November 2004 Archives

I'd like to state for the record that I am still alive. I am now 24 years old, which seems a little steep to me. I appear to be in my mid-twenties, which I shall not call "getting old" nor make any disparaging remarks about in general, lest I be thwapped on the head.

I went to StL for Thanksgiving, spending lunch with my parents, aunt, grandmother, and Kat. Then for dinner headed off to Kat's sister Heidi's place. Dinner there was once again entertaining, and we played spinner for a while afterwards. It's a variation on dominoes that's interesting because it adds some amount of offensive and defensive strategy to the game.

The next day after a little bit of shopping, and dinner with her parents at Watercolors, we headed back to Rolla. A note on Watercolors Cafe (Lindburgh just south of Monsanto). The service is excellent. I've been there twice, and the servers have been awesome on both occasions, far above and beyond expectations. The food is good, and reasonably priced for what you get. The food is extremely well prepared and thought out, but they still only give you one fork, and the napkins are paper. That's the kind of thing that I appreciate.

In any case, upon reentry into Rolla's hellshield (that which protects us from tornados, not one of which has hit Rolla for at least 50 years), I dropped off Kat and got to work. I worked all of yesterday, and all of today as well. I'm pretty much looking at a solid week of grinding on stuff.

First off, there's the BioInformatics presentation tomorrow. Due to work done thus far, it is finished.

Tuesday the homework for CS412 is due. I've got a start on it, but it's going to need another 3-4 hours worth of group work probably.

The OSHA guys are also coming by Tuesday for a look at the VEnOM lab, and what their money is buying them, so I need to get my demo up and working by then.

Wednesday some code needs to be done for Software Engineering. I've got my share of the coding done I believe, but that's always subject to change.

Thursday the Java semester project is due. It shouldn't be too hard, but with the time crunch, it's bad enough. At least the newest set of requirements won't have me writing a particle engine to make the thing work.

Also Thursday I have my XML final test. It looks to not be too bad provided I do enough review.

After that week from hell, it's time to put my time into finishing my XML semester project, the BioInformatics paper that goes with the presentation, I'm sure that there's more Software Engineering work to be done. I'll also still have tests left in Software Engineering and Java to do well on. This week however, should be the nastiest one to get through.

As it stands, the Bio presentation is done. I've done my chunk of coding for Software Engineering. My VEnOM demo is up and running, just not how I'd like it to. I've started on some of the work for XML hmwk4. I've not done crap yet to start on the Java project, nor studied for the XML test.

I've got some work done on the XML semester project, but it needs to be done quick, so that the others in my group have some data to work on. I have no idea what else will be required in the Software Engineering class either codewise or examwise. Thankfully there's usually a study guide for the Java tests, so that generally isn't too tough.

And that's where I'm sitting scholastically right now. I haven't had time to go hunting, either small game or muzzleloading deer. I don't know if I'm going to get the time until muzzleloader season is over. Which is too bad, because I like the flavor, but I just don't have the time. On the plus side, I didn't buy a deer tag, not knowing if I'd use it, so that's money not wasted.

I should be getting paid on Tuesday, which is my one bright spot on that day otherwise full of pain. At that point I should also find out how much I'm getting paid.

In any case, I think I've gotten just about everything done that I'm going to tonight. So I'm going to pass out now, and get up early so that I can go work on XML hmwk 4 with Craig at 10.

Well, cold isn't really the way to describe it. It's more like viscious bronchitis, which could easily turn into pneumonia if I let it. I'm not so hot on that idea.

The house (temporarily) has a kitten. I got a message from Wynnie saying that she needed a favor. Turns out she found a dumpjob kitten in a storm drain, and couldn't keep it with her in the dorms. So Kat and I went to pick it up, brought it home, and were prepared to begin looking for an owner, when Danielle claimed the kitten.

It's a very cute kitten. Solid black with golden eyes. Danielle named it Puma. Which of course led to the nicknames Warthog, and Chupathingy/Chupacabra/Chupakitty. (If you have no idea why we would do such a thing, you obviously don't watch Red vs. Blue, I really wouldn't worry about it.)

In any case, the cute kitten spends it's time in Danielle's room, so the rest of the house isn't kittenproofed, nor is it kittenfuzzed for the time being.

The reason it's been a long, long time is two-fold. First, I've been busy. Secondly, my main harddrive started making the noises of death about a week ago and failed soon after. Thankfully a lot of stuff was backed up, but now I'm running on my smaller secondary drive. I still need to get in touch with Western Digital and see if my warranty is still good.

Hmmm, I suppose it makes sense to start at the beginning. About 3 weeks ago, Kat went in for her annual checkup. Tests were done, one coming back "borderline". After a minimum time had passed for another test to be done, it was, coming back negative. All of which adds up to no lymphatic cancer for Kat. I'm very happy about this, understandably I hope.

The weekend before last, I went to the ACM Reflections|Projections conference at UIUC. I went early, so that I could get to the career fair. I think I made several good impressions. Argonne National Labs in Chicago had quite a few interesting positions open. FACTSET is a financial services company, and seemed interested in my PERL knowledge. I interviewed with AllState Insurance, but it seems that most of their positions they were looking to fill with undergrads. I also applied with Volition, who's currently working on the Punisher games. By the time I graduate with my master's, I should have a decent art, programming, and gameplay portfolio to show off.

Other than the job fair, we went to the talks, ate plenty of good food at Papa Dell's, and other places on Green Street, and generally had a good time.

On Saturday night, a group of us were walking down Green, trying to find the con party, when we ran into a guy that recognized me. Turns out he was one of the interviewers from the job fair the previous day. He wanted to get my name and number so that he could give me a phone interview, since I didn't go to UIUC. I guess I made a good impression for him to recognize me like that. I don't know if he's going to remember said good impression when he wakes up in the morning hung over, and with a guy's name and number in his pocket.

After getting home, took a Java test on Thursday, which went amazingly well for something so based on memorization. That pushed back the due date of the program that was due in that course from that Thursday to the next week.

This weekend everyone came to town for the Halloween party. It went off well, and I'm pretty sure that everyone had a good time.

I caught the death flu or something yesterday. Sore, swollen throat, weakness, joint pain, etc. It's not great, but I have to say that it's really great having someone to take care of you when you get sick. Makes it ten times better than going it alone like I used to in the dorms.

Until this morning, I was under the impression that my java program was pushed it back a week, which was evidently wrong, as I got email this morning asking me about my program, which was apparently due on Tuesday, rather than Thursday. So I need to get on that as soon as my brain starts working again.

Kat's leaving for Denver on Friday for the GSA conference. There to go to a job fair, luncheons, talks, and generally have a good time. She should be gone until the following Thursday.

And that, I think, is the update. Everything that's happened recently that I can recall.