Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A Pretty Good Night in Echo Park

1.) Leave work early because I can.

2.) Drive around Hollywood to run errands. Passport photos/Send brother birthday skateboard. Check.

2.) Get home, skate down to Sunset and skate around for a while.

3.) Find one of those banned bacon-wrapped hot dog dealers (score!). Buy a beer and rejoice.

4.) Get ready for work travel tomorrow, side project time. Good night.




Speakin' of the G's I be holdin', picture me rollin'

Sunday, October 5, 2008

I Am A Programming Nerd

Pascal's Triangle parity only random colored.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Theory of Computation: The Halting Problem

Certain things cannot be known about any algorithm or effective procedure. For example, let's say we wrote an algorithm together.

First we give that algorithm some input, maybe a finite number of integers:

x1, x2, x3, ..., xn

Now our algorithm is going to do something with these integers in a finite number of steps and give us a result. Maybe it will sort them by largest to smallest and print them out in that order: the key here is that the algorithm does things with the inputs in a specified order and with specified instructions on how to handle certain instructions. For example the algorithm probably needs to compare two integers and see which one of them is larger, that is evaluate the expression:

a > b

and then do something with it. A common notation for that is:

if ( a > b )

{

do stuff;

...

}



where "do stuff" stands for a set of instructions. The algorithm is also allowed to do things on a repetitive basis using logic such as

while ( a > b )

{

do stuff;

...

}



So we have conditional branches (if statements) and conditional loops (while statements). There are a few more possibilities but at this point we have enough expressiveness in our language to warrant the following conjecture:

Given any algorithm A(x1, x2, x3, ..., xn) with finitely many finite inputs there is no generic algorithm that can be written to determine whether or not A will ever halt.

That is we can never determine if our algorithm will finish the job we gave it, and so we call such a problem undecidable. It turns out that a lot of interesting problems are provably undecidable, which has stunned computer scientists and mathematicians for almost a century now. There was a time when mathematicians -- first and foremost among them David Hilbert -- thought that the idea of an undecidable problem was fictitious. Gödel then proved that any computational language that can do simple arithmetic (i.e. add and multiply natural numbers) has undecidable propositions, so while they may have a definite value there is absolutely no way to show it in a finite number of steps. That result is now called Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and it has forever changed human ideas in mathematics. A more specific version of his theorem goes like this (from Wikipedia):

Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both *consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.

*Consistency means that no statement in the language can be both true and not true.


While Gödel's incompleteness theorem sounds scary, it is by no means the end of computability theory. In fact it was only the start; the techniques and ideas invented to prove the incompleteness theorem led to a cascade of ideas that is now modern computability theory. The Church-Turing thesis and the lambda calculus are a good next stop.

Beer is Nighttime Water

Am I right?

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Baby's First Earthquake

I didn't have to wait long for an earthquake, just three months. It was actually pretty cool. They originally said it was a 5.8 but now it seems the average is a 5.4. I'm near the top floor of my building so there was quite a bit of swaying and my desk chair rolled me around a bit. I have to admit that in the first few seconds I was a little frightened that it was just the beginning of a more massive quake, but no one else seemed too afraid so I just enjoyed it. A nice beginner earthquake.

If you don't got the data that chatta don't matta: Earthquake Data

Monday, July 14, 2008

Obscurity is the best camouflage, nuclear power has had its hour.

I get a lot of spam. I'm sure you do too.

Every once in a while I wonder where all that text at the bottom of spam mails is found. It seems obvious that it is pulled across the internet from random places or from phrase files stored on the spammer's machine. I was surprised when I ran a search and found that someone's semantics and language study website is actually being raped in the name of bypassing spam filters with valid phrases. The website I found is simply a long list of various neologisms delimited with '/' characters. I assume the neologisms were generated with some algorithm which searches a dictionary for nouns and verbs fitting some clever semantic rules. It's funny to see that the automated generation of meaningful phrases has been in turn used to trick a filter designed to exclude non-meaning, and this has probably been the most major use of that project to date.

Here are those neologisms.


P.S. Never kiss a gift whore in the mouth.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ballin' Outta Control

So, I play this text game online sometimes. The game is fun, I've played it for a long time and I still enjoy it here and there, but every once in a while I'm reminded that it takes a special sort of person to devote their life to building a text based RPG for a small niche community. The creator of the game -- his in-game name is 'Vryce' -- keeps a journal which is accessible only from inside the game. I sometimes log in just to read the journal and I realized that there are probably very few people on the game who know about the feature and even less who use it, so the thoughts of this man's life struggle to build a text game "that will hold your attention FOR ALL TIME, forever, until you die" would go largely unheard unless someone tried to bring them into the light. I just want someone to see the gems I've seen:

-- April 2nd ----------------------------------------------------------

And now for something different! I have many perspectives of my own life,
just as you have for your life.

Here is one perspective of me and Medievia V.

For years and years I have been digging, digging and digging my way
through a mountain of code, ideas, and possibilities that would become
Medievia V, my life's work, my grand dream, your favorite games next
version.

Grand Theft Auto IV comes out this month. They will list hundreds of
developers, many dozens of coders, all working 3-4 years to make a game
that if done well will hold your attention for 30 hours. Those 30 hours
will cost each of you 60 bucks, 2 bucks per hour for 30 hours, an
experience created by hundreds of developers that took them nearly 4
years.

We mostly just get me for the big changes, and then some truly awesome
players who become coder gods and help with the other stuff, as well as


help me figure out my own bugs which is just as important, but mostly it
is me.

We need to make a game that will hold your attention FOR ALL TIME,
forever, until you die, and I have to code most of it myself.

With Grand Theft Auto players expect to play 30 hours before getting
bored, here players expect to play 30 hours EVERY WEEK and not have to pay
ANYTHING.

DIG MAN DIG! I know it can be done, oddly enough there has never been a
question in my mind about this.

Jump back a decade, I was just done digging through the 'Making Medievia
IV mountain', a whole other mountain of the past and then spent a few
years tweaking it, we got to 700 online most nights, over doubling our
goal. I never stopped digging.

The mountain has changed around me and I kept digging. Medievia IV opened
in 1996. I started working on this version around the year 2000 after
already running and developing Medievia for 9 years.




Then after 911 I quit my 'real' job where I was senior VP and making
$165,000 a year to work on my little hobby that paid me $48,000 a year
when players donate enough.

I started digging faster.

I am a simple person and do not hold great value in money making anyone
happy. I do not run Medievia to make money, but money is now a big factor.

DIG DIG DIG

My health sucked, kidney stones, many a year, operations, pain, DIG MIKE
DIG, DIG dig dig.

Soleil [his wife] gets pregnant. Talk about a distraction and a family thing that can suck up time! I can only say this because I know how strong she is about it, we lose that one early with a normal kind of early miscarriage.

DIG NOW MAN DIG NOW!
DIG DIG DIG!
DIG NOW WHILE THE DIGGING IS GOOD!



Soleil gets pregnant. We have a baby boy Ben. Soleil will tell you that
nothing is more important to me than family and I could not wait to have a
baby with her. I do not mean to say I do not want more kids at all, just
that I knew that now...

Now I am digging only when I have time.

I am watching him every day as we really cannot afford anything else. I
find coding anything very deep much harder as my every thought is on the
family and will the boy choke-drown-or die in the very next moment.
Parents know what I am talking about for that first year with an infant.

The boy gets older, Medievia hardly changes for a year...

DIG MAN DIG AT NIGHT! Sleep is over-rated anyway. I sleep less and less.
My health takes a turn and it seems I am always sick. That was years ago
now. I learned that over-all it is best to get more sleep, like 5-7 hours
a night, and never less, and easier to just not sleep one day a week and
make up time that way. It seems healthier then sometimes just doing 3-5
hours of sleep.

DIG DIG! My eldest son turns 16 and now my daughter is 12 and starting to
grow boobs and want boyfriends. Father time keeps marching and as a parent
I have no control over it.

DIG DIG, everything will some how work out and everyone will grow up
happy.

They say no one worries more or works harder than a male between the ages
of 40-45, everyone needs your money and time and you start worrying about
your own future and retirement that is now just 30 years away. Everyone
needs you and no one does anything for you, you can depend on almost no
one except your spouse, you must become the selfless sacrificer. They say the
years for a male between 40-45 are hard.

They are right. It seems my shoulders could never be strong or wide enough
for everyone that depends on me.

DIG DIG DIG

Money dries up after World of Warcraft comes out.

Players compare Medievia to a game that took over 400 developers over 4
years to create, test, and bring to market. They do this because the game
is pretty good as it is so simple and easy to learn, yet somehow gives you
a solid 1-6 months of fun before you finally get bored with it. Any ape
could play this game and be competitive. It is one of the first games like
this to even shoot for more than 30 hours of fun [Uhhh, Everquest, Ultima Online anyone?] , they charge a monthly subscription if you wish to play.

DIG MAN DIG!

More kidney stones, more than ever, often one on each side, and now I get
a stone in my salivary gland, more operations, more pain, yet during this
time as I DIG AND DIG I figure out some coding AI stuff that would make
Peter Molyneux the gaming code guru piss himself. You have not seen much
of this yet in the game btw, it is coming soon. Well now the whole
MEDIEVIA V PLAN has to change!

!^^!!&!$!!**&%^$!!!!^%^$!!!!!!!!!!!! DAMN THE WORLD!!!! Do I have time
to change the plan? Does my family? Can I afford it?

In some ways I become a madman and as that dude from Mythbusters says, 'I
reject your reality and substitute my own'. I cannot ignore what these new
AI and data concepts could mean for this version.

AGAIN, and again I change the plan. Over the next few months the plan
changes drastically and becomes something truly huge and new. No other
game will give players this kind of open sand box of a fantasy world to
play in with their friends.

DIG DIG

I amuse myself by thinking, to the creators of WoW your gameworld is a 3-4
year slash and burn procedure, to take as much of your money as they can
and leave you with memories, and a desire to reinvest all over again with
a sequel that will come and surely be less fun and less magical of an
experience.

DIG DIG, ignore money, ignore WoW, ignore reality, every lesson learned in
my Fortune for small business magazine talks about early risk and a damn
the world mentality of the little guy with big new unique plans.

The plan grows. In the year 2007 it grew a lot as I coded some amazing new
path finding stuff that I surely should share with the world when I get
time, then some new AI concepts that meant almost anything was possible.

DIG DIG

Everytime I recoded this stuf it got faster and took less memory. I am
beginning to think the game can become anything I want, so now the
question is, what is the best game ever made, what would it do if you damn
near ignored CPU needs and memory requirements?

DIG DIG

The plan TAKES OFF. I am no longer so much worried about CPU and memory,
these new concepts are amazingly frugal and tight and tested and stress
tested over and over, they need almost no CPU, no memory, and can load and
save very fast.

How can Medievia V be more like being in a living breathing world, as if
you jumped into your favorite fantasy novel?

DIG DIG

I will have many mobs that develop personal relationships with every
player: workers, dragons, and pets. The workers will run everything, from
small clan businesses to becoming king of a kingdom.

DIG DIG



Players will DEFINE the world geographically with moving towns, abodes,
businesses, islands, and the such. There will be big wars and grand
adventures that will make killing Zekzakmek a boring old thing we did just
to pass the time. The new kingdoms will make the old kingdoms look like
pong compared to Halo.

DIG DIG DIG
DIG DIG DIG

The game will become a real world, the first of its kind that is so like a
living breathing SciFiFantasty book that it makes headlines. The Medievia
V gameworld will hold grand adventures and keep players attentions forever
as they explore the deep features on land and ocean.

DIG DIG DIG
DIG DIG DIG
DIG DIG DIG

What Medievia V can be is now WAY BEYOND anything I ever dreamed before.

Now I just need to go back redo it all for this new plan with the new AI,
scrap the new AI event module that I coded 3 times aleady with 3 different
plans, the new AI plan is so cool it does not even need an event module! I
needed to re-code all existing mobfactions and AI finite state machines,
redesign the AI goal module. DIG MAN DIG!!!!

DIG DIG DIG, Eagles lose again. Philadelphia has now gone 25 years without
a championship, AND YET, I DIG and DIG and ignore reality, Eagles will win
next year, yes I am a big sports fan. You want reality TV? That sucks,
sports is real, check it out.

DIG DIG DIG

My youngest is now 4, my oldest boy is 18 and going to college next year,
my daughter will soon be 15. Family takes a lot of time and I am
determined to be the best dad I can be, Medievia TO BE DAMNED.

Damned it has been as Medievia V is still not ready.

DIG AT NIGHT has been the plan.

For the last year and a half I have woken up around 5pm when my wife comes
home, worked until 6:30-7pm, spent a few hours with family, then worked
and or coded new stuff until 10-11am. I tried to get 6-7 hours sleep a
night, any less and my coding and concepts suffered. I take 1-2 days off
sleeping every week, and try to work that in with doctor appointments
which always have to happen when the damn sun is up. These days Soleil
needs me to watch the boy as she is now always on business trips as she
gets training and trains others, etc. I cannot complain, she makes more
money than I do now.

DIG DIG DIG! There is no going back, no changing the plan again. I said
that 3 months ago in a previous journal.

There is just ONE more thing I am not positive how to implement, which has
to do with the economy and new tradegoods created by the 13 clan
businesses.

The rest is ready to come on board. The DIGGING is nearly over.

DIG DIG

Everything will change for you in the game, every feature in some way will
be affected by what is about to happen. That may sound scary but I am here
to promise you and to assure you that most people will absolutely love
most of the changes coming, except for one thing.



One thing everyone will complain about.

The economy.

I am sorry but I must say, HOLD YOUR BREATH, the only thing I predict is
pure economical madness.

The new ship trading and new wagon trading mixed with the clan businesses
alone will change everything we thought we knew about Medievia gold.

DIG MIKE DIG, figure it out! There must be a way!

Weeks have passed. I have not figured it out.

DIG DIG! I finish some more modules.

DIG DIG

Fayla comes back and saves the day for class changes! (mage warrior cleric
thief) This was a project I did not have time to code and the last coder
quit when it was 1/2 done. It is one of the biggest things I ever had
another coder attempt and it did not work well so... CHEEEEEEER! I allow
the gods to totally redo classes just once a version so it is a big deal!
They plan and work on 46 changes to classes, Fayla is amazing and really
pumps my spirits up. These class changes that comes with many eq changes
are now in final testing BTW.

DIG DIG

I suffer a chronic torn rotator cuff. I goes days without any real sleep,
in terrible pain, get massively long needles and stuff, go to physical
therapy, man nothing takes me off my strange coding night time schedule
like doctor appointments do. They slow everything down. I slowly get
better....

DIG MAN DIG! More modules are made ready.

Do I allow the tradegoods created by clan businesses to be sold into the
regular system at trade posts or do I say that they are 'bulk' goods and
can only be bought and sold at docks, for ship trading. Of course I have
damn near refused to take this easy way out, but it is complicated!

Right now the 'capital' when you trade goods via wagon is very low, what
you spend for the stuff is low and would have to go way up. Right now the
trading equation is mostly all about how much that post has and how far
you had to go, that 'how far you had to go' becomes almost meaningless now
as you may have got it right next door. Tricky stuff. The current trading
equation will have to be scrapped. The few lines of code that control so
much of our economy will have to be scrapped.

Days pass, DIG DIG, finish all kinds of modules, dig dig.

!!!!PRESENT TIME!!!!

DIG DIG and I swear this morning I felt like I was at the end. I was
removing that last big boulder, and then the next and I will be THROUGH to
the other side of this mountain that has been before me for 8 some years.

I had to stop and write this journal as I know it has been a long time.

This morning came and I gave up. I decide I will simply try the hard way
and allow the economy to get blown apart as we try to figure out what is
best. That was the break thru, me giving up on knowing for sure how it
will work out and just doing it.

We will try to have ship trading and wagon trading and clan businesses all
work off the same tradegoods, to be damned with how hard that will be to
figure out economically speaking.

That was the last boulder and I am through. The future economy will just
have to suffer as we figure it out 'on the fly' and after the features
have been implemented, as best we can.

Now everything comes to a crossroads.

The plan is here and done and simply needs to be implemented.

My family needs me more than ever.

Medievia needs me more than ever.

This is the story of my life right now and the story of your favorite
game.

I hope to code and dig all day, dig all night, and dig all morning and go
to bed 10am tomorrow, back to my normal schedule for a while. This journal
took an hour to write, though I did do a few more emails, is it a waste of
time? I do not know, like Soleil says, if it gets one person to donate it
is probably worth it. I suppose she is right in that I must let people
know what is going on.

I really do plan on doing a journal almost every day when the new features
bring daily changes and I can simply and briefly talk about the changes of
the day. Until then and until I finish these last few worker AI modules
there will be no more journals,

JUST DIGGING




Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Rompiendo la Monotonía del Tiempo























You'll be a magnet for love.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Grey Matters

Ars Technica posted a response to the article I linked yesterday, it's a detailed response outlining the same points I brought up. Definitely a good response. Go Internet, everything is so democratic and cool.

In personal news: I got paid. Skrillabot charged.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I Don't Know If He's Autistic...

or he's just an asshole, but this guy Theo Moon in the IT department has the worst social skills I have ever seen. When he came over to my office to set up my fancy-ass phone the other day he maybe said three grunted words while reaching over me to plug stuff in. When I said "Thanks" in the most polite tone I could manage, he walked way without even looking back.

I would take it personally but when he brought another fellow in the office a hard drive today they asked the simple question "Oh, is this mine?" to which he replied "It's a hard drive." as he walked away.

P.S. He wears 'Morpheus' glasses that just rest on the bridge of his nose and has a dirty (as in doesn't wash) blonde pony tail.

Data Mining FTW

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is a pretty smart guy -- this article is pretty inspiring and nicely stated.

While I don't feel that model-based analysis is completely outdated, I do agree that having mind-bogglingly huge amounts of data available allows for statistical techniques to be used to give awesome and predictive results. The comment about the status of physics as a 'discipline starved of data' carries some truth, but it applies more to the string-theory family of models whose hypotheses reside at the Planck scale. There is plenty of space for models testable by current accelerators or those coming in the next few decades and hopefully they will receive more interest as comments like these demonstrate the public's view of current physical research. A really interesting development is the combination of statistical analysis and models as a unified tool rather than competing ideas.

In all though, the mathematical treatment of data is bread and butter now; it is the quickest way to draw (frighteningly) accurate conclusions about groups of people and all sorts of objects and can be used in so many different fields, not just large-scale systems like finance and sociological trends. Any businessperson so inclined could gather data and generate reports about his own business and market and reduce both his need for personnel and overall risk. Correlation isn't causation, but in many practical matters it serves just as well.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Nuclear Power

The prospect of someone willing to build nuclear power plants again makes me almost willing to eschew all other points of discussion.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Not Guilty

Today was the last day of my first week at work. Today is also Friday the 13th and also the anniversary of Michael Jackson being acquitted on all counts back in 2005. I also found out today that I live in the neighborhood where Thriller was filmed, of course it's hard to tell which area since everything is sort of gentrified now. Work is pretty A-OK, everyone is really nice and it seems like a good place to get that 2-3 years experience I keep being told I need.

Workin' for the weekend.

Monday, June 9, 2008

reLAxed

I started work today but I've enjoyed some major free time heretofore. There has been a lot of hanging out and skating and general fun things. A few pictures of interest:

Julian is kind of rad:



Chilling, waiting on some guy named Blaise -- ironically pronounced 'Blaze' -- to give us the hookup on a sweet spot (sweet spot not pictured):


On my bike ride to work:


Raddest BBQ in East LA:



Not quite 106, but a nice place:

Friday, May 30, 2008

Mega Ramp

Laura's Mom heard that Bob Burnquist's mega ramp was right by their house in Vista, so we trekked over there to see it. It's pretty mega:






And this was just bonus scenery:

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Shark On Whiskey Is Mighty Risky

But a shark on beer is a beer engineer.

Got a job in Long Beach and a nice place to stay in Echo Park for the summer.

New Indiana Jones is basically about L. Ron Hubbard and Xenu. Totally other level shit. George Lucas has lost his fool ass mind.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Settled

In.






That is all.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Let's Go!

LA SIGGRAPH presents "Maker Night"

When:
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
5:30 pm - Makers Load In and Set up
6:30-7:30pm - Social Hour Science Fair
7:30-10:30pm - Presentation

Where:
The Writers Boot Camp at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., Bldg I (the letter I, not the numeral 1)
Santa Monica, CA, 90404

Friday, May 16, 2008

Phone Phreaking W/ P

Im a blogger, i blag. I dabble in it, i blaggle in it. Im a blaggler.

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Wordy Birdy

What is up mobile blogging metaverse?!

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Actuallllllllyyyy...

Pretty excited. Hit the ground running next Monday.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Having had dreams like this before

Always afraid to go down the ramp and then off of it, but still making the attempt though expecting failure on the first try.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

I've Decided To Wear My Thorn Of Crowns

Inside out, upside down, back to front, all the way 'round.

My brother came into town this weekend and that was incredibly rad. I don't ever get to see him and this is actually the first time we've ever been able to hang out in outside of Rockwall since I left for school (nuts!). Good timing. Everybody was charmed, per usual.

I don't even really know what to say about this whole weekend except, shit got real?

I hate the waiting/worrying process after an interview. I'm not good at it. I am only good at multiplying visions and using similitudes. Teaching you long division and copping an attitude.

I think I'm actually making progress in re drawing better. That's a nice feeling, I was pretty intimidated for a long time.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Wreckless

I had my final interview with TFA Wednesday. We'll see how that went on April 18th. I'd like to say that I did really well but I've heard that many people feel the same way about that interview and don't get it. TFA rejects 87% of applicants, did you know that? It's funny because I think a lot of people see TFA as something you can just do if you run out of other options. I don't think that's true any longer.

I'm pursuing other options too. Regardless, I'm moving to sunny skies come May. It's fun to be young and free!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Let Me Tell You About This Thing I Just Got Back

It's called an appetite and it's hell of delicious.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Super Fun Times All The Time

Skated for like 6 hours today. With Mitch and Cordia and Will. All over town. Ate some bulgogi burgers. Much laughs. Miles and Miles of Smiles and Smiles (thanks Elisa).

Becca moved out. Hell of a bummer.

But things are going super well.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

F.T.D.M's

I had a phone interview with Teach for America today. Two weekends ago I had a personal interview in LA with Teach California Charters. I'll hear back from TCC in a week or so, and TFA by March 7th. I hope everything went okay, phone interviews are sort of unnerving.

Having completely mentally checked out of my PhD program, I'm finding motivation to do homework a scarce commodity. Every day I start out with the best intentions of going to (my one) class and doing my homework and all that, but when I feel good and energetic I usually just end up skateboarding or cleaning. Skateboarding and cleaning is not getting my homework done, and I have a test this Thursday. I suppose it technically doesn't matter what happens, but it's foolish for me to screw off this badly. So -- with you as my witness -- I'm from this point forwards "getting it together" schoolwise. My living environment is also sort of chaotic. I could use a slower pace in that department. All Time Party Time sounded a lot cooler when it wasn't in my living room.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Thoughts Are All You Dream Of

I've been feeling pretty well lately. Less stressed, less anxious. Collected. Eliminating caffeine from my intake has been a good thing (thanks Beau!). I haven't had dreams this vivid in probably over a year, which is terrible because dreams sort of rule. Did you know that dreams rule?

My interview to teach at charter schools in LA is in two weekends. I'm excited and pretty confident that it will be a good experience regardless of the outcome. I enjoy teaching and I enjoy talking to people, so it's hard for an interview like that to go wrong. A mid-semester trip to California is also not an unwelcome idea as a general notion, but I hope the weather can match the loveliness I've been surrounded with as of late.

Teaching is going pretty well this semester; I get to class on time, try my best, give my quizzes, and grade everything in my office as soon as I get back from class. Simple, smooth, fast. Oh dear, Oh dear.

This past weekend I went to my friends Zach and Tiffany's new house out in Spring, TX. They've been married for a while and they are both really cool folks. A bunch of us dudes helped him lay sod in his backyard, drank some beers, and played some sportz. It was rad. I didn't stay for dinner and instead went out to my friend Chattman's place for the night. I've been there a lot lately. We went to the Fiery Furnaces show and had a blast, ending up sitting in front of a Randall's at 3 in the morning eating a bunch of junk food. There were a lot of laughs. I'm glad he's doing better, it's always a pleasure to go visit.

Just passin' through.

Yours Truly.

Monday, January 28, 2008

You With Me, So It's Alright

I was in the bathroom at the Rec today and three old men walked in together and proceeded to pee in the three stalls almost in unison. Then the three turned around and all washed and dried their hands together. They never said a word but they obviously knew eachother. I was changing and let me tell you I was pretty goddamn frightened. Powers of threeeee. Powers that be.

Later. Yours Truly.

Friday, January 25, 2008

South Scranton Playas Ball

The little red truck is officially no longer mine. This is the end of an era. That truck is pretty fucking rad. I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts until the next century because it is a champion and prepared to weather any storm that comes its way. Godspeed, see you in hell.

Monday, January 21, 2008

North Scranton Homeboys Association

Hello.

I talked with Dr. Rapp last Friday about not pursuing my PhD. Despite how much I psyched myself out about his possible reactions, he turned out to be very supportive of my decision and glad that I am thinking about teaching physics in high schools. It's nice because he will be a very strong reference in my applications. I also rescinded my applications to the fellowship offers which is a bit of a pity but I hope someone more motivated receives them! I definitely feel better.

Tomorrow will be my first day of teaching this semester. I'm really excited and currently making up a quiz. It won't be too hard, I just want to be sure everyone understands basic vector manipulation. I hope I can be better organized about my classes this semester, especially since I now teach three sections instead of two. My class load is also the standard load, which is by no means light. I maybe should have taken an elective instead of a qualifier course, but I never feel like backing down from a challenge. Hopefully it goes well, though Quantum Mechanics II already seems a bit in-depth.

This past weekend was fun, filled with people I lurhv. I was a bit tired after Zach's party on Friday night, and that feeling lasted for the rest of the weekend and most of today. I'm starting to feel better. Hopefully some good rest will fix me right up so I can kick some ass tomorrow.

I should get back to that quiz. Take it easy!

Yours Truly.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Caught In Your Superficial, Non-existent, Fairy Story...

Wonderland.

I'm going to go have a little "chat" with Dr. Rapp tomorrow morning. I am more than a bit nervous. It's unfortunate that I have to disappoint him like this since he is a great advisor and if I wanted to be a theoretical physicist I don't think I could be in a better position. I don't want want to be a theoretical physicist. I like theoretical physics and some theoretical physicists are my absolute heroes, but I finally realized (completely!) that the life isn't for me. Teaching high school in L.A. sounds like a much better match! Wish me luck!

Throwing a party for Zach tomorrow, should be exciting. I like that I am able to throw a party, that's nice. Keep it coming, world.

Yours Truly.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Oh Deer

Threw a birthday party for Hunter last night. It was a surprise and a success. Class officially starts tomorrow. I don't have to teach this week. I should get my shit together and stop eating so many hamburgers. That's simple enough. I've been feeling kind of wobbly lately, trying to find good footing. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It really is. Transition period, I have to get a real job now. How strange! I'm one with the tide now, we're crashing up on the sandy shore. It's okay we'll all wash away one day. It isn't real.

Yours Truthfully.

Monday, January 7, 2008

This Is What Becca Just Told Me:

That I should drink right now because the world might end in 2012. How right is she?
 
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