School Supplies

It seems that the Department of Education is stocking up. This time it's not computers, or textbooks, or even pencils and paper. This month the Educational Department is stocking up on short-barrel Remington 870 Police shotguns. According to FBO.gov, an order was placed for twenty-seven 12-gauge variants of the shotgun. They bought these particular guns because they "are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts."
In an age where school officials have virtually no ability to discipline students, short barrel shotguns seem like a bit excessive. Maybe the department is planning a hostile takeover of a number of private schools in order to increase the average test scores of failing school districts.

It Is Finished

After 20 quarters of school, 7 years, and roughly $23,000 paid out of pocket after scholarships and grants, I am now the owner of a BA degree in Business Administration for the University of Washington.

This is now the first June since I was three that I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in the fall.

Rip-off!

I received my final textbook for this quarter a few days ago and realized that this book was a total rip-off, much more so than normal college textbooks. This particular textbook is a supplemental course pack put together by our "Business, Government, and Society" professor which has additional readings for us. I’ve had these before and didn’t have too much to say about them one way or the other except that they were grossly overpriced and usually just scans or photocopies of original material. This book, however, was made up almost entirely from magazine articles, newspaper articles, and corporate publications that can be found online for free with a few minutes searching via your favorite search engine. The one piece that was not freely available online was 3 poorly copied pages from a 2003 textbook, which is available at the school library.

I have all of the links saved and will offer to email them out to any classmates who wish to have them so they can avoid wasting their money on a useless booklet. Maybe I should ask for donations? :)

And So It Begins…Again…

I’m currently sitting in the classroom waiting for my second class to start and am now bored. So in the unlikely event that this post is read, and the unlikelier event that someone is interested, there it is. IT Management should be an interesting class from what I’ve gathered from our only class so far, and I hope my other classes are at least as interesting. That is all for the time being.

I win!

The Stranger, the more hippy of the ‘news’papers in Seattle wrote an article criticizing the current state superintendant for not being able to answer 3 questions they gave her from the WASL* (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) test. These particular questions are logic problems used to evaluate students’ reasoning processes. Students are instructed to “Write to help explain your best thinking using words, numbers, or pictures” when answering these questions. I believe partial credit is given to those who do not correctly answer them but show how they got their answers. The three questions given to her are as follows:

Tom, Dick and Harry work in a bank. One is the manager, one is the cashier and one is the teller. The teller, who was an only child, earns the least. Harry, who married Tom's sister, earns more than the manager. What position does each person fill?

Penny works in the Package Palace. It is Penny’s job to stamp the sides of packages that are not touching the floor and not touching another package. Today there are 25 packages on the floor. Penny put the packages into 5 stacks, and the sides of the stacks touch. How many sides of packages must penny stamp.

The local recycling plant has just bought a new metal compactor that produces a smaller cube of scrap iron than does the older machine. Somebody noticed, however, that the combined volumes of one cube from each compactor was numerically the same as the combined lengths of all their edges. What are the dimensions of the cubes, if you consider only integral solutions?

The superintendant, Terry Bergeson, only attempted the first two questions and got both of them wrong. I tried and got all three right, therefore I’m now accepting write in votes for the position as the new State School Superintendant.

*The WASL test was put together by a panel of teachers and representatives from the largest employers in Washington to evaluate the basic knowledge and reasoning abilities of Washington high school students. Those who pass the test show that they meet a satisfactory level of reasoning ability required to be hired by these companies. Sadly, few students pass every section of this test on their first attempt, and most teachers (including the superintendant) fail as well.

Movies of 2008

So far I’ve seen 5 movies that have been released this year. There really hasn’t been that many that I’ve had a strong desire to see, or at least be willing to pay money to see. So here’s my five movie countdown:

#5
Veggie Tales: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

I enjoyed most of this movie, but I cannot comment on the entire since I fell asleep in the middle of it; which isn’t a good or easy thing to do when seeing it at the theater. It definitely had its moments though.

#4
27 Dresses

While seeing the first part of this movie I thought it was a rip-off of The Wedding Planner. It was pretty good overall, but lacked the sheer awesomeness of the other movies I’ve seen so far.

#3
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!

Definitely the better of the cartoons that have come out this year. It reminded me that good animations actually do come out more than once a year. I’m not sure if I’d spend money to buy the disc, but it was still a good movie.

#2
Speed Racer

This movie was excellent. The story was good, the animation was superb, and the characters were likable. Some of it was total sensory overload on the big screen, which can be very fun once in a while. The one thing it lacked to make it the best movie of the year was a character named Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr.

#1
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I’ve been waiting years for this movie and was not disappointed. It wasn’t quite as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but still awesome. It was better than Temple of Doom and more exciting than Last Crusade, and had some of the humor from both. The only Indiana Jones story that could have made a better movie would have been Fate of Atlantis, that is and would be an awesome story to see made into a movie; I’d rather not wait almost 20 years for another Indiana Jones movie if they decide to make one. Nursing Home Brawl probably wouldn’t be a very exciting sequel to my favorite Lucas/Spielberg joint project.

I still want to see Iron Man and Narnia. Hopefully the drive-in will have the two playing together and I can see them back to back in the near future.

I think I'm done procrastinating now and will start my online final for Operations Management.

Hooray for Bush!

Finally, he’s taking a step in the right direction as it relates to illegal immigration.  According to breitbart.com Bush signed an executive order requiring all employees of federal contractors to be legally eligible to work in the US.  This will cut off jobs to probably thousands of illegal workers who will have to either find new work or go home and then make those jobs available to legal immigrants and US citizens who need them.

School is almost done, need one more online final and then it's over for three months. I'm hoping to get at least one day off per week this summer to do whatever I want.

Almost Done...

I've got a paper and presentation due tomorrow, then I'm essentially done with school for the year. Right now I can't focus on much of anything for more than a few minutes at a time, so I've decided to make a quick post as one of my distractions. We're writing a paper on one of the print shops I work at sometimes. This should be an interesting project when we finish it; it's not due for another 12 1/2 hours though, plenty of time.

Busy, Busy

I'm thinking of the Veggie Tales song right now about being so busy:

I'm busy, busy, dreadfully busy
You've no idea what I have to do.
Busy, busy, shockingly busy
Much, much too busy for you.

So yeah...
Anyway I'm working on a paper for Negotiation class right now. It's not due for a few hours but I figure I'll try to get it done before class actually starts. My finals are all two weeks from today, and then I'm finally done with school until the end of September. Only one more paper and two presentations left after today and then I can slack off until finals are over. I'll shoot to have a real post done tonight.

April Update

April Snowfall Brings May Floods? It doesn’t rhyme but that’s life. After having the coldest end of March in Seattle’s recorded history, we’re probably having the coldest April too, and most places around here have had snowfall in the last 24 hours, as well as several times during the past three weeks. How is it that when we have unusually cold weather in spring they weather people say it’s just a freak weather pattern? Yet when we have an unusually hot period in the summer it can only be global warming! I’m contemplating building a fire in the wood stove tonight so I don’t freeze, since it gets cold at night (33F at the moment and falling).

I never got to my Sakura-Con update so I guess I’ll give a brief summary now. It was AWSOME! We went all three days and managed to go to the opening and closing ceremonies. They were very cool, but too loud for comfort, which is why I was very thankful for earplugs.
Brenda and I spent most of the time watching AMVs in the AMV theater and a few anime episodes in one of the anime theaters. There were also thousands of cosplayers dressed as their favorite characters from dozens of different series. The whole experience was very fun, equally exhausting, and I’m going to preorder tickets for next year as soon as they’re available. Also, I’m designing my Syaoran costume for next year as well.

In the political news, I really dislike the presidential candidates, but hate McCain the least so he’ll probably get my vote. Not sure if there’s a point in voting for a Republican candidate in Washington since we’re probably the largest Socialist stronghold in the country. Unlike the rest of the country, candidates don’t even have to pretend to me remotely conservative here to get elected. “Elect me and I’ll raise the taxes of everyone who makes more than you to pay for social programs that benefit you” is all a candidate needs to say to get elected around here.

In more important news, our Bible Quiz team got a wildcard invitation to the Regional finals in Spokane. This is the first time we’ve sent a team since I got involved in 1997. They have a long was to go if they hope to go to Nationals but now they at least have a shot.

I still like my classes this quarter and they’re not very hard. The hardest part is the leaving at 07:30 to make it to the first one.

That’s it, nothing else is really going on that I can think of at the moment. I should have my ads fixed soon so that they show up instead of the public service announcements. Then I’ll get my three cents every time someone visits my blog, which adds up over time.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

It snowed last Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and we got an inch of a snow/hail/slush mix this afternoon. This is probably going to be one of the coldest last weeks of March on record. State law forbids the use of studded tires starting April 1, but they've announced that they will not be enforcing this law until it stops snowing. The passes have tons of fresh snow and I hear skiing is good.

School starts tomorrow but I'll probably skip the first day since all we typically do is receive our syllabuses and go over them. Since Trebonte is still out west in Hawaii I have little desire to drive the 60 mile trip to school without using the carpool lanes.

I did my taxes early this year and finished them about 45 minutes ago. I realized that if I don't count sales tax (8.8% at the moment) I paid 19.3% of my income to the government in some form of fees or taxes. As over half of my income pays for college, tax is my second largest expense, slightly beating out gasoline in third place. I'm not holding my breath that whatever loser wins the presidential election will do anything to reduce my taxes since they seem to think that they can spend my money better than me. Lies!

Almost there...

I just finished a group presentation with Trebonte, and the rest of our group, for our Marketing Management class. We presented a marketing plan for my instant clothes dryer concept that I’ve been playing with for a few years now. Overall the presentation went well and we got it over with. Now all I really have left this quarter is my Corporate Finance final at 15:30 this afternoon, then I’m basically on spring break. Time to start studying now. Wish me luck…

Live Writer Test

I just downloaded Windows Live Writer and thought I've give it a test.  Instead of typing up most posts in Word, running them through FrontPage for a quick format of any code in the post, and then posting to Blogger, this should allow me to do everything in a single window.

Today was the last day of class for the quarter.  Next week I've got a Business Finance final on Monday as well as a Marketing Management presentation to give on my instant clothes dryer.  On Wednesday we're supposed to be in class to see the other presentations and then the quarter is complete.  Spring quarter begins April 1st.

We're Getting Nukes

Well by we I mean Texas and by nukes I mean a pair of new nuclear reactors. NRG applied to build two new plants next to two other plants they operate near Bay City, Texas. I also wrote an 8 page paper on the topic for my Political Ideas and Ideologies class. I like the topic, but going out of my way to integrate it into our class materials was a serious pain in the butt. Our professor didn’t care if we used Wikipedia for our paper, as long as it wasn’t our primary information source. I used one page of it as one of 34 sources for this 8 page paper. If you don’t want to read it I wouldn’t recommend it. If you do want something really boring to read here it is:

On March 28, 1979, Reactor 2 at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station breached, releasing radioactive gasses into the atmosphere. Although no one was killed or injured in the accident, the fear of a nuclear catastrophe was now on people’s minds. Since that incident no applications to build new nuclear plants had been filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) until this year. In June of 2006, NRG Energy Incorporated filed a letter of formal intent to the NRC to build two new reactors at the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station near Bay City, Texas to accompany the two existing reactors at the same site. On September 24, 2007 NRG filed the first formal application for the construction of a new nuclear power plant since 1979. This is believed to be the first of dozens of new applications to be filed in the U.S. by the end of the decade.
These two new nuclear reactors have reopened the national debate over nuclear power, historically considered by many to be impractical and overly expensive. Classic questions of nuclear safety have been largely overshadowed by questions about carbon emissions. Costs of construction have been overshadowed by talk of the historically high oil prices. Talk of radioactive materials is overshadowed by talk of nuclear proliferation. What isn’t being talked about as much are the ramifications of having two new fission reactors being built in Bay City, Texas.
The people with the most at stake in this debate are the citizens of Southern Texas. The residents are the ones who will be living in proximity to the new reactors. The vast majority of the power generated from these reactors will be sold within the region to the local residences and businesses. In the event of a nuclear disaster the local citizens may suffer the possible chance of adverse affects caused by the nightmarish scenario. These are the people who are funding the construction by paying their utility bills. These are the people who will live in the shadow of the new reactors. These are the people whose voices should carry the most weight in any debate on the matter.
The question is whether the decision to build new nuclear reactors should rest primarily with those who are directly affected by building new base-load power plants, either nuclear or coal. John Borland (2007) wrote an article in Wired Magazine about author Gwyneth Cravens, a former nuclear protester, who has become a strong proponent of nuclear energy. Borland quotes her as saying:
I used to think we surely could do better. We could have more wind farms and solar. But I then learned about base-load energy, and that there are three forms of it: fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear. In the United States, we're maxed out on hydro. That leaves fossil fuels and nuclear power, and most of the fossil fuel burned is coal.
In the U.S., 24,000 people a year die from coal pollution. Hundreds of thousands more people suffer from lung and heart disease directly attributable to coal pollution.
Given the need for reliable, base-load power, people such as Cravens argue that nuclear power is the best we can do at this point in time. The heavy pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels perpetuates the fears of acid rain and heavy carbon emissions, both of which environmentalists want to immensely reduce.
Even though the most catastrophic nuclear disaster in U.S. history (Three Mile Island) didn’t harm or kill a single person, many people are still fearful of nuclear power plants. John Dryzek comments in The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, “[People] tend to have a low tolerance for low-probability catastrophic events (such as the meltdown of a nuclear reactor), and so overestimate the risks from them.”(2005) These fears must be addressed because the citizens need to be able to feel safe and secure in their daily lives. This ties into Andrew Heywood’s discourse of Conservative ideology on security. Heywood’s claim is that Conservatives “believe that human beings are…security-seeking creatures, drawn to the known, the familiar, the tried and tested.”(2007) Thus employing a relatively new technology, which harnesses the power of matter itself, will definitely make most people uneasy until they are able to learn the facts about what is being proposed in their backyard.
For the citizens of the Bay City area, the proposal of building a pair of new nuclear reactors is not a terrifying prospect. They have the information and knowledge they need in order to know that their lives suffer little risk of being contaminated by a nuclear disaster. According to Wikipedia, the residents already have two of the world’s largest nuclear reactors located at the same site where the new reactors are being proposed. Even residents of neighboring Victoria County are petitioning energy company Exelon Nuclear to build a new nuclear plant in their county (Triplett, 2007). As the population grows the need for an increase of base-power generation also increases. The fear of adding another pair of nuclear power plants doesn’t appear to exist in the Bay City area.
A huge factor in the construction of new reactors is the costs involved. According to Wikipedia, the two existing nuclear plants currently operating in the South Texas Project cost roughly $5.5 billion to build and bring online. Thus the immense capital costs involved in the construction of nuclear plants make them among the most expensive of all power generating stations. Unlike the costs of traditional power plants fueled by coal, gas, or oil; nuclear fuel is an insignificant cost of operating the plant. CNN Money writer, Steve Hargreaves (2007), indicates the cost of enriched uranium to fuel a nuclear reactor is only 28% of the total operating cost of the plant. The two main costs of running a nuclear plant are the amortization of the huge capital investment made during its construction and the salaries of those who operate the facility. By having relatively stable operating costs, consumers are assured that their utility bills will not fluctuate wildly with the whims of the fuel markets. The rising and uncertain costs of oil and other fossil fuels only make nuclear power more attractive to those concerned about unstable prices of electricity.
When analyzing the costs of building new power plants we must also look beyond the financial costs. We need to look at the human costs and the environmental costs as well. The financial costs of building a coal power plant pale in comparison to the costs involved in constructing a nuclear plant. But the costs of operating a coal plant are much higher both economically and environmentally. Whereas nuclear plants are relatively cheap to fuel, almost all of a coal plant’s operating expenses come from buying and burning coal by the trainload. Unfortunately most of the coal that is burned ends up in the atmosphere. Coal smoke contains ash, soot, greenhouse gases, and heavy metals such as lead, mercury, uranium, and thorium. A typical coal power plant releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere than all of the world’s nuclear plants combined. With such heavy pollution coming from our coal power plants, most environmentalists are screaming for alternatives.
According to his editorial in the Austin American-Statesman, Bruce Hight points out that environmentalist groups have protested and successfully lobbied to stop eight of eleven proposed coal power plants from being built in Texas in recent years (2007). He goes on to point out that environmental groups such as Environmental Defense and Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen are vehemently opposed to the production of coal power plants due to their toxic emissions which are harmful to both humans and the environment. Public Citizen is also equally opposed to nuclear power and is horrified that NRG is planning two new reactors anywhere, much less in Southern Texas. Hight also quotes a different opinion from Jim Marston, spokesman for Environmental Defense, as saying “‘Environmental Defense might – reluctantly – consider nuclear power. But not coal plants’” for adding needed base-power to the electrical grid. Environmental groups are in consensus that current coal technology is too dirty and inefficient for a 21st century world. The debate is whether nuclear is an acceptable alternative to higher polluting power plants.
Nuclear power, together with wind and solar power, are generally considered to be pollutionless sources of energy. The only harmful byproduct of nuclear power generation is its spent fuel. On the NEI Nuclear Notes blog, Eric McErlain (2007) quotes a statistic from Gwyneth Cravens concerning spent nuclear fuel:
A family in four in France, where they reprocess nuclear fuel, would produce only enough waste to fit in a coffee cup over a whole lifetime. A lifetime of getting all your electricity from coal-fired plants would make a single person's share of solid waste (in the United States) 68 tons, which would require six 12-ton railroad cars to haul away. Your share of CO2 would be 77 tons.
The spent fuel still needs to be disposed of in a safe manner. The consensus on how to dispose of this spent fuel is to simply bury it. Large disposal sites such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada are being built to store thousands of tons of nuclear waste a thousand feet underground in steel casks where they will remain safely for thousands of years. These sites are funded by taxes imposed on the sale of electricity from all current nuclear plants in the country.
Most editorials and blog posts we found relating to the two new NRG reactors were overwhelmingly in favor of reviving the nuclear industry. Deliberative democracy is intended to give everyone a voice in matters concerning their own lives and the digital age now gives everyone an ability to express their opinions to the world. We fully expected to find strong opposition for these new reactors like there was in the past from environmentalist and “not in my backyard” groups who did not want the nuclear reactors where they were built. Without any way to deliberate in an open forum such as the internet and letters to the editor, the individuals opposing the nuclear reactors would be relegated from “citizen” status to “subject” status by Barbara Cruikshank (2007) because they would not have any meaningful voice in what affects their lives. Unlike citizens, who have both a voice and a role to play in their government, subjects have neither, being subject to those who have the power, with no voice in matters concerning them.
Other forums, such as town hall meetings, would also give people an opportunity to become more informed about the issue at hand, as well as voice any concerns and objections they may feel toward having two new reactors built. Iris Young (1996) describes these meetings in her writings as a place where “Greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling are forms of communication that in addition to argument contribute to political discussion.” There must be places where people can discuss more than just hard facts and statistics when discussing large issues. People must feel connected to their communities and involved with what takes place around them. It’s apparent from reading local news articles that the vast majority of people are welcoming to the prospect of a second pair of nuclear reactors in their region. The people who are not as open to the idea are largely ignored when the press are covering this issue. The forums of deliberation proposed by Young would be a way for those whose voices are largely unheard to be recognized and listened to as individuals in need of expressing their views.
NRG’s plans to build these nuclear plants have sparked a debate, not merely in Southern Texas, but throughout the country. The U.S. government is currently involved only by the actions of the NRC; however, other agencies are sure to become involved. The Environmental Protection Agency is also likely to step into the picture once the NRC has approved the construction. The U.S. Department of Energy also has a stake in this matter as they issue guidelines for all power generation within the country.
NRG’s applications for the first new reactors in decades will determine the future of power generation in the U.S. If the applications are approved, the precedent will pave the way for as many as thirty-two new reactor applications to be completed by the end of 2009 (NRC, 2007). If the applications are rejected, the future of nuclear power in the U.S. may be finished. Groups from all over the country are scrambling to lobby Congress with their positions on the issue. Many people and groups are relieved that nuclear power will get another chance in the 21st century. These people will quickly point out that France, Japan, and China are scrambling to build new nuclear reactors in order to increase their power generating capacity without increasing their CO2 emissions. Other groups quickly point to the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and fear that a similar event will happen on U.S. soil. They will oppose all prospects of building a new nuclear reactor anywhere in the country.
The only certainty in the debate over building new nuclear reactors is that the country will need more base-load capacity soon. The U.S. population will soon reach one-third of a billion residents and those residents will require reliable, cost-effective, and clean sources of electricity. Wind, solar, and tidal generation stations can alleviate much of the anticipated power demand, but they cannot provide the constant output of electricity needed twenty-four hours per day. The nuclear power industry is promising that their technology is the best solution to the anticipated needs of the country. This debate will continue long after NRG’s two proposed reactors are either rejected or constructed.

Same Old Thing

I've decided that I like work a lot more than school. However, I also know that I don’t want to work there forever, hence going to school. Today I drilled holes into a ton of catalogs, cleaned up the 3-hole drilling machine, and moved around heavy boxes while throwing others out. It wasn’t bad, I got to listen to the radio (mostly Bryan Suits) and talk to interesting people.

I also got to use Rich’s scanner to scan the first 200 pages of my organizational management book. Having all of my textbooks on my USB drive and reading them on the computer is much more desirable than lugging them around all day. This is the last of my books to scan and I’m 1/3 done already. As long as I get the chapters scanned before we need them for class Trebone will be happy since we’re sharing books; so I have to send him the scans.

Ran 5K on the treadmill at varying speeds going a few seconds over 30 minutes. That was spread between running and walking. Run fast for a few minutes, then walk to keep my average speed just over 6 miles per hour. Now I’m off to start my reading for organizational management as we have our first midterm tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Quote of the Moment:
“If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.”
-Despair.com

Monday...

So yesterday I spent the entire afternoon partying with family. My sisters wanted Italian food so we had various flavors of spaghettis, raviolis, meatballs, and breads. For dessert we had apple pie and pumpkin-spice cheesecake.

Since my sisters are big fans of DDR I went to Game Stop to see which versions they had cheap. I found DDR Extreme 2 used for $40 and was tempted to get it, before I saw that they had it new for $30. The guy at the counter even asked me if I wanted to get the used one for a mere $10 more.

So near the end of the party we were playing DDR for a while, and my legs were really getting tired. I counted that as my workout for the day as playing it on harder modes is more physically demanding than running.

School today was more of the same old boring stuff. I fought to stay awake all day. My economics teacher made a big deal about Leonid Hurwicz winning the Nobel prize, as Hurwicz was his game theory professor in college. They also had an ice cream giveaway at school as a ploy to meet the UW Chancellor, who I think I met but didn’t know who he was.

Got in my jog for today: 19 minutes at 6.5 miles per hour.

Random Quote:
"When birds fly in the right formation, they need only exert half the effort. Even in nature, teamwork results in collective laziness."
-Despair

Another long day

Today in class we discussed the qualities of an ideal work group for our class, as the title of the class is Group Dynamics. Apparently the goal of the class is to teach us to work in teams, which are distinctly different in practice from groups.

In Managerial Economics we had a simulation of how the markets work in the sale and purchase of various goods. And also how the market is affected by outside influences in the forms of taxes, government regulation of prices, foreign demand of goods, and foreign production of goods. Most often the market – free of government controls – gave the best profits and benefits to both buyers and sellers in this game. I also came in second place for the most profit made buying and selling, even though various regulations killed my performance in various rounds as I couldn’t either buy or sell my good at a profit. It was a fun exercise.

In Political Ideology class we discussed Classical Liberalism, which would be considered more conservative than most Conservatives today, which is a far cry from those who favor Modern Liberalism today. It was a pretty boring class and I almost fell asleep while drinking my Coke, which would have been really bad if I did fall asleep and spilled it on myself. I also managed to acquire an mp3 player in that class that was dropped by another student. I’m pretty sure its an Apple mp3 player, and I’m also pretty sure that it belongs to a guy in my discussion group so I’ll give it back to him on Monday if it is his. If its not his I’d like to sell it on eBay and buy a better one with the money while pocketing the rest.

I’ve also been slacking very much in my running of late and have got really out of shape. I cannot realistically run these days outside as I have no free time during daylight hours. Hence I’m restricted to running on the treadmill at night, which is not the same as I cannot use full strides; so its more of a jog than a run. Given that case I’m making it a goal to jog for a set time and speed every day, with each day increasing either the time or the speed. Today I jogged for 15 minutes at 6.2 miles per hour. Given that I’m probably getting sick at the moment and am out of shape that took much more effort than I anticipated. Tomorrow I will most likely add time to that. I’m also making it a goal to log all of my running here everyday so that everyone in the world (or at least the 4 people who read this blog semi-regularly) will know when I’m slacking.

That is all. No interesting quote comes to mind.

And So It Begins...Again

Today was the first day of the school for me. I haven’t had to sit through 6 hours of classes in a single day in a long time, but now I get to do it twice a week. This quarter doesn’t look to be very fun at all. Thankfully we don’t have to be there until 1:15PM so we miss most of the traffic, but it’s still a long day. My managerial economics class looks to be interesting, my organizational management class will probably be boring, and my political science class looks like a total waste of time. That and I’m looking at a 2-hour, 75 mile round trip commute which makes for long and crappy school days. I’m already looking forward to Christmas break.

Wish me luck.

Random Quote:
“I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” Galatians 4:11

Busy

I've been really busy lately with school. I've only got two days left but I've done more work in the last two weeks than I have during the previous 9 weeks of the quarter. I needed to make a CG animation from scratch, design every part of an engine and assemble it, and write out a journal of every video clip I saw for my History of Animation class. Here's my animation if anyone is interested.

New Quarter

(This post has nothing to do with 25-cent coins)

I’m currently sitting in my first class of the new quarter waiting for the teacher to get things together. This is my CAD class and most of the computers in here aren’t working correctly at the moment. We’re using the program Solid Edge (which I’m not fond of) for 3D modeling of machine parts. Currently, the program isn’t running on the lab computers so we’ve got the next hour to do whatever we want. I’m updating my blog and catching up on some of the other blogs I read. Maybe I’ll regularly update during class since it doesn’t appear that we have much structured lecture time during the 2-hour block.

Random Quote of the Moment:
“…” – Silent Bob