Checksum Arcanius

At the Seattle Robotics Society‘s Robothon 2004, I bought 50 raffle tickets to help support the cause, and to get a t-shirt along with it (a $20 additional value!). I stayed through the prize drawing, and was disappointed, but not unexpectedly, when I didn’t win anything. About a week later, I was very surprised to get a call from the SRS saying that, in fact, I had won three prizes. It turns out that they had read the “M” on the tickets as a “W” – the three-prize-winner who wasn’t there turned out to be me. So I recieved the package with the three prizes in it today. There are a good number of motors, controllers, and a 6-axis robotic arm kit from Lynxmotion. The kits should provide ample things to do at upcoming hack sessions.

My good friend Maneesh was in town today for a local consulting contrat he’s working on. We met up after we were done with our respective work, and ate as Azteca before cruising around Redmond talking about girls, women, and various females before ending up in his hotel room watching Bad Boys II on HBO, while continuing to talk about, well, girls, women, and females. When Maneesh and I get together its usuallt one of those three topics. Sure, work and life comes up every once in a while, but not so much really.

Needless to say, it was awesome seeing him again, and who knows – he might make a habit out of this travel to bellevue thing. It’s a very real possibility, apparently.

Thats all for today, folks.

The most recent post on a blog I only occasionally get around to reading is one of the best commentaries on America, Americans and the modern world that I have ever read. And its not that long either.

The site is slow, but its well worth the wait for this one.

First (for all us nerds): On my way to Ichiro’s record-breaking game…

Second: At Edgar’s final game – as a player, at least.
Read the rest of this entry »

Chatting with Angela about my disproportionate lack of interpersonal communication skills:

Angela: well ppl don’t just say “yes i was offended”
Ryan: I say that
Ryan: well, I don’t say that
Angela: what do you mean
Ryan: because I’m not offended by anything
Ryan: but, if I were offended I would say so
Angela: i know you would
Angela: not everyone does though
Angela: sometimes it can be kind of tactless to just outright say “i’m offended”
Ryan: well, that clearly makes them less cool
Angela: hey
Angela: sometimes i don’t say “i’m offended”
Angela: are you saying i’m less cool?
Ryan: are you offended by that?

Hrm…

Being emotionally unstable can be a real drag sometimes. At one level, I know everything is fine, but nothing feels right, and life just seems to suck a lot for no discernable reason. Other times, everything seems fine even when its not. Which is nice, sometimes, but doesn’t really lead to realistic goals or working through issues in a straightforward manner. Some of my other characterisitcs can kind of make up for this, but I can’t help but feel that I’m not achieving full potential.