Well, I gave in … finally took a mid-afternoon nap on the futon, which has made its way from Club Todder to the IPT classroom. Woohoo … it actually didn’t sleep too horribly.

Now I’m trying to blink myself back into wakefulness. I have a column to write for USCHO, which I can probably knock out in the next hour or so; if not, I’ll work on it after class. After Dr. Frederick sees our dry run of our presentation for class, we’re going to brainstorm a bit for the Open House, get final ideas pushed together, and then I’m going to kick them out of here a little early. This will probably be the last break we get in this class for a while.

Going over to Amy’s tonight … Jess is coming through town, and Jeremy has de-cloaked. I figure I have the time to de-cloak myself [well, not really, but screw it, I'm making time], so I will.

But now I gotta take the trash outta here … finally figured out the source of the funk in my shoes … the Spenco insoles that were so comfy five months ago now don’t do much, and my feet sweat so much that about half the surface was a nice salty white. Whew! I better get the stench outta here before the team starts filing in here …

Well, the paper really is in the can now … got the references tout suite from Jamie and sent it off. So now I’m sitting here in the IPT room, chatting with Tiff, generally wastin’ time until I go to teach my class tonight.

Yeah, yeah, I need to figure out what I’m going to talk to them about. It’s certainly better than doing my MAE 480 homework …

I have our team’s White Paper done for IPT. I want to go do a cartwheel or something.

Have you ever noticed that I have this fixation with cartwheels? It worries me a bit.

Well, I woke up this morning around the time I’d planned–5:20 or so. I’d hoped to get to work around 6:30 so I could get work stuff done early and work on some homework and such. When I awoke, it was because I had the Sinus Headache from Hell. I finally got my eyes focused and pointing the same direction, so I stumbled down the hall to find some pain reliever that also had a decongestant to it.

See, when I get sinus headaches, they get so bad it’s hard for me to function. I usually get nausea with them, too. Great fun in my world. So when I found medication, I took it and crawled back in bed after setting an alarm to get up in an hour or so.

Well, an hour later, my headache was no better. I played the fast-forward alarm-clock game until around 8:00, just so I could function enough to drive in to work. I’m still sitting here with a pretty stout sinus headache, but it’s nothing I can’t slag through … I think.

And I’m pissed as well. Why the heck did areas north and south of Huntsville both get bitchslapped with snow and ice, but Huntsville was left relatively unscathed? Why? I mean, come on, I moved to Monte Sano for the weather, good and bad. Our road’s been shut down all of twice … both times for less than 12 hours. Grrrr.

Oh well, time to shut up and work…

Well, I’m here at work … but only because my good buddy Ernie is at Boeing today, and someone has to get these schedule updates out. Who? Well, you’re reading his Web site, dammit.

Hey, I’m being paid to do this. I just took a between-schedules break to zip over into GM and post this. I’ll be here a couple of hours to make sure that this is all I have to update before I head back over and do the whole class thing…

So anyway, I’ve just hit the ATM in the University Center and am on my way to lunch. I hear someone calling me. It’s Delois Smith, UAH’s Vice President for Student Affairs. I walk towards her; we talk for a minute. She asks if I’m headed to the cafeteria. I affirm that. She hands me a ticket worth $7.00 for the cafeteria.

Heh.

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? [Well, dinner.]

Another in a series of a series of a series of timely education projects brought to you by Standard [shshsh] Sandpaper. Buff, burnish, smooth, and shine with Standard [shshsh] Sandpaper.

Anyhow … Why does someone vomit at least once a week? I don’t know, but we’re purportedly #1 for having this answer.

I’ll get the research staff on this one immediately. I guess the immediate cause is bulimia … no, not the capital of Belarus. That would be Minsk, you dumbkopf!

[That posted, I'm off to the computer lab to do some dastardly deeds with MATLAB. Yes, I'll shower afterwards.]

Well, it seems that the Newsboys will release an album a month from tomorrow. I’m hoping they’re done experimenting with concept albums and go back to some of the standards that made them what they are: good, driving rock anthems, thoughtful and witty songwriting, and honesty. Love Liberty Disco was cool and all, but after about eight or ten spins in the CD player, it starts to grow tired.

You can pre-order with GrassRoots if you’re interested. I’m betting this is back to “standard Newsboys”.

Well, I had a good weekend at home. Unfortunately, that means I wasn’t here, which means I have this AES homework to do before class today. Ick.

It’s been really quiet around here this morning … almost too quiet.

Okay … if you read my last journal entry and guessed my worry was for Aaron, you’d be right. You can go inspect that entry and see that my worry is erased. I just talked to him on the phone–he’s laughing and joking as much as ever. I find this to be a good thing, and my worry is dissolved. I overreacted to a limited set of knowledge … something I know better than to do but can’t always stop myself from doing anyway.

[The main point of my journal entry stands--some of you net.people frankly scare me with the influence you'd want to wield over someone, but I doubt I'm interesting enough as to be desirable of controllability in the first place. Besides, I'm meaner than you are, and you know it. :D]

No, I’m not going to tell you where he is [or isn't], so don’t ask. Just let the fella be for a time. I assure you that he’ll be back, and the stories he’ll tell will be good, I think. In the mean time, you can all read my random blatherings and chuckle over things I say and don’t say. Come on, you know you want to!

If you want to send me an email about all of this, rather than comment, go ahead. I don’t know what I’ll say in response to your query, but I will read and respond. So there.

I guess my big frustration with not being home for the US-Russia game tonight extends to not really being cognizant of the Miracle on Ice when it happened. I was barely sixteen months old at the time, so it would be hard to remember anyway. But US-Russia on February 22, 1980 is something I’ve always heard about. To have a rematch–at the same level of Olympic play, the next-to-last game in the tournament–is just too cool, especially when you know that both games were on US soil.

Why am I so intent on the US winning? Well, I love hockey, and I’m a patriot. Also, a lot of college hockey guys star for the US team, and, well, I’m biased towards college hockey, as I write for US College Hockey Online.

However, the most important thing to me is for the US to win and beat the Canadians. Brad seems so sure the Canadians will win. I’ve watched all but their last two games, and I’ve been unimpressed. The US has played as a team all throughout the tournament … and I like our chances.

If the US wins, you know I’ll give Brad hell. I expect nothing less on the off chance that the reverse happens.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

If you think you’ve read it all about the Russians threatening to quit the Olympics, you haven’t.

Jim Caple is one of ESPN.com’s more satiric writers, and his bit about the Russian demands on the IOC is right hilarious.

Seriously, it’s funny, even if you don’t follow sports that much. But Caple regularly lampoons all sorts of stuff. I imagine he’s about three-quarters nutso, but hey, I think you have to be in order to be a sportswriter.

In case you didn’t hear, I attempted to cause serious trouble on UAH’s campus recently.

Just how many Geof Morris’s do you think there are in this world, eh? Only one at UAH, and I’m quoted all throughout this story. Heh.

I will be on the road for most/all of the US-Russia hockey semifinal tonight.

This is a travesty.

Bloody Aircraft Stability and Control exam … I should have gone home last weekend, then I could see this unabated!

I’m in the South … there’s zero chance of getting score updates at all. At all.

I am going to go cry now.

This has to be one of the coolest things I’ve seen: Alan Schwarz’s column on ESPN.com about a bunch of students at Penn trying to buy the Montreal Expos piqued my interest. So, I visited the site and figured, hey, I could drop a C-note by the time May rolls around.

I mean, we all know baseball teams really do make money … you just have to use inverse Enron accounting to make it look like a loss …

Why, oh why, was someone searching for “statistics on dinnertime”? And worryingly enough, IJSM was … #1?

I’ve got statistics on lunch. My Monterey chicken salad was really, really good.

Gets better, too … because of a comment that Brad made, people now find IJSM for civilzation 3-crack. What the hell? I don’t even play Civ3.

I’d count how many weeks this is, but I’m lazy. Here’s this week’s FF:

1. Hey, baby, what’s your sign? Do you think it fits you pretty well? Libra. As if I care.

2. What’s the worst birthday gift you’ve ever received? Heck if I know.

3. What’s the best birthday gift you’ve ever received? Yeesh. I care so little about birthdays, really, that I don’t remember anything specific. Is that bad?

4. What’s the best way you’ve celebrated your birthday thus far? Probably when Mom came down for my 21st birthday and bought me my first legal drink.

5. What are your plans for this weekend? Get to go home and visit the folks! I haven’t been home in 2002, so I know they both miss me. Phone conversations just don’t do it. I’m sure Bubba really misses me …

Well, I woke up this morning all ready to go … and then I realized how crappy I felt. I’d been wondering if I was starting to be ill [half of my design team has been sick over the past couple weeks, it seems], and I guess so. I chucked the morning classes after deciding in the shower to go back to bed. It was a wise move … even if I did wake up to watching To Tell The Truth.

I’m glad my brother likes game shows. At this point in my life, they can get in line right behind ice dancing for my TV viewing pleasure.

I wish I were still in bed, but I have things to do, things to do. I go home tomorrow night to visit the folks–woohoo!

Think about this one, folks:

When the clock hits 8:02 p.m. tonight, the date, time and year would be:

20:02 02/20 2002

Tell me that doesn’t make your head spin. It’ll happen again at 9:02 p.m. on December 21, 2112 … can’t think of a time when it’ll happen before then. The fun thing is that, once we get past the year 2332, it’s not really likely to happen under the Gregorian calendar for a long, long time.

Some poor bastard found IJSM by searching for consumerism lecture notes … and I’m #10.

I’m sorry, all this makes me laugh.

Well, here I am at work, with very little to do this morning. I am unsurprised.

I got to see Sean last night at work … ’twas good to see him. He pretended to sell me stuff … I pretended to want to buy some. Of course, he then had to show off a Samsung monitor … droolworthy, it is. It’s a Samsung SyncMaster 171MP–a 17″ LCD multi-function display that will run HDTV signals, S-Video, you name it. It’s probably a good thing I’m not working full-time yet … I’d be really tempted to plunk down the coin for this, a KVM switch, and its Very Own Surge Protector for the monitor. I’d be able to sell my old monitors and my TV–just have it all in one flat little device.

Damn you, Sean.

I’m trying to decide if I can get out of teaching class tonight … I need to get my computer working, and Sean has offered to help me with it. I guess I’ll call Darin later and see what he thinks…

Well, Todd gets a gold star for helping me move the futon out of the living room and into our team room up here for class. I was soooooooooooo tempted to sack out during the brief time I was at home, and finally gave in while Todd was in the shower. Predictably, he wouldn’t let me.

I’m really tempted to grab a nap now that the futon’s in here … but I have work to do before class. Oh well.

The sucky thing is that, after class, I really don’t get to leave, for we have a team meeting at 7:00 tonight. Darn.

Well, I just got out of my Aircraft Stability & Control exam. The study time paid off … other than for one problem, where I was trying to use a hard-to-solve equation where an easy-to-solve one would do just as well, I slammed through each problem with the greatest of ease. That was a pretty fair exam, and I’m about ready to do cartwheels, since I feel that I did well.

Now, I think I will go home and take a nap …

I haven’t yet reached for the Advil, but I’m nearing that point. This weekend was one of the more physical ones I’ve had of late.

It all started on Friday night, when we took the kids from church to Florence to play laser tag. We had the place rented out all night … after a 90-minute drive over, we were in there from 11:00 p.m. ’til 6:00 a.m., with about an hour’s break for the vests to recharge. I didn’t even take the hour off, choosing instead to vanquish the kids in air hockey. We had a table in our basement when I was a kid, and I still remember all the basics of how to play well. I was never defeated, although I almost gave one game away.

We must have played ten games … at least I think that’s how many of the slips I found in my pocket Saturday night. I was pretty horrible my first couple of games: I was adjusting to an overly-tight vest [one not designed for a guy with a 54" chest] and a different style of game. Every place I’ve ever played has had dark walls … this place had mirrors. I kept getting shot in the back and not knowing why until I could adjust.
(more…)

It’s a federal holiday. Not just that, it’s a TBE holiday. I figured I could come in and get some homework done, pick up whatever other things that have come in to my desk of late and do them, and generally have a nice, relaxing day.

I get here, and my next-door neighbor is here. That’s cool–I’m not surprised that he’s here on a holiday. But my manager and our senior EE are here, too. Pardon?

Oh well.

Good news … pending completion of my degree and a good GRE score, I’m in grad school. Got the letter this weekend.