Merry Christmas!

I haven't managed to post anything big since the semester ended, and that's not going to change tonight, but let me take a moment to wish you a Merry Christmas, and a happy, blessed New Year.

If you get a minute, there's a nice article over on Townhall.com that's worth taking the time to read.

Great Quotes

Studying, I came across this quote from a professor. It speaks for itself:

Canonical interval: "The God-given interval on which the function works."

The Last Week

I'm basicaly into the last week of the semester now. If I survive the next week, I'll be OK. Actually, I guess it's not so much a question of surviving as it is getting everything done - I have a small mountain of work and not much motivation. My plan is to do what I can and be happy with that. I may not do much blogging, though.

In other news, I discovered today that the NCCS webpage has finally been changed. I hate to say it, but the new look is an improvement.

Oh, and it's snowing. RPI's classes are still on, though. Stink.

If I Could Only Talk to These Dingbats.......

Saw the following banner ad online:

Dude, I don't know about me, but I'm hoping tomorrow you'll learn how to spell!

It's Friday!

Unlike the last post with that title (when it really was Friday - I just noticed the typo in the title), this Friday is a good one. I came home Wednesday, got to see some of my former coworkers (including Crocker), did TG yesterday, and spent today mostly around the house. We did try the store this morning, but, because we didn't go at 5 AM, we came back empty-handed. So, I just enjoyed myself instead.

Also, Jared apparently never got the e-mail about this blog. I'll have to re-send it, because (hopefully) he wasn't the only one.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm at home, enjoying myself. Here's something funny I've seen in a number of places online.

It's Firday....

and I'm still alive. Tired, but alive (and relatively sane).

God is good.

Oh, by the way, if you're reading this, please let me know. Why? First, so I can know how you're doing, and, second, so I know I'm not writing to a vacuum.

Thanks.



Oh, and have fun!

Life In the Land Of Geeks

An actual (slightly edited) AIM conversation I had this evening, after I encouraged my friend to say things more succinctly. I think it's a good thing I got out of CompSci:

Me: It's not glossing over, it's summarizing
Friend: summarizing = shortcut
Me: Not really
Friend: ok
Me: summarizing = packaging
Friend: summarizing = boring in my life
Me: Like a lingual .zip file
Friend: oh dear
Friend: stop
Me: You see, with both of us running English 2005, you can shorten a phrase into a smaller representation of it, and I, running the same algorithm in reverse, can take your reduced message and re-expand it into its fuller meaning
Me: Unless, of course, the original idea was compact (e.g., a JPEG), in which case you can't compress it much further.
Friend: stop
Me: Why? It's fun

My friend, by the way, is an IT major at RPI.

Another Week, Another Post

First off, let me give a shout out to "Anonymous" for his insightful comment. If you didn't know what a comment is, you do now.

Well, the weekend's about over, and it's been a week since I last posted. I was really tired last week, and as a consequence didn't get as much done as I should have. I did get some studying done, and the usual TA stuff. The problem is, I'm behind right now, so I really should have done more. Unfortunately, no energy, no work. I'll have to do better this week though.

The weekend was a lot of fun. IV Friday night was a worship service - something I'm learning to appreciate more and more. Saturday I planned to spend the afternoon studying in the Student Union with a friend. We did study for an hour. Then a bunch of the other IV folks showed up, after having been doing some ministry down in Troy (I would have gone, but I had to study). They were going to debrief, so they sat by us, and shared their pizza. That took an hour. After that, we studied a little more to finish up. I would have done some more work after that, but a friend of mine was having a rough day, and yours truly was handy to provide a listening ear. That effectively finished off the afternoon.

Saturday evening was, as usual, Outreach Team. Oh come on - did you honestly think a Nyack grad wouldn't end up on that? We have what's actually a pretty good system - we meet for an hour and a half or so for Bible Study, then we run different fun events for people as a form of relationship-building. Last night it was geocaching. We ended up in the woods by a cemetery at 9:00 at night when all was said and done. Luckily, it was a nice moonlit night, so we didn't have any trouble. The guys took great joy in trying to creep out the ladies in the group, and, I might add, were rather successful at it. I stayed out as much as possible, though, because I'm just too nice a guy for that! Once we were done romping through the woods, we went and ate (what else would college students do?). Then a few of us ended up watching a movie. All of which was fun, but got very little schoolwork done.

Then today, I went to church, as usual. I forgot my Sunday School book, since it's the first week since I got it. Of course, quite honestly, it's a miracle some mornings I even remember a tie, but that's beside the point. Church itself went pretty well - the pastor's been going through the beattitudes, and we're up to persecution. Fun stuff. Afterward, I got invited to dinner, so I got real food for once! That was very exciting. Then I came back to RPI, called home, called another TA I work with (who apparently thinks I'm clueless - if she only knew!), and took a nap, because I needed it. After the nap, I went and ate supper with a friend of mine who's a freshman. Eating with freshmen is really a lot of fun, because you never know where the conversation's going to go. Tonight it was Freudian psychology, which was causing him quite a bit of doubt about his Christian view of the self. A couple of us more or less helped him through it, somewhat, although it's been a while since I've looked at that stuff.

I will say, though, that I'm very glad we don't live in a materialistic universe. If this was all there was, I think I would have given up a month ago. God's the one who's pulling me through RPI right now, and He's going to have to keep doing it, because it's probably going to be even crazier from now until the end of the semester.

Well, tonight I'm grading Engineering Statistics projects. Tomorrow, my big plan is to go to Price Chopper (I was going to go this weekend, but never made it). I've got a test Friday morning, and then Friday night IV and the Korean Christian Fellowships (KCF) of RPI and SUNY Albany are all meeting together. Saturday, a group of us are probably going to help paint the inside of a church (the church I go to, so I really can't opt out), and then I've been invited to a Thanksgiving party that evening. And then, of course, Thanksgiving break is only a couple days after that.

I'll let you know how it all goes. Have fun until then!

Oh, and Mr. Anonymous, feel free to post again. You can even use your name if you really want to. The rest of you can comment too. In fact, I'd really appreciate it if you would, so I know you're out there.

Anybody There?

Hi folks. I hope your weekends went well. I'm a little curious if anybody's reading this, and what you think. If you're here, leave a comment, please?

Have fun!

Dumb Undergraduates

I'm a little miffed tonight. This was laundry night. The building I'm in has a side-closet/room with couple washers and dryers and an electric stove in it. There's a bigger laundry room as well, but this is significantly closer.

The stove in the room makes a nice place to set the laundry baskets down while you're juggling them. The only thing is, it's an electric stove. Which means that you can't tell if a burner is on very easily. Unless, of course, you set a plastic laundry basket on top of it. Then the smell of burning/melting plastic lets you know it's on real quick.

Yep, one laundry basket bites the dust. But, on the plus side, I pulled it off before the fire alarm went off. So it could have been worse.

Disturbing, Yet Amusing

I haven't had much time to do things with the College Republicans here on campus, as things have been a little busy, but I'm on their mailing list. I got an e-mail yesterday that included the below link. I'm not sure if I should laugh or scream:

A Video

TSP Version 2.1

Hi folks. Welcome to TSP v. 2.1. Apparently, if I knew Sambascript, I could potentially make comments work on RPI's server. However, I don't know it, and I didn't really have time to learn. But, today I discovered that AOL offers free blog space, so I figured it was worth a shot. But I didn't really like it. So, I figured I'd try Google's service. We'll see which one works out better.

Either way, of course, I'll now possibly have to write things, too. Shoot.