Journal

untitled

06/25/2003

I'm supposed to be studying for a midterm but I'm putting it off. I've managed to organize most of my paper collection into a filing cabinet and so I've started cleaning up my hard drives. It was the next logical step, right? I back up the important stuff frequently, but I tend to leave garbage from projects, temp files, things I've downloaded, etc... Since many of my hard drives are over five years old, I figured I should probably clean up and delete most of the trash as a drive crash would leave me wondering just what I lost. I'm rapidly accumulating free space in the course of deleting and moving files around. It's somewhat scary finding things though... I've found files from when I was in high school, including papers written by a girl I dated back then. There are also assorted programs that I've written that I never intended to keep. On that note, any time I have a project or task that could benefit from some automation, I'll write a program for it. I figure it's worth the time to write something to do hundreds of repetitive file operations rather than doing those by hand, even if they might take the same amount of time. Thinking about a problem and coding something is a lot better than pressing a series of twelve keystrokes hundreds or even thousands of times over. In any event, some programs are very specific to a given task and don't really have any future use. I keep finding things like that. Another benefit is that I'm finding things I had forgotten about. I've started thousands of small projects, mostly for fun or educational purposes, that have been discarded or left incomplete for various reasons. I found a couple that I think I might work on if I get some time and those could end up on the site someday. Thanks to a combination of organizing both paper and electronic documents, I'm seriously looking at the ideas I had for reorganizing this site. There is a lot of random content that's currently up and a lot that I have yet to complete. I'm aiming for something that would reduce maintenance and allow me to get content online with less effort. That's all people care about anyway, right? Right? Well, enough wasting time I suppose... back to studying (memorizing diagrams).

Beverage: Coke

Music: The Yum Yum Tree - The Inspector

untitled

06/25/2003

The summer semester is half way over and I've been keeping busy. I registered for fall semester a few days ago and I think I have everything in line to fulfill my major's requirements. Hopefully, that might mean that I'll graduate this fall. On top of the required courses, I've also signed up for a poetry writing class. It was a bit of a hassle to get into due to a problem with a prerequisite course. It would appear that the system did not show that I completed world literature as the result of a change from quarters to semesters a while back. I called the English department last Friday to get it straightened out without any luck. The person that could help me was busy, then out of his office for the day. Thankfully, the course had not filled up by Monday and I was able to get the issue resolved. I'm not sure what the class will be like, but I'm hoping that it's worthwhile. Maybe I'll meet some interesting people and it will definitely give me an excuse to write.

Beverage: Coke

Music: The Yum Yum Tree - The Inspector

Tick Tock

06/24/2003

knock knock

and the clock goes

tick tock

with its hands

waving about

in madness

superstitious madness

tick tock

and the click strikes

midnight

midnight

such a site

and the chimes

ring sharp

and free

calling me

calling me

tick tock

with its hands

waving about

like a mad man

at my door

at midnight

such a site

such a fright

has come for me

in the night

as I pull back

from the pallor sight

with my hands

waving about

like a mad man

not tonight

not tonight

not this night

this isn't right

such a sight

such a fright

breaking down

under the light

horrid sight

it's dawn's light

and my fright

fades away

fades away

and I'm left

but bereft

mourning night

Beverage: Apple Snapple with cinnamon and vanilla

Music: Delerium - Returning

Haunted

06/17/2003

haunted by the pounding rain

echoes of a flat fisted beating

on the rooftop below my feet

echoes screaming

out into the night

dull and resounding

capturing my balance

the flow of my thought

as it runs down my flesh

soaking into my sleep deprived agony

with explosions, scattering

down angles and out into space

if I could only catch them

if I could only save them

if I could only join them

defeat, retreat into a drain

and be absorbed by the earth

and return to the sky

Beverage: Nothing

Music: Radiohead - Scatterbrain

asleep at the wheel

06/17/2003

I really hate apple juice, but I'm running out of other flavors of Snapple. I've bought a couple of cases of it from Costco and the bottles of apple were sitting, collecting dust. So, with the help of approximately a tablespoon of vanilla extract and a teaspoon of cinnamon, it's now rather good. Mmmm... Right, so... I'm putting off homework, studying, a million things I need to do, and it's 6:35 am after a night of not sleeping. Finished the whole bottle in about 10 minutes... next time, definitely not as much cinnamon. Apparently it didn't all dissolve; that last sip wasn't completely liquid.

Beverage: Apple Snapple with lots of vanilla and cinnamon

Music: Radiohead - 2 + 2 = 5

A new month, a new day, same old whatever.

06/03/2003

May was a bust and now it's June. A new month; a chance to start over, an opportunity to... er... yeah. Well, class started up a few days ago and the semester seems like it's going to be good. I'm taking both a Unix and a Linux class so that should be fun. I mean that too; scary, eh? Other than that, there are around a million things that I need to do left over from last month. I'm still not really any closer to finding time to overhaul the site. I started playing with PHP... oh... a year ago... and I figure I'll go with it whenever I break down and just tear the site apart. Let's see... what else has happened over the past week... oh... right. Yeah, so I brought my camera with me when we were installing Linux in the lab. I had to have something to do for the 50+ minutes it took to install, right? Well, I assume people think I'm a freak now for taking pictures of cabling and other random stuff. Maybe I'll find something better to photograph this week. I think that's most of the interesting stuff... or at least, it's most of the stuff that won't bore you to death. Um... yeah.

Beverage: Mango Madness Snapple

Music: Matthew Sweet - I've Been Waiting