So much of the suck

Well, I seem to have survived Alabama so far. It has been nice to see all my relatives again, overall a very good thanksgiving! Beyond that, I have some good news and some bad news...

Good news: It looks like I'll probably be getting a laptop for Christmas
Bad news: I won't have one until then.

As my dad and I talked to my grandpa about Christmas, he showed interest in having an internet connection in the retirement home. Since the apartment isn't all that large, he would need a laptop and a wireless connection. The perfect laptop is something with a large keyboard... large screen... relatively reliable... not too terribly fast or new... see where I'm going with this? So, I'm just finishing copying all my stuff off the Compaq, we'll leave it with them before going to the airport tomorrow. I'll miss it, but only for a month or so. If I don't exactly keep up with my updates or my AIM, it's not because of anything any of you have done to piss me off (well... hopefully...) but more because I'll probably be sharing a computer with my mom and/or brother for the next month. It'll be more like last... May? Have I really been using this for that long? Wow.

Oh yeah, now I remember what I wanted to add to this post: some of the most badass advertising ever! Sure, I realize that I'm just participating in their little ad plan by spreading it through my blog, but these Nike ads are just too good: see them here.

I'll be home tomorrow evening!

Hello from Alabama

Hello from Alabama!

The promise of free internet in the hotel turned out to be true, so I'm actually able to post today. It's chilly, wet and windy outside my window right now, not what most people think of when they picture the south, but it feels a bit more like home for thanksgiving that way. Tomorrow I'll go visit my grandparents, aunts and cousins, but right now it's some relatively late hour... 2 hours ahead... that makes it just shy of 11:30. I should probably think of going to bed, but it still feels like 9 to me.

Plane trips don't seem so bad anymore after all the long flights I've been on, the 4 hours to texas went by quickly and the hour and a half to Birmingham went even faster. I realized something while I was talking to the lady in the seat next to me: you know those SkyMall catalogs in the plane? Well, they wouldn't take the money to print them if people didn't order from them, which just makes you wonder: who really feels that they just have to have a set of fighting robots or a self-inflating mattress while they're 30,000 feet above the Rocky Mountains? Actually, if you've ever seen the weirdos on planes, I guess thats not too hard to believe.

Well, since my cell and internet seem to be working just fine down here, it shouldn't be a bad few days. Feel free to IM if I'm on or text me if you get bored, chances are I'm bored too.

Busy-ness

Meh... I'm not a big fan of this whole 5-day week thing we have now, the 3 and 4 day weeks of the past month were really great. Oh well, I guess I have a one day week coming up.

One day? Yeah, I leave Friday for the WIBC honor band in Seattle (big band nerd party.) I'll be back Monday evening, then I'll probably stagger into school on Tuesday. Bah. Should be a good weekend if everyone can get along well... heh... good luck with that one.

Went downstairs a few nights ago to find a large pool of water surrounding the dishwasher. yay. The good news is that we'll be getting a new one, hopefully sometime tomorrow. Guess that means we'll stop having takeout dinner and eating on paper plates. (Yeah, we could do dishes by hand... but this is less work. Besides, paper plates make litter.) As a sidenote, that link was back when Maddox still had a pair of balls and updated more often than Dan.

What else was I going to say... I know there was something, but I don't feel like trying to remember right now. Tomorrow is going to be busy with packing, senior picture pickup, school, and a band concert. Crap... Band concert... I hope my tux fits.

Oh yeah, now I remember. Since Tagboard has been really unreliable lately, if anyone finds another good free message board service, let me know!

Skool kant spel

Any idea how many mistakes can show up on one transcript? At least 4...

1. Misspelled: "Indentification Number" (notice the extra 'n' at the beginning.) I wouldn't be surprised if it's misspelled on everyone's in the state.
2. Misspelled: "Brigham Young University" I can't remember how they spelled it off the top of my head, but I know it wasn't right. Come to think of it, that online health class I took through there (best class ever) didn't require me to enroll as a BYU student, so why is this even on my transcript?
3. Wrong: Total Credits vs. GPA Credits As stated in the box a half-inch to the right of this, all letter grades count toward the student's GPA. I have 49 semester credits, or 24.5 credits... shouldn't that mean I have the same number of credits counting toward my GPA?
4. Weird: (WEB) vs. #CC These two notations appear before my online courses, with Health being represented with "(WEB)" and PE and History shown with a #CC. Since I took them through the same place, one might assume they would have the same symbol.

I'm sure there are more errors I haven't found yet. I would reccomend ordering an extra transcript to look over before sending them out to colleges, just in case yours is worse than mine. Still, next time you lose points for misspelling and inconsistancies on a paper, you can point out that even the State of Washington doesn't have to spell things right.

Boredom strikes again

Wow, I must be bored... I just got this email, and I took the time (okay, so it took less than 5 minutes) to figure out why it works.

Here is a math trick so unbelievable that it will stump you. Personally, I would like to know who came up with this and why that person is not running the country.........

1. Grab a calculator... (you won't be able to do this one in your head)

2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (Not the area code.)

3. Multiply by 80.

4. Add l

5. Multiply by 250

6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number

7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.

8, Subtract 250

9. Divide number by 2

Do you recognize the answer???

---

Let phone1 represent the first 3 numbers and phone2 represent the last 4.
80(phone1)
80(phone1)+1
[80(phone1)+1]250 = 20,000(phone1)+250
20,000(phone1)+250 + 2(phone2)
[20,000(phone1)+ 2(phone2)]/2
10,000(phone1) + (phone 2)

That just shifts the first 3 numbers to the right and inserts the last 4 behind it. The header of the email contained the statement "This is incredible; why isn't the person who came up with it running the country?" Since it took someone with a high-school understanding of math less than 5 minutes to figure out how it works, I hope people don't base their presidential opinions on something as trivial as this... wow. Slowly losing my faith in humanity!

4 Day Weekend

I love Sharis. Seriously, I can't think of any other restaraunt where you can sit for almost 3 hours without even getting dirty looks from the waitress. Granted, they stopped refilling my mountain dew after 2 hours, but hey, thats more than I expected. I suppose this only applys to the Mill Plain Sharis though, the manager at the VanMall one is a bit less friendly. (We almost got kicked out last time for asking if we could get mountain dew by the pitcher.)

So yeah, I'm back to posting, hopefully this will become a more regular thing, now that it looks like I'll actually have more free time. Homework isn't too painful right now, College applicatons are done (well, almost, should be by Tuesday) and band is over, which frees up an amazing amount of time. Now I'll probably have to start my senior project, since I need to have the preliminary results in like 3 weeks. Bah. At least I just have to do the SMT thing, and not the... 6 page paper? Come on, that's weak. I can't believ people actually fail senior project and expect to go on to college... if you can't write 6 pages, you don't deserve to graduate.

Took the bike out today for the first time since school started, it now has working pedals and those crazy gel-filled tires that won't go flat as soon as I get east of 205 like my last 3 tubes. Since there were two trains between my house and the trail, I went down the new road by my house (completely paved, as of last week, complete with sidewalk and bike lanes) and up the 39th street hill. What was I thinking? I have no clue, that hill is pretty damn steep. Highlights of the ride included a lovely string of expletives from a driver of a POS car with expired tabs about how it was illegal for my to be in the left turn lane... whatever, screw him. Oh, also the truck that hit me by the mall, turning right without his signal... I got on the brakes really fast and just kicked the back of his truck to fend myself off, he didn't even slow down. There's no way he didn't see me, I had that painfully green coat I wore for colorwar. I think I'll get an airhorn for my next ride... heh.

This weekend has been really great... I've got a lot done during the days, and at night I've gone out and just hung out. Wednesday night was Shaun of the Dead with Anna, Goose and Kelsey... hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. British losers fighting zombies, what an awesome movie. Thursday night was movies and a trip to WallMart with Anna and Goose (and a later apperance by Jesse). WallMart had their Christmas section up, complete with 'brother Santa' a dancing black santa... it probably shouldn't have been placed behind the dancing Frosty, I wish I had a camera for that one. Added to the stacked reindeer (well, maybe they had some help) it was definately not a G-rated holiday section. Last night was cosmic bowling, too bad I suck at bowling! Ahh well, it was still good fun.

That's about all I have today, but I'll leave you with a random thought we came up with at Sharis... if the KKK leaves burning crosses on people's lawns, what do the Black Panthers do?

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