Zach

Now microblogging/twittering over at twitter.com/ztuni

2008-10-29T00:23:00.001-07:00

Hey, I know I haven't updated this in awhile. Anyway, I've now begun
microblogging (aka twittering) over at http://www.twitter.com/ztuni

This allows me to post in small snippets quickly from my phone, so it
works out pretty well for me. As of right now, I usually stick up a
few notices a day, though that'll probably eventually die down as this
has

Anyway, feel free to go check it out. And if you're in Cali, PLEASE
don't waste a vote on a mainstream candidate. Check out Chuck Baldwin,
Alan Keyes, or Bob Barr (constitution, independent, and libertarian
nominees, respectively) And cast a vote for one of them instead.

So I entered a contest...

2008-10-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

IBM's "Master the Mainframe" contest.

It started Wednesday morning at 9:00AM

The first 700 to complete part one would win a free t-shirt.

The first 60 to complete part two win $100 gift cards and a certificate

All students to complete part two get the opportunity to put their resume in IBM's resume pool that they and their affiliates look at.

The top 5 finishers (as far as their point system goes) of part three win an MSI wind laptop, the linux edition. (80GB HDD, 1.6Ghz processor, 10 inch display, so it's an ultra-portable, which makes it ultra-sweet)

The top 2 finishers, in addition to the laptop, get an all expenses paid two day trip to Poughkeepsie, New York to tour IBM's mainframe lab

Looking at the prizes, I determined the contest was important enough to get up at 9 AM and get a free t-shirt at the very least. After completing part one, I went on and started (but still haven't finished) part two. The money is meaningless, the certificate would be kinda cool though. Part three is where I need to come in top 5, though top 2 would be pretty sweet, I'm not gonna lie.

Anyway, I got an email today:

"Have we got some good news for you? Answer: Yes! Due to your prolific display of basic mainframe skills (as well as your poetic stylings), you have won an IBM Master the Mainframe Contest T-shirt!

Expect to find your T-shirt in your mailbox in the next six to eight weeks. Just in time for the winter T-shirt season!"

No word on how many are in the contest, but there are at least 1403 signups... :/

Oh well, I won a free t-shirt!

FANTASTIC!!!

2008-09-24T12:37:00.001-07:00

Think of the experiment they did at the end of supersize me. Now
repeat with a burger instead of fries. What do you get?

http://bestwellnessconsultant.com/2008/09/23/1996-mcdonalds-hamburger-karen-hanrahan-best-of-mother-earth.aspx

"The" Weekend and short update on classes

2008-09-04T04:23:00.001-07:00

So for labor day we got a four day weekend (Friday-Monday). My physics teacher canceled class on tuesday, turning it into a five day weekend, which was amazing. The house now looks fantastic, we have our soap box derby car built, AND I beat half life 2, and half life 2 episodes one and two, AND I'm now fully caught up on The Office, and can't wait for the new series to begin (Sept. 25) (half life 2, btw, is an amazing FPS (first person shooter) developed by the creators of Portal, the incredible game that invented the genre for first person shooter puzzle games. They're both played on the same engine, and the story behind half life 2 is one of the best plotlines I've seen in any game anywhere. So that was great fun)

As far as classes go, most are going okay. I had to audit calc 3 (which, luckily, does not affect financial aid) not because I didn't know the material but because the teacher a) doesn't mesh with my learning style, b) doesn't give any partial credit, and c) is just an awful teacher.

Physics is still going, I have complaints but the teacher is fine and expects a reasonable amount of work (note to future calc professors: 4 hours a DAY outside of class is a LITTLE excessive for calc III. It's easy. Oh yeah, and on your tests, put stuff you actually taught instead of expecting us to be able to extend dot products of vectors for example to whether two planes are perpendicular or parallel or neither

I have a funny(?) story about CS I need to tell, but later.

and humanities is just being itself. Nothing special there

First few weeks of school:

2008-08-04T21:13:00.001-07:00

Classes:

Calc III: originally scheduled to have the best teacher, now have the
worst teacher. Had a test last thursday that I didn't do very good on
because we never went over any of the material in class or on the
homework

Physics Lecture: Meh. Test later today. Okay teacher, pretty easy

Physics Lab: Again, meh, the lab instructor is awesome, the labs
themselves are kind of annoying

Computing and Algorithms III: was originally scheduled to have one of
the worst CS professors around, instead got the best teacher in the
entire school. Awesome.

Computer Science Lab: Wait what, there's a lab for Computing and
algorithms III? It's at 8 on wednesday morning, why would anyone ever
show up for a voluntary set aside study time at 8 in the morning?

Humanities: Decent teacher, interesting(!?) material. Favorite quote
(after discussing homosexuality in the greek culture a long time ago
and how it relates to today)

Person: "What if my corn turns gay?"
Everyone else: "??!??"

Yay for comments that aren't relevant/don't make sense I think.

So yeah, that's classes....

Also, fraternity life is awesome. Right now we're recruiting new
members, and we have two or three that are seriously looking at us, as
well as 6 or so others we think might join. That would bring us up to
18 members, 2 short of the number we need before the alumni will hire
us a full-time cook... :D. We'll probably only end up getting 4 this
term, but we're growing, and that's good.

----------------
Now playing: Basshunter - Vi Sitter I Ventrilo Och Spelar Dota
(Extended Version)
http://foxytunes.com/artist/basshunter/track/vi+sitter+i+ventrilo+och+spelar+dota+(extended+version)
(Yay for pointless but addictive swedish videogame based techno?)

YAY

2008-07-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

So my laptop broke. I have just received my new desktop computer,
built from scratch. I'm happy again

Sweet

2008-07-11T12:07:00.001-07:00

lol... this post brought to you from Chicago International Airport,
through the use of some kind soul who configured their laptop as a
router... or something like that. Point being, I'm getting free wifi.
So here's the first and only blog post I'll probably ever make from
Chicago. later, before I get dc'ed

Back to school (also, OTPYS)

2008-07-10T22:33:00.001-07:00

And it is that time again. I'm headed back to school, leaving early
early early tomorrow (friday) morning to go back to school. I've had a
great time here in CA, learned a lot at work and got a lot done, but
now it's time to leave again. I'll be back in October.

my new mailing address is 1570 Flushing Road, Flushing, MI, 48433.

And now OTPYS, part ?

A few people have heard this story already, but most haven't.

Time: most or all days, around 7:20 or so

So there's this guy, and he stands there reading the newspaper.

Everytime the announcement comes over the loadspeaker ( 5 car
richmond train in 6 minutes), he will look up and gesture to the
people standing further down the platform to come his way.

Every few times he'll yell at them: "COME HERE /NOW/. THE TRAIN STOPS /HERE/."

The regulars all know about this guy and just kind of smirk or chuckle
inwardly, but it's funny to see someone new react to this guy.

The train approaches, and he'll get all excited. "5 CAR TRAIN STOPS
HERE. GET DOWN HERE"

(This ends the part that certain people know already)

So after seeing this guy almost every day, one day I'm headed off to
the A's game after work.
This guy is standing there with his A's jacket on, and right next to
him, either his twin or his brother who looks exactly the same, acts
exactly the same, and sounds exactly the same. So now there's TWO of
them gesturing at the people on the platform to come to the right car.

This of course is more entertaining because it's later in the day when
there's no one around that recognizes these guys, so everyone is
looking at them and trying to figure out what's going on.

Political stuff that I gotta throw out there (change in pace)

2008-06-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Read this. It's a political opinion piece from a slightly democratic leaning site, but it's good. It really is.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/21/212533/443/45/540000

In other news, I have just determined that I can neither support McCain nor Obama, due to their support (Or Obama's half hearted support) of the FISA bill, which provides telecoms with retroactive immunity for warrentless wiretapping as ordered by BushCo, McCain's support of the suspension of habeas corpus (or rather, his reaction to the upholding of habeas corpus, even for those prisoners in Guantanamo Bay), and Obama's view on healthcare.

*sigh* write-in vote it is.

Food for thought:

Benjamin Franklin once said: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

OTPYS 8, 9

2008-06-06T10:36:00.001-07:00

Time: Tuesday, Lunch, Subway

Person(after standing in line for like 5 minutes): Can I have a venti
caramel frappacino?

Worker: We don't have that here (Points next door to starbucks)

Me: (Laugh)

OTPYS 9:

Quiznos lunch sometime recentlyish:

This person was two people in front of me, with another one behind me
in line to order

Person: Hi can I have a large roast beef sandwich and a bag of chips.

Worker: Sure that'd be $6.95 (or whatever, not sure on exact amount)

Person: Okay (walks outside)

Everyone: :?

Worker: (voids order) (Takes everyone else's order.)

Person: (walks back in with money in hand)

Worker: Okay the large roast beef sandwich and bag of chips right?

Person: (impatiently) yeah.

Worker: Okay $6.95 (takes money, gives change)

Person: Oh and can you wrap the two halves separate

Worker: (rolls eyes when customer looks away) Yeah

(time passes)

Person: Hey make it TWO of those sandwiches

Worker: you want two of them?

Person: yeah

Worker: oooooKAY

Worker: That'd be $5.40 for the extra sandwich (again, just a rough estimate)

Person: (counts out 6 ones, one by one, at least 12 times)

Worker: (counts the ones, gives change)

(more time passes)

Worker: Number 56, two large roast beef, wrapped in half

Person: Thank you (drops a quarter in the tip jar)

Seriously, either don't leave a tip, or leave a decent tip, or just
drop the change they give you in the tip jar when they give it to you.

I can see not giving a tip.

I can see dropping the $0.62 in coins you're given in the tip jar just
so you don't have to deal with loose change.

But I can't understand how someone would deliberately and not out of
laziness put a QUARTER in a tip jar. If you can't afford/don't want to
give a tip fine, don't, but don't intentionally give a 25 cent tip
unless you're trying to send a message.

I've worked a tipping job before (dealing with bills normally in the
$100-$300 range), and the people that use you to round off their bill
to the nearest 10 or 20 are annoying but understandable. the people
that don't tip are slightly less annoying, but worst are the people
that leave a strange amount, such as $1.32 to leave their bill at
$123.76 or whatever. It sends a message that your service wasn't good,
rather than "I forgot to leave a tip" or "I can't afford to leave a
tip" or "I'm lazy so I'll use the tip field to round out my bill"

That said the one time I left a bad tip, I made it obvious. quarter +
nickel + penny right on top of the bill. But that's another story

/end rant

OTPYS 7

2008-05-30T12:32:00.001-07:00

Today

Before getting on the bus

I was walking from BART to the bus stop (through the parking lot and
across a street)

As I approach the street, I notice a guy standing in the middle of the
street, pointing violently at cars to get out of his way, just
standing there and pointing. Eventually he gets OUT of the middle of
the street, and starts talking to a guy standing at the bus stop (not
me) complaining about how "the bus driver wouldn't let him on the bus
because he's black" (profanity laden of course, this IS emeryville
we're talking about). Then he goes and kicks the door to the trash can
enclosure closed. I get my cell phone ready, just in case I have to
call 911 or non-emergency. I cross the street.

The guy sees me as simply a new audience to vent to. I have my
headphones in so I just pretend he doesn't exist. I sniff as I walk by
him. Sure enough, drunk. At 7:30 in the morning. He goes around the
corner, kicking the trash can enclosure door closed again. I kinda
grin at the first guy who he was ranting to and we enjoy a mutual eye
roll.

5 minutes or so go by

Then unexpectedly out of the corner of my eye/ear I see/hear the trash
can door close again, which startled me. Sure enough he's back.

A bus comes down the other way, and he climbs on and starts verbally
assaulting the bus driver, at least that is what it appears he is
doing. At this point, I called non-emergency, informing them that
there was a guy that they needed to keep an eye on for public
intoxication/peace disturbance/jaywalking/whatever else they wanted to
get him on. They ensured me they would check it out, (yeah right) and
asked for a description of the guy and my contact info.

I then had to get onto the bus, and was unable to see if the police
ever came by.

Oh the people you see 6 (This is so much fun)

2008-05-28T12:17:00.001-07:00

Place: Quiznos, Lunch, Yesterday.

While I was focused on the OTPYS that I posted yesterday, this is what
I would have posted about had he not been there. Nothing noteworthy
happened on the way to work or at lunch today, unless you count the
guy listening to music and acting like the air was a punching bag, but
that only lasted for like 2 seconds.

Anyway:

Person walks in, orders their sandwich, sits down.

They have a good stream of customers, so they're coming out and
yelling numbers every once in a while.

(Number 23, Large Turkey and Swiss with no onions, etc)

They get to this guys number.

"Number 25, Regular Roast Beef"

<.<

>.>

<.<

"NUMBER 25, REGULAR ROAST BEEF"

>.>

<.<

>.>

"25?"

The guy FINALLY looks up, and raises his hand and glares like "yeah
that's mine, how dare you yell it seven times even though I've made no
indication to you that that's my order, aren't you a mind reader? DUH"

Oh and the bus didn't show up at all yesterday. I called AC Transit
Customer Relations 7 times with a complaint. They finally asked for
contact information so I stopped calling. That's the second time the
bus just plain didn't show up. They owe me $8 now. Next time I'm gonna
see if they'll add the money for the time I should have been at work
to my transit card.

Oh the people you see 5

2008-05-27T13:02:00.001-07:00

Place: Quiznos, Lunch, Today

Guy: Asian

Event: Guy walks in, talking on iPhone

Guy orders meal WHILE talking on iPhone

Guy uses combination of hand gestures and monosyllabic words to order

Guy sits down with bag of chips and small drink cup, still talking on iPhone

Guy sits there talking on iPhone.

5 minutes pass

Guy stands up, goes to soda machine, sees that they're out of pepsi,
goes to counter

While STILL talking on his iPhone, attempts to hand the cup back to the cashier

Cashier looks at guy confusedly.

Guy says, "No Pepsi"

Cashier points at the bottles of Pepsi.

Guy grabs Pepsi bottle, and sits down, still on iPhone.

Guy opens chip bag and starts eating.

Guy sees his sandwich ("Cut it into FOUR pieces") coming out of the toaster

Guy continues talking on iPhone

Guy suddenly starts FRANTICALLY POINTING AT THE PERSON WRAPPING HIS
SANDWICH, AND THEN DOWN AT THE TABLE IN FRONT OF HIM.

AHH PANIC, PANIC, PANIC

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

OH NO!!!!!!

HELP!!!!!!!

People behind the counter look confusedly at him. He says "FOR HERE!"
(Ahh panic yikes oh no I can't possibly eat a to go order here because
then I don't get the cool 'q'uote tray and get a bag instead)

They nod at him and say, "yeah, it's for here"

Disaster averted, huge sigh of relief. The guy sits back down, eats
some more chips, still talking on his iPhone.

He gets his tray, and starts eating, still talking on his iPhone.

Then he gets back up, looking for more napkins, (the two, unused ones
on his tray apparently aren't good enough).

Anyway, finally he finishes, puts his iPhone down, throws his stuff
away and walks out the door....

Leaving his iPhone on the table.

Still on a call.

I walk it out to him and hand it to him.

He grabs it and looks at me like I stole it.

I roll my eyes and walk away

The end

Oh the people you see 3 AND 4

2008-05-20T12:10:00.001-07:00

Setting: Quiznos
Day: today
Time: Lunch

So I walk into quiznos and there's a baby sitting on the table with
its mom standing behind it, and some guy sitting at the table
(husband? uncle? something else? definitely related in some way) and I
order and sit down. Eventually I hear "NO Baby, stop it, it's MINE"
from the guy. I look over, and the baby's foot got stuck on the tape
used to hold the sandwich paper thing together, and the baby is
shaking its foot trying to get the tape off, to the great
consternation of the dude. Anyway, the mom pulls the tape off the kids
foot and life goes on. Later the baby starts crying, so, naturally,
the mom starts singing to the baby. In Quiznos. Quite possibly the
WORST singer I have heard in my life. I can sing better. And that's
saying something. Luckily, I have my ipod, so I crank up the volume...
does NOTHING to drown this out.... As the baby is crying, the guy goes
"SHUT UP BABY". I glance in his direction and roll my eyes. Baby stops
crying. Guy suddenly turns from mentally unstable to a somewhat normal
(as normal as anyone can BE in berkeley/emeryville area) as they
leave. Weirdest thing ever.

OTPYS4

Day:Today (jackpot today, lol)
Time: 7:50 am or so
Place: San Pablo and ashby

You know those spinny things that people put on their wheels because
they think they're cool? Yeah, the ones that keep spinning after they
stop. I saw those today.

On a minivan.

With a late 30's/early 40's guy in there.

He was white.

And blasting hip-hop.

FROM A MINIVAN WITH SPINNERS!!!

If anything screams "FAKE" more than that, I don't know what does.

I laughed all the way to work.

And read that post down there .v. cause it's from today too...

List of fun facts about AC transit...

2008-05-20T10:35:00.001-07:00

The Bus drivers have been instructed to be at a full stop before
allowing passengers to board or exit the bus.

The bus drivers are usually in a hurry.

Bus drivers in a hurry hit the button to open the door as they stop.

Hitting the button to open the door starts the door opening process.

Sometimes the door opens enough to exit/enter before the bus is fully stopped.

It's really funny to see a bus slam on the brakes

You can make a bus slam on the brakes if the door is open enough for
you to pretend to step on/off the bus.

The door is open enough for you to pretend to step on/off the bus if
your bus driver is in a hurry.

Your bus driver is usually in a hurry.

You can usually get a good laugh out of something really funny.

You can usually get a good laugh out of pretending to step on a still
moving bus.

The End.

(WARNING: the facts in this post are intended for humor only. I do
not recommend you do the actions mentioned in this article, and
absolve myself of all liability if you choose to partake in anything
mentioned here. ;))

heh... (oh the people you see part 2)

2008-05-14T10:36:00.001-07:00

Time: Late afternoon
Setting: headed into walgreens to grab a snack for the way home cause
I was hungry
Person: black guy
What he did: He was not listening to music or anything, but he was dancing.

He would slide to the side, turn to the right, slide, turn to the left.

Rinse, Repeat.

several times

In the line, as he was walking out, as he was walking through the store....

he moved really slow.

I don't like people that move slow, especially when they are
unpredictable/unpassable like that.

Wow... oops.... pictures. NEW POST SERIES starting today.

2008-05-09T10:23:00.001-07:00

oh well. eventually.

Anyway, I decided to start a new post series entitled "oh the people you see"

This is installment one. In this series, I will be posting about
people I see. Some I see every day, some most days, and most only
once.

Oh the people you see:

Day: May 6, Tuesday
Time: approx 4:30 pm
Place: San Pablo Avenue & Ashby Ave
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=San+Pablo+Ave+%26+Ashby+Ave,+Berkeley,+Alameda,+California,+United+States&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=45.919417,199.335938&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=0,37.852140,-122.286660&ll=37.885693,-122.280064&spn=0.066928,0.097332&z=13&layer=c&cbll=37.85214,-122.28666&panoid=cmvgU5cXQyWOxL3eMdaICg&cbp=1,44.61118128442661,,0,-0.8306330719133488
(copy and paste the link above to see where, check out street view)
Approximately .25 miles from work.
Person: typical black male, on cell phone

What Happened: Walking to the bus stop, I got stopped by this guy. I'm
listening to music as I always am on the way home, he's crossing san
pablo ave. along ashby (W to E) He walks up to me. "excuse me sir" I
pull out an earphone so I can hear, and pause my music. "Where Am I"
he asks, and holds his phone to my mouth. I kinda smirk, and say
"uh... san pablo and ashby..." He takes the phone back, and says "see,
told you". He crosses Ashby (S to N, toward walgreens) and I hear him
say "hello? hello? you there? hello?"

Conclusion: People will hang up on you if you ask a random stranger to
tell them where you are

Yeah, I know, pictures

2008-03-20T22:21:00.001-07:00

Whatever. I'll get to them this weekend. That said, if any of you
happened to send me a surprise gift through amazon, I just got it 2
days or so ago. Thanks. It's amazing
(http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-DS-Lite-Crimson-Black/dp/B000VXJEW6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1206076523&sr=8-2
+ http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-NTR-P-A2DE-Super/dp/B000ERVMI8/ref=pd_sim_vg_img_1)
if anyone cares to fess up.... I'd appreciate an email ;)

Anyway, almost time for me to come back... next week is the last week.
This term went by really quickly.

Bored in class, and just realized I hadn't posted in awhile

2008-03-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

so yeah, we went to Virginia. I took pictures. I don't have my camera
at school because it's still over at Sigma Nu. We went to see VMI and
W&L. We also went to see sigma nu headquarters, and alpha room, and a
bunch of other stuff. Email me if you're interested in more. I'll post
pictures sometime over the weekend.

Random conversation between three people I know here:

Josh: "So Jason, I hear you were in the car with a girl the other day"
Jason: "Uhh.... yeah"
Sean: (with a proud look on his face) "I touched one the other day! I
shook her hand!"

That's how bad the situation here is. We now BRAG when we shake a
girls hand. How sad is that?

Anyway, feel free to call or email me, and check back here over the
weekend for a few pictures

Been a long time since I've had free time

2008-02-17T22:41:00.001-08:00

bits and pieces of the past few weeks:

Sociology:
http://asil.logicalinsanity.ca/300college%20paper.html
that is so accurate it makes me want to puke

Calc: 2nd test comes back hopefully later today for me, early tomorrow
for you. Had mixed feelings about it.... I think it went okay, but not
sure.

CS: 92 on the 2nd assignment, tied for 4th on that assignment in a
class of around 25 with a 92/100

Discreet: right around class average, but a little above. That's a
harder class than I thought it would be.

Sigma Nu news: Thinking of going to Virginia (Sigma Nu HQ) March 7th,
8th, 9th.... which would be awesome.

Other news: I just finished the last of my bagels. :(

What a week....

2008-02-09T08:46:00.001-08:00

Anyway, figured I'd post a post now that I have some downtime. Last
Saturday and today I helped(will help) with the prep for success
program, mostly because I was (am) bored and need something to do, but
partially because that's what made me decide to come to Kettering. Oh
yeah, and you get a free t-shirt. Computer science had program 2 due
on thursday, I think I did pretty well on it, hopefully(probably?)
high nineties. Sociology finally had a class where the whole class was
about sociology (given minor tolerances for the occasional deviation),
but only because we watched and discussed movies related to
sociological experiments, not through any fault of the professor. And
he finally gave us homework too.... 1000 word essay due this coming
thursday.

On another note, Wed. after 3 there were no classes due to inclement
weather (about 6 inches of snow with more coming down), but then
reopened the next day, so i had to get up early anyway. Then my first
class (calc) got cancelled, after I showered, dressed, ate, and walked
all the way over there. By that time, I was too awake to go back to
sleep. :( Then friday came around, I showered, dressed, ate, walked
all the way over there. Cancelled again. >:O

Currently tired and cranky, have an hour to change that before prep
for success... also have 40 oz of coca-cola in my fridge.....
hmm........ ;)

lol... QOTD

2008-02-01T01:24:00.001-08:00

"there's this sign at the bottom of the stairway that is bothering me.
it says "floors are slippery when wet". well [duh]. you put the sign
up when the floors are wet to alert people they are wet and therefore
slippery, putting up that sign is like getting rid of the fire alarms
and putting up signs that say FIRE IS HOT."

Update on calc

2008-01-30T06:05:00.001-08:00

90% on test = 98 weighted average (KU's 100 point scaled GPA) = YAY!!!

(sort of) tuesday's week in review

2008-01-29T22:00:00.001-08:00

Well it's tuesday for you guys anyway....

Not much has happened recently worth writing about. Classes have
overall been uneventful, and some (*coughsscicough*) have even been
skipped (only once) after making arrangments with a classmate to take
note during the five minutes when he actually says anything related to
ssci. Had a test in discreet on thursday, wasn't too bad, still
haven't got it back. Programming project 1 was due on thursday as
well, and haven't got that back either, but I only made one mistake
that I caught in testing for programming project 2, which is due next
thursday, and is done pending comments on PP1, as PP2 builds upon PP1.
Also had a calc II quiz on friday, and I think I did pretty good on
that, there was one I was unsure about, but other than that, I think I
did good. This teacher is a lot better than either of the other
teachers I've had. Dorm life is still just as amazing as ever, I
resolved to (almost) never stay up past 2, giving me a guaranteed five
hours of sleep more or less. Tuesday nights I sometimes stay up later
than that, or even all night it, because wednesday I only have one
class at 8, so I sleep a lot on Wed. anyway. Fraternity is well and
good. Tonight was the greek-wide pledge seminar, required for pledge
students, basic information (read: BORING!!!). Stayed at the frat
sunday night after a LEAD session, dinner, and movie (LEAD is some
acronym that stands for something that I don't have in front of me
right now, maybe learning, enrichment and development or something
similar?).

And some good news!

My phone finally decided it wanted to start working again (meaning I
finally stopped being lazy and called verizon). So yeah. When you call
you'll actually get a hold of me now. unless you call in conflict with
my schedule of course (will fix link when I stop being lazy (never)
http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=lclpevfccathairfb4r1bausgg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York&pvttk=d7755a81f5ab4772d94c47b6efa86493)
keep the time zone change in mind.

And it's really windy right now. 28mph steady, with 40 mph gusts every
5-10 seconds that each last about 3 seconds. A little rainy too. No
snow anymore, it's actually in the 40's or thereabouts. A

Anyway, hope you all are having a good time,

Youtube time!!!!!

2008-01-28T06:48:00.001-08:00

check it out

Tuesday's week in review

2008-01-22T14:36:00.001-08:00

alright, it's time for "Tuesday's week in review", which will
hopefully be a weekly look at the things that happened over the past
week that were sort of interesting. Saturday I arrived and went
through the whole luggage thing, finally receiving it on Tuesday of
last week. you saw my class overview, with the exception of my CS
class, computing & algorithms II. That class is probably my favorite,
and is taught by the best CS prof at the university. Wednesday I
stayed at the frat almost all day, playing Halo, a little bit of Rock
Band (an AMAZING game) and some Call of Duty 4 (another AMAZING game).
That night we had dinner, and a basic overview of the LEAD program all
candidates have to go through. It looks quite informative and
interesting, providing a look at the history of the frat, where they
are today, and where they are hoping to go in the future. Thursday was
SSCI 101 day, so that wasn't much fun.... We had a three day weekend
for MLK Jr day, spent saturday at the dorms playing DoTA (warcraft 3
mod) and doing homework (yes I DO do homework, contrary to popular
belief.) Sunday I went over to the frat at night for dinner and then
their candidate ceremony, which was... interesting. Unfortunately I am
unable to provide any details due to agreements made within said
ceremony, but it was an experience that I hopefully won't forget for a
while. Monday I slept most of the day, due to their ( ;) just for you
mel) being no classes and me being a little tired, then got up this
morning, ate lunch, went to class, and came back.

Anyway, that's how my week was.

Zach

SSCI201

2008-01-17T13:51:00.001-08:00

TEACHER: "Some say that all moments of time exist simultaneously"

STUDENT (not me, really!) "So class is over then"

CLASS: *laughter*

The post in which I post quotes from my teachers

2008-01-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it being the first week of the term, and me being bored to do very little homework so far, I will post some quotes from my sociology teacher :P

"I hate it when they set up the classroom like this, with 6 rows instead of 5, because then I have to turn my head really far from left to right to see everyone."

*pulls out phone, presses a few things, puts it away
"I just remembered my phone wasn't on vibrate, so I pulled it out and put it on vibrate, and I would appreciate it if you would take the time to do the same"

"do you know what my unix screen looks like at home? four xterms. And firefox in the background. I have my standard command window in the lower right, thunderbird in the upper-right, my html editor in the upper left, and in the lower left I have reference material."

Yeah. This class is gonna be awful

Time for a new post....

2008-01-14T22:21:00.001-08:00

First, thanks for breakfast Saturday everyone... it was so good a
start that it had to go downhill from there....

SFO - board plane. Maintenance problem. Great. 10 minutes later, we're
good to go. Land.
have to wait 15 minutes before we can pull up to the gate because
there's a plane there. on my itinerary I have 50 minutes to make the
connection, but at this point it's 25 minutes.

I run through the airport (ORD(chicago)), stop at the bathroom, and
get onto my plane just before they shut the doors. My luggage, on the
other hand, doesn't.

Of course, I still don't know that at this point, so at FNT(flint) I
get off, go to the baggage carousel, and my bags don't show up. I go
over to the Cust. Service desk, wait for an hour because the SAME GUY
is working Cust. Service as is running the baggage carousel, and they
tell me that they'll get me my bags within 24 hours. Fair enough.
Except....

Sunday:

they refuse to deliver to the shipping dept. at the school, and want
to leave it at the security office. They try to do so, and they call
my cell phone. Which is dead, because my cell phone charger is in the
very bags they're trying to deliver, and I hadn't charged it the night
before cause I was packing. So the security office refuses to take the
delivery, and the shipping people call me, and leave a message on my
cell phone. Except for one problem.... my cell phone is dead.... I end
up using skype to call myself to check my messages, and that's when I
find out there's messages on there. One of which tells me I have to go
to the airport to pick up my luggage. I call them using skype, and
they're customer service hotline doesn't know anything more about my
baggage than I do. I do, however, manage to get a customer service
agent on the line ( no small task) and convince her that this is
totally retarded. That done, she asks for a contact number.... well I
don't have a phone right now, so I give them my home phone number,
then call up my parents and tell my mom what to do, and provide the
alternate address for shipping in case they refuse to deliver to the
perfectly good shipping dept. at the school. The cust. service lady
called the baggage place, and then wouldn't give me a phone number for
them upon request (if you're REALLY REALLY REALLY bored, you could
look that up and see if not providing a customer with a phone number
of the company that is holding their bags is illegal or not, cause I
think it might be)... I have them ship it to the fraternity house just
to avoid all that

Anyway, all in all, today (yesterday for me) December the 14th, 2008,
at approximate 1:48:36 pm, I finally regained possession of my bags. I
now have a few of my textbooks from last term, CLOTHES!!!!!
TOILETRIES!!!!!!!! and a TOWEL!!!! YAY!!!!!!!! (and a bunch of other
stuff that isn't worth mentioning.

Class breakdown:

Math 102: (calc II): Good teacher so far, and everyone thinks he's
good that has taken him before, so it should be pretty good

CS lab and class: coming tomorrow

CS 211: Discreet Math: This class actually looks fun... definitely by
FAR outshines the class directly AFTER it, which is

SSCI 101: Intro. to social sciences: let's just say that I thought the
(2 hour twice a week) class went OVER by 45 min, when in fact, he let
us out 15 minutes EARLY...

GET OFF THE ROAD

2008-01-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Like seriously... it's dangerous out there

Last week at home

2008-01-08T08:56:00.001-08:00

Well, her I am on the verge of another three months in Michigan... I
hear they have a bit of snow up there. For those of you who don't
know, I'm leaving on Saturday out of SFO. Hopefully being out there
will free up some time (currently I'm away from home 11 hours a day,
and I can post and talk more often....

"Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on
fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

Well it made me laugh....

2007-12-14T14:27:00.001-08:00

..but none of you will probably think it's funny...

Programming, n: A pastime similar to banging one's head
against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.

That was fun....

2007-12-13T08:04:00.001-08:00

So last night there's a tech rehearsal for Kelly's play at the church.
So I leave from work and get on the bus headed out that direction. On
the way out from contra costa college, the police stop and board the
bus, cuff someone, and walk off with him.... Yeah. That's the kind of
area I work in. Now Flint on the other hand, is the third most
dangerous city in the nation, but still...

LOL of the day part 3!!

2007-12-06T12:09:00.001-08:00

Guess who I saw on the bus today? If you said "The star of LOL of the
day parts one and two", you'd be correct. This one isn't quite as
interesting, but it's still funny. So I'm getting off the bus (same
stop as our featured person) and walking to the corner. I hit the
button to go across the street, and this guy is turning right in front
of me, while there's traffic turning left from the other direction.
Person turning left honks at person turning right. Then I hear "You
need to slow down *slight chuckle*".

Light turns green, I cross street, turn the corner, and laugh for a
second. Totally different tone of voice than she used when I was "in
her way"

To follow up on the seriousness of HR1955...

2007-12-03T09:10:00.001-08:00

This just arrived in my inbox:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html

It's a great article about how the US is pushing to close down
democracy, and how HR1955 is helping

HR 1955

2007-11-30T23:12:00.001-08:00

We interrupt this blog to provide notice that the House of
Representatives no longer represents the American people.

The only people left with any sense are as follows:

Duncan, John [R], Tennessee District 2
Kucinich, Dennis [D], Ohio District 12 (and a presidential candidate)
Costello, Jerry [D], Illinois District 12
Abercrombie, Neil [D], Hawaii District 1
Rohrabacher, Dana [R], California District 46
Flake, Jeff [R], Arizona District 6

and possibly 22 more who did not vote.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

Above is a link to the bills text

click it. Read it. Get scared.

Pay special attention here: ( *'s mine)

"SEC. 2. PREVENTION OF VIOLENT RADICALIZATION AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.

(a) In General- Title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002
(6 U.S.C. 361 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following
new subtitle:

`Subtitle J--Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism

`SEC. 899A. DEFINITIONS.

`For purposes of this subtitle:

`(1) COMMISSION- The term `Commission' means the National
Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism established under section 899C.

`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- ********The term `violent
radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an
extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically
based violence to advance political, religious, or social
change.********

`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- ******The term `homegrown
terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or
violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating
primarily within the United States or any possession of the United
States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the
civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in
furtherance of political or social objectives.**********

`(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically
based violence' means the ****use, planned use, or threatened use of
force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or
individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.********"

The use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence.... to
promote... political, religious, or social beliefs.

Could they define force, please?

Could force mean offering someone a piece of "religious propaganda"
such as a Bible, Qur'an, or other holy book? Maybe not today, but in
the future it could be.

So we have congress "establish[ing] [a] law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances." This is a DIRECT CONTRADICTION to the first
amendment. The only argument out of this one is that it's against the
use of force or violence. Fine. Notice, however, that neither force
nor violence are defined. Therefore, those terms are open to
interpretation. So even that is gone. 404 "representatives" voted
DIRECTLY against their oath of office on this bill "I do solemnly
swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of
the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I
will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of
the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." (Geek side
note: 404: Brain not found.) Six Representatives had the sense to vote
against this bill. Kudos to them. 22 representatives (including the
internet's beloved Ron Paul) did not vote on this bill.

There's even legal precedent against this bill:

To quote http://dailypaul.com/node/8156

"While violent thoughts, speech, and writings may be anathema, they
are clearly protected under United States law. In *Yates v United
States*, the court wrote that "advocacy of forcible overthrow of the
government" was *protected speech* under the First Amendment.

The court further expanded the protection of the First Amendment in
*Texas**v Johnson *, when it noted that "if there is a bedrock
principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may
not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds
the idea offensive or disagreeable."

Texas v Johnson was the flag-burning case, just so you don't have to look it up.

In conclusion, I ask you to research this bill for yourself, and call
your US Senator urging them to vote against HR 1955. If it passes,
I'll be a terrorist. And in the 2008 elections, please don't vote for
anyone who voted for this bill, no matter how much you agree with them
otherwise. They can't uphold a simple oath.
I

LOL of the day 2

2007-11-30T07:57:00.001-08:00

If you haven't read the post four posts down entitled "LOL of the day",
STOP.
Go read it.
Come back.

Same person. Different day.

7:41 AM. Bus arrives at my stop
7:42 AM. Bus arrives at their stop
THEM: *stands directly in front of door so I can't get past, even
though there are plenty of seats available.*
ME: *wry grin*
THEM: *continue standing*
ME: *soft chuckle* (really soft, honest)
THEM: *continue standing*
7:49 AM bus arrives at San Pablo and Ashby where we both get off
ME: *walk to back exit and act like nothing happened*

What I do at work

2007-11-29T22:38:00.001-08:00

I make computer programs. Here's a list of what I've done so far

1) restructured a website so it used directories instead of a file dump (easy)
2) wrote a website from scratch that queried information from a
database and displayed it on a webpage, complete with login and
numerous other cool features (medium)
3) wrote a program that scanned a database table and when it saw a
flag, grab a punch of postscript files based on that, and make a pdf.
(hardest so far)
4) wrote a program that scanned a folder for files, and when files
existed, copied them to the correct directory based on their filename
and flagged it for pdf making by the above program (medium)
5) wrote a simple utility that looped through 10000 folders and found
improperly named files or files that were in the wrong directory
according to the guidelines established many years ago (easy)
6) added to that utility to move any files that weren't supposed to be
there at all out of the directory structure and into a temp directory
(simple)
7) wrote a quick and dirty program to change the system year to either
2000 or 2007 depending on which version you run. This was written
because we have a program that has to run in the year 2000 or it won't
work(easiest... like 16 lines)
8) made a bunch of label things into adobe illustrator by hand. (easy,
but tedious and time consuming and boring and yuck)
9) made a program that opens a directory in windows explorer based off
a number. (close to easiest). The directory structure for the files
that this program is used for is number based, so typing a number in
just opens the corresponding directory.

Anyway, that's what I've done at work that isn't totally monotonous.

A Philosophical Question, and a illogical question

2007-11-29T22:24:00.001-08:00

Can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?

Also, is everything universally recognized as absolutely true
absolutely meaningless?

(for the purposes of this discussion)
Definitions:
Universally: Widely. The vast majority of people. People who aren't
conspiracy theorists. 90%+ of the population
Meaningless: Devoid of meaning. Not even worth talking about.

Your job: Answer the first question with God remaining omnipotent and
without not actually addressing the question at all (eg "don't
question God." doesn't count). And anyone that has my answer can't use
it.

For the second question: counter-examples if you have any, otherwise
agree or disagree.

LOL of the day

2007-11-29T08:45:00.001-08:00

So it's time to start blogging again. Short posts for now, but I need
to get back into it.
Here's an interaction I had at 7:45 this morning.

ME: *stand up on the bus and go to the door so I'm ready to get off
and out of people's way ASAP*
THEM: *tap me on shoulder*
ME: *turn and look at them*
THEM: "you need to slow down"
ME: *turn back toward door and roll eyes internally*
BUS: *open door*
ME: *step out with left foot*
THEM: *intentionally steps on my right foot, still on the bus, and not
even step-onnable unless it was intentional*
ME: *walks to corner*
THEM: *walks to corner*
LIGHT: *turns green*
ME: * walks at slightly faster than normal speed*

The end

New Post!!!

2007-10-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

So i work now... woo-hoo. I'm gone from 6:40 am to 6 pm, sleeping from 10 or 11 pm to 6 am. Every day. And then the weekends I sleep. Anyway at work I'm working on bringing information out of a database onto a webpage right now. And i'm tired. And i want it to be the weekend.

First day of work

2007-10-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

For anyone who's still reading this for whatever reason, I had my first day of work today. It was okay. Then I went home. The end. *zzzzzzzz*

Just in case any of you haven't figured it out

2007-09-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

It's finals week. I'm busy. Incredibly. e-mail I will respond to if it asks specific questions that don't take long to answer, unless you're special, in which case I'll respond to longer questions. If you want to get a hold of me/find out what's going on, asynchronous communication is the best, and e-mail the best of asynchronous. If you really need synchronous, e-mail me and i can call you or we can IM or something. I'll be back home sunday

Since it's been awhile...

2007-09-21T03:05:00.001-07:00

Chem test yesterday.
Speech in comm today.
CS project due today.
Calc test today.
That's why I haven't been posting
And this disgusts me:
List

Edit: link fixed

So I was writing that comm paper referred to in that last post....

2007-09-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

after that post was made....

Anyway, I fell asleep while writing a new paragraph. So there were a lot of wpelling and grammarical errors, because I can never rememver where certain keys in the bottom row are when I'm awake, let alone when I'm slepp. and you sure don't catch these things as easilt when your when yours eyes are closed and you're not looking a tthe scren. Anywas it looked something like this paragraph , but worse. Way worse

Coming up on this here blog....

2007-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

In filming TOMORROW NIGHT, or now that I think about it, tonight is the tour of the AB. It'll be dark. It'll be scary. But you get to see where all my classes are, other than the Chemistry lab.

Also a new poll. Haven't decided what's going on there yet, could be potentially several questions.

MORE POSTS!!!! Now that I have this communications project turned in (as of 11.5 hours from now) I'll have more time than ever to waste here. YAY!!!!

Another video showing the campus center, probably just the hangout room downstairs, which is actually pretty cool.

A big post that I've been writing and contemplating posting for about three weeks now...

Potentially yet another video with me in it. Unsure about that one though... might just make everyone wait until I get back...

Oh and while putting off my comm project that I'm turning in in a few hours I beat Super Mario World. Again. For the fifth time (fourth since I got here) All 96 exits. Okay so I had help every other time. This was the first time I beat it all in one sitting and the first time I beat it with no help from anyone else. Took about 3 hours. On the weekend when everyone else was playing DotA. I'm kinda sick of that game now. For the next two days.

Anyway, that's just a quick update and forecastage, sorry for the delay.

Well I think I have this figured out...

2007-09-07T01:33:00.001-07:00

Break up the posts a little. Give people longer posts, hence more to talk about. Let the anonymous people go at it. Lots of comments=me happy. Anyway, today, for your enjoyment, I have two videos. One is me walking the path to my dorm room from the main entrance, basically what I see every day. And the first one is the basement, where we do all kinds of fun stuff... when we're not doing homework, of course. Quick note includes this is pretty much uncut and raw, the only thing I did was a voiceover. All the video is original and in the same order as it was originally. Any people you see in this movie is me. All heads, arms, bodies and other appendages are my own. Also i plan to do another video before I leave of the very confusing academic building, but I have to do that one later at night, and right now it's too close to morning. And all audio is one take too. Enjoy these two short snippets of where I walk every day. Oh and just for the record, I know you can't see my face. That's intentional. This is a tour, not a walk around campus with my face on camera thing. Live with it. Oh and if anyone has a microphone, speakers, a fast (DSL will work) internet connection, and a desire to talk to me, let me know, e-mail, IM, post here, whatever. Now, on with the show. Let me know if these work, I've been having problems playing video lately, so just leave a comment if they don't work and I'll see what I can do

What I did yesterday

2007-09-05T05:58:00.000-07:00

FUN FACT (that you probably don't want to know but just thought I'd throw out there) I have been up at or past 4AM every day for 16 days in a row. YAY for me... and yay for weekends where you can sleep all morning and well into the afternoon and no one cares

After comm and compsci, I fixed up a laptop someone had so that they could use their internet connection on it. Missing drivers problem, so because it couldn't connect to the internet, I had to download the drivers onto my computer, then transfer. In exchange for doing so, I got myself a ride out to best buy to spend my gift cards (yes that is plural, I had $50 in BB cards). So i got myself a microphone, so I could do the voiceover for the video I have of the dorms. That should be coming up hopefully before the end of the week, definitely the start of next week. Oh I got three letters in the mail this week. Wednesdays are the only day I'm guaranteed to check the mailroom, because it's on the way to one of my classes. Other than that I'll just drop in now and then if I'm in the area. Had a great time hanging out with Sigma Nu over LD weekend, a lot better than staying here at the dorms, that's for sure. ChemLab was easy today, was highly pleased with my midterm scores, and am doing well overall there. Played a round of the eternal board game last night as well, it's been going on for like 3 weeks now. In typical fashion didn't sleep at all last night, beyond a quick 20 minute nap just to rejuvenate the mind a little. Oh, and Capture the Flag is tomorrow at 7:30.... finally something fun to do. Tonight is gaming society as well, probably get some pool and foosball in there. My room needs to be cleaned a little tiny bit, it's starting to look a little messy, but it's not that bad. Oh and I got the laugh of my life this morning... I went for a little walk around 5:30AM just around the dorms...went around the whole figure eight on floor two. Well I look outside and there's a group of four people standing outside, just hanging out. I recognize one of them immediately, and just kinda meander on down there. As I'm getting closer I recognize more of them from passing them in the halls and such. I open the door, and then i hear their story... They left campus at 1:30 for late night fast food. None of them had their Kettering ID cards, which are required for entry into the dorms. So they were sitting outside for 3 plus hours, in the middle of Flint... I got back to my room and couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, that's what I've been doing lately

wow, he's still alive?

2007-09-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm alive and well. I just took the weekend of, is all. I've been hanging out with Sigma Nu, seeing as there's no food on campus. Watching movies, playing Marvel:Ultimate Alliance and Halo, homework (*sigh*), pool, horseshoes, football at 2AM (YES!!!!), jumping in the pool to CATCH a football at 2AM (that one didn't involve me as the jumper, though I did throw the ball), going to White Castle (home of the .59 cent mini-burger, which due to their 2 free drinks when you order 10 burgers deal, allowed four of us to get 20 burgers and 4 drinks for under $12. Total), and just general hanging out. I have pictures of miscellaneous stuff coming up, as well as that video. anyway, just a quick update on what I've been doing

Wow, there's a lot of comments on that post....

2007-08-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

I have my video recorded for the tour of the dorm building... now if someone would just go to BB, I could get a mike, and do the voiceover.

Anyway, this is a quick note to say there was another tornado warning today. I brought my laptop, an ethernet cord, my suitemates ethernet switch, my ipod, my laptop charger, 3 rolls of ritz crackers that I bought like 3 weeks ago and have only ate one of, a package of six oreos that someone gave me, and some coca-cola from a vending machine that someone gave me cause the machine gave them the wrong thing. 15 minutes later I got to pack it all up again. It was fun while it lasted. Not

Insomnia

2007-08-28T01:06:00.000-07:00

insomnia:

1. Sleep problems characterized by difficulty falling asleep, frequent wakings during the night, or waking up earlier than desired. Insomnia can result in getting up in the morning feeling unrested and experiencing drowsiness during the day.

2. an abnormal inability to achieve adequate sleep.

3. A condition in which the person complains of difficulty falling asleep or problems staying asleep.

4.Inability to sleep even in the absence of external impediments, during the period when sleep should normally occur.

Well, I guess I'm officially an insomniac by definition three. Here it is, four in the morning of a school day, and I still haven't gone to sleep. Granted I have no classes until 2:30, but this can't really be healthy, can it? For those of you who don't know, I was up all night tuesday night, up til 3 wednesday night, up til 2 thursday night, up til 8am saturday morning after waking up in time for my friday 10am class and staying up all day, and up til 4 saturday night, 3 sunday night, and now another 4 o clock. My sleep pattern will be seriously messed up when I get back to California. Always tired, never able to sleep. Good times. Any suggestions other than lay off the caffiene and count sheep as to how I can get to sleep easier would be appreciated, as would suggestions for what to do after the hall settles down at about 1 or 2.

Anyway, enough complaining about sleep.

There was a calc test today... I think I did okay. And midterm grades are in. 4 A's and a B. I'm pleased. Also a chemlab midterm. Easy multiple choice.... famous last words.

Quick scholastic review of the past few weeks:

Comm: Group Presentation on one of the chapters in the book. I don't OWN said book, because the bookstore has had it "on special order" for the past 6 weeks.... (I checked yesterday, it's in stock) however, I don't intend on buying a copy at this point, I have three contacts from that class that are right down the hall, and I just mooch off them... Basically my team did pretty good, got a 90 on the presentation, which isn't that great until you realize that the highest grade my professor will give is a 93... I'm getting a 91 in the class, too. 8-10 page double spaced research report due thursday.

Chem: Teacher reads straight off notes= quick read of notes, and then do other homework for the rest of class. Best part is he knows and doesn't care.

ChemLab: meh

CS: THE best class... I'm sitting at a 92 right now. It's actually pretty easy too. My teacher looks like Mr. Rogers, or rather, acts like him. This is the only class I can bring myself to truly ENJOY here.

Then of course there's Calculus.... My teacher is a genius, and thinks everyone should be. Your grade is therefore based on raw percentages. No curve based on other students, no grade inflation, just straight up percentages... yeah.

Oh and orientation, which counts for your overall WAG (basically GPA, except on a 100 point scale rather than 4 point scale) I'm getting a 100 in that. Unfortunately it's only 1 credit hour...

There's your post midterm academic overview. It's now 4:30, and I'm still not really truly tired/able to go to sleep...

Hey GREAT IDEA... longest post EVER!!!

So on to what I've been doing with my free time. Obviously this discounts time spent doing homework, that's a boring given.... I've tried pacing the halls... that was pretty boring. Then I learned that this one kid in my unit has not only an SNES(best gaming console ever) but Super Mario World (best game ever) and Tetris attack (second best game ever) So I've been doing a bit of that here and there. Also there's a board game called "Attack" where each turn takes at least .5 hours, usually more like a full hour. We usually play about 8-10 turns a week. A lot of general hanging out, just chatting about classes, professors, hometowns, and other random stuff guys talk about. Also some Civ 4 over the network. That's pretty wicked. The best one though was playing CounterStrike as a unit a few weeks after getting here.

Anyhow, I think I've done enough rambling for awhile now, and I should PROBABLY get some sleep. There's a new poll now that's probably way up there, vote in it. Leave comments. Love ya'll and miss ya'll (yes mel you'll live) and see you in almost exactly a month. (wow time has flown). i'm in the process of writing a new post already too, but it's not gonna be posted for a bit. Other posts maybe, but not The post.

Wheeee, another post

2007-08-26T16:20:00.001-07:00

Youtube time. Just watch it and laugh

Going down the hill on a soapbox frame

2007-08-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

AKA what Zach does at four in the morning when he and half the people in his unit are awake. Uncut and raw, so everything you hear and see is exactly like it happened. When I pan right, you can see the lights from the dorm and engineering buildings. Also, because it WAS four in the morning, it was pretty cold, and I had a t-shirt on. So that's why the camera is a little shaky

laser tag

2007-08-25T03:59:00.000-07:00

Was amazing. Best. Game. Ever

Off to laser tag!!!!

2007-08-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

We're playing laser tag. Two level maze laser tag. All. Night. Long. Starts at midnight, ends at eight.

And luckily

2007-08-24T15:23:00.001-07:00

it's over. Yeah. that was stupid

TORNADO!!!!

2007-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

tornado warning on campus, there's ~2-300 people in a hallway.... yeah. Luckily there's wireless, unluckily there's nowhere to plug in my laptop, and I have less than an hour left....

For those of you that haven't heard

2007-08-23T00:38:00.000-07:00

I just received my bid from Sigma Nu. This means that at any time between Friday at noon and the second before I die, I can decide to become a Sigma Nu. There's seven people in the house, their process requires them to vote unanimously for each biddee. So that was exciting. Other than that, Wednesday's need to go into the corner and die. And I'm more than halfway done with school. And I'm getting AT LEAST high B's in all my classes, A's in most. Oh and I took some pictures the other day, I'll upload them sometime soon. There was a flash thunderstorm today, nice day, sprinkle for about 10 seconds as the clouds rolled in, the poured for 50 minutes or so, then to hot and humid.

And steak = good (well done, please)

Another Wednesday bites the dust

2007-08-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's finally over. *zzzzzz*

My latest obsession

2007-08-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

What claims to be the hardest quiz in the world

http://www.timtang.com/ttt/

I have a hint sheet for the first 8 levels (the only one's I've completed so far) at
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df92f494_12ctjn4q

Use it only if you can't figure it out. I hid the REALLY big spoilers, and just pointed you in the right direction. If you figure out one I haven't done yet, let me know.

I <3 monday night/tuesday morning/tuesday's in general

2007-08-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

For the first time since last monday night/tuesday morning, I got more than 4 hours of sleep. 6 to be precise. I feel so ALIVE. I JUST got out of bed barely in time to get to my comm class. It's wonderful

YAY

2007-08-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Internet is back up and working, the convict that escaped from the hospital is back in custody, and life is good. That's all

Fun without the internet...

2007-08-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

...is an oxymoron

Actually no, now I'm involved in two different games that both take extremely long to play, and are still fun. But still, not having the internet available for use most of the time really screws me up. So right now I don't have much to say. Other than my phone is randomly turning on, after it's already been on, and it's turning off and refusing to turn back on.

OH, yeah... I'm at Sigma Nu right now, stealing their wireless, and we went to the taco bell drive thru, ordered, turned around, stuck two people on top of the trunk, and they picked up and paid for our food. The guy that was working the window was SO annoyed... it was hysterical. Apparently he said something like "They pulled in backwards, whadda we do?" in this really flat monotone to his two coworkers, who came over, looked, and thought it was hysterical. We didn't even get originality points for it, they said it was the fourth time it had been done there. I guess stuff like that would happen in a college town. It's not like there's much else to do

Why I didn't post about yesterday

2007-08-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

"Merit, our internet service provider, is currently having network problems.

They are aware of the problem and currently working to resolve it.

Network services on campus will work normally. Access to off campus resources will be slow to non-existent.

Currently, there is no estimated time of repair.

We will update you as information becomes available.

Kettering IT Department"

That makes me REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sad. Now I'm stuck with slow wireless. It stinks. Bad. And yesterday wasn't fun anyway, then I come back to no internet. Not cool

Well, it's kinda still Tuesday...

2007-08-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah. By the time I could've got to sleep, it wouldn't have been worth it. Chemistry was being a pain. And then CS. And the Math. Yeah. So I basically added more onto my normally awful wednesday, and is making it even worse. Anyway, that was the calendar Tuesday. That's all

Monday

2007-08-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Well, as far as monday's go, this one wasn't so bad... A few people from my unit are playing this game called "attack" in the spare room, it's like a mix between risk and A&A, with a few other things tossed in there, kinda reminds me a little of Summit, the old Parker Brothers game. Almost. But yeah, right now I'm just waiting to get tired, and then I'll go to bed. I'm listening to some old-school techno right now, "blue" by Eiffel 65 mostly. If anyone cares it's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2UsAbI1hg

It's terribly catching. Like everyone in the dorms is watching it. But like I said, it's techno, so listen only if you don't mind a techno beat

Wow...

2007-08-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

I think I went through blogging withdrawals... lol, fourth post of the day. So if you haven't read them already, scroll down.

I'm here with more youtube videos that I think are hysterical but still relate to school. There's a chemistry safety video that's required for everyone in Chem to watch, and there's a few hysterical scenes in there that everyone makes fun of. And the sound quality on this youtube video is the same as it is on the real thing.

Hysterical part number one: Do not watch if you have hematophobia(fear of blood) or are just plain grossed out by blood.

Hysterical part number two: Chemical spills. This one is absolutely hilarious due to the guy that didn't get spilled on.

And I'm really not liking the fact that there's class tomorrow.

Well, I was taking this political quiz....

2007-08-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Each option has to be marked either strongly disagree, disagree, agree, or strongly agree. I was humming right along until I came to this statement:

"A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies."

Now I do agree that monopolies are bad, but I don't think they require restrictions. But what really got me was "A genuine free market requires restrictions..."

I don't even have to read the rest to be able to say strongly disagree, because last I checked, a "genuine free market" shouldn't require ANY restrictions on ANYTHING.

That's all.

Oh yeah, should you care to find out where you lie: www.politicalcompass.org
Took me about 11 minutes. I'm at 3.00, -0.77 if you care to compare (basically a semi-free market person with slight libertarian tendencies. You'll get it if you take the quiz

Okay fine, the real post

2007-08-12T00:46:00.001-07:00

AKA: Zach is bored and needs to write this stuff down before he forgets it....

Anyway, Thursday it was raining, and classes were boring, so I couldn't take pictures, and I couldn't post anything worth posting. Friday I had a few at least interesting classes, but what really made it interesting was the poker tourney held where else but at Sigma Nu... (as a side note, why is it that I've only been interested in one fraternity's rush events? When I first came here I was like, "Fraternaties? Sure. Just not for me" whereas now it's actually kind of a neat environment. ALMOST as neat as the dorms, with the downside of fewer people, and the upside of no cafeteria food. Oh and it's only like half as expensive as dorm room and board. Anyway, yay for free entry poker events with prizes... 1st place prize winner is, of course, myself. :D

Then we played some Halo, some Wii, and a few more games of poker without the prizes (All poker was Texas Hold'em, for those of you who care). Then the other guy from my unit I went with and I both crashed at the house, because it was late. We stayed there all day today as well, because today was "Parents day" where, obviously, parents come and visit. Played some horseshoes, some Wii, some more Halo, and some more poker. Oh and we had another bonfire. All in all, it's been a great weekend so far. Pictures of campus/bulldog should be posted soon, it's a matter of being awake enough to figure out. Hope ya'll are having a good time...

Zach

Quick post.

2007-08-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

I know it's been awhile since an update, and my phone died, and I hadn't checked my e-mail. Well, I'm still alive. Normal posting schedule will resume Monday.

To commenters on the last post, yes, it IS my dorm room, and no, it's NOT normally that clean. And my camera can record video

Wednesday

2007-08-08T17:32:00.001-07:00

Today was only redeemed because I now own a camera.
I'm linking the pics, so just click on them to see them, they're too big to embed.

Overview of furniture corner

Closet and old newspapers and other stuff

The fan that kept me awake the first few nights

Enjoy!!!

Tomorrow(hopefully): Pictures around campus, and of the bulldog, whatever color it may be.

Tuesday

2007-08-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

Nothing interesting happened today. So instead of boring you with the details, watch this, one of my top 3 youtube movies

And this one I would so totally see if they made it into a movie: (and it WAS on youtube, but collegehumor provided a takedown notice, so because it's collegehumor and their language can be REALLY offensive in the other recommended movies, so copy paste at your own risk)

http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1770138

OOH, great new idea....

2007-08-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

But I'm not going to tell you. Maybe you'll figure it out, maybe not

Basically today I wake up, check my e-mail, and Calc is canceled. All right. Turn over, go back to sleep. The rest of the day was pretty much standard, until 5:30, when I went go-carting with who else but Sigma Nu (are we noticing a trend here? Is it that Sigma Nu has the best events? Is it that they're neat people? OR is it something else entirely?)

So went go carting, they have a long track (yawn) but what's fun is the oval track that they have slicked down. going around the corners with the pedal to the floor spins you out to the outer rail at least. And it was basically awesome. Now I'm back at the school, just got done IM'ing like one of my favoritest people in the world. But not my favoritest. Close though. Whatever.

Sunday

2007-08-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

So after the non-denom service, I came back here, then went to brunch with the three other people here. *sigh* I haven't complained about the food here too much. Basically I hate seafood, and can't ingest too much milk. So that limited my options to basically pancakes or bagels. They had fish sticks, grilled cheese, cheeseburger, and pizza. Yeah. And that's not the worst part. The fries they have don't get cooked well enough, so they're all mushy. Yuck. Anyway. There weren't very many people here at all, so I came back to my room to mess around on my laptop doing homework and what not (mostly what not, but I did get a good chunk of homework done.) Then dinner, then I played through every sport on the Wii sports disk with the other people from my unit, and that was pretty much awesome. Then we played super monkey ball which was hysterical. Now it's bed time.

EDIT: HAHA, what a joke, me go to bed? Actually what happened was my roommate decided that now (or then rather) would be a good time to play a noisy computer with the two other people in his room. Now that he's done, I'll leave you with this. "Why when people ask you "what three things would you bring with you on a desert island?" no one ever replies, "A BOAT"?"

Saturday

2007-08-05T07:02:00.001-07:00

Wow, I almost topped Friday, but not quite. I wake up around 11, get out of bed around 4, and there's about 4 people from my unit here. Well, the Sigma Nu people had a bonfire that night. So I call up my contact from there, he comes and gives me a ride over. I had watched earlier that day the first two Bourne movies (Identity and Supremacy) in anticipation of going to see Ultimatum sometime in the near future. Well as it turns out, Sigma Nu ended up going to see Ultimatum, and all I can say is wow... It's one of those intense action movies that still somehow manages to have some sort of plot other than big old shooting spree.

Then we went back to their house, was about midnight, so we grabbed some old desks and some firewood, took it down to the fire pit, and lit it up. The desks burned hot, and, as a result, fast, so when they were gone, we went and got another, larger one. That one was fun to watch burn. By the time we put the fire out, it was about 3. Everyone was dead tired and didn't want to drive, so I just crashed there overnight. Good times.

And I have the camera for today only. No pictures today though, I'm testing out all the settings, and there's nothing really worth posting, I'm just going through the manual.

And I went to the non-denom service down in the lounge, it wasn't terrible. I'm still listening to a service from back home though, so I'm basically going there for the fellowship, and home for the sermon

Friday

2007-08-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Wow... as I commented to someone, I think Wednesday was awful, Thursday was probably the best it could be. Said person told me to try to make friday even better, which I didn't think was POSSIBLE. Well let's just say I was wrong. After my math test, went down to chemistry class. Comm class was okay, as was CompSci. But after I got back from that, I went bowling with Sigma Nu, the seven person frat that lives in a 45 person house. Yeah. Anyway, after that, went back to their house, got the full tour of this like 7000+ square foot house, that has 7 people living in it. They have everything, from pool to ping pong to air hockey to foosball to the Wii, PS2, Xbox360, as well as an extensive library of reference books and old tests that they've collaborated with other frats to collect. Anyway, played some Halo2, then some Wii, then watched a movie that I slept through half of, and just got back 10 minutes ago. I didn't think anything could top my $50 camera, but today proved me wrong...

AND IT'S THE WEEKEND AGAIN!!!! YAY!!!!

Interesting quote...

2007-08-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

"You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere." - Charles Kettering (yes he IS affiliated with the University)

Thursday

2007-08-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

So I missed a day... live with it. You don't want to hear about it

Anyway, Thursday.

Woke up, got to class on time, ahead of the teacher who likes to show up early, and then did the practice quiz he gave out in 5 minutes, as he took the whole class period to do them on the board. *yawns* I looked up every once in awhile to make sure I had done them right, but other than that I worked on my comm assignment that would only take 2 hours and was due later that day. Class over, went back to the dorm, finished the assignment, went to lunch, spilled Dr. Pepper on my tray, started over, back to dorm, played pool. Then to my comm class, which went well because the professor didn't talk much because it was group work day. So that was all fine and dandy. Then I came BACK to the dorms again, took a quick one hour nap, and went down to the lobby to hang out with some people down there.

An aside....

I'm going to get a digital camera most likely by the end of next week, assuming all goes as planned. I'm taking the camera on a trial run, making sure the quality is okay and everything, over the weekend, but then the guy wants his camera back during the week until his new one comes.

Get this...
Canon PowerShot A630
8MP
4x Optical zoom
Takes AA batteries (which I have a plethora of)
Takes SD card (which I have one of)

All for the low, low price of $50

So assuming all goes well

Tuesday

2007-07-31T20:43:00.001-07:00

Well, today I actually got up in time for lunch, which is unusual for a Tuesday. Then I went to Best Buy with a few other people just to see if they had anything interesting in the shopping center it was in, like a grocery store or a target or something, because Best Buy is overpriced, but there wasn't anything interesting. Anyway, then I came back to my comm class, then CS class, which was okay. Dinner was good, turkey tonight, which wasn't bad. Played some pool. Then back up to my room.

Apparently my suitemate and the guy I played pool with have been having a war over whose room a jolt can belongs in. Yes it's lame, but pool-man was in suitemates room with an empty can of jolt, so he used my suitemates garbage can. After traveling back and forth a few times, the guy I play pool with put ten empty two-liter bottles of Mt. Dew in my suitemates room, then my suitemate moved them all in front of the other guys door, who then spelled out 'WTF' with Mt. Dew bottles.... I can't wait to see what happens next lol.

Anyway, I have class tomorrow so I'd better go to bed kinda soon. Hope ya'll ;) are havin' a great time wherever ya'll are.

3 monday's down, 7 to go

2007-07-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up, ate breakfast in my room, then went to my calculus class. While the professor went over the intermediate value theorem (which I've learned three times now) I finished memorizing the most difficult of the cations and anions required for my chem quiz the next hour. Then to Chemistry (where, I might add, 49% is a passing grade) where I took a 31 question multiple choice quiz, with 8 extra credit problems. Way too easy. Then to lunch, which was surprisingly decent. I then had my communications class, where my paper was due. Give it to my other group members for review, receive theirs, and survive the rest of class.

Now the interesting part: My comm. class got out 5 minutes late. My CS class starts at 3:35. Comm is supposed to END at 3:25, so by the time I got out I had five minutes to use the bathroom and walk ALL THE WAY across the academic building. I get to my classroom, and I'm two minutes late. But there's no one inside. Turns out I DON'T have CS class on Monday, and I guess that just hadn't registered.

Played some more pool, ate dinner, watched another movie, played another game of Axis and allies (A&A) which I lost, and then I'm here. Time to go to bed

Sunday

2007-07-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

Short post today because I don't have much to say. Woke up, listened to archived service from back home, went to dinner, came back, played pool, and then did some homework. That's about it.

Saturday again

2007-07-29T01:35:00.000-07:00

Well okay so it's Sunday, in both MI and CA, but this is the post ABOUT Saturday.

Let's see, got up in time for dinner... after a few rounds of pool. Then to dinner, which was large and interesting. Then back to pool for an hour and 15 minutes. Then a game of axis and allies naval miniatures, which was quite entertaining (I won). Then I hung out and ended up playing risk, coming within 12 countries of winning, and I had enough units to do it at the beginning of my turn, but the Chinese were too strong. Then three turns later I got wiped out. Still, it was fun.

During dinner my RA came up with this gem:

Him: "Yeah in the naval version [of A&A] the french have a 58 point battleship"
Me: "It's kind of scaryto me that the french have any army whatsoever"
Him: "Well they have to have SOMETHING to run away with"

Anyway, I think the only time I went outside was to go to dinner, so I didn't really do terribly much today. Oh well

Ahhh, it's finally friday...

2007-07-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

actually now it's saturday here. Anyway, I woke up in time for calculus class. This one moves SO much faster than the one at DVC, which is really good. Then came Chemistry, which so far has taught me very little (thanks to Mrs. B and her awesome class). Then came lunch, I ate a huge lunch, and then hung out until it was time for my communications class where I took an all time low of one note. Then my CS class, which was actually kind of fun today. It's always fun to know you're in the top two of the class. The teacher was talking about boolean operators, and XOR's, and how you could write an XOR without using the XOR symbol. I knew the answer. I also knew the algorithm for sorting three integers into descending order.

Then to dinner, where almost everything was either a) seafood, or b) cheese, which I hate and/or am allergic too. After dinner I hung out in my room for a few hours, and ate some otter pops. Yum. Then it was time for late night Kettering, which happens every friday/saturday night. Basically it's an excuse to stay up late on the weekends. "Watched" a movie while playing axis and allies, don't even know WHAT movie it was. The game ended up being terminated before it ended, but then a group of us went down to play pool, where I sort of kicked butt a little. Just got back from that a few minutes ago (like 2:45 or so).

THURSDAY!!!

2007-07-26T22:14:00.001-07:00

Current bulldog status: I have no clue. I'm giving up on the bulldog thing until it stops getting painted in the middle of the day

YAY for Thursday. Actually Thursdays stink. My calc class at 10 makes me get up too early. Anyway, I then had a bunch of time to do homework, as well as catching up with a few friends. Then it was to communications class, which basically is the class you HAVE to show up for because the guy takes attendance every class, and is only worth going to for such gems as bringing up Mary Poppins and Little Red Riding Hood IN CLASS, with very little apparent relationship between them and the class. Oh yeah, and psychology of interpersonal interaction. While talking about how to write an essay.

Then I played some pool. Won 1, lost 3. It's not that I'm bad at pool, just the other guy is better. More homework. Then I watched another movie (funny how movies rated R for language are actually CLEANER than just hanging out with a group of people in someone's room, which is what I would have been doing anyway.) *sighs* It's actually kind of sad. I'll go into that later if anyone wants to have a legitimate discussion about the morality of swear words.

So yeah, tomorrow looks to be interesting. Looks like another game of axis and allies is on the way tomorrow night. Anyway, miss ya'll (yes that's a Texas word, you'll live), and see you hopefully in October

Wednesday, so much fun

2007-07-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

The bulldog was so many different colors today it's hardly worth it to list them. Purple, silver, A brief stint as yellow, and about 3 other colors. The frats were very active today

Wednesday is my "hell day" as they're called here. Sun-up to sun-down (okay so not quite) solid block of classes. It starts at 8 in the morning with Chemistry lab. Then it ends with CS lab, which ends at 5:40. It's really awesome. And then the gaming society (they play board games basically) meets at 6 on Wednesday nights. It went until about 12 for me tonight. Another game of axis and allies, and I was SO close to winning. I was ON the objective square on the last turn, along with an enemies unit, and 5 other units surrounding it. I failed to kill his unit. Oh well, it was still fun.

So yeah, I'm pretty much pooped right now. Leave a comment or something if you feel so led.

why my math teacher drives me nuts

2007-07-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Put your marching boots on and move to the left, watching x get closer and closer to zero"

Tuesday for real

2007-07-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Current bulldog color: It was all purple when I got up

It was all silver when I came out after CS

Then when I went to dinner it was striped purple and silver

Okay, so after getting out of bed at 1 pm because I went to bed at 4 am, I showered, and went to my comm class. With my laptop. That way when my teacher went on one of his "this isn't funny but I think it's hysterical" 3 minute laughing sessions, I could write it down and post it on my blog. And that's below, under "Why my communications professor drives me nutso". And of course so I could take notes. I took more today than I did all semester so far. Then down to my CS class, where, once more, I took more notes than ever, and was able to take care of the time he spent fixing his technical difficulties by posting "Why my CS professor drives me nuts" Again, I managed to take more notes today than all semester in the class.

After classes, dinner, my first meal of the day. Pasta with weird sauce, a THIN slice of pizza (no adverse effects so far) hot dog, salad, and a roll. Yum.

Then I get back to the dorm, to remember that although I have my Chem TEXTBOOK, there's a separate lab book. The store closed at 5, and doesn't open until 8 tomorrow, which, of course, is when my chem lab starts. So I bummed the sheets off a classmate, and, because he had already DONE the lab, typed up all seven double sided sheets of paper on my laptop, and then printed them using the universities printers. So yeah, what part of today I did have wasn't that much fun.

Oh, and I now have more than one post for each day of the month. That's cause I was kinda bored this morning and last night

because I fail

2007-07-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm an awful DDR player, but I have a DDR type game on my computer, so I was practicing using my fingers as feet and got a perfect score, a 110 combo. Yeah it wasn't that hard, but it was a bit challenging

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/2359/nearlyperfectstepmaniadc3.png

EDIT: Just did it again, except on a different song and I didn't miss ANY notes this time..
http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/2249/nearlyperfectstepmania2ny0.png

SECOND EDIT: Changed pictures to urls so you don't have to look at them if you don't want to

Why my CS professor drives me nuts

2007-07-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

"Have I mentioned that I had a student that thought "Xerxes" was a good name for a variable? Yes it's meaningful, but it isn't relevant" YES, only every single class... I get the point already

Why my communications professor drives me nutso

2007-07-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Is it cheesy to use hypens for a bullet list? What did you run out of money in the special effects department? *hearty gut chuckle*"

so now it's tuesday

2007-07-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

And since I have no classes until like 1 or 2 tomorrow, I get to stay up late and show you all the great youtube movies I've been watching!!! I know, you're thrilled. Or not. Anyway, first up is a SNL clip about jamba juice that just randomly struck me as funny. If it's even the least bit funny at the beginning you have to watch the whole thing. In other words, you start it, you finish it.

Hysterical. Sad but hysterical (slight language warning, as well as patheticness warning)

And that's all for now, I couldn't find a third one before i was ready for sleep

Monday again

2007-07-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

2nd week monday. Having survived the weekend, I embark on my journey through the second week

Current bulldog color: Well when I woke up this morning it was blue body, silver neck and gold head, last time I walked by it it was all metallic silver with blue writing. So basically I have no clue what the CURRENT bulldog color is.

Today was fun, after class lol. Class was boring. Chemistry was a little interesting, but other than that... yeah

So after class I came back, and played pool again. Then I played super smash bros on the gamecube, a game I still haven't quite figured out. Then I played axis and allies, which was pretty much awesome. Yeah, today was good. I also got up on time this morning, and received THREE packages. And I had a huge lunch that had no meat whatsoever in it. Anyway, that's all I can think to say right now.

Sunday

2007-07-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

Current Bulldog color: Red Body, Gold head

Well I WAS going to go to the service in the campus center today, except I overslept. Luckily there was no one for miles around as everyone had gone home for the weekend, (hence nothing to do). So I sat in my dorm room and streamed last Sunday's sermon from my home church through my speakers. After that I went to dinner, after a phone call from my family. I showed up 8 minutes before it closed. The guy that sits there (name's Ernie) likes to give people a hard time. I couldn't find my student ID card, so he goes, "by the time you find it, dinner will be over". Then I find it. It's in the cash part of my wallet... weird. Eat dinner, quickly. Ironically I wasn't the last one in, or the last one out. Then I went down the hall to one of my friend's rooms, and we played two other people on his gamecube, all of whom had just come back to the dorm. (Okay, so that sentence was poorly constructed. So what?). Then I went to the "Stop 'n Rob", the local name for the corner store, due to the fact that the cashier is enclosed in one inch thick plastic, you check out by placing your objects on a turntable enclosed on three sides by plastic, they take it through and bag it, place it back on there and turn it back toward you. Yeah. Welcome to Flint

Miscellaneous notes

2007-07-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

first, pic of the bulldog:

Also, just thought I'd note that I have nothing to do tomorrow(today?, Sunday) if anyone wants to call.

EDIT: and if anyone happens to want to send me a digital camera, I'd be more than happy to take pictures... :D I'll probably buy one when I get back or something

Saturday

2007-07-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

Current Bulldog Color: Red, yellow writing.

Weekends around here are really boring. When 75%+ of the dorm livers live within an hour of home, they all go home for the weekend. Last night I watched two movies, both PG-13, with a group of people. Both of them were so lousy they're not worth mentioning here. (Actually one would have been okay, ignoring the language, "sexual references" and other miscellaneous stuff that shouldn't really be in a PG-13 movie.) I went to the corner store to grab the snack of the week for when I don't wake up on time. Basically there's nothing whatsoever happening on campus, there's NO ONE around ANYWHERE. Oh well. If the desk downstairs ever opens I might play some pool or watch a GOOD movie or something. Right now I'm stuck doing homework lol

Kettering "tradition"

2007-07-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

One of the things on the lawn is a bulldog statue. Currently it's gold and blue. Yesterday it was silver, the day before, red and silver, the day before that it was blue, the day before that it was gold and the day before that I don't remember. Anyway, anyone can repaint that thing at any time, and it looks like it happens pretty often, at least at the beginning of a term. It's getting to be a fat bulldog. It just keeps getting bigger, and bigger... it's kinda funny, but kinda cool, too

Friday

2007-07-20T15:14:00.001-07:00

First questions from the comments on the last post.

Daniel: yeah probably

And to everyone else, It was weird because my alarm didn't go off, which threw my internal schedule for a loop, and just totally messed my day up, it was kinda a blur. And yes I do do homework. But that's boring and hence doesn't go in the blog post.

Now, today, the power had gone off in the middle of the night, meaning all alarm clocks had reset. Luckily today my emergency alarm was on my cell phone, so that worked out okay. I still had to rush off to class, but I wasn't late. Today was kinda boring, as it was a friday, and I had a bunch of classes to go to, and everyone was just kind of tired and lazy feeling in general. Lunch was normal, as was dinner, and it was just a very lazy type of day. Tomorrow's the weekend, have no idea what I'll do yet lol. I'll definitely go to the convenience store, and probably do some laundry or something. Anyway. Hope ya'll are having a great California time, there'll be another post about a Kettering tradition in about 3 minutes after this one, so hang on for that

Thursday

2007-07-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

Wow, today was a weird day. So I wake up with my secondary (wimpy) alarm that I have set to tell me I only have a half hour before class starts. So I run to the shower, throw some clothes on, and rush off to class. Finally got into some "real" calculus, so that's good. Still, I spent most of my time graphing cool looking stuff on my graphing calculator. Come back, my RA is gone to his house since he has no classes. I go to the bookstore, grab the book I need for tomorrow, and then back to my room, where I get an e-mail saying I have a package. Alright, cool, it's over in the academic building, where I have a class at 2:25. Go to lunch, hamburger, salad, some kinda weird sauced pasta, still good. SO I hang out with people and in my room until about 2:15, then head over to the AB, go up to my written and oral communication class. Door's locked, there's a bunch of people waiting outside the door. I just sit down about 5 minutes later, and then my professor comes. So we all go in. Typical blah blah second class kinda stuff. Then I head down to the package room to get my package. Thinkgeek (for those of you who don't know that is probably my #1 favorite site in the world for geeky apparel etc.) Sweet, it's my birthday present from my parents. Yep. So then I go to dinner, sloppy joes, salad, and some other kind of meat I didn't have, and tater tots. Not bad for cafeteria food. Back to my room again, hang out with some people, play a little bit of pool. Then to finish off the day, a cookie. Perfect end to the day.

First Volleyball Outing!!!

2007-07-18T16:17:00.002-07:00

Okay, so my RA and I went to the volleyball court with Unit 31 to play some volleyball. We get about 100 feet from the volleyball courts, and it turns from a decent day, slight sprinkle, highly humid, slightly warm, some blue in the sky, to a still slightly warm, highly humid, torrential downpour with a huge lightning/thunder storm. It's COMING DOWN out there. Like a sheet. And I hear there's a tornado warning out too. So yeah, no volleyball played yet... :( Oh well. It'll happen eventually. And the power just went out. Luckily I'm working on a laptop. Unfortunately I was planning on posting this right now, but it's gonna have to wait cause I have no internet connection.

Wednesday...

2007-07-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

Got up, went to breakfast for the first time since I've got here. Not bad. Then off to ChemLab, which, because it was the first meeting, was essentially safety stuff... BORING... Then off to calculus. Again, review. BORING... Then off to regular Chemistry classroom stuff. Basically STILL going over the syllabus. BORING.... Then to lunch (food... today yucky tacos with good salad) then to my room to get the stuff I needed for my other two classes. Then a little bit of pool. Then I went to "Learning, Success, and Teamwork" My once-a-week-one-hour orientation class. Should be at least interesting, maybe (hopefully) a little fun. Then onto my CompSci Lab, which was tons of fun.... lol, for it being the first one.... maybe a little interesting at least. A little hands-on experience, by editing a java file, so that it would perform differently. Then dinner (interesting chicken nuggets, good salad) and then back up here to write this before I decided what to do this evening