Author: nslyax

nslyaxhttp://www.nicholasyax.com/I am a Ferris State alum currently living in Holland, MI. My blog has been being neglected recently, but I hope to be posting more.
nslyax's avatar

Oops

Sorry, I have been neglecting my blogging duties.

Christmas went by without too much issue. Jenn and I went to her parents on Friday, her grandmas Saturday, then back here to my grandparents Sunday. Lots of cool gifts from all around, including a lantern, clothes, and cash.

Suchyta is in town for christmas, so I saw him Monday. He burned me a Tiger DVD so I upgraded to 10.4 yesterday. Having fun with that. It’s faster because it’s all newer, better formed code, and I erased HD so bitrot is fixed, but is also slower sometimes due to higher memory use.

So, since I had to reboot to install (actually, like 5 times, as I install, upgrade, install, upgrade, etc…), I lost my uptime. I did manage to wait for a bit of a milestone though: 45 days, 3 minutes. That comes out to November 12th at 10:07 PM as my last restart. In that time, I downloaded 1.8GB of data, uploaded 425MB, read 42.5GB from the HD and wrote 48.5GB. Now, I guess I need to shoot for 60 days.

I am waiting to hear on new job as a tech page at Bay County Library. YMCA just isn’t for me, and the 2 I applied for at Delta’s library didn’t sound promising, most were taken already. Beth Rye at BCLS sounded like I have a good shot though. Should know tomorrow.

My final grades came out as A, A, A, A-. Not sure if I mentioned that. I am needless to say a little proud.

WordPress has a WP 2.0 Release Candidate out. That means sometime soon I will be upgrading from WP 1.5 to 2.0. Not sure if I will mess with the RC beta or not though.

There is probably more, as I haven’t blogged in a while, but can’t think of anything now. I will post again if I think of anything though.

In case I don’t blog again within the next 3 days, Happy New Year.

nick

Very Merry Happy Christmahanukwanzakuh!

So, lets recap what you all missed.

Saturday Scott, Chris, Shelby, some guy, and I went to Genji in Midland. I had the Chicken and Shrimp, and Scott and I split a sushi appetizer, and I had some of his sake too. We shall return for lunch next week we think, when prices are lower.

Though still unofficial, I know a bit more about my grades. I managed well enough on my math test to get a 93.2%, for my 3rd A this semester. I also got a 100 on my manufacturing project, for a 93.8 in there. However, even though being over 93% should give me an A, I reviewed the syllabus for the class and the professor apparently has a non-standard grading scale, and requires a 95% for an A. So, I end up with A, A, A, A-, and a 3.93 overall. That means I get Vice Presidents list. I should have 4 As though, and have complained to her and the college for a standardized grade scale.

I worked today, and it was not good. Boring, and repetitive. Sweep around the machine, wipe down the machine, go to next one. Then, when you get all the empty machines done, pretend your doing something so the members who pay your salary don’t get upset, and wait for them to get off the machines you haven’t cleaned yet. After that, mop the floor, and go on to the next room and do the same thing. Repeat that every day. Yeah, fun. I am looking into other options. Good news is they are all scheduled through the end of the year, so don’t need me to come be insanely bored there this month, just come be trained today.

And Christmas. There was word my Uncle Steve might come in, but apparently not. Jenn wants me to go home with her, but I need to be at Grandparents around 3 on Christmas Day, so trying to schedule both in. We think it’s doable though.

BTW, Old Great Wall is open Christmas Day. If anyone’s dinner turns out not-great.

Yeah, so have a very merry happy Christmahanukwanzakuh if I don’t see you before your respective holiday.

Let it Snow

I got the job, start Monday. It was going to be Jan 2nd, but they moved it up. Is custodial/maintenance at YMCA from 7:30 to an hour before class, Monday through Wednesday. Comes out at 22 hours a week. Over Christmas though I don’t fully know when I will be working yet.

I had my final math test today, and feel pretty good about it. I know I have A’s in CAD and Drafting, and as long as I get an 87.4% on math test I have an A there too. Manufacturing is close to the edge too depending on the test we had Tuesday and the presentation later today. So, worst case scenario, I get A, A, A-, A-. Not bad for a worst case, huh? Will let you all know final grades when I get them (Monday or Tuesday I think).

I got my books this week too. I have all but a course packet for my machine tools class. Only cost me around $500.

I need to come up with a new poll, but every time I decided to try I can’t come up with one. Soon, I am trying.

I guess that’s it for now. Enjoy the snow, sounds like a lot is coming.
BTW, uptime at 32 days, 3 hrs, and still going.

nick

Untitled 8

So, the great debate on my computer has returned. There is a security update out that I have been ignoring for a week now, but with a current uptime of 28 days 1 hour and 16 minutes, I am hesitant to install because I don’t want to restart. You may remember about a year ago I reached an uptime of 21 days 8 hours. I will let you know the final record when i decide to restart.

I was going to mention it last time, but didn’t, but decided I will now. I may have a job. I am at about 99% sure. I applied for work study at Delta and got a referral for a custodial/maintenance position at the YMCA. I went in to fill out the application and have an interview Thursday, and it seems all is set. They even went through my schedule to figure out when I can work. So, I am figuring I will find out Monday for sure, but like I said I am 99% on it right now. It is only $6.50 an hour, but no taxes are taken out because it is considered financial aid. If I get it, I can add a work category to the blog maybe.

OK, I am off to watch some TV, finish homework, and go to bed. See you all later.

nick

Radioluminescence

Isn’t that a fun word? Say it, Radioluminescence. See, told you so. I am doing a bit of a report on it for manufacturing. We have to pick a product and do a report on the manufacturing processes required for it. I decided on making radioluminescent exit signs, powered by glass tubes coated with a phosphorescent and filled with tritium. The tritium which is a heavy form of hydrogen having 2 neutrons rather than none, decays into helium-3, releasing an electron.

1 proton + 2 neutrons -> 2 protons +1 neutron + 1 electron

That electron strikes the phosphorescent creating a flash of light, in the same way the electron beam in your Tv or monitor fires electrons at your screen, which is also coated with a phosphorescent. The beta particles are mostly absorbed by the phosphorescent, and those that are not are either absorbed by the glass or reflected by it until they are eventually absorbed, releasing no radiation outside the glass tube. By placing a few of these into a housing and butting a cut-out with the letters EXIT on it over the face, you have yourself a lighted exit sign that requires no battery backup, wiring, light bulbs, or any other maintenance whatsoever, and can last from anywhere between 10 and 20 years. Yes, there are some associated risks like vial breakage and gas release, but tritium is actually the safest of all radioactive isotopes, and the beta particles emitted cannot pass through skin and any gas inhaled is passed through with your urine, and not absorbed into your bone marrow. Also, since it is still hydrogen, the gas dissipates in the air very quickly, and there is rather little in each vial anyway. Very cool stuff.

Also, i watched the Jerk today. Very cool movie, very funny. If you have never seen it, do yourself a favor and do so. It is on TV semi-often, or you can just rent it.

Other movies seen recently include Fantastic 4 (good, must do sequel, as there was maybe too much intro plot, and not enough save-the-world plot), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (good), and Elektra (not so good). Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is sitting here too, since jenn fell asleep and missed half of it last time. I liked it, so we get to watch again. Also a very good movie if you haven’t seen.

OK, I guess that is all. Go back about your merry lives till I decided to honor you with my presence again.

nick

Happy 3rd Birthday iBook

Yes, the ibook is 3 today. It has held up rather well too. It could certainly use some more RAM, and it lags at playing MPEG4 due to an aging video card, but it’s not doing too bad.

I switched over to the new template. If you notice anything funky, let me know. I will do work on it here and there as time passes.

Sorry

Sorry about the sparseness of updates. There really hasn’t been a whole lot going on though.

School is down to 2 weeks. As of my last calculation I had all A’s, though 2 are borderline into the A- range. Still damned good though.

I gave Jenn her Christmas gift today. I figured it gives her more time to use it.

We had Mandarin House for dinner today as well, always tasty.

Hmm…

Yeah, that’s all I can think of.

Sorry again.

I will try and work on new template more, as the fall theme is a little outdated now.

Nick

Finally!

Some quick announcements.

This is post 330.

The word “Alpina” has been removed form all posts, and exists only in this one. They have all been changed to the correct spelling of “Alpena”.

All links to pages on the old site (homepage.mac.com/nslyax/…) have been either removed to changed to point to the same page on this site (hooji.nfshost.com/…).

All 296 old blogs have been edited, and as far as I know, have the correct dates. Oddly, all the ones mis-dated to 12/31/1969 @4:49pm were from December 2003 or 2004. Anyway though, it’s finally done, and only took 89 days.

After 16 years of asking her, Dave Letterman has finally convinced Oprah to appear on his show, airing December 1st at around 11:35.

I finished my F@H unit for 241 more points, for 3045 points total.

That is all.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am almost done with my Folding@Home unit. I am on step 396 of 400. It should finish up over night.

My mom’s surgery went fine. That was Wednesday, btw.

Thanksgiving was uneventful. Went to grandparents, talked to Tim (he lives 2 doors down now), ate, blah blah.

Jenn went home for the week. Tuesday afternoon, till Saturday afternoon. She shadowed her mom around the hospital for a day and spent a lot of time with her family. Also, she went out with Gwen on Wednesday and Friday night.

I am down to the 18 misdated blog posts. All 278 of the others are edited though.

Scott brought my mom cookies too. They were good, except i couldn’t figure out his secret code. Two M&Ms was marshmallows and 3 was none, or something. Either way, we need to go get some Genji.

I think thats about it. Not much has been going on really.

Maybe something good will soon. I will let you know if it does.

Woohoo

In case any of you don’t know, I am at Delta pursuing an AS degree in Manufacturing Engineering (my second AS, I already have Pre-Engineering) in preparation for transferring to Ferris for a BS in man. Eng. Tech. So, last week I emailed Ferris checking on a few class transfers and had nearly decided the message was lost to a spam filter somewhere. Today though, I got my response, and it cut nearly a semester off. Woohoo! I am excited, since I am already on my 4th year of a 2 year college, so moving along toward a degree I could have already had if I started toward it after HS is a very good thing.

In other news, posted a new poll, and edited more old blogs. Not much else though.

nick