Checksum Arcanius

Dave let me know about an internship opening at Microvision, maker of heads up display systems and barcode canning systems. The position is as a software tester, and I believe I am well-qualified despite my not having completed a computer science degree. With the good word of Dave, I already have an interview scheduled tomorrow at 1:30. I need to get some sleep so I’m not too much of a zombie then, but tonight Blockbuster did a physical inventory and then I played some counterstrike, where I started out slow but picked things up till I was taking out an entire team of terrorists (5 players) on my own after the rest of my team died… accusations of cheating quickly followed. The only way to deal with that really is to agree that you are cheating, but not in so few words. Then they mostly shut up.

I had an appointment with Kent Chaplin, of Chaplin’s Automotive Group, today, but he had to cancel, so I will have to arrange another time to show him the video (available at the TRC’s Website) and hit him up with my plan for Subaru and/or Volkswagon to donote $50,000 or so to the TRC.

I did surprising well considering no sleep. I plan on sleeping tonight, I’ve been lsightly out of it all day, and I slept a bit while Rich did the real work on the calculus homework. I need to be strong tomorrow to finish off my photography assignment and, perhaps, attend the republican caucauses.

Other than being nearly stoned all day, it was pretty uneventful. I stocked all sorts of canday at work, so stop by and see my handiwork sometime. Windows Movie Maker keeps crashing (due to DivX?) so I have to invest in a real solution. Perhaps Pinnacle? Larry seems to like it.

I don’t know why I just pulled an all-nighter. I started when Bob asked me to post pictures from the regional. Then I just never got around to going to bed. Mostly, I read posts on Chief Delphi’s forums for the entire night. There was some use in that, but with a Calc midterm on Wednesday, and a photography project due the same day, and finals eminent, I really could have used the sleep instead.

But thats not the big news. The big news is that the Titan Robotics Club won the 2004 Pacific Northwest Regional of the FIRST Robotics Competition. The final matchup was grueling – it included a tie, a loss, a win, 4 false starts, and finally another win. The opponents were very worthy indeed, but in the last match they had broken down and were unable to make repairs in time.

Go to the Titan Robotics Website, winner of the Website award at the PNW regional two years in a row, for pictures and news on the club.

This is what I had to say to the club:

Way to go guys! By the way, these most recent accomplishments continue a trend of excellence that the TRC started in 2001:

Now lets go get some more money.

Check out is a very detailed, and as far as I can tell, objective, sumary of the Iraq WMD question. There are many declassified documents that, from my cursory look, show that while those who had access to them could not be sure that Iraq had WMD, made it pretty clear that Iraq had the capibility and will to make them, and free of inspectors (as it they were from 1998-2002), could have restarted many of its WMD programs.

My conclusion: The Bush administration was not precise with the facts – many unknowns were portrayed as truths, and counterevidence was concealed. These tactics were undoubtably to bring the American people around to support the initial invasion. However, it is also easy to see what the administration was afraid of, and why they thought it was so neccesary to go to war in the first place. Certianly, they didn’t know that there were WMD in Iraq, but I think they did believe in the existence of the WMD. Furthermore, give me one politician today who hasn’t overstated the facts and I will be forever endebted to you. This is not an excuse, simply a political reality in today’s America.

The real questions that need to be asked are these:
“Is the world better off for Operation Iraqi Freedom?” (I say yes; if you disagree let me know why)
and
“If so, was it worth the price?” (We have yet to see the real price, and real gains that might come of this… the jury is still out).

I just made and ate some Lasagne� it was incredibly good. It�s also the first beef I�ve had in a home-cooked meal since the holidays. I�m pretty sure that it�s all right to die early if I can always be this well satisfied. Like that one commercial on the radio says, if you�re going to be healthy by eating tofu, maybe you�ll live another ten years, but you�ll just have to eat tofu for another ten years. Of course, I�m young now and not exactly totally aware of my mortality despite numerous close calls, so maybe when my clogged arteries are the thing threatening my life, I�ll have a different opinion. But hopefully, I won�t, because I will be able to reflect on a life well lived.

Now, I suppose it is time to go and live that life worth looking back on. First on the itinerary is travel tomorrow evening to Portland, Oregon, for the 2004 FIRST Robotics Competition Pacific Northwest Regional Competition. It is the first regional this year, so we will be setting the bar for all the other regionals. And if everything goes well, the TRC will finally bring home a well-deserved championship trophy and gold metals.

I locked myself out of my truck when I went to take pictures outside my house… so not my backback and my extra film is in there, making it rather difficult to get some planned things done until another key arrives. Fortunately, I am not working today, so at least I don’t have any pressing time committments, but now I can’t upload pictures and videos from the practice robotics competition like I was going to, shoot another roll for the abstract assignment, study my calculus textbook… At least its a beautiful day.

As requested I have put up some of the photos I have taken over the years with my SLR.

“Don’t Follow” by Alice in Chains should have been included on their greatest hits CD, perhaps as a bonus track if nothing else. Its an incredible song, and so different from the rest. The End played it – while I do miss Linkin Park there, I can get plenty on my own, and without their new format, I never would have heard this song again, and would have been forgotten forever.

Lakemont Blockbuster closes at 11:00, which is very nice indeed – makes for another blog entry at least.