Checksum Arcanius

Today’s big news is that a freak storm came through, downing trees, spreading hail, lighting, thunder, and strong winds, and generally causing all sorts of chaos. The traffic lights just outside of work were even off, although at microvision, the lights did nothing more than flicker once.

like work will actually go back to normal levels soon, so I won’t actually hae to spend every day after school there. Now if I could only get myself to do my homework, I might be in a prett good position. Today, I actually managed to do some useful stuff in the kitchen before I feel back into getting nothing done. As I said in an IM to a friend, I’m not very good at the “Work” part of Schoolwork.

In other news, Kelly is not dead – I saw her today between tennis and math, but I was talking with my polish friend who likes to talk so she can improve her english, so I didn’t even have to consider approaching her. She still looks good. And thats that, I guess.

“Your application is awaiting a preliminary review, at which time we will determine whether all required documents have arrived, if these documents are current, and if all other required materials are on file.”

That is what I have seen since I submitted my application to the UW over 8 weeks ago. Hmmm…

Tomorrow, life goes back to normal for an entire two days. Then on Wednesday, we’re off to Utah for my brother’s graduation. Then I’m headed to Cali for Steel Conflict, then I’m back home and trying to pull the remnants of my school quarter back together.

For all of how good Far Cry’s AI is, it is still pretty easy to fool. And the inability to fight in water is pretty dumb. Oh, and so are the mysterious appearing-from-nowhere helicopters if you wander out of the “open range” game’s range.

I’m going to try to stay on this earlier schedule I got onto due to being three hours ahead, but I’m already letting it slip – I slept a lot in the plane and airports today, and listened to the ipod most of the day. I was impressed with its battery life today. On the other hand, my laptop’s battery seems to be fried – either that, or windows is acting up and hibernating prematurely (it does fail to give me the warning first for some reason, like somehow it misses the 10% mark and goes straight to the 4% mark.

Thats all for tonight, unless I get crazy and decide to post again.

Perhaps the best part of the new computer is that I’ve been able to use my Sound Blaster Audigy again. While I haven’t gotten around to setting up the 4.1 surround sound again yet, the sound quality is so much better with the Audigy than the poor, poor amps in the laptops that it is truly a different experience both in headphones and on the Stereo.

Work has been good, but it is hard to get into a homework mode afterwards. Angeringly, but perhaps fortunately, Comcast is sucking it up in the ping and packet loss department (I ran some ping tests last night to confirm that it wasn’t a wireless link on my side), so counterstrike is a pain for me and those playing me with all my teleportation.

I started work on a scouting database program for nationals. I hope I’ll get it done in time; If not, there is always the plane ride and wednesday and thursday before the finals begin. T miunus one week until we leave. I can hardly wait.

But before then, I have three photography assignments to complete and probably a bunch of computer programs to write and lots of diff.eq. to study. Fun stuff!

Last night I enabled Magic Quotes so Bobby’s Uberblog-powered site would work properly. Its unfortunate that Dris doesn’t instead use the “addslashes” function, but until that time, I’m willing to compromise.

The nieces are over for another day it looks like, and I’m pretty tired – thats what I get for my inconsistent sleep schedule I guess.

I’ve neglected you all for a few days, sorry! (although, I never know who you are because you never leave comments… lurkers!)

Today, I learned about differential coffee, painted a cookie can black, and scanned many barcodes at work (can you believe they pay me to do that!?). That was all before I got home. Then I got home, ate, and played CS. I was on tonight. In fact, for the first time, I maintained, long term, a 4:1 kill:death ratio. And
I did it on Seattle T3 CS 1.5 #2 to boot.

Then I looked at pictures of the UW’s Trash Can Robot. Then I wondered how it is that KIRO will come to interview a trah can, but they don’t even mention that a local team won the entire Pacific Northwest Region in a national robotics competition. Sigh.

Speaking of the dumbness of the media, toight on the news there was a segment on how this movie called “10.5” showed the Space Needle falling over. How dumb is that. Seriously, that is the least important thing ever. Well, not quite ever, but tis so unimportant its ridiculous, and here’s this 5 minute news item on it. The media is so dumb.

Next up, I talked with Bobby abut Color Spaces, and then I thought that maybe I should do some homework. Then I ate graham crackers and decided to write this post instead. Well, the order is a little mixed up there, but thats the general idea.

Rich signed my fmaily up to clean the building tomorrow, and since its conference week, we get to do it at 7:45. Hurray for friends.

Obviously I didn’t write this one in Word.

Today was my first day oif work at Microvision. I filled out a lot of paperwork, took the tour, and actually did some testing. Found a problem too, but due to NDA’s galore, I don’t think I’m going to tell you anything more about that. Things went well overall.

Tomorrow, I’m spending most of the day in the photo lab printing up my final project.

And now, on to the title piece. My brother’s graduation from college and Steel Conflict are the same weekend. I almost gave up the graduation to attend the battlebot-like event, but I talked to Tim today, who is heading the battle bot project, and thought some more, and so I will go to my brother’s graduation and miss the first half of the competition.

The math midterm indeed did not go well – I got another 77. I can still pull an A- in the class by doing 140 or better out of 150 on the final. I plan on it.

Keeping it short and simple, since so much is going on.

According to JD, the Blockbuster District leader over my store, Blockbuster employees are not allowed to let anyone else use the videos that we check out on our account. I say to that phooey! If its on my account, I’m still responsible for any late and missing movies, and how is it any of Blockbuster’s business what I do with the movies I rent after I walk out of the store? As a customer said, I could spin it like a top if I wanted. Of course, Jon pointed out that it is an employee benefit, so Blockbuster can determine the conditions of the benefit. On the other hand, I don’t get much benefit out of it unless I can allow my friends to use my rentals… In fact, JD’s last meeting with our store really left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Blockbuster in general. Lakemont has been identified as a “SWAT” store, which basically means a lot of stuff, gets stolen from us. And since 70% of theft is internal, we’re all being treated like suspects, getting new background checks (although I just had my hiring criminal background check two weeks ago…), and having to sign zero-tolerance theft paperwork, which I technically violated by letting a friend use one of my rentals. And I do feel a little bad about that, because it was not a thing of integrity. The honest thing to do would be to refuse to sign the new theft policy paperwork given my new understanding of the regulations. Of course, this was before Microvision hired me, and I did the rental thing after I got hired. It’s amazing how much job security changes one’s outlook.

I went to the Puget Sound Blood center today, since they called me a few days ago to schedule an appointment. It turns out they were off by nine days, since I’m not eligible to donate again until the 22nd. It was a fun drive, since it is such a beautiful day, and I was singing in the truck most of the way there. On the Trip, I also came up with an idea for my final project for photography. I’m thinking of doing either Night Shots or a combination of day and nighttime shots. Then I will mount them on white and black paper or cloth. In fact, I think I’ll start taking the day pictures now, in case I decide to use them.

The TRC is getting some great news as a result of winning the PNW regional. Sponsors seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Well, not entirely, but the ASB suddenly gave $5,000 unexpectedly, and a map software company looking for name recognition may do the same. At Chaplin’s, I’m going to ask him to talk to Subaru and Volkswagen about corporate sponsorships for the Club or FIRST in general. Things are looking good for us. And nationals are right around the corner. As is my brother’s graduation, Steel Conflict, and lots of school.

Speaking of school, I got this really good idea recently. One of my classmates in my Math class is doing some independent study of a math class not normally offered at BCC. I’m going to talk to her to figure out how she accomplished that, then ask my current professor, who I like a lot, if he might be willing to guide me through independent study of linear algebra (not being offered next quarter), and differential equations (being offered, but I’ve heard bad things about the professor). And maybe there’s some more math I can learn in the meantime. Then my scheduled classes will be tennis and soccer, and maybe photography’ still have to figure that one out. Dan is taking Photography II through BCC’s continuing education program, which reportedly has access to a much nicer darkroom. I figure I might as well get my art electives out of the way so I can take “real” classes (that is, toward a technical degree to be determined) once I get to the UW (knock on wood).

And that brings me to the final subject (I think), which is this Microvision Internship. For Larry, a mentor of mine, it was an internship that got him motivated enough to make most of his classes a breeze. He actually realized he was better at what he did than most of the people already in the field, and everything came pretty easy after that. I’m hoping for a similar experience here. But even if I don’t like the work, it will be valuable information for me to use in my search for what the heck I’m going to do with my life.

The Math midterm didn’t go so well… I ran out of time because I didn’t know how to do everything immediately. Given some time to take the practice tests, I probally would have done a lot better, as Rich did. Its an unfortunate way to end such an incredible week, but then I can’t have everything work out. And I have a week to get things pulled together for the final, and I think I might still be able to eek out an A in the class. In photography, I have to figure out if I’m going to take Photo 3 next quarter… my photo 1 teacher thinks that I am good enough.

Kevin, from my Bellevue Club days, gave me a call today. It was good to hear from him again. He’s now working at Met Life and he’s putting together a soccer team that I may be part of, and holding some seminars that I’m invited to. Add that to the list of things I’m doing in April. Exciting times.