Checksum Arcanius

Richard invited me to go up to the pass with him and a buddy of his. I hadn’t gone yet this season, so I readily accepted — but first, I had to go to photography. So I waited around for an hour — actually, I fell asleep reading the photography book (volume 7!). Then when class rolled around, our teacher showed up to tell us how much or a moron he was because he forgot the slides he was going to show us�

…So the seven people that actually showed all got up and left. I asked the teacher about the last assignment we handed in; in turns out its been sitting in the out box in the photo lab for a few days now. I grabbed mine out, but didn’t get around to opening it until later. Since Dan hadn’t arrived yet, I gave him a call as I walked out and let him know that class had been canceled. It turns out he’s terribly sick — so get well soon Dan! He asked me to take down his dry film for him — which I did (I actually recognized which film was his this time — another time, I couldn’t figure it out, and the teacher asked me to stop looking at other people’s film because “they might have pictures of themselves having sex with their children or something.” He seriously said that. I promptly stopped looking for Dan’s film, kinda freaked out. I think maybe Carlos has spent a little too much time around photo chemicals).

Anyway, back to the story — While on the phone, I overheard a girl from the class trying to arrange a ride home. Since I had some time to blow before my class was supposed to get out, I offered her a ride home. We had a wonderfully engaging conversation all the way to her house in Sammamish – and she’s cute to boot. Yes, I have designs. Its fun to be in this position again, its been a while. Oh, Amanda also opened up my returned photography assignment for me, and I got an A-. I’m happy with the grade — good, but still with room to improve. A lot like the photographs I turned in.

So, once I dropped Amanda off and we said out good-byes, I headed back home to get my skis and then I headed down to Richard�s. A little later we took off to pick up Colin, a friend of Richard’s, and head to the pass. We got there just before 4, so we waited until 15 before then headed up and got the night passes. With a coupon, it came out to $20 a person — pretty good.

Once on the slopes, my skiing form came back to me pretty easily, but my quads aren’t what they were at the end of last season. I was feeling the burn pretty good by the end of the day. Of course I was with two snowboarders, so they wanted to do the terrain park while I was more interested in runs like triple sixty face. But I thought I’d give another shot at learning how to jump. You see, I had a bad experience when I was young. When I was 13 years old, I went off a big jump and ended up landing on my head. The ensuing black out has caused me to shy away from jumps ever since. When I did go over bumps, I tended to take it up in my legs.

Today, however, I decided it was time to face down that fear and give jumps another shot. I’m glad I did. With a few pointers from Richard and Colin and a little bit of practice, I was able to consistently land my jumps. It still doesn’t feel natural, but I didn’t wipe out on any of the landing, and by the end of the day I was catching significant air. And it’s exhilarating beyond anything I have done on skis before. I hope to extend my distance and airtime over my next few trips.

On the way back from Snoqualmie, we stopped at North Bend’s Denny’s for dinner. I had an excellent sirloin steak with applesauce and a baked potato. It hit the spot. Food is good. On the way out, I popped some money in the big machine with the claw that grabs stuffed animals � and for the first time in my life, I got one out. It’s a strange but cute green teddy bear in a black and yellow jester outfit. Hopefully I will post pictures soon.

With my recently won prize, endorphins from skiing and jumping, and a girl to top it off — life is good.

Scott: hey
Me: hi there
Scott: ever thought about BASE jumping?
Me: no, nore have I heard of it, nor do I know what it is
Me: once you tell me
Me: I will have thoguht about it
Scott: gah! never heard of it!
Scott: wow
Scott: BASE = building, antenna, span, earth
Me: I think I’m a dysfucntional nerd around you
Me: haha
Scott: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASE_jumping
Me: it seems like a worthwhile endeavor to me
Scott: heh
Scott: good

Check out the page of Bernie Zimmermann at http://www.pleasureunit.com/bernie/. He is the writer of the only comment (so far at least) on my last post. Seeing websites that are pretty like his gets me to thinking about making my website pretty. In fact, it reminds me of a story about my early days with the Internet. And since I am in the mood, I will share the story with you�

My first website ever was titled “The Realm of Arcanius.” The name remains to this day — check out the title of this page. My brother was becoming interested in graphic design at the time (he was doing his senior project on computer aided graphic design, in fact) and he made me the logo, which really was the prettiest part of the site. And prettiness mattered, since I was locked in a battle for votes with my friend Dan�s “Lagomorph’s Lair” and he always seemed to be winning. I had decidedly more content in the form of stories, poetry, pictures, photos, and jokes, for what that was worth. But he had style. I have similar problems today. I am able to update this site fairly regularly (although I admit the pictures are getting stale), but I still have trouble making my sites all that pretty. I can make what I think are good looking logos and designs using Photoshop and freehand, but putting them together to make a good website had never been my strong point. My most successful websites have always been very simple, come-for-the-content websites. Of course, Mr. Zimmermann is a professional web developer — so I shouldn’t feel too bad that my site isn;t as good-looking as his.

So the story part of that (I know it wasn’t too clear) was that I made a website when I was in the eighth grade and I lost a competition to my friend. And I;ve kept the name ever since. So now, I might as well talk about how I picked up the name “Arcanius” anyway. Actually, I think I already talked about this (if you go to the first posts in the archives). But here it is again for those of you too lazy to go back (I would be too, so don’t feel bad). There was a game I played back in sixth grade called “Master of Magic.” It was fun, and it had two worlds — one called “Arcanus” and the other called “Myrror.” I took the former name, added the ‘i’ (because I’m cool like that) and adopted it as my online name.

And I might as well keep on going; it is good to remember. Well, the Lagomorph who always beat me in website design now attends the University of Washington — where I will probally be going by the end of the year. It is somewhat sad that we have drifted apart. We still get along, but we really don�t see each other much anymore — no real reason to, I guess. The same thing happened to Alex, another friend from high school, and countless others as well. But some people I have continued to hang out with regularly — Scott, Maneesh, Amy. The difference is that the ones I have drifted away from don’t tend to find the time to do things with me, while the ones still in my life seem to always be willing to do things still. So it leads to a very simply but very important conclusion: continued close friendship takes continued inputs of time. There is simply no way around it. I will always be cordial with Alex and Dan, but already, I have nothing to talk to them about — they come online and I don’t message them, because I don’t have anything to say.

Now for an update on more current history: today. First, I did the Robotics thing, picking up a breakfast burrito as Casa D’s Tacqueria on Bellevue Way on the way to Larry�s house. Once there, Bobby and I worked on the design of the arm (we think it is pretty much finished now), participated somewhat in the betterment of the ball scooper-upper, and generally had ourselves a good time, before returning to 8, the eight-restaurant cafeteria in the basement of McMahon Hall. We seem to be eating there a lot, but Bobby does have 900-some dollars he needs to burn through before the end of the term, and I’m willing to help him as long as its not taking anything away from him. While eating and finalizing details on the arm, we watched the UW men’s basketball team put the spank on the Arizona State Sun Devils. Then we watched the Montlake parking area’s black of asphalt turn into glowing red of brake lights as thousands of fans exited the arena only to sit in their cars waiting to get out. Once the traffic had subsided, I returned home before running out to apply for employment at the low-risk, low-stress local Blockbuster, and to grab a movie and some groceries. I highly recommend the movie “Antwone Fisher.” I can’t say I cried, but my eyes did get damp. Of course, I’m pretty emotionally detached, so that’s a pretty good effect.

I’ll work on new pictures, and probably fix the error in PHPix which has hackers still attempting to compromise my system. Of course, I’m not sure if the hackers were directly related to Wadi’s crash, or if both events just happened to occur at the same time. In the meantime, I’ve thought of many ways that OS’s could be made more secure by default: some of these ideas are already implemented by Immunix, Inc. (www.immunix.com / www.immunix.org), although they use older technology. I’m too cutting edge (not quite beta, but everything up until thing pretty much) to deal with gcc < 3.0 or Apache < 2.0. so while maybe its flawed in security, I get to learn and it�ll make me a better sysadmin in the meantime.

Music:
I have found that even high quality MP3’s reconstituted through a high quality player on my laptop into my stereo system simply cannot compete with the original CD. The weakest link here is, I believe, my laptop. I have tried similar tests using my desktop (with the audigy II platinum) and haven’t been able to detect reasonable differences. My laptop, on the other hand, even with the volume turned all the way up, doesn’t seem to output enough voltage to simulate a line out. Its plenty loud in headphones. I wonder how much line out is supposed to be?

Money:
I asked the CEO of T-Mobile for $4,000 today. Actually, he’s going to give the information I gave him to his marketing department. I hope I did a good enough job on it to get something. Also, I gave similar information to Mr. Chaplin of Chaplin’s Automotive Group, a contact that happened because of my mom, bless her. We’ll see how that goes.

Thanks:
I finally got around to start writing thank you letters to the very nice people who hosted Scott and I while on our roadtrip. I am now awaiting more addresses to write more letters. People are good, life is great, and I am indeed blessed.

Radio stations here in Seattle have gotten much better recently. First, 107.7 The End switched to a new format where music was emphasized, especially the alternative music that defined The End in its earlier years; DJ’s were deemphasized (a move I wholeheartedly agree with), and in general, there was more music to talk. Then I found out that 96.5, formerly The Point, an 80’s station, is now KRock, “Alternative Seattle,” an alternative rock radio station who’s musical selection seems to be even better than The End’s new format. Between the two I have found radio bliss, something I haven’t experienced in Seattle since 1997.

Today, I woke up at a sleep-defying 7:00 am in order to pick up Bobby and Jacob at the UW and get them to Larry’s around 8:00. We ended up pulling in at 8:40, but the three of us were able to turn the tide and convince the group that our idea for a strategy was feasible – basically, we’re building a huge arm that happens to not preclude any other strategy; it should make everyone happy. With another top-notch drivetrain coming from Larry and Dave, we should once again have the best combination of power and speed out on the field, and if we do the arm right, we should be nigh unstoppable. Hanging and small balls then become icing on the cake known as winning the Pacific Northwest Regional, and if we are able to raise $4000, the National Championship as well.

We broke for lunch, having crunched numbers and checked feasibility to determine that our arm could concievably lift 200 pounds at 5 feet – a figure which made us all giddy with excitement. After lunch and some small work on Inventor, we headed back to the UW with Chris and Tim. There, I soon fell asleep and got nothing accomplished before returning home, where I got my Dad’s new WET11v2 working for him before coming up here, writing this, enjoying 107.7 and 96.5, and feeling hungry for the fourth time today.

Today was a good day, but I suppose I am being repetitive. I arrived late to my tennis class due to the parking issues at BCC. I will have to find some way to avoid these problems in the future. The instructor, it turns out, was (is?) a room service employee at the Bellevue Club – a fun coincidence. After the short intro to the tennis class, I read more of Michael Chighton’s book Timeline – its a good read, even if I’m not convinced by the science. Next, I went to Math, sat next to Rich, had a good lecture and discussion, then returned home. I applied for work at the Bellevue Club again – it was a nice place to wrok, and as long as its not my attempted source of advancement, just something to do to make money, I’m sure I’ll be alright with it. Otherwise, its back to Blockbuster and applying to Fry’s Electronics. After I rested a little, I called up Maneesh, and we hung out and talked for hours, stopping by Chilli’s for some grub. After I dropped him back home, I returned home and did some photography, some Counterstrike, and now here I am. Time does fly, but it was good.

Among other things, I read a Blog of a colleague that he started on Monday. It is nice to see how carefully it is written. Something like this one was when I started it, if I remember correctly (although I am too lazy to go back and check; someone please let me know if I was always this lax with my writing). Maybe his attention to detail is why he actually gets comments on his blog. Or maybe he just knows a lot of nerds.

I would wax reminiscent right now, except that I don’t want to write all that much – once again, I’m too lazy. I’ll try to get over it soon and share some deep thoughts. Oh, check out the new pictures to the left!

Nothing like a little bit of physical activity to lift the spirits. The family snowshoeing trip was much fun. I have some pictures that I am working on now, they should be up later today.

I recently downloaded Mozilla Firebird 0.7 – it is an excellent web browser, and I am weighing it against IE as a replacement. It is nice to once again have a viable alternative to the MS domination.