Checksum Arcanius

On Tuesday, Maria and Maura suddenly had four tickets to the Sonics game, so they invited me along. Jon was stuck at work, so I called around and got Courtney to tag along as well. Yup, I went to a game with three hot girls; I’m that much of a stud.

At any rate, the company was much better than the game. The first three-and-a-half quarters were disgusting to watch. The Sonics were flat on their feet, lacked hustle, and lacked direction. I’m really starting to dislike the new coach, Bob Weiss, who seems to lack any competetive fire and doesn’t seem to do a very good coaching job either. For example, his substitutions seem (to me at least) just motions. Its like he’s substituing because, thats what a coach supposed to do, not because it actaully makes sense. For example, when he brought in Potapenko to replace Petro (who was doing fine), Vitaly went on to brick two easy shots (one should have been a dunk!). Furthermore, I think he needs to use the bench as role players, and give them specific direction when they come in.

For example, when Weiss brought in Radmanovic, Vladimir didn’t really know what to do with himself. First, he needed to establish his inside game — to go hard to the basket the first three or four times he got the ball. He’s fast and he needs to get respect for his drive before he establishes his mid and long-range game. Instead, he wandered around the court, threw the ball away, and hesitated at every opporunity. And speaking of hesitation, Nick Collison missed a couple of shots early and then stopped taking them, effectively removing him as a threat.

As a coach, Weiss should have seen this and pulled him aside and told him, I want you to take the shot the next two tims you touch the ball. Collison is a good player with a strong mid-range game — there’s no reason for him to stop shooting after missing a couple. But instead of seeing him make any good decisions, I saw Weiss take a poorly-timed timeout, argue a call which the ref had clearly called properly (perhaps this was his atttempt to fire up the team?), and generally look unhappy and fat in the process. I want Nate back.

After the game, I ended up getting a ride bak to my truck with Courtney. Before, Maria and Maura had picked me up from the U-Disctrict in her very nice Impreza RS 2.5 — complete with leather! However, I left my backpack in Maria’s car. The girls dropped it off with Jon, and when I went to pick it up, we ended up talking for a long time about stuff that I mostly didn’t really care about. I finally just had to say, “talk later” and take off, since on Wednesday, I had a wonderful Math Midterm (#2!) to take. Well, long story short… I have no idea how I did, other than the fact that I’m pretty sure I missed at least a quarter of the points. ><

The crew at Chipotle before the infiltration
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I was invited by fellow Microvision intern Nick to head out to Chopstix with him and some of his friends. I accepted and ended up enjoying my first experience at a dueling pianos bar. I escaped with a light $22 tab as well — not drinking does have its benefits. There were a number of great songs played, as well and a number that I didn’t know, and a number I didn’t know well. Three pianists took turns playing and singing on two pianos, so each got several times to rest throughout the night. The most impressive part was the huge repitoire that each of the guys had. The songs were always loud, sometimes fun, and ocasionally lewd. The food was quite good, but short of excellent (I had the shrimp and tried out some of the peanut saunce pasta as well). On our way out around 12:30, the friend who met us there discovered that his car was locked inside the garage he had parked in — it had closed at midnight. So after dropping Nick and Ariana (quite the babe) off, I ended up taking Andrew home.

Recent favortes
Weezer – Beverly Hills
DHT – Listen to Your Heart – both the dance mix and the slow mix
Michael Andrews ft Gary Jules – Mad World (From the Donnie Darko soundtrack)

In other news, the parents are trapped in Atlanta for the night due to a delayed flight due to bad weather. And writing that just now made me say, “Oh crap,” because I had yet to make arrangements for them to be picked up – since I will be at work when they arrive tomorrow. Fortunately, I have good friends and they put up with me calling them at 11:30.

It looks like it will be a late night doing my Chem E homework. Here’s a sampler of why I think I’m going to hate this class before too long (somehow, it hasn’t gotten there yet):

A 150-lbm astronaut took his bathroom scale (a spring scale) and a beam scale (compares masses) to the moon where the local gravity is 5.48 ft/s². Determine how much he will weigh (a) on the spring scale and (b) on the beam scale.

Disregarding the gender-stereotypical astronaut for now, here was my response:

I strongly object to the term “weigh” being used to refer to comparing masses as with the beam scale. This seems sloppy and terribly imprecise, even if it is colloquial terminology.

I then went on to solve the problem, which, in case you were wondering:
(a) 25.5-lbf
(b) 150-lbm (even though the book states that the answer is 150-lbf, this is wrong, as I explained above)

The Florida McElroy’s sure know how to put on a party — even if it is in Italy or Maryland. Sunday’s wedding party was another wonderful affair — and it began at the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Baltimore, Maryland. After hooking myself up with some spaghetti for breakfast (the church had a donation-friendly luncheon that was just winding down as we arrived) and watching a little bit of Baltimore Ravens football, I headed upstairs into the chapel. The wedding service started about 10 minutes later at 2:02pm.

The Russian Orthodox wedding service begins at the rear of the chapel, where the bride and bridegroom are officially betrothed. The couple then proceeds to the center of the chapel, where they are “crowned” — a ritual that involves actual crowns, but also holds deep symbology related to Christian martyrs and doctrines of the Russian Orthodox faith. Finally, the couple walks three times around the lectern where the scriptures are resting, symbolizing the centering of their new life together around the gospel. Then they got to kiss. The whole ceremony was conducted in a chant, rather than normal speaking, accompanied by a small choir refrain at the end of each “verse” of the ceremony. The result was an aurally interesting and pleasing ceremony that belied its hourlong length.

After the ceremony, Father John gave some wise advice about marriage, explained parts of the ceremony, and gave more correct directions to the reception at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. After about an hour (!) of photos and waving American and Finnish flags, we took off for the reception. We enjoyed what was essentially a four-course meal that began with an excellent assortment of fruit ad vegetables banquet-style, moved to the tables for salad followed by some of the best fillet mignon I have ever had — which is not to say that I’m a steak connoisseur, but it is to say that the hunk of meat was excellent. I did like the outside a little better than the inside, but I was being adventurous by going medium when I’m usually more of a medium-well kind of guy. While still delicious, I guess I did learn that I’m still a medium-well kind of guy.

Along with the meat came some very good cheesy potatoes and some sort of spinach dish that I did not try. There were also free drinks all around, though I stuck with water myself. Finally, Kevin and Jennie cut the cake — an extravagant piece of art depicting the continental US colored by the American flag and Finland colored by the Finnish flag — with Kevin’s naval officer sword. In frosting were an alligator (symbol of Kevin’s Florida roots), Reindeer on Finland, and an E2 Hawkeye plane between the two countries. Unfortunately I didn’t get any cake, as I had to book it to get to the airport for my flight home, but the party — all two days of it — was wonderful by any description.

via Bob.

Get your own today!

The family has just returned from Utah, where we attended my brother Ben’s wedding to Kalee. Three action-packed days went quite well. We arranged a luncheon, helped move into a new appartment (including transporting a matress set down I-15), attended a wedding, took pictures, set up and tore down a reception, and decorated a car – all of this took about 45 trips north and south on I-15. It was a lot of driving. Everyone survived and the trip home was quite speedy. The reception up here is this Friday (the 26th) at the Cougar Mountain house, and if you know Ben, I would encourage you to show up and say hi.