You have been warned...

2004-06-26T00:56:00.000-05:00

*shifty look*

Yes. This is an experiment. To see if I can get my hands on a GMail account.

2004-01-07T23:26:00.000-06:00

My blog has a new house.

Wanted: Sanity and a Larger Monitor

Everything's moved over, comments included. Which took a jolly long time, by the way. But it's all worth it. I am very happy.

w00t!

2004-01-06T16:19:00.000-06:00

I so rock. Here's to being rid of Blogger and Enetation very soon now.

*runs off to export Blogger junk*

2004-01-03T22:25:00.000-06:00

I did something strange yesterday.

I bought a bunch of clothes.

See, whenever I'm home for break, my mom takes all us older girls out shopping. And by shopping I mean 'spending hours browsing through consignment shops and the giant Goodwill store in Waterloo'. This break was only different in that we had my roommate along with us. And so, I ended up with a lot of new clothes, most of which are somewhat dressy things I could wear to interviews and such. As opposed to the jeans and a shirt I normally wear. So now I have a whole week's worth of clothes I never dreamed I would ever wear, say, two years ago. It's quite shocking.

Oh, well. I suppose I'll use them someday. Although I have this nasty feeling that Heather'll try to get me into them more often than I care to think about.

I'm scared. I think I'm growing up and getting all responsible.

2004-01-01T15:36:00.000-06:00

Oh, yeah. Happy New Year, you all. Don't kill yourselves, or do anything stupid like hanging yourselves by your toes from the top rafter of a barn, while waiting for spaceships to land.

See, they already landed at my house.

2003-12-30T00:16:00.000-06:00

I am a total geek. There is no hope.

Today, I slept in about an hour longer than usual. This is because I stayed up until 1:45 downloading a SSH telnet client the night before. Of course, then I had to try it out, so I spent another 15 minutes perusing log files on this web server I have access to.

This morning, I rolled out of bed, took a shower, got online, and looked around aforementioned server some more. It's been having troubles lately, so I wanted to find out what was wrong. I fixed a couple of minor things, couldn't get another problem to show up, and read all my daily webcomics.

Later on, I made a joke which involved electrical tape. On an online forum, of course.

It's probably a good thing I'm going to pick Heather up at the airport tomorrow.

2003-12-29T00:36:00.000-06:00

Having seen Walker Texas Ranger for the first time ever tonight, I'm now going to give you my reactions:

A. If I could kick like that, I'd be in LA doing some corny kung fu show for the WB.

B. Everyone wears a cowboy hat in Texas. Especially people who drive 18-wheelers and rustle cattle.

C. Cattle rustlers still change brands when stealing cattle.

D. The good guy always drives a huge silver pickup. Obvious throwback to when the good guy always rode a horse named 'Silver'.

E. The guy with the black cowboy hat is the bad guy. I picked this out at the beginning of the episode.

F. Thus, I am obviously psychic. You will all bow in fear and trembling.

2003-12-28T17:56:00.000-06:00

Hm... My folks are off for a three-day vacation...

Hmmm....

Anyway, I'm going to take this time to write a long and probably depressing blog post. I'm not too depressed right now, but I'm sure that will change in the next few minutes. Just warning you ahead of time.

It hasn't been easy coming home this Christmas break. I knew my dad wasn't doing well, but it never really sinks in until I see it for myself. He's only a up a few hours in the day, if at all. It's not that he's doing especially badly, it's just that he doesn't have the energy to be up around. He feels better when he's laying down, and so he does. It's partly the fact that he was not doing well for so long earlier this fall. Between the defibrillator replacement, the stomach infection, and the new medication, he just hasn't been able to bounce back at all. It must be incredibly frustrating.

It starting to get to me, that's for sure. Some of the little kids think this is normal life. And for all I know, maybe it is now. Maybe he'll never get better. To be truthful, unless some major change occurs, I don't think he will. And that's pretty tough to take. Ever since my dad first had heart trouble, about 9 years ago, we've all always had this idea in our heads that he would get all better. After all, if the pacemaker keeps his heart going, and the defibrillator keeps it from going to fast, and the medication fixes whatever else is wrong, he'll get all better, right?

No, not really.

For 5 years, things weren't too bad at all. He got most of his strength back after spending 6 weeks in the hospital, he was working, he was even working on the house. Then they replaced that first defibrillator, he got shocked several times when the new one went off (fortunately!), and he got a nasty intestinal bug that put him back in the hospital for a week. He bounced back from that, mostly, but it wasn't a year before his defibrillator went off again. It's definitely been going off more often the past couple of years, which means his heart is getting worse. Things have pretty much been all downhill, at least from my point of view.

Maybe I can see it better than the others, since I've been away so much. Maybe they can all see it, too, but just won't say anything. I think my dad knows it, or at least fears it. I'm sure my mom knows it, but she doesn't want to believe it. Sharon might see it. She will in another year, anyway. The rest of the kids don't.

He won't die, not for a long time yet. But he won't get any better. Not without a miracle, anyway.

Bleah. So much for Christmas.

See, I told you it would get depressing. And now I've actually said it in print. Nobody in my family reads this. Not yet, anyway. I suppose it's just as well.

I need to go cause trouble somewhere. Something to distract me.

2003-12-25T11:17:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas everybody!

The kiddos are busy watching Scrooge in the next room, so I have a little peace and quiet for a few minutes. And, since I seem to have an addiction which can only be satisfied by a few hours in front of a computer monitor, that is a good thing.

*wanders off to play AoE2*

2003-12-24T22:08:00.000-06:00

Oh. Yes. I went to see Return of the King.

*grins happily*

I enjoyed very much, of course. Shelob was creepy; I don't like spiders at the best of times, and neither does anyone else in my family. I could hear my sister sucking in her breath several times while Sam was fighting the spider.

I went to see the movie with my two oldest younger siblings in the little theater only 25 minutes from here. It's a nice little place; it's been refurbished recently, and it only has one or two movie showings an evening. Obviously, most movies don't get there on opening day, but they tend to get some of the better ones fairly quickly. Plus, the tickets are only $5.

While Sharon was getting creeped out by the spider and gasping at Denothor falling to a flaming death, Jason was enjoying the battle scenes immensely. I knew he would. I did, after all. There's nothing quite like seeing hundreds of horsemen coming over a hill, headed straight for you. All in all, it was a great way to spend 3-1/2 hours. Maybe we can go see it again when Heather gets here...

Well, the servers are running happily, we got our new(ish) van today, and I got to spend two lovely hours driving to Waterloo and back in the Corolla. It's been a good day, and tomorrow's Christmas, with lots of food, and much general relaxation. I'm going to make sure and enjoy it.

2003-12-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

Only 45 more minutes, and then we're off. First to Walmart, then to get a bite to eat, and then...

*shivers in gleeful expectation*

2003-12-21T17:06:00.000-06:00

Where to start?

Ah, yes. The wisdom teeth. To begin with, I'll never look at a hammer and chisel the same way again. And I didn't even get any nitrous oxide. I was very disappointed. Instead, they gave me sedatives until I was nearly asleep, but still awake enough to follow directions like "Open your mouth." Then the dentist proceeds to start giving me local anesthetic. I think I had about 6-8 shots in the end, but it's all a little blurry.

Enter hammer and chisel. I swear, that's what they used. Apparently my teeth had to be pried loose from a very comfortable spot. It's very weird to hear the pounding all through your head, and yet feel no pain. Having successfully removed the teeth, they put a couple of stitches where each one was, packed my mouth full of gauze, and sent me home with lots of ibuprofen.

Several days later, the most annoying thing is the stitches which won't be taken out until tomorrow.

I was most productive yesterday, however. My dad happened to come down while I was lying on the couch, thinking about taking a nap, and pointed out that it would probably be a good day to switch the harddrives in the server, since most of the kids were gone practicing their Christmas play. Me being logical, if nothing else, I realized he might have a point, and started tearing stuff down. Lessons learned:

1-- One of the four new SCSI drives doesn't like to spin up. For unexplainable reasons.
2 -- It always takes me about 3 hours to get LILO to boot on the new SCSI boot drive. The reasons for this are numerous.
3 -- One of these reasons is the simple fact that I have never figured out how to get the SCSI controller to boot from the cdrom.
4 -- Another reason is that 50% of the random linux boot floppies I pulled out didn't have SCSI drivers.
5 -- A further 25% weren't working at all.
6 -- The floppy drive wasn't working for awhile, until I figured out that the 2-inch adapter from the power cable to the floppy drive was shorting something out. Don't ask me how, it's just a simple extension of four wires.

Having finally got the new 45-Gig drive to boot, I proceeded to copy all the reams of virtually useless data over. It only took 3 hours longer than it was supposed to.

And then, of course, I sat down and watched The Fellowship of the Ring. Two Towers is slated for tonight, and I'll see Return of the King sometime on Tuesday. Finally.

2003-12-18T17:24:00.000-06:00

I got my wisdom teeth pulled/dug out today. More details when my jaw stops feeling like it has four huge holes carved in it.

On the bright side, the local WB channel is showing 2 episodes of MASH a night. Thus, I still have an excuse to stay up until 12:30am.

Other than that, it's still Iowa, so not much is happening.

*goes off to check local showings of RotK for when jaw stops throbbing*

2003-12-16T22:08:00.000-06:00

Last night I learned something horrible had happened while I was gone.

The local FOX channels replaced the nightly showing of Voyager episodes I used to poke fun at with infomercials for electronic fishing lures.

My world is falling down around my ears.

2003-12-15T21:43:00.000-06:00

I'm home. As evidenced by the fact that 50% of the population around here actually wants me to play computer games, so they can watch. Meanwhile, the other 50% wants me to fix their computers so they can play too.

However, it took rather a while to get here. Sunday morning, I had to be up at the bright and happy time of 3:15am. Except that it was neither bright nor happy, being instead dark and annoying. I had to get up at such an ungodly hour because my friend's flight left at 6am from DFW. Since I was catching a ride with her to the airport, and was in fact sleeping at her house, it was rather necessary that I get up.

So, I get to the airport, get all checked in by 5:30 or so, walk all the way up and down the A terminal just for the fun of it, and get something that McDonald's likes to call a Breakfast Burrito. I sit down to read my book for a few hours, and it slowly seeps into my brain that all the television screens in the entire place are saying the same thing. Of course, this is to be expected, since they always all say the same thing, but this time they were saying that somebody named Saddam Hussein had been caught. Eventually I woke up enough to realize that this was vaguely important, and wandered off to get some horribly over-priced cappuccino.

Being by this time nearly immune to caffeine, that didn't help much. I continued wandering around the terminal, noticed that the Intel booth which kept advertising free tryouts of their wireless technology wasn't open, and read for awhile more. Then I went off to the Dell booth which had just opened, and verified that they had cut off all access to non-Dell websites. Most dreadfully annoying of them. Then I sacked out in an out-of-the-way area of gate C10 and slept for a little while.

My flight finally started boarding at around 10:30, and I managed to look like I was sleeping for the hour and half flight home. At which point my mom picks me up from the airport, we stop to get me some food from McDonald's, and we go home. The first thing that greets me when I step into the door is Kendra saying "Jason likes Macs now."

*sigh*

I just can't win. But at least I don't have classes for four weeks.

2003-12-12T13:34:00.000-06:00

Power is back on. Of course, this means it's naptime...

2003-12-12T12:51:00.000-06:00

Oooh... gather 'round, kids, it's Story Time with Ardith!

Having watched 6 episodes of Trigun, and feeling appropriately sleepy, I went to bed at around 1am last night. Normally, I would have slept until noon this morning, but this was not a normal morning.

I was awakened at around 9:30 by what sounded like a cat screeching. Or, at least it did to my half-awake mind. After lying in bed for a few minutes, I realized it was somebody on the second floor, singing at the top of their lungs with the window open.

Something seemed vaguely wrong about the situation; it finally occurred to me what it was. See, on the average morning, I am unable to hear anything outside my room. I definitely don't hear any over-zealous vocal musicians, and I also am unable to hear the footsteps of people walking on the sidewalk outside.

As that thought seeped slowly into my brain, I realized that the room was quieter than normal. Most would have simply chalked it up to the fact that my roommate had already left for the semester, rolled over, and gone back to sleep. I, however, am not so easily satisfied.

It took nearly half an hour of consistent and analytic thought before I could put my finger on the low noise level inside my room. Once all the pieces fell into place, I sat straight up in my bed, in a somewhat numb state of shock. My computer was not on!

See, I leave my computer on all the time. Part of this is due to me being symbiotically attached to it, and part is due to me not wanting to sit through the boot-up process in the morning. Thus, the low hum of the fans is always in the background. Or is when it is on, anyway.

Being by now somewhat curious, I leaned over to look at my alarm clock to see if the power had gone off during the night. As my alarm clock is most definitely not battery-powered, this is usually a good indicator. And today, it was a better indicator than ever before. See, my alarm clock was not even on.

And thus is was that I learned that the power was off in the entire dorm. I tried to go back to sleep, but some early awakeners from the next dorm came and shouted up to people on the floor above me, having no power in their dorm either, and being quite bored. Annoyed with life in general, I got out of bed, took a shower with the help of a flashlight, ate a not very interesting lunch at SAGA, and tromped off to the computer labs to pour out my angst upon the world.

Because, as luck would have it, the power is not off all across campus. It is merely off in Gilbert and Thomas halls. This, of course, is due to the fact that the construction people simply could not wait another three days before breaking a power line with the backhoe. No, they had to do it the day before graduation and everybody leaves for Christmas Break.

And now I'm going to traipse back to my room and see if they've fixed it yet. With my luck, they won't have, and my room will now have an average temperature of 52 degrees.

2003-12-11T22:35:00.000-06:00

Another semester done. No more papers, no more finals, no nothing. All I have to do is pack up my stuff and get on the plane for home.

Home. And that means snow and ice. Which I haven't really seen for a year.

That's incredibly sad.

And since I'm in an experimenting mood tonight, I'm going to see how many episodes of Trigun I can watch before completely crashing.

2003-12-08T15:54:00.000-06:00

Two finals down, and only three more to go. I know I did quite well on the first two; hopefully I'll be as confident about the rest.

And now, as I pound away at the 6-page paper due at midnight, an insightful and thought-provoking question from the page of Software Systems review questions:

Q: "What is a person-month?"

Answer, by me: "The politically correct term for man-month. Please refer here for more details."

2003-12-05T01:05:00.000-06:00

My mom is hilarious. Below is partial IM transcript. I was away at the time.

Mom: Greetings O digital one, I will take a moment to brag about all the things I did today:

Me: I am obviously not at my computer right now, so I must be away, asleep, or temporarily insane. If #1, I will be back eventually, if #2, I'll wake up whenever it becomes absolutely necessary to do so, and if #3... ...well, the prognosis is uncertain. The doctor has recommended gifts of computer hardware to boost recovery, and donations of money (cash only) are also welcome.

Thank you for your time and please try again later.

Mom: (I think all this heavy cramming is going to your head....)anyway, more about ME. As well as the usually arduous task of perusing the news sites, I 1)took the trash cans to the dump,

Mom: 2) took care of paperwork, with the added advantage of dragging two ragamuffings along for effect, (Ethan and Nolan),

Mom: 3) Mixed up cookie dough for twelve dozen ginger snaps after arriving home from dump and discovering no one had bothered to fix lunch (I did) or put the baby to sleep (I did)

Mom: 4) drag Daddy out of bed so he and Jason could go along in freezing red car to Cedar Falls* to pick up fixed van, which tremulous but capable 15 year old** drove home,

Mom: 5) BAKED twelve dozen ginger snaps for cookie exchange at Diane Nolte's tomorrow am, which I discovered takes TWO HOURS, and which I am attending by myself :-D,

Mom: 6) threw together a bang up supper of frozen chicken nuggets, frozen french fries, and canned pineapple chunks, the latter of which arrived in a box of food from people at church (labeled "for poor, indigent Hoyts" - well, ok, maybe it just said "for Hoyts")

Mom: 7) discovered that approximately 7 minutes after chicken nuggets go into 450 degree oven, smoke begins to pour from oven door and smoke alarm will sound ten minutes later, adding further flavor enhancement to 144 ginger cookies,

Mom: 8) spread warmth and cheer to poor indigent college student, sufferering in inclement Texas weather***,

Mom: 9)put off reading to kids while spreading cheer to said, poor, indigent Texas collegiate

Mom: :-D :-D :-P :-D

Mom: Have a good sleep, and, "if we can spread a little cheer into your humdrum life....."****

* About an hour away
** The 'Jason' referred to in same section
*** College student would be me, of course
**** My mom has obviously seen "Singing in the Rain" recently.

2003-11-28T20:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. It was a good day. I got to have two Thanksgiving dinners. One at my roommate's grandmother's house, and one at Dr. Olson's house. Both were very good indeed, and yet quite different.

I spent the rest of the evening watching a James Bond movie, and laughing at Hackers. Very relaxing indeed.

I'm still trying to figure out why I didn't want to go anywhere this weekend. I could have; I could have gone to see family in Tulsa with my cousin, or I could have gone to see family in Tyler. But I didn't. Instead, I stayed here, mostly by myself. My roommate's been gone since yesterday afternoon, and won't be back until late this evening. I'm displaying clearly antisocial behaviour.

But I didn't want to go anywhere. I don't want to go anywhere until I go home. The last time I left, it was to go to funeral. I'm still trying to understand that. And sometimes, I think, it's good for me to be alone.

Sometimes.

*shakes off morbidity*

It's hard to believe that today is Friday. It already feels like the weekend should be over. And then I remember that tomorrow's Saturday; it's a nice feeling.

*wanders off to go see a movie*

2003-11-25T12:31:00.000-06:00

I made it through all my classes yesterday without crashing, and sat down to read the chapter for Networks. Normally when I fall asleep reading a book, I can feel it coming. Last night, however, I would jerk awake and then realize I had dozed off. By the time I finished, it was 11, so I said to myself, "Ardith, go to bed. It will be good for you." And then my roommate came in and said, "Ardith, go to bed. It will be good for you." So I went to bed. I got up at 7 this morning, read the email that Dr. Baas had sent saying class was canceled, and went back to bed. I got up at 11, ate lunch, and wandered off to my last class of the day. Dr. Varnell came in early to tell us that class was canceled, and I suddenly realized that today is going to be a very good day.

2003-11-24T07:28:00.000-06:00

Dude, it's like...

*Everything*

And people think I'm a dork. This guy obviously has way too much time on his hands.

And yeah, I stayed up all night. Otherwise I'd still be in bed right about now.

2003-11-24T03:54:00.000-06:00

So, yeah. I'm working on that paper. It's actually coming together. Instead of 6 pages of wandering incoherency, I have 4.5 pages which make some sort of logical sense. Which is a good thing. I think.

I'd probably have more done by now, but I've been distracted by the archives of a new webcomic. Helen, Sweethart of the Internet. Quite scary, actually. It's shocking how much of myself I can see in her.

Funny, I don't get distracted nearly as easily when I'm doing something like rewriting networking scripts in Bash. Odd, that.

I think it's just going to be easier not to go to bed tonight. Sleep is overrated, anyway. Cappuccino rocks.

*pounds head on desk*

Must... get... back... to... paper.......

2003-11-23T00:54:00.000-06:00

My computer is back up, thanks to Moore lending me a power supply for a couple of days. I ordered a new one, and used the chance to get a GeForce2 MX400 video card. At which point I became slightly happier, and decided this was all for the best anyway. New stuff should be here Wednesday. If it's not, I'm going to have the heads of the people at the Mail Center.

I also now seem to have the best excuse ever for my paper not to be finished on Monday. One of two things will happen:

A. I'll take advantage of the excuse, and sleep in tomorrow.

B. I won't sleep in tomorrow, I'll get the draft finished, and I won't have to worry about it over Thanksgiving break.

I'm not sure which is going to happen yet.

I think I should go to bed.

2003-11-22T16:20:00.000-06:00

Ardith is not happy. At the moment, it looks like the power supply in her computer is dead.

People who mess around with breakers should be shot.

2003-11-17T23:29:00.000-06:00

I walked in puddles tonight. It made me happy.

2003-11-17T16:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I got better. Mostly. Except for the cough that decided it wouldn't go away. Oh, well.

It was a fairly normal weekend: I saw some movies, I hung out with friends, and I slept a lot. Unfortunately, I'm still tired. It seems like I'm always tired now; I think it's about time for break again.

Oh, and I also read a lot of Frank Herbert. He wrote some good sci-fi, and I haven't even gotten to the Dune books yet. The Godmakers was great, as were Whipping Star and Destination: Void. I'm in the middle of The Dosadi Experiment and I still have The Jesus Incident to go. Each book seems fascinated with some philosophical construct. In Whipping Star, it's language, meaning, and communication. In Destination: Void, it's consciousness. Good stuff, definitely. It's also nice to have a little time for free reading again. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm enjoying it.

In other news:

I took the Nerdity Test, got a horrifyingly low score of around 45%, and promptly retook it. Much better. My score is now a semi-respectable 56.8% I think I can now sleep at night, knowing that I am truly a nerd.

2003-11-10T17:23:00.000-06:00

I'm sick. I'm not happy about it.

2003-11-10T00:53:00.000-06:00

It has been a full and eventful weekend in the Drama That is Ardith's Life and Will Not Stop. Ain't it great?

I just got done drinking some cappuccino and watching "The Importance of Being Ernest". Not necessarily in that order. As a result, I'm in a royally good mood, and have decided I should be productive for awhile. After I finish writing this blog post, of course.

Also, "Many Dimensions" by Charles Williams is good. Everyone should read it. Just like everyone should watch "The Importance of Being Ernest".

Other notable events of this week:

- I watched 3 other movies, and spent several hours working on about 50 pieces of a 1000-piece puzzle
- I slept. A lot. It was nice.
- I read. A lot. This was also nice.

I also heard that my dad's defibrillator went off 6 times in the past 3 days. This was not so nice. Not so nice at all, in fact. If this keeps up, they're going to take him in to the hospital and put him on an IV with his current heart drug. Apparently it's having trouble kicking in, since they just changed his medication a few weeks ago when they replaced aforementioned defibrillator. My dad is scared to death. Rather understandable, given the circumstances. Me, I just feel like thrashing something. It's a good thing nobody was around when I first found out; it probably would have been rather scary to watch. I was mad. I'm so sick and tired of watching things like this happen and not being able to do anything about it.

And yet, all I can do is trust that God knows what he's doing. Because he does. I've seen it over and over again. My head knows it. I just have trouble translating that to my emotions.

After all, at least my dad is alive. David's isn't. The same thing that killed my uncle almost killed my dad 9 years ago. I don't understand it at all. There are a lot of things I don't understand. I think I've gone into emotional overload; I've moved into a state where I'm just living one day at a time. One hour at a time; it's all I can do to swim through each moment's shifting currents. I can't stand up and look around, let alone look ahead. The bottom disappeared long ago.

So much for the good mood.

I think I'll go take a walk, get some more caffeine, and finish working through my Digital microlab. Maybe I'll even sleep tonight; I could use it. I think I'm coming down with a cold.

2003-11-09T16:17:00.000-06:00

Alright, it's done, and I have more peace of mind now. I feel kind of stupid, but that's pretty much a given. It's all good, and I don't think I'll be down in the dumps after all.

2003-11-09T12:57:00.000-06:00

I'm going to do something today that I'm rather scared to do, but that I have to do in order to regain some peace of mind. After I'm done, I'll either be quite happy, or down in the dumps for a little while. If I'm happy I'll tell you why, but if I'm not I probably won't; I'll be feeling too much like a silly little girl.

2003-11-03T00:24:00.000-06:00

Man. Blogger just ate my post again. Oh, well.

Saturday was great. I had a lovely time at the banquet, and afterwards we all went out to Heather's house to goof off. We had a campfire, and burned all the cardboard the guys had put up in front of the Assembly Building, and I had my sugar high from roasted marshmallows. It was a great end to the week; very relaxing.

Whilst rambling around on the web, I found this. I think it's one of the largest repositories of folk-song lyrics on the web, if not the largest. Quite amusing.

Oh, and has anybody ever heard of a smeet? Or a flying skunk? Jordan and Thaddaeus were busy feeding me tales over the weekend. They have some very interesting people in Kansas...

2003-11-01T14:33:00.000-06:00

Wow. This week has been something else, let me tell you.

The funeral went well. I got to see a lot of family I haven't seen for awhile; including, but not limited to, my uncle from New Zealand. I also saw all my siblings but the one who's going to school in Indiana. Trevor didn't recognize me at all; the kid hasn't seen me but three months in the summer. Oh, well.

It was rough. I knew it was going to be, but it was still pretty hard. I rode up with my aunt and uncle from Tyler, and we stopped by the funeral home to view the body before going to my aunt's house in Tulsa. I don't think I'll ever forget that. I'd never seen what's left behind after the soul leaves. I just stood there and cried. I still can't really believe he's gone. He was so alive. There are so many memories...

I left Wednesday night and a couple of my cousins dropped me off at school. I didn't do much of anything that night. It was just a relief to sit and talk and laugh with my roommate, and be goofy for a little while.

Then it was Thursday, and Fall Fest hit with a bang. I got interesting reactions to my costume all day, and then we had the Air Band contest at SAGA that night. The guys really outdid themselves. I was impressed. And somehow, they got me to dance. That alone is incredible. We used the song "Great Balls of Fire", and I had to get all dressed up in a 70's costume. Like I told my roommate, I didn't feel like myself all day long. Kinda wierd. But it was fun, and we won. I can put up with a little insanity and look a little stupid for that.

Friday, I was all dressed up as Cat Girl From the Stone Age, or something. No tail, but the little ears and leopard print dress. 2A carried me all around to chapel, and class and such in what can only be called a litter made out of branches and a camp chair. When we got to chapel, it looked a little different. They'd put signs up calling it "Ardith's cave." It was crazy. I was much amused.

I saw my cousin last night. He's back from Tulsa, and he looks like he's holding up pretty well. I'm glad. I was worried about him. I can't even imagine how rough it would be.

Then today, I've spent all afternoon doing girl things. Getting my hair and nails done, and everything that goes with getting all dressed up for tonight. It's going to be so much fun. I can't wait to see the reactions from people. That's half the fun. They kind of go into a state of shock, because they've never seen me like this. I'm usually all about taking as little trouble with myself as possible, but once or twice a year it's fun to go all out. And anyway, my roomie has such a great time dressing me up.

Great times. This week is finally turning into a good one. Despite everything. Thank God.

2003-10-28T07:07:00.000-06:00

Talk about an emotional rollercoaster... this week is definitely going to be one, and has been already.

Last night was Camera Capers. Suffice for now to say that 2A is nothing if not creative this year. I swear...

But it's all part of the fun/insanity. I can't wait until Friday. My life starts settling down then, and I can just look forward to enjoying Saturday. Because I know I will; I'm going to Fall Fest with one of the greatest guys I know, and believe it or not, there's going to be far less pressure than there ever was before.

But until then, life is crazy.

I'm leaving in an hour or so for Tulsa; the funeral is tomorrow morning. It's going to be rough. He's in Heaven now, but we're all going to miss him so much. I'll be back Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

2003-10-26T11:24:00.000-06:00

This just really hasn't been my year, or something.

One of my uncles died yesterday; we weren't expecting it at all. His oldest son goes to school here. I'd imagine he's back in Tulsa by now.

This uncle gave me my first pocketknife. He was my dad's brother; one of seven children. They're all really close.

He left behind three sons and wife. They all loved him very much, and I don't know how they're going to deal with him being gone.

He was one of the greatest Christian examples I've known.

I'm tired of missing people.

2003-10-23T23:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, so maybe it's not quite so bad after all.

I just got chosen as 2A's fall fest queen.

I feel special.

*grin*

2003-10-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

I really hate Fall Fest season.

2003-10-21T16:16:00.000-05:00

Ah, yes. More details.

I got up on Saturday morning at the ungodly hour of 6 am. The idea being that we would be all packed and on our way to Arkansas at 7.

Obviously, we didn't leave until 8am.

After much driving and lunch at Fazoli's, we got to the campsite. Being very sick and tired of sitting still, I went hiking for most of the afternoon. I crawled into a couple of caves, watched the guys push very large rocks over, scraped myself up some, and generally wore myself out. It was very enjoyable. There's nothing quite like crawling into a warm sleeping bag when it's cold outside and you've done more in one day than you ever even thought about doing during the past two months.

We spent the whole next day canoeing. The scenery was gorgeous, and so was the day; in fact, the weather was gorgeous for the whole weekend. The water was lovely, the cliffs were awe-inspiring, and I had more fun outdoors than I've had in a very long time. We had eight or nine canoes, with two people in each canoe. It's amusing to watch the dynamics of a group like that; there are the guys who go along and try to flip over every last canoe, the girls who'll do anything to keep from getting wet, the girls who'll go cliff-jumping with the guys, and the couples who can't decide whether they are couples or not. It all makes for great people-watching.

After we got back and ate astronomical numbers of burgers, we all sat around the campfire for hours, talking and goofing off. I had no idea I knew so many pyros. And people call me frightening at times.

The next day we had breakfast from about 9:30 to 11:30. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, more pancakes, and more pancakes. People just kept getting up and wanting food. Then those who had eaten first wanted more food, and the cycle repeated again. Many amazing pancake-flipping incidents, and much laughter all around. Incidentally, I heard the term 'wench' used many times that morning. It happened to be the lowest rank in the system we had set up for grading the cooks. Vaguely disturbing, but very amusing nonetheless.

When we finally finished breakfast/lunch, we tore down camp and headed out. My roommate and 7 others went to a concert in Tulsa, while the rest of us headed home via Hot Springs. We stopped there for a couple of hours to eat supper, and the guys had to have a contest to see who could hold their arm in the hot water the longest. The ride back was fun; although riding in a nice car and not being able to drive it comes close to torture at times. Oh, well. Such is my life.

We got back around 10:30, and I was incredibly hyper, so I went out and goofed off with a few other disreputable people for awhile. Then I went to bed at 4am, having done nothing productive the whole weekend long. It was great.

2003-10-21T03:49:00.000-05:00

So. I went camping over the weekend.

I had a good time, got very sore from hiking and canoeing, and decided that I need to drive a manual very, very badly very, very soon.

And now it's off to bed. Maybe more details later.

2003-10-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not dead. And yeah, I haven't posted for a week. Ah, well. I've had to learn to live with the fact that school is my life.

Anyway, I was sitting in one of my classes the other day, and started writing this. Extra points if you can figure out the class and professor. Extra points * 10 if you're not a CS person and know what class and professor I'm talking about.

Look around. It's rather large, as CS classses go. Mostly guys, but that's pretty much a given. The three girls in attendance are all in a row, smack in the middle of the room. Many types of people; the CSE's, CS, & CSMA people tend to be the most geeky-looking. But, like any sweeping generalization, it's not entirely true. I'm in the class, after all. There are also a few CIS/MIS types. Short people, tall people, young precocious students, adult students. They all have one thing in common. They are bored out of their minds.

When I talk with the guys after class, we compare ways and means of staying awake and entertaining ourselves in class. Some, like me, write beginnings of stories and doodle in the notebook margins. I've also been known to cover my desk with pencil sketches for the amusement of poor blighters in other classes. Some read, some do homework for the next class or lab. One guy was told to put away the funny papers a few minutes ago.

Meanwhile, the professor continues attempting to teach a class in which most of the real work consists of design. There are many vague mutterings about resumes, important aspects of the CS program, real-world experience, and the like.

Hmmm... he's just informed us of the fact that he is a control freak, and thus we should all be thankful that we don't have him as a team leader in our separate groups. This adds to the previously-mentioned vacts that he is confident (said several times, and not at all confidently), he likes analysis and design better than programming, and that he has trouble relating to people.

It's really quite amazing how much time he can spend explaining nothing. It's not from lack of trying; he's just not the professorial type. He always gives the impression that he would be much more comfortable sitting in a cubicle generating code or something. To make it all worse, he doesn't even have the redeeming virtue of knowing lots of arcane knowledge. Instead, he asks questions of students about .NET architecture.

We must all be aware that at the beginning of this project, the focus is on analysis and design, while at the end, it will be on coding. Which is all very well and good, except for the fact that he has taken 10 minutes to explain this at least 5 different times today and last week.

*takes short break to see if the prof is saying anything useful about classes*

No, not really. Fortunately, there's only a half hour of class left. It's kind of sad how many people are still attempting to pay attention.

*starts reading stuff not erased from whiteboard*

"Show me a sane man and I will cure him."

I like that one. There are also various announcements for TI sessions. Everything from College Algebra to Calc II.

This is about the point where I started swinging my feet and kicking the desk in front of me. Because I'm short, and I can. You know it's bad when even I am having trouble sitting still.

Oooh. He just said he was dull and boring. Maybe he does have some knowledge of what's really going on, after all. Nah...

Ah. That was exciting. He just took time out from lecturing to put several groups on the spot. It looks to me like most of the rest of this semester will be spent making various diagrams. Oh, joy. My cup runneth over, and my excitement knows no bounds. May I always be fortunate enough to have such stimulating and challenging classes. And may all my professors be as competent and as well-versed in their material.

I ain't bitter at all.

2003-10-09T13:29:00.000-05:00

I'd really love to see a search engine like this. It would be amusing. I would laugh.

Oh, and Software Systems is officially the most pointless waste of time for the entire semester.

2003-10-07T13:33:00.000-05:00

For the first time in a few days, I have a couple of hours all to myself. What's more, I'm not even going to use them for sleeping. Instead, I'm going to watch ancient Star Trek episodes, continue my webcomic archiving process, and try to decide what I'm doing for fall break. I may just stay here and attempt to be productive. Or maybe I'll just stay here and watch movies and play computer games for four days straight. That would probably be just as good for my sanity.

Because life is insane. I've lost all hope of it ever being anything but; chances are it'll be just as insane after I graduate. I can't imagine how, but I'm sure it will be nonetheless.

2003-10-06T02:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a rather good weekend, all in all. I got to watch a lot of movies, and I even got in a few chances to be productive. Or at least I looked like I was being productive. And in the end, sometimes that's all that counts.

I've spent a lot more time with people this semester than I ever did before. Some of this is due to my roommate; some of this is due to various subversive groups that I hang out with. It's a lot more fun, but I get a lot less homework done. And a lot less sleep. Thus, I am once again up at 2am, trying to get a little more work done before I collapse on my bed. My roommate's still up; she's playing solitare and yakking with some of her many IM buddies. I think she'll be asleep before long, though.

Speaking of sleep, I need to get more. And I need to get it at night, instead of random hours during the day. You know it's getting bad when you're not even tired until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning.

There's a common thread running through this post. I think I need to invest in some more caffeine.

2003-10-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

I learned something new today. One of the best places to hear amusing conversations is sitting in the reserve room at the library. You can hear every word said at the front desk, but this is apparently not very obvious from aforementioned front desk.

2003-09-27T03:09:00.000-05:00

I have a knife. It looks like this.

*sigh*

I'm so happy.

2003-09-26T02:21:00.000-05:00

Look. A new link or two. On the right side. With all the other links.

*thwack*

Silly peoples. I said the right side!

2003-09-25T11:07:00.000-05:00

You know, I want something like this. I really, really do. I could sit in class and watch movies. So much lighter than a laptop, too.

2003-09-23T21:15:00.000-05:00

Something's going to break around here. I don't know who or what yet; it may even be me, for all I know. But it's going to happen. Of that I have no doubt.

What happened over the summer? Did I change so much? Did everyone else change so much? Why is nearly everything all of a sudden confusing and strange?

I don't understand.

*proceeds to walk carefully through next month of life*

2003-09-22T15:58:00.000-05:00

*major sigh of relief*

I just got back and checked my voicemail. Everything went great; they got done in only 4 hours. He'll be going home tomorrow, I think.

All's well.

2003-09-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

My dad went in for surgery to replace his defibrillator this morning. The prep started at 6:30. I haven't heard anything yet.

It always takes a long time, though. They have to thread leads through arteries and fun stuff like that.

2003-09-21T01:32:00.000-05:00

There come times when enough is enough. Especially from people who ought to know better.

I got really upset at a few of the guys from 2A tonight. Upset enough to call them down and give them a good talking to. And, like any good story, it all starts with Symphony.

My roommate and a friend of hers had just decided they were going to go yesterday. They didn't have dates or anything, they were just going to have a good time. However, they had made it fairly clear that they were going with the group from 2A and G1. The whole bunch went out to eat at the Olive Garden first, and then Heather and Laura decided they didn't want to spend the money to buy tickets at the door. So, they came back to campus and got a cell phone with the arrangement that they would be called when Symphony was done and the rest decided where they were going to go afterwards. They didn't get called until the others had got to Applebee's, sat down, and ordered. When they got there, none of the guys would give them a seat right away. Eventually seats were found for them, but then everyone else left before they had finished eating. So I get back, and Heather's back in the room ahead of me, and pretty upset. She's a rather talkative one, so the story came out pretty quick. The guys really had been quite rude.

I was upset. Nobody treats my roomie like that and gets away with it. I took a short walk around campus so I wouldn't kill anybody too quickly, and then stormed over to the Tyler lobby. I got somebody to run up and get the two most responsible guys on the floor who had been at the restaurant. Even if the freshmen didn't know better than to leave the two girls, these guys should have had the presence of mind and/or the thoughfulness to make sure everyone was done and ready to go. I was incredibly disappointed in them. I heard their side of the story, verified that they were just being rather stupid and oblivious, and told them to apologize to my roommate.

I'm frustrated. Most of the guys on my brother floor are like this. Not really mean, at least not most of them, just incredibly stupid and thoughtless at times. I mean, seriously, how much trouble is it to make sure that the whole party doesn't leave when two girls haven't finished eating? Yes, the girls rode separately, but that's still just not something you do. Not without at least checking to make sure they don't mind. The guys I told off were seniors. They should know better.

2003-09-18T17:58:00.000-05:00

See, there is now proof that Justin Timberlake is a menace to society. I think it's time drastic measures were taken.

2003-09-17T01:02:00.000-05:00

Okay. So it's only about 1am, I've finished the vast majority of my homework, I don't have class until 1:30pm tomorrow, and I'm bored. This can only mean one thing.

It's time for another installment of Notes Ardith Writes in Stupid Classes.
(This week's episode: Software Systems)

*assorted doodles of knives and sharp teeth around edge of page*

- Microsoft .NET has its own bytecode that each programming language compiles to. Like JAVA.

- Drat it all. This means it'll take 10 times as long to test anything I'm coding

- Windows forms are your friend. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

- You have the power to create & destroy windows efficiently! *evil laugh*

- No MFC. MFC bad.

- Delegates are such:
-- send delegate to such & such
-- delegates recieve bomb codes
-- delegates return bomb codes
-- Earth blows up, mission accomplished
-- Event is the bomb blowing up when key is pressed

- Ding! Ding! Ding! Time for another happy Software Systems class, children!
- .NET is ANSI compatible? That's disturbing!
- Disconnected data source -> cached data
-- Ha! See, distributed office programs are evil!
- Dude! How amazing! Microsoft prefers Microsoft programs!
- Dude! That so rocks!
- Dude! We should buy Microsoft stock!
- Dude! We so should!

Alright. That's enough torture for one night.

2003-09-15T13:06:00.000-05:00

Having spent most of the weekend doing absolutely nothing, I am now going to put those last things off a little longer. I mean, who really wants to design a logic circuit for Digital when you can sit at your computer and start typing random things into a little box on the screen? Plus, some poor souls actually read them. I've never quite understood it, but it seems to be true. Either that or some sadistic wretch is faking IPs and comments. Ah, well. At least I provide amusement for one person in their painful journey through life.

I had a nice chat with my sister and my folks yesterday. All of you who go to LeTourneau and have to sit through chapel will be glad to know that Grace has 'interesting' chapel speakers as well. My sister was telling me about this one who recently spoke on the life of Peter. See, apparently, Peter was a rich fisherman. It is commonly known that he was a fisherman, but the fact that he was rich has been hidden from us, lo, these many years. You have now been enlightened. Furthermore, when Peter wept bitterly after disowning Christ the third time, it was because he was a bitter man. Keep in mind that until now, I had not been aware that weeping bitterly means one is bitter. I had assumed, in my poor ignorant way, that it meant something more along the lines weeping almost without hope, because Peter had realized what he had done. Anywho, Peter then got kicked out of the discipleship because Jesus later told someone to talk to 'the disciples and Peter'. Of course, he then had to get reinstated so he could go and be an apostle later and be a great leader of the church. I found all of this terribly interesting and informative. Apparently, the speaker had little or no proof for any of this, but was very confident in himself nonetheless. This all sounds so vaguely familiar...

I'm also hearing that my sister's college has succumbed to the siren song of the Chapel Card-readers. It sounds like it's exactly the same setup as we have, with exactly the same problems. The repeatability of experiments is a grand tradition in science. You'd think some of the administration types would pick up on it, but no, they all have to make the exact same mistakes as each other.

Which brings me to another topic of much annoyance. I would dearly love to know who had the grand idea of making the card-readers in chapel have a lovely little dinging noise whenever someone swipes in successfully. It's most distracting if you're actually trying to listen in chapel and people are still coming in late. It also doesn't make much sense. It would be far more efficient and easier on the ears if they would only ding when you swiped in unsuccessfully. You would be alerted that it didn't work, and could try again. You wouldn't have this constant 'beep-beep-beep' for the first 15 minutes of chapel. But then, they didn't ask my advice before implementing any of this. You'd think they would learn to, wouldn't you?

I did manage to do a few enjoyable things over the weekend. I learned to play Scum, and I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? Which, by the way, is going on my list of Movies to Buy When I Have Money. The KKK scene alone is worth it.

2003-09-10T02:47:00.000-05:00

I'm so confused. I don't think I've ever been this confused in my entire life. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to break down and do something about it. Maybe even, horror of horrors, sit down and talk to somebody about it.

And yes, that's absolutely all I'm going to say. You can all sit and wonder about analogies and hidden meanings for the next week, but I'm going to finish writing these lab reports.

2003-09-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

It never rains, but it pours. Or in my case, the heavens open up and bucketsful begin falling on my head.

My dad's defibrillator went off again today. At least once, quite probably twice or more. We won't know for sure until he can get in, hopefully in the next couple of days, and get the data read off it. I just really didn't need this on top of everything else. I'm afraid I rather took it out on people at dinner tonight; I was more sarcastic than I've been for quite awhile. It's not so much the fact that things happen, it's that things happen and I can't do anything about it. And on top of it all, I have to put on a brave face; everyone else seems to be having a rough week too. No use my unloading my poor little troubles on everyone else. It's enough that I have to deal with them. More than enough, actually, but it'll be okay. It always is, isn't it?

So.

On a lighter note, there's definitely something in the drinking water this semester. I don't think I've ever seen people start pairing off so quickly. It's quite disturbing, really. Leaves one a little dizzy; you can never keep straight who's with whom. If I don't watch out, maybe even I'll fall into the trap.

2003-09-07T01:07:00.000-05:00

This has been a rather interesting and unusual week. Today started off nasty, with my roommate finding out that four girls she knew from her highschool in Tatum died in a car accident. She's still in a weird and unusual mood, and will probably continue to be there for the next few days. I think she'll be okay, though.

The day managed to get better as the evening wore on, though. I ended up not doing homework, and instead spent an hour and a half playing ping-pong with Jordan. That was very enjoyable; I haven't gotten to play that much for months. Maybe years. And then we went and watched Monsters, Inc. in MSC-1 with a few other people from off of 2A. And now, having had a very full day, I am going to bed.

'Night.

2003-09-03T01:13:00.000-05:00

Mmmm... nothing like the caffeine buzz from a frappuccino. Comes in handy when working on Electronics homework at 1am.

Today was pretty busy. I found out that people like to throw me in the pond, as I got dumped in again today. You'd think I'd learn to avoid floor activities. But, no, I'm a sucker for punishment. It was fun, though; I've been in slimier places than the pond, and showers are wonderful and marvelous creations. I must remember to go find my sandals tomorrow. At least I had the presence of mind to kick them off before I landed in the water.

Ugh. The bad thing about caffeine buzzes is that you definitely know when they wear off. I should try and be productive before I fall asleep in my chair.

2003-08-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

I went outside and walked in the rain tonight.

The puddles were warm; they're always cold in Iowa, but here they were warm.

I got damp, and then wet, and then soaking wet, with the rain running down my face.

It was wonderful.

2003-08-31T17:10:00.000-05:00

Alrighty. Yes, I'm actually still alive, and have been so for the entire weekend. Some of you are very disappointed, but I'll let that slide this time.

First off, I want to say that whoever thought that 1A running around yelling at some ungodly hour of the morning would be a good extended orientation activity should be shot, drawn and quartered, and hung up as an example for the rest of campus. I do not appreciate being woken up before dawn on a Sunday morning.

After catching a few more hours of sleep, I managed to drag myself out of bed and go to church with various and sundry friends. What's even more amazing is that I stayed awake through the entire sermon. Which may or may not be a good thing, as I now feel stupider for having done it.

I have vague recollections of visiting the church we went to a couple of times very early in my freshman year. I didn't go back; now, I like to chalk it up to feelings that something was fundamentally wrong with the preaching. This may or may not be true. I was a little bit naive back in the day.

Anyway, the pastor proceeded to take as his text Revelation 18. Of course, in reading it before the actual sermon he stated something to the effect that it was quite self-explanatory and could stand on its own. Then he spent an hour explaining it to us. For those of you who don't particularly feel like looking it up yourselves, it's the passage where Babylon the Great falls and the vast majority of the world is mourning over it. The summary of the sermon reads thus:

Babylon the Great = materialistic economic empire which will rise up in the last half of the Tribulation

Materialism & money = bad

Bad things get destroyed -> bad people are sad

Bad things get destroyed -> good people are happy

Etc., etc. Which wouldn't be so bad, except for some of the weird cross-references he pulled in. For instance, in Rev. 18:2 it states that Babylon the Great "has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird." As some sort of backup, he referred to the parable of the Mustard Seed, and interpreted it to mean not the church as a whole, but organized religion, and especially the one-world church which he says will rise up in the end times. This is apparently because of Matt. 13:31-32, in which the mustard seed grows into a tree, and birds rest in its branches. And since birds are obviously demons and incarnations of evil, the parable of the mustard seed cannot refer to anything good. Contrary to popular opinion, and the belief of nearly every other church in the nation.

But anyway, enough of that.

I finally got my install of Win2K patched, after IT so kindly informed me that I was vulnerable to the Blaster worm. And then I installed Mozilla and Opera, and everything is fairly happy again.

2003-08-29T08:38:00.000-05:00

Today's the memorial service for everyone from LU who died over the summer. Three people; they'll be missed by so many today.

2003-08-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

Hmm... my comments no longer show up at all in Win2k Explorer. This is obviously a sign from God that I need to install Mozilla or Opera.

2003-08-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

I'm back.

And running on about 4 hours of sleep.

It should be a great evening. *grin*

2003-08-20T23:53:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm getting tired of my plans always changing at the last minute. It seems I now won't be on campus until Saturday morning. While this will make tomorrow considerably less hectic, I'm still annoyed.

Anyway, you all who are already at LU will have to get along without my charming presence for an extra 24 hours. I hope your little minds can stand the strain.

2003-08-20T00:59:00.000-05:00

All right. I'm back home (home? Is this home? I'm not sure...) for all of 48 hours, my computer is still alive, and I spent the whole evening very profitably watching mindless television. I'm going to bed.

2003-08-18T10:31:00.000-05:00

Ah, must post this, too. Look, they're at it again. I guess Oklahoma wouldn't take in the poor Dems this time.

2003-08-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not home yet. But I am sitting in front of my aunt's computer, so I decided to be all informative and post something.

My little sister is now safely esconced in the dorm at Grace College. It's a nice school. I just wouldn't fit in at all. My first impression in the gym while watching people wait in line to get their room keys, etc? "Man, there's a lot of girls here." And there are, comparatively speaking anyway. The student population is about 60% female. Sharon will have lots of fun, but I would probably be very frustrated in about two weeks. Not from lack of guys, but because I'd have to put up with so much 'girl talk'. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.

We also roamed around Warsaw, IN awhile. Saw the house I lived in until I was 11, some friends from our old church here, etc. I didn't realize this until we were driving into Goshen Friday evening, but northern Indiana looks a lot like east Texas. Kind of flattish, more trees than Iowa, a few scattered trailer parks beside the road. Yes, I know, Moore will probably want to kill me after he reads this. But it's true.

Oh, and as a bit of amusement to brighten your day, allow me to repeat the quote I saw on a church sign between Warsaw and Goshen.

New Paris Church of the Nazarene - "The only vitamin a Christian needs is B1."

2003-08-14T17:27:00.000-05:00

One week, and I'll be headed back to LU. Just one more week. One more week, made shorter by a trip to Indiana through next Tuesday. For the oblivious, this means I won't be able to post until next Wednesday unless I post something from my sister's computer once I get it set up in her dorm. Time will tell.

Oh, and I'm really glad I don't live in New York City right now. Really, really glad.

2003-08-11T21:47:00.000-05:00

This evening, in a rare 25-minute slot of free time, I sat down and watched an episode of the Andy Griffith show with my siblings. Everyone should have the opportunity to see this show at some time in their lives; even if they don't appreciate the fact that a show about decent people can actually be funny, it gives a good example of the way people used to think life should be like.

The one we watched tonight centered around a fairly personable hobo who hitched a ride into town on one of those things called trains. You know, they travel along tracks and try to run innocent cars down at intersections. Anyway, this hobo seemed to be fairly well-read; he made various references to evolution, oriental methods of horticulture, and the groundskeeping around Buckingham Palace. He also was acquainted with methods of extracting gumballs from gumball machines without using any shiny, round bits of metal. As the story goes, he runs into Andy and his son Opey while they are off fishing. A little while later, Barney picks him up on various small charges of loitering and jaywalking, and Andy, being the kindly sheriff that he is, lets him off the hook, since he's bound to be out of town before too long anyway. One thing leads to another, the hobo influences Opey to play hooky and fail to clean his bedroom, and Andy eventually convinces the amusing yet less-than-law-abiding vagrant to catch the next train out of town.

The character portrayal of the hobo startead me thinking. Here we have a fairly decent guy with a good sense of humor, a way with kids, who apparently knows how to read, and enjoys it. The only thing that's wrong with him is that his moral compass tends to point northeast instead of true north. If there ever were people like that who rode trains and stole apple pies from law-abiding citizens, they seem to have disappeared nowadays.

Until I realized that they haven't disappeared at all. See, a bunch of them got grants from the government and what all, and went to college. Most of them became Professors of Sociology and Applied Morality at Ivy League schools, but a few also decided to be Democrats and Socialists and confuse people in Washington and protest wars and things. Since they got to be so important, people assumed they'd had operations to get their compasses fixed, and started listening to them, instead of telling their kids important things like "Don't steal" and "Go to school so you can learn things". Thus we have people who think that since gumball machines don't use the money we give them, they don't need it. In fact, all the gumball machines really need is a nice pat on the head to make them feel worth-while.

And then they went around and told the kids that they could have as much sex as they wanted, as long as they didn't have babies or get sick. And if they do have babies or get sick, all they have to do is ask nicely and Uncle Sam will give them money to make all their troubles go away.

Then they told the parents that they'd better stop telling their kids what to do, since it's bad for the kids' self-esteem.

Then they told the big countries to make the little countries stop fighting, and the college students to make the big countries stop fighting, and the United Nations to make everybody stop fighting.

And then they decided that killing the little owls is bad, but laying off the people who cut down the trees and make money to feed their families is good, because then the little owls don't have to move to different trees.

And then they told all the little girls that they had to beat the boys at everything. And they told the little boys that they should stay home and watch the kids because it's more fun.

And then they told everybody that they would have more fun if they gave more money to the government so the government could think up fun things for them to do.

And thus the hoboes ruined the world.

2003-08-10T22:24:00.000-05:00

If you've read enough Michael Crichton, this should send shivers up your spine. Now all we need is a ruined city and a few diamond mines...

Oh, and incidentally, Blogger was complaining about running out of room for my archives last time I posted. Who would've thought I'd be accused of talking too much.

2003-08-10T18:59:00.000-05:00

I finally have my schedule all worked out for the next two weeks:

Mon-Wed -- Work. Think of ways to manipulate the new freshmen.
Thursday -- Work. Then go reinstall Windows 98 on a friend's computer because I'm all nice and can't say no to anybody when asked nicely for a favor.
Thursday evening -- Throw a bunch of clothes into a bag for upcoming trip to Indiana. Work like mad to clean up and pack a little of the mess around here.
Friday -- Leave earlyish in the morning for Indiana to take my sister for her orientation at Grace College and Seminary. Drive or be driven crazy for 8 hours in a 15-passenger van with 9 siblings.
Sat-Mon -- Help my sister set up her computer, get all moved in, etc. Also warn her of the dangers of indoctrination and poke fun at all the stupid orientation activities.
Tuesday -- Drive back home. If I'm not crazy by this time, I just might make it until I get back to school.
Wednesday -- Pack. Then pack some more. Theoretically get everything packed. Or at least thrown into boxes and taped shut so nothing will fall out.
Thursday morning and afternoon -- Dentist appointment. Optometrist appointment. Arrange for glasses to get sent to Texas.
Thursday evening -- Should leave the house around 5ish. The friends I'm riding with are planning on driving through the night. Thus:
Friday morning -- Arrive at LU somewhere between 7am and 9am. Bring all my stuff in and dump it on the floor. Sleep for several hours.
Friday afternoon and evening -- Unpack, taking naps when needed. Enjoy myself.

2003-08-03T23:03:00.000-05:00

I had a momentary burst of inspiration today while discussing a completely unrelated subject with my sister.

It is possible that Starfleet contracted out the control software and some of the more important hardware for their starships to Microsoft. For instance, the phrase 'recalibrate the sensors' is obviously just a different way of saying "Reboot all the servers, as they've bluescreened again." And those transporters? They malfunction at least once a month. The warp drive is never online when you need it, nor are the phasor banks. Also, the final solution to every problem is to give the trouble-making system more power to eat up. Not to mention the ease with which various evil entities including, but not limited to, the Borg, manage to hack the central computers. The security on all their ships is laughable, since nearly anybody who really wants to can take over the bridge and incapacitate the crew with little trouble.

And all those time traveling ships which keep popping in from the future? Only Microsoft would call that a feature. Since everyone from the future brings news of horrible war and tragedy, any sane person would realize that all these portents of mass extermination of the human race are a direct result of time travel. Discovering time travel causes bad things to happen. It brings in, out of the blue, evil, malicious, and nearly all-powerful enemies set on destroying every last puny little weakling in their path. Like the talking paperclip, time travel has ramifications which come completely unlooked for by any of the various marketing droids which think they have discovered the wave of the future. Literally.

It's all so obvious now.

It's all a vast conspiracy to prolong plot-lines. Really, it is.

2003-08-03T22:43:00.000-05:00

I went shopping yesterday. Clothes-shopping, actually. Of course, being who I am, I managed to pick up a few other things along the way. Several used books, including:

"Cheaper by the Dozen" - for obvious reasons.

A very nice hard-bound edition of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and a few other short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson - a classic. And one I happen to enjoy very much.

"That Hideous Strength" by C. S. Lewis - No, it's not the whole trilogy, but the last book stands on its own, and I'll buy the other two before the year's out.

I also picked up a pair of black leather gloves at Goodwill. Because you never know when you'll be wanting not to leave fingerprints...

2003-07-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

There's the most amazing thunderstorm outisde. 20 miles north of us, but it's huge. The lighting is constant; the thunder it creates is a low rumble in the background. I can see the flashes travel from one end of the sky to the other. And yet right above us the stars are out. Our county was under a tornado warning; it must have been from this storm.

My mom, sister, and I went out to the edge of the field to see if we could see any tornadoes. We didn't, but watching the lightning was incredible. At least one part of the cloud is lit up at all times; the streaks travel from side to side, and every once in a while you happen to look at one directly, and it nearly blinds you. I've never seen anything like it. It's awesome and glorious, and a bit frightening all at once. I would hate to be under it, but right now we have the perfect view.

I don't think I'll go to sleep for awhile.

2003-07-31T22:15:00.000-05:00

I was quite productive today. I replaced the 4 2-gig SCSI drives in the server with 2 9-gig SCSI drives. And yes, I still hate SCSI. But SCSI-3 hotswappable drives are infinitely better than ancient full-height SCSI-2 drives. However, I also discovered that a 200 watt powersupply is not enough for 3 harddrives and a CD-R drive.

But if that wasn't enough to make my day exciting, we finally got the air conditioning fixed in the car today. So when I drive home tomorrow in the 90-degree heat, I'll be able to enjoy myself.

And now, to round out a pretty decent day, I'm going to spend an hour playing games.

2003-07-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

Having just finished off a glass of milk and watched the end of 'Keeping Up Appearances', I'm now going to write a few lines to prove that I'm still alive and sane.

Well, still alive anyway. I'm not sure I've been completely sane for years now. And if that last sentence has any sort of logic or coherence at all, you're either high or sleepier than I am.

I've kind of settled into the "I can keep going for these last few weeks" mode now. Only 11 days of work left, and a week after work ends I'll be heading back down to Texas. I really can't wait. The way things have been around here, school will be more of a vacation than summer vacation was. Not that I actually am terribly busy; it just feels like it. I'm blaming it on the early hours I've been having to keep. It just doesn't feel like a properly lazy day unless you've been able to stay up until 2 playing computer games.

I've been reading a lot the past few days; whenever we go to the library I spend all my free time buried in my books until I finish them. Mostly Agatha Christie lately. Also Asimov; I've finished the fourth book of the Foundation series and have come to the conclusion that they're definitely worth spending money on.

But anywho, it's off to bed for Ardith. Sleep is good. Sleep is very, very good...

2003-07-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

There's nothing more lovely than feeling tired. Not the run-down, exhausted, frustrated-with-the-world tired, but the deliciously tired feeling you get after driving home from a long day of work and having a good supper. Add on to that the satisfaction of realizing that you gave detailed enough instructions to your library-going siblings in order for them to get the books you wanted. Then read a book by Douglas Adams, and laugh to yourself as you realize you don't have to puzzle out all his zany logic tonight; you can do that tomorrow, after sleeping in until noon. Since a tired brain can only hold one thought at a time, that particular one serves to keep the wheels upstairs turning as you get ready to turn the lights off and finally sink into a warm, comfortable bed.

But then the thought makes way for another...

Drat it all, today's Thursday. I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning tomorrow and go to work.

*click*

2003-07-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't posted for a week, and the natives are getting restless, so a short update seems in order.

Basically, nothing's happened.

Nothing big anyway. Just lots of little things which all pile up until I'd swear I'm carrying enough 2-oz. weights to make up a ton.

As far as work goes, everything's fine. Maybe a little too fine. As usual, I've managed to work hard enough that people now start expecting it on a regular basis. I really need to quit doing that. And, my boss is still after me to quit going to LU, take a few classes at UNI, and work for him full-time. Which I'm definitely not gonna do. I'll admit, it's nice to feel wanted, but when 'being wanted' changes into pressure, I get frustrated.

Life's okay at home, too. My dad's defibrillator has gone off twice in the past month, and he's still trying to get used to a new medication, but since the doctor said not to worry about it, I'm trying not to. Trying reasonably successfully, in fact. It's amazing what sitting around playing Final Fantasy III in your spare time will do.

And thus my life continues to amble its way along a dusty country road; sometimes a combine rolls by and raises enough bits of earth to bury an elephant, and sometimes a cloudburst comes along to wash it all off.

'Night, all. I'm gonna go to bed early and catch up on some of the sleep I lost last night staying up to watch Dr. Who. May you sleep soundly, not waking up until the alarm goes off. Better yet, if you can, just throw the alarm clock against the wall, roll over, and go back to sleep. And enjoy it.

2003-07-13T22:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, Ardith is back to her semi-normal state of insanity. Which means I need to find a calendar somewhere.

*hunts around for calendar*

Why, you ask? Just wait and see. I will reveal all as soon as I find one.

*gives up hunting for paper calendar and looks online*

Okay. I have a little less than 6 weeks until I leave for school. 6 weeks in which to read as much as possible, earn as much money as possible, and try and figure out why I have this sudden urge to buy some more tools.

However, 4-5 days out of that time will be used up in helping my little sister start her College Brainwashing... oops. I meant to say orientation for Grace College. That is about a week before I head back to school, and a week before that I'll be going bonkers driving myself hither and yon; that's when our church has its yearly Family Camp, and while it's loads of fun, I shall be a very busy little girl. And that's really only a couple of weeks away. So the summer's not so long after all.

And now, having completely distracted you and messed with your poor little minds, I shall reveal the real reason I was hunting for a calendar.

*drum roll*

You're not paying attention! Yes, you in the front row. Pay no mind to the fact that the ceiling is being stomped on by various large land mammals. If the plaster isn't cracking yet, you're not in mortal danger.

*another drum roll*

Umm... where was I? Oh yes...

*yet another drum roll*

The real reason I wanted to know how long until I get back to school is this: Once I am safely esconced in my dorm room, I'm going to do something really, really, fun. I'm going to spend $50 on books I want to buy. All will most likely be used, as they're cheaper that way. However, I'm taking nominations for Really Good Books which are Worth Spending Money On. I probably shan't take many of your suggestions, but I shall at least contemplate them. And that alone is worth marking down on a calendar.

2003-07-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

I'm tired. So very tired. It's been a long week.

I'm tired of listening to my coworkers gripe about their boss, or about people who used to work there.

I'm tired of having to put up with Nolan's rebellion

I'm tired of having to deal with losing people.

I'm tired of having to figure things out.

I'm tired of having to be all things to all people.

I'm tired of always having to hold my head up.

I'm tired of this summer.

Too much "I". I should just shut up now. Thank God tomorrow's Saturday.

2003-07-09T23:13:00.000-05:00

I need one of these.

2003-07-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

So close...

The guy from our soon-to-be new ISP finally came out today to get us all set up. Unfortunately, it's not quite all done. However, I should have at least something up and running by this weekend. And that will make me extremely happy. Outrageously, insanely happy.

Here's what I predict will happen:

1st week. Jason downloads everything within sight, so does my dad, my mom becomes enchanted by the fact that she can be on AIM all day long.

2nd week. Jason fills up his harddrive. Should take that long to use up all 20 gigs. Sharon discovers some place that streams foreign-language-pronunciation lessons. My dad subscribes to Rush Limbaugh's service so he can stream video during Rush's radio show.

3rd week. Jason, having filled up his harddrive, and finding that he can now read all his favorite programming forums faster than anybody posts to them, becomes slightly disenchanted and actually does something else for 2-3 hours out of the day. Somehow, by this time, we will have managed to max out the bandwidth. Thus, there will once again be a push to Get Ardith To Implement Bandwidth Restrictions For Certain People. My mom will be completely addicted to her email and IM capabilities.

4th week. By this time, most of the insanity will have calmed down. My dad will have ordered several more large harddrives, and a few virii will have been squashed in their infancy. Jason will have realized it is not necessary to download every last game demo on the internet. Sharon, having remained remarkably sane throughout the whole time period, will suffer the withdrawal that comes from being disconnected from the network, as her computer is bound to act up by this time.

Of course, I'll be quite calm the whole while, using the bandwidth to do such exciting things as upgrading the servers with apt-get, and finding new forums to terrorize.

Also, since it seems we will now have a static IP address, there are some very interesting possibilities to consider...

2003-07-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

Today was the first really good day I've had all weekend. I was able to talk to my mom some about Fran; no awkward questions, just able to talk. And then, since we had a church picnic today, I was able to distract myself for the rest of the afternoon. That was a good thing.

On the more amusing side of my life, it looks like, barring any unforseen incidents, like my folks will be gone for a few days; Thursday afternoon through sometime on Saturday. Thus, I am looking for amusing suggestions on what to do to the kids while they are gone. Lucky for them my new motherboard will be getting here around that time...

2003-07-05T17:41:00.000-05:00

This is the #1 reason I'm not going to get my tongue pierced...

2003-07-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine died today.

Some of you maybe knew him; those who didn't missed out. His name was Tim Smith, but everyone I knew always called him by his floor nickname, Fran. Apparently he came in contact with some toxic chemicals or fumes. I guess he'd been pretty sick; I didn't hear anything until I got the email today telling me that he was gone. He was on life support, and his family took him off it this afternoon.

He lived on my brother floor at LeTourneau, 2A. I guess I got to know him best last fall, when he was Kenneth Martens' roommate. Fran took me to Fall Fest that semester. We had some good times, watching movies, playing on Stern's XBox, sometimes just yakking.

This hurts. I've never had a friend die. I'll see him again someday, but not on this world.

I'll miss him.

2003-07-02T22:37:00.000-05:00

Do you know how long it takes to catch up on a week's worth of webcomics on dialup? However, I did manage to run into a gem along the way.

PVPOnline for 07/02/2003

I can see myself in all three characters: Francis is me as Home Network Admin. Cole is also me in my role as Horribly Mean Older Sister. And Brent Sienna? Well, there are multiple roles fighting for that honor.

2003-07-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm back from plunging the depths of the un-connected. Or at least that's what it felt like. You never realize quite how addicted you are to your internet connection until you lose it for a few days. As there's some sort of stupid 200-hour/month limit with our current dialup connection, we got cut off from the rest of the world on Thursday. But that was only the beginning of a very long weekend...

Thursday: As I mentioned before, we ran out of hours. I'm officially annoyed. I should not have to put up with such idiocy in ISP connection policies.

Friday: 20 minutes on my way home from work, and 40 minutes from home, the car broke down. For some wierd and uncanny reason two cylinders quit firing, and it's in the shop now being worked on. Just let me say that waiting around an hour in a hot car by the side of the freeway for my parents to come by and pick me up is not my idea of a good time.

Saturday: The guy from CNS was supposed to come out and hook us up. Hah. He never showed, and I'm still broadband-less. I'd be disappointed, but it's rather what I expected. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we can get him to show up at all this week.

Sunday: This was the icing on the cake. My baby brother almost got the tip of his finger cut off in a freak accident. He was playing with a little folding chair when he managed to fall on it and close his finger in the hinge. They had to take him into the ER, and he ended up with 6 stitches, 2 of which were internal, and enough pain medication to zonk him out for the rest of the week. It wasn't a pretty sight. Poor little kid; he's only 15 months old, and he doesn't quite understand why his hand has to be all wrapped up all the time.

And though today doesn't really fall into the weekend, I'm going to include it because I'm frustrated, and thus I'm going to do what I jolly well please.

Today: Since we finally got web access back today, I had to put a new NIC in the gateway last night so everthing would be up and running. Even though I wouldn't get to enjoy it until after I got home from work. All was well and good, but in the process, the DHCP process on the server had gotten totally screwed up. When it all finally started to catch up with the network, midway through the morning, I wasn't home, and my dad was left to try and troubleshoot it. In the process he yanked all the cables from all three hubs (Word to the wise: it'd be better to buy one 24-port switch than to slowly increase capacity by buying successive 8-port hubs), and then left it for me to work on when I got home. After driving home in a hot 15-passenger van, I was excited, to say the least.

I fixed the problem with the DHCP server in about 10 minutes, and then proceeded to hook up all the cables again. I could go into great detail about the joys of sifting through spaghetti with a flashlight under a desk in the corner, but I won't. Suffice to say that even the best among us would be capable of making a mistake or two. At any rate, I learned one new thing today: when you daisy-chain two hubs together, only do it with one cable. If by accident it happens in redundance, with one going from a regular port to a regular port and one going from an uplink port to a regular port, bad things happen. Not the least of which is the server being flooded with 2,000,000+ packets in a very short time. Needless to say, it decided enough was enough, and shut down the NIC driver. Of course, I didn't realize all this for another hour and a half, while I tried to figure out why absolutely nothing was working.

And if none of that made sense, count yourself amongst those blessed by happy oblivion. I'm just glad that a three-day weekend is coming up.

2003-06-24T21:26:00.000-05:00

Something amusing happened at work two days ago. I was sitting in the electrical shop, minding my own business, being productive, when all of a sudden I got a lecture on the evils of popular music in general and Country/Western music specifically. The funny thing was, it wasn't even my own music. But a little background is obviously needed.

I don't have the most exciting job in the world; that's quite all right with me. I'm perfectly happy if I have something to keep my hands busy for 8 hours and nothing more. On this particular day, I was enjoying myself taking little bits of wire off the back of relay sockets. Extremely mindless. The enjoyment factor was increased by the fact that I got to play with a soldering iron in the process. The guy next to me was in and out, hunting up parts for the stoplight cabinet he was putting together. At the time this story occurs, he was out. He happened to have his radio tuned to one of the many local country music stations. This is not unusual. It's probably the most commonly heard radio station in the entire building.

Enter Lyle, #2 guy in the business. He's something I'm quite familiar with, a fundamentalist Christian. I tend to be one myself, upon occasion. Anyway, he happened to hear the radio, and assumed it was mine. I don't know why; the guy whose radio it was has been working here far longer than I have, and I'm sure his musical preferences are quite well known. I'm not sure which song it was. "She Don't Know She's Beautiful", I think.

So Lyle sits down, gives me a few anecdotes on his past life working at a radio station, and then proceeds to run through the usual line about modern popular music all being rubbish. How it's not realistic, and it brainwashes one, and all that. For his crowning example, he used the song that was playing then. "I heard the line 'She don't know she's beautiful'. They never make songs about 'She don't know she's smart', or 'She don't know she's strong', you know." I nodded and smiled. I really didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't my music, and so take away his joy at helping to guide me along the straight and narrow. I seem to have this knack of convincing people that I understand exactly what they're talking about. It worked quite well in this case.

And to be fair, I do know what he's talking about, or at least why he said it. I'm just not sure it's valid. It's the age-old argument over whether anything which has a little bit of untruth in it is able to have any redeeming value whatsoever. However, he picked a rather poor example to verify his argument with. It smacks very much of political correctness. You know, the whole bit about making sure everyone knows they're special. All very well and good in itself, but it tends to turn love songs into something farcical. Not that they don't tend to be already, but that's just the nature of the genre. Making them politically correct on top of everything else is just laughable.

And then there's the whole bit about somebody, who I really don't know all that well, taking it into his head to keep me walking the Good Christian Walk. It might have been slightly different had he actually been a good friend of mine. Then I would have paid attention and taken the trouble to argue with him. In this case, I just didn't think it was worth it. However, if the subject comes up again, I'm going to throw a lot of ice water on his happy little ministry of helping out little girls who can't think for themselves.

2003-06-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

Every sysadmin should read BOFH. The world would be a much better place.

Archives here, for those who need to do a little catching up.

2003-06-19T23:11:00.000-05:00

I'd just like to take this time to point out that I had nothing whatsoever to do with Anna's most recent prank on Scholl. I was not in the area at the time of the mailing, I did not examine the powerpoint before it was sent, and I in no way influenced the sender. Neither did I have anything to do with the pictures; it was not my malevolent roaming spirit which caused those pictures to be taken, nor did I have any operational mind-control satellites in orbit. I have not touched the infamous Judge since the last time Scholl hit me on the head with it. All pranksters incur wrath on their own heads, and there is no precedent for visiting the sins of the prankster on the heads of her friends.

Having said that, it sure was a funny powerpoint. Good job, Anna.

And now it's time for your regular Broadband For Ardith update.
For a couple of weeks now, I have been hanging on tenterhooks while things move slowly towards us having something like a decent internet connection. Just about all that's available here in the middle of nowhere is something the incredibly intelligent people at our ISP call 'wireless'. It seems to have some sort of line-of-sight requirement concerning the tower they put up in a farm near the closest town. They put a receiver on your roof, and then shunt the connection down to your computer via USB. Not the most elegant solution, but it's supposed to work. I've never actually talked to CNS about this, so it's all word of mouth from my dad. But given that they decided limiting people's bandwidth was going to be too 'time-consuming', I'm willing to bet that they don't know all that much about it either.

It seems the guys from the ISP did actually come out to our place. However, they check line-of-sight by (1) Using their handy-dandy little GPS locator to determine our exact position and (2) Sending the coordinates on to somebody else who will supposedly get back with them in a day or two and tell them whether there are any hills in the way. Or something like that. Once again, I am amazed by their incredible sense of efficiency. I assume all this outsourcing is good for the economy, because otherwise there is no reason for this behaviour at all.

It's now been a week since this happened, and we're still waiting to see whether or not we among the Blessed. The Blessed being those who, unfettered by hills and other annoying topographical landmarks, have access to 2 T1 lines' worth of unpartitioned bandwidth. It's all very annoying, to be sure.

As it is now 11:00pm, I must be off to bed. My your sleep be comfortable, unless you work for CNS Internet, in which case the Curse of a Disgruntled Geek applies:

May your Internet connection always be slow and choppy, and may your dropped packets be plentiful. May your firewall have many gaping holes, and may those holes be found by enterprising young script-kiddies and black-hats alike. May your Windows boxes all show the BSOD, and the kernels of any Linux boxes immediately dump core. May your CPU fan(s) die, your harddrive heads crash, and your power supplies explode. May lightning strike your house and kill your UPS, modem, and anything else withing range. May God have mercy on your soul.

2003-06-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

I discovered something interesting today. Feeling rather self-important, I decided to search for me online. It seems I am more unique than I thought I was.

Searched for "Ardith Hoyt" in major search engines:
Google - Ah, yes. The stats from my favorite private-newsgroup-that-went-under-due-to-an-idiot-sponsor.
MSN - I'd forgotten that I made a few comments on articles in Linux Today articles.
Lycos - Multiple repeats. I'm not sure why Shem's site has so many listings...
Yahoo - Oh, good, this one brought in Martens' blacklist.
AltaVista - No, AltaVista, I most certainly did not want to search for "Adit Hoyt". Stupid search engine.

Every one of those links refers to me. Every last one.

Meta-crawlers tend to include a few extra links which have nothing to do with me. View these with caution and suspicion. Obviously they are not True Search Engines, since they return results Fraught With Error.

This is getting boring now. Must get to bed anyway. It's another big day of soldering in the morning, and as my aunt and uncle are here with Yet Another Toddler in tow, it's not going to be too quiet around here in the evening. *sigh*

And my life continues it's meandering way towards certain insanity...

2003-06-14T17:29:00.000-05:00

As the level of comments has proceeded to new lows, it's about time for me to update this before we get into a deep discussion concerning the male/female ratio in the Netherlands.

It's finally the weekend, so I'll give you a bit about my first week on the job. I work here. No, I'm not the webmaster. In fact, I haven't even touched the computers - yet. Instead, I've spent my time cutting, terminating, and soldering countless wires. I've done about 6 54-pin connectors' worth, and I have at least 10 more to go on this order. And then I get to build the rest of the panels for which I am making these connectors. It's all fairly mindless work, which is quite alright as far as I'm concerned. I have to think enough during the school year. Of course, as luck would have it, I'm the shortest person in the entire company. Which makes my life exciting, to be sure. On the bright side, my first week's pay should allow me to pay back my dad what I owe him for all my new computer parts.

I've been doing some research today on whether driving barefoot is illegal. My mom was under the impression that it was, so I had to go find some proof. Here is the Urban Legends site for the curious. There's nothing more fun than driving a stick-shift barefoot...

2003-06-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

Personally, I think there's something quite depressing about going to bed before 11:00. I don't know how people do it on a regular basis. I'm also trying to remember why I was glad to be working 8 hours a day. Well, money makes up for a lot. And it's not a bad job at all. It is a job, however, which means I have to be semi-productive. And that does not come easily.

I had further proof yesterday that I will really never understand why some girls date. The way they jump from one guy to another makes you wonder if they are really capapble of coming to any permanent decisions at all. I'd be frustrated with them, but it's not really worth my time.

And since three random thoughts make a coherent post, I'm going to spend my last half-hour before I go to sleep reading. So I can get up at 6:30am tomorrow, go to work, and get back at 6:00pm, and then proceed to do very little for 5 hours which end up seeming way too short. I can't wait until school starts again.

2003-06-06T01:25:00.000-05:00

And after all that, it promptly froze, just as I was publishing this stupid thing.

Fine. So be it. Windows 98 is no longer stable enough for web browsing.

And now off to what I was actually planning to write tonight...

Just a little peek into what our lives are like around here. Today was my parents' anniversary, so they spent the evening out on the town. This, of course, left me as oldest and thus in charge. Not a big deal, I've done it a zillion times before. But each time something new comes up, and tonight was no different. The youngest, Trevor, is not quite weaned yet, and this was the first time he'd been away from his mother for more than a few hours. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

I was spending some time on my computer. I was actually being semi-productive, trying to get the Windows 98 third of my triple-boot setup to be something close to stable. Needing a break from such mindless and inane activity, I spent a couple of hours doing something even more mindless and inane: watching Mulan. Whenever both parents are gone for an extended period of time, the kids get to watch a movie. It keeps them busy, out of trouble, and whiles away a few hours.

After this was done, I proceeded to busy myself popping frozen pizzas in the oven, and setting the table with as few dishes that need to be washed as possible. This keeps the number of complaints concerning "Slave-driver Ardith" to a minimum. Then Nolan decided to do something characteristic, but not usually directed towards myself.

I'm not sure what brought the temper tantrum on; I think I told him he couldn't take something outside that he particularly wanted to take. At any rate, I dared to keep him from getting out the door with it, and he calmly contradicted me, and tried for the door again. When I stepped in front of it, he stood there and screamed at me. He has a very loud voice for one so young. As screaming at one's authorities is not allowed around here, I was forced to march him into an adjoining room with the paddle.

I'm always interested by how some kids scream only before they are spanked. Not during, or after, but before. I tapped him once or twice on his rear end, and he decided it would be the better part of valour to cooperate. It was the first time I'd actually taken the paddle to any of the kids. I've smacked them with my hand before, but nothing came up that was this serious. Nolan is definitely in a class apart, however. 15 minutes later, he was happily watching me take pizzas out of the oven. I don't think I'll ever understand him.

Anyhoo, nothing exciting happened for another few hours. Apparently I have now reached the point where I am deemed a fair divider of pizza. A milestone indeed. I managed to get just about all the programs and games I wanted reinstalled under 98. Of course, I had to test the DVD player along the way by playing the first ten minutes of the Fellowship of the Ring. Eventually, however, it sunk into my head that the baby had been crying downstairs for at least ten minutes. Coming down to investigate, I discovered Sharon kneeling in front of a chair, trying to convince him to come out from under it and stop crying. It was almost bedtime, and he'd realized he hadn't seem Mommy for quite some time.

Unfortunately for all concerned, 15-month old babies who can't talk yet do not react well to diplomacy. So, I took him upstairs, laid him on the double bed in my room, and waited for him to get tired of thrashing around. 20 minutes later, he was worn out enough to let me walk him around.

15-month old babies are also remarkably heavy. Heavy enough to wear one out after a further 20 minutes of walking around, playing peek-a-boo with the curtain, and sitting down for five seconds at a time until the kid decides he's bored again. But at least he was no longer crying constantly. I could have sworn he was about to drop off to sleep on six separate occaisions. Nope, he's just playing with my mind. Our parents got back at about 10pm, and I sat down to read and watch TV for the next couple of hours. Another successful baby-sitting job accomplished. Now if only I could convince my parents that this service is valuable enough to warrant some sort of material compensation.

2003-06-06T00:42:00.000-05:00

*sigh* The single most annoying thing about Windows 98 is the fact that you have to reinstall it, from scratch, having first completely removed the windows directory, at least once a year. That's about how long it takes for the decay process to set in. After that, it is possible to see a digression from fairly decent working order to involuntary, alternating spasms of freezing and rebooting. This digression takes about one week to complete; after the earth has turned these seven times, it is no longer possible to do anything productive with that particular install of Windows 98. I'm sure there is regulatory code somewhere deep inside the bowels of the thing. Perhaps it is close to the area in which the various unused device drivers are converted to Things Which Cause Hardware Incompatibilities in the Middle of the Night.

2003-06-05T00:25:00.000-05:00

It seems I will have to join those forced to be productive this summer, after all. I'll know for certain on Monday, but I could very well be soldering all next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. I'm honestly excited. This could be the first enjoyable job I've had to date. Sure, I'll have to commute nearly an hour, but I can live with that.

I was talking to my sister about it, and I realized something. As bad as this may sound, the best things happen when I sit back and wait for them. In some sort of twisted way, I get more done when I'm lazy. This is a very interesting phenomenon; it definitely requires further investigation.

2003-06-03T22:23:00.000-05:00

And here's your local Stargate Junkie/Paranoid Schizophrenic to say goodnight to you. Be nice to him, I had an awful time getting him to come out of his cave.

"Goodnight, and don't worry about the bedbugs; they aren't really bedbugs, you know. They're the nanites being introduced to the population by the Goa'uld as part of their new genetics experiment. They did take over the planet you know - only it happened a lot more quietly than anyone expected..."

Drat, he scuttled off. Oh, well, I'll catch up with him later.

2003-06-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

I have been informed that the braggart otherwise known as the Vengeful Cynic has been making threats to my roommie. Apparently, it makes him feel better since I'm not there and thus can't be threatened to my face. Any readers still at LU are strongly encouraged to do nasty things to him for me. Otherwise, I'll have to catch up on it all when I get back. And that won't necessarily be pretty.

2003-05-31T00:46:00.000-05:00

I am happy and contented once more; my new CPU and memory finally came, and there was much rejoicing. A productive hour was spent putting everything in the New Case of Ardith, after which came the Initial Benchmarks and Playtesting. More playtesting to follow tomorrow... er, today. After all, the only way to really see how it feels is to play Descent 3.

I also started on my summer reading program today. Mostly sci-fi, with a little mystery and C.S. Lewis thrown in to round things out a bit. Also hoping to get through a book on chaos theory. Having got a total of 9 books, it should last me all of a week and a half. Hopefully I'll get my shipment of 50+ older books which I borrow from a friend at church soon. She owns upwards of 10,000; she goes to all the local used book sales and picks up boxes at a time. I don't know how many I've been through, but there are a lot left to go. They lean towards historical fiction and war stories, but it's possible to find just about any genre in her stash.