ride the fire eagle danger day

Well it's July 7. I am now done with my internship and will be a real engineer on Monday. I'm not sure what my new duties are but next week is going to involve more training, assisting other people with real problems rather than studying one in isolation and preparing for my defense on the 13th.

Also, Pettit and Regina are getting married today. Congrats!

broken

I finally broke down and bought a new computer chair. While it is not spectacular, it it nicer than my last chair and seems to be much sturdier. However, I noted that the warranty covers use up to users some 30lb. lighter than I am. Big guys like me just can't get a break. Or rather, get them too often. The chair needs to be broken in yet, but I thouroughly enjoy my reclaimed ability to recline.

On Friday I took a tour of OSU's new engineering building, specifically pointing out 'green' features. For example, the building collects rainwater to flush the toilets. I also got to go on the roof to see the small solar water heater and PV array they have up there. That was pretty cool, except it was pouring and cold outside, so needless to say our little rooftop excursion was brief. The tour was cool not only because it showed this stuff off, but also because the project manager told us about things that weren't going as well as planned, a reminder that things in real life never work perfectly the first time.

Lisa had a belated Halloween party last night. Not being one to celebrate most holidays, I had to scrounge up a costume at the last minute, failing miserably - especially since Vincent had an awesome pirate costume. However, I did bring my secret weapon (peanut butter fudge) which I managed to get right on the first try, and that went over well at the party. Perhaps next year I will actually make a proper costume.

I also played through Half-Life: Opposing Force over the weekend. It's pretty short so I managed to be the whole thing. The game is an interesting second look at HL1, and it's pretty odd playing it after being adapted to HL2.

Another hectic week ahead. When I plan stuff out the days are practically blurring together. It's week 7 of 10 for the term though, so I'm getting there. Another PH 211 midterm this week, so my weekend is shot again. Definitely packing my iPod for that.

The Hard Lessons play on Tuesday! That's going to be a long night, but worth it.

I'm currently reading Body of Secrets, a book about the NSA. I am up to the end of Vietnam. The book is pretty fascinating, but also makes me a little sick. The Bush administration may be very good at reckless and stupid things, but by no means are they the first to do them. Stuff like a proposal to cause terrorist attacks in the U.S. to incite a war with Cuba, almost starting WWIII by poking the USSR, and the complete lack of communication security in Vietnam causing many deaths. It just makes me want to stay away from government even more. Lisa wants to be a senator, but I'll settle for being left alone.

doomed

I saw the DOOM movie with Vincent and Lisa. Vincent really wanted to see it. I decided to go with him because he convinced Lisa to see it, and the opposite is probably true too. I'd say the movie wasn't really bad as much as it was stupid. For further details, check out my movie reviews. Which I updated. Holy crap.

All I have to do this weekend is study quantum, so I will have time to do other things that got neglected last weekend with all the exam grading. Like cleaning up my apartment, it's a dump. I can also do some longer range planning like research possible internships.

I'm not particularly worried about the quantum midterm but I know there is a lot of stuff (the not Linear Algebra stuff) that I need to brush up on for me to do well. I am a little worried about E&M though. I don't think I need to worry about getting the boot - at least just yet - but I'm going to start making a contingency plan for transferring to a lower level E&M next term in case things start going badly.

I was tempted to grab the little that's left in my bank account and run to Best Buy this weekend (I get paid on Monday anyway), but this week wasn't as rough as last week so I'm behaving myself.

ph34r t3h r3d p3n

I just got back from exam grading. I'm about 85% done now, which means I'll have to go in again tomorrow. I think I spent maybe 7 hours grading today, so that's a total of 13 hours so far. The last 15% will take another couple of hours. Part of the problem was that the teacher did a problem wrong, showed the whole class how to do it wrong, who turned around and did it on the exam wrong, and the teacher skipped town before I found out and tried to clarify. I check with the other TAs and they agree with me, so I am grading it my way. I have not seen even one student do that part right yet, but I am giving points to students who broke their programming and took some steps in the right direction.

I have many other things I am supposed to do this weekend, like write papers, but I haven't been able to get to them yet. I stopped grading for about two hours in the afternoon...to work on something else. Speeches related to the biodiesel (biofuel?) project. We are taking steps that seperate us from the biodiesel club and I am very happy with that. Our work on the biodiesel stuff over the last couple days has actually gone very well and I am excited about it.

I also took a break from grading to play badminton because I am supposed to write about an out of class badminton experience. I missed my shot at open gym on Monday so I made Lisa come play with me. I also made the equipment desk people pull out a wallyball so I could prove to Lisa that they exist. (The desk person had no idea what a wallyball is, but I know where they keep it now.) I don't think Wallyball can be played until next week though.

Campus is very peaceful at night on the weekends. Mostly because only sucker TAs are there, grading. In contrast there is some kind of huge party near my apartment and some idiot managed to trigger a fire alarm over there earlier.

miscalibrated

I am not in a good mood. Today I had to sit through 2 1/2 hours of TA training stuff with the crazy prof I can't stand. It wasn't a total loss though. During one of the touchy-feely group learning sessions I said "My name is Jon, and I drew a pirate." That's what they get for giving me markers.

When I got back to the apartment I became suspicious of my new cooking thermometer. I went out and bought a better one and was suspicious of this one too. Indeed it was off as I incinerated an experimental half-batch of peanut butter fudge, turning it into some sort of powder. So I have to figure out how to compensate for retarded equipment before I make fudge for the department picnic. Fortunately I have lots of supplies.

Yesterday was OK. The other grads seem alright. We have a lot of TA training stuff to do, it is kind of a pain. Happy birthday Erin.

last day in lansing

I was in East Lansing all day. I got into town around 11:30 AM, and tried to get a haircut. However, when I walked into the barbershop the two barbers that were just sitting around talking and reading magazines said they couldn't take care of me until noon, for whatever reason. I then called my friend Lisa to try and get some lunch, but she wasn't answering. I found out later she was in the shower - I told here I figured that and I wouldn't get angry for cleanliness. As far as getting a haircut goes, I decided to hell with the normal place, those bastards aren't the only barbers in town, and went to another barber like 100 feet away.

After successfully obtaining a haircut, I got in touch with Lisa and had lunch a Qdoba. I was surprised to see Lisa has a brand new car, a black Pontiac Vibe. She loves it. I then visited with grandparents all afternoon. I then went over to PJ and Paul's place. I brought Freeman so we set it up to do a huge file swap (20GB+ each way over crossover) and we went to see War of the Worlds. Review on my other site. When we got back I parted ways with PJ and Paul, which is sad becuse I'm probably not going to see them again for a long time. I had to drive home in the dark but it wasn't too bad, and now I'm putting the newly pirated music somewhere I can sort it, writing this and writing my WotW review.

Well, it's July now. I have a crapload of packing and prepping to do tomorrow. Leaving on Saturday - I can't believe it's this close already. Next week is the Trail and finding an apartment - hopefully I'll be settling in a week from now.

t minus one week

Down to the last week in Michigan. I have much to do in preparation. We had another garage sale to day to get rid of more crap and I made another $140. I also saw my friend Christie briefly, which was cool. She was in Corvallis last summer and gave me some tips on things to do in Oregon. It was damn hot and humid out today, so the garage sale was rougher than the first one. I have some gas money to show for it though.

My family rented some movies today, so I have some new fodder for movie reviews. We also set off some fireworks, including the last couple illegal ones left over from a stop in Ohio while driving back from my Florida internship. Not sure what the fireworks rules are in Oregon - I'm guessing the same as Michigan.

Just think! In a week, I'll have more to post about than doing nothing in my hometown! Exciting.

i'm way behind on my beating quota

I spent a good part of the day in East Lansing. Had lunch with the guys, then we went to Best Buy where Charlie found Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (the game with the bongos) very amusing. No one else was in EL afterwards though, so I just came home.

Got plenty of road time with the iPod/iTrip. It works pretty well, but I am still trying to figure out where to put it in the car to make the signal strongest. I used shuffle mode on the way home, mixing it up is good for listening in the car. Traffic was kind of heavy but not stop-and-go. I-75 is pretty torn up right now.

I felt like stirring up some trouble today so I cashed part of a birthday check in $2 bills. I spent three of them so far and the cashiers are surprised but take it in stride. Maybe I'll get some more.

I installed the expansion pack for Dungeon Siege, but it is starting to get boring too. I might try out some of the network stuff but I don't really feel like continuing on with the single player campaign. It's not exactly the mark of an excellent game when the player gets bored halfway through and stops playing.

Lunch and maybe hanging out with my friend Erin tomorrow, and perhaps some sorting of stuff. I have been really bad about getting ready for Oregon. I haven't even gotten oxen yet, I just know some of them are gonna drown when we try to ford the river.

birthday summary

My birthday went OK. It was gray and rainy for most of the day - bleh. I went over to my mom's work to set up Riemann around lunchtime, then I sat around playing SimCity. I did a little bit of research on Oregon apartments. I also sprayed the Half-Life lambda logo on my external hard drive.

For my birthday I got an FM transmitter for my iPod and a fancy cordless phone for my apartment in Oregon. I would post pictures but they came out bad, I'm going to try again tomorrow when I get some sunlight. I'm also going to get some luggage, butI need to pick it out.

Now that my birthday's over I need to really start gearing up for Oregon. I'm going to take care of some of that, but I have a ton of plans this week. I'm having lunch with my old physics teacher on Wednesday, lunch with physics crew + Gobeski in Lansing on Thursday, and lunch with another friend on Saturday. It's becoming critical to get the air conditioning in my car fixed. I also need a haircut, and I might have it lightened while I'm at it. So I'm going to be busy this week.