NicholasYax.com

So, Jenn and I spent Christmas together yesterday. We woke up, exchanged gifts, talked about making breakfast, played with our gifts, took a nap, made dinner, ate, and watched TV. I got her a bathroom water filter with drinking fountain and a video adapter for her MacBook. She got me a new wallet, a Lego set, and a watch. After assembling the Legos, I spent far too much time looking up Legos online.

Our Christmas dinner consisted of sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes with gravy, roasted pork loin, biscuits, apple pie, green bean casserole, and jellied cranberries. It was pretty good.

We did learn though, that Christmas is not the same alone. It just seemed like it was done really fast. We really didn’t have a lot of choice though. Jenn worked the day before and day after, so driving to Bay City or Alpena were out, and I wasn’t going to go home and leave her completely alone on Christmas. Next year hopefully will work out better.

Friday morning we plan to leave for Alpena, spend the day and night there, then down to Bay City Saturday and spend the night there, then back here Sunday for a rest on Monday.

I think that about covers it.

Maybe an update before we leave if something good happens, if not when we return Sunday or Monday.

nick

Sorry about the hiatus, has been a little busy with the semester coming to an end. All the projects are done now, just exams next week.

Last night, I saw 4 doe walk out of the treeline, come about 50 ft from me, finally notice me, and run off. Was pretty cool.

Thursday of Friday I am coming to Bay City, after exams. Planning on something with guys from the library on Saturday, and Todd wants to go see Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Futurama movie was pretty good, despite what Scott told me. I am on a mission now to find a Futurama episode that was less good than the movie. Adult Swim is supposed to have a marathon, I will find something then. Maybe the musical episode, where Fry gets the Robot Devil’s hands?

On Wednesday, the 5th, my iBook turned 5 years old. It kind of looks like I might even see it turn 6. It has held up quite well.

I was thinking, and you know the old guys who yell about the young kids and that they need to stay off his lawn? Yeah, that will be me. I am only 25, and I already dislike high-schoolers, as they are too damn young and just seem more annoying than we were in high school. With another 30 or 40 years of dwelling on it, and a bigger gap, by the time I am 60 or so i will be bitching about the damn young’n 50 year olds.

Scott is in Bay City, and I will not be able to see him. As I said, I will be in town Thursday of Friday, and he leaves Thursday morning. I missed him the last time he was in town too.

I saw Ocean’s 13 too, that was decent. The first one was pretty good, second a little less, third a little more less.

Tomorrow Jenn and I are going Christmas shopping in Grand Rapids. Hopefully we can get everything done.

Speaking of Christmas, her family Christmas will be held in Ann Arbor, as her dad will be getting a pacemaker on the 22nd.

I think that is it for right now.

ttyl,

nick

OK, looking at visit stats, have some questions.

1) Who is the person in Bay City using Firefox on Vista?

2) Where the heck is Scott? Is he the one on Vista?

In other news, school keeps getting closer and closer to the end.

I think that’s all.

nick

We just lost Chichii, I don’t know how or why, but it seems maybe we were not meant to have one. It may be hard to understand, but I really feel a loss. She was in my care, depended on me, and I failed her somehow. Maybe they are just too beautiful a fish to keep in an aquarium.

nick

Well, not Alone, but without Jenn. She left for Arizona Thursday to see her friend Gwen in Phoenix, and returned on yesterday (Monday).

I went to the Job Fair at Ferris Thursday, which she was still around for, then class, which was uneventful. Friday morning I had class and he snuck the lab in too, so no lab later in the day. That left me a few more hours of free time so I left for bay City around 12.

I took all side roads and even managed to become lost north of Midland. Somehow, it is very easy to take side roads through Mecosta and Isabella County, but once you get to Coleman it all gets screwed up. I have always hated Midland’s roads anyway. Anyhow, I finally crossed into Bay County, and got all excited, and then realized I had never heard of the road I was on, so went south a mile to see what one was next. I ended up at the corner of Garfield and Beaver, and finally remembered how US-10 turns south after the mall, and that since I had been north of 10, I would obviously be very north in Bay County.

Anyway, I finally made my way home, and visited with my Mom for a while. Next, I showed my car off to my Dad, then Todd. Back to home then, pick up Chris and my Mom, and we went to RiverRock for dinner. Once done there, I tried to set up something with everyone from the library but all had plans for Saturday, so I talked with Brandon for a while and then drove around for a bit. I ran to Meijer in Essexville and realized I had not been there since May 17th, almost 5 months before. It was a little weird, familiar but very different. As I drove around a little more, it really hit me that I don’t live in Bay City anymore, and as familiar as it all was, it had become a foreign place.

Saturday morning, I went to the Bay City Mall, and then to Rudy J’s with my Mom. Just before, I had helped her unload a shelf from her truck so my hands were rather dirty from it, so went to wash my hands. This, oddly, is important, because it is the first time I had ever been in Rudy J’s restroom. OK, not that important, but surprising I had been there so many times and never “gone”. Anyway, after that Tim came over to visit, then I went back to my Dad’s to see my Grandma, then headed home.

Everyone liked my car, particularly the color. I am amazed I was as lost as I was in Midland. I mean, I didn’t know where I was exactly for alot of the trip, but I think in Midland was about the most lost I have ever been, and I have never been real lost before. I am going to blame Midland and the Sun, for not shining that day. I went to Weidman for some traveling supplies (Jerky, Vernors, and a honey bun) because the sign gave me a choice of M-20 or Weidman, and I didn’t want to take 20.

So, Sunday I sat around mostly, did a little homework, and made some pretty good chilli.

Monday, Jenn returned after both of my classes.

Today (Yesterday now) I had class, we made stew, and visited the new pet store on Michigan. They have a Jack Dempsey Cichlid about 12″ long, 6″ tall, and 2″ wide. Is scary that our little Jill will get that big in a few years. Heck, in the last month we have had her she has gone from about 2″ to 3″.

So, I think that is all for post number 499.

See you next time.

nick

Jenn and I went to El Burrito for dinner tonight. I really wanted chicken burrito with green sauce, but it wasn’t on the menu, so I went for a chicken chimichanga, which was quite good. Jenn and I also split a 46 oz raspberry margarita, which was also quite good.

You may notice in the left sidebar a section labeled Tags. New to WordPress 2.3, they are similar to categories, but a little more detailed. I added tags to most posts for the last 3 months, so some are showing up now. I had a problem with going through, that I would use a tag then never use it again and a few other issues. I think I am going to write down 50 or so tags, and try and stick to those. The big problem, obviously, is there are now 496 untagged posts. This sounds way to much like my fun with categories, but I only had to do about 350 of those. The other issue I have, is the tags will be very similar to the abstracts I write for every post. This means for every new post I will need a title, the post, an abstract, categories, and tags. It almost sounds like work. I will figure something out I guess.

At Steak n’ Shake, I wait on you. At other restaurants, the chicken waits on you.

What part of “Sudden Death” didn’t you understand?
(Funnier when you think of Christopher Walken saying it.)

Everyone and their mums is packin’ round here!
Like who?
Farmers.
Who else?
Farmers’ mums.

By the power of Greyskull!

I may not be a religious man Reverend, but I know right and I know wrong and I have the good grace to know which is which.
Oh, fuck off, grasshopper.

You’re a doctor, deal with it.
Yeah, motherfucker.

And are they as big as he is?
Who?
The mum and sister?
Same person.

I could have given you the tour! I’ve been around the station a few times!

With respect, sir, you can’t just make people disappear.
Yes I can, I’m the Chief Inspector.

So what made you want to become a policeman?
Officer.
What made you want to become a policeman officer?

I took the liberty of bullshitting you.

Luckily, my neck broke my fall.

Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes… or perhaps you don’t want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?

If someone doesn’t start explaining what’s going on here…well, there’s going to be some explaining to do!

Wise men say, ‘forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.’

You’re a claustraphobic!
You want a fist in the mouth? I’ve never even looked at another guy before!

Attention. Here’s an update on tonight’s dinner. It was veal. I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight’s mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed “some kind of beef.”

Look at the size of that boy’s head. It’s like an orange on a toothpick.
No kidding. His head’s like Sputnik. Spherical, but quite pointy in parts.

Do you actually like haggis?
No, I think it’s repellent in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

And in closing, note the new poll.

So, WordPress 2.2 comes with Widgets, which are supposed to let me move the elements of my sidebar around easily, without messing with their individual code. The problem, is that the widgets included and that I can find don’t accurately replace what I have in the sidebar. I went through editing the code to work with widgets, I looked all over for widgets to use, and tried creating widgets to serve my purpose, then I turned off widgets because it’s just being a hassle. Besides, how often do I change the sidebar? Is it really that hard to copy-paste a section of code to move an element around?

Anyway, today is the 14th, meaning Jenn and I moved 1 month ago today. Tomorrow, the 15th, will be 1 year since I bought my car. Coming on the 19th, will be Jenn’s B-Day.

I have one more thing, but I am going to wait with it, since I have so few readers lately. It will come in a day or 2 maybe.

nick

So, I still can’t really remember what I wanted to post yet, so we will skip around it till I do.

Anyway, not sure if you were all aware of this, but I found it interesting.

When you learn math, you are put under the impression that these are all the same:

4 x 5
4 · 5
4 * 5

But, that isn’t necessarily true. It turns out x and · are opposites of each other and include a trig function. We learned about them last week in physics because they are used for forces and torques. Apparently, they used to be taught in general algebra courses, but have been moved to very advanced courses (higher than I have ever taken) over the years. So, the actual values are…

4 x 5 = 4 * sin(θ) * 5
4 · 5 = 4 * cos(θ) * 5
4 * 5

so, for θ = 90°, your answers would be:

4 x 5 = 0
4 · 5 = 20
4 * 5 = 20

Weird, huh?

BTW, you have to use ugly ASCII codes to get ·, θ, and ° to show up. I hope you appreciate it.

nick

OK, so I sell my eBay stuff, ship it out, leave to Tawas, come home, have an e-mail, crap. Guy claims CD is horribly scratched and won’t load, respond immediately or I get negative. My first thought is enough of this shit, screw you and I quit eBay. I calm down a little, ask if he has tried using a disk cleaner and if computer meets full system requirements on box, specifically that it is a mac CD and isn’t compatible with Windows. Haven’t heard from him in 2 days now. Isn’t it fun when someone expects you to be really fast but takes their own sweet time? Bastards.

I got a headache Thursday night around 1:00 AM. It went away about 2 hours ago. Last night was the worst of it. That was just plain wrong. I actually wonder if it was wisdom teeth or not, as it seemed a bit too far up to be, but I don’t know.

Did some fun looking today, on locomotive engines. GM’s biggest car engine, for the most part, is the 502 cu. in. V8, the Vortec 8100, used in full sized trucks. GM-EMD’s (GM Electro-motive division) biggest engine is the “H” series 16V265. It has a displacement of 1010 cu. in. (16.6 liter) PER CYLINDER! That means each of the engine’s 16 cylinders is bigger than TWO 8100s! It has a total displacement of 16160 cu. in. (265.6 liter). The main bearing is 10.24″ (260 mm), compared to about 2″ in a standard engine. The engine also has two very large turbo chargers, and produces over 6000 horsepower. I can’t find a torque number, but I’m sure it’s insane.

And in closing, WHO THE HELL IS “ME”!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nick

That’s when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta that basement and travel to a magical, far away place, where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer, and the towels are oh so fluffy! Where the shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long, and anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel!