, seeing the world from a computer scientist point of view isn’t always bad. For my CS classes, thinking like a computer can be a real asset. SLTI stands for “set when less than immidiate,” and isn’t easily implemented with the instruction set we were given, but I managed to do it. More to the point, the solution was obvious to me, because when I looked at the problem I knew exactly how a computer should go about figuring out the answer. So while there are times when thinking like a computer scientist frustrate me greatly, there are other times that being able to solve a problem quickly and efficiently give me great pleasure. The metaphysical question that results is, does the pleasure of solving CS problems outweigh the frustration of everything non-CS that doesn’t conform? More to come soon.

Lately it’s been on my mind how much I see the world through the eyes of a computer scientist. I remember as I grew up, people would talk about “points of view,” but the world was just the way it was, and that was that. But now I see that’s not exactly the case. Now, when I think about the people that come to my lan parties, I think of a breadth-first search of a bidirectional graph. When I work physics problems, I do it the same way I’d write a computer program: get an answer, see if it’s right, if not go back and fix bugs. The only problem with this approach is that physics tests don’t let you go back and fix things, they have to be right the first time. This incompatability in “viewpoint” frustrates me frequently. The obvious solution is to make everyone see things the way I do, as it’s obviously the correct way. Like Randy always said, “be the computer.” More to come soon.

Well, the LAN party lasted 2 out of the 4 days. Not bad. The most people we ever had playing at one time was 11, which was a ton of fun. Hanging out with friends is always a great way to spend some time off. Thanks to all that showed up! We’ll have to do this again sometime. More to come soon.

Back in my youth, I got into assembly just a tiny bit. I would use the old DOS debug command and play around with it to see if I could get it to do anything. I’ve looked around at various assembly sourcecodes and could do a lot of the stuff they did, but I never understood why any of it worked. That’s changed some over the years, but not as much as it did yesterday doing an assembly homework assignment. There are some things that just become clearer in a formal environment (even reading a book) than they do with straight experimentation.

Labor Day Weekend is coming up, and to celebrate I’m having a 4-day-long LAN party. Get directions by clicking on the LAN link above. Hope to see you there! More to come soon.

So I ripped all the cabling in the car out and rebuilt the dashboard as well as I could with all the holes I’d cut. Why? I thought I was selling it to buy a car with a stickshift. Silly me. Cabling goes back in tomorrow. This project may eventually get finished but school is going to eat way too much of my time for it to get finished soon.

Speaking of school, I don’t like it. Normally there’s a period at the beginning of a semester where I’m really excited about at least one class I’m taking, and it takes a while before it wears off. Not this time. All of it is horrible and should die.

On a side note, a small sampling of my Japan trip is up, check the link at the top of the page. More to come soon, of course.

The power cable for the carputer has finally been run and wired correctly. Getting a hole cut in the engine compartment wall was a pain, and getting the stiff copper wiring to curve around the innards of my steering column was likewise painful, but all in all it is very beautiful and awe-inspiring. I may even be able to plug my laptop in for the ride to school in the morning. Hopefully the rest of the project will get finished up in the next few weekends between bouts of homework.

Speaking of homework, it sucks. I hate it a lot. Whoever wrote it was not overly intelligent. A lot of the questions are ambiguous, so we’re given 5 tries to figure out what they’re actually asking for. Of course, with each wrong guess, your score goes down, so if you don’t figure it out quick, you’re in trouble. More to come soon.

Well, I was right to an extent. School is evil and so on. What I didn’t count on was not having a car the first week(ish). You see, my car doesn’t like me. This may have something to do with me nicknaming her “insufficient,” but you never can tell for sure. Anyway, she decided she was going to ruin herself, and so I’m having to spend a huge chunk of money to fix her. As in, it probably would have been cheaper to buy a new car. I was trying to install a computer in her! So ungreatful.

Anyway, classes have started. At least a few look interesting, though not what I was expecting. More to come soon.

I am awake. It’s before 9am. This is bad. I hate it when school starts.

I was having a very weird dream when I was so rudly awakend by my alarm clock. A kid had stolen a bunch of katchup packets from the restaurant I was in, and ran out and immidiately got hit by an ambulance. That made all the katchup packets explode, so it looked like there was blood everywhere. One of the paramedics fainted. What a way to start the school year.

Also note that this blog will no longer have ANYTHING interesting on it, and will consist solely of me ranting about how terrible school is. Well, maybe something interesting occationally. More to come soon.

LAN party saturday! Finally. Dates got shifted around, but I think all three states can make it. We’re starting whenever people get here, and the more the merrier. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long.

School starts Monday. This is very annoying. Summer was too short, even with a huge trip to Japan in it. I still need to clean up the pictures from that. So much to do. Girls are weird! More to come soon.

Well, I played around with the site a bit more today. I added support for automated account creation. So now all you people who have been dying to post comments and replies to things you’ve read here can now do so without having to send me email etc. Of course, if you want to send me email, go right ahead. webmaster@ignisobscurae.com.

On another note, I’m in the process of upgrading the server’s internet connection, so stay tuned for more bandwidth! More to come soon.

I know I already talked about expectations and how when they don’t line up with reality it can really be annoying. I expected to have a LAN party this weekend, but people from 3 states ended up with other things they had to or would rather do. While I don’t blame them at all, it is kind of sad. It feels like the shifting of an era. Where once I could make a call to a few friends and spontaniously go see a movie, now we have to plan ahead, coordinate schedules, etc. School and work seem to hold a higher place of prominence, demanding more time and attention than they did before, with a result of less time spent with family and friends.

I’m guilty of this too, sadly. As little life as I have, I still find things to do and make plans relating to work or school that I wish I could break later in preference of hanging out with friends, but then I’m not being “responsible” and “grown up” and “dependable,” these things that society has drilled into me as the core values of a good upstanding citizen and adult. I question these underlying assumptions. Is it really better to keep commitments you don’t want to keep? To be consistant rather than spontanious? Is it right for work and school to think themselves so high and mighty that they can demand and expect that of us? More to come soon.

It’s been a while since my previous post. I’m hoping that I don’t only post when I have philosophical crap no one wants to read. Two things have been bugging me over the past few days. First, wanting things I can’t have. Is it wrong to do so? Does it depend on the nature of the thing being desired? If it’s bad, what can be done about it?

The second is losing interest in things once we have attained them. It seems as though the possession of the item isn’t as fulfilling as we think it will be, and thus it almost seems more enjoyable to desire a thing than to have it. Does that make sense? I’m having trouble putting it into words. Ah well, it’s just babbling after all. The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. Thus sayeth Wilhelm Stekel. More to come soon.

I also don’t take it too kindly when everything seems to be going according to my expectations (see previous discussion), and then suddenly everything changes to be completely out of line with expectation. In addition to the lack of correct order in the universe, it feels almost like a personal betrayal, having correctness torn away for no dicernable reason. It’s treasonous. Life can be that way.

And things masquerading as things they aren’t. Like this “I Robot” movie. It had nothing to do with Issac Asamov except that the name was the same as his short story and it had three laws in it. The laws weren’t even the same! What the heck?! More to come soon, though perhaps not so philosophical and thought-provoking.

It seems to me that theres a strange distinction between reality and its perception. And aside from that, between perception and expectation. There are some things in this world that should just be a certain way. But they often aren’t. This frustrates me greatly. In fact, I’d say a good chunk of life is spent attempting to make reality conform to expectations. But where do the expectations come from? And what if they differ from person to person?

It fits into the anime I watch too. I find that I watch anime that portrays reality in a way that fits closely with my expectations. Anime that doesn’t seem plausable (characters have no depth, or don’t behave correctly) I don’t seem to enjoy as much. Wow I’m all philosophical and stuff. Heh. More to come soon.

Giga-byte motherboards are terrible. The one I received wouldn’t turn off and had issues with the RAM, and the right audio channel didn’t work. It’s being sent back. I’m getting myself a nice Asus board. Maybe then my computer will work correctly.

I think I may open a business fixing peoples old computers. I was working on one this week for a friend, and it had virii and popups like you wouldn’t believe. Now it’s clean and fast and up-tp-date. I could even do hardware upgrades and vacuum out the dust and cobwebs. That’s be cool. It’d be Really cool if people would pay me for it. More to come soon.

makes jak a tired boy. Build Kevin’s computer, fix lee’s computer, reinstall everything on my laptop, build Britt’s computer, build my new computer. Lots of fun projects :)

I am getting a new computer. And it’s going to be very very nice. I’ll be quite happy. Fedex needs to get their collective act together and stop delivering our computer parts to the stupid infinity dealer. What the crap?! More to come soon.

Well, now there are user profiles, which I think is kinda cool. Maybe I’ll get around to writing some useful functionality into this stupid website one of these days. More to come soon.

After years of losing game after game of monopoly, I finally won a game tonight. Two, actually. And a year after it’s construction, I finally got to sign my name on the monopoly board table, under Income Tax and Reading Railroad, second teir. For a while there I was thinking that I wasn’t a loser anymore, since I finally had my name on the table, but then I realized that only people with no life would make a monopoly table. But it’s not that bad. I’m still very happy about it. More to come soon.

Well, after a lot of hard work, I have some semblance of a working website again. The old one’s harddrive bit the dust. And of course, being such a forward-thinking individual, the last backup I made was over a year ago and thus compeletely useless. I kinda like the way this one is shaping up though. More to come soon.