For those interested, I restored my article on the "Air Force Special Program". It's available for reading [here]. [ 11/16/2002 04:06:42 PM ] [ ]
Now that the ads are gone at top it seems so.... empty! [ 11/16/2002 02:49:04 PM ] [ ]
I remember not so long ago a teraflop seemed unobtainable... now [a bunch of xserves hooked together] can do 1/5th that! [ 11/16/2002 02:07:47 PM ] [ ]
Ug. I feel like poopy still. Being clinically depressed..... chemically depressed... isn't fun. For me, I deal with it fairly well, but it's real difficult for other people to understand it and how it works. Bleh.
But hey, I'm going to be with her and her family for thanksgiving! [ 11/16/2002 01:42:39 PM ] [ ]
With city officials looking on, the children sang a song about “peace in the world-that means no fighting.” They held colorful homemade signs calling for peace and no war. One boy had a blue bumper sticker emblazoned on the front of his t-shirt that read: “War in Iraq: NO.” Another held a sign saying, “No War on Children.” With her mother holding a bullhorn, one child shouted a chant for peace across the City Hall plaza, as if taking cue from UC Berkeley students on Sproul Plaza.
How fucked up is that?
But Skyler Johnson, 5, hadn’t learned much about the conflict in Iraq. When he was asked who is the President of Iraq, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “My mom might know.” After she came over and gave him a little coaching, he was able to muster, “We don’t want war. Oil kills lots of people.”
[ 11/14/2002 04:12:00 PM ] [ ]
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Mind you, I don't have a particularly bad relationship with my family.
But thanksgiving is different. Yes, everyone has to do "the family thing" for thanksgiving, I know. But I've forgotten what "the family thing" is. For the last.... 15, 16 something years, every year we go to WONDERFUL Sun City, Arizona outside of Phoenix. We fly into Sky Harbor. We all get into Dad's rental-of-the-week. We drive the 45 minutes or so into the world's largest "retirement community". We pass The Oxygen Store and the drive-thru church. We get to grandpa's. And pretty much immediately, he's trying to get Mom to cook for him. That's his primary objective in all of this. The rest of us, we are mostly ignored. He'll *maybe* talk to us once each during the entire 4 or 5 days. The heat in the last few years has been turned up JUST to that point where it makes any reasonably healthy person drowsy. We literally warn each other to keep moving or we'll pass out. The air is dry, and dusty, and because of that and the stress, I get sick *every year* I'm there. Usually pretty bad too. There isn't anything around for several miles but identical houses and the Circle K, so we end up doing this: 1. Drink all soda in house as fast as possible 2. Go to Circle K to get more. Walk as slowly as possible. 3. Repeat as often as possible. If we can keep from falling over asleep of course. I tend to run out of things to read pretty quickly, and no one let's me use my laptop for more than a few minutes at a time. And, of course, grandpa spends the entire time watching football and nodding off. The rest of us just try and survive it. Dad is grandpa's little bitch, mom busies herself cooking for him, and my brother, sister in law, and I get stuck sitting around or hanging up christmas lights that are a fire hazard waiting to happen. I could go on and on, but I won't. There's nothing family about this experience.
I'd way rather be with Chelle's family, cause at least that would be more like years and years ago, so long ago I can hardly remember it, when my family and some of our cousins had thanksgiving together. Kids running around, getting into trouble... a tad more interesting than backstabbing and running to the Circle K cause that's the only thing to do.
I'd rather be anywhere else. I think it's time to call mom and tell her I'm not going. I'm getting far too manic just thinking about going though that crap yet again. [ 11/13/2002 02:40:46 PM ] [ ]
Monday, November 11, 2002
Oh for those of you that haven't clued in.... we haven't set a date... we haven't done a bunch of things but..... I'm not her boyfriend anymore. I'm her fiance.
[ 11/11/2002 11:59:04 AM ] [ ]
Fun: Watching her face as I sing and dance to music that she isn't all that into. Not fun: Driving on the 5 at 1am, and suddenly realizing that you just lost consciousness for a few seconds.
Fun: Seeing her shit eating grin. Not fun: Rentacops who want to "see what a good photographer you are"
Fun: Being impractical Not fun: Domino's induced gassy ass
Fun: Asking her something I've wanted to for a long time. Having hope. Not fun: Uhhhh.... there's really nothing not fun about that. [ 11/11/2002 11:58:04 AM ] [ ]
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Most people would never think that I was once very anti-smoking. Once upon a time, I used to stomp on cigarettes in the ground to make sure they were out. I have no idea where I got that idea from.
I once thought that even smoking one cigarette would have untold long-term health effects.
Then at summer camp one year, the counselors were getting stuff for our yearly cabin outing across the lake, and we had them get licorice, soda, etc. - and since our British counselor was a smoker, I had him get a pack of cigarettes. I figured I'd give them to him for being a good guy, right?
Well, he gave them right back to me! I have no idea why. I gave them to Nat, weeks later we ended up smoking ONE - I didn't even inhale - and that was it.
Years after that, in my freshman year of high school (boarding school, for those of you that don't know), I started smoking. Camel lights at first, then Marlboro Reds. Yes, smoking is icky. But in boarding school, under a lot of stress, having an excuse to sneak off campus is a good thing. And for those 4 years, I smoked 1, maybe 2 a day. I didn't smoke much at all over the summers - in that heat of a New Jersey summer, I just didn't have any desire to.
The first night in my own place in college, I realized that I could probably smoke all I want. I frantically read through my lease agreement before turning a McDonald's cup into a makeshift ashtray. Within several days, I had jammed my garbage disposal with butts. In NJ, we didn't have disposals - they were illegal - so I had to read up at Home Depot on how to fix that problem. Pretty soon I was at about a pack a day..... and have only stopped a few times since.
Why do people talk about the internet as if it's a place, or a road? "Get on the internet"? What is there to get "on"? Odd. [ 11/10/2002 12:24:27 PM ] [ ]
I could deal with [this] as a christmas present.... hint hint [ 11/10/2002 11:56:00 AM ] [ ]
She may never realize just how much I love her, but that's ok with me. Just gives me more to prove to her ;) [ 11/10/2002 11:42:50 AM ] [ ]
