Checksum Arcanius

Sorry for the dearth of posts, but I didn’t find much internet access on my recent trip to Utah for a family reunion. Otherwise the trip was most excellent. For the first time, I really started to like this whole family reunion thing somewhat. Before, its been more as something that I just did because it was being done, but this time I enjoyed myself quite a bit and have found that a lot of my family is pretty cool in their own way.

Aside from the whole mother-bought-a-bed-900-miles-away-from-home thing, the trip went pretty smoothly until she managed to get noticed by a cop traveling somewhere bewtween 78 (her story) and 83 (his sotry) miles per hour. On a not-so-side note, a future post may be the first to be password protected.

I’ll catch up more later.

Later today, I leave for Utah for a family reunion. We are going down in two cars, because we will be picking up another three while down there, and returning to spend the next week here together with aunt, uncle, and cousin.

Wednesday’s hack session went well, culminating with Prometheus, the skeletal frame of the TRC’s first FIRST robot, turning its wheels in response to the position of a potentiometer. It was pretty exciting to get this far, because now we have gotten to the point where external inputs can affect external outputs. The rest is just building on this basic formula.

Today’s schedule:

1. 11:45 – Wake up
2. 12:30 – Meet at IS Parking lot to carpool to…
3. FIRST Robotics Team Forum, 1:00pm, Cleveland High School (4 hours)
4. 6:00 – 9:00: Soccer at 60 acres park
5. 10:oo or 12:00 sleep, 6:00-7:00 alarm time

Today, I recieved from the University of Washington, the little letter, dated the 14th of July, 2004. It read:

Dear Mr. McElroy:

Thank you for applying to the University of Washington. We have reviewed your application and regret that we are unableto offer you admission for autumn quarter 2004. Due to limited space, admission for autumn quarter was extremely competitive.

If you decide to reapply for a later quarter, you will need to sumbit a new application application fee, and personal statement. We will keep for one year the academic credentialsthat are currently in your application file. However, you must include updated transcripts with your new application if you compelted additional course work at any time after these records were submitted.

We appreciate your interest in the University of Washington and wish you every success in pursuing your baccalaureate education.

Sincerely,

(signed by Xerox)
Philip Ballinger, Ph.D.
Director of Admissions

TA: Aut 04

If my life were a computer program (note the correct use of the subjunctive form), I think it would be fair to say there was a sporadic bug in the sleep routine. Last night, I became immensely tired about ten o’clock and fell sound asleep. For some reason, about an hour and a half later, I woke up and wasn’t able to get back to sleep, at all. I rested most of the time, but sleep did not come. Needless to say, I was a bit of a wreck at work today and I called it quits early, even though I was only really tired for the first few hours.

If this were Java, or PHP 5, I would have my sleep routine throw an Exception at times like these. The exception might get caught by something useful; say, a call to a workout routine (might as well if I’m not sleeping, right?), but instead it seems to go into some sort of endless while loop where nothing gets accomplished.

Ok, I think I’ve been programming a little too much recently…

There are plenty of movies where the characters, and sometimes even you as a watcher, don’t know who is who. Like in Mission Impossible with Ethan and his masks. It makes for interesting film, but I’ve never had to deal with the situation in real-life – until recently. The issue involves AOL Instant Messanger and a particular person who doesn’t seem to realize her friends are sneaky mischiefmakers. Several times over the past few weeks, I have come to the startlng revalation that I’m not talking to who I think I’m talking to, and its atually somewhat disturbing, to say the least. Its not like I’ve said anything I’m embarassed about, but, well, do people get off doing this or what?

Well, the mail held no correspondance from the UW today, so it’ll be at least another day before I find out. And if the past rate of progression continues, I won’t know until the end of August. The NRA, on the other hand, keeps sending me mail: A magazine a month and constant renewal reminders.

And as for my other problem, it turns out Windows wasn’t the problem at all. I followed some of the links you guys sent me, and they didn’t hold any particular new information, but they did drive home that Windows only creates Thumbnails when it is in the Thumbnail view. And I was experiencing slowdowns opening folders even when I wasn’t in the thumbnail view. Something else was up. And it just so happened that I stumbled upon the answer – right clicking on a jpg, I saw a “Photoshop Image” tab. Over there was a checkbox – “Thumbnail Images”. I unchecked it. Next time I loaded the folder it was lickity-split fast. WTF was Adobe thinking!?

Now I have to undo all the damage I wreaked yesterday trying to “fix” Windows when Windows wasn’t the problem. Long live Microsoft (as long as they fix their security holes). Oh, and screw their browser. Hahahahah.