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17:08:58 Monday February 21 2005
I was somewhere around The Research Park on the edge of West Lafayette when the caffeine began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit light-headed; maybe I shouldn't drive..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around me and my ears were full of what sounded like huge bongo drums, all pounding in and around the car, which was going about a forty miles an hour with the top down to work. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! My heart is going to pound its way out of my chest!"

Sleep well Hunter S. Thompson.


16:59:50 Friday February 18 2005
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So the web-heads list discovered a lovely little web shop called Abate Electronics. Apparently It is possible to purchase a number of Ghost and U.F.O. detectors there. The best part of all is that they come with a warranty!!! And I quote: "ALL DETECTORS ARE WARRANTED TO OPERATE AS DEFINED FOR A PERIOD OF ONE YEAR FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE. ANY DEVICE WHICH FAILS TO OPERATE FOR THIS PERIOD OF TIME WILL BE REPLACED FREE OF CHARGE, INCLUDING SHIPPING."

I hope the meter is wired to ground. Otherwise any blip they produce will be detecting something that is almost certainly not there. How do you collect on your warranty? I can imagine the exchange now:

You: Your crazy meter went off when there were no aliens.
AbateElect: How do you know there were no aliens?
You: There was a distinct lack of bright lights and probing.
AbateElect: Maybe they were hiding?
You: Hiding?
AbateElect: Yeah, like invisible!
You: I give up.


23:34:39 Thursday February 17 2005
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Today was my 15 minutes of fame. My webcams page was the subject of an exponent article. In addition to this there was much technical writing to be done at work today on a fairly short time table. So as I typed frantically I would be continually interrupted by friends who had seen the article or strangers who had an opinion about the article. I even had two people send me URLs for cams of which I was previously unaware. Fortunately I was able to get my writing done in a timely manner.

When I returned home I found that the lovely and talented Sara with no 'h' had prepared lasagna for Lehmann and myself. After dinner we played Viewtiful Joe which is awesome. It is like an old skool side scroller. Which means that it is more or less the best game ever even without the added bonus of its humorous plot.


22:49:52 Wednesday February 16 2005
Today I was interviewed by Alysha Daytner of The Exponent. Hopefuly the article will not be overly critical. She was very professional on the telephone.

I also found out that my PGP key has expired. I generated a new one and signed it with the old one. Hopefully I will get some of my old signatories to sign this new key. If you want it check the keyserver at pgpkeys.mit.edu. The key_id is 0xA05A14C7. The fingreprint is:
637B 01A1 FF93 7E3F 70F5 953C A297 61E9 A05A 14C7


23:58:49 Tuesday February 15 2005
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Lots of things have been happening and I have been doing a lousy job of keeping the log updated. Let me see if I can recap the events of last week.

Sara with no 'h' occupied large portions of my time last week. This is of course fitting considering her new status as my girlfriend. Things are going well at work both for me personally and for the company as a whole. Late last week a bunch of Arxan folks went out to Asahi as celebration for surviving the long week. I also spent one evening drinking and playing pool with John. His grandfather had just died and he needed a break. We ended up having one of the more involved conversations we have had in a long time.

On Friday I went to the Hunters Pub with several co-workers and "the professors". For those who don't know "the professors" refers to a group of 3 or 4 professors who helped to found Arxan. They still work with us to improve the technologies that they invented. They are some of the smartest people I know. At the pub we talked about technical issues and drank beer. It was a good time, if a little intimidating.

After the pub I went home and crashed, but it wasn't long until many of my drunken friends invaded my house. I crawled out of bed and spent some time with them.

Saturday I slept in and hung out with my friends who arrived the night before. I got to play a little Starcraft which is something I haven't done in a long time. That evening I decided I was going to run a game of Ravenloft come hell or high water. It wasn't a very good game, but I just needed to get out of the narrative corner into which I had painted myself. I also hope I picked up enough inertia to finish the campaign. We shall see.

Sunday I went to Anderson. We paid our respects at John's grandfather's Memorial service. Afterwards I worked on one of my parent's computers. I think I made it worse rather than better. We had fish for dinner and returned to Lafayette. In the evening I cleaned the house and helped Sara with her art project.

Yesterday was valentines day and I got the window of my car repaired. Actually this requires some explaining. A while back I found myself locked out of my car. I called out two separate locksmiths and no one could open it. After getting rides to work for over a week I became sick of it and decided to just smash the damned window in with The Science Hammer. This proved effective in allowing me back into my car, but was rather unpleasant from an aesthetic point of view. So yesterday I had the visquene removed and new glass installed. (Perhaps I will find some pictures soon.)

After work I cooked dinner (swordfish steaks) for Sara with no 'h'. Neither of us are big Valentine's Day people so we kept it simple.

Today I ran errands and cleaned up the house after work. My first issue of O'Reilly Make Magazine came today. It is very cool.


00:54:04 Tuesday February 08 2005
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Friday: Work (including the assignment of a major rush job) and then dinner with Terry, Chris, and Sara with no 'h'. We didn't realize until near the end of the meal that we had forgotten to invite Lehmann. (Sorry Lehmann.) After dinner we fueled up the vehicles and returned to the house where we hang out with Lehmann for a while. Castor made it in to town about midnight.

Saturday: Up early. Did the telecommuting thing for a couple hours so that I could get my first bit of the project off to Constantine. About 11:00 we got in Castor's van and headed to Chicago. We went to the Art Institute. A couple hours in Sara with no 'h' began to feel ill so we locked her in the car and carried on without her :)

We woke Sara up for dinner. Wanke drove into The City and joined us also. Sushi was not a big hit with either Castor or Wanke. Sara was feeling too ill to even eat her dinner so we decided to cut the trip short and head back. After the ride back there was some StarCraft played and Chris studied organic chemistry for fun on a Saturday evening, but it was a decidedly quiet evening.

Sunday: I went in to work and made a little bit of progress on the project. Mostly I just fumbled around with MFC classes. My Windows Programming Skills (such as they are) are about five years old. Therefore what is not forgotten is likely out of date. After work I returned home where everyone was still camped out watching movies and playing video games. They had decided to make omelets so the kitchen was destroyed, but other than that we enjoyed a very low key evening.

Today: At work all day. No I mean ALL day. I left work at 23:15. Constantine and I busted our asses to finish the project. Much of my former MFC knowledge is restored. I also learned a lot. I will place some brain droppings in here RSN. I should also comment on how excellent it is to work with a fine team mate like Constantine. His patience, easy going attitude, quiet competence, and keen intellect pulled us through on time. Anyway I feel good tonight. No matter how hard you have worked or how much sleep you have lost it just plain feels good to go home at the end of the night knowing that you successfully finished a project.


01:34:00 Thursday February 03 2005
I got back on schedule with the gym this morning. Work was good. I interviewed a gentleman twice my age, that was a strange feeling. I had a lovely time this evening.


23:04:18 Monday January 31 2005
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Writing in the log has become more difficult since I took a 9 to 5 job. Each day seems largely identical. However the whole point of this log was to keep track of the passage of time so I shall redouble my efforts.

I have been sick recently nothing to worry about, just a head cold. I had it beat, but like an idiot I went out to the Cactus and drank and screamed in a smoke filled room. This illness has hurt my attendance at the gym also...

Oh, checking back through the log it appears that I have yet to mention the gym. I spent a lot of money to join the gym across the street from work. The whole Arxan crew shows up almost every morning at 07:00. This is good because if I flake out then my co-workers will chide me for it at the office.

On Friday I had dinner at Sara with no 'h' and Lorraine (spelling?). I tried to work tech support for Lorraine, but it proved insoluble (probably a hardware problem). We watched Donnie Darko afterward.

Saturday I did a lot of nothing. Sunday my father came up for an Indiana DeMolay meeting. We had dinner before he hit the road.

Today after work I boxed up a color cube which I assembled myself and sent it off to Rich Forkert, my mentor in Fort Wayne. I worked under him at Polaroid. He taught me good software practices and how to program as part of a team and all those unquantifiable skills you can only learn by working with someone who already has them. He was a masters student in Professor Delp's image processing lab once upon a time. As a result whenever we had to fiddle with the gamma levels to do an automatic color correction. He would hold out his fingers to from orthonormal vectors and say something like: "now suppose this is white, my thumb is cyan and my index finger is magenta..." Anyway when I saw the color cube toy on thinkgeek a while back I thought of him immediately. Now that I have some money I thought it would be a nice thank you.

I purchased the next trade paperback of Powers I am totally addicted.


02:37:15 Monday January 24 2005
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Weekend Update:

Friday: Work went well. I had dinner at Scotty's with Terry, Constantine, Griffin and some of our former students. Afterwards we went to the piano bar and poured large quantities of poison into our brains. My little stick figures on napkins were becoming very popular by the end of the evening. We had some difficulty hunting down a cab to take us home, but we finally got one.

Saturday: I did a whole lot of nothing. I alternated between straightening up the house for ten minutes at a stretch and playing Zelda for an hour at a stretch. The locksmith came out and attempted to get in to my car without success. Later in the evening Showalter called and then Kelsey called so I spent more time on the phone in one evening than I usually do in one month.

Sunday: I began my house cleaning efforts in earnest. I played some more Zelda. I cannot remember the last time that I was so engrossed in a game. Probably not since Eternal Darkness. After living like a shut in for the past week (due to my car's frozen doors) I decided that I needed to get out. Sara with no 'h' and I had dinner at Spageddies. Afterwards some effort was made to find a decent movie, but none were showing. We rented Jersey Girl instead. There were very strange Kevin Smith clips from The Tonight Show on the DVD.


01:51:21 Monday January 24 2005
Thought bucket: Making a FAT32 filesystem from linux

# cfdisk
# mkdosfs -F 32


03:07:31 Saturday January 22 2005
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There was a great deal of drinking tonight. It just so happens that there was a toast to "absent friends". I think that it is time that a certain southerner returned to the frozen northlands.

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07:46:17 Thursday January 20 2005
Continuing coverage of the Anderson magnesium fire displays just how brilliant the folks in my home town are.


16:47:28 Saturday January 15 2005
fire

My Ursprungsstadt is on fire yet again. This time they managed to start a magnesium fire. Idiots.


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