Had some sweet thunderstorms roll through yesterday.

2:55pm

2:57pm

It was awesome and terrible at the same time. I was trying for the elusive lightning shot, but I don't know how to do that kind of thing during the daytime.

Helped Stephen pick up his new car today.

Behold the gizmo (engine)

It's an awesome car with a ton of kick (250 horsies, that engine is). We couldn't find a stretch of open road big enough to let the throttle out on the thing.

Next issue: Beer and rock climbing.

This is cool. I always wondered why the pledge of allegiance was was required in public schools, when it tells kids "Hey, there is a God and only one God and that God favors America." Well, like David Bowie says in I'm Afraid of Americans, God isn't American. Actually god just isn't (according to me).

Ohwell, that rant aside. Big thunderstorm tonight. I wanted to go camera it, but I've been having a recurring dream involving me and a tornado, and sitting in my car in a house that's a combination of both my parents' houses. The tornado moves way faster than they do in the movies, and I try to back my car down the driveway so I can speed away. But I can't move fast enough, and my car starts to lift up into the air...10'....20'....30'. At this point I realize I probably won't survive the landing when the tornado decides to drop me. I usually wake up at this point.

I just got back from the coffeeshop. I ran into my friend Becca again, who I first met there a year ago, at about this time. She just has this phenomenal personality, addictive you might say; you fall into a conversation with her about her husband and her kids, who she's homeschooling now. And of course, her songs are amazing. I managed to buy a CD of hers, and even tracked down the above song for you to enjoy :).

I also ran into this woman Kira, who I had two classes with in the last year. Our professor died in one about two weeks into the class, and the second one I dropped about two weeks into the class. So it was sort of like we were never supposed to meet. I like spitting in fate's face like that.

Awesome day overall, except I forgot my camera! I guess some nights are meant to be remembered and not looked at.

The best driving instructions. Ever. Watch this and you can pass driver's ed with no problems.

Been a boring day. Tomorrow I plan on taking some pictures that will make people realize why it's a good thing to stay in Syracuse for the summer!

Got back from Roch a little while ago. Spent a lot of my weekend doing this:

Annie's Computer

Her old hard disk was dying and we needed to replace it. Unfortunately it completely went kaput about 90% of the way through dd'ing the old disk to the new one, and she lost all of her papers. I feel guilty as hell.

We went to a party at Fred's parent's lakehouse on Saturday evening. The place was really gorgeous.

The sunset at Fred's lakehouse

I was tempted to take the sailfish out for a spin on the lake, but it's been years since I've sailed one of those little dinghies. I think I appreciate what sailing is now, and I didn't back then, though. Next time I'm there I'll definitely take it out. After the sun set, we set a fire and chatted around it/cooked some marshmallows.

The fire

Today was a party at Mike and Cherie Livingston's house

The party

The party was pretty cool, but a little over my head english wise. Still it was cool, as one of Annie's profs wanted to know all about relativity and science fiction, and I was able to enlighten her Re: black holes.

Next up: Moving! I have to move this week (more or less). And Sarah is finally moving out, yay!!!

So I had to upgrade my webserver today, because of a bug that someone found. No doubt the 5cR1p7 |<1dd13z will be making life miserable for all the poor apache owners out there, though I think that's a good thing -- people need to pay attention to versions if they're going to run their own software.

Heading to Rochester tonight, with a carful of furniture for Annie. Hopefully there will be some interesting happenings there this weekend.

Went bar-hopping down in Armory with Doug and Dave, my CSA pals.

The gang. From left to right: Dave, me, Doug

Our team entry form. Yeah, we're nerds.

It seems our waiter knew a thing or two about Unix

We ran into a bunch of Doug and Dave's friends, and even got offers to smoke some hashish. It was a terrific evening.

'Nuff said

I should probably mention Pete's blog, since I borrowed *cough* the templates from his blog for my own.

Anyway, went to karate tonight. It was fun. Still not a purple belt.

I probably never mentioned it, but my new camera has a small problem with a huge number of its CCD pixels - that is, they are stuck on! It's not a big deal with small pictures, as they disappear, but they're pretty visible on the big old 2048x1536 or whatever size pictures. Well, I need to give a shout to a terrific company now. One Call just rocks. They're Fed-Ex'ing me a new camera, which should be here friday or Monday, and doing it all for free (well, okay, I have to pay for the return shipping on my camera. But I'll use USPS so that should cost ~$5). So buy from them often, and mention that I sent you :).

Went to work...

This is my cubicle. Cool, huh?

Didn't get much done. Came home, went grocery shopping, went to the coffeeshop. That sucked. Nobody cool is there anymore. I miss the old-skool kids. Ohwell.

This was my trip back from New Jersey. I got my camera now, so everything is good.

Traffic jam on I-81

My mileage. 32767 is 2^15 - 1 (maxint for 16 bit signed integer). 132767 is also the product of two primes, 103 and something else that I can't quite figure out in my head.

More later.

I'm hanging out with my peeps in South Jersey for a little break from the CNY routine. That, and I need moolah, and one of my brothers still has a bunch of my money. So I'm buying a Louisville Slugger to break his knees with, or something like that.

I'm heading into Philly with my brothers tonight, we're going to go bar hopping I think. It should be an awesome time. I only wish my girlfriend were around :).

I've spent a lot of money the last couple of days, maybe it wasn't such a good idea? Anyway, I figure I should do my part to stimulate the American economy before I leave the country, since it will be entering its first depression of the century without my obviously huge financial input. What I bought:

Nikon Coolpix 995 - an awesome digital camera, so the website will have lots of picture goodness soon.
Dune - Forever and Ever - an awesome CD. If you don't know who Dune is, you should.

Luckily, I was outbid on my other auction, so I won't have to worry about my money being spread *too* thin.

Annie. Ain't she cute?

So in lieu of receiving my new digital camera, I decided to include a picture of Annie's new haircut. Do you like?

Wow. It has been a hell of a few weeks. And I haven't updated at all.
Let me give you the dilly. Left for New Jersey on the 24th (Friday).
Here is my Entry for then:

::

4:08 PM. I was passed on 81 by a green sedan. There was a little girl
with red hair, wearing an orange sweater, in the passenger seat. She
waved at me as the car drove past me.

About a half hour later, an EMT with blue flashing lights pulls onto the
interstate. And old man is driving it. The rain has more or less stopped
at this point. I figure he's left them on by accident. 5 miles up the road,
the traffic has stopped, and everyone is getting into the right lane. The
EMT gets in the left. Lights flash a few hundred feet up the road. I move
forward at the encouragement of a traffic cop waving us by; "Nothing to see
here. Move along." I pass the scene of the crime...that green sedan
is...well...there is not much left of it. A fireman is operating the jaws
of life, but my rubber-necking eyes can see that he is in no hurry. The
EMT's stand around awkwardly, one of them smoking a cigarette. I don't think
I'll ever forget that little girl's face.

::


On happier notes, I went sailing on Saturday the 26th, with some of my dad's
friends. It was an uneventful sailing trip, which meant that it was good.
Lots of people on deck with prior sailing experience. I was probably the least
experienced in fact, and even I know most of what was going on. The skipper
kept trying to dumb things down for me by telling me which rope to grab. I'd
be a smartass and say, "You mean the topping lift? To get rid of that crease?"
So I'm starting to know my way around sailboats. I really need to sail more
often, though.


I then spent some time with Steph (of the old-skool Raible variety), Kat
(of the old-skool best friend variety), Steph (of the Rosenberg lives-in-NYC
variety), Katie (of the psycho animals pets variety), Anferney, and of
course, Cherie, at a little Full Moon Festival. I made a geeky ass of myself
most of the time, pointing out where the moon was or ought to be, arguing
astronomy with people, and otherwise being an ass and giving them fodder to
make fun of me for while I'm not home :). And I couldn't be happier.
I got to see bunches of relatives on Sunday, then my grandparents on Monday.



This week was pretty good. I found a few exploits in the default configuration
of the Sharp Zaurus. I get kudos at work
for that kind of thing; it makes for good press for the University to have
"students" find these flaws :). I helped Annie move into her new house this
weekend. That was a fun time, hauling all kinds of junk around, and scrubbing
out the old apartment.


Tomorrow, I head down to NYC with Keisuke and Yukiko. I may buy a digital
camera while there. We'll see how the money situation is.