Sweet freedom

I had my last final on Friday, so all I've had to do up in Bellingham is work at the water plant. Well, work and finally play through Neverwinter Nights 2. I haven't allowed myself to be addicted to a game for a long, long time. There's something about staying up all night playing a game, then waking up early to start playing it again that reminds me of the good old days, before I had responsibility. I completely lost all track of what day it was, and probably wouldn't have shown up for work if Anna hadn't kept me in line.
I'll get through the game eventually, then life can continue.

It's snowing again outside

Transmetropolitan has rekindled my desire to be a journalist like Snow Crash made me want to be a pizza driver, all those years ago.
Only with more drugs.
Lots more.

What's the deal with this weather?

First, let me say that I found the process of returning a hard drive to the manufacturer for replacement isn't too painful, at least when you are dealing with Seagate/Maxtor. Now that my RAID array has been reduced to one drive, I formatted it and put XP back on but, WOOPS, while in the installation process my backup hard drive was formatted too. I'm not going to blame the program, but I have no idea how I accidentally chose to format all of my hard drives at once. Fortunately, there are handy programs out there that can recover data from just about anything. All that was lost from my RAID failure was every one of my pictures, which fell through the cracks when I was backing things up. Let this be a lesson!

Here is the SECOND time I lost power during the Bellingham wind storms. Luckily, Bellingham's finest took the precaution of putting a cone down by the downed power line. Good work, men! I understand pretty much everywhere in the Puget Sound area is snowy right now, but it's Wednesday and I have yet to go to class. W00t! Here's the lovely frozen Post Point Water Pollution Control Plant, taken while I was doing rounds today.
Here is the view from the lab in which I work, and part of the reason I love the job so much. That little inlet is partially frozen. You can't see it, but there are gulls walking around on it.

Review: The Fountain

I've been pondering this movie off and on for the past couple days. I've been going back and forth as the different sides of my brain battled: the side with opinions and taste, and the intelligent side that likes puzzles and also doesn't want people to think I'm dumb or uncultured for not liking an obviously deep, artsy movie.
Finally, I decided to look at some reviews and found one that perfectly sums up my feelings towards the movie, as said by Ethan Alter of Film Journal International:
The Fountain may be a deeply flawed film, but at least it is unlike anything else in mainstream theatres right now.

Thank you Mr. Alter. I can now rest easy.

Sweet lord, sweet lord...!

I knew this day would come, but why now?

The system was down

I don't know what the rest of Washington was like this past week, but it was pretty hellish up here in B'ham. Much wind, much rain. The power went out Wednesday in Fairhaven (and at the water plant plant!), so I went home and found I was without power there too.
No power=no computer, no TV, no radio. Oh well, I needed to do some homework anyway. Oh, wait, it gets dark at 6 and I don't have any lights. So, I headed to the library and study until about 9, then come back home to find my house is still dark, plus it's empty for the night: one roommate is at his gf's, the other went to the bars 20 seconds after finding out we didn't have power. He's a smart one. So, what's a guy to do except try to study by candlelight and take some low-light pictures?
Please take notice of the neon palm tree visible from my living room window. Most of the time I watched it flicker instead of paying attention to my book. It's hypnotizing, seriously.Luckily, the power came back on at 7am this morning, so I didn't have to shower at the rec center. As for the food in the fridge, the half n half was already expired by 5 days so I didn't feel too bad throwing it out. As for the milk and the cheese...well, whatever doesn't kill me gives me the intestinal fortitude of a concrete elephant.
Total time power was off: 20 hours.

I need one less job

Things have been busy. I have three tests and a project due next week, and I have way too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. So here, have a couple of pictures and we'll call it good.

My roommates.


Do the Happy Dance.

Just a quick post before I get back to chemistry

Recently, I've dabbled in new operating systems. I tried linux first. After trying to install 4 distributions and failing at different stages during each one, I decided to give the newest Vista Beta a shot. The install was much less painful than the XP install and went prettty smoothly, and this distribution featured SATA support, so I could actually use it.
Anywho, I finally got my wireless card working even though nobody makes a Vista driver for it, so I'm not sure how that happened. This is a damn pretty operating system. Not pretty enough to fork out several hundred dollars when it comes out, but still nice to look at. It makes XP look clunky and outdated (which fits, because it is).

After my first real day at the water plant

This is the best line someone could hope for the first day on the job at a wastewater facility:

Derek, the guy showing me the ropes:
Ok, you don't need to brown-nose or nothing, but keeping this lab clean would earn you serious brownie points since you are new here and you don't know shit yet.

I asked if there were any puns in that last sentence, and he just gave me a confused look. Oh well. I forget what he said I'd be doing tomorrow, but it involved the words "mucking" and "solid," so I won't be wearing nice clothes.

Waiter, there's a bacon in my hair

I'm not sure exactly who did this or where, but since there's bacon and a cat involved I'd wager almost anything Dane had a hand in it. Being in Korea doesn't help his case much, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I'm back up here in B'ham for the summer. My room is a pile of boxes and clothes that I should probably be working on instead of doing this. Meh.

Was it worth it? Heck yes.

Things that suck:
~Spending lots of money on a computer
~Computer not working
~Spending hours (and I mean real, consecutive hours) bent over computer disassembling, examining, and reconnecting every part and cord, trying different combinations.
[repeat]
[repeat]
[repeat]

Thing that rocks:
~Computer posts and boots up on 117th try for no real reason. Nothing is different than the first time. Computer continues to work just dandy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice thing about having a fast computer:
~It's fast. Things get done fast. Very fast.

Bad thing about having a fast computer:
~Whenever the hourglass cursor shows up, yelling "WHAT? You are faster than any computer available a six months ago! Don't give me that shit! What do you need to think about? Give me a fuckin' break!"

He had it comin'!

(In the car while driving across the country)
Anna: Have you seen the movie Chicago?
Me (chewing gum and driving): Yeah, we watched it together. Why?
A: There was a song about women who killed their husbands. One woman killed her husband because he kept popping his gum.
B: Hmm. Yeah? And?
A: (Pointed stare)
B: (Takes out gum) Sorry.


Mr. Andrew Strobel was able to take enough time off from hating Syracuse to drive down to Ithaca to hang with us yesterday. We ate at a natural eatery by Cornell for lunch, then walked around the Cornell campus a little bit and laughed at the geeks. "So, I was cosplaying last night..." was overheard and we didn't even try to stifle our laughter. There was no doubt that this kid was a member, if not the president, of the anime club at Cornell. In a strange way, it reminded me of being back home. Ah, good times.


We saw one of the waterfalls Ithaca is known for, then we stopped in for what Anna described as a "hippie-cult smoothie." As the old hippie man was taking our order, Andrew and I found out that she was actually serious when he asked us where we were from and started telling us about how the "Merrymaker's Caravan" was working its way along the west coast. It was a little creepy, but proselytizing aside Andrew was happy to see some genuine hippies in their natural habitat.
After smoothies and waterfalls, what else is there to do but go wine tasting? Seriously, this is one of those things I had just assumed I'd never do myself because I'm not a wine fan, but there was a winery just up the road and we thought "what the heck?" It was actually a very pleasant place with great wine (and a great way to get a cheap buzz. 6 wine tastings for $1!). We were served by a former philosophy major from IC, so I guess that answers the question of what you can do with a degree in philosophy besides teach and collect unemployment. In the end we were charmed into buying a couple of bottles of white wine that we are slowly enjoying. Strobel is now back in Syracuse at his college of environmental science and forestry, and dominating our agenda for today is sneaking into the college to do some free laundry. Let's hope it goes as smoothly as sneaking onto the campus to dispose of garbage.

There and back again

The Saturday before last, my mom and Casey took me and Anna to the first Seahawks game of the pre-season. It was interesting and kind of fun, but we took off after halftime because all the good players were taken out of the game (which didn't count anyway) and the Cowboys were killing us.


On the following Wednesday, Anna and I packed all of her belongings, at least the ones she cared about, into her Rav and headed to New York. Here we are at Price Creek (still in Washington) for a stretch.


Those who have been to the Gorge in George might recognize this sculpture. Anything with horses about to fall to their doom gets Anna's approval, so we thought this would be a good spot for a bathroom break. Except, of course, for the lack of bathrooms. Luckily, I was the only one the coffee was doing its magic to. Time to find a bush and watch for rattlesnakes.


...and here's Montana. A good chunk of Montana looks like this; the rest contains a lot of rocks.


Here are a bunch of those rocks, the "Painted Canyon." I learned a little about this place in a geology class, so I had to stop and take in the sights. Honestly, Montana is a geology major's dream. Also, something like this can never be properly captured by a camera. We stopped in Billings for the night at the Dude Rancher Lodge. It was a pretty funky place, which was just what I needed after spending so much time on the road. Fuck Holiday inn.

In the Midwest, it got pretty hot and muggy. Luckily for us, these windmills were around to keep us cool.
"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!"
Seriously though, the rest of the country didn't have much to offer, except the relief that you do not have to live there. I feel very lucky that I've been able to take this trip twice now, and think it's good to see one's country if you have the chance. I'd like to drive the southern route sometime in the future, but that can wait. For now, I'm just hanging out in Ithaca helping Anna get her stuff in order at her new place. More to come later, hopefully.

More proof that the grass is always greener

I used to miss the folks at the P-town Hut for their ability to talk about things other than sports. I gave up pretending to even know which sport the crew at the Bellingham Hut were talking about a long time ago, and used to actually *shudder* miss my old crew. Now that I'm back, all anyone ever talks about now is World of Warcraft and what their orc did to that dragon. Remembering back, last summer all they could talk about was Magic, the card game.
What's the real lesson here? That I need a new job? That I should stop listening/talking to my coworkers?

Micro Reviews:
Boogie Pop Phantom (anime): I didn't finish the series. It started to have potential, but I sat through 2 disks out of 4 and I wasn't hooked. C

The Office (BBC version, comedy): Hi-larious. It's kind of sad that the American version uses the same script, and the BBC one is way better from what I've seen. A

Lately, I've learned...

It's always nice to be liked, but sometimes it can be interesting to be loathed for no reason by a very small group of people.

24 feels like 23, only more even

Anyone that wants to see what I've been up to this summer can check out the photo section of the Puget Creek Restoration Society website, featuring yours truly (scroll down). I headed up to B'ham over the weekend to move stuff from my old place to my new place, which should be a big improvement. And...that's it for me.

Think about it

Of all the signs at the World Cup, this one has to be the truest/coolest.

Working hard for the [hippy] man.

I had my first day on the job at my internship yesterday morning. It mostly involved pulling up invasive plants like blackberry bushes (ouch) and using a GPS device to map the area. It's kind of weird to do labor without getting paid, but I keep reminding myself that it's not like I have anything better to do with my time.

It's that time again: SUMMER TIME!

I got up at 6 AM and did some working out with Anna this morning. Time will tell if it'll happen again. I don't much care for the facilities in her building. I really miss Western's gym. In other news, I have an interview for my summer internship tomorrow. I'm not too worried about it, because they seem like a pretty small operation and I doubt I'd be doing much more than clearing ivy and blackberry bushes.
I also think I'm going to participate in the Windows Vista beta testing this summer. I already downloaded the 3.2 gig DVD iso and burned it, I'm just going to backup my system and take the plunge. I'll try to write about any interesting experiences (an amature tech blog? have I reached a new level of dork?).

*Update*
I ran the install program, and Vista won't recognize my RAID drivers. This means that it can't see my hard drives, so I have nothing to install the operating system on. Oh well, it probably would have been frustrating anyway. I do kind of miss the constant crashing and freezing earlier versions of Windows brought. XP just isn't exciting anymore.

Give me a break. I've been busy

Over Memorial Day weekend I attended Evenson's bachelor party. I and 14 other guys went out to a raucous margarita-filled dinner where, of course, I run into my mom. What are the chances?


Right now I'm trying to set up an internship for the summer, a job for next fall, and study for my finals (which are going to suuuck). Summer's looking pretty good.