adam say: bork bork bork!

Again with the plt

2008-09-07T00:58:00.003-04:00

Jens Lekman - Black Cab

I'm back with this PLT Scheme web server. I had a few hiccups, which are now somewhat ironed out.

First, I found out that I was actually using an old version. PLT is up to 4.1, but Ubuntu's repository is still at 3.5 something. I've got 64 bit Ubuntu, and I ended up download the version here: http://download.plt-scheme.org/drscheme/plt-4-1-bin-x86_64-linux-f7-sh.html.

The 32-bit installed fine, but it wouldn't cooperate with the mysql shared library files.

Mysql. Ugh.

Lucky for me, someone already wrote wrappers for interacting with it. I got them here: http://software.pupeno.com/mr-mysql. It needs to load libmysqlclient.so, which exists on my machine as libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0 (not sure why), but a symbolic link fixed that.

Next problem was actually spitting out the content from the database. Getting the data was easy enough with the mysql library, but the web server insisted on escape my html. That is, every > was turned into an >, etc. Kind of annoying. Finally, I found this page that offered a solution: http://www.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2006-March/012349.html. Throw in a (require xml) at the top of your module and wrap your data with (make-cdata data) and you're all set.

"Will! Grab me a continuation!"

2008-09-02T00:31:00.002-04:00

Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

It's very lonely in my apartment, but I find ways to cope with it. Like right now, I'm feeding my old interest in continuation-based web development. I've heard about it for a couple years now, mainly that Paul Graham used it in his million dollar online store thing, but I honestly had no idea what it is.

So I explored. This is more or less a log for myself to look back on in case of schemnesia (I should copyright that...).

I have only worked inside of Petite Chez Scheme (and Chez Scheme, when it was available on IU's computers), so learning a new implementation was a bit of an adventure.

PLT-Scheme seems to be the current leader in this. From what I gather, PLT-scheme has these three parts.
1) Mzscheme - the main scheme implementation. Has a command-line interface.
2) DrScheme - GUI for building modules/programs. Apparently you can draw little squares and circles, too.
3) PLaneT - repository for scheme code. You can browse it, copy a line of code, and the library will be downloaded and loaded in for you.

Installation was easy enough with Ubuntu's Synaptic package manager.

To get started, you need to start the web server.

> sudo plt-web-server

I think the sudo is necessary in order to write to the log files (since PLT was installed under sudo). I haven't confirm this, but when run without sudo, it spits out a bunch of crap about "can't write to [blah]."

The files you'll be working all sit here:
/usr/lib/plt/collects/web-server/default-web-root

Take a look at the example servlets (a servlet is simply a web application). These sit in the above directory under servlets/examples. The add.ss is pretty easy to work through.

(module add mzscheme
  (require (lib "servlet.ss" "web-server"))
  (provide (all-defined))
  (define interface-version 'v1)
  (define timeout +inf.0)

  ; request-number : str -> num
  (define (request-number which-number)
    (string->number
     (extract-binding/single
      'number
      (request-bindings (send/suspend (build-request-page which-number))))))

  ; build-request-page : str -> str -> response
  (define (build-request-page which-number)
    (lambda (k-url)
      `(html (head (title "Enter a Number to Add"))
             (body ([bgcolor "white"])
                   (form ([action ,k-url] [method "post"])
                         "Enter the " ,which-number " number to add: "
                         (input ([type "text"] [name "number"] [value ""]))
                         (input ([type "submit"] [name "enter"] [value "Enter"])))))))
 (define (start initial-request)
    `(html (head (title "Sum"))
           (body ([bgcolor "white"])
                 (p "The sum is "
                    ,(number->string (+ (request-number "first") (request-number "second"))))))))

The coolest thing here is send/suspend. It's kind of a call/cc for web programming. It takes one argument, which is a procedure taking one argument (k-url) representing the next url (the continuation url, so to speak). k-url is used as the action of the form.

The rest of the things here are just handy procedures for grabbing variables from the form, which relieves a lot of the annoyingness of other languages. This immediately grabs me as really, really cool. My intuition says that I would be writing an application in reverse. That is, assuming I have all the data, I would figure out what to I do with it. Then, I would work out how to get the data. In the mean time, gluing all the steps together comes for free.

From what I've read, the real beauty of it has to do with the user's browser actions. If they are working through a web form, open a new window with the same page, and submit both forms, they will continue without noticing each other. In php or python, you would have to deal with session variables interfering with each other. Here, a new browser starts a new instance of the continuation, and any new variables assigned are saved only in the scope of that continuation.

blog day

2008-04-21T14:16:00.002-04:00

"What was that weird look about?"
"I realized that I wasn't actually listening. Then I had to replay what you had said in my head and come up with a response. It happens a lot."

I'm ready, are you?

2008-02-27T18:53:00.002-05:00

Kimya Dawson - Sleep

Here's how this post is going to go. I'll start off writing about how great college has been to me, how I feel like I had an all-around good 4-year experience, and how I have never been more ready than now to graduate and move on. After that, I'll transition into a pesky rant about my roommates. Hopefully I'll feel better after this. I hear it's not emotionally healthy to bottle things. Shaquille "Kazaam" O'Neal knows what I'm talking about.

But first, I'll lighten the mood with an idea I had last night:

"I wish I could hypnotize people. After hypnotizing someone, I would command them to hypnotize everybody else. Eventually we'll have a world of walking zombie people mindlessly wandering around."

I'm graduating this May¹, and my whole attitude has changed since around Christmas break. Before Christmas, I absolutely loved school. I could see myself staying in academia, filling myself with interesting facts and knowledge for the rest of life. Sounds pretty great (minus the tuition). In that frame of thought, grad school seemed like the logical thing to do. I could keep on going to school and keep on living the college lifestyle.

Like I said, my attitude has changed. I feel like I have outgrown the life of a college student. I know longer feel the urge to drink until passing out. Playing games like beer pong and Kings bore me. I don't like to go to the bars unless they have a good pool table or the Big Ten Network.

I was completely conscious of the change in outlook. I've talked to one of my roommates about it, and he can relate. He went to school here, and then went home to help take care of his family. Now he's back in Bloomington working two jobs. He told me how strange it was to come back to Bloomington. He said it was almost as if nothing had changed; he just threw himself back into the life of college kids (to a lesser extent, mind you). He says my whole deal is can probably be attributed to reaching a new level of maturity. Great, exactly what I was afraid of.

The bottom line is that I am very much ready to graduate and start my real life. It's a bit weird. I used to be afraid of starting real life, but now I can't wait to complete this part. I'm not even afraid, either. I'm confident that I can find a good job in a great place. I'm not afraid of moving to some other part of the country and starting fresh. Actually, I'm very much looking forward to it. At the career fair a few weeks ago, a company representative asked how I felt about relocation. I said, "That's one of the reasons I'm talking to you in the first place."

I feel like a part of it is due my friends here. Everybody is still so involved with the college life. I absolutely do not hold it against them. As stated above, that used to be me. I'm just ready to move on, or at least channel my energy elsewhere. I think even my roommates contribute to a bit of it in part. I spoke with one earlier today, saying, "Hey, haven't seen you in a while. Seems like you spend all your time in your room. Are you feeling ok?" He responded with, "Oh, you know, sitting in my room playing video games, trying to figure out what to do with my life." How am I supposed to respond to that? I think I just walked away.

At this point, I was originally going to rant about how nobody in my house does anything about dirty dishes. We just bought a "new" dishwasher, but apparently it had gone unnoticed because of the stack of dirty dishes in the sink. I complained a bit to one of my roommates yesterday, and since then they've been cleaned. That was going to be my rant, but since I started writing this entry last night, it seems kind of pointless now. I'll just finish with the a thought I've written on here before: sometimes I feel like the mother of the house, and that sucks. That's another thing contributing to my urgency to graduate and move on/move out. I'm sure t here's a parable² about this somewhere.

That's more than enough for one entry. Who wants to read my whining anyway?

1. Reminds me of a joke my Dad told me once. I was working on a vocab test for English class in elementary school, and I asked him what "dismay" meant. He told me, "Well, this May we're going to Atlanta, and next May we'll be staying home."

2. Reminds me of another joke my Dad told once. My little brother was working on a vocab test in elementary school, and he asked what a "parables" are. He said, "It's when you have a bowl here and another bowl here. It's a pair of bowls. Or, it's when you have Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen. You've got a pair of bulls."

I was attacked by a spork bomb.

2008-01-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

Kimya Dawson Loose Lips

Joe: What are you doing?
Me: Reading Slashdot
Joe: I hate Slashdot. It is such a waste of time.
Me: Isn't that the point?

4 guys 20 cups

2008-01-09T23:03:00.000-05:00

Watching the Daily Show

Last night, my roommate Dave and I won seven straight games of beer pong. It was a pretty memorable night. I've never played that many games in one night, and of course have never -won- that many in one night. Around midnight, however, the news came in, and we lost for the rest of the night.

Hillary and McCain won New Hampshire.

We lost the next two games horribly. My concentration was gone, and so was my game. You know what else was gone? My hope for America.

At least Jon Stewart is back.

Stereotypical Bitch Blog Post

2008-01-04T17:03:00.000-05:00

My phone broke again. I'm on a family plan with Cingular (The NEW!!! AT&T), and we just reactivated our plan in April. We also got new phones. I picked the Sony Ericsson Z525.

In September (just five months with my new phone), the display died. All that showed up was a solid white screen. The phone still worked; I could make and receive calls, but I had no idea if I had a missed call or who was calling. And, of course, my address book was completely useless.

It was still under warranty, so ordering a replacement was easy enough. Life carried on.

Well, while in Arizona over break camping out before the IU bowl game, the display died again. Exact same thing as before.

I called Cingular (the NEW!! AT&T), and after waiting on hold for 3 minutes of going through the system, 5 minutes of waiting for an operator, being transferred, going through the system again, 5 minutes of waiting, one minute of dialing which went to a busy tony, redialing the number, through the system again, and 6 minutes of waiting, I finally reached an operator.

I'm still under warranty, so I will be getting a new phone. Actually, it's a refurbished phone of the same model. I asked if I could get a different model, because this is obviously a recurring problem, but they said I have to go through three (3) warranty phones before I can change models. By my calculations, this phone will die in 4 months, just in time for my 1 year warranty to expire, and the phone company will screw me over.

All I can hope for is that my POS phone dies before April.

Silly Windows

2007-12-18T02:38:00.001-05:00

Beta Band - The House Song

I just fixed my IP problem.

When I ran ipconfig /renew I got the following error:

An error occured while renewing interface local area connection 3 : The system cannot find the file specified

Microsoft's solution was to run:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

And if that didn't work, do a repair install of XP (what I just did).

Google's second result was much better:

Get to the computer manager (right-click My Computer->Manage->Services)
Make sure DHCP client starts automatically.
Start the client if it hasn't already.

Turns out the DHCP client wasn't even on. Silly Windows.

The next thing I did was unplug the ethernet cable. Since I repaired windows with a SP1 version of XP, I have hereby declared this computer unfit for Internet usage. Hopefully it can survive just long enough to backup whatever hasn't been backed up already, then I can just format this beast. It needs it; my brother has lots of crap on here that's bogging it down.

Just when you think you know it all

2007-12-18T02:15:00.000-05:00

Brendan Benson - Just Like Me

If there's one truth about going home, it's that computer problems await me. I'm our family's resident techy guy, and it usually results in at least one call a week from my Mom.

A couple weeks ago she called about her computer not booting up. She described a screwey screen with jumbled letters (which we reproduced tonight, here:

)

Luckily, I was able to boot into safe mode, so the first thing I did was back all her pictures, documents, and emails. Next, I tried a repair install. I've never done this before, but how hard could it be?

About halfway through it complained about not finding a file on the cd: licwmi.dl_ (even though there was a licwmi.dll right in the root directory). A little google work got me to this:

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread51919.html

and son of a gun it worked. The steps are reproduced here for my own sake:

"So, here's the solution: I did this based off of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/818464. I rebooted off the Windows install CD, and hit R to go to the repair console. I then proceeded to delete c:\windows\security\edb.log. Then I rebooted the computer without going into the CD, and let the Windows installer continue (where in previous reboots it complained of not being able to copy files again). Once the installer loaded up, and before it could complain of not copying (which it would take about 5 minutes to get to), I hit Shift + F10. In the command prompt, I typed "esentutl /p c:\windows\security\database\secedit.sdb". And then I deleted c:\windows\security\edb0000x.log. And this time, there was no complaint of inability to copy files. Yay!"

The only thing I didn't do was delete the edb0000x.log file because it didn't exist.

So now I'm running a newly installed and barely-usably slow XP Home on the machine.

Now for some reason it can't grab an ip. Stay tuned!

anything python can do, scheme can do better

2007-12-16T22:07:00.001-05:00

Jens Lekman - A Man Walks Into a Bar

I started learning Python today just for the hell of it, and I found out you can access the last items in a list with a negative index. I thought, "shit, I bet Scheme can do that just fine," and here's my solution:

(define list-ref-a
  (lambda (ols n)
    (letrec ([list-ref-n-help
              (lambda (ls count k)
                (cond
                  [(and (null? ls) (> (- n) count))
                   (error 'list-ref "index ~s is out of range for list ~s"
                          n ols)]
                  [(null? ls) 0]
                  [else (let ([res
                               (add1
                                (list-ref-n-help (cdr ls) (add1 count) k))])
                          (cond
                            [(= n (- res)) (k (car ls))]
                            [else res]))]))])
      (cond
        [(>= n 0) (list-ref ols n)]
        [else (call/cc (lambda (k) (list-ref-n-help ols 0 k)))]))))

i want mo motown

2007-12-12T04:08:00.000-05:00

Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
After running a software update, Firefox started crapping out. It would freeze and turn completely grey, but after a minute or two it would return to normal.

My guess was that it had something to do with Flash. I (mistakenly) used this script to install it:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=476924

It was a mistake because I got my names mixed up (I thought 7.10 was Feisty Fawn). Therefore i ran the script, telling it that I was running Feisty Fawn. After that, Flash worked great in Firefox.

Later, Ubuntu tells me that nspluginwrapper is out of date. After updating that, I started getting the grey out that people have talked about.

My solution was to remove nspluginwrapper with Synaptic (and probably any other flash-related packages installed) and run the script in the thread above. Then, avoid the new update for that damn plugin wrapper

Flash Gordon

2007-12-12T01:50:00.001-05:00

The Temptation - My Girl

Thanks to the great Ubuntu people, I now have Flash working for Firefox. The Automatix version didn't work at all (a known issue, probably should be fixed).

At the forums, someone made a script to install everything:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=476924

And the video I watched to test it: The Temptation - My Girl

i play in the river

2007-12-12T01:15:00.001-05:00

Credence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
As expected my Iriver works great in Ubuntu. That firmware upgrade just might be the greatest thing ever (except sex).

ubuntu x64 pt 2

2007-12-12T00:59:00.000-05:00

Conan O'Brian and some annoying animal kid
After restarting, ndiswrapper apparently did not start automatically. I re-ran these two commands, and hopefully I won't have to do it again:

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

sudo ndiswrapper -m

I might have had a typo on the second command the first time (I think I typed a instead of m. I should sleep).

Holy crap, this animal kid on Conan has a little baby two-headed turtle.

Back to the story.

Next, I installed Automatix. It was absolutely as easy as could be. I found lots of fun stuff to install with that.

After that, Ubuntu told me it had updates to download and install, and that took about 15 minutes.

Next, I'm installed gnome-compiz-manager from synaptic. Now I have more control over some of the fun gnome stuff, though I still think wobbly windows is annoying. It gives me a headache. I do like the rotating cube.

Ubuntu x64 pt I Section A v. 1

2007-12-12T00:10:00.000-05:00

I installed Ubuntu x64 on my new desktop today, and so far so good.

I installed drivers my Netgear WG311v3 wireless card first. It was pretty easy because I already had the windows drivers. I followed these directions exactly:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/Netgear_WG311_v3

I was sure to grab the 64 bit version of ndiswrapper.

Wireless worked immediately. This was so much easier than my old d-link card.

Next, I wanted to install the drivers for my Nvidia card. Ubuntu makes this easy with their restricted drivers menu option. Unfortunately it didn't work the first time. It complained about not having nvidia-glx-new enabled. I figured it wasn't even on here, but it should be in the repository. The solution was to enabled the restricted repositories in Synaptic. Then, in the restricted drivers window, hitting "enable" downloaded the packaged and installed.

Now all I have to do is restart. Be back soon.

em pee tree pwayer

2007-12-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

Jens Lekman - Pocketful of Money

In my continuing saga with XP x64, I present my most excellent solution on how to get my iriver ifp-890 mp3 player to work.

I was still using the original firmware that came with it (part of the "if it ain't broke" mentality). Unfortunately, the drivers from the website did not agree with my fresh new 64 bit operating system.

I rad read some time earlier about someone who hacked this mp3 player to make it appear as any other usb storage device. Turns out it wasn't a hack at all, but instead a firmware upgrade from iriver.

Lucky for me, I still have my laptop which works (if I didn't have that, I'd probably fail miserable at getting anything working). I downloaded the firmware here:

http://www.iriver.com/support/down_view.asp?idx=832

and followed their instructions here:

http://www.iriver.com/support/faq_view.asp?idx=252

It was almost too easy. Now my mp3 player shows up as any other usb storage device, and I can drag and drop files right inside of explorer. Plus, this as the added benefit of most likely working with Ubuntu right out of the box.

I got 64-bit problems but a bitch ain't one

2007-12-08T20:56:00.000-05:00

I just built a new computer. My old one was, well, getting old, and I need a new project to work on. I ordered everything off of newegg.com (I'm reusing my hard drives, monitor, and wireless card). Here's a quick rundown of the setup:

Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM
ASUS P5N-E SLI Motherboard
Nvidia 512 MB something-or-other
black case with a bug honkin' fan

First things first, I had to backup my main hard drive. I've done this a couple times in the past, and luckily I've adopted the habit of saving everything personal in My Documents. That helped. Using my old hard drive, I was able to boot into Ubuntu (but not XP), and backup worked fine after remounting my hard drives.

Next I restarted and popped in my XP cd. It installed no problem, but when I tried installing my Dlink 520e wireless card, it complained about a memory conflict. My best guess was that with 2 GB of ram and 512 MB memory card, XP might be having trouble allocating memory address to everything. The only thing I knew to do was try out some 64 bit operating systems.

Lucky for me, IU's CS department has an awesome deal with Microsoft that lets me download tons of software for free. It's called the MSDN Academic Alliance, and through that I downloaded XP 64-bit version.

I burnt it to a cd and booted up, but I ran into another problem. When the XP installer tried to format my hard drive, it game me this error:

Setup Cannot Format the Partition

Your computer may not have enough memory to examine the drives, or your windows CD may contain some corrupted files.

Well crap. About an hour of Googling found me this site:

http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=8567

Apparantely this cd doesn't always work on CD-RW drives, but it will work fine in DVD drives. I popped the cd in my DVD-RW drive, changed my boot order, and lo-and-behold it worked.

Install went fine, and soon enough I was running XP x64. I ran into some problems with the cd my motherboard came with. The autorun program would crash when I ran it. Instead, I browsed the cd and ran the installers manually.

Next I tried installing my Dlink wireless card. The installer ran fine, but the drivers did not work. Turns out this card is just old enough for Dlink to not care about writing 64 bit drivers for. Seems my only solution was to buy a new wireless card (no reason to go back to 32 bit now because I'll probably run into the same problem).

I ran to Best Buy after watching IU kill Kentucky. I found on Best Buy's website a Dlink card that definitely had 64 bit drivers (and worked automatically in Ubuntu!), but of course the store did not have it in stock. I took a gamble on the cheapest Netgear ($45) and ran home. Just my luck, Netgear doesn't like 64 bit either. Lucky for me, planetamd64.com came through again:

http://www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php?t28765.html

Turns out the chip manufacturer for Netgear is nicer than Netgear, and after downloading this driver, it worked just fine:

1. Go to:
http://www.skd.de/e_en/support/driver_searchresults.html?navanchor=&term=typ.treiber+produkt.SK-54C1&produkt=produkt.SK-54C1&typ=typ.treiber&system=
2. Click on "Download" for "SK-54C1 Windows XP and 2000 x64 driver".
3. Accept, download, extract.
4. Install Driver.
5. "Continue Anyways"
6. It Works!

With wireless, I can finally start downloading Windows updates. I'm currently grabbing SP2 (I downloaded it on my laptop while running other updates, because I'm fast like that).

This is more of a note to myself, because I will likely have to do this again some time in the future. Let me know if any of this info was helpful.

After XP is fine and happy, I'll start working on Ubuntu (64-bit baby!)

more on time

2007-11-19T14:05:00.000-05:00

I've always thought that the line between excessive laziness and brilliant efficiency is very thin. Wow, that's about as cliche of an introduction as I can think of, but it'll have to work for now. Block's a bitch.

Last night, I had the worst temporary case of ADD ever. I absolutely could not concentrate. Part of it was due to the events of the past week (which I will hold off on writing about for a little bit), and part of it was just finally having some time to myself to do what I want (play guitar, watch the The Office and Scrubs).

The plan was pretty simple: study for about an hour for my midterm, make my cheat sheet, go to bed and get some much-needed sleep. The actual night was equally simple: play guitar, watch those TV episodes, play more guitar, read some stuff online, IM a little bit, drive Tony home, finally study for about an hour, decide "screw it, I can finish tomorrow."

The funny thing is, I really could finish it the next day. I knew I had time after my MIDI quiz (for which I quickly learned the material 1 minute before the quiz) because after the quiz we can leave class. And it was perfect. I found a seat in the library jotted down the notes from the assignment, and went on to my Hendrix class.

Even in my Hendrix class, I further used my time efficiently by asking a neighbor for the notes from last week.

I feel like this whole college thing is too easy. It's all just a system of tricks and a little time management, and it's no longer a challenge.

I guess it's a good thing, because I can start doing the things I really want to do.

O(n^3) wtf

2007-10-19T00:39:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, I experienced matrix-matrix multiplication three times. First, I continued work on my MPI implementation of this algorithm. Next, for my database class, I implemented a PL/SQL script to perform matrix-matrix multiplication on a database table. Finally, I went to a lecture my friend Sarah gave on her summer research, which involved (you guessed it) a faster algorithm for matrix-matrix multiplication based on Strassen's method.

I could do this stuff in my sleep

"It's easy to play crappy blues."

2007-10-15T01:12:00.001-04:00

Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me
No good story doesn't have a conclusion (except the Sopranos), so let's wrap things up.

Mr. T finally came home on Thursday, and that night we settled everything bill wise. I somehow figured out all the numbers of what was paid and what wasn't. Now I can sleep at night.

We also talked about the transfer of bill paying; that is, I will now be responsible for all utility bills. We're doing that stuff on Monday.

I am so relieve to have worked all of this out. After our conversation, everything seemed so much less tense. I feel like a weight of unknown happenings has been lifted and destroyed. This whole bill business didn't come up for the rest of the weekend (and it didn't have to).

This story ends here. Everything is wrapped up, straightened out, and squared away.

Until next story, a trailing comma

You only give me your funny paper.

2007-10-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

Sigur Ros - Svefn-G-Englar

The fastest way to end a friendship with me is to let money get in the way. Case in point: current roommate situation. One of my roommates (who shall rename anonymous on these Internet airwaves; let's call him Mr. T.) has done almost as much as he can to make bill payments as difficult as possible lately.

The friction started at about the time of my last entry, when our power got shut off because of a late payment. You can understand how annoying it can be to go without power (especially when you've got homework to do and tests to study for). If this sounds like petty whining, just wait. It gets better.

As of last month, we now have to make our rent payment as a single check (as opposed to five individual checks, like we've done for the past year). I don't want to sound insolent, but I don't want to depend on my roommates to write a check that big on time every month. Therefore, I volunteered to write the check. I realize that this means I might go a few days without a good sum of my money, but I trust my roommates to pay me back.

Meanwhile, Mr. T. told each of us the amount we owed for this month's utilities. Maybe a day later he had to leave to New Mexico to help his brother move. The day before he left, he asked each of us for a check for the utilities. That same day, I asked for a check for the rent. Let me put it this way: we all payed him what we owed, and I got jack shit.

In addition, Mr. T. still owed me a couple hundred bucks for when the gas was shut off and we had to pay a huge deposit.

Mr. T. has been gone for about 10 days now, and on Saturday in the mail I got two disconnection notices. Apparently both the cable and water bill have not been paid. I tried calling Mr. T., but he didn't pick up his phone. He also never called back after leaving a voice mail. All I wanted to know was what bills were paid and what weren't. I was especially worried because getting either service shut off means an additional charge for turning it back on.

This morning I went to both the water office and cable office, found out that the ballances I had were correct, and paid them off.

I'm so frustrated right now. I hate what happens when you trust somebody and they let you down. Right now, I feel like I'm the only one who's doing anything responsible, but I'm also the one getting screwed over financially.

Like I said: the easiest way to end a friendship with me is to let money get in the way.

Life Update

2007-09-26T17:27:00.001-04:00

It's been an eventful week or so, and we're only at Wednesday.

Yesterday I picked up my bike from ye olde bike shoppe on Kirkwood (that's not the name, but Sam should get a good laugh). The Cassette on the rear wheel was shit after sitting a couple years in the rain, and finally got to the point where it didn't even spin. The guy estimated the repair to be about $70 ($25 for new cassette, $20 labor, $15 for new chain (if necessary), $20 labor). I thought it was a little high, but I've had the bike for so long I didn't mind. I picked it up Tuesday, and it is great. Plus, it didn't need a new chain, so it only cost $35. That's a steal if you ask me. I'm very happy with this place.

I stayed at clusterfuck challenge until about 8:45pm then rode home on my newly repaired bike. When I got home, all the lights in the house were out (which is weird because in a house of 5 people, usually at least one person is home). I walked in and candles were lit on the kitchen table. I thought someone was trying to pull some sleazy seduction thing on somebody, but turns out it was because the power is out. Not surprising, considering we had a storm come through today. But wait, the neighbors' lights are on. Uh oh.

Turns out my roommate who's in charge of the bills didn't get a payment in on time, and today they came buy to shut us off. Talk about suckage. I still had about 50 assignments to grade by the next morning, so Brandon and I went over to Sam's and camped out in her living room to do homework. The power company was supposed to come by today and turn us back on, but I just tried pinging my router without any luck.

Oh well, at least I have a new-feeling bike to ride to campus on. I rode to the Union to get some breakfast (I'm afraid to open any of the refrigerators in our house right now), and when I used my key open my bike lock from the handlebars, the damn key broke right off. The teeth of the key was still in the lock, and I couldn't get it out. Instead of leaving it there, I took my bike to my shared Lindley Hall office for safe keeping.

Breakfast, last bit of grading, class, class.

After class, I returned to Lindley, handled a few business things concerning basketball tickets, and rode over to the same bike shop on Kirkwood. I asked if they could break the lock on my bike, and the said no problem. It was great! He just pulled out these huge pliers and cut it right off. Plus, I was already at the bike shop, so I bought a new lock right there ($15).

I had about an hour to kill, so I caught up on some reading for my Hendrix class, then went over to the RITS office. I told them I needed to stop working until at least January because I need more time for preparing for grad school. My boss was fine with it and understood completely, but I still have to give a 2 weeks notice (starting today). This extra time on Mondays and Wednesday will be great to have. Rather than not getting home until 7:30, I will be getting home at 2:30. It's the right move.

Ok, that covers everything. I am free of self-information.

constructor invocation, what's your method

2007-07-13T23:54:00.000-04:00

Snow Patrol - How to be Dead

I love it when I learn new things.

A couple weeks ago I discovered Java's Class, Method, and Constructor classes. I didn't have any use for them at the time, but I lodged them into the back right corner of my mind.

Tonight, I was trying to think of a better way to deal with the 'phantom' data for my layout manager. Basically, a phantom is a string assigned to a GUI object that tells it how wide to be. If a text field was to accept a phone number, you might give it a phantom of "555-555-5555", and the width of the field would be wide enough to hold exactly that many characters.

The code is enough. Grab the original text, set the text to the phantom, calculate the size, restore the original text. The problem is with Java's type system. Before calling getText or setText, you have to cast it. The original code (before I arrived) had a series of else-if statements for all the different types that we might want to use phantoms on. I originally did it this way for ease and laziness, but it always kind of bugged me.

Well, today I fixed it all up, and the result is pretty slick.

try{

    Method getText = child.getClass().getDeclaredMethod("getText", new Class[]{});

    Method setText = child.getClass().getDeclaredMethod("setText", new Class[]{String.class});

    try{

        Object oldText = getText.invoke(child, new Object[]{});

        setText.invoke(child, new Object[]{boxData.phantom});

        size = child.computeSize(SWT.DEFAULT, SWT.DEFAULT, flushCache);

        setText.invoke(child, new Object[]{oldText});

    }

catch(InvocationTargetException ex){}

catch(IllegalAccessException ex){}

}

catch(NoSuchMethodException ex){}

catch(SecurityException ex){}

It still uses exceptions, which I try to avoid, but there's no way around it this time.

new wave rock

2007-06-30T06:20:00.001-04:00

Stevie Wonder - For Once in my Life

New haircut, new design. It feels very clean.

Here's the source (it's worth taking a quick look at):
main.ss
All the other files can be found from this main file.

first.fm?

2007-06-26T14:25:00.001-04:00

The Shins - Weird Divide

It's funny how with Last.fm, you can't listen to your own station, yet you can listen to anyone else's station. The simplest solution? Log out and start listening.

Hit with a car mirror

2007-06-09T17:28:00.001-04:00

Stephen Malkmus - 1% of One
Seriously, dogs are the most annoying animals alive. Our neighbor's dog has been barking at absolutely nothing for the past hour and a half.

This is NOT what macros are for

2007-04-03T18:06:00.001-04:00

#define ONE 2

IU beat Illinois

2007-02-10T15:35:00.000-05:00

Fancis Dunnery - Good Life

Yesterday (Friday) was an amazingly good example of great day engineering. What is day engineering, exactly? It's the perfect planning and execution of a day.

It went down something like this.

9-11am teach c211 lab
11:15-11:45 run at hper
11:45-noon lunch at union
noon-2pm grading c211 notebooks
2-3 study group for b401
3:30-5:30 stupid rits meeting
5:30-6 finish grading
went home
6:30-9:30 nap
10-2am hung out with some friends at the house
2-4am watched "walk the line" and finished compilers assignment

It was just a beautifully executed day. I had actually made a list of all the things to do that day, and one by one, in the exact order, everything got crossed off.

Here's to a beautifully lazy Saturday.

The D-Bags among us

2007-02-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

The Arcade Fire - Intervention

The Douchbag of the Week Award goes to: annoying kid in my compilers class.

The highest of high honor is awarded to this slugmanhorse for publicly announcing his douchbaginess to the class not once but twice this week.

Exhibit A: The P423 message board. One student posted a clever pseudo-scheme program asking where the professor was after nobody showed up after 20 minutes; he even managed to pay homage to some of the greats in the cs department. Enter DOTW. He replied to this message with the following:

Your code will error... "variable loction is unbound" line 26 *or 26 newline characters down*

He obviously didn't get the joke.

Exhibit B: Thursday's lecture. After posting to the message board again asking if the assignment is still due on Sunday (to which no one had replied), he came to class to ask the same question. Dybvig answered straight-forwardly "yes," and this douchkanouch cockily said "ok!" and immediately got up and left the room. I don't have a problem with people leaving early, but the way this terdnugget did it was both rude and annoying.

So that's why this fagrabbit wins the award this week.

Procrastinator's Dilimma

2007-01-29T21:48:00.000-05:00

Phantom Planet - Nobody's Fault
So, you just realized that the assignment you're reading up on is due two days later than you previously thought. Do you continue reading it so you'll have more time to study, or do you blow it off until the night before?

Well, I AM at a laundromat, so I guess I'll keep reading.

The toner's, they are a-changin'

2007-01-28T19:58:00.000-05:00

I am officially calling it right now. I am in a groove.

A what?

To me, a groove is when you can accomplish multiple critical tasks in a timely and effecient manor. I am like a well oiled machine churning out homework, teaching classes, running miles, hosting movie marathons, and shooting hoops. And I'm not slipping.

However, getting in this kind of groove is impossible if you're not ridiculously busy. It's harder than ever to find time for myself when homework partners and study groups are relying on your participation. No bother though. As long as I get a few minutes here and there to relax and play guitar, I am absolutely fine.

It's a groove. You dig?

subtitle

2007-01-17T17:30:00.000-05:00

I think teaching is just a very grand way of saying "I know more than you do."

The Ralph Waldo Emerson of Party Rock

2006-12-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

David Gray - White Ladder

Within the last two days (ending last night before midnight) I spent a total of 12 hours working on an assignment. That's 12 hours within a 27 hour period. It went down like this:

Sunday
9:30pm Walk into the Burrow at Lindley and begin work. No previous work has been put into the assignment.

Monday
4:30am Leave Lindley and drive home
5:30am Go to bed
12:00pm Wake up for class
1:25pm-2:15pm Physics
2:30pm-3:45pm OS
4pm-5pm AI meeting
Dinner
5:45pm-7pm Design Patterns
7pm-11:30pm Final run wit the assignment.

It was quite an endeavor.

I think this assignment is the best C programming I've ever done, and I'm very proud of it. I feel like I've never been this good at C before (although why would I know yes...).

I'm pretty much done with the semester. That was the last big assignment, and it's pretty much free-riding until Finals.

supid fears

2006-11-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

Dandy Warhols - Solid
I went to my old high school today to see two of my old math teachers.

It's strange, that even after leaving high school, I still get a little scared walking around the halls without a hall pass.

adjust my monitor

2006-11-21T02:46:00.000-05:00

Pete Yorn - Alive

I just finished writing a paper about the anti-mafia pool led by Falcone in 1983, and it prompted me to look up the definition of 'pool.'

My dictionary (WordWeb) listed eleven (11) definitions for pool:
Nouns:
1. An excavation that is (usually) filled with water
2. A small lake
3. An organization of people or resources that can be shared
4. An association of companies for some definite purpose
5. Any communal combination of funds
6. A small body of standing water (rainwater) or other liquid
7. The combined stakes of the betters
8. Something resembling a pool of liquid
9. Any of various games played on a pool table having 6 pockets
Verbs:
1. Combine into a common fund
2. Add together, as of resources

Anyway, I thought it was interesting how one word can have so many different meanings. It's a little lame, I know.

Thinking about the future when I look back

2006-11-20T04:38:00.000-05:00

Radiohead - Paranoid Android

While spending 8 hours in the Burrow coding may seem like a long time, I think looking back they will be some of my most memorable moments at IU.

late night post with Conan O'Brien

2006-11-17T04:45:00.000-05:00

The Beatles - Oh Darling

Another late night. I've been having trouble sleeping lately, and I'm in a generally down mood. But this is normal for this time of year; as the weather changes and it gets colder, so do I (wow, that was a little too emo). However, these slumps usually pass after a coule days. Thanksgiving is going to be great.

Anyway, time for a story.

People who know me well enough to know me know that I tend to take a somewhat arrogant posession of musical tastes. While I think that is kind of a harsh statement, there is some truth to it. For example, I tend to think less of somebody if they regularly listen to, say, the new Justin Timberlake CD (sorry Josh), or if they regularly listen to music that put you in a loving trance that make it possible for all white boys to dance, (techno, not ben folds, sorry Kolski), or if they regularly listen to super heavy metal based around 3 power chords (sorry Brandon), or if they listen to, oh hell, Dave's musical tastes are perfect.

So yeah, call me elitist. It's my flaw, I'll hold it.

Well, last week at the beginning of my physics class, I heard two people talking about what one guy called "progressive rock." I think Dave is the only one who will find the humor behind the term "progressive." The other asked him what he meant by "progressive rock," and his response was "Pink Floyd," or the song "Baba O'Riley," or "The Shins." This is a class that I prefer to lay anonymous, so I just sat pretending to read the paper and continued to listen.

The guy explained that progressive rock is music that tries to stray away from the mainstream. He also gratefully explained that any music that is mainstream, that follows the normal mainstream formula, is utter crap and should not be given any consideration whatsoever. The other asked something along the lines of "what if an indie band becomes popular. Would you still listen to it if it's in the mainstream?" His response was that he would if he started listening to it before it was popular.

Class begins, end of discussion.

The thing that kills me about this conversation is that I know for a fact that I have had this about a hundred times. And everytime I am the arrogant snobbish ass who is telling everybody else that their music sucks and mine is the best.

I think hearing the conversation from a third person's perspective in turn put the whole idea of musical eliteness into a new perspective. What is that perspective? That it's retarded.

Stop being a music snob. Nobody likes you.

night
-adam

¿Dónde is it?

2006-11-01T04:46:00.000-05:00

[music] Belle and Sebastian - Stars of Track and Field

4.5 hours, two mountains dews, and a handful of java, and I'm done for the night. Unfortunately, I may have overshot it with the caffeine, so I'll be up reading for a while.

Happy All Saint's Day! ?

new designs, "eat it, Al Gore!"

2006-10-30T23:48:00.000-05:00

[music] The Beatles - Oh Darling

New design! Whenever I get tired of doing "real" programming (read: Fluency), it's surprisingly relaxing to design a website. Plus, this is probably the best css design I've ever done, if that means anything.

Whenever I do this, I always think about how I'd want to write my own CMS, written in Scheme of course. Lame, probably.

Continuing with continuations

2006-06-24T01:52:00.000-04:00

[music] The Beatles - Kansas City (Hey Hey Hey Hey)

My Awesome function of the day:

(define until
  (lambda (in c k)
    (cond
      [(null? in) (cons (k '()) '())]
      [(equal? (car in) c) (cons (k '()) (cdr in))]
      [else (until (cdr in) c (lambda (v) (k (cons (car in) v))))])))

(until '(#\a #\b #\d #\& #\c a b c) #\& (lambda (v) v))
=> ((#\a #\b #\d) #\c a b c)

Hinzy out

That's like saying "you don't like apples, so you don't like any fruit at all."

2006-06-22T04:29:00.000-04:00

Scheme/JS interpreter news: I think the bottleneck is in my read function. I forgot how deeply recursive that thing is, and javascript just cannot do it (apparantely, this is especially true in IE).

Ideas:
1. CPS the read function? Then maybe trampoline it. I really don't want to do that.

2. I could also try and write an imperative version of it. That's actually how I originally tried to tackle it, but it didn't work so well.

3. Snakes on the plane?

In other news, I've been thinking about the relationship between xml and a scheme list. I was thinking that you could easily represent xml structures as scheme lists. Turns out the people at LAML already did that, but I thought "what the hell" and quickly made my own brief version. I'm not going to upload it now. But I will later.

Anyway, in addition to my summer research project, I've been thinking about programming for the web in a functional language, like Scheme, and right now it seems like it would make a lot of sense. Thankfully, other people seem to think so too (read: paul graham). Also I think that LAML implementation has a cgi module for running Scheme programs through a web server. I think I will attempt that next week.

The Great and the Typical

2006-06-19T17:33:00.000-04:00

[music] Caesars - Out Ther'e

My new favorite place to get any work done is at the Union in a room I call the "Grandeur Living Space." It's one of the quietest places I've found, with the exception of a trashcan being pushed by a janitor every 15 minutes.

It also has a whole slew of couches, chairs, and (get this) desks! Some of the desks even have lamps.

The couches are arranged in "meeting formation," that is, they are facing each other, so if a group project was the goal, it could be accommated (assuming a low noise volume).

It's a very fancy room. There are picture frames on the wall, mini-chandeliers, and grand arched windows. The walls are hard-wood with designs in them. One of my favorite areas, the part with the working fireplace, is actually walled with limestone.

The white baby grand piano is also a nice touch of elegance.

As I said before, I like this room. It's very fancy, air-conditioned, and most of all, it's very, very quiet. That's why I was surprised today by the huge number of people congregating here today.

Did I say people? What I meant to say was old people.

What's so bad about old people? After all, they are the "Greatest Generation." When I think of old people, I think of my grandma quietly sitting in front of the TV watching Columbo (at an inaudible level) and quietly doing a crossword people. I swear I have never heard her raise her voice louder than, say, 60 dB (not that I measure that or anything).

That's why I was surprised to find myself trying to drown out the small talk of 50 congregating old people in the library-like atmosphere.

Actually, the sound didn't bother me. I can usually find a way to ignore what's going on around me (headphones, fox news). However there's one thing that cannot be avoided: Interaction.

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when one of these old people tapped me on the shoulder to ask me what I was doing. I may have even jumped.

"What's that you're studying?" inquired the curios old guy.
"Oh, I'm just doing some reading," a typical vague answer for me, but in this case it was true. I was reading about poison ivy. Did you know scratching it doesn't actually make it spread because the urushiol is already embedded in your skin. Scratching does cause to you run the risk of infection, however.
"Are you taking classes for the summer?"
"Actually I'm doing research for a professor...(insert my generic description of what I'm doing, even though I know he's already disinterested)."
"Now what are you studying?"
"Here? Computer science."
"I see. Are you taking any classes?"
"No, just the research."
"And where are you from?"
What is with this guy and all questions? Why can't he mingle amongst his fellow old people?

After an awkward silence or two, he wandered away. Good. I can now return to whatever it was I was working on. What was it? Poison ivy, that's right. I wish that old guy would get poison ivy. Did you know if you eat it, you could get a rash inside your throat and die?

A few minutes later, wouldn't you know it, the guy reterned. I hesitantly pull off my headphones and give him my attention.

"Do you know who this guy is?" he said, pointing to a head-statue of Wendell Lewis Willkie.
"No..." I said, with a slight laugh.
Cue old-person-behavior.
"It fascinates me how much there is to know. Whatever it is you're researching...computer...that you can do this research here and not know the history of this place."
Um.
He continued, "Willkie ran for president. Did you know that? He ran for president against Franklin Deleno Roosevelt in, well, I don't remember the year. He was a lawyer, had a Phd in law, or something."

Another awkward silence. This seems to be my best defense.

"Well, good luck."

At this point, all the old people in the room start filing away into a sideroom in the adjacent hallway.

Within two mintues, my favorite room is restored to its peace and tranquility, quietly waiting to house another army of old people.

Unplug the revolving fan

2006-06-02T21:50:00.000-04:00

[music] Belle and Sebastian - A Century of Fakers

In my elementary school health class, I was promised broad shoulders when I got older. Did I miss something?

Although, shoulders can be too broad. I once saw a guy with square shoulders. I wouldn't want to be that guy.

A bitchin' song?

2006-05-16T01:26:00.000-04:00

[music] some bitchin' song on WIUX

a quote:

Hey Adam,
I saw that you called, and I'm sorry I haven't reached you. Here's the deal. My mom has all of a sudden become concerned about me living with a boy for the summer, and I'm having a pretty serious battle with her about this. I want to live with you guys, and I've got nowhere else figured out. I'm sorry that this has only now become an issue, and I'm trying my best to convince her to let me live there. Gah. I'll let you know ASAP when more happens.

(name removed to protect the innocent*)

P.S. How much do I need to pay you?

And that's the last I've heard from her. Apparantely it's un-hip to return calls these days. It's so difficult to keep up with the latest phone-etiquette trends. I guess anybody living in the "too cool for school" Collins is able to keep up with these kinds of things.

The issue isn't even about the money. Yes, the money is important, but what bothers me more is the let down of someone I thougt was a friend. You think you know somebody...

Well, it's also about the money. Let's just say there's two sides to this coin.

The most interesting parts of the story have yet to happen. Honestly, I'm looking forward to awkwardly bumping into her at the library. Of course, the only reason for this is because I feel I have the upper hand, and frankly, I never knowingly have the upper hand.

What will I say to her? "Hey, you remember that one time," as too many of my dialoges begin, "You remember that one time when you backed out of a living arrangement a week before you were supposed to move in, leaving me with no time to find a roommate, and making me and my brother pay for an empty room in our house?" Awkward silence, then my all too natural ability to change the subject, "What's that you're reading? Emily Brontë? How very hip."

But then what would she say to me? I'm sure an attempt at an apology would occur. I'm not so sure how it would be received. It depends on how good it is (insincere? maybe, but I'm upset).

Forgiveness comes to mind at this point. Whether or not I'll forgive her is still up in the air. I'm usually pretty big on forgiving people, and I don't normally hold a grudge. For some reason that's not the case here.

Our friendship is up in the air as well. It doesn't make sense to remain friends with someone who one day talks to you and the next day doesn't, leaving you to wonder what went wrong.

What have I learned? Apparantely, nobody can be trusted. Not even "friends."

I never thought friends needed to sign contracts.

What an innocent thing to do.

Adam

*from here on the word "innocent" shall be used in place of "bitch"

Who am I kidding? Socks are hilarious

2006-05-02T04:08:00.000-04:00

[music] Wir Sind Helden - Wenn Es Passiert

I'm proud to announce progress on my scheme/js interpreter. Go me!

Biggest step: Applications of more than one argument. That's right. Kick ass. I know. I've been thinking about how to do this for, I don't know, about 4 weeks, maybe? So you can imagine the feeling. Whew.

With that working, I started thinking about the built-in procedures, and I decided rather than write them all myself, I'll make a program to make them for me. So I wrote a small scheme program that takes a scheme define expression and generates the javascript necessary to create it. That only took about 10 minutes (I even changed it from printing to the standard out to return a string--all within that 10 minutes, yes, I certainly do rock).

Give it a try, but be patient. I'm still disappointed with the speed. What the hell?

-adam

p.s. is it 4am?

progress and congress

2006-04-19T22:03:00.000-04:00

[music] Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla

Rather than do the things I should be doing (homework, grading homework, reading...), I decided to put some more work into my Scheme/JS interpreter. And wouldn't you know it, I made reached 3 or so milestones.

First, I added define. That's a big step, as recursive programs are now possible for people like me who don't understand poor-man's recursion.

Second, I add +, -, and *. What made this unusually difficult? They can take an arbitrary number of arguments. yay!

Third, while writing +, I think I came up with an idea to handle lambdas of more than 1 argument.

How about that?

-adam

We might as well

2006-04-19T00:34:00.000-04:00

Imagine you are watching someone who doesn't know you're watching. Now imagine someone doing the same thing to you.

Eleven dollar shoes

2006-04-17T02:35:00.000-04:00

[music] Whiskeytown - Not Home Anymore

I wish I went by a name that was actually a shorter version of my real name, like Dan is short for Daniel. Names like these are useful because it enables the person to add an extra layer of sophistation to his identity.

For example, my brother's name is Andrew, but he always goes by Andy. If he wishes, he could start going by Andrew, and I guarantee people would respect him that much more.

Going by your longer name also adds an extra level of maturity to your character. Take Dan from above, for instance. As a kid, he went by Danny, then in middle school he prefered to be called Dan, and now he's working at some big corporation and he's Daniel, director of ad sales in the lower midwest.

Thanks to my parents, I don't have this option. Adam is not short or long for anything. Adam is as mature as I'm ever going to get.

I talked to my parents about it today, hoping for a bit of sympathy for giving me such an unchangeable name. My Mom suggested I start going by Adam Jeffrey or A. Jeffrey, just for a little change. I wan't too impressed with her idea, and after thinking about it, she told me not to do it.

So I guess I'm stuck with what I got. Like I said, this is as mature as I'm going to get.

Productivity is a math term

2006-04-13T01:18:00.000-04:00

[music] none, that's strange

My ultra-productive mode continues this week for a record-breaking 9 days in a row.

Today I read the chapters of Wuthering Heights that I have to have read by Friday, and I finished my 343 assignment that is due Tuesday. What is the deal?

Right now I'm wondering how much longer I will be in the zone. There's only 2 and a half weeks of school left, and things are looking pretty damn good.

Socks? Those are easy.

2006-04-11T01:35:00.000-04:00

[music] Ben Folds Five - Underground

Check it out. Did you notice the new design? I finally made the move to actually learn a bit of css, and do my best at this whole content/design separation model. I guess it works out fine. Hopefully everything loads faster.

It all feels very trendy. I think it's the most trendyesque site I've ever made. I dare not say the W 2 word, but with all the white/green/bluespace and the freaking huge letters, I feel I've succombed to the bowels of another buzzword. Next thing you know I'll have tags, mashups, ajax, and whatever the hell else is trendy.

cheerio,
-adam

Empty Shoelace

2006-04-11T01:02:00.000-04:00

[music] Coldplay - We Never Change

Ahhh...I feel so fresh.

I thought I would stretch my CSS muscle and redesign this thing. Whaddaya think?

I have new bodywash that makes me smell like green apples.

"Silly geese."

2006-02-17T01:04:00.000-05:00

[music] Beck - Go It Alone

So much for updating this more often. Just want to make a quick comment.

I think it's interesting how self-conscious I was as a kid. I remember one time my Aunt Carol found out I peed without lifting the middle lid, and she was telling me that when girls go they have to sit down. I wanted to say that I sat down to, but only when I pooped. But then I thought that if she knew that, she wouldn't make the comment in the first place, so I started to question myself. Am I supposed to sit when I poop? Am I doing it right? How could I know?

And for my sake,

ARBOR-trary trees.

I should be writing my paper

2006-01-25T14:57:00.000-05:00

Just a little update.

I'm going full throttle into spring sophomore semester. I think this is going to be a good semester, although last semester was pretty good too. I know a lot more people in my CS classes, so I think I'm more likely to speak up with questions/comments.

I made up my 2 missed finals last week, and I think I did really well. I'm still waiting on those other grades.

On an obscure note, I hate people who say they listen to "pretty much anything." That is wrong. I know I sometimes (often) act like a music elitist asshole, but people who say they listen to "pretty much anything" are wrong. Chances are, they like pop and hip-hop. Before anyone says to me "yeah and I bet you say you like pretty much anything" I will stop you right there. There is a shitload of music out there I cannot stand and will not listen to, but I suppose that comes with the territory of being a music elitist...asshole.

-Adam

Playing with Ketchup

2006-01-25T14:53:00.000-05:00

[music] The New Radicals - Someday We'll Know

So I'm looking at my last post and realizing I haven't chronicled my adventure in this blog yet. So a copy from my livejournal again becomes necessary.

Originally posted December 28th

greetings from Paris...still

I'm sure most of you knew that I was spending my 3-week vacation on a tran-Europe site-seeing beer-drinking extravaganza, but I'm sure none of you know how my trip is going. So here is an update.

(brief)
You probably knew that the week before the trip I was feeling like a lot of crap. I had seriously bad abdominal pain and even more serious diarrhea (I always imagined a coal loader dumping coal onto a train, or the levee breaking in New Orleans). I struggled through my first final monday morning (only doing about 3/5 of it), but by Tuesday I felt better and took 2 more finals. By Tuesday night I was sick again and Wednesday was spent either in bed or on the toilet. Thursday morning I went to the IU med center, and they said it was most likely my appendix. I went to a surgeon who confirmed it (he was so sure, a CT scan wasn't even necessary). My appendix was taken out Thursday afternoon and I was home by Friday afternoon. I was feeling fine as my doctor had prescribed codine for the pain, and he said there was no need to cancel my trip. Great news! He also recommended the American Hospital in Paris if I had any problems. So I packed and left for Europe.

I won't go into all the details yet, because there are a lot, but I will give you the jist.

We got to London Sunday morning and found out my luggage was still in Chicago thanks to a strike from the United workers. We took the chunnel to Paris that day and checked into the hostel at about 9pm. We went out to find food, but I was not too hungry.

The next day we were all set to explore Paris. We went to the Louvre, which is very amazing and very very huge. After about an hour at the Louvre, I got the exact same symptoms I had before trip. I was more than a little concerned. I ended up going back to the hostel before everyone else and slept/pooped. At around 5am I went downstairs to buy some water (my diarrhea made me dehydrated to serious conditions). The guy downstairs said I should probably go the hospital, and I agreed.

So we took a taxi to the American Hospital, where they said I probably had a gastro infection. I would have to stay for at least a few days so they can pump antibiotics into me. They didn't know exactly what it was, so they give me a general gastro antibiotic. After 2 days there was little improvement. Two stool samples, a rectal exam (yes, a rectal exam, but it gets better), and a CT scan later and they tell me I may have Crohn's disease. At the time I didn't know what it was but, it is a very very serious disease. I would have probably had to change my diet for the rest of my life.

They were still not sure, but they decided the next course of action was a colonoscopy. For those of you back home who don't know what a colonoscopy is, it's when they stick a camera right up your ass and look inside you. My parents told me that back in the states they always give you a little anestesia so you don't have to deal so much with the pain of a metal rod up you butt. Apparantely in Paris they don't. Instead, they gave me a cube of sugar to bite on. That's right. A sugar cube. I bit the bullet, and it was sweet.

Aside from the constant excrutiating pain of the colonoscopy, it was still pretty cool watching the monitor. I seriously could see inside my bowel. I also saw them take a biopsy from inside me. Attached to the camera is a little claw, and you can see it shoot out and pinch off a little sample of tissue. And yes, it hurt.

The good news is that thanks to the colonoscopy, they made a great diagnosis. Clostridium Difficile, or C-Diff. Right after I type this out I will look it up on Wikipidea. I'm still not sure of the exact details, but I think clostridium is a bacteria in your bowels that helps digest food, and I either had too much or too little (probably too little). More research is still needed. The great news is that it is totally treatable. I took 4 Flaxyl antibiotics a day (plus 2 potassium tablets to make me more healthy), and a constant IV pumped the nutrients I wasn't getting, and within 3 or 4 days I was feeling fine.

I just got out of the hospital today. I stayed a total of 8 days there. My friends stayed an extra 1 or 2 days in Paris, then flew to Barcelona (I was not upset, I would have done the same. Also my the exact details of what happened on what day are a little hazy). Plus, on Christmas I got probably the best present I could have asked for (other than a fun eurotrip). My parents managed to fly here to Paris to help me out. I'm sure it is costing them a hell of a lot (not to mention the hospital bills, thank God our insurance covered most of it). Just knowing they were coming helped me eat at least 3 more bites of food (that was another symptom, no appetite. I probably had eated a total of 6 meals during finals weeks).

So my trip is a bit of a bust, but at least I am now healthy. I asked the doctor how serious it could have been if they did not catch it, and he said they would have to do surgery to cut away the linings of my bowels. They were very very thick.

I'm coming home early, but not without seeing a few more sites with my parents. I still hate travelling with my parents (my dad gets upset too easily, and they both like to shop), but I am extremely glad they are here. They rescheduled my flight back home, found me a flight to London, and just having them be here with me means more than I could every say.

And so, I hope all of you had a better Christmas than I had, and hopefully we can meet up before school starts again. I'm flying home the 30th, and I'll be back in Anderson the 31st.

So long! See you soon! Auvoir! and MERCI for reading

Adam

"It's kind of folky."

2005-12-12T22:57:00.000-05:00

[music] Old 97's - Designs on You

Adam's 24-hour West Nile Avian Monkey Flu Story

Ahh...finals week. I love finals week. Well, obviously I don't love finals week, but there are certain things I do like about it, such as only having to be in a class room 5 times this week. However, a little sickness can really put a damper on what would otherwise be a splendid week of testing.

And so the story begins...

Yesterday at approximately 5pm, I started to feel a little ill. I felt like my stomach was being squeezed, and I was suffering from diarrhea about every 10 minutes. It felt better to lie down, and I ended up sleeping until 8pm. Then I woke up, pooped some more, and went back to sleep until 10. By that point I knew I was pretty sick. I didn't have a fever, however. Andy gave me some Immodium, and I went with Sharon to Kroger to get some sprite. After getting back around 12:30 I went back to sleep, but not for long. I woke at least 5 times in that 6 hours of sleep. I even woke up at 4am just as Andy was getting out of the shower (he was working a promotion in indy). I took my temperature at about 5am and it was at about 99.6. Just under a fever. I slept until 7:15 with my light on (don't know exactly why), then woke up for my 8am final.

This final sucked. Three times during the test I got up and went to the bathroom. The teacher asked if I was ok, I simply said no. I managed to answer all but the last question, and by the 3rd trip I'd decided I was done. I turned in my test and went home.

I was also supposed to help proctor the c211 exam, but I emailed in to say I was sick. She understood.

I pretty much slept form 11 to 6. I watch several episodes of "Home Movies" and one episode of "David the Gnome." Sharon and I also watched an episode of "Scrubs." By about 8pm I started to feel better. Now, it's past 11 and I can feel myself getting better. I have to finals tomorrow, but I should be ok. In astronomy, I think I have a 93 even if I don't take the final, and Beatles will be easy.

That will do it for me.

So long and happy poops!

-adam

"She's so heavy."

2005-12-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

[music] The Beatles - Here Comes the Sun

fuck computer science.

I'm going to be an artist.

Communist Optometrist

2005-12-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

[music] King Harvest - Dancing in the Moonlight

It's 27 degrees outside, and there's a little ice on the ground, but other than that it's a beautiful day!

I've been kinda down the past week, but I'm much better now. I'm excited for a good party this Saturday (4 december birthdays), and I'm even more excited for the Euro trip. 2 weeks! I can't wait.

I believe that is all for now.

So long!

Adam

p.s. I love picking the right music for the day: King Harvest - Dancing in the Moonlight, Sublime - What I Got, Phish - The Connection, Sgt. Pepper's, White Album (disc 2), The Band - Music From Big Pink, and Snow Patrol.

2005-11-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

[music] none

This is actually a continuation of my post from Tuesday.

I took my calc3 test, and it went really well. After that was astronomy, which was a bore. Then I went into the computer lab to work on my programming assignment. Before I even start, someone comes in and says there is a tornado warning, and we all had to cross over to Swain. That lasted about 15 minutes, and after that I came back and finished up my lab (completely, yay!). Then it was Beatles class, which was a amazing as always. We started talking about the White Album. After that, I walked over to Penn Station and finished off the day with a cheese steak.

The end.

-adam

"Rock on...anybody."

2005-11-15T12:09:00.000-05:00

[music] Iggy & The Stooges - Search and Destroy (from the Life Aquatic Soundtrack)

How about an update, hmm?

I tend to write in this blog whenever I feel significantly well or significantly crappy. Lately I've been very near the middle. Kind of an emotional purgatory, which I'm fine with. Hence the lack of updating (and my overall laziness). Well today has started out crappy, and in the interest of recording any significant feelings I have, I'm going to write about it. Enjoy!

I have a calc3 test in about an hour, and as is typical test behavior there is a sequence of events I must take in order to achieve success. I have a plan, and if this plan is interrupted, I shall become crappy.

First step: lucky shirt. Ben Folds t-shirt. On. Check.
Second step: eat breakfast. Choice? Cereal. But wait, there are no bowls. Although I've become the only one to do dishes (as I washed several pans yesterday), no one bothered to clean any bowls. I wouldn't have minded on any other day, but I have a test today. Things must go right.
Third step: don't rain. Well, not much control over that one. It's raining like a mother.
Fourth step: carry an umbrella. We only have 2 umbrellas here for 3 people, and Andy left literally 4 minutes before I did. Slightly pissing me off.
Fifth step: go to 211 meeting. Well, I got there (in the rain) and nobody else is there. I mean nobody. Out of like 8 people, I was the only one there. So I'm like fuck this and come home.
Sixth step: well...I guess that was all the steps.

But 1/5 isn't a good sign. Luckily I'm not terribly worried about the test. It's just memorizing a few formulas. But still...

I blame the rain most of all. Makes me miserable

|-----------------------|

In other news, last Monday I "pulled or strained a rib muscle" while running. I went to a med-check center and now I'm on some muscle rebuilding/steroid medicine for 2 weeks. Also, I can't drink alcohol, but worst of all I can't run. This is fine, as I probably need a break (from both), but not 2 weeks of break. I'm just hoping there's no permanent damage. I will probably not do 10 mile runs for a while.

that's my news

so long!

Adam

pee

2005-10-23T20:47:00.000-05:00

Sharon is a poop mouth

"Just let me know."

2005-10-05T12:12:00.000-05:00

[music] Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Usually I don't notice things. I mean all the time. My roommate Sharon talk about the kind of impression certain people make on her, like first impressions, that I for the most part didn't even notice. I don't know...I can't think of an example. I think I'm just too naive to notice lots of things (naivity is a common and overly used word used when describing myself). Well, today I noticed something.

I don't know...maybe that paragraph had nothign to do with what I saw, but I'd like to write about it anyway.

I was walking about to cross a street, and a car stopped and waved for me to pass. Common practice. Well, as I'm about halfway across the street, and a car on the street on which I am parallel runs straight through the stop sign. No one was in the street, no one hit or anything, but I was just thinking that if I hadn't crossed the street, that car probably would have pulled out and been hit by the stop sign-running car.

I just thought it was interesting. I can't help but think of it spiritually, that something made me cross the street at the perfect time to prevent and accident. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but maybe not. In a way, it was kind of uplifting, and I could tell my test-induced-quasi-depression was slightly uplifted, which is good.

I should be studying.

So long!

Adam

"It's $1 pint night at Bear's...I'm usually very against drinking before class, but it's Beatles." - Acupicture2! Updated

2005-10-04T23:31:00.000-05:00

[music] Radiohead - Talk Show Host

Somewhat of a crappy day, leading into an even worse week, and then into an excellent weekend.

I had my calc 3 test today. It wasn't that it was had, but it was way too long. Luckily the teacher recognized it, and said we can depend on a nice curve. That's good, but I was still rushed. I'm not sure how well I did. We'll see.

Tomorrow I have my c241 (Discrete math) test, and that will no doubt be a bitch. Average will probably 60%...it will suck

Then on Thursday I've got an astronomy test. It shouldn't be too hard, because most of it can be deduced logically (hopefully), but I will no doubt have to study like a bitch.

I've also got office hours tomorrow, adn i haven't even looked at the assignment I'm supposed to be helping them with.

With all that out and out of the way...last weekend was great. Saturday I went to Dave's, and Sharon came along, which was great. A good time was had by all. And that's all I'll say about that.

This weekend Dave's throwing another party, then Sharon, Andy, and I are going to to Winimac for the weekend (Sharon's home). We may stop at Indy or Purdue Saturday night.

So that's it!

So long!

Adam

"Are you watching? Are you?"

2005-09-26T11:06:00.000-05:00

[music] Old 97's - King of All the World

Every once in a while you have a week that is unbelievable, where you can't believe you did as much as you did, and what you did. I believe last week was one of those unbelievable weeks.

This entry will be in reverse chronological order, and organized by day, sort of.

Sunday
I woke up Sunday morning on Kolski's futon with marker all over my body and my shoes off. Bryan and I had brunch at collins compliments of Morgan, and then we headed home. Bryan soon left, and I attempted to install the msp430 compiler on my laptop, failing. Sharon and I did our homework from probably 9pm until 2am, and then I went to bed.

Saturday
I ran the Hoosiers Outrun Cancer 5k race with Kolski and Ed. My time was 26:30, which I was happy with. After that I ate at Taco Bell to celebrate my good health.
Bryan and I ate at Laughing Planet, where I had an amazing quesadilla. We rode bikes around campus, and found free ice cream in front of the chemistry building, a latino festival, and a guy with a large soviet symbol on his bag.
That night Kolski's threw another party. I was sort of a "greatest hits" of the night before; all the people who didn't suck came back. I had 3 beers with Andy before leaving. Once there I had 2 more beers, 2 or 3 cups of jungle juice, half a beer, bonged the second half, threw up a little, drink another beer, had 2 shots of tequila, and spent about the next 20 minutes puking. Then I went to bed on the futon.

Friday
Bryan came down from Anderson to party for the weekend. Kolski/Clint threw a beach party at their house. I decided not to drink because I wanted to do well in the race on Saturday. I also was able to drive people home. There were a few girls from Purdue there, but they were being bitches to a few of my friends, so that was no fun. Meghan from Anderson showed up because she is friends with Kolski (I didn't know that), so that was both fun and exciting. Dave got a lapdance.

Wednesday
Andy, Morgan, and I drove to Chicago to see Sigur Ros. Amazing. I loved it. The music was outstanding; it's amazing that they can make it sound as good live as they do on recording. The only problem was that the audience totally sucked. There were always people getting up, and so when the entire row had to stand up. Plus, we were in the back near the door, so I was distracted everytime it was opened. The very worst part about the audience was during Vioar Vel Til Loftarosa. In the middle of the song the entire band and singer got completely silent. For about 4 seconds there was not a sound in the whole place. Then some asshole yells "yeeeaaaah!," and people dropped cups, and everyone was like "goddammit" and pissed. However, the shit audience failed to make me not enjoy the concert. I drove home.

Monday
Sharon and I drove down to Louisville to see her cousin Anna. There was an accident on I65, so we got off at this small town called Austin. It was seriously bumber to bumper traffic through this town, and all these people got out of their houses to watch the cars. It was really funny to see guys sitting in their yard drinking beer and watching the cars.
We had pizza with Anna and went to see "Transporter 2." Apparantely Sharon and Anna had to see it together. It ended up being a really fun quasi-road-trip. I drove home. It rained.

Looks like that's all. Long ass post due to me not wanting to write it.

So long!

Adam

2005-09-20T15:24:00.000-05:00

[music] Astronomy teacher

Last night sharon and I drove to Louisville to watch a movie with her cousin, and this Wednesday I'm going to Chicago to see Sigur Ros. cool? you bet

"Fire safety is not a laughing matter." Acupicture2! updated

2005-09-10T16:56:00.000-05:00

[music] Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger

hmmmm
last night was a lot of fun. Dave, Josh, and Ed (Silas too, but he wasn't there (and Ed left early cos he's a douchbag (Well it was a funny story: "I was just talking with some people and next thing I know I'm in a car headed to taco bell."))) threw a party at their *posh* apartment. Was it good? Yes, it was good. Lots of beer, spode punch, and jello shots. yes, quite well. Most of hershey 3 was there, as well as plenty of other people. i ended up spending the night on the floor, which was planned. Around 5am the fire alarm went off for the entire apartment complex. Oh my god talk about the most annoying fire alarm. This real loud voice comes over the apartment "This is an emergency. Please evacuate the premises." Then loud blaring. So we drunkenly walked down 5 flights and outside with everyone else. So enough about that.

Oh one more thing: we went to waffle house at 3am. wasn't too bad

I remember there was soemthign else I meant to write in here.

well shit.

ok, that's all for now. No hangover today!

So long!

Adam

"Yeah, but can you play Day Tripper backwards? I can"

2005-09-02T18:44:00.000-05:00

[music] Beatles - Day Tripper take 1

(also in my lj)
Astronomy 100 - The Solar System
First off, I love astronomy. i'm not sure how many of you folks know that, but I like it a lot and have read a lot too. Anyways, I think I'm gonna like this class because number one: i like the subject adn number two: it's really easy. There's like no math at all. I probably won't even study for the tests. it's a big (and crowded) class, which sucks a little, but I can deal with it. So plus!

Music z-401 - The music of the Beatles
OH MY FREAKING GOD. This has to be the greatest class I have (and probably will) taken (ever take) (¿comprende?). Firt off, Beatles: all time favorite band. I grew up listening to them all the time. I remember my brother Aaron saying "man...have you listened to this one" and he hands my Abbey Road, or the White Album (I really do consciously remember him doing that, for both albums, on 2 separate occasions. brilliant). So of course I'm gonna love the class. Second, the teacher, Glenn Gass, is freaking amazing. I can't even begin to describe it. So I won't. maybe later

a few other notes, i suppose. I skipped my c241 class wednesday to see Coldplay in Columbus, OH. I drove with Ed, Dave, adn Josh, and was a blast. Hah! we left bloomington around 3pm thinkign the show started at 7:30, and about 20 minutes into the drive Josh realizes that Ohio is an hour ahead, so it's more like 6:30. I drove 85/90 the whole way. fucking A!

that's all for now. so long!

Adam

Snapping my fingers does not make me think faster

2005-08-29T16:50:00.000-05:00

[music] The Beatles - Hey Jude

So I just got done with my first day of classes, again (you know, I'm no longer of freshman status). Unfortunately I can't say i'm as happy as I was last semester, or the one before, but more on that later.

South Carolina was alright, but there wasn't a lot to do because my cousin had to work every day. The last day we finally went to the beach (Isle of Palms, aka IOS). We played catch and I got a bad sunburn.

The flight home went without a hitch, despite the mechanics strike. In fact, I gave up my seat on an overbooked flight and got a voucher for a free roundtrip plane ticket. And I got home just an hour later. cool? I thought so.

Mom picked me up and we went straight to Bloomington because we had packed a lot of my stuff ahead of time. Unloaded it, got a suburban-load of stuff from storage to the house, then Mom and I went home. Next day loaded up the rest of my stuff and we moved everything into our new house (btw new house = excellent). 'Nuff 'bout dat, yo.

First week in Bloomington: great. Partied at Kolski's twice, drink some at teh house, and drank at Andy and Sharon's friend's house, even though he wasn't there, so we played poker with his roommate. Won $8!

Now for class summary:
C335 - Computer Structures
I can already tell this class is going to be great. The class is about the way computers process code, and it is centered around Goofy Giggles. cool? i thought so. Looks very promising. The worst part about the class is it's in the business school, a nice 25 minute walk to get me up for a 9:30 class. Oh well, can't complain to much. The lab is in one of the UNIX labs in Lindley. I think I'm actually at a little advantages thanks to robotics.

M311 - Calculus 3
OH CRAP! I already don't like this teacher. I guess he's new to IU, new to the midwest, and he talks with a lisp, which drives me crazy. He kinda doesn't seem to have a clear plan on how to teach the class. Also i think that he thinks we're all idiots, which if you're stupid enough to take Calc 3 you're probably pretty smart. We'll just have to see how this goes. The good news is we don't have class on friday, although it's on the schedule like that.

C241 - Discrete Math
OH CRAP AGAIN! The prof basically spent an hour and a half on a mix between topics covered and whhhhhyyyyy it's important to cs majors. I think he's really full of himself. Also, he plugged his 400-level class like 3 times on the first day. lame! The good thing is that friday discussions are not required. yay!

So that's all for now. I will try to update this mor often now that summer is over. Oh! I am a UI for C211, meaning I will be grading lab notebooks and holding office hours. Office hours!! how cool is that?

Adam's office hours
Wednesday 4pm-6pm
Lindley Hall Rm 112

so long!

Adam

wuh oh

2005-08-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

[music] Conan

So the mechanics at Northwest Airlines went on strike, meaning I can expect delays coming home on Monday...well either delays or cancellations.

We'll see how that all turns out. Should be lots of fun

tiny update

2005-08-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

[music] Roast of Pamela Anderson / Snow Patrol - Spitting Games

Just a small update on my SC trip...

Flying went very well. I had a slight delay on both flights (Indy->Detroit, Detroit->Charleston), but nothing major at all.

The detroit airport has a tunnel to get from Terminal A to B and C; it's less of a tunnel and more of a laser-light show. I'll put up a picture when I get home.

I fell asleep on the Charleston flight while we were taxying, and I woke up when we were in the air. That was weird. Enough about the flights...

First few days have been a little boring. Ryan works every day I'm here. Tonight we played basketball, which was fun. And in a few days we're going to a keggar/wrestle-madia watching party. I will be partaking in the keg more than the wrestle, which will make it fun.

That's all for now.

So long!

Adam

Oil change and a dollar

2005-08-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

[music] Library chatter...damn kids

I had to get an oil change in the Toyota today, so while that was happening I went over to Arby's to eat. The cashier there asked if I would like to donate $1 to the Boys and Girls club. I politely said no, and then she mentioned that if I donated, I would receive a dollar off coupon. Again I said no, and waited for my food.

I thought about this possible exchange a few minutes later. If I agree to donate $1, I am losing $1 and the Boys and Girls Club is gaining $1. But then I get a coupon, and if I use the coupon I am gaining $1 and Arby's is losing $1. So the finally tally is B&G Club +1, Arby's -1, me 0. Here's my proposoal: cut out the middle man, and Arby's simply donate to the B&G club. Apparantly Arby's is a major donor to B&G, and that's just fine, but only when there's a chance to increase sales.

And another thing. To the people who do take Arby's up on their "donate for a coupon" deal, I can just imagine people who only donate for the coupon. It's like people will only do charitable things if they can get something out of it. I can't say too much about them, because I didn't donate at all. I'm just suggesting that they cut out the middle man, me, so that I don't have to feel guilty for not giving up my meesly dollar.

I've heard of this exchange before. At Pay Less (Kroger for you non-Andersonians) they used to air an advertisment similar to Arby's. If you donate $1 to support breast cancer research, you receive $1.65 off General Mills Cereal. So if the complete exchange goes through, the score is Diabetes + $1, GM -$1.65, me +$0.65. I support companies donating to charities, but I don't support this false sense of charity they give customers. I guess I also don't like how people will only give if they feel they are getting something in return.

100_7952

2005-08-15T02:31:00.000-05:00

100_7952
Originally uploaded by Adam Hinz.

Oye! Sexy!

oooh!

2005-08-15T02:13:00.000-05:00

[music] The New Radicals - I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending

I bought a (new) guitar a couple days ago. Acoustic. Electric. Beautiful. Andrew Camp wanted $150 for it, but I managed to haggle it down to $149.99. Hah. And he's gonna cash the check. hah hah.

Anyway, the pictures are hanging around inside of Acupicture 2!.,?

2005-08-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

[music] The Beta Band - Inner meet Me

Crappy days suck. period. dot.

I was counting on wednesday night to be a nice easy day. meeh. Idiots in the day didn't sort the whole truck. So instead of a day of just running backstock and facing, we had to run a bunch of carts and face the whole fucking store.

goddammit.

i guess all I'm saying is 14 hour 15 minute days suck balls. and 3 13+ hour days suck great big hairy balls. I was gonna have a night off tonight, but fuck in the ass new kid can't come in cos he's going to ohio. The plus side is I'm off all day friday. Both jobs.

So anyway. I'm going to bed. Angrily and tiredly.

So long!

Adam >:(

one more thing

2005-08-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

I can see 4 people talking on cell phones right now, and 3 others on laptops. Oooh! I feel like I'm in Seattle right now! So much technology

I love free wi-fi at panara

2005-08-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

[music] Beck - Mixed Bizness

I really like the new album by Brendan Benson. It's called The Alternative to Love, and it is the follow up to Lapalco. I honestly can't decide which album I like better, and I haven't said that since Coldplay's Rush of Blood to the Head (I finally decided I like Parachutes better, thanks to Clocks). Anyway, Brendan Benson's music is pop music at its best. The ironic thing is that it's not popular. Unpopular pop music....mmm.

So I've been here at Panara Bread for about 3 hours now, working on Q&A. Not as much progress has been made as my usual library sittings. I blame the fact that I can use AIM here and not at the library. Damn distractions.

I think that's all for now. After this I'm heading to the library to pick up Midnite Vultures by Beck.

So long!

Adam

2005-08-07T07:26:00.000-05:00

To continue more on my finger story (and yes, that picture is my finger, not my pickle):

well, it's more on a reflection.

After bandaging up my finter, the manager helped me clean up my cardboard, as well as my box with 3 broken jars of jelly. I asked if we should leave it by the desk to have it taken out of inventory. Here's the thing: instead, we just threw it in the baler. Yep. I guess it's just easier to do it that way than having to explain to someone that some idiot who works for him broks 3 jars of jelly. So that's that.

Anyway, throwing that jelly in the baler reminded me of 1984, how he has the memory box where he throws away articles from the past to be destroyed, never seen again. In a way, the baler was a memory box to my broken jelly (which is would be a wicked awesome band name).

that's all for now. I'm going to bed. 9 hour shifts suck

So long!

Adam

105_7942

2005-08-07T07:25:00.000-05:00

105_7942
Originally uploaded by Adam Hinz.

"Oh. Isn't that just the pickle on the giant crap sandwich that is my day."

finger flinger

2005-08-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

[music] Ben Folds Five - Mess

(copied from my LJ)

goddammit, i thought

at pay-less i was loading glass jars of jelly onto a shelf from a shopping cart, adn i freaking dropped one into the loaded cart, breaking two jars. This, of course, was after I had dropped one on the floor about 5 minutes earlier. So a total of three (3) jars of jelly were broken. The crap that was a bitch was that when i dropped the one into the cart, I somehow cut my finger, and the fucker would not stop bleeding. I ended up having to wrap the whole thing in gauze. the bitch.

If I may quote Dr. Elliot Reid,

"Oh. Isn't that just the pickle on the giant crap sandwich that is my day."

in other news, my neighbors have their sprinklers on in the rain. Looks like I'm not the only retarded person on the street.

Oh Piss!

2005-08-03T02:32:00.000-05:00

So anyway I am quite drunk right now and still typing surprisingly well.

Good night and hav a pleasanat tomorrow

Another post about work

2005-07-30T08:18:00.000-05:00

[music] Belle and Sebastian - Mary Jo

At pay-less we have new time clocks. They are finger scanners, which is apparantely another name for "pain in the ass." They don't work half the time. One person consistently has to try it 25 times or more. Although I'm alright at it, it's still a waste of time. The worst part is you can't take your 2 fifteen minutes breaks consecutively. You have to take one, clock back in and clock out again for your second. Like I said, pain in the ass.

The fall of Blimpie-enjoyment is coming. Jordan already quit and found a new job, which he soon quit. I believe it went somethign like this:

He was working at Pizza King and he asked his manager if the schedule was ready. For no reason the manager goes "alright if anybody else asks about the schedule they are fired." So he doesn't. Bare in mind this is the last day of the week, so he needs to know if he works the next day. So he doesn't ask, and the next day the manager calls Jordan wondering where he is. Jordan is like "you said you'd fire anyone who asks about the schedule" (and I can totally see Jordan having this conversation). I guess they quasi-argued, not so sure, but Jordan eventually says "Well why don't you go ahead and fire me." Classic. The manager conceds he messed up, and i guess his record says that he quit giving 2 weeks notice, so no hard feelings.

So that's that

Also, this is Ben's last week, as he found a job at a corrections facility. It's great because he'll be making more money and it's in his field he's studying, criminal justice. It just sucks because that means I have to work 2 more weeks with no 'cool' people, namely Ben and Jordan. ah well. It's only 2 weeks. Not too bad.

That's all for now.

So long!

ADam

2005-07-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

[music] Dido - White Flag

New design is done, for the most part. yay!

Also, I updated Acupicture2! Amazing! Progress. We will prevail.

I created my own template for Picasa, so it's now unbelievable easy (that's is my second use of the word 'unbelievable' in about 60 seconds) to update acupicture.

And last but not least, Dido is unbelievably hot.

Time for some r&r...for 2 days

2005-07-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

aloha muchachos

As in my last 3 or so posts, I've been working lots lately. Nothing new, nothing major. Tonight is my first night off after 7 nights in a row, and I can tell I need it. I'm tired already and it's only 9:30.

Like I said, not much else has been happening. Seems like my entire life is consumed in working :( ahh well. More money for Europe I guess.

I'd kinda like to do something tonight and tomorrow. I'd like to go out of state somewhere. At least out of town. But there's no place to go, and nobody to go with. more sadness.

I'm not really sad or upset or anything. I'm nothing right now. That seems about right.

Anyways, that's all for now. Notice my new layout? It's not done yet.

So long!

Adam

Working

2005-06-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

snoitcelfeR on working lately

damn...I had this whole post figured out in the shower, and now it's gone.

ok, I got it back

Item number one
I have two very different attitudes towards both my jobs. And they both stem from Office Space (imagine that...). I compare my job at Blimpie to that of Peter Gibbons after he is left in his state of relaxation from the hypnosis. I really don't care much for that job. I haven't gotten to the point of coming in late and not doing any work at all, but I am seriously considering bringing in a fish to gut on the veggie table.

Pay-Less, on the other hand, is kind of like Peter Gibbons working with his neighbor at his construction job...minus being outside. It's hard work, labor-intensive at times, and it feels like a real job. Of course, that is starting to wear off a little bit, but still I like having somethign that feels like a real job. Timmy.

Item number two
I've never cared much for business. Business in general has always seemed like kind of a joke to me...making proposals, promotions, etc. But since working at Pay-Less I have some new-found appreciation for it. Mainly towards the beaurocratic structure it has. Every morning the store manager comes in and does an inspection of the store. If he sees somethign wrong, he chews out the night manager, who in turn chews out whoever made the mistake (at least that's how it's supposed to go, but really the night manager won't chew anyone out. He just says what was wrong, whatever). But in a way it's very effeciant. If somethign needs to be changed everyoen on the ladder knows about it. Just a bit I found interesting.

Don't expect me to change over into business. They all seem a bit assholey to me (no offense to my friends in business schools...you guys are quite alright).

That's all for now.

Tonight/tomorrow might suck a little, well a lot. I work Pay-Less 11-7 (or later, depending on how quickly we get done (which has been late my last 2 nights working because people have called in sick)). After that I work Blimpie 8:30-4. Yeah...major suckage. But serious hourage and serious moneyage. I told Jim I'd be willing to work mornings if he was ever in it crutch, and right now 5 people are on vacation. So that's that. I'll be ok. I'll manage.

That's all for now (seriously).

So long!

Adam

P.S. Updating Acupicture 2! soon

Dinner and

2005-05-25T23:38:00.000-05:00

Howdy's

I don't have much to update on.

I had dinner at Grandview tonight with my parents and some friends, though I got there as everyone was finishing up their food. I had slept until about 7:30...

I heard Dave talk about what he told his son who was kicked off the baseball team. It's always interesting to see someone get really (REALLY!) fired up.

That's all for now. I don't/didn't work today, so I've got all night to do whatever...whatever that could be.

So long!

Adam

p.s. Payless was really funny last night.

Summer

2005-05-24T06:24:00.000-05:00

Hello, Blogger

I think we're starting our 3rd week of summer vacation, and wouldn't you know it, I already want to go back to school. Typical summer vacation, I suppose. But at least I have a lot to look forward to at school, like the Beatles class, astronomy, and a house.

I wish I could say this summer has been outstanding, but when is it ever? I'll start with the good things.

I'm working a lot, so at least I'm keeping busy. I usually work 4 8-hour days (well, nights) at Payless, and 2-3 4-hour days at Blimpie. So I will most definitely be getting fat phat pay checks. Rock on.

And....the crap side. Not to seem deperate for help or any of that crap, but I've been kind of depressed lately. I really haven't seen any (well, minus 2) friends since summer started. I've talked with a few online, but I hate talking online. Well, not hate, but it's not the same. (one of my away messages is "instant messager is the worst form of communication ever." I haven't had that up, but that's generally how I feel). Seriously? Where is everybody? What are you doing?

I normally don't write about this stuff, but nobody reads this thing anyways (but if you do, I do not mind).

I was so bored tonight. I wasn't working, so my only plan to stay home and watch Newsradio. Well, I got to the end of the series. So I decided to go out for a little drive. I don't think I've been to many other places then the payless area since being home. So I drove down to Scatterfield, ate at arby's (it was almost 4am...and I knew they were open 24 hours), then drove out southwest of town. Basically I just thought about what I would write in here. And that's about all I have to say for now.

Talk to ya'll's later

So long!

Adam (or as one (and only one) person calls me, Edam)

2005-05-11T23:28:00.000-05:00

Time for another bone-crunching update from that mysterious young lad they call Adam, or as Hershey 3 calls him, White Tiger, thanks to his mad golf skillz.

To make things a little more interesting, I'll write this update in reverse chronological order, like on a resume.

Today I had my interview with Kroger, and wouldn't you know it, they hired me. The went ahead and took the drug test right there, and they will have the results Friday. Then i can do all the paperwork, Saturday I can do orientation, and after that it's working and stocking from 10pm to 6am. It should be interesting.

I watched The Life Aquatic again last night. And again, it was excellent. Have you ever watched a movie and it seems you are the only one enjoying it?

I came home on Monday (finally). I had spend Saturday afternoon, Sunday almost all day, and Monday afternoon helping Andy move out. It was a long process because a)He had a lot of stuff and not a lot of boxes, and b)we were lazy and watching a lot of Arrested Development. We got it done, though, and I think he's in Europe right now.

We watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Saturday night. Excellent. I'm listening to teh soundtrack right now.

I moved out of Hershey 3 Saturday morning. I think Andy was still drunk when he helped me move. I'm going to miss the floor. Not necessarily the facilities (mos def not the facilities), but I'll miss the people. Luckily several of them will be living together next year, so that means lots of parties.

Finals week finally ended, and by now I know my grades. German: A, C212: A, E104 A (i think), Spanish: A-, Linear Algebra: B+. woot. I'm kinda bummed about the linear grade, but I really pulled my grade up in there, and I got a 90 on the final. Plus, that's a junior level math course, so kick ass.

Finals week in general wasn't bad. My schedule was much nicer than last semester. I had plenty of time to relax, and I even managed to find some time to study.

I think that about brings me up to speed. This summer should be an alright one. Current plans: work a lot, start running again (maybe tomorrow...always tomorrow), play some basketball (someone gave me one on the floor), do stuff with some friends (though this department has been lacking lately, not number of friends, but the activities with them...ah well), and do some fishing. I don't know if I have any friends who like to fish, but I can always go with Mom on Wednesdays, if she's not doing anything.

I think that'll do for now. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far, and so long!

Adam

P.S. I finally started work on my uber-cool photo gallery giggiter-doo last week. I now have the beginning stages of a file manager, as in it can list files and rename (oooh batch renaming! Fancy!).

2005-05-06T06:23:00.000-05:00

I can't sleep :(

2005-05-01T18:11:00.000-05:00

Oooooh sometimes people really piss me off.

Maybe you remember a few months ago when I won this. I also forgot to mention that the only reason I won that is because a friend picked the teams for me. It was a good system. My friend (let's call him Matt) signed all four of us up with different teams, so we would all have a better chance of winning. The deal was that if we won, we would all split the pizzas, and whoever actually won would get everything else. Sounds great. Until someone gets a little spoiled.

We used one of the pizzas immediately. Matt and I shared it, the other two were out somewhere. So now we're down to 3. It's getting towards the end of the year, and we decided rather than try to find a time when we can all use them together, we would just split them up (It is actually one coupon for 3 pizzas). One person in the group decided he didn't want his, and the other one is giving his to Matt. I was slightly pissed (well a little more) but I got over it. Whatever.

We know one restaurant will split up the coupon into 3 separate ones. That's great. The problem is you have to drive over there. I don't have a car, but Matt does. So I figure he would drive and we could get them together. Seems fine. Unfortunately, Matt is a little bitch (I don't care if I'm name calling). He doens't want to drive all the way over there unless I pay him gas money.

At this point a little bargaining commences. He says he should have all 3 pizzas because I got the "$30 shirt." I say that's bullshit because the original deal was we would split up the pizzas. He says he deserves it, recalling all the times he drove me to Kroger, and the time he helped carry up all my pop. I said I offered him some of my coke but he didn't want any. So he starts bitching about how I never asked for any gas money. Blah blah blah. Friends don't ask for gas money on a Kroger run. I'm standing by my point of what the original deal was, splitting the pizzas. His argument is "Why don't you just make it easier and just give them all to me?" I said because that's not fair, and he goes back to the $30 shirt. He then pulls the "I'm a poor kid" card. Oh no you didn't. He says money is kind of tight right now. I said "at least you have a job" (not my 8-mile tone, though that would have been awesome). Seriously, he keeps talking about how he makes $3000 a year tutoring (which by the way he was supposed to get me a job doing that, and he never did...BITCH!). PLUS he has a shitload of food in his room, because he's been spending all his mealpoints in the last 2 weeks (2 weeks ago he still had 900 meal points). So don't pull that poor shit on me. And besides, and I said this to him, it's just a pizza. And then I said he's being an ass.

He ended the argument by saying "If you ever need something from me, don't bother asking" or something along those lines.

What really pisses me off though, is that I have been trying to be nice to him. In the past few months he has been severely depressed. He almost stopped eating, and he never did anything. I tried to help him out by having dinner with him and just trying to have conversations with him. I even burnt him a cd. I was just trying to be a friend to him, something he was lacking from other people on the floor. And this is my thanks?

So the final decision is that I would have my brother drive me to the papa johns to split it up.

man.....

In other news, my dorm can get wireless internet now. Woot!

Not it's time to study for my spanish final and my cs final tomorrow. Wednesday I have my crime in the media final, and friday is my linear algebra final. Friday night i'm getting drunk. Saturday morning i'm moving out. I'll stay with Andy for a couple days and help him move. I'll leave sunday or monday or tuesday. Wednesday I have a job interview with Kroger. That is the tentative schedule for now.

So long,

Adam

P.S. how mean would it be to put his facebook link on here so people could bitch to him? I won't do that.

Acupicture 2! updated! Fo-shizzle

2005-04-07T12:45:00.000-05:00

I totally suck for not updating this more. Will try harder...

I haven't posted since before spring break. Spring break was amazing. I went on a mission trip to Petit Trou de Nippes, Haiti. More on that later (proabably in my Island Capri section, along with pictures).

Everything has been going alrighth for the most part. I'm not really sure how I'm doing in my classes. German is obviously fine, but I think I'm around an A- in spanish. I've started to pick it up in CS (A on last quiz woots). Crime in the media could go either way...depending on my last test. My first test I got an 84, which I was a little disappointed with. I've gotten 95's on all my summaries, and i got 100 on my outline/bibliography. Linear is my top concern right now. I got an 85 on the first test and :( 62 on my second. I have another test this Monday, so hopefully I can pull ahead with that one and the final. The good thign is my homework in linear has been steadily improving (100 on last one woots). It's so frustrating...on the last test I felt like I really understood everything, but there were just small mistakes that screwed me over. Today I'm going to see my prof during office hours...just so I can talk aobut my grade and how I can do better on this next test.

Dorm life has been pretty good lately. I wish I could say the same for other people on my floor. One of my friends has gone extremely anti-social lately. He says he's studying all the time, but no one could study that much. Every time I ask him if he wants to get somethign to eat he says he already ate (he's eating alone, which is is quite lonley). Also, he's lost a lot of weight lately. I know he's started watching what he's eating, but it looks a little dangerous.

Another kid has an even sadder story. He's from Taiwan, and he's kind of goofy. For some reason he never really fit in with everyone else. Everyone got along with him fine, but he wasn't really too involved with people. I would occasionally ask him to eat with me, but not as much as other people. Anyway, last week he started to be really quiet. Correction: silent. I was eating lunch by myself one day, and he saw me and sat next to me. I said "So, are you done with classes today?" and he didn't say anything; he just looked at his milk carton. I was like alright and I continued to watch TV. When I was done I said "Well, I'm going back" and just left him there. What was I supposed to do? He wasn't talking. A couple days later he randomly sprinted from one end of the hall to the other. I don't know what he's trying to do. Maybe a desperate cry for attention? Well, on Friday, I came back to the dorm and there was an ambulance and 2 cop cars outside. I went up my floor, and the cops were just on their way out. I asked my RA what happened. He said the kid had apparantely stopped going to classes and answering his phone, so they came to check up on him. He ended up being taken to the hospital, and I haven't seen him since.

I hate to end on that kind of note, but not much else is happening right now.

I'll talk to y'all's later

so long!

Adam

2005-03-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

Well, Once again I put off writing in this thing longer than I meant to. I had a very scary day Friday. I forgot to set my alarm and I overslept missing my first 2 classes, Spanish and German. Spanish is ok to miss as all the homeowork is online, but in German I had a midterm. So I went to my third class almost panicking. I kept thinking "oh no. I missed the midterm. I'm going to have to drop the class and this and that." So after my third class I headed over to Ballantine and went up to the 6th floor because I knew his office was up there somewhere, but I didn't see him. So I went to the computer lab to write him an email begging him to let me make it up. Well, he actually wrote me first saying "Adam--you missed the midterm! You need to make up immediately, prefarably today." So I made it up later that day. But man....talk about stress. He practically saved me in that class, so now I feel inclined to kick total ass in that class.

I went home last weekend for a few reasons. The main reason was to pack for Haiti. The second reason was to serve soup at the church with other Haiti groupies. The third reason was to celebrate my birthday (yay). The third of course being the best one. At the soup thing my brother and I were tricked into doing the stations of the cross at the church, which I'm sorry but that is no fun at all. We had to hold candles at each station and blow them out after they read ours. My cell phone rang about halfway through so that was kind of embarrasing but fun nonetheless.

For my birthday we went out to Lonestar and I had the grandaddy of birthday meals--Filet Mignon. Oh man it was so good. 9oz of steak wrapped in succulent bank. mmmmm...delicious.

Came home Sunday afternoon and enjoyed the rest of the day I suppose.

That's all for now.

So long!

Adam

2005-02-26T23:09:00.000-05:00

wow......almost 3 weeks since I last wrote something here.

First off, I fully intended to write here yesterday, because I was feeling like shit. I wanted to take a snapshot of my shit-feelingness so I could read it later and be like "hah! those were the days" or something. But I didn't, and now I'm in a great mood. So oh well...

Let me try and remember what has been going on lately. Last weekend our floor went skiing, which was a blast. I guess I realized how much I really really love skiing. And I was good! I was all swerving and stopping by doing the jump and turn thing. The only thing that sucked about the trip was we left at 4pm. I was ready to stay until 8. Oh well. After that we went to Glden Carrel (again with floor funds), ooooh man. It was a freaking awesome buffet and they freaking had steak! I had 2 great big slabs of steak. It was glorious.

The following week was kind of a bummer. I had a pretty big test in my crimology class, and lots of homework in everything else. It seemed like most of my time was spent in my room with homework. On top of that the weather was shit. Fuckin snow on Thursday.

Friday started out shit, but it ended wonderfully. It started out with 4 classes that seemed to go on forever. After that I went to the library to work on a project with my partner for my cs class. that lasted until about 6:30. Finally after that I was able to go home. This was the beginning of the good part of the day. I think I fell asleep around 7, and I woke up at 11pm. Ed came over to my room and we talked for about an hour in the lounge. What we talked about required a new paragraph.

Ed said that he and Kolski and Jeremy (lived on the floor last year) and Jeremy's little brother are seriously considering a backpacking trip to Europe, and they wanted to know if I wanted to go with them. HELL YES I want to go! He says we're looking at next christmas break, about 10 months from now. That should give us plenty of time to talk to our parents and get our plans settled and everything. The neat thing is we won't have too many plans. We're thinking in 21 days, we can spend about 3 days in each city and try to soak up as much of it as we can. We'll probably get a Europass, which lets us ride all the trains for a set price. It looks like we'll be hitting up London, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Berlin, and maybe Poland. (Berlin wasn't originally on the list Ed told me, but I demanded we go there...I've got friends to see!). But as of right now, 10 months before the trip, we are all optimistic that we can do this. So now all I have to do is work my ass off this summer and save up a shitload of cash.

Anyway, I stayed up until around 5, then slept until 9:30. As posted in my livejournal, I woke up surprised about 2 things: a) I was not pissed about waking up at 9:30 on a Saturday, and b) I was in a very very good mood. So today I relaxed most of the day, went for a little run (I am so out of shape...) and relaxed some more. Now, Skiba and I are about to go to Kroger, they've got more of those 6-pack cokes for $1.

So long!
Adam

2005-02-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

Welllll

What a nice weekend. I had a linear algebra test Friday, and I think it went really well. So that, on top of the beautiful 50-60 degree weather put me in a great mood.

What could make it better? My parents came down to visit me! So that was pretty cool. Friday night we ate at Lenny's then hung out at the hotel until around midnight. Tony spent the night with me at the dorm, on the floor, with no mattress or anything :) Saturday we saw "Finding Neverland" and it was most excellent. Then I came back to the dorm and did some quick Spanish homework, then I met a friend at the library and we compared answers on teh spanish, then we all ate at Red Lobster (minus my friend, just the family.....and Bridgett). Taht was most excellent. Then we hung out at the hotel for the rest of the night. Sunday we got up and ate at Penn Station, and that was most excellent. I found out that my friend who works there got fired, and today was her last day, so she was pretty pissed about that. I guess she said somethign and it was taken out of context, adn the manager decided to jsut fire her than deal with anything. After that, my parents had to leave so they left adn I think I did homework or something adn watched the super bowl.

Ok, so not the most exciting reading material, but it was a damn good weekend. Hah! And I didn't even drink anything!

Who wants to play frisbee tomorrow?

2005-02-04T03:38:00.000-05:00

Once again I've put off writing in this thing for a few days. This time I meant to write on Monday, and now it's Thursday (well, Friday morning) and rather than sleep I'm gonna do this thing.

This semester has been a whole lot harder than last semester. Last semester must have been a fluke or something, because I probably do more work in a week than I did all last semester. Here's a small breakdown:

Spanish 200 - all homework is online, which I don't really like.
German 100 - usually one small writing assignment a night.
E104 Crime in mass media - I usually have to read about 30 pages before monday, another 30 by friday, and I write a 1 page summary by Friday. This is probably the most time consuming class. The summaries are collected randomly 6 times throughout the semester, so I don't even know if what I'm writing will be graded. The class is extremely interesting, though (more on that later). If I didn't like it so much I would totally hate it.
C212 - one lab and one assignment a week. Also I have to read usually about 30 pages by Wednesday each week. Random quizes throughout the year.
Linear Algebra - I don't like this class too much. It's all about vectors and matricies. It's also very very abstract, which I suppose is what happens to math as you get higher up. I have usually about 30 problems a week all due Friday, and about 5 are graded. I would totally hate the class if my teacher wasn't such a good teacher.

so that's the low down.

k, so (queso)

On monday i was walking from my crime class to the next one with a friend of mine in my crime class who was also in my spanish class last semester. She was talking about how she had seen our old Spanish teacher a few days ago (the really hot one), and I looked across the street. I was like "Is that her right there?" and it was. So we yelled "Hola Edelmira!" and she yelled back "Hi! Como esta hijos?" And it was awesome.

On wednesday in our crime class, the teacher warned us of some pictures he was going to show us. He said they were pretty gruesome, and he was giving people the opportunity to leave the room. He told us he would show us a picture of a body being hanged, a girl who was strangled to death, JFK's head after he was shot, and a guy who shot himself in the mouth. Nobody left, and he showed us the picture. Afterwards, he used the fact that nobody left to demonstrate human's insatiable curiosity to see this kind of stuff, and that in part is why news stations focus so much on violent crime. So that was interesting.

It's almost 4, and I have classes from 8-11, and a linear algebra test at 1:30. So shit on that, I'm going to bed.

so long!

Edam

Acupicture2! updated wooooo! go baby go

2005-01-16T04:48:00.000-05:00

It's almost 5am, and I have the sudden urge to start writing my super-über online picture manager tool thingy I've been thinking about for about a month now and haven't started yet!

But i'll probably just read and go to sleep.

A Damn Hinz

2005-01-13T01:40:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write in this thing for about a week.

Christmas was fun, and New Year's was fine. I was really glad to come back to Bloomington, though. I don't like Anderson. I worked 3 days at Blimpie, made some cash.

Since I've been back, things have bene pretty good. Andy and I came back monday before classes started so we could move him into his new place. It's a cool place. Wood floors, high ceilings, old. I like it.

I moved back in to the dorm Wednesday, and nobody really came until Friday. Saturday night we got drunk off of rum/coke, rum/RC, rum/Hawaiian punch, and beer. I was sick all Sunday thanks to that.

Sunday night (night before classes), was weird. I was extremely tired at around 10:30, so I wento bed. Then I woke up at 12:30 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I think I was up until 6, slept until 7, and had class at 8. I was fine for my first 2 classes, but the last 3 I was feeling really sick. I tutored from 6-7:30, and by 9 I was asleep. Woke up tuesday at 8 (11 hours hell yeah) and was great. I only have 1 class Tuesday, so I guess it was a wasted "good day," but at least my stomach was hurting and no headache.

I wrote in my live journal about my classes, so no need to copy it here.

I bought a new MP3 player today at Best But. 256 mb. It's replacing my 5-year-old 64 mb, so it's a definite upgreade. I like it a lot.

Ok, time to definitely get some sleep. Gotta love those 8am and 9am classes. wooo!

So long!
Adam

2004-12-31T05:27:00.000-05:00

Scheme made me forget everything I know about PHP.

fuck.

Stupid

2004-12-29T03:37:00.000-05:00

Since I don't feel like going to bed yet, I'll update on my little brother situation.

The agreement as of a couple days ago is that we are switching rooms. This, as much as I hate it, I'm fine with it. I think it's the best I'll get out of this shit. I guess it will be fine. Heck it might actually be fun going through my piles and piles of stuff. Ok, whatever.

Tony...told me his decision...I guess you can call it that, in a weird way. He randomly said "Is it ok if we hold off until summer?" And I'm like "What are you talking about?" If you know my brother, you know he expects us all to be mind readers and know exactly what he is thinking about before he utters a word. He's been doing it for years. Anyway, I agreed to wait until summer, which I'm kinda regretting. I kinda want to get this over with, and since I've done nothing all week it would be something to do. So summer it is.

I realized what a mess all my stuff is in. I seiously can't fine anything. Today I had one goal, to find my old webcam. I knew it was originally on this shelf, which I had to move all this stuff to get to. It wasnt there, so I looked around some more. I eventually found it, after having reach around posterboards to take a picture of all I couldn't see (the camera is that really small green circut board thing in the box next to the cocanut bank). So I had to move all this stuff where I found this and this (pictures shown after box of stuff was removed). The box with my camera looked something like this Everything in that box is pretty much that white shelf from the beginning shoved into a box. Not too cool with me. Anyway, I found my camera, so now I can get drunk in front of my friends over aim with the video conferencing.

On a much lighter note, I'm wearing my new pajama bottoms I got for Christmas. I'm extremely excitied because they have duh-duh-duh-DUH!! Cargo pockets. How cool is that!

So long, amigos!

Adam

2004-12-18T03:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't written in this thing in a while, and now it's Friday night (or Saturday morning whatever) and it's 3:15am and I'm just a little bored.

Finals were over monday, so for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I had nothing to do. I stayed till thursday so i could bring my friend David home too. Sooo for Tuesday and Wednesday I worked on this 750 piece puzzle in our lounge. Well shit, the puzzle was of a bunch of fucking penguins and it's practically impossible. We've basically got all but the penguin heads, which is about half the puzzle. Right now it's (hopefully) sitting in our lounge. I swear, though, it's probably the most frustrating puzzle I've ever done.

Anyway, besides that, nothing much has been going on. I was up until 5am playing RCT3. That is the freakin best game ever. All 3d, and you can fly around everything, and you can ride the rides. But the freakin best thing about it is you can run rollercoasters that aren't complete circuits, and have then run into people, and the people fly all over the place, but they don't die! so you can run into them again. OMG so fun.

After that, I probably spent another hour talking on AIM. I was supposed to have an 11am dentist appointment, but Mom woke me up around 8 and told me it was changed to 4pm, so i got to sleep in a bit. Of course, I woke up at 3:40 so I left without a shower and wore the same clothes as yesterday becasue i hadn't done laundry yet. After that I went to O'Charley's with parents and their friends so they could swap Australia pictures. So that was fun.

I'm going to work at Blimpie over break. It will be nice having more money. I'll probably go talk to Jim tomorrow afternoon. Other than that, not much is going on.

So I'll end there.

So long!!

Finals ---- As posted in my LJ

2004-12-18T03:00:00.000-05:00

Well I'm sure some of you are wondering how my yesterday turned out (or it's my egomania acting up again). In case you didn't know, I had four (4) finals yesterday, all pretty much right after the other.

I really wasn't worried about them too much. I thought I gave enough time to studying, and I took all the necessary pre-test precauctions: ate at Penn Station the day before, selected my underwear at least a week before, listened to the right music while studying and in-between tests (this time Guster was the right music for the "between" parts). Superstitious? Maybe, but it was enough to keep my confidence up. I felt I did enough studying for most classes. On Saturday I did the practice test for my CS class, and on Sunday I went to a study session for CS, went over 2 practice tests I had done earlier in the week for Calc2, went over all 10 or so quizzes (which I knew would be the final word-for-word) for my linguistics class, and tried studying the butt out of spanish. Then i went to bed around 2. Need lots of sleep.

My first final was at 12:30, and I set my alarm for 9 so I could get a good breakfast and study just a little bit more that morning. Unfortunately, I set the alarm for PM instead of AM, and woke up around 11. Thank God for that! Still had enough time for a good breakfast, but didn't study anymore (I didn't feel like studying while eating).

Took my Calc2 final. I think I did really well on that, which I kind of expected. Later that night I realized I fucked up on one of the questions, so that is bugging me now, but otherwise I think I did pretty well. Also, I got done about 20 minutes early, so that gave me 35 minutes more to study for my Spanish test.

My Spanish test was surprising easy, though I felt I could have studied a little more. I feel like I really fucked up the preterite tense, though I haven't looked at my book to know for sure. Learning more spanish can wait till next semester. Other than that, the test was very similar to the practice test, which I expected. So I think I did at the very least a B, which shoudl be good enough for an A in there. I finished that about a half hour early, so I headed over to my linguistics final, which could be taken anywhere from 4-7pm.

That linguistics course is a joke. Fuckin' easiest class I've ever had. (And for you IU kids....it's an E103 course called "How thought depends on language." It's caught by Prof. Keller, and if you need an easy topics course, take it. And he might be retiring after this semester.) The final was word-for-word from the quizzes, which are all online and can be printed out. It's multiple choice, and even the choices are in the same order. I misssed 2 out of 96 on it.

So by now it was like 4:30, and I already had 3 finals done. My last was wasn't until 7:15, so I ate at McD's and came back to the dorm to relax a bit. I basically told myself "don't sleep" because I knew if I did I wouldn't wake up. I felt like a pitcher in a perfect game, as described on Scrubs when Dr. Cox is going for a perfect game (where he works for 24 hours and no one dies). No one was aloud to mention anything about a perfect game or else he would be jinxed. Anyway, at the end, a patient dies with only 5 minutes left, and Elliot is like "It's just us here, we can wait just a few minutes. Our hospital needs this!" And Dr. Cox is like "Barbie, having only one patient die is a hell of a good day. Declare it." Anyway, I felt like Dr. Cox and I didn't want anything to jinx me. I don't know if I did anythign different, but I was always thinking about it.

The CS final wasn't too bad. I thought it was easier than the midterm, though I might just be getting better at it. I finished about 15 minutes early, and walked home. Hot damn it was freezing outside. Fuckin 20 degrees or something. So it was all over. Later that night I went to Applebees with some friends on the floor and it ended up being a really good day. Would I do it all again? Four finals in one day? Maybe...depends on how hard the classes are.

And finally, I would like to thank the Academy, my publicist, who is a beautiful, beautiful person, and all the people who wished me luck on these finals. Thanks to you all, and good luck to the rest of you!

So long!

2004-12-08T02:06:00.000-05:00

hmmmm

I've been meaning to write in this thing for over a week now.

Last weekend had to have been one of the best weekends ever. Although I didn't get to do everything I planned, it was still fantastic. Friday night, the original plan was to get trashed. Instead, after only 1 beer, we went to this sports-plex. ONe of the guys on the floor has a sister who works there so we got to play basketball and football until around 1:30 or 2 am. Went to Steak n Shake until 3, then came home. Good stuff.

Saturday.....hmmmmm....I don't remember what I did Saturday. I know I did something, it's just gone.....

Sunday, I went to the IU/Tulsa socccer game, where IU kicked their asses 4-0. That was fricken awesome. Now they're in the final four and going to Santa Barbara to kick some more ass. I was dressed as a gorilla. GORILLA WARFARE.

I know I did a lot more, but for some reason I can't remember anything. It was all fun though.

Someone in my spanish class said "hey I think the teacher likes you." ba-zing

I've got 4 finals next monday. I'll bsically be testing from 2pm - 9pm. Should be a blast. Good thing is i'll be all done Monday, so I can just fuck around after that.

It's pretty late. I'm gonna go ahead and get to bed.

So long!

Adam