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10/21/04 "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." ~Peter De Vries This is where it all started. I created this page with this basic layout on July 17, 2003. I made a few changes over the next couple of months and slowly added stuff in, but it remained essentially the same for a little under a year and a half. After refining my html skills and learning CSS (cascading style sheets) and PHP (a web-oriented programming language) for my summer internship, I decided to completely re-write my page to be compliant with the W3C specifications and add in quite a few new features this would allow. I actually worked off and on in my spare time on version 2 for about 5 months before I was satisified enough to present the upgrade. In the meantime, I didn't tell too many people about my website because I knew I could do better and I decided to wait until version 2 was done before telling everyone. I never did finish all of the features I had planned for the first release and some may have gotten lost in the transition, so there will be some dead links in this archive. If so, let me know and I'll fix them. 10/21/04 "The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." ~Richard Bach Because I'm taking discrete structures, I know how to take the contrapositive of that quote and get "The more I call something work, the less I want to get it done." I didn't even realize right away how relevant that quote is, but it's my discrete structures homework that I'm putting off right now. There's also plenty to do for senior design, plus there's a measurement and test project, and there are a few small updates that need to be made to the website I did over the summer. In the meantime, I just finished adding all of the 96 previous entries from this journal one at a time into the new database that you'll get to see in action in about a week (I hope). Another soccer season is over for me. We won, but it wasn't fair. The other team was 2 people short of a full squad. I didn't keep track of the score, but I think it was about 11-1 and I was almost cheered when they got their 1. I also went to the T-Room for the first time ever this Thurdsday. It's a local bar that the normal students go to a lot. It was kind of cool except for the smoke smell that's taken about 3 days to get out of my jacket. Last night I spent several hours working on our engine for senior design project. We had to make several custom brackets to mount it to the dynamometer, so I used all the welding and forging skills I learned back in high school. Believe it or not, I've been dying for the extra two days off we get for Thanksgiving since about the time fall break ended. 11/14/04 "In Mexico we have a word for sushi: Bait." ~Jose Simon Surprisingly, I actually got a fair amount done this weekend. It's really only surprising because it feels like there's still a lot left to do. Friday was the first playoff game for the women's soccer team, which they won, of course. Saturday, I took my housemate to bikeshop to get his bike tuned up, then spent 6 hours with the senior design team working on our engine. This morning I lectored at Mass, had my own soccer game (lost 0-1), cleaned the bathroom, replaced my windshield wipers, and went to Sarah's for dinner. I didn't write last week because I was really busy and not in a great mood because I got my partial test back. That alone was enough to ruin the entire week, but I didn't do very well on my discrete structures test, either. I'm not sure that I didn't use up all my good test karma on the ME comp exam. I hope not, because I have a turbomachinery test tomorrow. The other reason I haven't written recently is because I've been putting a couple hours of work into the new design for the site. I think I'll be able to show it off by the end of the month, and I'm sure you'll like it. 11/4/04 "Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself." ~Sir Arthur Eddington I hate partial! I don't see how it is possible for it to be fundementally so much harder to understand than ordinary differentials, but it continues to hurt my brain. The class was 20 people at the beginning of the semester. 13 showed up for the test today. Several of the math majors have even dropped the class. I hope nobody did very well, because the only way I'll pass that class is for everyone to do as bad as me. I should be in a good mood right now. In fact I should be ecstatic. Not only did I pass the ME Comprehensive Exam on my first try, I got a perfect score! According to Dr. Genik, that's a first in the five years the school has been giving the test. Unfortunately, I had to take a partial test the day after I got that news. Moral of the story, don't take partial. 10/31/04 "Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car." ~Evan Davis So I just heard a screech, followed quickly by a bang. I look out one window and a car is driving off to the north. I look out the other window and I see another car parked in the intersection facing east. I go outside, and I find Liz, who I knew as a friend of my RA last year, standing next to her new Civic, holding the license plate of the other car! Think about that. The other car did a hit and run and their license plate fell off! Liz was fine. The car somehow managed to only hit her rear wheel, so there's no body damage, but it looks like the suspension is probably damaged, which would be spendy. That little rectangle of stamped metal will theoretically take care of it. License plate...too funny! Had a soccer game today. We started 1 player short. One got hurt and had to step off. We lost 1-3. That's pretty disappointing considering we started the season 3-0. I wouldn't have minded so much if the other team hadn't whined about everything. I'm sorry, but bumping into people is a part of soccer. We're not out to send you to the hospital. If you can't handle it, go bowling, drink beer, and get fat. ME Comprehensive: You know it's a long test if you start a little after lunch and finish well after dinner. It took 6 hours on Tuesday and 3 hours on Thursday, and I was far from last to leave. 10/25/04 "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dam" ~Rhett Butler The ASME conference ended up not being too bad. There was some useful stuff learned and I got to go on a really interesting tour of Stirling Technology Company, which is working with Lockheed to develop a nuclear powered generator for NASA probes. On the way back, I stopped at all of the dams I passed on I-84, just 'cause dams are cool. Bonneville has a good visitors center, but the powerhouse was closed, so I didn't get to check out the turbines. Too bad since I have a test on turbomachines in about 30 minutes. Tomorrow I have to take the ME Comprehensive review. If I don't pass, I don't graduate. Dr. Genik says normally 5-6 students pass. Fortunately, I get 2 more chances if I fail this week. Supposedly, everyone usually passes by the third try. Lunar eclipse on Wednesday. It should start right as the moon is coming up, which usually results in a "blood moon." It will probably be cloudy, though. 10/21/04 "No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive." ~Thorstein Veblen I'm off to Richland, WA this weekend for the ASME Regional Leadership Conference. I still don't really know what it is, but since I'm president of our student chapter, it was highly recommended that I attend. I can hardly wait for the four hour drive. 10/20/04 "If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" ~Art Hoppe I suppose as long as we get a week off for fall break I should probably do something like get caught up on schoolwork or earn some money, but that sounds so unexciting compared to sleeping away the week. I can't believe it's Wednesday already. I've been thinking about grad school more (still torn between yes and no), and it occurred to me I hadn't considered Notre Dame. Supposedly they have the same financial opportunities as UW, but it's more competitive. It also occurred to me that Indiana is right next to Ohio, so I might be able to head to Steubenville occasionally on weekends to visit people I know there. Nope. A quick check on a map showed the schools are on opposite sides of their respective states. Still, I'll keep Notre Dame on my list of possibilities. 10/12/04 "Fervor is the weapon of choice for the impotent." ~Frantz Fanon I just spent over an hour trying to help someone get her computer on the internet. It was ridiculously frustrating. Apparently, someone told her I was the "best computer person on campus." Unfortunately, that title didn't help. I tried just about everything and nothing worked. Just to tease me the computer was able to ping but could do nothing with the sites it could ping. On a completely seperate topic, I'm having doubts about how much I really want a master's degree. It will be another 2 years of a lot of work at a completely new school and I'm not sure how much I really care about working in aerospace. Plus, part of the appeal is the simple fact that I think I can do it. That's the same kind of thinking that got me stuck in partial differential equations. The other part is that partial is useful in grad school. 10/8/04 "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." ~H. L. Mencken I don't understand why people get excited over the presidential debates. Do people really expect to some new philosophy to be revealed or for the candidates to say something drastically different than they have in the past year? I'm happy getting my coverage of the debates from Saturday Night Live. Hey! Before I forget, I scored 3 goals at my last soccer game! My first hat trick! Actually, it was my first time playing as a forward, too. To be honest, the other team wasn't very good, but it's still pretty cool. CPB is showing The Terminal with Tom Hanks tonight in BC Auditorium. I'm told it's fairly good, so I'm heading off to see that in a little bit. 10/2/04 "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." ~David Dunham It's a pity more weekends can't be relaxing like this. That's not to say I don't have plenty of schoolwork to do, but rather that I don't have to have it done on Monday or Tuesday this week. Surprisingnly, I've actually gotten a fair amount done. The engine for our race car came in on Friday, so we spent most of the evening in the thermodynamics lab setting up the dynamometer for it. For those that don't know, a dyno is used to test an engine under load, and is important when making major modifications. Today, we cleaned nearly the entire house, since the school had neglected to do that before we moved in. Then a couple of my housemates, for reasons unknown, shaved their heads. Afterwards a couple of us went bike shopping again, and John got himself a Jamis Durango, which is a tiny bit nicer than mine, but I'm not jealous. I've got my eyes set on grander rides. On the way back, we stopped at some place I'd never heard of called Jamba Juice. It really reminded me of Starbucks, but they serve smoothies instead of coffee. Anyhow, my companions were a little surprised that I'd never had a smoothy before. It was good, but a little spendy for something that doesn't even have any alcohol. We finished off with a quick 10 mile ride, and I've done almost nothing since then. 9/30/04 "To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep." ~Joan Klempner I tried that at about 3:00 AM, but my partial diff eq homework still didn't do itself. I ended up doing really really well on the test (I got a C), but I still can't do the homework. What really hurt though, was my discrete test, which I would have claimed to have gotten an A on if I had been exit polled, but really got a C-. Tonight I'm going to an ASME professional/student combined meeting. I guess it's supposed to be a social type of thing, so hopefully it will be interesting, and there is supposed to be good food. I also have a soccer game on Sunday, which will be a much-needed distraction. Other than that, my life continues to consist of a nearly straight line from my room, to the engineering hall, on to the commons, and back. 9/27/04 "An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth." ~Bonnie Friedman So, I get back in at about 7:30 last night from a visit home (complete with chicken dinner), and one of my housemates says, "You missed some excitement. The internet was down while you were gone." It turns out he meant, "The internet is down and your phone has been ringing since about 7:00 last night." Apparently it went down right after I left campus. So, instead of studying for my discrete structures test, I spent part of the evening in the basement of Buckley. It ended up being a simple fix and most of my time was spent waiting for Public Safety to open doors, but it was frustrating none-the-less. The test seemed pretty easy, so I guess it was a happy ending. Seems like I can't leave this place unattended for too long or things start falling apart. 9/24/04 "A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for." ~W. C. Fields Phew! I'm exhausted. Watching that soccer game totally drained me. U of O was playing really rough and the ref hardly called anything. Then he made a really stupid (as far as I and about 2000 other people could tell) call that gave U of O a penalty kick that scored. I was not at all surprised when two of the players almost started throwing fists about 5 minutes later. Really the ref's fault for not keeping the fouling under control from the beginning. Anyways, UP won 5-2. Also, I managed to find a team for me to play on. It's really low division, which is good in a way, because it means no practices to eat up my time. We won on Sunday 6-2 and we have a buy this week. On a less positive note, I still hate partial diff eq. It's possible I may have passed the test, but it will probably be close. Fortunately, everyone else I've talked to has felt about the same way, so I'm sure there will be a generous curve. I think it's time for a drink. 9/16/04 "Lack of money is the root of all evil" ~George Bernard Shaw Hmm, I didn't realize it had already been two weeks since I last wrote. I guess I don't have to tell you why. I will say, though, I hate partial diff eq. It's pretty bad when you're 2 weeks into the semester, and you're already calculating how much a class is going to mess up your GPA. Basically, we have a professor who has never taught this class before, thinks we're way ahead of where we really are prerequisite-wise, and picked a terrible textbook. At least I don't have to worry about scholarships anymore. I didn't think this semester was going to be as bad as last year, but I've changed my mind. I was just getting used to my RCC duties, ASME stuff, and senior design, when they hit me with FE review. It's ever so much fun spending 3 hours every Wednesday night covering material we learned freshmen year. Almost forgot, the Washington primary was this week. I was surprised when I checked out the results to find that 60% of the residents affiliated themselves with the democratic party. No wonder there's so many Starbucks. 9/3/04 "Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects." ~Lester B. Pearson What the heck is going on in Chechnya lately? All of the sudden there's reportedly Arabs working with the Chechnyan rebels, and the end result is as many as 200 students killed at a school. Plus there were the two airliners they just blew up and a subway bomber. This is just out of control. Let's change the topic now, shall we? School is pretty darn busy. Actually, not school, but my work at school. Fortunately that's starting to slow down a bit, which is good because I'm bound to have copious amounts of homework next week. Also, my senior exit project has completely changed. The guys who were thinking of joining me aren't too interested in Stirling engines, plus to actually build one would probably cost a decent amount of money from my own pocket. Instead, I'm joining the Formula SAE team, which is an SAE affiliated race car project. We've got plenty of sponsors for that, and I won't have to manage. |
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This page designed entirely on the back of a used liability release form
Most of my quotes are from The Quotations Page