Awwww Crap

When I signed up for a new bank account the other day, they told me that they’d also order my first set of checks for something like 5 bucks. They neglected to tell me that the default is the ‘variety pack’. So now, most of my checks have wild horses or tropical birds in the background.

Gee, were they all out of rainbows and unicorns?

DSL-y goodness: so close I can taste it…

Chris: perhaps I’ll go on a downloading binge tomorrow, just to say ‘fuck you SBC, for making me wait’

Chris: or perhaps I’ll binge on alcohol instead

Ron: or both

Chris: Nope - never drink and download

Chris: that’s how you end up with those shitty Cindy Lauper and Depeche Mode albums on your computer

Ron: lol

Chris: seemed like a good idea at the time…

Ron: cindy lauper never seems like a good idea

Bored

I feel pretty down today. I think it’s primarily due to a lack of social interaction. I’ve only been down here a week, and have yet to do much outside of school. Yeah, I suppose shopping at Target and opening a bank account don’t count, so that’s zero social interaction outside of school.

Sure, there have been many phone conversations with the girl, which help a lot, and every now and then an IM conversation with a friend, but it’s not enough to fill the need.

I think a big part of it has been that orientation is over, and most of my classes haven’t started. Added to that, my mentor is out of town, so I don’t have rotations this week either. I don’t have much to do, and I’m getting a bit stir-crazy.

I miss the familiarity of Kirksville. I miss having a network of friends that were always up for frisbee, or bar-hopping, or just dinner. I miss walking into the Dukum and knowing at least three or four people. I miss my friends.

I know that this just a phase. I’ve been through it in high school, when I started going to a new district. I’ve been through it in college, where I didn’t know anyone. I know that things will work out all right, and that I’ll meet lots of fantastic people and that life will be good.

I just want to get to that point soon…

New Compy

Today I came home after school, turned on my monitor, and noticed grey lines going across the monitor. It’s kind of like horizontal ghosting, since it changes based on what’s on the screen at the time. From experience, I know that it’s indicative of a bad video card. Unfortunately, the computer has video integrated into it’s motherboard, so fixing the problem would be more hassle and more expensive than it’s worth.

So, with a few swift clicks of the mouse, I ordered something from the Dell Outlet - 2.8 GHz, 512 RAM, 80 GB HD, DVD-burner, for about 400 bucks, with free shipping. I’m now excitedly awaiting it’s arrival. It was definitely time to retire the old compy anyway. A 5-year old P3 just doesn’t run like it used to. It’ll make a nice web/backup server, though. I’ll just run it headless, and ssh or VNC in from the new box when I need to.

The next problem is what to name the new computer. Some people take this lightly, but I’ll have none of this ‘Dell13234857′ bullshit. My old computer’s name is ‘gia’. Notice that it’s short, sweet, and elegant.

So I’m currently taking suggestions. Keep in mind that it should be no more than 8 characters, and the computer is probably female.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

So, I’m living in Texas now. (There’s something I never thought I’d say…)

I’m technically in southwest Houston, but considering the 2-dimensional structure of the city, it’s pretty much downtown. (Inside the 610 loop and just west of the Astrodome, for those in the know). I have a nice little one-bedroom place that’s nothing fancy, but more than big enough for me. This is especially true when you consider that I’ll be spending most of my time on campus once classes start.

It’s been interesting so far. Moving still sucks, as does the 14-hour drive from St. Louis. So does sleeping on the floor. I just brought down all of the essentials - clothes, cookware, and my computer and xbox - and my Dad is pulling a U-haul down next weekend with all of my crap. I feel bad that he’s doing it alone, but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a moving truck, and I suppose he has the time, being off of school all summer and all.

Getting set up down here has gone pretty well, with the exception of getting my phone service/internet. First my phone line took three extra days to get setup/repaired, so I had no phone. Then I find out that it takes an additional week or so to get my DSL hooked up. You can’t even order DSL until you have a phone line, which seems stupid. Why not place both orders at once and send one technician for the whole she-bang? So much for efficiency…

Eh - whatever. I’m on free trial AOL dial up until I can get DSL installed next week. Ridiculously slow, but much better than the 10 minute drive to the library, where they impose a 30-minute limit on your internet activity. Couple that with their speed issues, and I was lucky to get to any of my email earlier this week. (loading… loading…)

Other than my phone SNAFU, things are good down here. The Texas Medical Center (wherein I go to school) is just a short bus/metro ride away, and my apartment is located close to just about everything I need. City life and public transportation rock! I love being able to read a book or paper during my morning commute.

School starts tomorrow, and it’ll be interesting to see what kinds of people my program attracted. If they’re anything like the people that I interviewed with, they’re extremely intelligent and a bit socially awkward. I’m not too worried, though. I’ve never had trouble finding a few drinking buddies before.

Hell, maybe I should just throw a party right now. Cleanup would be a snap. I mean, what are they going to do - puke on my non-existant couch? Pass out on my non-existant bed?

Hrmmm… This idea’s got merit.

Blogging

I’ve got a whole list of half-finished posts to get up, and I promise, I’ll do so soon. The problem, I think, is twofold. First of all, I’m a perfectionist. I won’t post something until I’ve rewritten it and polished it, at least to some minimum standard (which is probably too high, in all honesty).

The second problem is that I haven’t had much time. I’ve been working a lot lately. Thankfully, I’m done working for two weeks now, and I’ll be taking that time to catch up on a lot of things. Blogging is one of them, as is packing up my life for my move to Houston.

T-minus 9 days…

Simplifying My Life

I admit it. I’m a packrat.

I don’t know where I got my Depression-era mentality, but if it looks like it might every be used for anything, I have a hard time throwing it away. A sampling:

• Pencil with chewed up eraser? Well… It still writes fine.
• Five hundred AOL cds? I might become crafty and build something.
• Giant Afro Wig? I shouldn’t even have to explain why I’m keeping this one.

The key, I’ve determined, is to be ruthless. Wait until you’re pissed off at the world, and then attack your pile of crap.

“Sentimental my ass! You’re getting pitched! Why the hell do I keep this shit around - trash it all! Aaaaaauuuurghhh!”

With this kind of mentality, I’ve sorted through my belongings and come up with four or five boxes of stuff to donate to goodwill. And If I can do it, you too can make a significant dent in the amount of rubbish in your life.

Just don’t blame me next week when you urgently need that dashboard hula dancer.

Yes, I’m Proud

Mandy B: you’re more insensitive than i could hope for
Me: I’ll take that as a compliment

Quick Update

I’m back from Florida, Kirksville, and Lake of the Ozarks. My life is still in cardboard boxes in my parent’s garage. I’m working lots and getting shit together for apartment-hunting in Houston. Sleep is overrated. No time to talk - another hectic day tomorrow.

Update

It’s been almost a month since I went on hiatus, and I feel like an update is in order.

First of all, the big news: I graduated last week! Now that I have my degrees in Biology and Computer Science from Truman State University, I’ll be entering a PhD program at the end of July (see earlier posts).

Graduation was a bittersweet time for me. As I was out at the bars on the Friday night prior, it occurred to me several times that the conversation I was having was almost certainly the last time I would ever speak to that person again. Sure, I’ll keep in touch with close friends, but I’m really going to miss those casual acquaintances - the ones at the edge of my social circle, who seemed like fascinating individuals. I don’t know how many times I bumped into these people at the bars and exchanged pleasantries, without ever really getting to know them as well as I’d have liked to. Sigh - c’est la vie, I suppose…

Prior to moving to Houston, I’ve got some traveling planned. Here’s a rough itinerary:

• May 19th: Daytona Beach, FL for a week of relaxation with friends and bros.
• May 27th: Back to Kirksville for Dick’s wedding with Heather
• May 29th: Lake of the Ozarks for my family’s Memorial Day fish fry
• June 3rd: Kansas City with Mike for Christian and Miranda’s wedding
• June 7th: Houston with my mom and Heather to search for apartments (and to have some fun, if we find one quickly enough)

After that whirlwind tour, I’ll be back at home in St. Louis for another month and a half, working at CompUSA and trying to sort through my life, which is currently packed up in cardboard boxes in my parent’s garage.

Since I’ll be away so much in the next few weeks, I’m going to keep the blog on hiatus for now, and return in mid-June with a lot of pictures, and more of my usual rants on OSS, media, culture, technology, politics, and anything else that tickles my fancy.

I hope all is well in your life, and as I said before, feel free to drop me an email if you’d like to chat - chris at (this domain name) dot com

News Briefs

• I’ve been accepted into the computational biology program at Baylor College of Medicine, and will be moving to Downtown Houston next fall.
• The actual name of the program is “Structural and Computational
  Biology and Molecular Biophysics”, but that’s way too long, so in casual conversation, I’ll continue to call it ‘computational biology’. (Most people look rather confused even at that).
• My spring break trip was great, and I promise pictures and details, as soon as I finish writing the second half of this XML parser in Lisp. (yes, that’s about as fun as it sounds…)
• My wearing of an Omaha Royals hat should not be misconstrued as support for the Kansas City Royals. I won’t say that I hate the KC Royals. It’s really more of a pity thing. No city should have to root for a team that sucks that much.
• School is… well… crappy right now. I don’t enjoy any of my classes, as they’re the ones that I put off until the end for a reason. Thankfully, nice weather has hit K-ville, and it’s brightened my mood considerably. It’s amazing what a little soccer or frisbee with friends will do for your disposition.

Back in the ‘Ville

I’m back from a spring break road trip today. Over the course of almost 3000 miles, we stopped in Clemson GA, Savannah GA, Raleigh NC, Washington DC, and Springfield IL. More details to come after I take a shower and get ready to be back to school tomorrow.

Why is it that I always feel like I need a break to recover from break?

Sigh

Yesterday, I spent all day goofing off, justifying it by telling myself that I’d work hard all day today. Yesterday, it was also 40 degrees outside, so I spent it cooped up in my room, reading.

Today, it is 66 degrees outside, sunnny and beautiful, and I have to stay inside and write an assload of Lisp code. And all I want to do is play outside… Foiled again.

Lisp is perhaps the most unreadable programming language I’ve encountered yet. Yes, Perl has lots of strange variables, but at least the code flows in a logical order. Lisp is written half-ass backwards, from a programmer’s perspective. Furthermore, it should be flagged for gratuitous use of parentheses. Seriously, Lisp designers - 90% of those are unnecessary and just serve to make the code damn near unreadable.

Programming /n./
A pastime similar to banging one’s head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.

“Programmers are tools for converting caffeine into code.”

“The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.”
� Edsgar W. Dijkstra (1930-2002).

“To define recursion, we must first define recursion.”

“Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.”

End of school year haikus:

All work and no play
makes Chris a tired and dull boy
School can suck my ass.

Clothes cover my floor
Dishes overflow the sink
No time for cleaning

No sleep, just work for
more than thirty hours straight.
Projects are no fun

Gross Negligence

Yeah, I’m not surprised that I have no readers anymore. It’s just that life takes precedence over this blog.

So yeah, today is election day. I’ve been up since 8am, when I bummed a ride with Heather to my polling place at the local YMCA. After reading all about the voter intimidation tactics and long lines, I was bracing myself for the worst, but all I found were some amiable old women running the show and a pretty good turnout, for it being that early in the morning.

I’m finding it hard to concentrate on schoolwork today. I should be finishing up my take-home test, finishing up those grad school esssays, and researching my next round of applications. Instead, I find myself aimlessly cruising from one website to another, looking for any glimmers of information about the election. You’ve got exit polls? I’ll take ‘em! Your sample size is five people?… Give ‘em to me anyway!

I know that exit polls mean shit, as do the totals at http://www.electoral-vote.com and pundit speculation. It’s just that I’m so acutely aware of how much is riding on this election. I can’t comprehend what another four years of Bush and Co. will do to this nation, to our standing in the world, to our environment, to our civil liberties…

So I won’t think about it, I won’t give in to the urge to scream or yell or cry. I’ll sit here in the library, doing Microbial Ecology homework, reading every sentence twice because I can’t concentrate, and I will NOT worry any more.

I know the CW is that undecideds break challenger. I know that high turnout typically favors democrats. I know that polls typically underrepresent the young and low-income. I know that GOTV efforts have been huge this year. I know this can happen.

And if it doesn’t, you’ll find me at the bar, drinking myself into a stupor of disbelief.

Long Time…

If I can just make it through this semester, I’ll weep with joy everything will be fine. The hardest semester I’ve ever taken, grad school apps, work, a research trip/project, continuing my summer research… It can all be a little overwhelming at times.

But sleep is overrated, right?? Sigh…

Pics from New Mexico are coming soon when I get time.

Sevilleta - Update I

I’m writing right now from a field station in Sevilla National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles south of Albequerque. It’s an area the size of Rhode Island that has largely been restored to pristine condition. It’s run by the NSF and is the site of a host of long term ecological projects, including everything from ecology to hydrology.

So what am I doing down here? I’m down here with one of my professors and several other students doing some field work. The specific project that I’m working on is looking for
Histoplasma capsulatum in kangaroo rat dens and in guano samples taken from a nearby cave.

After a tiring 18 hour drive to get here, we went straight out and set traps on Friday morning, then got settled in and crashed to sleep off the long drive. This morning, we got up before dawn so that we could get to the traps before the rats died of hypothermia. We had one hell of a catch too - we trapped 10 of the little critters, and identified seven active dens. That was really phenomenal success that exceeded all of our expectations. Over the next few days, we’ll be digging into a few burrows to take samples.

Besides our primary research, we’re doing a lot of exploring the area and learning a heck of a lot about desert ecology. Oh, and did I mention the three rattlesnakes I’ve already seen? (One of which I was probably about a foot away from stepping on? - Man, if you need a adrenaline rush…)

Dr. Jose Herrera is leading our little expedition, and he’s been coming down here for years and years, and so he really knows the area and the wildlife well. Dr. Scott Ellis, the division head, is a mammologist, and so he’s been helping us some of the animals we’ve encountered, though he’s probably learnign as much as we are from Herrera.

This is a shared computer at the field station, so I’m going to go ahead and post this now, so that other people can have a turn. I’ll try to find time tomorrow to jump back on, edit this post, and write some more about the first days down here. Until then, hope all is well, and I’ll let you know when I get the pictures up - it’s gorgeous out here where the mountains meet the desert.

Kerry Rally in STL

I was in town briefly on Friday night - I found out last minute that there was a debate-watch and Kerry rally downtown at the Convention Center downtown, so me and a few friends decided to drive in and check it out. It was kind of cool. I wasn’t blown away by Kerry’s speech - it was the usual campaign stump speech, complete with references to the local sports team’s playoff win (Go Cards!). I wasn’t expecting much more, though, and I was really impressed by the crowd - about 12,000 people out on a Friday night.

All in all, I’m glad I did it. I got a fun road trip with some bros, and got to see the next president of the United States speak. I’m not counting on Kerry winning Missouri, but who knows? With his debate performances, and the inevitable poll jumps, it just might happen!

I’ll post more of impressions of the rally later, along with some pictures. Right now, keeping my head above water in school is my top priority.

Oh, and if you ever decide to take Calc II - call me, and I’ll talk you out of it. Believe me - it’s for your own good.

Overload

Perhaps they’re telling me something: (you think too much.). Perhaps I should listen…

Current mood: Deep-Fried Neurons (with a side of stress)

{Update: October 6th - 3:11pm}
I slept for 14 hours last night, missing two classes in the process. I feel considerably better today, and I’ll make up the work when I can’t sleep tonight. Life is once again good (or tolerable, at least).

Get Out The Vote!

I forgot to post this earlier. Here’s a flyer I made and distributed on campus, encouraging students to vote. The tagline is Democracy is not a Spectator Sport. Scott also made a sweet one explaining where to find Absentee Ballot information. We had to rehang that one several times, because the tear off web adresses were all gone.

More guerilla GOTV and political posters are on the way soon. Check back for more details.

Oh, and by the way… Are you registered?