School

Fubar

So, whats new…

Here is a commercial for the Stanley Fubar, whick is great.  There was no candy in the pinata though.

Last week was class, thats about it.  Weekend was uneventful.  Jenn went to see her parents, I enjoyed a little alone time.

Really excited to see Iron Man when it comes out next month.  Watched Rambo, I Am Legend, and Juno over last week or so.

Really wish I had an internship.

Am watching Ax Men, pretty good show.

Thinking I am going to pull the Picassa alum from the sidebar.  If you want to see pics, can just click gallery.  Would speed up load times and such.  Possibly pull the poll down for a while too. Not permanent, just until I have at least a second reader/voter.  No decisions now, but under consideration.

Thats all.

nick

Catch-Up

Two weeks, that sucks.  Unfortunately, I still don’t have all that much.

School has been uneventful, just school.  Still no internship yet sadly.

Easter was decent.  Jenn and I went to Bob Evans for dinner and did a bit of shopping at Meijer.  Nothing real great.

Last weekend, we tried shopping for disc-golf stuff, because it thought it was nice out for a while.  We kind of got put off by the prices of real stuff though.  Maybe later, maybe try it with just a frisbee.  We also bought Guitar Hero III for the Wii, which has been fun.

And this weekend, we went to GR for some shopping, though we didn’t but much, two books.  We went for a new SIM card for my cellphone, which is supposedly the cause of my sudden sub-par reception, though it hasn’t helped all that much.

That, sadly, is two weeks.

Will try for sometime Thursdayish, after Jenn’s knee surgery.

nick

Five Second Rule

I was kind of waiting to post this entry until after I got WordPress 2.5 installed, which is supposed to be released today. Sadly, nothing has been heard yet, so may as well go ahead. I have done a little more work on the blog today while waiting though. I made some little theme changes, and removed the Wayback section from the sidebar (you know, the 1, 2, 3 years ago). I figure with the random button up top and the monthly archives in the sidebar, it’s good enough. Besides, it drops two plugins by removing the one thing. I also went back to tagging posts. I have tagged through the end of August 2003, so just 43 more months. I’m not saying its a little daunting, but this is the 529th post.

Anyway, the five second rule, what the hell? Does it really matter if food lays on the floor for 3, 5, 30 seconds? Even several minutes? If a gummy work falls on your kitchen floor, and lays there for 30 minutes, is it really any dirtier than it was the instant it contacted? As I see it, there are only 3 circumstances where time actually matters, and in at least 1, it still doesn’t.

  1. The food/surface is wet or moist.
    In this scenario, wet ground will cause a soggyness in the food, or a wet food will increase dirt adhesion to the food. In theory, a wet surface, with time, could cause the food to become inedible due to becoming too soggy. To be honest though, if you drop your food in a puddle, does in matter how long it was in the puddle? No, not really.
  2. The food becomes stale.
    If you drop a chip lets say, and don’t find it for at least an hour, and it has become stale, then the time did matter. To e honest though, who eats day old food off the floor?
  3. Insects
    If you are out camping, and ants invade your food that was nicely nested on some grass, then time mattered. You have to beat those bugs to your food, or just forget about it.

As I see it, those are it. Granted, anything over about a minute is still a little weird. Although, there was this one time at Meijer in Saginaw, I ate a skittle off a cash register. It a have only been there 5 minutes, or a month, I don’t know. Jenn giggled ad her parents looked at us wondering why, but obviously we didn’t say.

Anyway, the past week…

Last Saturday my grandma was taken to Bay Med because she started coughing up blood. Apparently she has a lung and liver tumor. They are both inoperable so she is coming home today or tomorrow. They are starting her on chemo and hoping that will do the trick. She is my last grandparent, so losing her would be a major suck. Don’t think it has hit me yet though.

Thursday I spent 13+ hours at school. Left home 9 am, got home at 12 am. Class, McDonald’s (walked), class, Project X. Thank god we finished it. I actually spent until about 2 am doing finishing touches.

I am beginning to wonder if I should accept a weekly update schedule, but don’t really want to. It’s not like I am that busy, just forget mostly I think. Would help if someone other than Jenn read. May have a kind of fix for that soon though, more later.

Jenn worked last week, knee seems to be 99%. She spent the weekend in Traverse City with her mom, sister, and niece and nephew. Did some shopping and such. I had almost as much fun being alone. Not that I don’t like spending tie with her, but after 2 weeks of her always home kind of needed it.

Tomorrow Jenn and I go to Bay City for the day/evening. See family and friends and such. Will probably spend day tomorrow with family, then Hooligans at 8.

Hmm, what else…

This is why I can’t accept once a week, because I know I am forgetting stuff that I wanted to post. Need to just post it when I think of it.

Next blog, I will begin a new feature: Must see movies. I started thinking about for Jenn, but mind as well post them. I want to post 100, though it may be spread over 5 or more posts. Will shoot for at least 20 on the first 2 installments, then a little less as I run low.

I think, maybe, thats it.

Yeah, thank so.

Ooh, Qdoba brownies are AWESOME!

Blog was down for a few hours yesterday due to issues with the severs apparently. Not a problem of my hosts, but the building owners they lease from apparently. They went down just as I went to updater the time offsets for DST too, luckily I remembered to try again this morning so I don’t need to edit the time of several posts and comments like I did 2 years ago.

Uhm…

Yeah, later.

nick

Where Did That Week Go?

Seems like the week just flew by.

Tuesday night we had our bowling party, all but 5 people from the Mfg. Eng. program showed up, about 20 in all. Seemed like we were all having fun.

A lot of the week was working on Project X, the first of two big projects of the semester. I think most of next week will be the same.

I realized Thursday that Ferris doesn’t have my first degree from Delta on my transcript, and hence does not have my MACRAO stamp. That explains why my advisor didn’t notice it I guess. Am trying to get it sorted out before Fall reg. begins in about 3 weeks. I emailed transfer and reg offices, but both forwarded to a nonexistent email address.

Friday I went to El Burrito with the guys. Was somehow very blah. Dane and I were very not up for mexican, but we were pressured by Conrad. Will have to go somewhere different next week.

I applied to Oshkosh Truck yesterday. Hopefully I start hearing back form at least a few of these soon.

The bakery in Reed City, we found out this week, has pasties. Apparently they made them for years, then stopped for a few years, and just brought them back a few weeks ago. They were really good, crust was best I have ever had on one. I can’t say if they are better than Yooperville, definitely different though.

I think that wraps it up. Till eventually…

nick

Snowday 3!

So, what have we got this time…

As cool as Northrop Grumman sounded, their deadline for for intern applications was already passed and they weren’t really looking to mfg. eng. anyway. The job fair went a little better. I talked to a few companies and handed out my resume, will see if I hear anything back. The problem I saw is a lack of employers looking for manufacturing engineering, they come for welding, mechanical, facilities, and electrical, and talk to us because we force them. Over the weekend I sent thank you emails (right after the job fair actually) and applied for a few more positions online.

Friday was El Burrito day with Dane and Conrad, plus Jenn and Conrad’s fiance. Was pretty good. Not sure if I want it again next week, maybe something different.

Saturday was Meijer’s shopping, and laundry later in the evening. Sunday was the start of dishes, and some relaxing.

This morning, Jenn woke me up to let me know that I didn’t have school, due apparently to ice. She went out to her vehicle and left, but I heard her alarm go off as she went to vehicle, must have hot on accident. I checked that I really didn’t have class, then called to say hi to her, and found out her alarm went off because she slipped on ice and hit the button on her way down. She also twisted her knee around pretty bad, and was hurting. She considered going to hospital here, but decided just go to work and see how it goes, and f it gets worse se is at a hospital. Well, about 3 hours later she was home, MRI scheduled for Wednesday and a slip for no work today or tomorrow. hopefully it’s just a sprain and not a tear.

Between waking up at 5:30 and Jenn getting home around 8:30 or 9, I worked on the site a little. The calendar and comment links are AJAX now, which is cool, and obviously the colors are changed. I have more, but I am closer. Maybe over the coming weekend.

I think that’s all. More some other day.

nick

Job Fair

Tomorrow is the Ferris Winter Job Fair, so here’s to hoping for luck at that. I am going to an informational meeting tonight with Northrop Grumman too. You may have heard of them, make a few little things like the B-2 Bomber and most of the Navy’s aircraft carriers.

So last weeks, I woke up Thursday and felt a little itch in my throat, like beginnings of a cold, too bad. We had the day off though thanks to a few inches of snow, so I met with Dane and Conrad at El Burrito Loco for lunch and some margaritas. We had a lot of fun there, then it was home for some Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Friday was class, and I was feeling a little worse. Luckily I was home around 11 and sat around and rested. Saturday and Sunday I felt progressively worse. Monday morning was cold as fuck walking in, actual temperature was -18 at 8:30 AM, thank god no wind. It actually warmed up 30 degrees over the course of Monday.

Yesterday was more class, and a haircut and some shopping at Meijer. Made some sloppy joes and tater-tots, greatest food ever. Was getting slippery on my way home, especially back roads. Jenn was lucky enough to miss the heavy traffic on the way home form work, had she left 2 hours earlier she would have been stuck in the 1 hour traffic jam.

Grand Rapids Rampage arena football starts Monday, March 10th, with a second game that Friday. I really want to go, would be cool to see and arena game I think. Need to find peoples to go with though. Maybe Jenn, maybe my dad and/or brother, though he would probably be working on a weekday so probably not.

No site work, since as I said was sick and mostly laid around. Do want to try and get something done, but probably not this weekend either.

I realized that with Jenn not counting, Scott on tour for a month, and that being everyone, I have no readers right now. My cousin Cindy reads, and my mom, but they seldom comment. Oh well.

Still loving my MacBook. Still haven’t really gotten the iBook ready for my Dad. I did get him a wireless router though, but I probably already mentioned that.

Jenn and I have been watching Dead Like Me, originally on Showtime I believe. There was a marathon on some channel over the summer and I watched several, and with TV sucking I downloaded the entire series. Best part is, no commercials.

Despite the no readers, I am pissed that I go a week without updates. Being sick is almost a valid excuse, but it has happened more than this once. I will try and do better.

I think that is all.

nick

150,000 Words

So long as this post is 637 words long, I will reach 150,000 words in the blog on this post. Quite a milestone.

I am going to try and work on the theme for the site this weekend. I have some ideas I want to try and think I can get it more decent looking. I also downloaded a rather good looking theme I might try if I can’t get mine right. I really don’t like using pre-made themes though. I know I can do the coding, I just have issues with the little touches, and having no artistic ability. I can make it look good, I just don’t know what good looks like.

New MacBook is over a week old now. Along with being incredibly faster, it has Leopard, which is like a new computer all by itself. It doesn’t have the big features of some previous versions of OS X, but it did get a lot of little tweaks. Tabbed chats in iChat, better looking icons, key commands to sort icons in a folder, multiple desktops (that I haven’t really used yet), Quickview of documents without opening an application, preview icons of pretty much everything, and 294 more apparently. Plus, the computer is new, so its REALLY fast, and my battery is new and lasts longer.

School has been going fairly well. I was a little lost in stats, but he cleared that up this morning.

So, with all the words above, the post count comes up to 159,654, only halfway there. So, what else…

Superbowl was OK, but not great. I was unsure who to root for, since the Patriots were undefeated, but the Giants were the underdogs and I generally go for them. Unless Green Bay is in it, then they are always my choice. Commercials were so-so, some good ones but not as many as normal.

We rented Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Pretty good so far, although the trampoline judging is way off. You can suck ass and get 1st, or have the best routine ever and land 7th, is just weird.

I cleaned most of the apartment Sunday afternoon, vacuumed and moved around the furniture in the front room. It needed to be done. Still need to do office and bedroom.

Current count is 149,793, just 207 more.

I didn’t realize it was this far away. I was kind of done with this back at 159,650, and it just seems like it is dragging on and on.

Ferris is having a job fair on the 14th, and supposedly Northrup Gumman will be there, you know, the largest defense contractor in the US, the guys that make battleships, destroyers, aircraft carriers, tanks, aircraft, satellites, and more. Will be fun to talk to them. I don’t know that I would want to move away for the summer, think I really don’t actually, but do want to keep my options open, and they would be interesting.

OK, up to 149,900 right now, so down to like 90 more words by now. So 90 words, just 90 more words to reach 150,000. What 90 words can I write… Hmmm. OK, thats not very productive.

Apparently WordPress 2.3.3 is out, I have a little reminder to update on my screen. I think 2.4 was supposed to be out las month, but was cancelled because of decreased development over Christmas break, so they are skipping over to 2.5 in March. It is supposed to have some cool features from what I have heard and seen.

OK, so the word count is now up to 150,012. Yay, done!

See you next time.

nick

Snowday!

Classes and events for the remainder of today (Wed., Jan. 30) on the Big Rapids campus are canceled. Non-essential personnel have no need to report or remain on the job.

WOOHOO!

As I began this post, I had a mere 675 words to 150,000. Right now, I am up to 149376, which is lower than I thought. Maybe I will just leave it here, at 149393.

150,000 next time!

nick

New Computer!

So, Friday I got my money from Ferris, so I wrote Jenn a check for $1300 which her bank here cashed, then we headed down to GR. We got lunch at BD’s, then went to Woodland Mall. Jenn bought some Croc’s at Journeys, and I got a shirt with the silhouette of a man and boy, with the man pointing under a tree saying “That’s Shady”. Then, we went to the Apple Store. I walked in, and the concierge greeted me and asked if he could help me, so I pointed at the middle MacBook and said “I want that”. He said “Uhhhm… OK, let me find you an associate” and walked over to a girl and asked if she could help me get a MacBook. She said something like “You are interested in a MacBook?”, to which I replied “Yes, the 2.2GHz White MacBook with SuperDrive, the middle one.” “Uhh-OK, uhm…”. She was, at this point, a little off balance. Associates are no doubt used to selling iPods, or trying to talk iPod buyers into a Mac, or helping a customer decide between a few models, but not somebody who can walk in, not look, and just know exactly what they want. Finally, she regained her spot, fast-forwarding in her mind through all the other sales lecture, and began to ask if I would like a printer as well. “No, I already have a printer, I will consider Apple Care, but not today, and no .Mac”. She stands and does a little more fast forwarding, then said she would be right back and went to the back room. She came out with a black MacBook, so I sent her back for the correct one, then proceeded with checkout.

After shopping, we went to our hotel for the night, that had a really hard bed and maybe 5% humidity. I was itching and sparking all night. Worse, I had a brand new computer without any of my stuff on it, and the hotel wireless was $4.99 and only 100k! Thankfully, they forgot to charge us somehow. After a while there, we went out to dinner at Smokey Bones, kind of like Famous Dave’s but not as good.

Saturday we went to Centerpointe Mall where I almost bought some new shoes at Nordstroms, but they just didn’t fit right. Then, we went across the street to Woodland and ate at Olga’a Kitchen, which was really good, then to Barnes and Noble. After that, we came home and spent the evening here.

Sunday morning, Jenn woke up early, saw Meijer had Wiis in stock, and had one home and hooked up by 9. She woke me up just after 10 to make me help her clean because her parents were on the way. Just as we were about done, they arrived and we talked for a bit. Following that was Meijer, Qdoba, K-Mart, and Wal-Mart. Jenn’s parents proceeded home after that, and we sat around. I got a really bad headache, and spent most of the rest of the day on the couch. While at K-Mart, I bought a Belkin wireless router for my Dad, which was on sale for $29.99. I had found one for $18 on Buy.com, but was a brand I never heard of (but with really good reviews), no shipping, and less hassle. I decided he will like it.

Today was class, that’s about all. I took my computer in and had to answer questions about it, like that it can run windows, and it doesn’t cost a lot, and is cheaper than your $2000 Dell that is only 6 months old and is cracking and being a piece.

Lasty, Scott is apparently being deployed for it sounds like a month. Not sure if he is leaving today, or this week, or in a couple weeks, or when. If you read this, let me know, and good luck.

OK, tata…

nick

MacWorld ’08

First, my final class went well. As I said earlier, they all seem like will be interesting.

On to MacWorld though, as excited as I was, Apple crapped out again. They released the new MacBook Air, which is pretty cool, but is overpriced and underpowered for what I need. Looking back, last year was totally Mac-less, the year before was the introduction of the MacBook Pro and some iLife updates, 2005 was the MacMini and Pages, and 2004 was the iPod mini which turned out decent, and again iLife. What they all have in common, that I forget every year, is that they all kind of sucked. Maybe it’s just that I read the rumor sites and get higher expectations than I should.

As I said though, MacBook Air is decent, for the right person, just not for me. Sadly, the Dell XPS 1330 is closer, but is more expensive than a MacBook. Honestly, if Apple would release the MacBook in an aluminum case with an LED backlit screen, I would be happy, with no other changes form the current version. Of course, an upgrade to the new Penryn processors would be a nice additions, as well as maybe colored cases similar to the iPod nano. Probably wont see anything on the MacBook until April or so though.

Also released was a new wireless router with built in 500 GB or 1 TB hard disk for automatic backups (which I would like, but is out of my budget), and upgrades to the iPhone and Apple TV (free software updates), as well as iTunes movie rentals.

OK, enough boring you. Later.

nick