NickCochran.com

19 February 2012, 7:19 PM

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:19:00 EDT

I'm pretty sure that I broke my first bone yesterday morning, my left pinky toe. I was basically doing what all guys do and being stubborn and trying to do something by myself that really probably required two people, namely de-extending our ladder by pulling out some clips that hold it into place. It came down, quickly. And my toe was in it's way. I don't really think it's that bad, but it did slow me down from planning out eventual stair modifications we may make to the house and forced me to the couch to watch the (almost) entirety of the planet of the apes series. It was entertaining, but the last couple of movies are really quite terrible.

On the up side for yesterday, Mark taught Meagan to make his gumbo, which is quite delicious. I think it made up for the terrible movies, and also helped with the cold that I currently have to go along with my putatively broken toe when we had it tonight with Meagan's family. It also could have been helped by my mother's delicious cooking when we had lunch with my parents and brothers at my parent's house today for lunch. It's always nice when all of us are able to sit down and have a meal together.

Other than that, things have been pretty standard for the past couple of weeks. Meagan and I had a nice Valentine's home-cooked meal, and look forward to our dating anniversary this Tuesday, which, although we're married and have that anniversary now as well, is still important to us and brings back lots of good memories. My wonderful girl is still amazing me after 8 years.

31 January 2012, 6:45 AM

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:45:00 EDT

Maybe with Facebook and Twitter now, blogging isn't necessary anymore, I'm not sure. Maybe there's still a place for it, though. A quick update since September: everything is good and pretty much the same, work is good, school is good, etc etc. Meagan and I are continuing our quest towards the American dream by doing things around our house here and there. This weekend we'll have the exciting task of building a shed in the back yard. The bad thing about that previous sentence is that, we actually are excited about it (at least I am) because it means that eventually we can get all of the outside tools and stuff out of our basement, which means we can eventually overhaul the basement and have an awesome movie pit down there or something else equivalently awesome. And I might get to build a spiral staircase to go down from my office, which I guess would be pretty cool.

Now, for some more specific updates. On work stuff, things are about the same. Again, I'm limited in what I can say here, but I'm excited about the systems I've been working on and I think we'll start getting a lot of good data out of them soon. School: things are generally good on the school side of things, I'm only taking one class this semester, a drug discovery course for the Howard Hughes program, so I've got a pretty open semester to work on my research stuff. It's nice, I only have 9 elective hours between me and never having to take any graded classes again (besides pass/fail classes), unless of course I did something silly like decide to go to med school after getting my PhD, but I think that's a long shot.

Now, on to the topic of the last post. I'll touch on one important point in science which is why we care at all about studying flies and worms. I'm thinking about this because of an interesting science paper that came out in Science recently (you can read an article about the paper here if you aren't at a university and thus don't have access to Science papers). I think this is a really interesting paper laying down some cool ideas about one mechanism that may be in place to help keep memories consistent, and it's a study that's done in flies. Clearly, important work is going to follow in mice and other more relevant models, but this paper makes a very nice first step and does it in a system that one may not think would allow insight into how memories are formed. However, because of the (relative) ease of looking at things in flies, it's possible to ask insightful new questions like this.

That's all for now, just thought I'd jump in a post a few tidbits. Off to the lab now...

25 September 2011, 11:38 AM

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:38:00 EDT

My goodness I guess I've sort of abandoned blogging. I suppose I should find new things to write about. The progress of house projects could certainly be one topic. Also, perhaps, could be writing about what it's like to be a grad student in the life sciences, as I realized the other day when speaking to Meagan that most people probably have no idea what we do on a day to day basis. I suppose it was not too long ago when I was in a similar boat, and was intimidated by papers with three line long titles lacking any normal english words. I will have to be careful, because some of the things I'm doing I actually can't talk about in detail, but I think I can safely talk generally. I'll start today with a big overview of what me and my friends in similar positions do. Basically, we ask some questions about how biological systems work based on work that has previously been published, then we figure out ways to answer those questions in a well-controlled experimental setting. The immediate response to may have to how to answer these questions would be, well, just have a look. And sometimes, that's possible, but it's confounded by the fact that we're often looking at things that are super tiny, sometimes smaller than microscopes can get us. So, we're left with using outcome measures that may be less concrete than just taking a look. That's where the well-controlled part comes in. The other thing, especially for my work in particular, is that often times if no one has asked a similar question, the systems needed to have a look have not been developed yet. So, a significant amount of my time currently is spent developing systems to eventually do experiments with. You've probably got quite a few questions, such as how to various systems work that we use to make these measurements, what sorts of experimental manipulations do we do, why is it important to see how things happen in flies and worms.... don't we care at all about humans?, and other perfectly reasonable questions. Stay tuned, I'll get to it eventually. I think I'm going to put together some stuff next on how we take a look, on some imaging techniques. It's something I've taken an interest to beyond simply what we use it for in the lab, because there's just some really cool stuff that goes along with it, including some pretty pictures. More to come.

26 June 2011, 5:12 PM

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:12:00 EDT

Oh my it's been a while since I've updated, shame shame shame on me. Meagan and I just returned from vacation with the Rockett family in Panama City Beach Florida. We had a wonderfully relaxing week at our beachfront condo where the most difficult decisions were along the lines of what to have for lunch, what kind of beer to have next, and which direction to walk on the beach. Meagan and I celebrated our anniversary on the 19th with a wonderful dinner at Firefly, a restaurant that we thoroughly enjoyed, followed by a friendly putt-putt competition (I won, of course :) In other news since the last update, we've finally succeeded in purchasing our first home, a place we're quite pleased to be enjoying a few blocks from UAB's campus near UAB Highlands and Dreamland. It's quite a place, as it has a history as a multi-family home. The main floor where we live is completely finished, with rag-tag apartments in both the basement and attic that we'll enjoy overhauling as optional projects at some point in the next few years. Our most immediate project will be getting the back yard up to snuff along with the side and front yard. We'll likely be putting in some Emerald Zoysia sod in the back. I suppose I'll have to post some pictures of this place sometime soon. We feel that we're making progress at a good clip, we just got a new dining set this weekend, and perhaps will get a King sized bed sometime soon after getting spoiled to one on vacation... we'll see. We're getting ready to have dinner with Meagan's family in a bit, and tomorrow I'll have to return to work. Meagan will be starting her first day of rotations for Genetic Counseling tomorrow, so she'll get a bit of preview both of what it's like to work full time and of what her eventual profession will be like, I know she's looking forward to the experience. I'm also ready to get back into working, though the break was nice and it's always good to have some time off to step back to a 30,000 foot perspective. That's all, I promise to post some house pics soon.

13 March 2011, 6:49 PM

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:49:00 EDT

Meagan and I are enjoying a very stress-free day. I've had a test over all the material we've covered so far in my class, and she's on spring break now. We're preparing a delicious vegetable quiche for dinner along with an arugala salad. Yesterday we enjoyed being a part of my brother Brock's wedding to Nicki. It's great to see him so giddy with excitement, and I know they are looking forward to starting their lives together. Other than that it's the same old thing going on for us. We were glad to see all of our extended family at the wedding, it's always good to see everyone together all at once. Well anyway, I suppose I should go help Meagan with dinner now. I'll post next time something interesting happens, I guess. So maybe not very soon :)

12 February 2011, 11:19 AM

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:19:00 EDT

I guess if I'm going to keep this site around I should probably update from time to time, so here goes. The semester is in full swing, and classes are going OK. Work is going well. Besides that there are several things coming up that we're both looking forward to. First, the recruiting weekends for my program and Meagan's program are both coming up, so that should be fun. And second is of course Brock and Nicki's wedding, which is coming up on March 12th, which happens to be just one month away. I'm excited to see my brother so happy and ready to enter the next stage of his life. I've thought about a couple of times now that I should probably put some helpful stuff linked to in the bar on the left, or either get rid of it since I don't really use the site much and if I do it tends to be just to give a quick blurb update. I suppose I probably will start adding some more stuff, though it will probably be summer once classes have slowed down a bit. Maybe we'll put up some cooking stuff since we love to cook but probably don't as much as we would like to, then that would be motivation to I guess. Well anyway, I'm going to go get ready now to go meet Rebecca with Meagan for lunch. We haven't seen her in a while so that will be good, then Meagan and I will run some errands and hopefully have a somewhat productive day.

8 January 2011, 10:39 PM

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 22:39:00 EDT

And so it begins. The first week of the semester is through, and I already feel behind. We're in class with the dental and optometry students, so the professors are teaching us as if we've had anatomy, embryology, etc. Of course, they have all had it, and many of my classmates have had similar stuff as well, but I haven't, so it's all new to me. Meagan and I have had a pretty lazy day, but we're getting going on some school stuff this evening, both of us are trying to get started early with stuff and stay on top of things the best we can. I don't think it's a new years resolution so much as a requirement for the programs we're in, but I guess it's nice to be forced into not procrastinating. I finally updated my resume tonight, that's been needing to be done for a while. Anyway, I'm going to stop putting off studying by updating the site and get back to it.

2 January 2011, 10:52 AM

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 10:52:00 EDT

So, this is what 2011 feels like. I guess not so different than 2010, so far. Meagan told me that I had to update or cancel the site, since I don't ever seem to update anymore, but I suppose there's not too much to say, nothing too terribly interesting going on. I'm loving work, getting through class, and enjoying the time that's not those two things, too. We had a good time over the holidays with our families. Meagan got me a fancy schmancy new monitor to use at work and the new AppleTV so we can do the Netflix streaming thing. We also had a nice new years eve with some of our UAB friends, and a nice new years day full of greens, black-eyed peas, etc at my Parent's house. Resolutions for 2011.... hmmm... I dunno. Maybe I'll quit playing hold 'em tourneys online. I do so much better in Omaha, might as well stick to it. I should probably also do some type of exercise thing or eating thing or something too, but those never seem to work out for people so I don't know. Anyway that's all, I'm gonna go now. Happy new years to all.

30 October 2010, 2:01 PM

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:01:00 EDT

Hanging out at the lab waiting for an exposure to finish up. Meagan and I went to the farmer's market this morning and picked up some stuff for the week after sleeping in, which was wonderfully nice. Watched Rocky Horror picture show last night for the first time with Meagan Mark and Becca at Mark's house. It was interesting, a little odd, but interesting. I can imagine it may be cooler at some sort of theatrical production. One thing that was nice about last night was Mark's Limoncello, a delicious lemony alcoholy treat that mixes quite well with whiskey and soda water. This afternoon Meagan and I will be cooking up a delicious batch of chili while watching Auburn destroy Ole Miss, then we'll be joining in the Hallow's eve festivities tonight. Nothing too interesting has happened in the past two weeks, though we have started our Neuro-specific classes which is really nice. I have my eyes in several books at the moment, including The Vertical Farm by Dick Despommier, a co-host of This Week in Virology, one of the podcasts that I'm likely to be listening to on my morning walk from the north to the south side of Birmingham. It's an interesting concept, I suppose. I'm looking forward to going to San Diego in a few weeks for the SfN annual meeting. It will be a nice break between rotations, and I'm sure I'll see and listen to some cool stuff while I'm there. Time to go develop my film, over and out.

14 October 2010, 10:26 PM

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 22:26:00 EDT

I finished In Defense of Food today. It wasn't really anything special, same old stuff, nothing really new. Although, it is always interesting to see stuff re-hashed through someone else's eyes. Life keeps moving on and on, my alarm keeps going on every morning, and I keep rolling out of bed to generate some data. The work I do is tedious, but how it fits into the big picture is pretty exciting... we're working on drug discovery for Parkinson's in the lab I'm in now, and I may be doing some similar preliminary work in my next rotation starting in November. Somehow, I've managed to remain in the middle of the B range in my classes, which is good because I want to be exposed to the information we're learning in these general bio courses, but I'd rather spend more time at the lab than studying, at least until I get into my neuro-specific courses. More and more I'm realizing that this is certainly the right place for me to be. The drug discovery stuff I'm working on is a good synthesis between science and engineering, especially if I can be a part of some of the scale-up processes to high throughput screens for some of the stuff we're doing. Robots are neat :) I don't mind having to go in at night or on the weekends since we're so close, and It's nice to have flexible hours so I can take a little extra time to have a nice lunch with Meagan during the day, which we've been doing most every day. Anyway, I'm going to return to my evening of getting some things done with the hum of Meagan's television marathon in the background. Over and out.

27 September 2010, 6:57 AM

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:57:00 EDT

I don't know if anyone still reads this besides Meagan anymore, but she's been saying I need to update, so I will for her sake, at least :) It's a good bet when I go without updating for a while that I've probably been busy doing the same old stuff, which really is pretty boring and not that fun to write about, although I do enjoy it none the less. Today I'll be having a lecture from Dr. Korf, one of the keystone people in Meagan's genetic counseling program. He'll be giving us a lecture on Mendelian genetics (you know, the monk guy with the peas). We're wrapping up our 2nd module in this first semester on genetics. Besides that, things in the lab are going well. I'm getting some good data, which is nice after a few months without any real data consisting mostly of prep work. This is the fun part. In other news, we helped Brock move into the apartment where Nicki will be joining them after they are wed. The most interesting part of the day by far was moving an old upright piano up narrowly wound apartment steps. It took 5 of us exerting ourselves physically and mentally to finagle that thing into climbing those stairs, but we got it. Albeit, we lost all of the keys to fallout along the way, though this is something that should be fairly easily repaired. On our end of having a new place, the loft is really starting to shape up. Meagan finished painting our bedroom yesterday after I did a spot of edging for her, and we're down to 1 remaining cardboard box to unpack. Given, the closet and storage closet could probably use some work, but I think that's true even if you've lived in a given location for years. OK, time to go finish getting ready, the week awaits.

24 August 2010, 11:53 PM

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:53:00 EDT

It's late, and I'm tired, but I haven't posted in a while so I figured I would. Grad school is in full swing and going well. I'm continuing on in the same lab that I've been in (West lab), and I'll be rotating through the Roberson lab during the winter term. The house we were going to buy fell through, but we're excited about the loft we found 3 days after hearing the bad news on the house, then moved into the day after we saw it. It was nice because normally we would have had to have gone through a background check and all that jazz, but the owner of the building knew Meagan's father so she expedited the process for us. We're pretty much moved in fully. Meagan posted some photos on Facebook for those who are interested. We have places to sit and work, a kitchen full of food, and mostly just unessential boxes left to unpack that could probably be thrown out as is, but we'll sort through them just in case. We'll probably have several of those moments where we say, "Ohhhhhh..... that's where that was all this time, I was looking for that everywhere... 2 years ago...." I can bike to school/lab every day which is very nice, as I don't have to deal with UAB's awful parking situation. Meagan really doesn't have to either, as David was kind enough to provide us with stickers so that we can park in his lot in five points. That's about it for now. Nothing too terribly exciting is going on in our lives at the moment, but we're busy and enjoying every day together. It's nice to be in Birmingham so that we're never too far from our families either. I suppose I'll go on to bed now. Tomorrow keeps comin' at the same speed...

3 August 2010, 8:29 AM

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:29:00 EDT

Quick post. I'm down at Dauphin Island for my first Neuro course. It's good so far, we get our first test back today. We're going over lots of the basics of Neuro as well as brining some poor horseshoe crabs to their premature ends so that we can rob them of their nerve cords. That's about it. It's a bit odd to be back in a dorm again like the first year at Auburn, but so it goes. It's not too bad. The food is spotty, but edible. In other news, the house is hopefully quite close to closing. Now I must go to get ready for class.

16 July 2010, 5:43 AM

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:43:00 EDT

So I'm up before my alarm, again. I did this quite frequently when I was co-oping as well, but I don't really mind so much because despite the stigma against it, I actually enjoy the early morning. I suppose I should post some sort of synopsis on the wedding/honeymoon, so here goes. The trip was amazing. I think that everyone really had a good time, and it was wonderful to have all of our closest family in one place. The downside, of course, is that we couldn't take everyone we care about, but that's why we're having the reception tomorrow. Of course, that's not all the people we care about either, but it is closer to a representative sample. Eleuthera was wonderful as well. It was the off season on an already quiet island. Often times when we went out to eat, etc, we were either the only couple or perhaps one of two. It was telling that, when we went to the Friday night fish fry that they host down there, the composition was maybe 1/3 folks that we had run into before. It was a small island and we enjoyed our time with each other relaxing, going to beaches on either the Atlantic or Caribbean side, and reveling in our pristine view of the uninterrupted ebbs and flows of the Atlantic. On the work front, I'm enjoying my beginnings at UAB. I'm really enjoying my work, and I like being a part of new and useful research, even if the bench work at this point is a bit repetitive. I'm working on something that may or may not work (so far just the may not part), so that's both exciting and frustrating, but so it goes. I'm looking forward to some of my Mom's family coming into town this evening, we'll be cooking out at the house tonight prior to the reception tomorrow night. On the house front, things are moving along, but we're still not in yet. We'll be meeting with the structural engineer today during my lunch break. After that, the HUD inspector will have to see the house, then the appraiser to determine after-improved value, then we can close. Of course, we'll probably have to do power of attorney to close for me, because I'll likely be at Dauphin island for the first Neuroscience course with UAB during the time that we're supposed to be closing. But, I suppose that would make me lucky in some ways because I'll come home to a brand new place to live awaited by my wonderful wife. Meagan continues to amaze me. How she puts up with we is beyond me, but I'm sure glad she does.

9 June 2010, 11:09 PM

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:09:00 EDT

So, about all I've been up to lately is starting in the West Lab at UAB. It's been good so far, he's started me out doing a lot of the same stuff I've done before, so that's nice to do while I figure out where stuff is, what's going on, etc. We had our first day of class today for the seminar series for Hughes. I actually found it quite interesting though I know to almost anyone it would have been really dry and boring. But, I guess that's why I'm where I'm at. Today it was on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which basically means a bunch of scarring in the lungs that makes it so you can't breath and is caused by.... well we don't know. Perhaps both the best and the most difficult aspect of translational research is that people are directly affected by what goes on. It was so very striking today to hear about the technical details of a disease, then to hear from a patient afflicted with the disease. It was especially compelling because the disease really has no cure. The patients don't get better, the best efforts to date have simply slowed the decline. And, of course I realize that this is something that's common to a lot of diseases. In any case, it's all the more motivation to be involved in the type of work that I am involved in, and makes me glad that I pursued the Hughes fellowship. I think it will provide a valuable angle on my future work. The wedding stuff is all lining up, and needless to say we're all very excited. Just can't wait to be officially married to the beautiful girl that's stuck with me through all sorts of ups and downs since junior year of high school. Still no more word on the house. As far as we know we're still under contract but we probably won't close until like mid July because we barely missed the tax credit, and they're so backed up with people who did get in on time. Anyway, I'm going to go finish up some laundry and hit the hay so that I can go play with some cells and DNA tomorrow.

28 May 2010, 11:05 PM

Fri, 28 May 2010 23:05:00 EDT

Just got in from Auburn today after packing up my apartment. The walls are empty and spackled, and most of the stuff is packed into boxes. Right now I'm sitting here with my good friends Trey and Tyler working on the first bits of the blog they decided to start, TheBadBeatBlog.com. Go on, take a look. That's them, by the way, in the picture to the left. I start my first lab rotation at UAB on Tuesday, and I'm trying to get my paper put together for the stuff I did at Auburn in lab. It's coming along well. Tomorrow Meagan and I are heading up to the lake with her family, and of course the wedding is coming up very soon. Time to go do some more coding and fun stuffs.

19 May 2010, 11:30 AM

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:30:00 EDT

Meagan and I are both successfully graduated, and both of us got all A's our last semester in college. For me it was by the skin of my teeth, but I'll take it :) Today is my birthday. 23 doesn't really feel new or interesting, just older, really. I guess it will be that way for a while now. 25 will be good because of insurance discounts I guess.... In any case, it's always nice to get together with my family. Meagan and I have been in Birmingham since the 15th getting house stuff taken care of. We think we've got the contractor we want to use nailed down, hopefully they'll get back with us today with their part of the paperwork filled out. Then, after a few more steps, we may have a house. In other news, I'm now starting June 1 again instead of July 1. I'm looking forward to getting going on stuff. Now, it's time to go meet Meagan at Zoe's for lunch. After that, we will proceed to do not much of anything until dinner tonight with my family. And that's OK with me... I'm enjoying this slower time between schoolings. Until we meet again, signing off.

5 May 2010, 1:30 PM

Wed, 05 May 2010 13:30:00 EDT

I'm almost done with undergraduate. For most, that means done with school forever, but I'm taking the true meaning and going on to graduate. So, it really doesn't feel all that different from a normal end of the semester, just a bit. I've got two exams left, and an extra credit assignment, then it's all done. I got my honors thesis turned in Monday morning, which was a relief to get done. I think I'm going to write the paper over the same material in LaTex so that I can get familiar with it while I've got a bit of free time on my hands. I slept till 11 today and to noon yesterday. That's basically awesome. Today I'll study for biochem, but I'm not too concerned about it. I need a 3 for a C, a 43 for a B, and an 83 for an A, so I think I'll be alright :) The house stuff is coming along. We'll be doing the inspection and contractor stuff soon to see how much we need to put into it to get it up to shape. Time to go to the lab and play with some cells...

6 April 2010, 12:33 AM

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:33:00 EDT

The above is what I've been working on all day. Scratch that, all semester. On the agenda for tomorrow, two BME classes, printing my poster, putting on the monkey suit, and pointing at my poster while uttering unintelligible words. Then, LOST and a small break before it all starts again Wednesday. Time for bed. G'nite.

24 March 2010, 11:22 PM

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:22:00 EDT

So I decided that it would be fun to add in photos periodically with posts to remind me how young I used to look. I got this brilliant idea after looking back thru photos posted on Facebook. Maybe it will work better than my previous brilliant idea which was to motivate myself to read more by posting how far along I was in the books I'm currently reading. That actually had the opposite effect, strangely enough, but I suppose a few irons are in the fire at the moment. The house hunt is coming along. We put in an offer in today on the short sale we're considering, we'll see how it turns out. We watched the blind side tonight, it almost made me cry. Tomorrow I'll be one of the drivers for the 1st senior design field trip bright and early, should be good. I've been laying the groundwork for my honors thesis and trying to start a bit of studying for biochem as well recently. That's about all that's going on. I wish I could say more about the house(s), but I don't want to post too much online. That's about it, I suppose, I've almost filled up this little posting box that I've made for myself so I suppose it's time to stop writing.

20 March 2010, 4:48 PM

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:48:00 EDT

So, I didn't post for a while because not too much seemed to be going on, and now, things are going on. Of course, we're finishing up spring break right now which is nice. Meagan and I got back from her Grandmother's house at Smith Lake this morning. We've been up there since Wednesday evening. We went up and visited my parents at the campground they go to up there on one side of the lake, then went over to Maw Maw's house on the other side of the lake. Meagan's parents met us up there on Thursday and we played a bit on the boat when it got pretty on Friday and generally had a nice and relaxing time. Meagan is currently cooking up some dinner with her mom that we're going to enjoy with them and Granny and Chief. The biggest thing going on right now is, we're looking for a house. We had found one out in Irondale that we really liked, but then found out that it had a contract on it, so that was a bit dissapointing but I suppose we can't really do anything about that. We've found a few more that we're hopeful about in Southside downtown, which would be nice because we would be in a good location as well as have a bit more space than a townhouse. We had found a few townhouses that would work well, but if we could find a house that would be much more ideal. We've done all the meeting with mortgage peoples and such trying to get the logistics taken care of. We want to buy before April 30 to get the tax credit, but of course the biggest thing is that we need to have a place for me to move into once summer starts. That's the other thing that's gotten decided since spring break started - I met with Dr. West at UAB about starting a rotation early since I'll have to take a week and a half off for wedding and honeymoon. He was up for that and we talked about a possible project that sounds good, and should build well off of what I've been doing in Dr. Martin's lab. Meagan and I are both really geared up to see some more houses tomorrow, and we're very glad that my Aunt Candy has been helping us out on the real estate side. My mom will be going along with us to offer her inspection prowess. Hopefully that will work out, then I'll just have to get my research for the past year written up for my senior honors thesis :O and we'll be good to go, I suppose. It will be a busy couple of months coming up, and of course the wedding is ever approaching on the horizon. Less than three months now :) I think we have most of the details worked out, we sent in the second half of our honeymoon house payment, so it's feeling like it's getting close.

25 February 2010, 7:23 PM

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:23:00 EDT

I guess Meagan already posted about it, but the big news is, I got accepted at UAB! Also, today I found out that I got the Hughes Med Grad Fellowship as well, which is good. It's the same money, but it's coming from a different pocket, so the professors like it, plus we get exposure to classes and other things that prepare to do well in translational research, which is what I want to do, so I'm excited about it. Getting the fellowship means I'll be starting my first rotation this summer instead of in the fall. Of course, that means I'll need to start even earlier than the other Hughes people b/c I'll need to take some time off for the wedding and honeymoon, but they said when I interviewed for it that doing so wouldn't pose a problem. It will also be nice because I'll finish my rotations early, which may help in getting into my preferred lab for my thesis project. Back on the school front I'm doing my best to muddle through my biomedical homework, though it's difficult to do engineering homework when you don't know what equation to use / how to use them. I'll get with some of the other people in the class and we'll figure it out, I guess.

24 February 2010, 11:26 AM

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:26:00 EDT

First off, yay for Nick for getting into UAB's Neuroscience PhD program! He must have totally blown the interview away when you consider that there's only 5 spots guaranteed to the program, and they still have 4 people left to interview. We're really excited because it means that for sure we will be in Birmingham for the foreseeable future; now we just have to find a place to live. Right now we're looking at some townhouses in Southside, as well as some houses in Irondale. Basically the trade-off we're faced with is convenience vs. space. We're planning on trying to see some of them in person over Spring Break in a few weeks, so hopefully that will help us make a decision. In other news, I picked out bridesmaids' dresses this past weekend, so that's one more thing to check off of the wedding to-do list. Now if I can just get my dress taken care of, we'll be all set. It's nice to have a chill week of school...a couple of weeks ago I had 3 tests in one week, and that was kinda rough. Anyway, I guess that's about it for now. I"m going to go learn about the fascinating world of social psychology, then hit up the fascinating world of Mike & Ed's BBQ for lunch with Nick after.

22 February 2010, 10:25 PM

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:25:00 EDT

Meagan pointed out tonight that Rebecca and I had a detailed conversation about protein tagging and folding for about 20 minutes... I guess maybe, just maybe, I might be a bit of a dork at times. I'm back from my adventures in Birmingham. I really enjoyed the visit and liked seeing all of the exciting work that's going on. However, 13 interviews over the course of two days took it's toll. I crashed for 12 hours once I got back to my house after dinner with my family and getting Meagan back home. And now I'm back in Auburn getting back into the swing of things. Made up my biochem test this morning, think I did good, I suppose. After that messed around with Aspen for senior design, then headed to the lab for a bit, then AIChE with SABIC, which was cool since I used to work there and all, then to the apt where Meagan prepared a delicious hash for me out of ingredients we had laying around, since all I had before that was some sparse chicken pickin's from the AIChE meeting. In any case, I'll post when I hear back from UAB. Should be in about a week. In other news, Bob Dylan has been playing in my iTunes lately, and makes a suprisingly nice complement to biochem studying and amino acid recital. Who would have thunk it? In any case, Allie is barking for me to come back into the other room, so I suppose I will answer her call.

10 February 2010, 10:25 PM

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:25:00 EDT

Meagan and Rebecca have a cell bio test tomorrow, so I've been making them tea tonight to keep them stimulated and focused. We just made some of the cool white tea that blooms up like a flower in the cup.... very visually appealing. I've been stalking the UAB neuroscience faculty tonight in preparation for the interview weekend next week. Quite a lot of interesting work going on. Besides that, what's basically going on with me is, I'm trying to make sure I keep up with things even if I don't have any pressing deadlines. Most of my classes only evaluate progress a few times throughout the semester, so it's important to keep up other than a few days before those. On the lab front I'm getting ready to do some assays, then start a repeat transfection with one new plasmid. That's about it. I've been slacking on my reading.... need to step it up and finish the books I'm stuck on currently. We're also running low on freezer stocks of our amazing soup and red sauce, so more cooking adventures are sure to come soon. At some point I'll get around to posting recipes on here, though that may be a bit difficult since usually we just do a bit of this, a bit of that, and hope it comes out tasting a bit of good. Hasta Luego.

7 February 2010, 12:25 PM

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:25:00 EDT

So I got an e-mail this morning asking me to come to the recruiting weekend for Georgia Tech BME, which is very good. 2 for 2 :) Now I just need to blow both schools away with awesomeness and get in. I wasn't able to go the Birmingham with Meagan this weekend because I was supposed to do the Big Event, but then I had an attack of the debilitating eye virus and wasn't able to make it. But, it's OK b/c I have been able to get some stuff done at the lab and get caught up on reading and stuff for school, so that's good. I've been donking around with some low stakes PLO cash online, took me a while to get back on the horse but I think I'm back in the groove. I wish online poker wasn't in the quasi-legal state that it's currently in, because it's nice to be able to sit down and play some cards for a few minutes without having to dedicate a night to a smoky basement with a bunch of unfavorable individuals. But, whatever. About to head to the lab for a bit to get some stuff done, then maybe something for the superbowl, not sure. Maybe I can convince Jeff to fry wings again like we did Friday night, which was amazing. I miss Meagan already, after just not seeing her for two days. Come back! :)

Now Playing: Thrice - The Alchemy Index, Vol. 3 & 4: Air & Earth

28 January 2010, 8:42 AM

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:42:00 EDT

So the semester is back in full swing. It's a good thing, because if I don't have something to sink my teeth into I tend to get bored pretty quickly. I'm enjoying stuff at the lab. By the time I'm done with what I'm working on now, I'll have seen and done every step from isolating an RNA library from cat tissue, to assaying for enzyme activity and every step in between. Which reminds me, at some point today I have to update my poster for presenting tomorrow morning to the presidential scholar kids. Also liking the senior CHEN courses.... senior design is a good project, and Biomedical is quite interesting. The other classes are OK too, just taking a bit longer to get into stride. I still think it's pointless to require us to memorize the amino acids, but I guess it's really not my call. I think it would be more worth it to talk about some of the properties that arise from the different ones, which comes out sometimes. One thing I've learned in college is that the things that are really really important, I mean the things that make a big difference, teachers normally will say in passing, and if you're not paying attention you'll just miss it. Anyway I have to go finish getting ready for class.

Now Playing: Pinback - Blue Screen Life

18 January 2010, 11:05 PM

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:05:00 EDT

It's been quite an enjoyable three day weekend around here. We got to hang out with lots of cool people Friday night, first at Nick's, then at another party with our friend Drew. Saturday was a lazy, rainy day, which we used to work a puzzle and make good progress on getting addicted to a new show. We decided to give Fringe a try, since its creator is the same as one of our other favorites, a little-known show called LOST. By now we've watched a little over half of season 1, and it's definitely interesting. On Sunday, Garett and Austin came over, and we made a feast of smoked turkey, green bean casserole, and cheddar mashed potatoes, which were all quite delicious. The normal weekend was capped off with our friend Kyle's "I Have a Dreamsicle" party, which featured a neat bit of speech-remixing, as well as actual dreamsicles. Mostly today has been just hanging around. I took Allie to the park today, which was a lot of fun right up until an intact male pit bull decided to try and kill a lab puppy right in front of us. The puppy is going to be ok, but the whole incident makes me even more convinced that intact males shouldn't be allowed in the off-leash area with the other dogs. Anyway, I'm looking forward to a short week this week, and to going home to see our families next weekend. We'll be attending Brooke's first birthday party, so that should be fun. Well until next time...

18 January 2010, 3:41 PM

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:41:00 EDT

Saw a cool little thing on PokerStars today. Apparently there's a tournament series just for bloggers. The only requirement is to post a little thing on the blog, so here goes:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 508301

Wish me luck!

16 January 2010, 1:20 PM

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:20:00 EDT

So I'm taking advantage of the extra time from the long weekend to clean out drawers and other things that I normally wouldn't do. I've had every class at least once now. I'm looking forward to Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Byrne will do a good job showing us some cool stuff from what I can see so far. Tomorrow I'll be making a big batch of cheddar mashed potatoes to go with a smoked turkey that I'm going to do with Garett and Jeff and some other people, should be some good stuff. Meagan is working a puzzle over at my place right now and watching food network. While cleaning out my drawers I found a counterfeit hundred that I got paid with once during my frequent poker days... ah memories. I think I'll use it as a bookmark (by Meagan's suggestion). That's about all. It's a relaxing day with a pitter patter from the rain.

5 January 2010, 11:30 AM

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:30:00 EDT

Brr! It's cold in here!...or something like that. Anyway, it really is astonishingly cold by Alabama standards; I'm not sure it's been above freezing for the past couple of days. This is actually really inconvenient, given my hatred of long sleeves and closed toed shoes in general. Oh well. It's pretty quiet around the house today; Mom and Dad are back at work and Emily is back in school. Allie's also gone for the day :( She's at Dr. Fuller's getting spayed. I feel bad for her because she's going to be pretty miserable for a couple of days, but it's entirely necessary. There are far too many unwanted animals running around, and I really just don't want to take care of puppies. Not to mention it was in the contract I signed when I got her that they could take her back if I don't get her fixed, and that would really make me sad. I think I'm going to use the rest of today to take some stuff back to the mall, maybe shop a bit, and do a little cleaning. I'm hoping Nick will decide to wake up soon so that he might meet me at the mall for lunch, but we'll see. Anyway, I guess I'll go get bundled up to combat the deep freeze.

3 January 2010, 3:00 PM

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EDT

Well, I booked our between islands flight for the honeymoon, so that's taken care of. Also, I wrote up a tutorial for using symlinks with iTunes to get different media is different places. Meagan and I had dinner at Jubilee Joe's last night thanks to a gift certificate from her aunt and uncle, then desert and drinks at the mexican place next door before heading to her house to watch 9 with her family. Yesterday (clearly, given the post below) I set it up so that Meagan could post on the site as well. We'll have to see how often she updates. If it's more than me, I guess I'll have to give her her own page :)

2 January 2010, 7:40 PM

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:40:00 EDT

Yay for my first ever blog post! Nick finally got around to making it so that I can update on his site as well. We're currently hanging out at my house with my family, about to watch a movie. We had a good time on New Years Eve at my house, other than Chief almost getting killed by a rogue firework :). Poor Allie wasn't too crazy about the fireworks; she's been running around scared and looking up at the sky all the time ever since. We've been trying to settle up details as far as the wedding goes; we booked plane tickets this week and got passports, so we're definitely getting closer. The next step will be for me and Nick to book our between islands flights and figure out the car rental situation. Also there's the small matter of me finding a wedding dress ;). Other than that, not too much has been going on. It's been a relaxing break and good to spend some time with the families, but I think we're both getting ready to get back into the routine of classes, etc. One more semester on the plains and we're done! So exciting, and I can't wait to see what'll happen next. Until next time then...

31 December 2009, 1:32 PM

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:32:00 EDT

So I've been doing valet for the last few days, makin' some money for wedding and honeymoon stuff. I'll be working again today until 10, then off to Meagan's house to ring in the new year. 2010 will be a busy and exciting time for both of us. We'll be graduating, getting married, starting grad school and getting our first place. I'm looking forward to the adventure. For some reason I didn't mention this in the last post, but I was very excited to hear that I have an interview at UAB for the Neuroscience program. Meagan still hasn't heard back on the genetic counseling, but I think it's not probable that she wouldn't be a top candidate. I still haven't heard anything back from Georgia Tech, but I expect that I should probably hear something soon. And, I think we would both prefer to be in Birmingham and close to family anyway. I spent some time tinkering around on my site's code to get the books to print out automatically. I have a table in my database now where I can log them. It's completely unnecessary, but I learning a bit more about doing things with php and mysql, and I think it will help keep me motivated to read consistently. I've found a lot of cool Podcasts and iTunes U shows recently. It's nice to be able to keep up with the newest developments in science. On that note...

Now Playing: NeuroPod: 28 July 2009

27 December 2009, 5:14 PM

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:14:00 EDT

So, Christmas has come and gone. I feel I should give the obligatory what I got for Christmas post, so here goes. My main gifts were a nice new digital camera and an electric kettle that heats water to various temperatures based on the type of tea or coffee desired, which is pretty cool. Also, got an electric skillet for the future homestead, a box full of goodies from the grandparents, lots of books from Meagan's parents, and some cash and several gift cards. I've put some photos taken with my new camera up on Facebook, and also here on Dropbox. Dropbox is pretty cool, btw. The files on Dropbox can be saved to the full-sized 12mp for my family and others who want those for importing into iPhoto or whatever. Going to get some New China with Patrick in a bit. It's been a good break. Last night I hung out with Meagan's family, had a good dinner, and played some games with them. I've been doing a whole lot of eating, visiting, and not a whole lot else, which is good to do for a change I suppose. I've been reading a bit as well. Still working on The Beautiful and Damned. Fitzgerald's works are so beautifully written. It's too bad he was a raging alcoholic. The current non-fiction book I'm working on, referenced below, is certainly interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how he constructs his argument, it's solid so far. That's about all.

Now Reading: Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer

13 December 2009, 7:32 PM

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:32:00 EDT

So I have two exams left - Controls tomorrow and Process Design Tuesday. Then, let the break begin. Currently I'm enjoying the absolutely wonderful smell of Meagan's cooking. We're making chicken and tomatoes tonight, delicious. I'm a bit nervous about Controls tomorrow, but I guess we'll just see. I always seem to do pretty well on finals so should be OK. We went to the store this afternoon and I finally broke down and bought one of those five blade vibrating razors. I figured it was time to upgrade from the 3 blade that I've been using since forever. We'll see how it does I guess, super exciting stuff. Also got some joint stuff to help my knees from Jason's recommendation so that I can park cars a few days in a row and run for exercise without falling over walking up stairs afterwards. Hopefully it will work. If not, meh, whatever, gotta try. I spent a lot of the day cleaning the apartment, which is something I almost always do in place of studying for an exam, not sure why. I think I just like to have things in order so that I'm not sitting in the middle of the exam and thinking how I need to empty the dishwasher or whatever. I've begun the process of replacing the school books and binders on the top shelf on my bookshelf with the ones for next semester and archiving completed classes in my closet. It's always rewarding at the end of the semester to files things away like that. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something, I guess. That's about it, time to eat now.

6 December 2009, 9:45 PM

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:45:00 EDT

And the semester is winding down. I have two presentations tomorrow, then it's all done until exam time. I'm not really too concerned about exams this semester, but sometimes there are surprises, I suppose. We had an enjoyable weekend with not too much going on. For the first time in a while, I had to do school work on a Saturday morning, which was kind of lame, but we made up for it Saturday afternoon by making chili, eating all day, and first watching Alabama trounce Florida in the SEC championship, and then watching Texas squeeze by Nebraska to play Alabama in the national championship. We prepped powerpoint presentations today for both Lab II and Econ & Safety, which I'm still convinced is about the most lame, boring, and ineffective way to present information, but whatever. I guess it can be OK if you do it right. I really think that more stuff should be interactive with learning, as much as possible. Sometimes numbers and charts and graphs and equations are necessary, but at least in my major it seems that sometimes people just memorize that for about two weeks for whatever particular application they are working on, and don't ever really get a qualitative understanding of what's going on. It seems that it would be obvious to emphasize big overarching concepts before getting to gritty calculations, but we kind of do it backwards, as far as I can tell, because everything doesn't really all start to fit together until senior year. However, I do think that our department is moving in the right direction with some new measures they're taking like 1/3 or so of the credit on tests being geared towards explanation questions that emphasize qualitative understanding rather than numerical prowess. So I suppose that's all on the rant on Auburn chemical engineering. Overall our professors are good and everything, we're all just so left-brained that I think we forget we can still learn things without numbers. I mean, we can't even dream about words and numbers, so we best get some underlying structure in there or we won't have anything in our minds to slap those numbers up against. OK I'm done now. Really. No more. Hasta next time.

1 December 2009, 9:18 PM

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:18:00 EDT

So, the semester is winding down. Every semester it seems in Chem-E, there is a Doomsday. One day where all of our professors assign a big project, and we have to have them all done at once. Tomorrow is that day, and I'm proud to say that I was done by about 6 PM today with all of my assignments, instead of 6 AM like many of my comrades will no doubt be. Oh well, in any case I'm glad it's done. Now I just have to work with my groups to get ready for presentations in Lab II and Econ & Safety, and prep for my 2nd exam in Econ & Safety on Friday, but I'm not overly concerned about that. Tomorrow it's to the lab for fun with cloning. Currently, I'm listening to Allie and Charlie (the pup that Meagan is training until Christmas break) wrestle about in the main room of the apartment. I think Kurt Vonnegut is right about dogs. Everyone should have one, and occasionally roll around on the floor with them and forget for a moment about what we have to get done and the goals that we set for ourselves. It's nice to remember that despite the things that we worry about, if we step back most of us are actually quite well taken care of. Whether we meet tomorrows deadline or not, we'll still probably be safe, and fed, etc. No stress necessary. Most of it is artificially constructed because we just don't get enough of it from getting chased around by wild animals and the like. But I guess maybe that's not so bad. Oh my. Getting close. Just one more semester in the world of heat exchangers and distillation columns, then it's off to the world of DNA and neurons. I guess it'll kind of be a transition semester, though, since I will be taking Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry, and (maybe) Microbiology as well as continuing my research. Time to go vegetate for a bit and get ready for the next time the sun decides to mozy on back around.

Now Reading: The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

17 November 2009, 8:41 AM

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:41:00 EDT

So, I'm almost done with Philip K. Dick's book, so I thought it would be a good idea to watch blade runner last night. It was meh. And by meh, I mean, not really that good at all. Once again the book wins. Talked to some presidental scholar kids yesterday with my research poster. Smart kids. They all look so young. We had lunch after, and one of the ChemE juniors was actually the speaker (cause he got the scholarship and is involved in a million things and all that jazz), so that was pretty cool. Trying to work towards getting class projects and stuff done before the end of the semester. We did our experiment (at least the first run) for Lab II. We were making a stove from aluminum cans and 200 proof ethanol or pure methanol. It required a few Heineken cans because of the unique shape, so we drank some beer for science. Got my controls test back yesterday, and I was almost exactly average. Go figure. Listening to some Thrice at the moment. This sounds a lot like Dustin's solo stuff. Good stuff. Easy, instrumental.

Now Playing: Thrice - The Alchemy Index, Vol. 4: Earth

12 November 2009, 11:05 AM

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:05:00 EDT

About to go pick Meagan up from class for lunch, then back to the lab for a while, then maybe Lab II project for a bit, not sure. We will be heading up to Birmingham tomorrow for Tre's birthday, he's 3. It's been a nice week, the only class I had was yesterday, though I was on campus all day because we had to get our lab report finished for Lab II. This is the last canned lab report, all we have left is our design of experiments project. Let's see, what else.... I drove without a seatbelt on in front of ~30 cops yesterday... oh the joys of valet parking. We had about 5 fire trucks come to the president's mansion full of people, so that was fun. The national conference was good. I didn't win anything for my poster, but one of our people did get 2nd in his category, so that was good that we had a showing. And............ that's it.

Now Playing: R.E.M. - Automatic For The People

6 November 2009, 7:45 AM

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:45:00 EDT

So, the week is effectively done here in Auburn. I'm all packed up for nationals, (hopefully) ready for my controls test, made some good progress at the lab, and I have the poster ready. I wasn't able to get the NSF application done, but I just saw it this past week, and I'd rather wait a year and do a good job than rush and write three sloppy essays. Now, off to the national conference. Of course, after I ace my controls test :) Anyone want to do Laplace transforms for me for two hours or so? I'll be your best friend.... promise....

Now Playing: Thrice - Beggars

Now Reading: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

1 November 2009, 4:55 PM

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:55:00 EDT

So, on the to-do list for the week: apply for the NSF scholarship, ace the 2nd controls test, get my poster ready for nationals, get money and everything else ready for nationals, continue to work towards an answer on the best sequences at the lab, keep up with all my other schoolwork, eat, and sleep. Pretty much in that priority order :) Busy times, but it's a good kind of busy. We went to a couple of Halloween parties last night. We weren't out too late... basically going to them just made the group that we were with feel old, because it was three couples total, 2 engaged, and 1 with a member in grad school, so yeah we're pretty oldish I guess. But, the thing is, I don't really miss being earlier in my college life, it's nice to be looking ahead to other things. Meagan is putting together a batch of our sauce, even though we're not even eating that tonight, but it will still be delicious when we do have it. We've done a pretty good job of keeping a freezer stock of veggie soup, chili, and our red meat sauce lately, along with the standard frozen chicken fish and veggies, making for easy dinner throw-togethers. My spell checker is telling me that throw-togethers is not a word, but I simply do not agree. Now time to stop trying to avoid doing my homework that's due tomorrow. Until next time.

20 October 2009, 10:41 PM

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:41:00 EDT

So, let's see, what did I do today? Started off going to class. Got my midterm back in Process Design. Was about average, and I was OK with my mistakes because they were conceptual mistakes that are correctable rather than stupid math mistakes or something. After that Meagan and I grabbed lunch at Moe's. The one downtown really really needs a second register. After that, off to the lab for more fun with HEXB and a discussion about the way forward for the project with Dr. Martin. After that I got caught up on some AIChE stuff. Then, off to the President's Mansion to park cars for the Chinese ambassador's shindig with Deans and selected students and such. We didn't get food tonight because everyone showed up for the event, so that was sad. No homework tonight, which is super-nice. I may play a spot of online poker - I threw a few bucks on a few weeks ago to mess around with. I'm starting out at the micro levels of a tourney format that I've had some success with to get a baseline for what my personal max winrate is for that type of tournament. They are the 45-person tourneys, I'll probably play at least 45*3 or 45*5 to get a baseline, based on the fact that if you flip a 45-sided coin 45 times you'll win about 68% (1-1/e) of the time, but do it 45*3 or 45*5 times and you start to approach 100% (1-3/e & 1-5/e). Should be a fun little project. Meagan says Allie pup is tired out today (and she certainly was yesterday) from playing out at Kiesel. That may be her new favorite place, and I certainly won't complain about her being calm and sleepy (the pup, not Meagan). So, that's about all.

8 October 2009, 9:54 PM

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:54:00 EDT

So today I submitted my applications for UAB and GaTech/Emory. Hope for the best! Tomorrow I'll be driving to Birmingham, then to Mississippi to park cars with David and Brock. On the lab front we're waiting for the latest sequencing results to get back. Again, Hope for the best! And and and... time for bed soon. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya' tomorrow, you're always a day away...

6 October 2009, 1:20 PM

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:20:00 EDT

Chillin' out over at Meagan's after lunch, about to go to the store to pick up a few things. I'll be going into the lab later this afternoon, then it's a not very busy night that will involve poker on ESPN and probably writing up of my personal statement for grad school apps. Maybe, just maybe, I'll try to get ahead on some homework as well. We'll see. And that's about all that's going on in my pretty standard senior-in-college life. Time to go make sure Allie doesn't chew Marley up now...

2 October 2009, 10:09 AM

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:09:00 EDT

Over at Meagan's getting ready to head to campus. I drove over here this morning so that Meagan could pick me up straight from my meeting about AIChE with Dr. Byrne this afternoon to head back towards Birmingham. It's the end of a packed week. I have a controls test in a bit, but we're allowed to make a cheat sheet for it so I'm not too terribly concerned. So, I get to spend an hour or so in Laplace land today, hooray for that. I'm looking forward to seeing my family because I haven't in a while. On the grad school front, I've been looking some more at the specific labs at UAB and we're looking good. Next step, ask for rec letters. Annnnnnnnnnd that's it I guess, boring life, not too much going on. But, that's my story and I guess I like it.

23 September 2009, 6:52 AM

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:52:00 EDT

So, Sorry for not updating, but I've been quite busy. Between lab, AIChE, school, and the whole being engaged thing, by the time I get a free minute I kind of just want to sit around. So, on those fronts, lab is going well, I think. We're not there yet, but we're getting close. AIChE is going fine, we've had several companies come and talk now. We're focusing on getting ready for nationals now. On the school front, it's nothing too bad so far still. I got my credit check yesterday for graduation and that's all good. For after graduation, the latest development is that they started a genetic counseling program at UAB that Meagan is very interested in. I would like UAB, they have a lot of good labs for what I'm interested in as well. Meagan always wanted to do a genetic counseling program, but until now none were available anywhere at all close geographically. On the whole being engaged thing, that's going well too. After looking around some, we decided to go to the Carribean instead of Hawaii because we can still do all the fun things we want to do for cheaper, and it will be less hassle and expense for family to get down there, so that will be good. The tentative plan is to have the ceremony with family on Paradise island, then catch a ferry over to Eleuthera to honeymoon. We drove up to Birmingham last wednesday to talk to our parents about it, and everyone is excited. Now, I suppose I'll go jump in the shower to get ready for class. Another long day ahead, but I like the long days. Until next time...

7 September 2009, 12:19 PM

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:19:00 EDT

So Meagan got over here a few minutes ago, and we're starting up the pasta sauce that takes about 6 hours to make. We're making a double batch this time so that we can freeze a good bit of it to save for later since it takes so long to make, but is so delicious. School is going well so far. I've got a pretty nice schedule as it turns out. We're working towards getting the second gene we need, HEXB, at the lab for treatment in cats soon. The grant for the current work just went through, and Dr. Martin has decided that we're going to use the feline genes, so I've been pretty busy with that lately when I haven't been in class. The first game was nice. We tailgated at Jeff's girlfriend Amanda's house, and much appreciated the free and excellent food and drinks. I'm not sure we'll be great this year, but from the first game it looks like maybe we can at least put up a decent fight against some teams and make some of the games at least remotely interesting to watch. I'm going to do something highly unusual in a while and actually start doing some of the homework that I need to have done by Wednesday now, instead of waiting for tomorrow. I suppose it will be good to get ahead a bit with the holiday. Allie is doing pretty good. She's still biting a lot, but I suppose that's to be expected from a puppy. Reading A Brief History of Time currently. It's actually quite approachable. The biggest thing I'm seeing from it is how incredibly important a contribution general relativity has been to modern physics. I'm going to be curious to eventually read the updated version from 2005. I can certainly appreciate efforts towards a unified theory, but, as Voltaire states through Candide, "we must cultivate our garden." Or in our case today, we must make our meat sauce. Until next time. (Actually, we won't be making meat sauce until the next time I post, though the process is indeed long and arduous.)

Now Playing: Three Dog Night - Hard Labor

Now Reading: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

20 August 2009, 6:32 PM

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:32:00 EDT

So today I talked to the Principles and Intro classes about AIChE. Should be a pretty good year. About to make some dinner with Kevin, Meagan, and Rebecca. Going home tomorrow for the weekend. Classes are going well. Easy so far, but hey, I suppose that's how it goes initially. Just got the latest sequencing results back from the lab, and they're lookin' clean. Good stuff. That's all. Until next time...

9 August 2009, 5:36 PM

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:36:00 EDT

I decided to stay in Birmingham one more day. Either that, or go back late tonight. Either way, Meagan and I are making dinner with her family. I don't have to go into the lab until tomorrow afternoon, so it's a good opportunity to stick around for a bit. My parents left for the beach this morning. The start of school is looming ominously on the horizon. I'm actually looking forward to starting senior year, but between classes, AIChE, research, applying to PhD programs, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, I know I'm going to be quite busy. I finally broke down and ordered some loose leaf tea online today. I got some at the store the other day before going to Brock's new apartment to check it out, but the price per ounce in Birmingham is simply unjustifiable, especially considering all of the canisters are sealed so you can't smell it anyway. So, that should be nice. I got quite a bit so it should last me for a while. Got some green, some oolong, and my favorite - white. White just has the most complex flavors, and it's nice and light and stuff.

7 August 2009, 1:20 PM

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:20:00 EDT

So we got HEXB inserts at the lab! This is a very good thing. Now we just have to verify that it's full length, and then we can test for expression in cells. Yay. About to head on up to Birmingham to see the family before school starts back up. I cleaned out my iTunes the other day. I took it from about 27,000 songs down to about 9,000. So, it's much much cleaner now. Very good. Much easier to find the music that I'm actually going to listen to, and to find old favorites that were lost in the muddle. Also, I've discovered a new love of hand-made mind maps to keep track of tasks. It's very useful for a lot of things. Sometimes a simple list works best, but mind maps are a good tool. Met with the advisor for AIChE yesterday. Hopefully we'll be able to execute some of the ideas we bounced around, we'll see. In other news, the apartment diagonal from me has a large blue hose running into it at the moment sucking out all of the nastiness so that it will be clean for my new, currently unknown neighbor. Hopefully they will be cool. Already have 3 new neighbors fairly recently, and lots of people moved out, so we'll have (presumably) lots of people moving in as well. I think assumably should be a word. Maybe it is, I don't know. I mean, you presume, and you can say presumably, and you assume, so you should be able to say assumably. Just based on logic. But, unfortunately, language and logic do not always coincide. And that's the way it is. Until next time.

Now Playing: A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step

3 August 2009, 3:04 PM

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:04:00 EDT

So school is sneaking up on me. It's odd that this is the 2nd to last week of summer. It's been nice, but it will be good to get going with Senior year as well. I'm at the lab right now about to get the results from a big PCR I got going this morning. If this one goes well, then we'll know that we have what we think is the full-length expressive gene that we're looking for. We already got one, HEXA. Now we're getting this one, HEXB. It's been going well, I just want to be sure we have a clean product to get into a plasmid. That's where the HEXA gene we have is living right now - it's a more stable way to store the genes. So, in any case, it's exciting that it seems to be going well. I'm kind of running up against a wall in that summer is almost over, and there is still a lot to be done. I know I've got fall and spring, but I won't be able to dedicate as large of blocks of time, so I'm trying to make as much progress as possible by the end of the summer. The workers have been all over my apartment complex making all sorts of noise the past few days. It's an odd feeling to be there during all of it. Wal-Mart is all stocked up. The calm before the storm from the dorms. Things move so fast. It's odd to think that Monday, August 17 will be the last time I'll experience the first day of class (at least as an undergrad student) at Auburn University. And, of course, each experience is unique and all that jazz, but many are a lot like other ones, and when you come to the end of a chain of ones that are like each other, it just makes you think about stuff. So, that's about all. Until next time.

2 August 2009, 4:20 PM

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:20:00 EDT

So Meagan and I endeavored to make ravioli and meat sauce from scratch yesterday. It was only a partial failure. The meat sauce was wonderful, but the Ravioli was a fail. We made Alton Brown's recipe. I think it was a combination of the facts that neither one of us has very much experience with working with dough, and that we didn't get in Meagan's new pasta machine yet to do some of the dirty work for us, i.e. get the pasta thin enough. Jeff and his gf Amanda came over to join Meagan and Kevin and I for dinner. So, in any case, we will try again on the pasta, hopefully with more success. In other news, the apartments are currently being turned at my complex. Everyone had to be out on the 31st who is moving out, and people will start coming in soon as well. Should be nice to get some new neighbors. It is odd to see how eerily empty the complex is at the moment. A kind of odd guy greeted me at the dumpsters today. He was dumpster diving, and asked if there was any good stuff. I told him that there was a pretty good looking couch, but that it had been picked up. There has been some perfectly good furniture gone through. Sad day. Oh well. It happens. I suppose it's not really so sad, because people are moving on to bigger and better things, at least that is probably their intention, and they leave some of their stuff behind because they can't take it. And someone can use it. So I guess it's alright. Kevin is rating all of his music in his iTunes, and that makes me think, I should clean out my iTunes sometime. But that would be quite the task. I mean, it would take a really really long time. Maybe I should just delete everything and start over. Or, less extreme, perhaps save what I know for sure I want to keep, and then delete everything else. Who knows. Well, whatever. Maybe I will. Maybe not. Probably will. Don't know when though.

Now Reading: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt

28 July 2009, 12:23 AM

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:23:00 EDT

So, today I learned how to make RSS feeds, made one for my site that works with Facebook, formatted all my MySQL entries to be compatible, updated all of my links to be absolute, and tagged as many people as I could until getting to now and being pretty much completely exhausted. I still have people to tag, so if you are still left out don't feel bad. Except for you, Garett and Jeff, because for some odd reason I have no mention of the two of you over six years of posts - you guys have permission to feel bad. But, now I've mentioned you... hahaha. Fun times. It was good to read through all of my old posts, and it makes me feel good to know that I've pretty much always had really strange sleep schedules... this is not something that has developed since starting college. I'll be going in to the lab at 10 tomorrow morning to get going on stuff. We're ploughing on ahead. Ah and Meagan, I saw that for some reason you were not following me on Twitter. I assume this is probably because you either see me all the time, or religiously check my site, but I took the liberty of logging into your account and re-following myself. I suppose the next step is to post all the wonderful recipes that Meagan sent over to me yesterday, but that is going to have to wait for another day. I am simply too tired to pursue a new project at the moment. After that, I'd also like to get a Flickr account and set up all the Facebook auto-streaming fanciness on that as well (and I'm sure I'll be able to figure a way to integrate it into my site as well). I ordered the new facial recognition iPhoto today, so I'll be able to upload directly to Flickr, and I think I'll prefer to do that and then pump it into Facebook, because getting data out of Facebook is a serious pain in the neck, and you have to be logged in with a Facebook account as well, which is also annoying. So yeah. Lots of ideas. Probably a bit ambitious of me, but hey, ambition makes the world go round. Actually, it really doesn't at all. Unless it's some sort of metaphysical ambition. But current philosophy says that's just bunk. Absolute bunk. I'm not sure I agree entirely. Well, I think I've stretched everyone's cerebral cortex abstract thinking about as far as they may like for it to go for at least the next few minutes, so on to your next blog, or a news site about Iran, or to check your portfolio. And maybe, after a bit, open a good book, and discover why variety in your activities is a central factor for attacking whatever problems you're facing today. That's my humble opinion, but I'm just a kid of 2 and 20. Nick Cochran, when you're reading this old old post in 5 years, and when you're reading this post that seems like it was just made yesterday in 25 years, but was made by someone probably completely different from the someone you are, ask yourself, Don't you remember how foolish you were at just 2 and 20? Do you remember how ambitious you were?

27 July 2009, 1:53 PM

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:53:00 EDT

About to go back to the lab. I've made an RSS feed of the side so that Facebook can see my posts, so that's pretty cool. I just need to get it to read html tags now. In any case, gotta run.

26 July 2009, 12:37 PM

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:37:00 EDT

So I am now on Twitter. I finally gave in. It's much easier to hook up updates than Facebook Connect, so that's nice. And, I tied it in to my Facebook status anyway, so we're just generally good to go. Back in Auburn from the beach, looking forward to making some good progress at the lab this week. Not too much else to talk about. I'm reading The Crying of Lot 49 right now. It's wacky. It's a much easier read than V., but I get the feel that Pynchon stuff is generally more difficult to follow than your average novel. That's all for today.

20 July 2009, 8:25 AM

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:25:00 EDT

We are at the beach. I would be out in the sand, but I'm the first one up, so I figured I'd combat a 1 bar wifi signal and low battery on Meagan's computer and try to update my site. I wouldn't have been able to update before now, because yesterday we had quite the ordeal with having to move across the condo complex we're at, the other one has some water damage and was losing tiles in one of the bathrooms :O The good news is, this one is nicer, and the kitchen is nicer, which is good b/c Meagan and I will be making some meals for everyone. At any rate, I think I'll go now and start doing beachy things.

15 July 2009, 3:26 PM

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:26:00 EDT

At the lab about to send off two FedEx packages. One for sequencing, one of cDNA for HEXA, one of the genes I'm working with. I'll need to go by the post office after this to send off my speeding ticket check (yes, I got a ticket) to Tennessee. Oh, yes, also, very exciting, we saw two bears in Gatlinburg. It was quite thrilling. Also exciting, I got inserts into the plasmids for HEXA in this last cloning, so that's very very good. Now we just need HEXB, I think we'll probably just get new primers and do more overlapping, just smaller steps this time. Tonight Meagan and I are planning to make panko-crusted tilapia to go with the wonderful veggie soup I made last night, and some salad to round it off. I love making soup b/c the smell just lingers and it's so good. Other than that, not too much going on. I've been looking more closely at the labs and GaTech/Emory, it looks promising. It's quite a task to go through everything for all the schools we're looking at... tracking down papers, getting a feel for the lab, etc etc etc. Well, that's about it. Time to go send off those packages.

9 July 2009, 2:26 PM

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:26:00 EDT

And I'm in Birmingham now, in between the car trips. I'm currently waiting on Brock to get home from a meeting he had at 2, so just killing a few minutes. 65 has such random things going on that cause traffic bottlenecks.... today there was one lane for a while, and all they were doing was moving some dirt around on the side of the road.... oh well, not too much of a delay, and I wasn't in too big of a hurry. So Meagan and I looked at GaTech/Emory more closely last night. They have a lot of labs in their neuroscience / animal behavior program that she is interested in, and I really like what Tech has for biomedical engineering - the labs include some interesting neuroscience labs, as well as more general stuff dealing with gene therapy and drug delivery. And, Atlanta is not too far away. I set up hosting with GoDaddy this morning. I figured it's about time for me to stop paying $27/mo for hosting when I can actually get more at GoDaddy for $7/mo. It's just a hassle to move over, but luckily I can test everything out and get it all working so that it will be a seamless transition. So that will be nice. Looking forward to seeing everyone on my Mom's side in 6-7 hours, it's always nice to catch up with everyone. All of them have gotten on facebook lately though, so we all know what's going on with each other all the time anyway now. On another note, I've completed my Kubrick quest on movies - I even got his old stuff like fear and desire and his short films made very early in his career. Dead guys are always good for getting full collections from b/c you know it's not going to change. I think I have most Tarantino stuff, and I'm working on Spielberg too, which is quite a feat. Got as far as Thunderball on the Bond series so far. Haven't really been into any new music lately, still mostly stuck on the Beatles with some other stuff thrown in occasionally. Still reading Ending Aging, but also I've started a couple other books too, just to spice things up. Note to self - I need to start studying for the GRE when I get back. Not too concerned about it, but it can't hurt to have a look at some sample tests or whatnot. Still doing lots of cooking and watching of Good Eats with Meagan. I recently acquired the new season 13 episodes, and I want to try making the meat sauce he made most recently, the only problem is it will probably take literally all day one day to do, b/c it takes a long time and needs constant attention. I am really rambling, wow. Oh well, guess I'm in a posty mood. I think I just made a new word too. Good for me. But I'm stopping now. No, really. I'm done. Stop reading. Stop. Seriously. OK, I'm done now.

8 July 2009, 7:39 PM

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:39:00 EDT

So I've been playing around with Facebook Connect today some. Hence, the button in the top corner. Right now it's not too terribly interesting, it just shows you my status if you log in. But, eventually I'd like to integrate as much of the site as I can with Facebook. I should be able to make it push data to Facebook as well as read data from Facebook, and people can make comments and such using their Facebook info. It's kind of a cool thing, I just need to figure out more of the technical side of things. It looks like the FQL thing could be promising... we'll just have to see. In any case... just had some pizza with Meagan, we'll be hanging out tonight. I'll be going to Gatlinburg tomorrow with the family, meeting up with my mom's side extended family. The lab is going pretty well, at least I hope so. Got the most recent batch of plasmids from the last cloning isolated today, so next week I'll see if we got what we wanted. That's all. Until later.

1 July 2009, 8:42 PM

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:42:00 EDT

So, the last few days have been full of research, pool, cooking, and Bond, James Bond. Meagan and I just made a wonderful meal of chicken tikka masala with basmati rice, kale with lemon juice and balsamic vinegar, and our standard salad, toasted bread and tea. This afternoon we watched Goldfinger. I've seen parts of it on TV, but never the whole thing straight through. I've been watching the James Bonds films, I've recently acquired all 23. And, of course, I'm watching them in the order they came out. You can't beat 47 years of film history in, well, as long as it takes to watch them. Research is going well, but not well. Well in that I always have something to do and I'm getting better at what I'm doing, but not well in that we haven't gotten good results on what we're working on at the moment, but we'll just keep plugging away. I have my work cut out for me tomorrow and the first three days of next week, after which I will be going to Gatlinburg for an extended family gathering on my Mom's side... should be good. Ah yes, pool. It has been nice. Meagan and I have been going in the afternoons sometimes recently for a bit to be hot, then cool off in the pool, then get dry and be hot again, and repeat. And to make some vitamin D, naturally. I've been reading Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey. Contrary to the title, it's not a crazy book about how to live forever, but rather about considering the major factors that contribute to normal aging, outside of diseases, and what to do about it. In other words, what gets to us if nothing else does. For the most part, we're in the stage of identifying these things and how they work, and we are started to develop very very limited techniques to combat them, but it will be quite some time before we understand the metabolic mechanisms involved in all of them. His point is that, we don't have to in order to add healthy years. His analogy is that a mechanic doesn't have to know how a belt in a car got worn out to replace it.... that may be a process that's really difficult to understand. But, replacing a belt when it's worn but still functional is a lot better than having the belt snap and cause all sorts of damage in the rest of the engine. As someone interested in Biomedical engineering / Neuroscience, his ideas are interesting because he wants to address, fundamentally, how do we use our knowledge of biology to live fuller, more complete lives. We have the greatest gift in that we are the most sentient beings on this planet that are alive and bound by time (at least while we are alive, now), and my personal view is that we should maximize this gift. Now, I think I am feeling productive, so I think I will go read something, maybe more of Ending Aging, maybe start The Crying of Lot 49.... maybe another book on my to read shelf, who knows? I'm just glad that I can think about the future enough to consider the possibilities.

Now Playing: Better Than Ezra - Closer

20 June 2009, 12:04 PM

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:04:00 EDT

Fun party last night, and Ichiban tonight! Yes! Well, very nice indeed anyway. Finally finished Island... Huxley got more dense as he got older, apparently. Now I can move on to one of the other umpteen books on my to-read list. Going to Moe's with Kevin in a minute. Again, yummy. What a yummy day ahead. If computers ever take over, we'll still have a leg up in that we can eat, and enjoy it. That's my thoughts on the matter anyway.

Now Playing: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Side 1)

19 June 2009, 4:14 PM

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:14:00 EDT

Bored at the lab. Waiting on a gel to run, then I'll be done for the day. And that will be nice too... I need to get out in this pleasant sun. Very nice day today. Some of my friends are throwing a party tonight that I'll be going to, would be going up to Birmingham for fathers day but my family is in North Carolina getting Brock moved out of his place up there. I'll probably be heading on up to Birmingham tomorrow anyway so that I can eat at Ichiban with the guys though... delicious. It's definitely worth the drive. Well, I suppose I'm about out of boring things to talk about for today. Until next time.

18 June 2009, 11:36 AM

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:36:00 EDT

Oh, I love summer. During the school year, it would be impossible to catch up on a show like Burn Notice within a week without losing a couple of nights of sleep (something, I am sorry to admit, I have indeed done to catch up on TV shows that I became addicted to). But, in summer time, it is possible to do so and still maintain a perfectly normal schedule. So now, I can watch the 3rd episode of season 3 just like someone who has loyally followed the show from the beginning. Oh how nice. In any case, I'll be going into the lab in a bit. I am bouncing around some ideas in my head about how to go about some things, and we finally got the latest sequencing results back, so good good. Just had a wonderful lunch of chicken and tomatoes left over from last night. Yesterday I also discovered that compass has a cool thing to track your charges by categories, which is fun, and I playing with that for probably too long categorizing my purchases back to like... well, since I've had my compass account. It automatically does most of them, so not really as many as it seems, but still. In any case, I'm out now. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Now Playing: Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3

15 June 2009, 1:35 PM

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:35:00 EDT

Not going into the lab today. Our most recent sequences aren't back from Harvard yet, so we kind of have to wait on those to proceed. About to run, though I think I pulled some muscle on my left side just above my waist somehow.... kind of annoying, didn't know it was possible to pull something there, but oh, yes, it certainly is. So, today, I think I'll continue some of the summer cleaning out I've been doing in the various closets and under the bed etc where I clean out all the stuff I need to but never do b/c it's easier just to let it sit there. So yeah.

Now Playing: The Beatles - Help! (Side 2)

8 June 2009, 11:41 PM

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:41:00 EDT

Just got back from playing poker. Figured I'd go tonight since I'm not going into the lab tomorrow. Lost back what I won last time I played, so I guess that's fair. But, probably won't be playing for a while since I'm poor now without co-op and I need to save my monies. Good day at the lab. Got the samples from Friday sent off to Harvard and re-ran the HEXB PCR with good concentration, much cleaner, results. Other than that just ran at lunch time and took a nap before poker, so that's about all I've been up to today. Prob going to read until I fall asleep, and try to get some reading in tomorrow. At some point I need to start prepping for the GRE since I'm taking it Aug 13. But no worries, I have some time before then. Though time does have a way of getting away from us. And so it goes.

6 June 2009, 4:45 PM

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:45:00 EDT

Got some BBQ chicken marinating in the fridge. It's going to be some good stuff... BBQ sauce, A1, Dales, balsamic vinegar, Tabasco, and 14 oz. of beer (that specific amount just over 12 oz. for reasons that should be obvious). Other than that not too much going on. I have decided that the used-to-be blank wall in my room should be dedicated to having people sign it / draw on it / etc, so that should be fun. I may post pictures eventually. Maybe. We'll see. I have not been making as much progress on reading as I would like lately, still stuck on Island, about halfway through. Research is going relatively well. I was able to get more of what we think is the correct product for one of the genes we're working towards for sure yesterday, and the other one wasn't quite as clean, but I'll prob re-run it with some new PCR parameters Monday. And we'll send off some more stuff to Harvard for sequencing... the last results were an epic fail. For the microbiology minded out there, you can see my progress presentation if you like. It may be a bit hard to follow without commentary, but it will at least give interested parties a chance to see what I'm doing with myself this summer. In other news I think it'd be cool to set up a slashdot-esque type page where if you scroll down it'll keep loading previous posts, but I don't know how to do that. Probably would take some coding gymnastics. Oh well I at least need to get my archived posts accessible. They are all living in my database... I just need to make sure links to old pics and stuff aren't broken. I'll get around to doing that someday, someday, someday. Hasta un otro tiempo...

3 June 2009, 8:12 AM

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:12:00 EDT

So I woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep... great... Oh well, it's nice to get up with the sun from time to time. Did the same thing the other day only at 4:30... that was not as much fun, b/c then I had to wait on the sun to catch up with me. So, I got up, went for a run down Longleaf, then came back and dunked myself in the pool for a while... That was nice and refreshing. About to go eat some eggs and bacon at Trey and Scotty's place, then off to the lab to play with DNA all day.

Now Playing: The Beatles - Revolver (Side 2) <- which is completely excellent, btw

31 May 2009, 1:28 PM

Sun, 31 May 2009 13:28:00 EDT

Back in Auburn. Cleaning out the pantries today, then shopping later to fill them up with things that didn't expire in 2007 :O I love the summer, it's so nice, and I love the heat, and I love air conditioning to take it away.

Now Playing: Three Dog Night - Joy to the World: Their Greatest Hits

29 May 2009, 12:36 PM

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:36:00 EDT

Going home to Birmingham today to get some Ichiban's (and of course see my family :) I'll call over to the lab in a bit to see if our sequences have gotten back from Harvard... if so I'll go in for a bit this afternoon, if not I suppose I'll just wait until Monday. But yes, my main goal for the day is to consume some excellent Japanese food. Yay. That's all. Time to go get packed up.

Now Playing: The Mamas & The Papas - Deliver

27 May 2009, 1:49 PM

Wed, 27 May 2009 13:49:00 EDT

Today I'm working on a presentation for the lab. It's serving to further my understanding of what I've been working on for the most part, which will be important in crafting a detailed honors thesis. Looking back over the papers I've read initially is good to form a better understanding of things, each time around after spending more time with these ideas in my mind, I'm able to develop a clearer picture. I may post the presentation on here when I get done, pending permission. I don't think it's sensitive information, and I'd like for people to know what I've been working on since February and will be spending a great deal of time this summer doing. That's all. Back to it.

Now Reading: Island by Aldous Huxley

17 May 2009, 3:18 PM

Sun, 17 May 2009 15:18:00 EDT

The mindful observer will note that I added some more non-blog content, in parallel with my updating of info in the form of actually putting up some info on my facebook page. I am quite proud of myself for doing so within two days of talking about it. The tonsils are coming along well, I went about 24 hours Saturday without pain medicine. Back on it today, but Saturday was encouraging. I feel like I should feel better by Tuesday, I have an appointment tomorrow to check up on things, but I think it should go off without a hitch. I stepped out of my comfort zone and bought a pair of plaid shorts today. Given, they are dark shorts with only a subtle plaid, but I still felt like a conformist for adhering to this season's trend of plaid shorts everywhere. Oh well, I like them, and they were cheap. I got them at T.J. Maxx out shopping with Brock. Wasn't even planning on getting anything, but I needed some shorts and just browsed around a bit and found them, bought them, end of story. Talking too much about this. I also found that, having become skinnier in the waist, my green nylonish material pants from Spain fit me again, which is nice b/c they are super comfortable. And they should be, considering they were about 60 euros as I recall, or somewhere thereabouts. I really like all the clothes I got in Spain, and most of them still fit, which is nice. What else, what else.... I'll be doing birthday celebration things with the family tomorrow lunch / afternoon, then heading back to Auburn late afternoon / early evening. That should give me some time to get things ready for Tuesday, get things cleaned up, get beer in the chiller, etc. I'm really looking forward to this summer. I know I've said that before, but it's going to be nice to just be able to relax and do some research, read, watch movies, cook good meals, etc. Only really not an etc, b/c I'm happy with that list of things. This summer will be a nice transition into senior sequence. Wow pretty long post, guess I am in a rambling mood today. But, that is about all that I have to say, so I suppose I'll sign out.

Now Reading: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

15 May 2009, 7:00 PM

Fri, 15 May 2009 19:00:00 EDT

More of the same, starting to feel like I'm getting a bit better. I was able to go the whole night last night without drugs, took pain medicine about 6 pm, then just some advil at 10, then slept thru the night and made it without drugs until 10:15, then until 5:30. So, it's going better, I am able to swallow continuously now, as in while drinking, so that's good, and meals are going down less painfully. I feel like I'm making good progress, so let's hope that keeps up. Finished up Around the World in 80 Days and on to Animal Farm now. Strangely enough, I've never read Animal Farm, don't know how I never got around to it, but I have now. Also, I've managed to get most of my TV Shows in iTunes well-organized which I've wanted to do for some time. Most have correct numbering/titles/descriptions now, so I'm happy. The AFI collection is coming along well too. I'm completely done with the updated 10 year list, and I'm only lacking one on the original list, the DVD is waiting in my mailbox in Auburn. After this I guess I'll move on to specific directors/actors. One thing that has occurred to me is that it will take me an exceedingly long time to watch all of these movies, but no worries, I'll get to them at some point. I have plans to add some non-blog content soon, we will see how it goes. I never seem to do that as quickly as I like, but it is summer, and I will be having some time on my hands, so perhaps I can motivate myself to be a bit productive.

Now Reading: Animal Farm by George Orwell

14 May 2009, 6:16 PM

Thu, 14 May 2009 18:16:00 EDT

Sleep, drugs, eat, read, sleep, drugs, sleep, internet, drugs, eat, sleep, repeat.

Now Reading: Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

13 May 2009, 9:52 AM

Wed, 13 May 2009 09:52:00 EDT

So, the week moves on. Trey left yesterday for Iowa to see Andrea, so I don't get to have him in town to play with anymore, sad story. Oh well. I'm just taking drugs, eating, sleeping, trying to get better now. I need to be better before Tuesday (my birthday) because we have scheduled a birthday in Auburn for me. David and Brock are both going to try to come down, hopefully they will be able to make it. And then, I'll be starting research for the summer - I'm so relieved that I passed all my classes and won't be re-taking anything over the summer. I was legitimately concerned about getting out of Analysis alive... I had a hard time with that course. But, it's funny, because I actually ended up with a B in there, and I expected a C, and I got a C in reactions, and expected a B, but hey whatever, it's done, and I'm ready to go into senior sequence. Time to go read my book. Maybe I can get finished or almost finished with it today, though it is a bit of a dense read. Good, but dense.

Now Reading: Fantastic Voyage by Ray Kurzweil

10 May 2009, 5:39 PM

Sun, 10 May 2009 17:39:00 EDT

So, I got my tonsils out Friday morning. It has not been nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting to be laid up in bed not able to do anything, but I was actually able to get out with the guys last night. We went to Ichiban, then bowling, then to Trey's house and played some bumper pool for a while. It was a good time, and nice to get out of the house. I'll pretty much be in Birmingham for the next week on hydrocodone, reading, trying to eat, etc. Grades turned out OK all things considered for the semester, ended up with a 3.0 average for the semester which, while not good compared to some semesters, was OK this time around. Only 25 hours left to graduate.... strange. I am looking forward to summer. All I have to definitively do is research for prob 20-30 hours per week, past that I can pretty much do what I like, which will be very nice. I'm planning on cooking and reading a lot, and on watching lots of movies, lots of old movies prob. Indeed, not a bad summer coming up at all. That's about it, I'll probably post some during this week since I will probably be pretty bored. Until next time...

3 May 2009, 1:27 PM

Sun, 03 May 2009 13:27:00 EDT

Time to study for Reactions. Parents came down yesterday, I made chili, it was good. That's about all that's going on. And no matter what, in four days exams will be over, and summer will be here. I just hope I don't have to re-take a class for the first time (Analysis), but I guess all I can do is do what I can to prepare and hope that my knowledge is sufficient.

30 April 2009, 7:40 PM

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:40:00 EDT

Today I:
- Went to the lab and ran PCR for HexA, one of the sub-units we're trying to get cat-specific cDNA for to fix kitties with.
- Washed and vacuumed my car
- Ran gel for the PCR I ran earlier, got faint results
- Watched revolutionary road
- Ate pizza while watching good eats
- Chopped up a bell pepper
- Posted on my website
- Started studying for finals (pending)

Now Playing: Fair to Midland, Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times is True

6 April 2009, 8:35 PM

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:35:00 EDT

I am now the president-elect of AIChE at Auburn. Yay! That is all.

5 April 2009, 9:53 PM

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:53:00 EDT

Just got back from the AIChE regional conference in Tuscaloosa. It was a really good time. Met some new people and got to know some people better. Now I'm working on my assignments that were due friday as well as the ones that are due tomorrow. I should have done the ones that were due friday already, but, I didn't. Other than that, it's a fairly relaxed night. Just winding down from the weekend / winding up for the week. That doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but it makes sense to me, so I guess it's OK. Back to listening to The Mamas and The Papas, doing laundry, doing dishes, doing homework, etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum....

7 March 2009, 1:00 AM

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:00:00 EDT

I'm about to go eat some fajitas with Meagan... yummy, then in a bit Trey and Scotty and maybe Matt are coming over to watch the AU-LSU basketball game at my place since it's sold out on tickets. I've been thinking recently that I should do something with nanopinions.com and neuropinions.com.... maybe I will, who knows, prob will have to wait until over the summer though when I have some free time again. Busy week coming up going into spring break, lots of tests/assignments, etc. Guess it's good though to get stuff done so not too much is hanging over our heads during the break. I'm looking forward to spending some time with my family and Meagan and her family over the break... it will be a welcome change from school since it's been so busy for me this semester. I think I did well on the separations test I had yesterday so that's good. I guess that's about it.

26 February 2009, 11:00 AM

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Almost through with the busy week. The analysis test last night was pretty difficult, as expected. It's hard to gauge how well I did, but I think I was probably on par with the rest of the class. I went over to SRRC this morning. There is a weekly meeting on Thursdays, so I got to hear about some of the things that are going on in the different labs. My research application is almost complete... Dr. Martin is working on his end of things, and so we should be able to get that in sometime this afternoon or tomorrow morning. About to go eat some mexican with Meagan at Acupulco's.... that will be a good break before getting going on reactions hw, studying for organismal lab practical, and doing an organic project :( I guess the busy week is not quite over yet... But after tonight, it will be, and I can start to get ahead on school stuff rather than just keep up... Until next time, signing off.

22 February 2009, 1:43 PM

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:43:00 EDT

Atlanta was a lot of fun. We ended up going to the aquarium and the coke place... we didn't have time to go to the zoo after Cheesecake Factory. I've been working on school stuff this morning, and will be for the rest of the day. Busy week. That's about it... Just chiming in.

19 February 2009, 2:25 PM

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:25:00 EDT

I have no class or research today which is nice. I do however, have lots of work to do. I took the opportunity to sleep late, make a good lunch of salmon and veggies, and get some laundry going. I think I'm going to go get a haircut and go to Wal-Mart now, then on to school work. Lots of assignments are due coming up next week, plus I have my application for the research fellowship to work on. Meagan and I will be going to Atlanta on Saturday morning, looking forward to that. We are going to the Georgia aquarium over there, which I've heard is really cool. After that, we'll go to the zoo if it's not raining, and the Coke tour thing if it is raining. We'll probably grab some lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in between. Ah btw the reason for this fun trip is that Saturday will be our fifth dating anniversary. Well, I suppose it's off to go do things... busy day ahead.

7 February 2009, 1:18 PM

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:18:00 EDT

I've been sick since Wednesday, and it's just no fun. I think I'm getting better, though so that's good. It's been especially not good because I have quite a busy week coming up, and I had a test yesterday that I bumbled through on a bunch of medicine. But, I know the material much better than I performed on the test, and that always come through by the end of the course anyway so I'm not really worried. I'll be doing lots of school work this afternoon. This semester has been really busy. Of course, I knew that would be the case, but still... it's just non-stop fun :)

22 January 2009, 1:13 PM

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:13:00 EDT

Baby Brooke is here! David sent out a text message this morning. She was born at 11:03 and is healthy with a full head of curly hair. Meagan and I will be traveling home tomorrow after I get out of Biology lab to see her. Have not had too much going today, I don't have class on Thursday so that's nice. I have a meeting at 4 with a professor from the Vet school. I may be doing research soon in his lab, we will see. It would certainly be nice if that worked out. In addition, it's possible that I could do a year long fellowship. Auburn is accepting applications for this coming summer through spring, which would be perfect considering next spring will be when I am graduating. In other news I've discovered a great tea combination. Three teas: a fruit tea mix from the organic grocery store in town (I'm not really all about it, but Meagan likes the granola from there, so we went one day, plus they're the only place I know of in town with loose leaf tea), green tea, and white tea together... Good stuff. Well, I guess that's about it for now. Until next time, signing off...

7 January 2009, 1:21 PM

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:21:00 EDT

So it's the first day back at class. I'm stuck between classes right now with nothing to do so I'm hanging out in the computer lab. I have Music Appreciation at 2, just got done with Analysis, Separations, Organismal Bio, and Reactions. I have to go back for Analysis Lab from 6:00 to 8:45. Bummer. Oh well, these things happen, and it's better in my opinion than having classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which I have none of despite taking 17 hours. So yeah classes are getting serious now... we already got started in all 3 of my ChemE classes, and I already have homework :( But, that is about what I expected, so I don't suppose I can complain too much. Let the games begin...

4 January 2009, 2:53 PM

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:53:00 EDT

So I've done some back-end work on the web site. I now am no longer using phpMyAdmin to edit the database, I wrote up some pages to handle the posts and deletes (If an edit needs to be made, b/c deleting and re-posting seems easier at the moment). You can see them at post.php and delete.php if you are so inclined. You'll notice on the delete.php page if you take a look that the dates are in Unix time format. That's how they're stored in the database by default, php parses them into what you see on the homepage. Kind of an interesting little tidbit. I left them in Unix format on that page b/c that's how I'll reference the post I need to edit if necessary. Anyway, it's all password protected, so it *should* be good to go... it's at least better than the phpMyAdmin, b/c anyone who knew that it was at nickcochran.com/mysql could have edited anything in my database at that point (it's down now though for any pesky visitors :) In any case, that's about all for today. I will be packing up to go back to Auburn tomorrow after lunch for some of today, and generally getting things in order. Later.

3 January 2009, 1:55 PM

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:55:00 EDT

So I just helped David and my dad load up a desk for David to take to his office, that was exciting. I am about to go over to Meagan's in a little bit - we are going to see Benjamin Button with her family in a bit. We have heard it's good, so we'll see I suppose. I will be returning to Auburn on Monday to get things together before classes start. I'm looking forward to a challenging semester. And, Happy 2009! :)

29 December 2008, 3:12 PM

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:12:00 EDT

So I have officially added in as many of the archived entries to my blog that I can find. I am missing a huge chunk between the middle of 2005 and the beginning of 2008, but I don't think I did much updating during that time anyway. I think I lost the archive file for that when my Hypersonic laptop crashed. Sad story. Oh well, I suppose these things happen. It was certainly interesting to read through some of my old posts. They are loaded into the database already, but I need to go through them and fix the broken links, because I am sure that there are lots of broken links. I didn't realize how many updates I had to my blog. There were stretches of time where I updated quite frequently. What's cool about having them all as database entries is that I'll be able to sort them according to year, month, etc in pretty much whatever manner I want. As you can see, I've brought back the side bars, and I'll be adding content. The only real addition at this time is one tutorial of three that I'll be adding for sure about cool little things to do with one's Mac. This one is how to mount a AU drive in finder, specifically an engineering drive. However, this should work for mounting the drives from COSAM and other departments as well. Hopefully someone can make some use of it. Anyway, that's all. I am looking forward to some Papa John's Pizza tonight. Besides that, no real plans. Went Bowling with Meagan and Scotty last night, that was fun. Matt met us when we were finishing up and we went and got some Waffle House, since that's the only place it's possible to go sit down and eat at 10:30 on a Sunday night in Hoover, or so it seems. Meagan and her dad set up their new HD TV service today to go along with their new TV. They are super-exicted, as they should be. They got a very nice TV - 40 in, 1080p, 120Hz, 40,000:1 contrast ratio, etc, etc. I may have to inspect it for quality when I pick Meagan up to come eat pizza with my family :) Also looking forward to Indian food sometime this week, but time to stop rambing. Until next time...

28 December 2008, 3:37 PM

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:37:00 EDT

I went to Sylacauga for the Cochran family Christmas yesterday. Meagan was able to come, which I always enjoy. We did dirty santa with gift cards this year for the first time, and it was a success I think. Meagan and I were looking at the Wayback Machine last night. It was neat to take a look at some of the older revisions of my site. I am planning on creating database entries for all of them (that's how I have the site set up now) so that they will all be available... it should be fun. I'm also planning on creating sections again, and bringing back the sidebars. I should be able to do some pretty cool things with PHP... we will see what happens.

26 December 2008, 3:41 PM

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:41:00 EDT

So I thought I would post a bit more info about the script that I worked with the other day to get IMDb info into iTunes because it's really useful and others may like it. I got the script from this site. Like that site says, you need python, appscript, IMDbPY, and CocoaDialog to get the script working. Python is included with Mac OS X, so you really just need the other three. Once you get that working, you can either use the script that he has on that page, or you can use my modified script. His script will give you a list of the top hits for the movies it think match up and let you choose. My modified version assumes that you want to use the first result, and it worked well for me - I only had to change 1 or 2 out of quite a few movies. A few notes: you have to specify the CocoaDialog location - this is pretty well marked in the script, you have to specify an iTunes playlist. What I did was make a Smart Playlist that just included all of my movies. I called it ~Movies so that it was the second one down after Genius. I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do things, but I was just trying to get it to work. Also, unless you go ahead and select the movies you want it to process, it's just going to do one. So, go ahead and have iTunes open and select the movies that you want to import data for. You have to run the script with Terminal, but if you can get all the stuff above installed then you know that already. Everyone should do some command line compiling and scripting from time to time :) I guess that's my personal opinion, but it sure beats manually copying and pasting from the IMDb website. Sooner or later I'm going to put together a page on this site for cool little things I've figured out how to do with my Mac. Until then....

26 December 2008, 10:45 AM

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:45:00 EDT

I am updating the day after an update! How about that? Christmas was good, pretty laid back. We did presents in the morning with my parents, David, and myself. Brock is in Ecuador for the break with his girlfriend Marisol. His trip is going well so far. My parents got me a nice new watch and golf bag and green tea maker thingy with some green tea. Meagan got me a new car stereo that connects with my iPod and also has bluetooth capability to work with my phone. It's super-cool. Meagan's parents and grandparents got me some sweaters that I wanted, a cool nice chess set, and a Galileo thermometer thingy, all of which are cool. Also, from North Carolina, I got an iPod radio thingy and a bag of goodies from my grandparents. We will be going to Sylacauga on Saturday to complete the Christmas festivities. I went to the Christmas eve service at Shades Mountain the other night. It was good, and I got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in a long time. As I mentioned yesterday I was toying around with Xcode for the mac and Interface Builder. It's difficult because it's a fairly new version without much documentation. I want to build a GUI for a cool script I found online and modified to my liking. The script connects to the IMDb database and retrieves movie info for iTunes. This was good because I have quite a few movies in iTunes, and I didn't want to have to do it manually. Anyway, that's that. I have a big day ahead of not having to do anything at all in particular, so I'll post back later about how that goes.

25 December 2008, 4:30 PM

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Christmas time is here. I am about to head out to go to a thing with Meagan's family, but I realized that I haven't updated this in like six months. I really have no excuse because it is far too easy to do the way I have it set up. I have been messing around with Xcode for mac all day to no avail.... I can't get my head around it to save my life. The past six months have been good.... did the last co-op term in process control which was fun, and a semester of school since then I suppose. School is good, nice to be with family for a while though. I am interested in neuroscience now, going after a specialization so I can have some options after graduation. David just called and his website is down, he's transferring some stuff around so time to go play with that for a bit before going to see Meagan and her family.... Until next time, which hopefully won't be so long....

22 July 2008, 10:30 PM

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:30:00 EDT

And now I am back from the beach, and back to work, and I can't seem to get to sleep tonight. So, I am posting. I've decided that it's about time to start a new programming project, but I'm not sure what. I guess I'll be thinking about it. I will be working on the web site for David's new parking company, so maybe that will give me some good ideas.... we will see. Time to get some water, and go to bed, and read something and fall asleep. Hopefully the last item will come sooner rather than later.

18 July 2008, 10:00 PM

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:00:00 EDT

It's Friday and I'm kind of bored. I'm leaving tomorrow to go to the beach with Meagan and her family for a few days. I've been looking forward to it, and it should be a good time. Work is going well, and that's about all I've been up to lately. I'm working as a process control co-op for my 3rd term. I obviously like playing with computers, and they pay me for it, so you can't beat that. I don't really have much else to write about. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on...

18 May 2008, 7:00 PM

Sun, 18 May 2008 19:00:00 EDT

So I start work tomorrow, and it will also be my 21st birthday. Me and my family and Meagan celebrated on Friday night. My parents got me a very nice suit for weddings, funerals and interviews that I'll encounter, and Meagan got me several things including a new kettle to make green tea in and some Wii accessories. I am looking forward to this summer. Work should be good, and I'm also going to try to do some reading and prep work for the classes I'll be taking in the Fall. Another thing... I have made some changes to this web site. It doesn't look like it, but I've redone the front page in php, and the posts are now database entries in MySQL. It works well, and I think php will be good for expanding things in the future. It's mostly just to play around, but I am glad to get some php/database experience. Programming is fun... Until next time...

14 May 2008, 11:00 AM

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:00:00 EDT

I suppose it's time to post an update. The semester finished up on a good note at Auburn. I got 3 A's and 1 B. A in Computer Aided, Thermo II, and Physics II. B in Transport. I was very happy with those grades. Meagan got all A's except a B in Organic II, which is like an A. We are back at home for a while. I'll be starting work on the 19th, which is also my 21st birthday. I'm going to be working with computer stuff at work this summer, so I'm excited about that. I got all the sub-lease stuff worked out with Andy Todd, another co-op. He sub-leased from me this past summer when I had a year lease, so I'm doing the same from him this summer. Brock got in from Charlotte yesterday, and it's been great to see him. Also, went bowling with David on Monday night which was lots of fun. Meagan and I went to see Iron Man recently, and it was good. We thought about going to see a movie last night, but decided against it in favor of taking Nikki (her dog at home) on a long walk and chatting. I suppose it's about time for me to go be getting some lunch, I'm about to go run some errands with my brothers. It's nice to not have much going on... I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, but that's my only required thing to do this whole week. I also need to finish up some web work for ETA... I got it mostly done before exams started, but I was not able to work on it during that time. It seems like focusing on the exams paid off this time around, and I also guess it's about time to wrap up this stream of conciousness post. Until next time...

19 April 2008, 2:00 PM

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Meagan's family is down today for a picnic on campus for COSAM. I've taken the opportunity to get some of my schoolwork sorted out to get ready for finals. I didn't actually do any studying, but I did get all my old tests and homework together so that I can study at some point, eventually. Later we'll be having tacos and probably playing the Wii. I decided to post since I'm kind of bored at the moment, I've been finding cool desktop backgrounds and listening to the Beatles. I'm looking forward to my two-weekish break before work starts back, but those pesky exams are in the way. I'll do my best, and we'll see what happens. Maybe during my break I can put together some cool web stuff. In other news I have a pretty good idea I think for an implementation of a developing technology. More on that later if I can get some ideas nailed down. Just a small hint: it's something that could be in most every home someday, but isn't in any right now. As you may imagine, anything with that description has the potential to be a good idea, so we'll see what happens. Lastly, to my Mom and Dad and David and Mel and Tre, and Brock of course even though you're in NC, I miss you guys. It seems like it's been forever since I've been home. I'll be meeting my parents to eat in Montgomery tomorrow, but I just want you guys to know that I am certainly looking forward to coming home next weekend.

6 April 2008, 11:00 PM

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:00:00 EDT

Almost time to start classes back up for the week. The AIChE regional conference was this weekend, and Auburn hosted. I volunteered for the Exxon-Mobil plant tour on Friday, and for the car competition on Saturday. It was a good weekend. Saturday was long and took place after only a short amount of sleep, but it was good none the less. I don't have much going this week. I should get some revisions to the Evan Terry publications store completed. It's the first time I've put together a completely integrated shopping cart, and it will run on a MySQL database with all sorts of fun stuff. It's pretty cool, and it will give me some pratice with databases for this summer when my work will require more of that sort of thing. I did a lot of cleaning today. It's always therapeutic to me to get things in order before the week starts. It just makes it feel like things are starting out on the right foot. On that note, I suppose that being up at 6:30 necessitates that I go to bed soon in order to comply with the right foot motif. So, it's off to bed for me. One of these days I'll start doing these updates as frequently as I would like to. And one day I'll add more to the site again. One day, one day. Manana, manana.

15 March 2008, 9:00 AM

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EDT

I just woke up from being asleep most of yesterday. I got my wisdom teeth out. Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake for a good bit of the day today. I'm feeling OK, just a bit swollen and sore as is to be expected. It's spring break. I get to spend the first bit of it recovering, but it's not half bad at all because my parents are taking great care of me. On Wednesay I'll be headed to Gatlinburg with the Rockett's for a few days, and I'm certainly looking forward to that. That's it for today, hopefully the swelling will start to subside in my mouth.

9 February 2008, 8:00 PM

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:00:00 EDT

This has been a nice weekend. Kevin and Trey went to Birmingham, so Meagan and I decided to spend some time with just us this weekend. Yesterday we made filets and french onion soup. Meagan got to use some of her new soup bowls, so I was happy for her. We got a surprise visit from Matt Millican at the end of dinner, and he told us all about the architecture things he has been doing. It sounds like Auburn has a great outreach program in this area. Today Meagan and I went to the Montgomery Zoo. I actually liked it better than the Birmingham Zoo. It was laid out very nicely, and the animals were all very active. They were having an enrichment day for the animals, so it was pretty crowded. There is a baby elephant and a baby rhino there, and they're pretty cool. We got some video footage with the camcorder I got for Christmas. If I can figure out how to convert it to YouTube format I may post it and link it here.

6 July 2005

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I haven't updated in a really long time. Sorry about that. This summer has been great. I haven't been doing anything too particularly productive, but I have been getting things done here and there, and having a good bit of fun while also relaxing, but not to the point that I'm bored all the time. That's gotta be a run-on sentence. I'm almost sure it is. It seems y lack of continuing education is killing my grammar ability, but I guess that's just the way it's going to have to be. I don't suppose I really have anything to say. To recap my whole summer would take too long, so I'm not going to. I'm going to Six Flags on Thursday, and the beach next week or week and a half... not really sure... sometime around then. So those are things coming up. And then Auburn is August something. That's close. I just got back from the lake for the 4th of July, and that was fun. I read some books that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg. That's a cool site, and they have lots of books in the public domain. I downloaded the DVD with approximately 9400 books on it, so that way I won't get bored if the internet goes out. I just think there's something cool about having thousands of books, some of them huge like the Bible or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, all crammed onto a slim little disk. Maybe that shouldn't be so amazing, but I think most people can relate to the feeling when you step back from all the technology that has developed and think "wow, that's cool... how'd we do that?" Meh... maybe it's just me. Not sure. I'm feeling indecisive today. But I suppose I should make a decisive decision to end this post, because there's no point to it, much like pretty much all of my posts. So I guess I'll stop now. But as a last thought, using the adverb form of an adjective in conjunction with that adjective has to be one of the most repetitive, boring, and redundantly redundant things that can be done.

1 May 2005

Sun, 01 May 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I had a good time this weekend. I feel stress-free despite going into IB exams. I suppose that's because I realize that things will work out the way they should. I know I'll pass everything... that won't be a problem. And, if I don't get credit, I probably don't deserve to. Even if I don't get credit in a class I wish I had, I get a good review time. I have to keep reminding myself that the point is to learn something and not to get a certain number. My girlfriend's birthday is on Tuesday and I can't decide what to get her. I've pretty much done all the standard-issue girl gifts, and she said I can't go wrong with that, but I'd still like to get her something unique. Why? Because I want to be different. Just like everybody else.

28 April 2005

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I have lots of energy at the moment... no particular reason why. I need to study Spanish vocab. But instead, I'm listening to music. But I'm studying while listening now. So that's good. Music is good. There's my general thing that's good for the day. I'm looking forward to this weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to New China after school then to play cards. Saturday is prom. Sunday is sleeping. Next week may not be quite as fun... my exams start. But that's OK. I'm ready. I guess. Or at least I will be. I think I'm going to go put this energy to more productive use by actually studying... because I've wasted too much time already today. Although I have been getting things done. But I haven't been getting some things done that I need to get done too. And I need to get those things done. So I'm going to go do them.

25 April 2005

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I've been sick at home all day. And that's no fun. My throat has been hurting since Saturday night late, but I've been popping Advil and hoping it would go away. Unfortunately, it did not, and I felt the worst I have so far this morning when I woke up. I stayed home and alternated between sleeping and laying in bed miserable until about 2 o'clock. Meagan brought me some food and a malt about 3, so I ate that. It was good, although food isn't as fun when it hurts to swallow. After that, I've just been watching movies and being lazy all day. I'm drugged up with some sinus medicine at the moment, and my throat feels a bit better than this morning. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel good enough to go to school, because I feel completely unproductive and lazy even though I didn't really miss anything today. I need to be completely better by next week, because my exams start. And those are fairly important. I'm not too concerned about them, except for music because I haven't had any music theory. Anyway, I think I'm gonna go read then go to sleep. Because a good night's sleep would probably be good seeing as how I'm sick and all. About the missing sidebars: I'm working on re-doing some things, so right now all that's here is the blog.

19 April 2005

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I just finished putting all of the history packets I've read all year into the 4-inch binder they belong too. I read a lot of history this year. I'm just taking a break from school work at the moment. I need to start back up though so that I can get everything done that I need to do. In exactly one month I will be done with exams. That just makes me happy. So I guess I have to start working again.

18 April 2005

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I need to stop staying up until after 12. It's really just not healthy. But I can't go to sleep, because most of the time I sleep in the afternoons. I always have energy at night, and even during the day at school, but afternoons just have no purpose. So I sleep through them. Things work out the way they should. You just have to keep plugging away. I just got done with a history paper... it's my last single party state paper for the year, and it was on Cuba. It's not that good, but it's a history paper. There's only so much you can do with one of those. So I did what I could, and nothing more. And nothing less. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a good day. I'm not sure why I have this feeling. But I do. At this point in the night, I always consider just staying up all night and being productive. Because I feel productive. But then I realize that in order to qualify as a normal person and in order to function as one during the day I have to go to sleep. Then I'm sad. But I twist my own arm and make myself go to sleep. Which by the way is what I probably need to do at the moment, because I believe I have officially reached the point in the post where I'm just spewing absolute gibberish. And although that's fun, you probably don't want to read it. And even if you do, I feel that I will have detracted from your productivity and general well-being by putting this gibberish out there for you to read. Because you should really be doing something better with your time. Unless you don't want to, and that's OK too. I suppose the decision is up to you. And to you I will leave it. Hey, you made the decision to read this far, right? I suppose you did. Either that's the case, or you skipped lines. And that's just... bad. You just don't do that. I should really stop writing now. I'm even starting to wonder what I'm talking about. And when that happens, I know I'm in trouble. Either that or I just don't understand myself. And do any of us, really?

15 April 2005

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

So yeah. I finally got done with all that school stuff, and that makes me happy. Because I don't have any homework tonight. And I'm not tired because I slept this afternoon. So I'm updating. I'm ready for the weekend to be here. I'm looking forward to a good meal and movie with my girlfriend tomorrow. It feels so good to not have anything to do. Anyway... I don't really have anything else to say, so I'm gonna go.

13 April 2005

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

And right now, my biological clock is telling me I should go to sleep. But IB says no. So I can't yet. But maybe I'll be rebellious and go to sleep anyway. I really should take tomorrow (today, acutally) off from school. That would give me lots of time to work on everything I have to get done. Because at school I can, but everything is so compartmentalized that it cuts into work time. Most of the time, that's ok as usually there's not that much work to be done. However, at times like this, work must be done. I just finished reading a fairly boring book for english. Now I'm working on math stuff. I'm tired, but not sleepy. I almost want to stay up all night and just finish everything. I might end up doing that. But it's probably not the best idea in the world. But then again, I'm sure there are many ideas that are much worse. I think I'm to the point in the entry where I'm spewing useless words without direction, so I think it may be time to stop writing this and do schoolwork. Or go to sleep. Or both. At the same time. Now there's something that would make me rich...

7 April 2005

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

Thursday. What a trick. Almost Friday, but really just the same as Tuesday. The days starting with 'T' need some flare, in my opinion. They just seem to divide the other days. Maybe I'm just bored. Quite possibly. Pink Floyd's album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is interesting. I'm comparing it to The Doors's self-titled album for my musical investigation for IB. Musical investigations aren't much fun, that is unless you're comparing psychedelic music of the 60's from Britain and the US. Which I am. So there. The Pink Floyd album has an addictive quality... much like Dark Side of the Moon. But it's different. It has an almost Beatle's-like feel, but still has the Pink Floyd voice layering and strange lyrics. And Syd Barrett was still there. But then he went insane. And going insane probably isn't fun. But maybe it was for him. Who knows? If you're not the one going insane, who are you to judge the one undergoing the insanity? Then you have to define sanity, and that's a whole other mess I don't feel like getting into. I want to go to college. And I suppose that's good. Because it's good to want to do something you're going to have to do. I suppose I don't have to, but in all practicallity... I do. And I think Auburn will be a good place. Plus, as you all know, they gave me Tuition+2k, so that's good. Especially since I'm going to be double-majoring probably in chemistry and chemical engineering. I know. I'm crazy. But that's OK. Because I want to be. I'm not sure why. I just do. And if I want to, I can. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. Well. There probably is something. But I can't think of anything at the moment. Blabbering is fun. I think I'll start doing it more often. Or not. Probably not. That'd probably be best. I like to chew on things. I'm chewing on a paper clip at the moment. Why? Something biological. Or maybe psychological. Or some other logical. I didn't choose it. My mom is yelling at me to come and set the table for dinner. So I'm gonna do that. It's not a derogatory yell. Just a communication yell. Just to clarify. I'm out. It's probably about time this useless meandering was stopped.

3 April 2005

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I played poker last night for the first time in a while. What's amazing to me about poker is that by watching a person play poker, you can pretty much figure out their personality. Today I read a book for English. It was called Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. It was pretty good. As a matter of fact, every asian book I've read has been good. The style of writing is just good. Or maybe that's just the books I've read. Who knows? In any case, reading a book like that makes you appreciate the power of words. Words are so important because they set things in stone. Albeit, most communication is non-verbal, but nevertheless actually saying something constitutes a commitment to what you are saying. Our lives depend on communication. Words are means by which we communicate most concretely. So they have the greatest potential to tear down, and to build up. To kill and to enliven. To squelch and to enlighten. Every now and then, something happens that makes you remember what it means to not know something, and be excited about not knowing. The anticipation is 100 times better than the event. For the record, I'm not talking about poker. That's for Meagan, because she thinks I like it too much. Anyway. When something like that happens, it reminds you how good it is to be alive. And you just want to do something about it. But sometimes, all you can do is wait. In Kurt Vonnegut's book Slapstick, one character states how telling someone you love them could be the worst thing you ever do. And it could be. Words used in perversion have the power to destroy what could be something good. And most of the time, I think, the phrase "I love you" is used in perversion. That phrase should never be used to support a status quo. Because by its very nature it's spontaneous. Even if the spontanaity continues to last a lifetime. There should always be that feeling of anticipation. Of the unknown. Otherwise, love dies. Maybe. I think so at least. And I'm probably wrong. But that's what I have to find out. Or try to. Because if I ever do really find out, if I ever get things just right, then what's the point of life? I hope with all of my heart that I die with unanswered questions.

2 March 2005

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I just wrote an essay for TOK. That's about it. I'm going to go vegetate now.

22 February 2005

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EDT

It's the 22nd, and I'm officially updating within one week of my last post for the first time in a while. I'm in a getting-things-done mood today. Ealier I cleaned up my room and bathroom, I've been doing laundry, I've cleaned out my car, I'm doing homework, making web updates, I'm going to organize my music a bit later, and so on and so on. For some reason, I've had quite a burst of energy today. It could be due to the fact that all I did this weekend was sleep in the car going back and forth from North Carolina to Auburn to Montevallo to Birmingham. Or who knows. I went to North Carolina this past weekend for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. It was good. I hope I get to have one of those. After that, I was in Auburn for this thing they do for smart kids to propagandize us into coming to Auburn. But it was pretty good. Uh-oh... either they're inside my head or they're just giving me a chunk of money and that's getting to my head... what ever am I going to do? I don't suppose there's much I can do. So I won't worry about it. Because I don't think it's even important to try and do something that I don't know if I can do or even grasp the concept of. Which is why you shouldn't end sentences with a preposition. Because they confuse sentences. Just like making up words like propagandize. Which is. Almost as bad as fragments. Which are almost as bad as verbing, because verbing weirds english. That's my two and a half cents for the day.

16 February 2005

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EDT

Meagan is frustrated. Because she has a test on 10 chapters of stuff tomorrow. And that's just not cool. We're going to Sadie Hawkins tomorrow. It'll be good. But we don't know who were going with yet. Or where we're going. We should maybe figure that out. But I really don't want to. It'd be more fun to not plan things. But some planning is necessary to keep parents happy. Because they want to have plans. So that they can feel like they know where we are. Because we're important to them. And that's good. JP was on the news tonight for PK. That was cool. You know what I haven't done in a while? Played mini-golf. I wanna do that. But there aren't any places in B'ham for it. I should build one. I think right now though I'm just going to go play online at candystand.

5 February 2005

Sat, 05 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EDT

So now, it's saturday. My brothers birthday is today. We're goin' out to eat for that later. Tomorrow's the Super Bowl. That'll be cool. Gotta love those commercials. Nothing much is going on. I'm attempting to avoid doing school work, even though I know I need to get it done. So I guess I'll go do that now.

30 January 2005

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I officially feel like a normal senior. I'm ready to go to college, even though I don't know where yet. And I'm ready to be done with high school. But high school is still fun. Not the school part, but the people. So I suppose summer will be good. Because there'll be the people, but no school. School's OK, but I think everyone is supposed to feel this way. It's the feeling of being on a threshold of change that makes us feel alive. The hope that something could happen that could make things different. And enumerating those differences, that ruins it. It has to be unknown. Unexplored. Surprising. So I guess that's where I am right now. Even though I have a few months left, and they're going to be hard months preparing for IB exams, my heart is beginning to take root in that unknown place. Do you ever feel like you can't say what you want to with words? Because I do sometimes.

23 January 2005

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EDT

I don't really have anything to say, but I haven't updated in a while so here I am. Dreamweaver is a good program. Simon & Garfunkel is good. There are my two general goodness statements for the day. I think I'm going to go try to figure out something unique to do now. Because I feel like doing that. And it'll be good.

11 January 2005

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EDT

Today is one of those days that would qualify as a normal day. If I wasn't writing this, I would never remember this day. Because it's not really unique. So I suppose that's why I'm writing this. I found some new music today. It's good. Right now I'm listening to Damien Rice, and earlier I listened to some Absolution. I'm not really in a writing mood, and I guess that's also why I'm writing this. It'd be a shame if everything even written was written by people in a writing mood. I don't really know why it'd be a shame, it just seems as if it would be for some reason. I've got my new Litestep configuration all set up. And I like it. Which is its purpose. To be liked by me. So it's doing its job. And that's about it. If you want an exciting story, I'm sorry to say that you won't find it here today, but maybe some other day. Maybe. But unexciting days are just fine with me. Because they aren't bad. And that's good. I'm out.

9 December 2004

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Today is December 9th. That's about it. I have nothing left to say. Just kidding. I'm at my house watching the Hoover game on TV. They made it to the state championship, and they are currently ahead 22 to nothing. So that's good. Anyway. I'm also formatting my computer to sell it to a guy, and my new laptop is coming soon. It's going to be awesome. It's a hypersonic 3.6GHz with 2GB of RAM expandable to 4GB, 256MB video, 120GB RAID 7200rpm, Dual layer DVD burner, 17 in screen, built in TV tuner, and other cool stuff. So that's good. I'm really done now.

27 November 2004

Sat, 27 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Well, I'm in North Carolina visiting my grandparents. It's good. We had turkey on Thursday, which was tasty. And now I'm backing up the files on their computer. I suppose that's about it. I'll be back in town tomorrow afternoon. Then, I must do stuff to get ready for the week ahead. Like homework. And laundry. And stuff of that nature. I've been doing a lot of eating and sleeping while up here. So that's good. It's been quite enjoyable.

24 November 2004

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and that's cool. Because I get to eat turkey. And turkey is good. That's my general statement for the day. I'm going to North Carolina to see my relatives for Thanksgiving. We're flying out at 7:10 tomorrow morning, which is early. Plus, I probably won't be able to go to sleep tonight because I slept till 2. See, I never ever get to sleep until I wake up. There's school, which I have to get up for at 6:20. There's church which is a bit better at 8:00, then there's Saturday, where my mom usually get's me up about 10 telling me I need to get up and help around the house, usually to clean up from the night before having friends over. And I'm OK with that, because I like having friends over. But sometimes, I just want to sleep. And on the rare occasions I get to do that to the fullest, I usually sleep till about 2. Because I'm usually sleepy from a lack of sleep during the week because I'm a night person and I can't go to sleep at night, but then I'm tired in the morning just like every other teenager in America and when is the school system gonna catch on and give us ten o'clock classes so that we don't write run-on sentences because we're in IB English at 7:34 every morning? Yeah. But seriously. I woke up at 2, so I probably am going to have a hard time going to sleep at night. That's my rant for the day. Meagan doesn't feel good. And that makes me sad. She had a broken nose, which made her sinuses broken, so she had surgery. And that's good. But she doesn't feel good now, so that's bad. But in a week or two, it will be good. Because then she'll feel better. And that's good. So that's about it. And now, I believe I may get some water. Because water is good. It's so basic, only not. Because it's actually neutral with a pH of 7. But if you took the use of basic meaning simple, it is indeed. Only sometimes not either. Because water sometimes has all sorts of ions in it that make it conduct electricity or taste weird, and stuff like that. Then there's that crazy bottled stuff that's supposed to be better but it just has a fancy label and tastes the same. But some people claim it tastes different. Maybe, but I don't think it's worth $1.29 or however much it is for those crazy fancy bottles of water to enjoy that .01% difference in taste. But, maybe that's just me. Who knows. Well, if you've read this much I'm proud of you. But now I'm finished. This is the end.

21 November 2004

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Charter finally came and fixed our internet, so I have internet now. And it's exciting. Nothing much is going on new. Meagan has surgery on Tuesday. She's gotta get her nose fixed, b/c she can't breathe out of it, and it just causes all sorts of problems. So it'll be good when she gets that fixed. Also, Thanksgiving break is almost here. And that's good. Because I like turkey. And I also like a break from school. So it's doubleplusgood.

15 November 2004

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm back from Georgia Tech, and it was good. I actually stayed with a guy who used to go to Hoover, so that was cool. Anyway, we did some fun stuff, the food was good, and I liked the school feel. School is tomorrow. And it'll be good. I have nothing left to say, so I'm gonna go now.

13 November 2004

Sat, 13 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I went to UAH's campus visit day today. It was good, but I think I like GA Tech better. I'm going to Tech tomorrow for their overnight program. That'll be good. Hopefully, I can get some money from Tech. Because money is good too. I was talking with Herb Owen earlier, and He asked about my fabric of the universe thing. I clarified it for him, and will for the rest of you. My idea is that matter came from the mind of God, so it exist for us, but not for him, just as time exists for us and not for him. God is all-powerful, so he has full control over matter, but he is not of matter just as he is not of time. Anyway, I really don't have anything else to say. So I guess I'm gonna go now.

11 November 2004

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I have an incredible amount of energy at the moment, and I'm guessing it's due to the fact that I slept until 2:30 today. I suppose I needed to sleep. Because I slept hard. And it was good. I'm so glad we were out of school today. That made me happy. I'm doing the Pepsi challenge for my presentation in Spanish tomorrow. That'll be fun. I just have to remember to get a can of coke and cups on my way to school. Other than that, not much goin on. I'm going to UAH Saturday for the campus visit day thing, then to GA Tech on Sunday and Monday for their overnight program. Because GA Tech is good. In any case, I think I'm going to attempt to expend some of this energy now. Because I need to sleep tonight, which will be difficult because I slept for so long today, and I actually have to get up early tomorrow. So on that note,

9 November 2004

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

This is an update. Nothing is particularly new. I ate a cheeseburger tonight. It was tasty. Blogs are so strange. Where else would you advertise to the entire world that you just ate a cheeseburger? The correct answer is: nowhere else. But they're so human too. I'm thinking of, "goodbye blue monday!" (Vonnegut) What will you say to the Creator of the universe today? What's also interesting about blogs is, you can read one from someone who's far away that you don't know, and they do roughly the same things you do. Sure, people have different interests, but stuff is pretty much the same all over the world. Instead of taking vacations, people should learn how to do something new. It'd be just as fun, and quite a bit more beneficial. You know what also struck me the other day? The massive amount of knowledge available, and for free. I was at UAB's library downtown, and it hit me somewhere between PQ1456 and PR5764 that there's a whole lot of books out there. And they're free to use. On that note, I think I'm going to go read something now, because I don't have any homework. And I like to read. I'm weird like that.

8 November 2004

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I just finished writing the first part of my history internal assessment. What that is is a research paper on steroids. And then some. It wasn't particularly fun, because for one thing I don't enjoy history. See, I'm actually looking forward to my extended essay, which is a research paper on steroids and then some times 10, because I'm going to do it on nanotechnology as it relates to chemistry, and that's interesting to me. History is not so interesting to me. It is a bit, but not particularly. Hopefully, once I get to college I'll be able to avoid doing history as much as possible. Because that would make me happy. I'll do math and science and engineering all day long and not get sick of it. By the way, I got a 107 on my math test. I was happy. And it was good. In any case, I need to get some sleep. Yep. That'd be good. I think I'm gonna do that now.

7 November 2004

Sun, 07 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm posting this update via the wireless connection of the house up the street from me because Charter is broken again. I hope they actually fix it when they come this time. They've been out here about 6 or 7 times, and they haven't fixed it yet. Luckily, I'll be here when they come this time. So yay. Anyway, it was a good weekend. I went to the Alabama game yesterday. It was fun, and at one point the fans were quite upset because one of the visiting players pushed one from Alabama over a bench or something. I didn't really know what was going on, because I'm not into football so much, but we sacked the quarterback three times after that, and I know that's good. Meagan loves football, so she really enjoyed the game. I did too, because we won. After the game, I had my second bad experience at an Applebee's after a football game. It was actually after the Alabama game two weekends ago in Knoxville that I had my first bad experience there. They were having trouble with the computers or something, but we got free dessert, so that was good. Also, the waiter guy was quite nice, so that helped a great deal. However, last night was not so good. Our waitress forgot about us for a while, then we had to remind her that we had not yet ordered. After that she brought the wrong food, but it was good anyway. I normally will tip 20% for standard service and 25% for exceptional service, but this waitress only got 15% for below standard service. She wasn't very good. Other than that, the night was great and I enjoyed myself, despite my inability to really tell what was going on in the football game. Time for me to go to the library now to get stuff for my history extended essay.

4 November 2004

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Hoover played tonight and Meagan and I went. It was fun, but by the end of the 1st quarter we were up 35-0. I had a lot of stuff today in school. Hopefully I won't have so much tomorrow. Tomorrow's Friday too, and that's good. Trey said he got some new people for poker, so that'll be fun. Anyway, I'm gonna go to sleep now. Because I like to sleep, and I think it's my number one option right now.

3 November 2004

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I have a math test tomorrow, so I'm studyin' up for that. I went to get smoothies with Meagan after school. I usually get a fruity smoothy, but today I got one with chocolate ice cream, strawberries, and bananas. It was quite good, and also quite unique. It was kind of a milkshake, but not really. And that's cool. I like things that are hard to define. It makes me realize that not everything is simple and clean cut. Some things are, and must be by definition to work, like ethics. Some things take some work to actually understand, like history. And some things are just hard to define, like smoothies. Or language. In any case, I'm wasting time, so back to math for me :)

2 November 2004

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

As you can see, I changed around the fonts a bit on the site, as well as the logo at the top. The great thing about it is that I only had to change the code once, because of those handy includes and css files. I know that's computer talk.... all it means is that stuff that's on every page can be kept in one file, then that file can be referenced by each page, therefore making things easy to update. I think I might start reading a book tonight. That'd be good. I have a bit of homework, and I'm gonna start getting ready for my math test because I need to keep my A in there. ?sdrawkcab gnihtemos daer ot deirt reve uoy evaH That seems indecipherable, but that's just because you're used to seeing words written the other way. .kniht uoy yaw eht hctertS

1 November 2004

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I just finished a poetry project on John Donne. It was OK, but a bit boring. I mean, really, there's only so much you can extract from a sonnet. I ate with Meagan today at the mall. We had chinese food. It was good. I like chinese food. I'm bored with doing homework, so I believe I may take a bit of a break. School is tomorrow. That's OK, but I have to get up early after sleeping late for 4 days in a row. The waking up thing isn't going to be fun at all. But it's a necessity, I suppose. The 4 day weekend was good. Now it's over. And that's OK, because time just keeps going and going. And we might as well accept that, because it will whether we want it to or not.

31 October 2004

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Well, it's been a good weekend. I'm out of school tomorrow as well, but I have a good bit of school work to do. Today was good because I had a chance to clean up some stuff around the house and get things in order. So now, my room's clean, all my laundry is done, my car is vacuumed, and I just feel on top of things in general. In addition to my homework tomorrow I will probably be working on a new web site I'm doing for someone. I suppose that's about it. As far as college stuff, I'm still waiting on things to come for me in the mail, because I've decided I'm done. No more college stuff for me except scholarship applications and the like. Anyway, I don't have anything else to say, so I'm going to go to sleep now.

17 October 2004

Sun, 17 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy, I suppose. I've had lots of schoolstuffs to do recently, and also have been tied up with college applications. I have my apps in to UAH, Alabama, Auburn, GA Tech, Purdue, MIT, Cornell, U of Miami, Leeds, Boston, Penn St., and Northwestern. I'm quite ready to be done with the whole process. I'm glad I have the major application stuff out of the way, and now I can just sit back and wait on scholarship opportunities and the like. Anyway, life is good and it keeps going no matter what. That's the best thing about life... there's no pause button. Sometimes that's the worst thing too. Every day I think about the fact that what I do can't be undone, so I should make the best of that day. It's hard not to revert back to status quo. That's the easy thing to do. The healthy thing to do is change, but people hate change, and I'm a people. The one redeeming quality about change is that it looks good in hindsight. Change is where discovery is at. Change something.

21 September 2004

Tue, 21 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EDT

So yeah. I went to powder puff kickball tonight for Hoover. It was good. Go seniors. Anyway, I got nanopinions going, but I need to really get it going. That'd be good. Besides that, nothing much is new. I went to Taco Bell after the powder puff thing with Meagan, Trey, Scotty, and Duke. That too was good. I like Taco Bell. I had three tests today. That wasn't fun. Good news is though that I think I did fairly well on them. And that, well that is always a good thing. I think I may have to go to history A period on Thursday, and seniors aren't supposed to have to come until 11:30. If I have to go, that won't be any fun. If I don't, it will be quite good. That's about it. I'm out for the night.

14 September 2004

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I've decided to launch Nanopinions as it is, although there are still a couple minor flaws. I decided it'd be good to go ahead and get it up, so you will see me and my friends making posts there if you decide to check it out. Other than that, not too much going on. Hurricane Ivan is going to hit Birmingham hard thursday, apparently. It's very likely there will be no school, which is good, but the weather will be bad, which is bad. Some people, like my girlfriend or JP over at DeepThinks actually like the bad weather. JP also wrote a contradicting post to my post directly below this one, which I understand and agree with. There is a distinction. I'll explain that in some later post. My ideas are also not phenomenalist in the purest sense, because I do believe in laws of thought and distinction that cannot be broken. In any case, I'm a bit sleepy and think I will go to bed now. It's been a long day, and I haven't even been listening to Matchbox 20.

9 September 2004

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Contrary to what my TOK teacher thinks, I am not a nihilist. Believing that matter doesn't actually exist does not make me a nihilist. Or a skepticist. My fabric of the universe thing does a bit of a job of explaining what I believe about the universe, but it's also a bit stream of consciousness. Perhaps I need to outline what I think in more comprehensible terms. To begin with, I believe that matter does not truly exist, but rather that only minds exists. We are made in God's image. God is not made of matter. Matter and time are intertwined. That's the object God created to put mind in. The object isn't made out of matter either, but rather was an idea embedded in the first mind, that of Adam. Because God's eternal, it's possible for him to control this object in one instance of creation, because what it is, it is. However, from within the object, free will seems obtainable, and truly is, but only from within the object. Does God's chosen people ring a bell? Yep. Eternally it's all done. Or was done. Or is being done. Tense doesn't matter. It sounds fatalistic, and that's because it is. Some things can't be undone. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't get away from fate. The Greeks understood it. Fate was more powerful than the gods in Greek mythology. I don't think we get it as much. Fate is 100% real, and free will is 100% real. At the same time.

29 August 2004

Sun, 29 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

And tonight, well tonight was a typical night. A typical night entails dinner and a rented movie with Meagan. Typical nights are good. That's my overly vague statement for the night. Anyway, tonight was good. Last night was too. Had some people over, and we played cards. Hold 'em. It was good, as previously stated. Reiteration and redundancy may be boring, but it helps in making a point, because most of the time people reading stuff probably aren't paying that much retention to what they're reading. That can create problems, because many times, especially while reading over ones own writing, one may miss certain errors which don't appear obvious to the reader because the reader (in this example the author of the thing being read) tends to fill in the laps in the writing. Sometimes part or the hole word can be changed without the leader taking notice of the difference in wording. Just to be safe, it's always best to get someone else to bead over your righting, just to make sure you haven't messed anything up. Cause that just wouldn't be good. OK. Enough of that craziness. I'm a bit tired. A little sleepy. I think it's about time to go to bed, because it's 12:29. In the AM. So for now, goodbye. And remember, [INSERT CLICHE HERE]. With that closing note, goodbye and goodnight.

24 August 2004

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

The Fabric of the Universe and Why I Believe in God

16 August 2004

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Today is August 16. I don't have any homework, besides a bit of TOK reading. TOK stands for Theory of Knowledge. It's epistemology. Look that one up... I don't really know what it means, because it's impossible to define, if it even exists at all. I have nothing left to say.

15 August 2004

Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

So the first weekend of the school year is drawing to a close today. How sad. Oh well. I'll get over it. I found a nanotechnology program starting in the U.K. this year which would allow me to receive a masters in 4 years. It's the best option academically I've seen so far related to nanotechnology, but I'd have to leave the country, which I'm not sure I want to do. I'll see what happens. Other than doing some college stuffs, I went to Jordan's LAN friday, and slept through it. I was tired. Saturday, I did stuff with Meagan. We ate at Macaroni Grill. It was excellent. Our waiter's name was Jeremiah, not to be confused with the stuffed frog Jeremiah which I got for Meagan as a gift when I was in Spain. She likes Jeremiah. That makes me happy, because I gave it to her, and I always am hesitant when picking out gifts, because most of the time when I receive random gifts, they usually don't fit what I really want. So when you know you gave a good one, it makes you feel good. Anyway, I had a gift card for Macaroni Grill for doing some computer work for this guy who my dad is friends with. So that was good. You may be wondering why I got my girlfriend a stuffed frog in Spain. It's a valid wondering. I would have the same wondering if I was you. The thing is, in Salamanca, which is the city in Spain I was at, the town mascot is a frog. The reason is that one of the guys doing the sculpture thing decided to put a frog in one of the sculptures, and it just sort of stuck. So that's why. Your wondering should be squelched now. If it's still not, I'm sorry. I really am.

11 August 2004

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

It's 11:30 at night, and I can't sleep. I need to sleep, because I have to get up at 5:00 in the morning to do a presentation on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Fun stuff. You know what's interesting? The waffle-spaghetti thing with girls and guys. Guys are like waffles... they compartmentalize everything. Girls are like spaghetti... Every aspect of their lives intertangles with the other aspects. I got the idea from a title of a book I saw in a store once, and I thought it was clever. Of course, it's a common idea. It's a clear and plain fact. Guys compartmentalize stuff. Girls don't. For the most part. There are always exceptions. I should write a pondering about this. But right now, I'm too tired. Today was the first day of school. I saw lots of people I haven't seen in a while. That was good. Now, my sleep schedule is even more messed up than in summer, and I'm sure it will continue to be messed up. Perpetually. Because it's just like that. It happens. But what can you do? Not a whole bunch. Read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. It's good. Read all his books, while you're at it. They're all good. Most of them anyway. There are always exceptions. If there were not exceptions, and if things actually worked and made sense, then the world would be a much less enjoyable and exciting place. Randomness is the stuff of life.

9 August 2004

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

OK... I just got back from the lake, so I have an excuse for not updating. I won't be able to post pictures of Europe in the next couple of days because I have to get all my school work done before I start on Wednesday. That sounds so soon... maybe because it is. I just finished a good book: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murikami. You should read it. That reminds me I need to get an updated list of recommended books on here. And music for that matter. Maybe the whole section. Yep, movies too. OK... I'll do that. Eventually. If I start procrastinating, tell me to do something. Then, I'll get around to it. At some point. When I can. Eventually.

4 August 2004

Wed, 04 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

It's early this morning, and I'm having a spontaneous LAN. Taco bell was great no matter how low-quality the food is. Farris went home to get his computer, and his mom wouldn't let him come back. That wasn't good. Anyway, the LAN is good for a spontaneous one. Megan and Melanie... thanks for posting... I would appreciate those pics of the Eifel tower, and also interesting Spain tidbits. I'll have to check back for more. Chess is good. Go is good as well. You should play Go sometimes... It's a good game. Like chess, only simpler. Or more complicated. Depends on how you look at it. It's the only game computers can't beat us at yet. There's something like 10^730 different combinations of moves. That's about it. I'm out.

3 August 2004

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Listening to music is good. You should try it sometime. I'm going to go to Taco Bell today with Farris. I haven't done that in a while, and it's going to be good... I just have to remind myself not to think about the quality of the food I'm eating. I'll be OK as long as I don't do that. Read lots of books. It's good for you. Don't watch TV. It's bad for you. Watch movies. There's something about them. Make a web site. Share your thoughts with the world. With your world. Read. Listen to music. Expand what you know... figure something out. Learn something new today. Then tell someone about it.

2 August 2004

Mon, 02 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm back from Europe. It was great. It's very good to be home though. I got a little sick on the plane... my nose was acting up in all sorts of ways. Resultantly, I had to take two of Meagan's Benadryl, and after dinner I was out on the way home. It was good sleep. When I got home, my bed felt like a big feather. My bed made it feel like I'd been sleeping on rocks for the past month. I love American food. It's good. French food is good, and Spanish food is OK, but both of those are expensive, and not quite as good as American food, and not nearly as cheap. Especially in Paris. Paris was very expensive. I'll post some pictures soon, but right now I'm just kind of chillin' out, just because I can. So that's really about it I guess... I've got lots to do in the next 10 days before school starts, but I guess I'll be alright. By the way, happy birthday to my Grandma. It's her birthday today. If you read this, Grandma, happy birthday. I guess that's about it. [Insert closing cliché here].

27 July 2004

Tue, 27 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I just finished my exam, and mi cerebro está frito. That's my brain is fried for you non-spanishy people. I think I did fairly well, so that's good. I should have my required C without a problem, and hopefully a B, and maybe if the moon turns blue an A. But who knows, I mean the moon does indeed turn blue from time to time. It's hard to believe that I will be coming home in 4 days. Very hard to believe. It's true though. I guess it's good, but I like Spain. It's a good place. I could definitely get used to it here. I do miss Meagan though. I'll just bring her over here and it'll be all good. And my computer. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose Meagan, because it's easier to go to an internet café and use a different computer than it is to get a new girlfriend. That just would not be a fun process. Nor would I want to do it. But anyway, I don't feel like writing anymore because my fingers are tired from writing. Not really, but everybody makes stupid excuses for stuff, right? Right. Verdad. Y ahora pararé escribir. yep.

26 July 2004

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I have to make this quick because I have to get to the shops in Salmanca before they close at 8:30, and it's currently 7:40. I also have my final exam tomorrow, and it's worth 60% of my grade, so I need to study. I also need to get souvenirs though so that I don't have to worry about it later. In any case, everything has been going along nicely here, not much new, just the same cool Spain. I put some pictures on my server, but I don't have time now to put up a script to display them all, so I decided to just wait until I get home to do all that. It feels good to be back into blogging again. You should try it out sometime. In any case, I'm gonna go now so I can get souvenir gifts for people.

24 July 2004

Sat, 24 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I took a nap today and woke up at 10:30. At night. I was in Segovia today, and we came in on the bus. I was sleeping on the bus, and continued my blissful sleep in my bed at the dorm. It was quite nice. Anyway, I woke up and was surprised that I actually did wake up, because normally if I went to sleep at that time I wouldn't have. In any case, I'm at the internet café, and it's good. Segovia was fun today. There was a castle, very stereotypical looking, and that was fun. It was good to see a stereotypical castle, because most have been disappointingly unique. After that we saw the Roman aquaduct, and that was cool. I can't help thinking that those Romans liked to show off a little bit, because it seemed a bit impractical to have such a huge thing to transport a channel of water literally about 6 inches cubed. Oh well... if they didn't show off, we wouldn't be able to ooh and ahh at it now, so I guess it's good. The biggest inefficiency, I think, is the way it stretched between two huge hills and ended at the end of the latter. I was thinking how a person could easily walk from one hill to the other in roughly 3 to 5 minutes time, and that's what made me start wondering why they continued the aquaduct. I suppose I'm thinking about this too much, but it's just interesting to me. Besides that today we spend an hour and a half in a café to eat sandwiches. Never done that before. It was OK though. Things move a bit slower here at restaurants. It's cool though, because I love how there are little cafés on most of the streets with quaint tables outside. I'll miss that about Europe. That and the old rocks. I think I talked about that last year too. Europe has lots and lots of old rocks. For example, the castle today and the Aquaduct... 500 and 2000 year old rocks, respectively. All the buildings are made out of really old rocks too. It just serves to make everything seem much more solid and old and cool and stuff. There's this one street in Salamanca that's straight out of the 19th century. It's so cool. And you know why? Because of all the really old rocks. You may think I'm making a big deal out of rocks, but people really do make quite a big deal out of them. Think about all the monuments. Mt. Rushmore, Stonehenge, Rome... the whole thing... and countless others. All old rocks. And think about the way girls love diamonds so much. Really shiny rocks. If it weren't for rocks, the world would be a much less old looking and less shiny place. I'm glad there's rocks. Rocks are good. That's my general statement of life for the day, so with that I believe I will leave you to contemplate how cool rocks are. And they are. Cool, that is.

I just added a new pondering on Rocks.

23 July 2004

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Two days in a row of blogging. This has got to be some kind of record. I got lots and lots of sleep last night... probably about 10 hours. It's the first time I've been asleep before midnight in I don't know how long. Now I'm just chillin' at the internet café waiting for lunch at 2. It's 1:50 now, or 6:50 in the morning Alabama time. I really hope lunch is good today, because I need some good food. Dinner last night wasn't that great, and neither was lunch yesterday come to think of it. There was one dish at dinner that was OK, that being some pasta, but I need some meat. Sometimes they make this steak that's really good, and maybe they'll have that today. OK, I'm going to go eat now, because all this talk about food is making me quite hungry :)

22 July 2004

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Wow. I'm actually updating within a week of my last post. This has got to be the first time in a few months, at least. Class was exhausting today. It's really not that bad, but spanish for 6 hours in a row for days and days at a time is just tiring, because you have to think in Spanish, which can be straining at times. It's all good though. I've got lots to do before I go back to school on the August 10 or 11 or whenever it is I go back. Oh well. I guess that's good. I won't be bored. I'm glad I don't like TV, because I haven't watched TV since I've been over here. It's OK though, because I only watch movies on TV at home. I do kind of miss movies, but I have less than 2 weeks before I come home. Spain's really fun, but I'll be glad to get back to the states and see my friends and family again. Especially Meagan. I miss her a lot. If you guys are ever in Spain, get patatas bravas. They're good, and they're cheap. It's a great combination. Paella is good too, but a bit more pricey. That's about it.

20 July 2004

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm still in Spain. It's still good. I'll post some pictures soon, probably today or tomorrow. This computer is telling me I have insufficient RAM to copy and paste... how aweful is that? It's pretty aweful. Oh well... I'll just have to use a different computer the next time I'm in here. That's for sure what I'll do too. I need to add some different stuff to my site... I'll work on that some when I do my pictures later, but I think I'll do some revamping when I get home. I like the layout, but I think I may change a couple things around. One thing is I need to put on more pictures of stuff on here, because that would be cool. Let me know if you guys have any other ideas. I'd appreciate knowing. Blogs can be a hassle, but they're fun. This is turning into a really long rambling. If you've made it this far, then props to you. Congratulations. I'm happy for you. But still, I can't think of anything to say. Nothing profound is in my head today. Today is a very unprofound day. Some days are like that, you know. But then other days, profound thoughts flow like... [insert cliché here]. Because I can't think of any good clichés right now. What I can do, however, is make an "é" by pressing ALT+0233, which is just way too cool. It's just so Spanishy. Still with me? Wow. The network lights of the switch at the internet café seem to be in sync with the rythym of the crazy African music they are playing at the moment. That's craziness. Don't you hate it when people just st dle of a sent xpect you to kn ays? I know I do. However, it hs been proven tht removng certain lettrs may go unoticed if yu happen to b readng at a rapd pce. Now I'd like to talk abou

5 July 2004

Mon, 05 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm in Spain right now, and it's awesome. I'm taking classes with Auburn, and I get 16 hours of credit, so I certainly won't complain about that. In any case, I'm updating from an internet cafe with Windows 98... it's very insecure, but oh well. In any case, I've had a good time so far and will continue to do so. There have been some unexpected kinks, such as oversleeping in Madrid. Brock and I set the alarm, but it didn't go off, so we had to get to the bus station and get our own ride to Salamanca, but it turned out OK because we met a lady from Peru and a guy from California who were cool and who were also going to Salamanca. In any case, I have to get back to class now, so I'll update later.

14 March 2004

Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Hey y'all. Sorry for taking so long to update, but I do have a legitimate excuse in that my internet has been down for the past while, but it's fixed now, which is good. In any case, Meagan's still the best thing going on... besides that I'm just doing school and stuff, although this new site Nanopinions I've been working on comes in at a close second to Meagan. Me and Tolos are the main developers on the site, although we are receiving moderator help from several people. It'll be up soon, and I'll give everyone a link to go check it out. That's about it really. I need to go finish up my dual-enrollment application for Auburn, because I may be going to Spain this summer with Auburn and their study abroad program, which would just be great, so I need to finish the application so that I can... c'ya :D

22 February 2004

Sun, 22 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EDT

OK... I decided to start developing in the /nick/dev folder on my server instead b/c I found out converting the site to MySQL is more complicated than I thought. It's not that it's extremely difficult to do or anything, I just don't have the time to get it the way I want... I had a little something up, but I decided to just leave the site the way it is and work on a different set up when I have time... so check out the /nick/dev folder from time to time... I'll be doing stuff in there. In any case, I'll get a real update up later... but for now just know the most fun thing that's been goin' on with me has been Meagan, who I mentioned in the last update... She's really cool... very fun to be around... in any case, ask me about her IRL and I'll tell you more than I can on the site :)

5 February 2004

Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EDT

It's Thursday. Woohoo. Sadie Hawkins is next week, and I'm going :) Meagan Rockett asked me, and she's really cool, not too mention pretty and #2 in the sophomore class, so I am quite happy. Other than that just chillin like normal... movies at my house tomorrow, cave nine saturday for jesse's band, then savannah's house... I put a whole bunch of new music on my ipod... I only have about 180 megs left out of 10 gigs. Good stuff. I'm gonna go do stuff now.

31 January 2004

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I'm at Blake's house updating with notepad and the command prompt FTP thingy... it's some fun stuff. Anyway I'm about to go back to my house to change and stuff, then I'll continue my completely free of school weekend besides math homework, which doesn't really count seeing as how it's math, and I always have it. but that's really about it... don't really know why I started to update.... but oh well. I'm gonna go to my house now and take a shower.

26 January 2004

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Yay for Tolos! he has his blog up and running nicely with a guestbook, so go sign it. mwab.net/tolos. Not too terribly much going on... Saturday was fun. We watched movies and went to different houses, namely Lindsay's and Blakes, and that was good. I have a lot of school stuff. In any case, I know it's a short update, but I lost all my metaphysical chickens, so I can't talk about them anymore, leaving me with much less to write about. I'm out.

22 January 2004

Thu, 22 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EDT

I know, I know. I haven't updated in forever... again. I'm just feeling a bit burned out on web site stuff at the moment, that's all. I still love to do it, but every now and then you gotta take a break from something to appreciate it, ya know? Like if you ate steak every night, it would start to become bland, tasteless, even unsatisfactory, and eventually you would despise eating steak. I'm stopping at the bland and getting some chicken instead. Now I just have to think of what chicken is in this analogy. Or, I could be like Robert Frost and leave it open for you to fill in yourself. Only my chicken isn't metaphysical like his would be. But that's ok I guess... I'm just a teenager... I'm not old enough to have metaphysical chickens running around. I know this is a weird blog, but it's where my mind goes, and sometimes that's quite obscure places :) That's all for tonight. Later.

3 January 2004

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Well... I haven't updated in forever! But that's beside the point. The point is that I'm doing it now, and that's good. It's been a good break. I got a cool new phone for Christmas that plays movies, get on the net, and other stuff. I went to North Carolina to visit my family for the holidays, but other than that I've just been hangin' out... I even stayed up for 36 hours straight the other day (or couple of days) with my friends. That was fun, but it messed me up a bit. But hey, it's Christmas break... it's the time to do crazy things like that. I still need to fix my guestbook... b/c I had to downgrade my hosting plan. See, they changed everything at my host, and they moved me to a plan in which I was getting way more than I needed, but for the same price as I had been paying. I downgraded b/c I could still get everything I needed for less, and that's always good. So that's about the long and short of it... I would give more details, but then I would have to do so for each day, so I won't do that, b/c it would take far too long and you would probably become bored. and maybe even fall asleep. and that wouldn't be good. at all. so I won't. I'll try to get on a more regular update routine... but right now I'm going to bed. b/c I'm tired. yeah.

15 December 2003

Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Exams. That's about it. I'm one of those flagmatically optimistic people who try at the very least to see a bit of good in something, but that has proved to be quite difficult on the issue of exams. They're no fun. At all. But oh well... Christmas break is coming soon, a time of celbration, giving, receiving, good food, friends, family, lots and lots of sleep, and then the dreaded boredom about 3 days before school starts back :) In any case, I g2g study for my History and English exams.... Oh yeah... almost forgot... LOTR:ROTK... coming soon! I'm out.

3 December 2003

Wed, 03 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, another enthralling day in the institution... school that is... Not much new here, go read another blog :)
No, seriously... I wasn't kidding...
Ok, stay if you want, but don't blame me if you're not enjoying yourself. This is arguably the most pointless update ever, though many others may be in the running. I need to write another pondering... it's been too long, and as I learn from JP, my ponderings seem controversial and erroneous to some certain teachers of theology :) If you're reading this, let me know what my fallacies are, Quin... I'd like to know...
In any case, I'll be doin' the routine tonight, going to church, then to eat, then home, but no homework so that makes me happy... happy to an extreme extent for that matter as I will be able to use my time to pursue more pertinent and valuable endeavors. Not that homework isn't good for me, but I see it as more of a catalyst for developing work ethic than anything. The work is most typically unnecessary, even in higher level courses.
I'm out.

29 November 2003

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, I just now figured out that my Guestbook isn't working... no wonder no one's signed it in the past two months :) I'm trying to get it fixed now... *Nick tries to fix it* YAY... it's working again... good stuff. Well, now for the brief overview of my life for the past... well.. for as far back in recent history as I can remember. Lemme see... Tuesday I was going to go bowling, but then no, we ended up just going back to Farris's apartment and watching a movie. Then on wednesday I hung out with Blake and Jason, and we ate double quarter pouders, and there was much rejoicing. We proceded to Jason's house after I returned home briefly to eat with my family, and there was much rejoicing. Thursday was a great day, as it was Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact, I will leave an artifact of the effects of tryptophine or however you spell that, after I finish this post. (Tryptophine, or however you spell it, is the stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy.) In any case, Hoover played Vestavia again on Friday, and I went to see the game. It was cold. It went into second overtime. Hoover won. And there was much rejoicing.

18 November 2003

Tue, 18 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EDT

This one goes out to Blake, b/c my post seem to make you laugh :) In any case, yeah... today was cool... power went out at school so that was kind of interesting. But other than that... not much new here, but LAN FRIDAY!! YAY! at jordans... and it will be good... and then I'm going to the iron bowl on saturday, so that'll be good too...
Yep. I need to get xplay working again so that I can get stuff back and forth from my IPOD, b/c right now I'm on my parents comp, and it got hit by a little virus that got on here... I want my laptop back! It's been 8 days since I had to take it to get it fixed... That makes me sad, b/c I probably wont have it for the LAN... Oh well... fun stuff... I'm out now, ttyguyslater.

9 November 2003

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I'm in an excessively good mood for some peculiar reason... I really have no idea why... it's 11:28 and I have school tomorrow... I should go to bed, but then if we did everything we should do then life wouldn't be any fun. Maybe it's the insanely fast D/L rates I'm getting on IRC... quite possibly so... In any case I'm taking my comp to get fixed at compusa tomorrow b/c my CD writer broke. That's never good. Triangles are crazy little shapes.... who ever knews there could be so much to describing a 3-sided figure? I thought we were done with them after geometry, but oh no... no... they had to bring them back... it's like "The Triangle Reloaded" or something like that. Let's just hope it's not gonna be as bad as the Matrix trilogy turned out to be... Oh well... Fun stuff... I have a feeling I'm going to tired tomorrow, if only judging from the sole fact that my body is running on an incredible amount of energy at the given moment...

2 November 2003

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Blog Blog Blog. Blog Blog Blog Blog. Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog. There we go. I haven't updated my site in a while, but that's ok. I think I'm going to see Perfect Circle on Wednesday, but I'm not sure. That'll be cool. I have to talk to Farris about that. Hey, all y'all check out JP's site, deepthinks.com... he's used my ponderings as posts a couple of times. It's a cool site. And even if it wasn't a cool site, I would tell you that it was, just b/c. Today was good. I basically did standard issue stuff, church being the foremost, then ate at Buffalo Wild Wings with church friends, then went home and cleaned up stuff from Jasper and stuff. I went to Jasper this weekend, and it was good. I played basketball for the first time in... I don't even remember when the last time I played basketball was... Oh well, it's irrelevant. Irrelevant is a cool word. I need some money. That'd be very good to have right about now, money. I need to do some web work or something... yeah... that'd be the most preferable way... Bawls are good. For tonight, life is good, but then school will come tomorrow and change all that, b/c I've got two tests, and tests are not very fun endeavours to be a part of. In any case, I'm out... I'll blog for y'all later.

23 October 2003

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Just got back from a guy's house. Hung out with some people I hung out with last Friday, and some new people... cool stuff... yeah. That's about it. I'm going to Huntsville Saturday to see Matrix Reloaded on IMAX Saturday. That's gonna be fun. Still don't know what I'm doing tomorrow, or today as I see it has now become. OK then... I guess I should get some sleep...

18 October 2003

Sat, 18 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I don't know why I started to do this every day again... maybe I'm just especially bored... Oh well, in any case, yeah... I took the PSAT today and felt pretty good about it, but as usual better on math than english... then I went to taco bell and ate with farris.. farris dude, get motivated or something b/c you've seemed out of it the past couple weeks... yeah... then after that I came home and slept for a while then got up and cut grass... cutting grass certainly isn't my favorite thing in the world to do, but it's ok. yeah. Now i'm just bored, so I'm writing this. now I'm stopping writing this and doing something else.

17 October 2003

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Stuff happens in strange and unexpected ways. But that's always cool. I thought I was gonna spend hoemcoming at home in front of my TV wasting time and maybe at the game with all the other guys without dates, but I ended up doin some stuff, so yeah.. Cool stuff... yeah. all yall that are wondering where I was at church on wednesday, read below, b/c I said I was asleeeep. And I enjoyed being asleep. It was good. But then I woke up. And I was like... hmmm... I missed church... and then I got hungry and ate so it was all good. More Later....
I'm back... it was cool.. met some ppl and stuff, yeah.. That's about it... cool... ok time to go to sleep so that I can do good on that test thing tomorrow.

15 October 2003

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Yeah. Whatsupyall. I 11:13 at night. I slept from roughly 4:30 to roughly 7:45... I have strange sleep patterns... oh well... Sometimes life gets too normal... like the last two weeks, as you can tell by my lack of updates. Nothing new here... I guess there is a bit new, but not much. Yeah. That's about it. I'm tired. *Nick goes and gets more Milo's tea from downstairs* that's better. No telling how late I'll be up tonight...

5 October 2003

Sun, 05 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I had a great weekend. I went down to Auburn and visited Brock, and we had a really good time. He showed me around town and we hung out with different people and stuff. It was good. In any case... yeah. I'm home now and I have to get all my work done before school tomorrow which is strange enough in itself, the fact that I have to go to school tomorrow, that is. I'm out.

29 September 2003

Mon, 29 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today was good, though a bit eccentric as days can be at times. I got my first essay back from Mr. Hamley and did better than I thought, then messed around with bleach and stuff in chemistry, and then I came home. I got a call from David and went and helped him valeting at a private party in Lake Cyrus. That was cool. Lots of people, not much parking space. Now I'm at home... I have to study for spanish and update some web sites. Yeah. I need to do that stuff. So I'm going to. Right now. I'm gonna stop typing...

24 September 2003

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I need to update my site. Yeah. I'm tired. On second thought, I think I'm going to go to sleep, then wake up and go to church, then eat some food after that, then come home and do math. I guess in the process of saying that I've written enough to update my site. So I am. And you are reading it...

11 September 2003

Thu, 11 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today was sad, b/c it was September 11. But I'm having a LAN tomorrow! Yay! I got my fridged stocked up with plenty of Bawls and other assorted drinks. Good stuff. Wow. I just forgot what I had for dinner, b/c I was trying to think if I was hungry or not. I remember now. I had ravioli. I'm not hungry. Ravioli is very very good. Thanks to Jordan for bring the switch to the LAN, or actually to Mr. Willingham. OK then... I think I'm gonna put the pics from the previous LANs on here. Yeah.

9 September 2003

Tue, 09 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Much needed update... but nothing to say... LAN this weekend... sweetness. That's about it. I want to make some money. Someone hire me to make a web site. No one has done that in a while. Yeah. That'd be good. Fragmentation is bad. I have a song stuck in my head. In any case... I may write something. That'd be good. I need to update my site with some new stuff. Yeah. I'll do that.

31 August 2003

Sun, 31 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Thank God for weekends. Right now I'm offline at Lake Martin. It's cool... tubing is fun... I have to study for history tomorrow, but I'm ignoring that unavoidable fact for the moment. I've just been hangin out and sleeping quite a bit for the past few days, since school got out anyway... I fix my brother's computer... there were around 10 different spyware programs on it :0 It's all better now though... and I didn't even have to reformat. Using his computer makes me happy that I have 2.2 GHz at my disposal. Tomorrow is September... It's not supposed to be September yet... weirdness.. I guess I'm gonna get off now and go tube some, b/c it's fun.

19 August 2003

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, school is back in session, and school is school... It's early. You have to learn stuff. But still, you get to see friends too which is cool. In any case... yeah... I don't know... I have lots and lots of homework tonight so I'm trying to avoid doing it in every way possible... even, gasp, updating my web site :0 So yeah, it's all good. Back to work...

8 August 2003

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Noooooooooooo! Summer is almost over! Oh well... at least it's been a good summer. Jordan's LAN was great... wow... that was a week ago... yeah... we had fun, and everyone left happy and tired. It's actually the first time I've slept at a LAN, starting from about 6:30 to about 7:30 probably, or around that time... I think it was from lack of Bawls Guarana. It's a drink. You should buy a case at compusa and try it. Anyway, I went by compusa and the shipment they had just gotten in had broken bottles in basically every case, so they wouldn't sell it to me. Ugh... I have to go do my summer reading and history project... oh well...

27 July 2003

Sun, 27 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

So, today is Sunday... yeah... I have to read 150 more pages of summer reading today b/c I figured I have to read 75 pages a day to finish before school starts and still have time for my history project... I didn't read yesterday cause I was helping Brock move from Tuscaloosa, then I parked some cars for David at night... I wish summer wasn't almost over... I like summer... summer is good... oh well... There is gonna be a LAN on Friday at Jordan's house. That's gonna be cool. Reading takes a long time. In any case... I'm gonna go now...

16 July 2003

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I'd like to meet the person who says war-driving (or walking in Boston) isn't awesome. It sounds evil, but it's really not bad at all. What you do is connect to open wireless networks. I couldn't get connected in my hotel room, but I walked onto the balcony, and what do ya' know! I've got a connection. Now I can finally check my e-mail and upload this stuff. In any case, I'm gonna' put some more stuff from Europe on, but I'll do a summary really fast.

So without further ado... a really fast Europe summary (for you NWC :)
We landed in Rome. Lots of motorcycles, weird bathrooms. OK food. Lots of big rocks. People had this idea back then that they would spend all this time doing stuff relating to rocks. For examplification purposes, the roman forum, aquaducts, statues, etc... Even the beaches have rocks. No sandy beaches. France was cool. The bread was hard. Spain was very cool. They had pool tables and energy drinks. No MTN Dew though... still :\ More rocks. Big ones. Water used to flow over them. Aquaducts I believe they were called. On a visit to one in France me and big Andrew (There is a little Andrew) entered the 6th dimension. Then we came back. We were on the other side of the Aquaduct! That was exciting. Spaghetti is good, and be sure to drink lots of water... ask me about that. Also ask me about our long walk in Madrid. That was great. You'll have to ask me about it. And to wrap things up...

Sonatas make you sleeepy... Sidewalks become comfortable :)

14 July 2003

Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, I seem to have neglected my site for a while here, but not as long as some times, and besides that I've had good reason. I've been in Europe! The trip was good... I enjoyed it, I'd do it again, but I'm glad to be home. On the other hand, I'm not really home right now. I'm actually in Boston, so I suppose that would not qualify as being at home. I was home for a week though, and that was good... I got a chance to chill out before coming up here. I'll be putting some of my journal entries from Europe on, but I'll probably wait until next week when I have some more time free, seeing as how I'm kind of busy being in Boston and all. In any case, today was good. We did tourists stuff today. Tomorrow I see MIT, an event well worth looking forward to. For the record, my first lobster dinner took place today at Tia's on the harbour. Good stuff. Oh yeah, my mom's the other person in the picture.

11 June 2003

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, this week has been good... my laptop crashed, it was my fault, but I managed to recover my files and get a fresh copy of XP Pro on it. I also installed litestep... it's pretty cool, but don't use it if you don't know much about computers or if you don't feel comfortable with regedit. I just had some spaghetti, and I'm just gettin' stuff together for my trip. It's gonna be awesome! In any case, yeah... Church is tonight... that's cool... OK... I guess I'm gonna do something else now... hmm.... what should I do... I guess I need to update the p2p site which I haven't been able to do b/c I haven't had a comp, so I'll do that now... yeah.... that'll be good... alright...

4 June 2003

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

So yeah... Today was Wednesday, which happens to be a good day, but today was quite the good day. I went to Oasis last night, and it was good... Yeah... I bought some Looksmart yesterday afternoon before the market closed b/c it was getting close to the bottom of it's consolidation pattern, and I woke up today about 11 and it had gone up 10%! So I made some money... then I ate, went to the bank, then I got some sunglasses at the mall and met up with Ben... then I came home and accidentally fell asleep, then I went to church... now it's 1:01 am on Thursday, and I need to go to bed :) My LAN is on Friday... coolness... yeah... I don't really have much to say, but today was good. In any case, I'm out... Oh, and whoever's trying to open cmd.exe on my server... it's not happenin' so just stop tryin'. My server isn't hosted at my house, but at a secured location in Arizona. Arizona is a cool-sounding word... as is indeed, or other cool words like that. Don't you hate it when the girl you like already has a boyfriend? That's no fun... oh well... guess I just need to find someone new to like... it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway since I'm not too big on the whole talkin' to girls thing... now my parents are gonna bug me until I tell them who it is b/c they read my site from time to time, which they should considering I'm there son... in any case, I'm really out now... It's time to sleep... which is good, yes, indeed...

2 June 2003

Mon, 02 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well... summer is finally here! (Insert you favorite exclamation of relief, glee, etc.)! I didn't do much of anything today. I woke up about 12:30, got queued up a bit on IRC, listened to some unreleased Linkin Park, Ate (Food is good, by the way), then I messed around in Fireworks MX, then I ate dinner with my mom and dad, then blake came over and we worked out. First time I've done that since school, and we didn't work out the past week... Yeah... It's stormy outside... I went to a LAN last friday at Ben's house w/ him blake, and jason, and ruth came for a little bit... long enough to break here sandle and make blake carry her thru the woods... oh well... haunted or in this case supposed KKK houses scare me... I don't like scary stuff for that very reason... it scares me, and the state of being scared is not a rush to me as it is to some people, it's just a state of being scared... In any case, we played soldat all night, then Blake owned us in 21, then we played more soldat till about 9. It was a good LAN... Time to go mess around in Fireworks some more... I'm gonna get some T-Shirt stuff tomorrow and make some shirts with random MWAB stuff on them... I'll show y'all what I make after it's finished.

28 May 2003

Wed, 28 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I got my driver's license today! I know my birthday was on the 19th, but it rained when I went to get it on the 21st. I haven't been able to miss school since then b/c of exams. I know I have an A in weight traning and internet publishing 2, and I already found out I have a B in spanish. Mr. Coltrane in his infinite kindness is rounding up my semester grade from 89 to 90... That's really good... all I have to find out about now is history, which I had a 89.6 in before the exam, chemics, which I had to get an 83 on, and math, which I had to get an 88 on (to have a B for chemics and math).... So, That'll be good when I know those... I have to go to school tomorrow for two hours for a weight traning exam that's gonna take five minutes... that's no good... oh well... after that school is OVER! Then in two weeks, time for Europe! Life is good...

20 May 2003

Tue, 20 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

OK, I'm finally adding an update to my site. Things are good... My birthday was yesterday, but exams are coming up and that's no fun. I go to Europe in a few weeks. That'll be cool. Summer is almost here. Today me and Todd took our laptops to internet publishing and LANed. It was good. I like food. Chemics is hard. I like food. Gatorade is good. Oh yeah... I'm going to get my driver's license tomorrow... wish me luck, and hope it don't rain. I also got a sub for my car... it sounds good. I like food. Oh well... better go study some more for my chemics test. I need to do good on this one. But then I have exams. Man. I've got a lot to do. Not to mention P2P meeting this weekend... Oh well... I'll get through alright I guess...

27 March 2003

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today is good. I got back from visiting my Grandparents in North Carolina yesterday, then I went to church but hardly anybody was there because it's spring break. I'm sitting on my back porch right now on my wireless network connection. It's really a nice view. I've got a pic of it below. I've also got pictures from visiting Duke. While I was in NC, me and my parents and my grandparents went and looked around at Duke and NCU. I guess that's about it. I'm gonna add e-commerce to evanterry.com today, so that's a first for me... I'll finally have e-commerce on one of my sites. That's cool. I would open an online store for stuff, b/c I can, but I don't have anything to sell... oh well, that's how it goes...

Oh yeah... read this.

24 February 2003

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Well, I guess it's about time I update this site again... I need to add some more stuff, but my net connection has been down :( Sorry for the lack of the nose in my smiles Angela... :) I guess it's just me.... I probably need to archive the January posts.... I'll do that sometime.... I also need to do my history project with Farris, guess I need to work on that.... yeah.... I'm also gonna get some polls up sometime.... tomorrow I'm helping Angela, Lindsey, and Chris do their History project, and I'll also set up Angela's computer.... So that's about it.... hmmm.... guess I'll sign out now.... bye bye :)

14 February 2003

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Valentines day and I go to the movies with three guys :) Oh well, I did go to J. Alexanders with Angela before that. I love their rolls that they bring out with their salads. Sadie Hawkins was last night. My dad took some pics and I've got one below. I'm on the far right, Angela is next to me, then Philip, Chirstina, Chris, and Lindsey.

2 February 2003

Sun, 02 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EDT

It's Sunday afternoon... Yeah. That's about it. I'm gonna be on the radio! monday thru friday either this week or the next on 91.9 I think... The guys from PRI asked me if I wanted to be on the radio when we were thru with our meeting, and I said sure so we went and recorded it. It was really cool... 5 5 minute segments (or actually 3 min, 20 secs after the intro and closing). On Friday... I don't remember what I did, but nothing much.
· Link: Yesterday I worked on the Personal Relationships, Inc web site. I didn't design this one, just doing the updates for it, but I had to make it dynamic, so that took a while.
· Stocks: Don't trade on the weekend... thank goodness :)
· Word of the Day: propound

29 January 2003

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Good day... must study for chemics and go to church
· Link: Macromedia Contribute... awesome program... it makes it easy for users to update web sites by reducing the update process to a few steps and making it like working in Word.
· Stocks: Surprise... UP. My portfolio is up about 2% today to my pleasant surprise... maybe it's the whole Iraq thing... maybe
· Word of the day: sublunary

28 January 2003

Tue, 28 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I love it when that guy goes "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States." It's just so cool. OK... maybe that's just me... but still.
· Link: Check out the new Power Mac G4. 1.42 GHZ dual processor.... that's getting up there with PC's... I'm thinkin a Mac will definitely be my next comp... not sure when though... just depends on some stuff.
· Stocks: up today... they'll probably be down tomorrow though... buy the rumors, sell the news... but who knows... SOTU Address is pretty predictable, so that may not be the result.
· Word of the day (That does not exist): Irredaintialization... What do you think it would mean? Hmmmmm...

22 January 2003

Wed, 22 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today was good, but I've got a lot of homework. I've got an essay on a poem in english, chemics, math, and a spanish test tomorrow. I guess it'll work out... but anyway... That's about it... I'm about to eat one of my favorite meals, spaghetti. Good stuff. I'm gonna go now so that I can get my work done. I'll try to get some updates posted this weekend on some sections of the site. I've got an idea in mind that'll be really cool, but you'll have to wait and see what it is... if it even comes about :)

21 January 2003

Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Sorry for not updating in a while... I'll get back to doing more on the individual sections, but I was on Winter Retreat with my church this weekend, so I couldn't do anything on the site (or rather didn't want to go through the trouble of connecting to the net with my laptop b/c I was too tired when I got back to my room each night :) Anyway, I'm at school right now in Internet Publishing 2, long period (when I eat lunch). We're doing some thing with basketball schedules for the city of Hoover. In any case, the bell's about to ring for me to go to English, so I better wrap it up...

14 January 2003

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

So, today I went to school and did my normal thing. Stocks were up. I went early and ate at Chick-Fil-A.... that was good. Then I came home, etc. etc. etc.... blah blah blah... hehe... I just remember how Mr. Coltrane got mad at Christina during English... That was funny... we ALL know how much of a trouble maker Christina is :)

13 January 2003

Mon, 13 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Sorry, but I forgot about my entry yesterday, so I'm doing it today from school. Let's see.... I went to school yesterday, and didn't do too much... still getting started with the semester. I didn't have any homework. I came home and fell asleep because I was tired. I woke up and ate Chili, and it was good. I watched CSI: Miami. Today was good. Not much work, but still a good day.

12 January 2003

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Ok... here's the day.... I went to church this morning, came home, an ABC 33/40 car was in my driveway, Brock was in the paper and on the news... he's my brother btw, click his name to go to the site I made for him. Anyway.... I ate lunch, then went to a P2P meeting. That was cool. Came home, did Spanish project, ate food... food is good... put some more stuff on the funny stuff section, wrote this blog, bout to do current events for history, gotta pick poets too. Woohoo... I go on Winter Retreat w/ my church this next weekend. That's always fun. Law and Order is a good show. Watch it. Watch it again. Go to sleep. Wake up and go to school. Etc, Etc, Etc....

11 January 2003

Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Yes, Piyanka, that's how it is. I just realized I had all the dates as 2002, but I fixed it.... hard to get out of the routine :) I had a good day. Slept late. I got up, ate lunch, then put some games on here, but still not web site basics... maybe tomorrow. I went to Maui Taco tonight, then I got 512 MB of RAM for my Laptop, then I came home, and now I'm blogging! (I think I just invented a new verb :) In Any case, that's all I have to say.... I may try pondering now. [Mary Nell's requested plug]

10 January 2003

Fri, 10 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

I just got in from seeing Just Married w/ Angela, and it was good. Ravioli is good too. Saturday is good. Sleep is good. I'm tired. Hmmm.... so that Saturday doesn't get here while I'm conscious, I better go to sleep. I'm tired. School is tiring. Maybe I wont be as tired if I go upstairs and go to sleep.... maybe so, maybe so. I'm gonna do a lot tomorrow. I'm gonna be finishing up a client's site, M-Logic.... I'm also gonna try to put together some web site basics stuff, cause I've gotten a lot of people asking me "How do I make a web site...." and even more: "Can you teach me???" Well.... not exactly, I learned from experience and I'm not too good of a teacher, but I can explain some basics you need to get started, and I can direct you to some people who do know how to teach, like Kirupa... he's a cool guy in my Internet Publishing 2 class, and he's got a great site. Click his name and check it out. I'm out.... no, really. I seriously am about to fall asleZzzz

9 January 2003

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today was good. Kind of normal, but you know.... I made Mrs. Alley a bit antsy when I did the fatal system error thing in the library. See, what I do is open DOS in full screen, echo off, cls, then I type in something like "Fatal System Error! Press Any Key to Delete Operating System." Teachers, being as they are, get scared, and then tell me to fix it. I'm feeling extremely flagmatic today. It seems that one minute I'm happy, then the next I'm kind of sad, but then I get happy again.... I don't know why either.... kind of weird.... I'm usually just happy most of the time, and I've had a good day, too, besides finding out that I got a 78 on my History exam, but that's my fault for not studying.... Oh well, you know.... I'm doing a good job of keeping this site up-to-date.... I usually slack off on doing sites after a bit if they're my own sites, but I'm doing good on this one.... Just make me feel good and post in the guestbook so that I'm motivated to continue writing my mindless musings :)

8 January 2003

Wed, 08 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Today school started back for me... It was alright, but it was kind of hard to adjust to getting up six hours early. Like most other people, I got in the habit of staying up till around 2 and sleeping till after 12. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get used to it. I might want to go early to school in the morning just so that I don't have to ride the bus... maybe. I'll think about it. Stocks were down today... I lost about 2% on most of mine, but that's OK, cause I was expecting a loss today. I already have a project in Spanish to do. Thanks to Mrs. Mahon for rounding up my grade :) I had to get a 74 on the exam to keep an 80.... I got a 73, but she said she knew my goal was to get a B, so she rounded up. That was nice. Tech support for my server fixed the guestbook, so I can move it back to my server now. That's good too. I'm gonna try to get some of my essays posted tonight so that yall can read 'em. In any case, that's my insert for the day.

7 January 2003

Tue, 07 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Back to school, back to school... Tomorrow starts my second semester of the 10th grade. Fun :( Oh well, It'll be good to be in the routine again. Stocks were up today... again. I'll sell pretty soon if they go up tomorrow, b/c that will put me over the 20-25% gain mark I'm trying to reach on AMZN and HPQ. I spent a lot of the day unsuccessfully trying to make a database-driven guestbook work on this site... I put it on a free Brinkster server and it worked, so I e-mailed my server's support and told them to fix it. We'll see if it works out.... If not, I'll just redirect to the free Brinkster server for the guestbook, but y'all won't ever know the difference. Other than that I just got my school stuff ready to go for tomorrow, and I started some laundry... super-exciting, but at least I can do laundry :) In any case, I'm going to Wal-Mart now. Until next time....

6 January 2003

Mon, 06 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EDT

OK, I finally did some work on this site. I've decided to do a weblog type of setup. I'll write stuff on the home page as often as I can, and Most of the other stuff will stay the same. I'll let you know when I update stuff over in the updates column on the right. In any case, this is what I'm starting out with...

Time for my first weblog entry! Wow, how 'bout the market today! It's been climbing a lot, and that's good for me. I invested some money on December 30th, and I've only had one day where my stocks have been down since then. I guess I've just gotten lucky. I'm not gonna count on this economy plan thing by Bush too much though... I'm definitely going to sell my stocks after they gain more than 25%, which should happen sometimes this week. I'm watching lots of stocks that I don't have anything invested in, so I can go somewhere else with my money and know that I've had a gain. On another note.... Back to school, back to school... I have to go back on Wednesday. I'm glad I had a break, but it'll be good to get back into the routine too. Well, I'm gonna have to do a research paper pretty soon after I get back, so maybe I'll regret saying I don't mind going back. I'll post my paper on here when I get done with it. Check out papers I've already written in the My Ponderings section.