Archive for November, 2005

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Lunch with the President

Monday, November 28th, 2005

I’m in DC and the President (I call him Gee-Dub) is doing well.

I start the new job tomorrow morning, and I can get into my apartment after work. My car is loaded down with about half of my worldy possessions. I’ve still got a bunch of stuff in my parents house, and they’re giving me a bunch of old furniture they’ve had in the attic. I may fly home for Christmas and drive a U-Haul back down, or my parents will rent a truck and come visit for a weekend.

The drive down was an incredible pain. I met Wes at RIT and we drove down as far as Virginia together. The last 30 miles took about an hour and a half, because of traffic. I finally made it to the leasing office at the apartment complex about two minutes after they closed, but they were still there. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t have a chance to change the locks, so they didn’t have a key for me. After dealing with traffic and coming up empty at the apartment, I was pretty pissed by the time I got to Matt’s. A quick shower helped a lot, and now I’m just relaxing. I’m a little worried about getting the keys, though, since I work till 5 and they close at 5:30.

I’ll feel much better about this move once I’m settled in my apartment, and maybe get some furniture. And if I never have to leave home, because I don’t want to try to get out of or back into the DC area ever again.

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The Season of Giving

Saturday, November 26th, 2005

Today I received spam asking me to further finance spam.

Becouse of a lot of complaints about our malings we need to buy expensive balk bullet-prof hosting for our sites. It costs a lot, please, send us small donation to: Nordea Bank AB, Sweden, Surte, SWIFT: NDEASESS to Isa Dzhabrailov, account number: SE 163 000000000 6510032599 Remember, that only our sites provide you truth news. You can easily find our sites by request “Kavkaz Center” in any search engines - google, yahoo etc We can’t provide you direct links in this message now, sorry for inconvenience.

I’ve been known to confuse Sweden and Switzerland, but you should probably get them straight when you’re setting up a secret bank account.

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Go South, Young Man

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005

In five days, I’ve gotten way too little sleep, spanned four states, and put over 1000 miles on Malique (by the way, I named my car Malique). I’ve spent hours lost in a city I’ve never seen and spent way too much on coffee. I’ve lived out of a car, which currently looks like a gang of four year-olds have made it their secret fort. I’ve resisted the urge to have a cigarette, despite the fact that I drove for a good 20 hours and spent time around a campfire.

Oh, and I’m moving to the DC area in four days. Details to follow, but I suddenly find myself with no boxes and about fourteen hours to pack my worldly possessions.

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Posted in DC Area, Life | 1 Comment »

Capitol Idea, Good Chap!

Monday, November 21st, 2005

DC is ridiculous. The street signs are misleading if they’re even there, and finding your way back anywhere is damn near impossible. It took me two hours yesterday to find downtown. Rent is probably twice that of Rochester, and the traffic is unbelievable.

But I like it. I think I might move here.

Also, the Meteor Shower Party was a blast. I’ll write about this weekend later - right now, I’m paying $7/hour to use wireless at Borders.

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Done and Done

Friday, November 18th, 2005

I’ve always been a fast test-taker, so it’s rare that I’m not one of the first people done with any test or final. It’s partly because I like to see how fast I can do it, and party because they’re not terribly exciting and I just want to get them over with. Most of the time, you can leave once you’re done, so that’s always been an incentive.

Today was just a joke, though. A 35 question Tech Transfer final, and I finished in 18 minutes. I don’t know why I bothered getting up at 7 for that.

Part of me wants to just get my day started; I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before I leave for the weekend, but I think I need to catch up on a few hours of sleep or I’ll never make it to Tuesday.

On a related note, I’ve already got three of my grades. I was expecting the C in Haydn and Mozart - Classical music just isn’t something I’ll ever get. I was surprised to find I got an A in Networking, since I remember most of my grades being in the 80’s. And finally, a B in Needs Assessment, despite blowing it on the final - I really should have learned my lesson sooner.

I’ve got a lot more to say about this whole graduating business - stay tuned.

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The Best Weekend in the History of Road Trips

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

This weekend will almost definitely edge out every other one I’ve ever had.

Sixteen years of education end Friday morning around 10 when I finish my Tech Transfer final. That afternoon, I’m heading to the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania to spend the weekend with the Grillbillies. Unfortunately, I have to miss the Dropkick Murphys show in Syracuse Sunday night, but that’s because I’m going to the capitol! Of America!

I’ve never been to DC, so I’m pretty excited. I’ll be staying with wxs and Michelle Sunday night, then I have an interview Monday morning with a company in Arlington. I’m hoping to catch up with the rest of the crew while I’m down there - maybe for dinner on Monday? - then I’ll probably head back that evening.

Many many many pictures to come.

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Crash and Burn

Wednesday, November 16th, 2005

I have never bombed a test quite so spectacularly as the Needs Assessment final I just took. Somehow, he managed to avoid all the material that I’d studied the most. I’m pretty sure the answer to number six wasn’t “In retrospect, I shouldn’t have re-read this article while watching football, but at least Dallas won.”

I was hoping to hang onto that 3.4, but I think that between this and Haydn and Mozart, I’m out of luck.

In spite of my discontent with the test, I can’t help but feel relieved. Just two more finals and I’m out of here.

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Student Loans

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

Back in June, everyone was recommending student loan consolidation because rates were supposed to go up July 1. I had recently taken out yet another loan with Citibank, and their consolidation deal looked pretty good so I applied for it. I received something in the mail about it a couple months later, but didn’t remember hearing anything since, so I wanted to go through my massive “Student Loans” folder and figure out what was going on.

I had to call Customer Service to find out that my loans had not, in fact, been consolidated. They wanted me to contact someone and change my in-school status to decline my 6-month grace period. According to the Financial Aid office here, I shouldn’t have needed to do that, and they couldn’t consolidate the loans I wanted to anyway.

Or something. It was all very confusing.

Either way, I went through and sorted all my paperwork by lending institution and date, and figured that as long as I was going through it all I should figure out what I’ve actually got out.

The good news is, I know where I stand. The bad news is, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars away from where I thought I was. My three-bedroom SoHo penthouse turned out to be a mobile home in an Alabama swamp.

I did a terrible job of sorting things out when I applied for consolidation a couple months ago. I applied with four loans that totaled a reasonable sum that didn’t look too intimidating. I canceled that, since it wasn’t going to do me any good. Now, I’ve got seven loans with four different places. But, each one has its own index card, so they look more like flash cards than bushels of money that people want to take away from me. At least I know who I owe, how much, and in some cases, what the monthly payments will be and what day they’re due (the end of the month is going to be rough for a couple years).

Someone told me the other day that experts recommend you plan a month of job searching for every $10,000 you’d like to make. I guess I should have started looking a couple years ago.

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Posted in College | 1 Comment »

Things That Piss Me Off, vol. 5

Tuesday, November 15th, 2005

Sewn-up pockets

Am I the only one that actually puts stuff in my pockets? Honestly, is there any reasonable explanation for pockets to come sewn shut on suit coats and other nice clothes?

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I Feel So Loved

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

Last night, BP threw me a surprise graduation party.

Sharon had asked me earlier in the week if I was doing anything Saturday night. I had been planning to have a quiet evening, so she invited me over to watch Miracle. While I was there, Lucas called and told me a few people were at my place, and that I should come back and hang out. I told him I was planning to swing by Jym’s (since I was by his place), but Lucas assured me that Jym was with him at my place.

It didn’t seem odd to me that Jym pulled into my parking lot five minutes later as I was walking from my car to our building. I just figured he had gone to get beer or something. BP was outside smoking and walked up with me, and when he threw open our apartment door, I wondered why the lights were all off when I knew he had people over.

Turns out there were like 40 people in there, and they scared the crap out of me. BP had managed to buy a bunch of booze and food and get all of it, along with a bunch of people, into the apartment, which he had also cleaned, in the two hours I was gone. I couldn’t be prouder of my protege. I’ve spent the past three months teaching him how the intricacies of throwing a successful party, and he pulled it off almost perfectly in just a couple hours (I say “almost” due to a paper towel shortage). He also got me a sweet bottle of Jack as a graduation gift (thanks buddy!).

I was pretty sore this morning, because we decided at some point that Fight Club was a good idea and knocked each other around for a bit. It was one hell of a fun night though, and I really couldn’t have been more surprised or honored. BP certainly earned every one of the hugs I gave him throughout the evening.

There are a ton of pictures and videos floating around - I’ll post them when I get them.

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Well Don’t I Look Silly

Saturday, November 12th, 2005

I’ve been cutting my own hair with clippers for four or five years now. I have this curly, puffy mess on my head, so there’s not much else I can do with it. I’ve owned a few different clippers over the years, some better than others, but they’ve always got the job done - a quarter inch, all the way ’round.

Last night, the inevitable happened - my clippers died mid-clip. I had cut the first few inches of the front when they stopped cutting and started combing. They’ve had problems in the past - hair gets in there and jams them up. I thought ahead this time, though, and cleaned them out beforehand. Maybe I shouldn’t have used DW-40 to oil up the metal parts, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Last summer, Ryan came over to use my previous set of clippers and got himself a half-cut. Lucky for him, Rhubarb was home, so he just drove across campus and finished the job there.

I knew I needed to replace them again, so I didn’t bother looking for a pair to borrow. As much as I hate WalMart, it was the only place open at that time on a Friday night, so I pulled on a hat and went shopping. The ones I picked out are like industrial strength sheet metal cutters. They had no problem plowing through my hair and it was the quickest cut I’ve ever done.

In retrospect, I should have bought two of them so I don’t find myself in the same situation when this one dies.

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Nighttime Already?

Friday, November 11th, 2005

I love winter. I love snow, I love doing donuts in the car, and I love sledding. I especially like sledding while attached to a car, but that’s beside the point.

I don’t like that it gets dark so early. I wouldn’t even call this early winter yet, but it’s already dark as night by 6:30 in the evening. Once in a while, this works in my favor; if I’ve had a particularly productive afternoon, I feel like I’ve had a full day when it starts getting dark around 5:30. On the other hand, if I’ve been slacking all day, I feel like I’ve wasted the day away even if it’s only early evening.

Today was the former. I sent out a bunch of resumes, did a lot of little things that had been piling up, and got some work done on a side job. Now that classes and most of my projects are out of the way, I can start turning my attention to all the things that have been pushed aside in the name of academic pursuits. It’s dark out, and I feel accomplished, so I don’t feel bad slacking off all evening.

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What the Hell Are You Looking For?

Friday, November 11th, 2005

I’ve recently started checking my web access logs now and then with Weblog Expert. I don’t have $75 to spend on the full version right now, but the Lite version gives me some useful data regardless, including search terms that got people to my site. The top six are (six instead of five because six is my favorite):

  1. eugene hutz
  2. somebody shit on the coats
  3. hipster pda
  4. can you feel a little love
  5. not wearing underwear
  6. winderz

Some other good ones:

  • dane cook shit on the coats
  • honda prelude
  • precipitory
  • livejournal joanna oyzon (I know a Joanna and I know an Oyzon, but they’re different people)
  • more fonny videos
  • mighty taco founded
  • make a sidebar on deadjournal (wtf?)
  • lemony skinner and the unfortunate events (yes, skinner)
  • life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. so love the people who treat you right,forget about the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason. if you get a chance, take it. if it changes your life…let it. nobody said t (who the HELL searches for THAT?)
  • is not wearing underwear good

And, perhaps the most telling:

  • i’m unemployed

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And That’s That

Thursday, November 10th, 2005

Today I had my last two undergraduate classes.

It’s weird to think that I may never have to go to class again. I’m still planning to get a Master’s at some point, but I don’t have any definite plans and it might never happen. For sixteen years, class is almost all I’ve known, and now it’s over.

I can’t help but think about my first day of Kindergarten. I remember standing at the end of our dead-end street, where the kids on our road met the bus. Both my parents were there to see me off. I guess the school recommended that they make a name tag with bus numbers and other information, because I remember consulting it as the bus approached to make sure I was getting on the right one (as if my parents would send me away on the wrong bus). I really don’t remember anything past that, though I assume my friend Paul was on the bus, because he was the stop before me.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this quarter is already over, let alone the four years leading up to it, not to speak of the twelve years before that. Almost the entirety of my life has been leading up to this moment - well, really, this week.

How anticlimactic. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so underwhelmed.

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Posted in College, Memories | 1 Comment »

Get Me Some Culture

Tuesday, November 8th, 2005

I spent the evening at another classical concert than was almost exciting as the first, but this time, it was chamber music. The first piece was by Beethoven, which was alright. The last was a Dvorak, which was OK.

But the second piece, Berg’s Lyrische Suite, made me want to cry a little bit. It was six movements of dissonant, pretentious, classical fan-boy snobbery. Really, I think the only people that like this guy are looking for classical indie cred. It was a creepy, dark piece, and while some parts sounded kind of cool, there was no musical theme or any kind of consistent idea or anything; normally, that would be fine, but not so much when you’re supposed to write a paper about the music. I thought it would be more fun if I imagined the musicians as clowns, but that just made it scary.

The show was at the Eastman School of Music, and since Darrin was on-campus at the time, we drove out there together. I wound up sitting next to a girl who’s a freshman here at RIT. She asked for a ride home, which seemed a little odd, but I’m the adventurous type! So we had merry adventures finding our way home, because I’ve never taken the same way home from downtown twice (mostly because I don’t actually know the way home and wing it every time).

In conclusion: I need to spend more time downtown, and I think I might like a sandwhich.

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