Entries tagged “friends”

A while back, I discovered LiveJournal. I thought, cool, but I don’t need it, I’ve got my own site. I visited other people’s LiveJournal’s and then got to thinking… hmm there’s something to this. One. I never post any updates on my web site. Two. Someone else is doing the hard stuff of keeping track of my journals. and the selling point… Three. the community kicks ass. It reminds me a bit of BBSing days and a bit of iT days (if anybody remembers that).

So anyway, here I am, here I remain. Hopefully I’ll get some time to work on my website davedash.com and get the behemoth Photo Gallery up and running as well.

Sorry Su, I'm going to use that phrase always.

Well I've actually gone out and done stuff. Let's talk about yesterday. Yesterday was New Year's Eve. As promised I was at the Borchert's. It was nice to attend. I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while. I even talked with my alter ego. I even talked to Hayley. So much was done in one night. It was good to know that Mike Borchert and Tom Borchert among others are very into techno/electronic/wierd music like Daft Punk and Crystal Method. I loose uniqueness points, but oh well. Molly and I attempted sleeping around three or four in the morning, unsuccessfully because of all the people. At about 5:30 or 6:00 AM we went to Perkins (which Tina may find amusing). We had an amusing time. Ryan Hayle with some help won a Budweiser racing shirt and an elf in the claw game that they have. We had way too much fun because of the minimal sleep. We left a short time after the police came. That's right, the police came to Perkins to pick up some guy who passed out in a booth. They had a stretcher and an ambulence and everything. You've got to love the stupid things people do during New Years.

After Perkins I attempted to sleep again and eventually got my wish. In the meantime the elf was tortured. I woke up around 10 or 10:30 and started reading dilbert and ate some very delicious things that were hot... Cinnamon Buns. Pat Borchert was kind enough to make these in the morning (once at 7 and later at 11). Molly, Laureen, EP, Ryan and I went to see a Bug's Life at Shelard Park. I finally returned home at around 2:30.

Molly picked me up and I went over to her place for dinner at about 5:30 PM. It was nice having another meal. At about 8:30 we left for the airport and finally a bit before 10:00 I had to let go of her (physically) and she stepped on the plane to LAX. I shall miss her. I shall also miss Tom, who was on the same flight, but not nearly as much.

I feel like I should be going back to UI soon. Not that I am prepared to go. I've very little going on in my life until January 18th. Also, there is a correction to make. I was so pessimistic that I thought I'd see nobody especially not dear Molly over spring break, but alas a few days of overlap do exist. My break is from March 13 through March 21. More details will be spilled as I get them.

And you would be sad.

Today my Uncle and his family gave me the X-files movie on VHS Cassette (I'm guessing this would be Julie and Auntie's idea). I watched it. It was similar to a long episode of the X-files that was pretty good. It's just not nearly as cool the second time around.

Later tonight Molly came over and we eventually gave birth to cookies. They were good despite the pain we went through (no, just forget I used the word "birth" in that last sentence).

My brother shall be returning soon. Last I heard he and Kelly were in Thailand.

Thank you and before I say goodnight, I leave you with a pleasant link. (Note: This will make sense to Run-Friends and perhaps nobody else, except maybe Su').

Quantum transportation is neat. I think it will have a good impact on Quantum Computing. I'll give you some links on Quantum computing later, I have a few somewhere.

Don't look at the TV form more than a few seconds. It will pull you in. Turn it off.

What would happen if we killed the laugh track? Television would have to be funny on its own. Note that except in mockery, cartoons never use a laugh track. They stand funny on their own. Sitcoms rely on the laughtrack to goad you into laughing and then thinking that the show makes you laugh so it must be good and must be watched again. It's a catalyst for sitcoms. It's very deceptive and clever of the TV people.

I saw Prince of Egypt. It was fairly interesting. It connected the few Moses stories I knew together and took less time than actually reading Exodus. The animation is of a high level as well.

I saw Su' today. Su' is back, and I am happy. Unfortunately she leaves Sunday, but I will see her tomorrow at the wedding pre-reception (preception) that I am attending.

Well I completely formatted my NT Server system at home and installed Debian Linux. It's been quite an experience. I've installed it perhaps three times, but each time I learned something new. In all actuallity I didn't need to reinstall it so many times, it just seemed like a neat idea each time. So now, I finally have my computer working and Netscape works too.

So here's what I like. It loads fast. It's very configurable. There's a lot of software I can now download. Software is a cinch to install thanks to apt-get and dselect. What I dislike is the window environment (Window Maker). Of course I'm going to be changing that after I send this message. Several window managers have been created for X-Windows. I also dislike Netscape. It looks ugly when it renders forms and it crashes in certain places. Plus, I never really liked it for windows.

Life has been pleasant since I got back. Saturday night I was visited by Molly and my alter-ego, Katie. Sunday I finally recieved my luggage. I don't remember Monday. Tuesday we visited Katie to see how she was. Wednesday (today) we (Adam, Marc, Molly and I) made pancakes. They were good. We then went to the MSP airport and went to pick up Mike Jorgenson, whose flight was an hour late. We proceded to UNOs pizzeria, and ate delicious pizza. We then went back to my house to play Dr. Mario and pick up my gift for Katie and we then dropped it off.

Humourous things started happening afterwards. There was a knock at Katie's door and Mike was the closest one to it, so he answered. Lo and behold it was Mike's arch-enemy, Tanya Zhu. They don't speak to each other which makes things very interesting seeing as they both have information that when exchanged could add to a decent conversation. Anyway, I'll try to wrestle a picture featuring Tanya and Mike from Katie and post it.

We (reduced to Molly and I) decided at about 4:30 to drop off Mike Jorgenson since his parents were expecting him to be picked up at 10:16 and dropped off within a few hours, not at 4:30. Well that's what we figured. Then Molly and I came home and then she left and I went with my parent to eat at First Wok, a decent Chinese Restaurant. I was going to go to Katie's but I felt tired, and I'd rather save up my energy and do stuff tomorrow. Although tomorrow is X-mas eve. I'll figure out something to do.

It's strange. When I type my journal at school, I feel like I'm writing for my friends not at UIUC. When I type my journal here, I feel like I'm typing it for my friends at UIUC.

I am at home. I miss the Allen Hall entities already.

My trip back wasn't that great. After Eric dropped me off I checked in my luggage. My plane was ten minutes late at least. I noticed a friend, Shiela, on the plane, but made no contact. We touched down and got off the plane at about 4:30 in DTW. I ran to my gate D4 for my 4:40 flight from the G concourse. It was maybe 4:37, and I found that the gate changed to E12. I missed the flight. I found Shiela missed it too and we ended up taking a 6:40 flight to Minneapolis, which was also very late at arriving. We got there almost a half an hour late. I had trouble with the luggage. I waited almost an hour and then found out that my luggage never left Champaign (thank you very much Mesaba/Northwest). It finally arrived a few hours ago, but it would have been nice to not waste that hour. So I'm home. I'll try to post more entries lest I incur the wrath of Caroline.

"White tornado my foot. That's a real tornado!"

Xenocide... I read the back of the book and it sounds silly. 592 pages... a normal sized book, after reading Dune books. I'll order Children of the Mind sometime this week. Maybe tonight.

This link's for Yishan and others with laser pointers.

Little to say these days. I have a lot of tests this week and next week and then finals the week after that. Then I go home... I'll update the Calendar.

These are chronologically out of whack, due to ... I don't know... space aliens. Space aliens said, Travel Logs and then the vacation...

Tuesday:
I had dinner with my family at some restaurant. We got to ride in Raj (my brother) and Kelly's (sister-in-law) new Saab. I like it.

Wednesday:
I had an eye appointment and a dental appointment. I like my hygenists, because they aren't ugly. The only reason this matters to me is because I'd rather have a pretty hygenist sticking her fingers in my mouth than an ugly one. That night I went with Raj and Kelly to see Enemy of the State also present were Katie and Daniel and later I guess Marc, Jesse and Tanya arrived. I liked the movie a lot. It's great if you like spy stuff and technology. I started getting this headache that bothered me into Thanksgiving. I also had a cold the entire time I was there (I'm still fighting it).

Thursday:
Something was wierd with this year's Thanksgiving. I think that the normal excitement of Thanksgiving was dulled with me just being back... and the party on Friday. Our Thanksgiving movie was Bug's Life. Another excellent Pixar doing.

Friday:

Jew flees hands at Dave's.

Saturday:
I tried to finish my math assignment on Saturday.

All and all, I think it was a good thing to have the break. I would have enjoyed it a bit more if I weren't sick, if Molly were there, if I did more stuff with my friends, or if it were longer. Saturday was somewhat distressing. I tried to cope with getting over constantly working all the time during school.

Stinky will not be present in my life until 29 November 1998.

Clinton recieving instructions from the mother-computer via an old-fashioned radio.

My dorm light went good-bye. I work in darkness now. Actually I work in the bask of a florescent study lamp from Jack's desk which is adequate for computer work. What errors I encounter will be adjusted through corrective surgery...

By the way, the song that I said was really cool is actually Jeane Michael Jarre's Oxygene 16 performed live in Moscow... I found most of the concert live, but only this track was 128/44 (and mislabled). I've uploaded all my stuff to the MP3 server. I've listened to a few of his other works and they are okay, but none were as impressive as this. Of course this is also the only good MP3 I could find of him (a mislabeled one at that).

There exists a World Jewish Congres... WJC... hmm... interesting. Sounds a little too much like World Wide Jewsih Conspiracy to me.

I've noticed a lot of people on my dorm leave their TV on, and don't actually watch it. It might be laziness or it might be some type of "security" that they get from the TV being on. I know that the TV gives me "company" when I eat alone at home, but I rarely do that anymore. This might be for the same reason. So I ask:

A lot of my friends here on campus have older computers that require non-SDRAM, either EDO or the "other kind." If someone can point me in the direction of how to distinguish between the types of RAM, that'd be great. Also, if any of you have this type of RAM lying around, please give it to me.

Now you may be thinking, "Dave, you're all the way in Urbana." I'm coming back Tuesday and their is a Thanksgiving Party at my house this Friday. All are welcome, just email me so I know you're coming. It's best to let me know if you're coming by Tuesday night for sure. If you've already told me that you are coming, then don't worry. Thanks a lot. Hope to see you soon. And to all my friends living on the east and west coasts, hope to see many of you during Winter Break. Unless I hate you. Email me if you want to know if I hate you.

I'm reading some news off the AP wire. Xis Vwj is pronounced "See Voo." In one light, that's pretty cool. On the otherhand, who the hell is responsible for translating Hmong (I think) to English?

This if from the AFP:

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (AFP) - Inspired by the victory in the Minnesota governor's race of former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura, another veteran of the sport, Hulk Hogan, plans to run for president in 2000, Time magazine says.
"When Jesse won, I said to my wife, 'I'm 10 times more popular than him,'" Hogan told Time.
"People know Hulk Hogan like they know McDonald's and Chevrolet."
The weekly said Hogan planned to approach billionaire Ross Perot, CNN founder Ted Turner and talk show queen Oprah Winfrey as possible running mates.
Asked of a possible political contest against Ventura, Hogan said, "I'd like to get him into the ring and basically stomp on him."

I finished I, Robot some time ago. It's a childrens novel. Well it seems like one. The future it portrays is interesting and their are portions that are probable. I, personally, think that we will have powerful thinking machines far sooner than actual robots.

I have begun reading Ender's Game. I understand why Adam liked it so much. This summer I worked with gifted (well if not gifted, talented) children in a mathematics program with Molly. You could always single out that even among these there is still the quiet ones and the smart ones and the quiet and smart ones. I also like how it reminds me of my childhood.

Stinky has over six hours of video of the #2 Street Fighter player in the world. He watches it intently. I came back from the library to see him and Stephan watching it as if it were a good movie. I've heard at least two or three people come in here and just get disgusted with Stinky watching it. Stinky attempted to exclaim how cool it was by saying that this was the number 2 player. My friend, Tim, responded with "So?" So remember, if you are doing something that's really silly and stupid assigning a rank doesn't make it better.

Fashion is just one of the many uses of duct tape.

For fear that my floor may come off, I started duct-taping it. This duct-tape exo-floor should be more durable and less likely to come off. That's right people... I'm still strange. Actually I'm not going to tape my entire floor lest I incur the wrath of some building inspectors.

I'm experiencing another joyous no-Stinky weekend. With Stinky gone, I decided to fix the biggify thing so it prompts you and stores it as a cookie propperly. Previously it was using someone elses code that I slightly modified. Now a more modified code that makes more sense to me. I love programming.

"Kiss me, for I am a magical creature."

I finished my Ventura article. It's not as organized and documented as I would have liked, but under my current time constraints, it is the best I could do. I've got two nice and long research papers to write by the end of the quarter (which is coming very fast).

Check out this week's poll at PopSci.com. I like what the results show.

Wow... I'm full and it's after midnight. I went to eat at Fat Don's. That's the first time I've eaten so much. Depending on what they serve, I'll go there as a weekly thing.

My friends are missing tonight... hmm where could they be?

"There is a fine, cocaine-like powder covering the grass outside my suburban home. And I'm ever so pleased about it."

I was going to make some joke about Jesse "the Body" as our Governor and Andre the Giant being this genius with rhymes... but, umm... hmm... Kay did it. Except, I think she's serious.

CJ noted that I do not have many links or personal information. So I have a plan. I'll remove the humor section and integrate it with a links section. I'll also make the abstract include more personal information. After Thanksgiving, I plan to scan all the pictures I have at home and add a tiny picture gallery. Sound good?

"This 52 lbs. package shall be our new God!"

Mmm.. Pokey sticks. If anybody knows of a good pokey-stick like recipe, I'm all ears. I had them last night.

Everybody loves my contact paper that's on my door, including the cool janitor. I should take a picture of the door sometime. I'll just wait until I get the NetCam.

The had a little kid (someone's son), Johnny, on KQ this morning. They were interviewing a coach of some team and the kid asked all these questions, like if the coach still smokes, if the team curses, fights, etc. It was pretty cute. Of course those Carl Sagan type kids do get annoying after a hundred or so "Why?"s.

Ah... my 52 lbs. package has arrived. It sounds really awesome. So now I have a total of seven speakers dedicated to the audio I want to hear (5 speaker stereo + 2 speakers for computer).

It's amazing what you find out in my halls. I found out about a Diwali function presented by the Indian Studen Association. My friend Anand had a few extra tickets so he let me tag along. It was very good. It was meant for a smaller ammount of people than most functions I attend. They performed in the Illini Room of the Illini Union. We were sitting at a table with this one annoying lady who complained about the music they used for some dances. It's almost worse than people who talk during a movie. The food was mediocre, but compared to residence hall food, excellent. The performance was great. They had this cool backdrop with these eyes that would stare at you. I think they used a black light to make it glow. The dances were great too. What really made it an awesome function was the sound. The sound was crisp and clear. The only problems were those inheirent with some Indian singing, such as singers who attain high pitched notes. The event also had a lot of comedy sketches by the emcees. It was mostly second generations which was nice, because second generation people know how to put together an appealing event. I think Molly, Adam, Katie, Tom, Nick and anybody else who's been to an Indian event with me would have loved it.

"Moving the journal over here was a great idea. I just hope the users don't mind that we reuse old graphics, woman."

I heard the KQRS apology regarding the comments made regarding the Hmong. The result is that they have given in to Citizens Against Racism. There will be no more Talk with Tak, featuring Tak the person from Grand Forks with an accent that's surprisingly Oriental sounding. I guess not stating his race does not matter. I think KQ should make up a new character with an accent that can't quite be traced. :) I'm interested in what others think of Talk with Tak or what you think would define something as being racist.

Jesse the Body was on KQ. He also made the front page of the Daily Illini (not the feature article, but the front page nonetheless). Most of my news that I throw at you is usually computer stuff, so here's something from Maximum PC that mentions "the wrestler."

McJorgenson sent me this link.

Apple has a new deal where you can Rent-to-Own an iMac for $30 a month. Sure, it sounds like a good deal. Only a little bit more than unlimited Internet access... except you realize that this is for 67 months. After the first year or two you'll feel like your machine is really out-dated. Then you realize that you are paying $30 for the next 43 months for an outdated computer that, from many peoples view points, wasn't very good computer brand new.

Matt Sundberg graduated from High School today. Slacker.

Anybody who uses the mega-gigantic dryers in Allen Hall should not leave their laundry in their for more than 10-15 minutes. It's really annoying, because if you don't use those and have a decent ammount of laundry, you have to run your load a few times.

The 52 lbs. package has been spotted in Cach, IL at 9:47 PM today. It should be expected to arrive tomorrow or Monday. The last time I saw something at Cach, IL I got it the next day or the day after. That was of course in MN, but now that I live in IL, it should be here sooner. That's right, I live in IL. I am IL.

I wonder if I've regained control of my will power. Jack's Taco Bell poster finally fell. Jack missed two classes today because he went to sleep at six in the morning.

I took my second math test. It hurt.

I love this song. "Give it to me, baby!"

"That's a great plan, we'll just steal some of Yishan's ideas."

I like how the results graph doesn't show the entries that weren't voted for. I'll impliment this change sometime. I'm very busy this week. I've got a test tomorrow night and the night after and an essay due Friday. The Thursday test is horrid Graph Theory.

Holly crap, Caroline is a cool person, more of this model of human should be created for future generations... hmm I'm becoming Bene Gesserit like in my thinking. Yes, we should keep an eye on this line. This update is for you, because you asked for it. I'd have probably updated anyway because of the elections. I just think her web page is really neat, and she was in Newsweek.

We've been having November Rain in Urbana. Very annoying and very cold. However, my Jacket, which bundles me up more than Kenny's has nifty anti-weather mechanisms build into it.

I'm now reading i, robot from some guy named Asimov. There's a small story that takes place in 1998. The development in robotics/computers in the book is far different than what it will be in this universe.

These are links concerning the KQRS Morning Show. They are interesting. They are also biased because the Star and KQ are enemies. [Link 1] [Link 2] [Link 3] [Link 4]

I voted using an IBM Votomatic! I voted mostly all democratic, just because I wasn't up to speed on all the issues of all the candidates in all the races I had to vote for. Ryan (R) beat Poshard (D) for Gubenautical race. Moseley-Braun (D) is behind by 100K votes v. Fitzgerald (R) for the Senatorical race. I also think incumbent, E-wing (R) creamed Prussing 63 to 37 percent. Then there is Minnesota... all I can say is good luck Jesse, who just won.

Meijer is really annoying. They often change their prices every week, thus causing confusion on how much you are paying. Like I paid almost $8 for a 24 pack of Lipton - almost as bad as a vending machine, but not quite. Yesterday Mike (my neighbor) and I went to Meijer, and since I was there I felt compelled to buy something. So I bought a some Frappuccino, I ended up paying $4.80. WTF. Meijer also doesn't price all their products on the shelves. That's the most annoying thing in the world. Of course, I wasn't doing my part in asking for a price check, but really, $1.20 for some fancy yuppie drink? You've got to be kidding me. I may have to go shop at Target for more stuff.

Mike and I noticed a Perpetual Dawn (sorry, it's a song from Orb) yesterday. It looked like it was 6AM, 7AM and then 7PM at various periods during the day. In otherwords, no day yesterday. No day today either, although I was never outside. It has been cold, but I have to tolerate it. I think Jack starts to smell after some time in the morning, so I keep my window open and my door open to bring fresh air into the room.

If you step into my hall you can smell the boo-puke left by somebody who didn't know his boo-beer tolerance this Halloween. Drinking to the point that you are going to vomit is stupid. Vomiting in the hallway is stupid. Stupidity doesn't belong in Allen Hall.

I guess my neighbor had a talk with Jack and pointed out that we don't get along. Jack and I had a talk. I hate having talks with Jack. I mean, I don't mind talking to Jack, but addressing issues is really annoying. Mainly because it deals with a lot of judgement. I suppose it's something I should get used to. I guess both of us just get "pissed-off" at each other and need to tell each other when this occurs. I suppose it's a good thing. I went into this whole roommate business negatively to begin with. I will still make fun of Jack and post updates that are demeaning, because Jack is wierd. He admits it. I am also going to have to find a clever way of recording him on my computer, Cooledit is too big. Okay, I just found some shortcuts... :)

Laurel Prussing When asked to indicate which principles she supports concerning education in a survey from Project Votesmart said, "Give children vouchers to choose their parents." Perhaps a typo, I like it anyway. I decided instead of seeing whether I like Ewing or Prussing (for House of Representatives) to screw it. My vote goes to Prussing, because she seems like she'll support the things I like. I'll make up my own arguments for not choosing Ewing. "Ewing is the demon-seed spawn of the devil. His last term in congress brought the devil one step closer to taking away everything in which you believe. This Novermber when you vote, don't vote for evil, vote for non-evil, vote for Laurel Prusssing. Laurel Prussing lets kids choose their parents."

Sounds like India has it's own "religious right," known as the Vidya Bharati, making educational demands. They want to ban certain poems and stories. Schools shouldn't teach the young "graphically about the female body and her emotions."

Our school has this cool thing. Let's say you are going to a web site. If it's busy or down or just hard to connect to, this webcache system (128.174.0.245 or webcache.gw.uiuc.edu) takes up the task of trying to connect to the site for you (I'm assuming that's it's only task, so it's faster). I also think that it just serves you frequently vistied pages. So if you go to Yahoo, and someone else does, it's their right away, and the webcache thing just gives you what it has. That is kick-ass.

Little things

• Today we can celebrate the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1922).
• Jack got a "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" poster Friday and put it up Saturday. It's scary.
• I've cleaned up my new "better-than Adam's loft" desk. There;s a lot of space to work with. Of course that space may change in a week or two.
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Adam Engelhart, reputed for having his own domain name states on his web site that he has a loft. He goes on and on about how great his loft is... well guess what Adam? I have cool stuff too! Basically every student is at the University of Illinois Residence Halls is given a 2'x3.5' desk and a 1.5'x2' dresser that are of equal height. So today I went to Menards (goddammit, if I hyper link it, you probably wouldn't go there... I mean it's Menards... what are they going to have on the damn site?) and bought a nice laminated piece of wood that just barely fits in my room that now sits between my desk and my dresser. So I have a big L-shaped desk. I also have my fridge and microwave right under it. So there.

Check this out.

This may be a bit boring, so it's marked optional. I've decided to put all my one-liner things at the bottom all in one paragraph. Otherwise I have three or four paragraphs of little tidbits and that gets annoying.

Tuesday night, Jack ordered a pizza from Dining Services. Jack doesn't understand that chewing with your mouth open is rude. "Jack," I say, "chew with your mouth closed." Jack wonders with a confused half grin, "Why?" Oh, ignorant ignorant Jack, do you not know? "I don't like to hear you chew." Jack still confused, thinking it's some quirk with me. I help him out and explain, "It's impolite." Jack struggles to chew with his mouth closed, but at least he tries and at leasts I don't hear a bunch of chewing noises. Silly China-man, will you ever learn our ways? I suppose college is the only time he'd ever learn things like manners, etc.

This may or may not be out of context. From Kay's page: "Robocop and I went to bed." Oh boy, another soap-opera that I can twist.

Okay, for anybody who was wondering what Aural Stimulation was, Dimension Music cites somebody (probably from Winamp), "aural stimulation adds some high frequencies to the output, so that the ear hears high frequencies with the music. This tricks the ear into thinking that the recording is crisper, because mp3 tends to filter out most high frequency stuff, so the presence of incorrect (but unobtrusive) high frequencies makes it sound better." So it is not what I expected it to be, which would explain the unfamiliar name.

Looks like I save $299 by not buying a Matrox Marvel. No drivers for Windows NT. I'll just wait till Windows 2000 comes out. I wish Adobe would create Photoshop for Linux.

And now for the tidbits of information:

• I woke Jack yesterday with Logon Rock Witch... oops, oh well... that's what happens when you have stupid sleeping habbits. Mr. I have one class on Wednesdays.
• I've decided that I should use the computer lab in our basement more often. It's quieter at many times and there is no Jack and no PlayStation.
• Woo-hoo! I passed my fire safety inspection test... hopefully it's not the only test I pass.
• Ever wonder who hacks the hackers?
• Download this. If I choose to use this as my default laugh and laugh at more things, I think Jack will be scared of me:)

I found a link here and here referring to the shooting. Apparently they had the wrong guy.

It's a bout time that somebody came out with a phone that hooks up to your PC. Unfortunately you can't use this with talking over the Internet. It wouldn't be that hard. Just make it a USB device that doubles as a microphone/speaker and you could talk to people via netmeeting with a phone.

Friday Night I watched Omen IV with some friends. It's actually the second time I saw the movie. It's very funny. Watch it with girls. There was a seen where snakes bit people and Cheryl, a friend of mine, screamed a little too much. I'm not implying that all girls will scream, there are probably quite a few exceptions. One exception, I think, is Molly. I can't picture her screaming out of fear of a movie. Or having any fear of something in a movie. That's why I love her.

Looks like Windows NT 5.0 Beta 3 and subsequent 5.0 releases will not have as cool of an active directory interface as I thought. Originally it was to be a type of metadirectory where virtual links could be made, similar to Unix type systems where you can type "ln -s" to create a symbolic link. Oh well. One day I hope to be running this. Probably a legal copy too. My friend Chris has gotten me into this legal kick.

Crack.com is folding over supposedly because of lack of funds. They made cool Linux games. One game Golgotha has great music. I remember Tom playing a song, Meathook when it came out, it's now called Munich Germany. You can get these of the MP3 Server. These are, by the way, legal MP3s. All the legal MP3s I have are pretty cool.

Also on the MP3 server is an mp3 of Jack, my roommate. It's in Chinese. It's his mom calling about the shooting that happened. I have a translation available too. It's under \D\Dave's Roommate, Jack Lin\.

I shaved yesterday. I look a lot less credible, but I also look like I'm not fresh off the boat. I also noticed that some of my hair has a copper color. I think it would be cool to have more uniform copper hairs.

I've noticed that it only takes me a small amount of time to set up a web site. Here is one for Millenium 3. It's our team that's competing in a robot design competition. The sad thing is, if Peter were in the competition, he'd beat everyone's ass.

Yes, I know, I have a million updates today, but I'm bored. Not because I lack stuff to do, it's just that I don't want to work on my big projects and I've been doing little things all day. Anyway, I went to Laureen Ojalvo's site. It's been a while. Out of my friend's sites I have seen I think that is probably the prettiest. Ben Schack's page is neat because it has JavaScript that he took the time to write, but it's ugly. Heh, my hyperlink to his page slipped:)

I wonder who else will start a page this year... it's pretty neat. Stefan was telling me that he's going to work on a page sometime. Not that he'll have anything to put on it, but because it will be something he can pour his creativity into. I think that's why people should make web pages. Because they can be creative. Of course... sometimes people's creativity looks like crap, and then I start to think that unless a page offers content it shouldn't exist. Of course that's hypocritical because I have no real value on this web page. It's basically, read about my life 'n' stuff.

I've decided to get a Logitech Marble Trackman. I've decided I hate mice and they aren't very useful. I may buy this when I get home, or something. If anybody can find one for less than $42, tell me. Shopping.com so far has offered the best prices. They actually offer better prices than those listed in Pricewatch.com for various items, so I'd check them out.

A picture of the Frog Man can be seen here. Rumour is he has invaded the body of Tom Borchert. When asked to comment, "Tom" had this to say, "strange..." Other comments have been: "that's strange" and "It's incredible strange, and slightly disturbing."

 7:10 PM: Alan came into my room and told Jack to stop playing video
          games and to do his work.  Jack asked,  "Why?  I don't want
          to be a nerd."
 7:11 PM: Alan asks about my waveform and explain that it's a pattern
          I can lock onto rather than video game noises.  Alan laughs.
          Jack stops game and leaves room.
 7:13 PM: Jack returns and does something at his desk.  May be a form
          of studying.
 7:16 PM: Jack makes phone calls.
 7:18 PM: Jack is speaking Chinese to someone.  Outside room.  Cannot
          capture easily.
 7:21 PM: Jack is off the phone.  Back to desk.
 7:30 PM: Jack dons the headphones and listens to groovey music.
          Possibly Chinese in origin, or maybe Aerosmith.
 8:02 PM: Jack goes out of the room.  Curious about something.  Asks
          if someone is having a party.
 8:14 PM: Jack hears TV.  Turns his TV on and watches what the other
          TV has on.  Then turns his TV off.
 8:16 PM: Jack was called "Twinkle Toes" by Eric.  Jack goes outside
          and talks to him for a bit and returns all in the same 
          minute.
 8:23 PM: TV on to same show again.  I guess he needs the TV on to
          function.  Funny.  He isn't even looking at it half the
          time.  I think Aaron Engelhart may have clued me in as to
          why TV is so addicting.
 8:30 PM: TV off.
 He left for a while...
 8:58 PM: Back to TV and Video Games.
 9:02 PM: I was going to mention he kept the volume quiet, but no...
          sure enough he just turned up the volume.
 9:10 PM: White noise with only an alpha wave sync... umm turning that
          on at a low volume made him change his volume... lower I
          think.
 9:49 PM: TV off.
 9:50 PM: Out the door.
10:29 PM: I came back into my room after taking a Hot cocoa break.
          Someone smells smokey-smokey...
10:31 PM: Back onto the playstation.  SF probably.

I can't write poetry unless I'm in an angry mood. Maybe because when I'm angry, I have nothing better to do, or I'm trying to pour out all my thoughts.

I decided I'm going to rev-up some of the links on my site, before it dies.

That song that I couldn't find the title of, (after Spy) I think is Mr. Tambourine man. That's what I thought he was singing when he said "Jingle Jangle." Adam sent me the lyrics to verify my findings. It is by Bob Dylan (not William Shattner:))

I didn't mention it in the last entry, but on Monday Katie Romportl turned 19. For those of you who don't know Katie Romportl was part of my graduating class at Hopkins High School. Congratulations Katie.

I finished my speech yesterday. I feel more free. Although now I have to do Laundry, read Chemistry, do four hideous problems of math and write a two page paper by tomorrow. I'll try this one step at a time. I came up with this idea. If you have public showers with partitions like at my school, bring a bag of rocks into the shower. Throw rocks over the partition until you start seeing red on the other side. I haven't tried it, and I don't think I will. It sounds a bit evil.

I am on the road to fixing my hard disk problem. It skips a lot less now that I figured out a bit more about drive termination. I think I'm on the road to having a healthier hard disk.

This Saturday I had a talk with my roommate Jack about his Street Fighter addiction. During lunch he asked, "You think that I don't have a life because I play Street Fighter all day?" After a while human conversations become very silly because people tend to think a like. I answered, "Yes." I anticipated that he would try to find a similar flaw in me, due to the nature of his question. "Well I can say that you have no life also, since you are in front of the computer all day. At least that's what I see." I replied calmly, "Yes, but I study using my computer." I guess Jack is open to the fact that he has a severe video game addiction. His main excuse is that this December there is a Street Fighter cometition in Chicago. I hope he'll get wasted.

Anyway, Jack is getting less annoying, it's just that he needs discipline. Like there is this towel that I think he uses for showering, and he leaves it on his chair all day. That has to go.

Saturday my meal plan ran up, so I ate at BW-3. They have them in MN, WI, IL, OH, and PA. I found out about them from Shang who went with me (he's from Ohio). The food is good and very affordable. I think that will be my Saturday dinner every week since wings are only $.25 on Saturday nights.

TMBG coming soon... I'm so busy, someone's gotta remind me.

Today I have two meetingish things. I have a pre-lab for chem due tomorrow so I have to do that tonight. I have to read some Chemistry. I also have to write out my speech outline for the speech I am giving on Wednesday. I have to have a quiz in Chemistry on wed. Thursday is catch up on everything day. Friday I have a presentation and my math is due. I also am doing poorly in my math class. Just barely racking more than 50% in graded homework. Take the hardest UMTYMP take-home tests and assign the six problems that are proofs. Choose four of those each week and that's what my assignments are like. I have to try to do harder in this course. I think after my September Cycle finishes I'll have catch-up time so I can read stuff for that class. I have a test soon for that class too.

This Thursday I had the pleasure of having Dan, Amy and Molly stop by for the rest of the week. We had a great time. We mostly hung out. Yesterday we went to Chicago to hang out with my friend Sunita, visit the Sears Tower and eat pizza at Lou Malnati's.

They left. I think I will miss them, because despite the heat level in my room, they added something here that was nice. However, right now I don't feel that loss. I believe I am still in the same mode of not feeling loss, becuase it is interfering. I think if I had nothing to do today I would feel very sad. I however have lots to do, I have to clean this mess-of-a-room for one thing. I have an assortment of documents to organize. I have several homework assignments to begin or at least preview. By keeping myself busy I don't feel lonely. Except now I have two bottles of Frapaccino's that Molly was supposed to take with her that will linger there for a while. Perhaps late at night when it gets hot I will try to finish them.

My brother and sister-in-law bought a Saab recently. Dan Lavenda and I can hardly wait to see it. My brother is going to make an effort to visit me either this month or next, which will be nice. Well I am off to cleaning my room.

Which reminds me I got a few gifts for my brithday. My mom and dad bought me a real nice Columbia Jacket and nice gloves (which are a tad too small) and I think my mom got me some Toblerone from her trip to India. Molly got a plant for me. Her parents got me some hot cocoa that they had sitting around and Molly gave me two of her brother's CDs (one of which I already have). Katie sent me a beanbag which is on loan, which I think is a great thing because I was complaining to my mom and Molly how I wanted a bean bag or something becuase I like to sit somewhere else other than my bed or my chair to read. Marc got me HUGBEES! Thanks again everybody.

Oh yeah, on Thursday I bought my ticket for They Might Be Giants. I am sitting in Section three (of four) in Row C in seat 7. So it's a good seat:) Unfortunately I'm going Solo to it, but that's okay... Also I may be going to see Moxy Fruvous next month.

People are so dumb. Mistake 1. One of the admins at Unit One sent an email to everybody with everyone's name (like everyone from Allen Hall) in to "To" field. Normally this is to be put in the BCC field so people do not accidentally reply to all and so people do not have to scroll through so many names. Mistakes 2 and onward were people replying to all. So my UIUC mailbox was filled with all this crap, just because of Mistake 1. Grr... I am getting a gift from Minnesota. Right now the gift is in Wisconsin.

My parents came on Sunday and I stayed at the Holiday Inn which is better than my dorm. It was nice, they came bringing many gifts (birthday). They left yesterday.

My brother sent with them a cool mat and a nice window fan. I'm happy.

Today I enrolled for the "They Might Be Giants" lottery. Basically I can buy my ticket sometime early on Thursday. It's wierd. I saw them last month... I want to find somebody to go with me, but I don't know people who like They Might Be Giants on campus. I may just do a solo thing. That'd be neat. By the way, the song that's been in my head this week is Ana Ng.

Oh yeah, today is the day that I decided to update my "friends" page. If you have a web page and it's not listed in the friends page, then send an email or ICQ me and I'll add it.

I was just remembering the good ol' days. Back when I'd hang out in the Tech center at high school. Sure it was also the worst year of school, but it had its high points. Like when we installed Remote Desktop which enabled us to control other computers. I remember we'd always make the web browser go to a porn site like www.sex.com or something when Ryan Hayle was near the machine. I need to get something like that on some of the computers around me.

I talked to her again... luckily we are so techno-savvy that we will find a way not to spend nearly as much money as Dan and Amy do on long distance.

Brimful of Asha is a great song. I think I like it a lot just because the one guy from the band is from India, and thus there are a ton of Indian references.

Today Heather, Brian and I went on a Hot Air Balloon ride. It was mostly going up ten feet and coming down. It wasn't all that great.

She came online on ICQ and I called her and talked to her for a half an hour. Thank god I love her, because that was an expensive call... I wonder how long my parents will pay for this...

Molly should be returning to the camp today and reading my letter. She probably is having more fun than I, since she is not sick (and doesn't have classes tomorrow). Right now I have a sore throat, which seems to be going away. Unfortunately iced tea has been sold out. My neighbor, Brian (pre med), told me to not take orange juice as it will make my throat worse, and suggested iced tea as a friendly substitute.

I skipped out on Quad Day today, and will review some of the stuff that Heather picked up. I'll also talk to some of the Indian people I know and ask them what they are going to join if anything.

I went to First Year Impact. It seems like a good leadership program. My room is a god-awful mess. I just have too much everywhere. I have begun posting my Geometry Center posters everywhere. It looks neat.

The cooling problem in my room is being improved with a box fan that I purchased. My roommate, Jack, will be getting another fan this Friday when he goes to the mall. I am thinking about getting a new phone.

We had the Late Nighter today. It was pretty fun. We saw a very good improv group among other things. I got tired so headed back before 2AM (and half the floor did the same so we walked back together).

I had a cold, and still do. I helped Heather hook up a network card (3COM, like me) and then sat in her room which has 2 window fans. Then I went into my room and then went downstairs. The heat in my room was unbearable. Several people downstairs were doing likewise. I met an interesting group of people too. They were like the discussionist arm of Walking Fish. I walked outside with them too, they are all very interesting. Once again, I love my hall.

Thursday I could really tell that I had friends. Adam helped me the whole day with packing. Mike Jorgenson and Marc helped me throughout the day by keeping me company and Katie joined us for dinner. We marveled at how neat it was that we made a very good meal buy ourselves (well actually Marc and Katie made a good meal).

So I ended my traditional life as a Minnesotan resident that night. I barely slept. Tried to catch up on reading and packing. We left at about six in the morning on Friday. The ride was pretty fast. We made a slight mistake that cost us 20 miles or so. We arrived at Allen Hall at 3 PM.

My brother and I with some help quickly loaded my boxes of stuff into my room. We went shopping for a refrigerator and a microwave. Then we ate food at a Steak and Shake. We came to my room and loaded all my new stuff inside. We set up everything as much as we could and then my brother left. It's was disconcerting to part with the one person who was always looking out for your best interests for your entire life.

I went to the orientation night activities. It was there that I met Heather, my neighbor who lives down the hall. She's a cool person who hails from Omaha, Nebraska. I skipped out on the movie and decided to hang out with Heather, and explain to her some things about her computer. I felt very Adamish. I talked her into housing my IBC rootbeer collection for the night as well.

I found some guy who knows as much about computers as I do who was also the network guy for our hall. Luckily he's on my floor. He picked up the cable I needed to connect to the Ethernet. Unfortunately I was too incompetent to get DHCP up until Saturday (Day 26) afternoon. I also met Brian, my neighbor who doesn't like to walk.

I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to sleep on the bottom bunk since my roommate is not yet here. That worked. I woke up and had enough time to get ready before day orientation stuff started but had to skip out on breakfast. I met Stefan Pfister during lunch. Stefan went to my Jr. High and Highschool. We ate lunch and went to a bunch of orientation sessions together. We later met up with Heather and went book shopping. Books are expensive.

Stefan and I went to eat at the Luau but ate inside instead of outside, since the inside has AC. We skipped the rest of it, because weren't into dancing and stuff. We hung out watched south park I saw his room. I later went to my room and attempted to sleep or clean up my room or something.

9 PM rolled along and when I popped downstairs Stefan caught me and asked me if I wanted to see Blade. I ran upstairs and got Brian and we all saw it. The movie was very cool. Oh yeah, sometime that day I gained a roommate.

I had a tremendous sleep-deprived headache which is still persisting. I had trouble sleeping more than a few hours last night as well. I have to talk my roommate into reconfiguring the air flow of this room. I ended up showering and going to the basement where it's cooler and hung out. I later decided hanging out won't cut it. I slept. Some janitor guy pitied me.

I went upstairs and decideded to finish some things. Then I went downstairs for brunch with Brian. We met this girl Mary who has a baton. She's one of those people who fares well solo.

Brian and I made an excursion to Walgreens and some other place to get some stuff we needed. It was hot and annoying outside.

Not much else has happened today. This weekend has been pretty good so far. I like it. I just need a new telephone and a large fan. I should shave my head and put heatsinks on it. It's neat being from anywhere other than Chicago, or for that matter any place not Illinois.

Well today my cousin and her family left. Today I had a fun day. Katie, Marc and I and later Daniel watched Freakazoid! We later made some food out of all the things we could find. Then we went to Marc's where I read and they watched British TV. Well I ended up watching some TV. Katie was saddened that it would be the last day that she'll see me for a while. For some reason I can't express the sadness as she does. Perhaps it's because I am reading the Dune series. The time for being sad about leaving is not now. I should enjoy leaving in order to start off on the right foot when I go to college. Perhaps I just adapt in order to survive. I make light of leaving everyone by telling them that I may never see them again (which is improbable) or that the next time I see them will be far from now. For now, I just wonder: What would a McKatie sandwhich be? What would it look like? What would it taste like? Well overall, today was a good day. Tomorrow my mother arrives from India.

I should have taken those phone calls last night with a bit more concern as I later found out today.

On to something less morose. My cousins and family are in town. My nephew was playing with Voltron. I started packing one box so far. Unfortunately most of my packing will take place later this week. Maybe a laptop wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Marc came over. We ate and watched Freakazoid! Daniel Lavenda came and we went to baseball at Anna's. That was a lot of fun. Daniel and I were playing around with my depth perception. Apparantly I don't use it and rely soley on visual cues or something.

After the game Daniel and I picked up a French movie called The Visitor featuring Jean Reno (from The Professional and more recently Godzilla) and we got some food and pop. This was a hilarious movie and that's from subtitles. The guy says "okaaaaay" like Marc says "aaaaay."

I guess tomorrow (or today) Katie, Daniel and perhaps Marc are coming over to watch Freakazoid! Katie doesn't seem like the type that would come over soley for Television. I think maybe it's because she wants to spend "quality time" with her Alter-ego...

Finally...

Saturday I read a lot of Dune and a lot of Maximum PC. It's a very good magazine for anybody who can justify spending more than $2K on a single computer. Later Marc and his Anime buddies and I went to Arby's to eat and on the way I dropped stuff off at Molly's house. Her room smells funny.

Then we went to Adam's party which was moderately okay. I dislike parties because nothing really happens and nobody talks to me, because I am either insane or because I don't like them. For the most part it's the former. The party ended early and Adam, Hayley and I went to my house. Marc came over later. Then Hayley left. Then Marc and I played Mario. Then I played Solstice. I played until 2AM or more. We were going to watch Kentucky Fried Movie but Marc and I were too tired to focus. My phone rang throughout the night because a family member passed away and people felt the need to call me and tell me while I tried to sleep. Eventually I gave in and just stayed awake (it was about 10:30 AM). Eventually Marc and Adam woke up and we all made pancakes and had fun. Then we watched Dune in the evening. I hate that movie. It's differs too much from the book for my liking.

I did nothing today. I would normally not have an entry but then I'd be missing day 16. What did I do? Hmm... I woke up later. I started reading Children of Dune. It's working thus far. I've studied more Japanese. I installed a fan for my hard drive. I think I'll no longer have to open that case for a while. At least not until I move. I noticed temporary no parking signs issued by the Edina police on both my neighbor's lawns... I'm a bit suspicious as to why this is. I wonder if this is related to friends and acquaintances of mine parking on the street... I hope not, but you never know. I personally do not care, because I am leaving in a week. This is my last Wednesday that I will get to spend at my house at least until December. If any of you are looking for a cheap computer, Micron has a few refurbished 300MHz machines available with 64MB of RAM. They are nice machines, except that they are desktop models. They are about $1K each no monitor.

Today I lured Anna into my house. I advised her on a computer and she's ordered it tonight. Marc, Anna and I went grocery shopping and we got a lot of macaroni and cheese type food... I am borrowing two more of the dune books, and hope to finish them soon. I have also been working on the Hindu Mandir email database (again) and studying the Japanese language for my test on the 20th. I configured a machine for under $3000. It could be called a dream machine I guess. 450 MHz 256MB of RAM... it's in almost every way better than my current computer. This is something that would be hard to beat even if I ordered it from Micron Recondition... of course those once in a while machines like the one I have come along...

It appears that I no longer have my University of Minnesota Email account. This is a small loss.

Well yesterday we went to the Uptown Art Fair. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did in years earlier because it was not only very hot, but I refrained from buying refreshments (or rather having my brother get refreshments). I went with a group of friends: Zach, Adam, Tanya, Jesse, Jesse's cousin, Yishan, Marc, Dan Lavenda and Katie. We were later joined mysteriously by Laureen. I think our problem was that we went as a large group. We split off into a group of 3 and a group of 8. 8 doesn't work. When I went with my brother we were usually 4, maximum. I'm sure if Molly were here we would have gone off on our own. I should make a list of why it's good for me to have Molly around.

Most of us ate at Uptown Express. They can make anything. I had a Gyro. Dan and Laureen got an interesting plate of food from the Cuban Food place. It looked good and I should have opted for it.

AFter that we went to the Improv in the Park at the Lake Harriet Rose Gardens. Most of us got there pretty early (all but Tanya, Marc, Laureen and Adam, because Adam couldn't find his car). Yishan was feeling weak and worn out so everyone but me went in cars to the Lake Harriet Bandshell. While I waited for Adam's car of people I walked around the rose gardens and the surrounding area. The place by the parking lot was pretty. It was a bunch of rocks and some water. It reminded me of this place me and one of my cousins visited in India. They had some neat fountains at the Rose Gardens that were nice too.

Eventually everyone came back and we watched the Improv. All I have to say is that Dr. Doug, my teacher, and this one other girl, seemed to be on a different level than the other people in the troupe. Parts of it were funny though. I think the audience was easily amused.

Dark ominous clouds formed and then started to rain heavily just as the show ended. We ran to a shelter and decided to go to my house and watch a movie. Ryan Hayle, again, showed up at the Rose Gardens very late missing almost everything. The whole lot of us went to my house and we watched a few people play Super Mario brothers and eventually Katie and Dan brought home the Full Monty. I had a headache by then, which seems to be a recurring thing (I think it's my lack of water intake). What I saw of the movie was somewhat amusing. I wouldn't have rented it myself though.

Overall it was a pretty nice day.

No Molly, but new site.

I'm going to what'll be the last Indian party I attend for a while. Some kid's birthday party. Yay? Tomorrow will be fun though: Uptown Art Fair and Improv in the Park.

It's been an entire week. It's frustrating - making a meal for one. I had Macaroni and Cheese from Annie's. It was very very good. To make it required boiling. Molly's the one who boils stuff.

I went to Best Buy with Marc and looked at a notebook with his friend. She doesn't know much about computers and wanted to get other things as well, like a scanner. After Best Buy Marc and I went to Paul Loudon's for a bit. Then we went by Katie's, but Katie wasn't there.

The mail came late today. When I got it though, I was very happy. I got a letter from a friend of mine who is canoeing in Canada. I call her Molly (among other things... you know, like "dear" and "loved one" or "chosen companion"). I read it and I was happy. Included was Katie-bait (a letter for Katie). I even have an address where I can send her mail. I intend to write something.

Katie fell for the bait and showed up as Marc and I made pasta and tater tots. Katie checked her email while Marc and I ate and watched the Simpsons. Then the three of us watched Freakazoid!. It is a damn funny cartoon that is forever lost in syndication. It's on the Cartoon Network at 6PM CDT on weekdays.

Today I missed her.

I read a lot of Dune. I like it a lot. Today I cleaned my room further. In the early AM I was working heavily on the new site. I hope to get around to adding everything by the end of this week. I almost helped this girl get a notebook, but actually just tricked her to going to Best Buy when it was closed.

Today I went to the They Might Be Giants concert which was at the Hops festival. It was very very cool. I missed Molly. Perhaps it's because I love going to concerts with her (even though I've done so only twice). We just always have fun. This would have been especially better because we got to listen to someone for free. I am, however, home now, so I don't mind as much. We got very wet. They played a lot of songs, including new ones. I was somewhat hoping for them to play She's an Angel. No such luck.

Today (or well yesterday) I went to Best Buy with Adam and Marc. I bought volumes one and two of the Wedding Singer soundtrack. It is very very good! It's also infinitely easier than finding the MP3s for the songs.

Marc and I watched Conspiracy Theory It was an okay movie. It was pretty interesting. It featured Mel Gibson and Patrick Stewart. If you have HBO, it's worth catching.

Tomorrow I guess the plan is to stalk the band They Might be Giants at the First Annual Hops Festival. We'll attempt to listen to them for free by not going to the actual festival, but by being right outside it. This way Marc won't booze-up with a festival full of drinking buddies.

Yesterday went well. I saw Taming of the Shrew presented by Shakespeare in the Park. They are a very good crew, and they are very funny. I was surprisingly able to keep up with the play even though I don't recall reading it, although I do remember the name Bianca. Laureen, Adam, Katie, Jesse and Jesse's cousin watched it with me. Laureen and I were debating who was prettier, Bianca or Kate. I said Bianca was.

We saw other people in the audience too. We saw Jurewicz (former AP Euro teacher). We saw Katie's parents (credits to Laureen for spotting Katie's dad). We later met with Zach and his person, Dan Lavenda and Ryan Hayle (who completely missed the show somehow).

We went to D'amico's and then Sabastian Joe's for food and Ice Cream. It was a nice day.

I am looking forward to the comedy thing on 9 August.

Yesterday and today I woke up at 9:46AM. I don't know why I wake up at that time, I just do. Yesterday I did nothing useful. Well I actually mailed the last of my thank you notes. I read Dune a lot too. Suzy stopped by and gave me a CD. This is what I call human contact. I think it was neat. She showed me some shirts for her parent's company.

Today I recieved a 9.1 GB Hard Drive as mentioned earlier. I have nothing but good news to report about it. This is the first time I've ever had to install a hard drive and I am very glad I decided to get a SCSI drive because they are easier than Jell-o to install. I was going to read the online installation guide at Seagate's web site, but it was far easier to just "wing" it. Finding a home inside my computer was kinda neat. I found a nice place under my floppy. It actually took a while to figure out how it would house my drive. There is this little cradle that unscrews from under my floppy drive. It attatches onto the new hard drive by sticking two little prongs into holes on one side of the drive while on the other side of the drive, you fasten it with a screw. I was short on computer screws so this one screw mounting was pretty handy. Then the cradle slides back into the spot under the floppy drive and you screw it tight and wallah, you are back in business. Unfortunately they didn't give me jumper-dealies so I had to steal one from a network card I had lying around in order to set the SCSI ID to 1. Then I played around and attempted to not cut the pricy SCSI cable. I succeeded and I plugged in the drive. I booted, the drive registered to the controller BIOS, and then NT started. Opened up the disk administrator and played around with it and after ten minutes or so, I had a nice new NTFS partition on the new drive. Well I copied my 2GBs of MP3s to the drive and it took under 25 minutes. I think that is satisfactory.

Today some people are going to see Shakespeare with me. I think that shall be pretty fun. It's at Lake Harriet Bandshell. I love that place.

Well she's gone. She left yesterday, early in the morning. I won't see her ever again until mayhaps September. I think I'll be okay though.

Monday I decided to go over to her house in the evening. Yesterday - Day 1 of no Molly went okay. I got a lot of things finished. I finished most of the remaining thank you cards (I have a few more from people who have sent me stuff but gave no card). I also did laundry for the first time by myself. It was easy. (Thank god for the Internet.)

I also ordered a very expensive hard drive. If any of you care it's an Ultra Wide SCSI (the only thing better is Ultra 2 Wide) 9.1 GB Seagate Barracuda. I have no real idea on how to install a second SCSI drive, but I assume it's quite simple.

Today I will finish the thank you cards and send them out and later I will attend some kid's birthday party.

Well Dan Lavenda, Molly, Katie, Zach Wyman and I went to Montgomery which is south of Shakopee. It was pretty fun. We did a lot of walking around. There’s not much in that town really. I didn’t like the Kolacky’s that much. To me they were just dinner rolls with jam inside them. I guess the rest of the group got something out of them that I didn’t.

We also went to Northfield and walked around on St. Olaf’s campus. That place is very churchish. I’m glad I don’t go there. I pulled a Gandhi, because I had only $2. I ate when I got home, but never stopped being hungry. I should probably eat breakfast soon.

Today I organized more of my room. It is now easier to find stuff.

Wednesday we went to Valleyfair again with our kids. That was okay. Molly and I rode the Wild Thing three times and got a picture. It's "cute." We also went on the Hydroblaster twice. Thursday we didn't do too much. One of our kids, Priya, got in trouble. That was funny. Friday was the open house, and I think that went pretty well.

I went to see the Mask of Zorro with Nick Skinner and Molly. It was a neat movie. Fun for all ages. Today I am going to invade a small town. I'll be more detailed later.

Yesterday I went Rollerblading with the kids. It was my first time. I am not very good at Rollerblading, but would like to get better. I am thinking of buying some blades and then practicing in my garage until I can navigate normally. Then I'll use them as a means of transportation. Or, I could not do that and walk. Some of the kids tried to help me. That was nice of them. I pitted Marc's kids against Marc.

Today, however, at Valleyfair Marc's kids were turned against me. Well some of them. I didn't care that much. We went on a lot of rides and had a moderate ammount of fun. I have no idea about tomorrow's trip to Valley Fair.

Tom's web page is really funny. Like you find out about all the games Tom plays.

The group of kids we have for SEI II are great. They are all smart and in class they are well behaved. The girls get obnoxious during break time. Actually not all the girls. One girl is really cool and lots of people mistake her as a TA (unless they mistake Molly and I as students). She's into nanotechnology, genetics, quantum physics. Very cool kid. We'll certainly miss these kids. Marc's kids aren't that great.

Thursday we went to an orchestra concert at Orchestra Hall. We took my cousin with us too, it was pretty neat. The concert had two good pieces at the beginning. The rest I didn't like because it was all opera-like. Adam, Molly, my cousin and I later went shopping at Rainbow. Molly went home and Adam, my cousin and I had icecream sandwhiches (Kempswich).

I talked to my cousin for a while. I won't see her for at least three years since she'll be in Germany with her family. It's wierd. I think she's looking forward to it.

Friday (yesterday) at the Northrup Turnaround where we pick up our kids there were huge trucks and busses. It was of course Tori Amos and her stuff. We didn't see her, but we did see her stuff. Marc and I asked around the trucks whose stuff was whose and well we were pretty much right. I offered my kids $20 if they could bring Tori Amos to class. They failed, but I don't blame them.

Later that day Molly and I ate with Raj, Kelly and Adam. Then Molly and I went to DanAmy and we went to see the Wedding Singer. The second time around made me "get" everything. Everything made sense now that I remembered it was the eighties that the story takes place. Once again. I recommend this "Romantic Comedy." It is funnier than hell.

Today I woke up at 5, left home at about 6 and went canoeing after Paul Heinecke (and another boat went after Laureen Ojalvo) while they swam 5 miles in Lake Minnetonka. Paul didn't make it all the way. Laureen of course did, she got second place for her age group. I think she rules! Paul almost made it, but for a person who had very little sleep, did a lot of work the day before, and has not swum in supposedly 17 months... wow... that was awesome. I realize that I may enjoy canoeing when there is less weight and people on the boat. Less chance of things going bad I guess. It was nice after I finished canoeing. This was my second time going. I went before with school that was cool too. I think I should go again except with fewer people in the boat (four gets crowded).

Went to Tanya Zhu's house for her Graduation Party. Most of the people were tired from canoeing or swimming or Smashing Pumpkins the night before or a mix. Now I'm tired.

Hey, I saw Waiting for Guffman this Friday with Marc &c. It was very strange. Not as strange as True Stories though. It featured the six-fingered man from the Princess Bride.

So far Kay and Laureen are my site-pickers. I need 3 more poeple (and I can only think of three other people who visit the site, so it works nicely).

For the next few days I'm going to be working on this wacky "thing" at my temple's site. Hmm... it should be good. It's basically a better email list which I will combine with the message board too.

Oh, and Michael Jorgenson. The camel is safe. Kameru wa daizyobu desu.

Whopping out my schedule...

Day 1:
I ate breakfast. It was bad. I went to take tests. I did unusually well. I am normally nervous during tests and do very very average. Then we went to the Kranner Center for the opening ceremonies. Krannert Center is a Transformer. It turns into a giant monster and eats families. It follows the quota system. The rest of the day was mediocre. The campus issues at the Krannert Center was reminiscint of High School politically correct skits. We had ones on getting drunk, getting raped, getting assaulted and getting a lesbian roommate that is black. Afterwards the kids got to discuss this and make posters. Very High School like.

Day 2
This was the good day because it went fast. Breakfast was okay, they have waffle irons there. The Personal Safety issues sucked and I left when they started to talk about the World Wide Web (wasn't safetry related... but...). I went to some success oriented things and then... hmm I went to a special interest session on Unit one/Allen Hall which is my dorm this fall. That was cool. Helped me as far as signing up for classes goes. Then I ate lunch and then got my ID card... (I look like a dork) and then signed up for classes. My schedule is:

Comparative Literature of Non-Western Civilization
Intro to CS
Chemistry
What is College
Graph Theory
hopefully more...

Umm then I went home.

Oh yeah, I've e-dopted Sunita as my e-sister. She's cool.

Okay, wow, I have a lot to say. OSA, for those of you who do not know, is the Orissa Society of Americas. These are a group of people from the state of Orissa, India who get together once a year on the fourth of July weekend. Normally it's a mediocre way to spend the weekend, not much goes on, you meet a few people you haven't seen in a year or two, etc. There are also seminars and other things that I'd attend as well and Youth activities.

This year there was virtually no youth anything. It was perhaps the worst convention which I have attended. I did however have a lot of fun with my friends (Minnesotans and ex-Minnesotans). Here is a detailed account of what happened the last few days:

Thursday I went to the airport for our 11:25 AM flight which was delayed to about 12:40. My dad had upgraded his ticket to First Class and he gave it to me. That was very cool. It was my first time in First Class and I think it is really cool, especially on long four hour flights. My food was very edible indeed.

We arrived in San Francisco around 3PM Pacific. We were picked up by my cousin and her husband and went to their Sunnyvale, CA apartment. I learned that I really like math. I had in my posession a book about a mathematical genius and a math text-book. Both which I enjoyed reading. I also decided that I want to do at least a minor in mathematics. Not because I am good at it (the only thing that says I am good is the fact that I've completed UMTYMP with little trouble), but because I find it very interesting. We left later and went to Monterey (over an hour away). We arrived at about 8:40PM. The convention was at a Hyatt Regency resort. It was a very nice hotel which was on the old Del Monte golf course. We checked in, registered for the convention and then put our stuff in our room.

I first met with friend whom we call Titu (many Oriyas have nicknames that they are always referred to by) in the conference center where most of the activities took place. We went to the lobby and met with Leena and Tina (they are sisters, there is a neat little convention to naming children that we've noticed this weekend). We seperated our selves from Leena and Tina temporarily and went back to the conference center.

Titu and I met up with Sunita and Monty, former Minnesotans that were really good friends with us. We were trying to passively avoid someone who was drunk. We re-met up with Leena and Tina and they did that thing with Sunita that girls do when they meet another girl they haven't seen in a while. I think Monty, Titu and I and another kid wound up at the sports bar at the Lobby. Titu and I ate a pizza and we were kicked out because it was past 11PM and they can't have minors then. Sunita, Leena and Tina joined us later and we went to Sunita's room (which was next to her parents, so we had to be a little quiet). We decided to hang out there for a while.

We watched a movie, the Wedding Singer. If you haven't seen it already, see it. It is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. It also had the right amount of romance. It's kind of like the Princess Bride in some respects. It's a movie that has a chick-flick title, but it's just a really funny movie that can appeal to all. I was earlier told to see it with Molly by Raj and Kelly.

I told people about my "friend" this weekend. They were all surprised that I was able to keep this in hiding for 28 months. They thought the whole thing was neat. I was happy about that.

We went to the conference center and then the lobby and hung out there for a while. It was about 2 in the morning. We went back to Sunita's later and then were kicked out, becuase Monty was tired. I guess he also wanted Sunita to not stay out with us all night. So we left and it soon became Titu and I just hanging around. We went to the conference center (which was conveniently near Sunita and Monty's). I fell asleep on the floor. I woke up at about 4:00-4:30 AM and went to the lobby. We waited till 5:00, thinking the restaurant would open then. We found out it opened at 6:30 and were really tired and went to our respective rooms after I got a new key.

I was supposed to eat breakfast with Titu at 7, but I woke up late and got out of my room at about 9:30/10:00. It was now Friday, and the convention began. We could now officially say the convention sucked. I went to eat breakfast at the restraunt, and discovered Titu and the others (save Leena who was at UC Berkeley) at the sports bar. After I ate pancakes I went there and played some games. We later played Air Hockey and other games. We went to lunch to find it was bad, and then later we came back to the convention center. Titu went somewhere else, while Tina, Sunita and I went to the spa only to put our feet in the water, just because it was really cold outside, and we didn't want to be wet outside at all. Sunita got her pants really wet. Tina for some reason made a point to mention that we all had on our pants.

We kept hanging out at the sports bar when we were bored. The cultural activities sucked. We decided that the five of us and would go to the dinner gathering (the girls dressed up), just incase it was different from lunch (i.e. didn't suck). It sucked. We came back, peeped at the cultural show. Hung out. Went to knuckles near closing time and got some curly fries for almost nothing. That was fun. We later went to Sunita's room again and hung out. Shilpi left and then the rest of us left to see the dance. The dance sucked. Eventually we went back to Sunitas again. Titu, Leena, Tina and me decided we'd spend the night (or early morning) at Sunita and Monty's. We stayed up until 5AM, woke up at 8AM. Titu was gay, but I was a pimp.

Actually only I woke up at 8AM. Everyone else was very asleep. Saroj Uncle (Monty and Sunita's dad) woke up when I was about to leave. He was confused when he looked at the odd sleeping configuration.

I went to my room at 8AM, my dad was unhappy that I didn't tell him I'd be gone. I went back after showering and everyone besides Monty had left. So I went to the conference center to read a book. Rita Auntie (Leena and Tina's mom) told me that the girls were hanging out in her room. So I went there. Watched a dumb cartoon with Tina and Sunita while Leena showered. Then we left and ate breakfast. The breakfast was good. I had a belgian waffle. We met Shilpi on the way to breakfast too.

We skipped lunch (Monty and Titu went) because we ate a late breakfast. We hung out some more around the arcades and just walked about. We went back to the pool in this somewhat larger group. Sunita got her pants wet again. I commented earlier that she had a nice "Asphault." Rather I asked her if others did, because that was the brand of jeans she wore. Well her Asphault (brand jeans) got wet again. We went back to the sports bar, or something and hung out. You'd have thought we were bored of that place, but it's amazing how much pool you can play. We were annoyed at the concept of always going there, but the area of Monterey we were in was desolate. We met Titu there and some other people and played some pool, shot some hoops with the basketball machine, and yeah... We took a group picture in those photo booth things. I will scan and send it to people with email addresses (everyone uses AOL and/or Hotmail).

Our group of friends grew a bit for a while and around dinner time we hung out at my room since Sunita's room was checked out. We ordered a Pizza and talked a lot. Sheila and Smita (sisters) met up with us. Sheila goes to UIUC. I pumped her for useful information.

The girls went to the spa (girls only) and Titu, Monty and I crashed it. Well we did more than that. What I'm about to say is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen done... We walk up to the spa. The girls put up a fit about how it's girls only. Some of them start splashing us. I step back. Then out of nowhere Titu pushes Tina into the pool. She's upset because she's wearing her dad's shirt and well she's wet too. She chases him around the big pool and after sopme time stops. She talks to her sister Leena and tells her that she is cold. So people give her some towels to keep warm. She's still shivering and looks very cold. Then she pushes Leena in the Pool. When I found out that all of this was planned earlier by Tina and Titu I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Leena was very upset and complaining how you can't push people in the pool if they are wearing white...

The dry among us went to the cultural show, while others went to change. We decided to skip out on the cultural show after it showed signs of being on the boring side. We hung out at the conference center's basement in a lot of the rooms. We just sat around talking. Everyone was really tired. A little after 2AM Sunita and Monty left. Shortly after, the rest of the group dispersed. I went to sleep and woke up at about 6:30 and rode to San Francisco and we went home.

I really like spending time with these people. There's nothing specific about them that I like. Perhaps it's just a long history of knowing them. Perhaps it's being raised similarly. I feel bad about not keeping in contact with them except once in a while. But hey, now I have their email addresses and can start an e-relationship. I don't think I am going to attend next years convention in Toronto. I'd much rather go to Convergence.

Today I am off to UIUC and will perhaps not have such a lengthy entry. Hopefully tomorrow I will do well on the placement exams.

I Sunday I went to the Wave Pool with Adam, Laureen, Kit, Jenwa, Kerry and Ben Schack. It was a lot of fun, albeit the $6 admission + $2/2hour increments for the tubes was a little much.

Afterwards we (well all of us besides Kit) went to Good Earth. Unfortunately I went with Molly and her parents to the Good Earth in the Galleria on Saturday. It was fun none the less. We had a nice waitress and gave her a large tip and a children's menu that was all colored.

The whole day was very very fun. It was one of those days that made summer and friends seem enjoyable.

This week Molly and I work at the ITCEP/UMTYMP office. Doing inventory and stuff. It's pretty dull, but it is a nice environment. I found a few files from the Summer Institute I attended. That was cool. Today Katie came over to email people about something at Orchestra Hall featuring women composers on Thursday 16 July.

Hopefully I'll finish most of the Thank You cards tonight. Yesterday I asked my mom about the cards I had trouble with. Tomorrow I'm going to a wedding and Thursday morning I will for my first time fly to California. I come back Sunday and leave again on Monday for UIUC.

Tuesday Adam came over and we went to Home Depot looking for something with which to measure interior angles and could not find the propper device. Later we decided we didn't need it anyhow. We went to Bloomington so I could show him my old stuff and of that stuff we visited the libraries. Actually we went from one part of town to the other in five minutes in order to get a copy of Foundation and Earth before closing. Later we went to McDonalds. McDonalds is so nasty. We got like a 20pack of chicken McNuggets with Szechuan sauce. I will never eat that many McNuggets again. The sauce was okay.

Yesterday Molly and I went to Valley Fair with the SEI 1 group (part of the ITCEP deal). It was fun. Rather the water park was fun. Everything else was mediocre. I mean the roller coasters are not that great anymore.

Would anybody be interested in going to the Wave Pool in Anoka? Laureen was thinking this Sunday. I think I'll be able to make it. Adam said he would too. If your interested ICQ me. I suggest if you want to go, just find a few others who are going and go with them. No need to go as one huge group, nor is there need to go solo.

Currently I am doing absolutely nothing. I'm not in too good of a situation at all. I didn't wake up early because I have nothing to do. I sometimes write thank you notes, but that gets boring. Sometimes I read, but I've read a lot recently and am resting. I don't enjoy television and it is too gloomy outside to do any house work.

I'm not a good people person so I don't have that many friends I guess, well most of the ones I have I guess don't have a car or have a job or something. So I really have nothing to do. I don't like doing things in front of a computer either.

Tomorrow I go to Valley Fair with Molly and Laureen. That should be fun. I haven't been to Valley Fair with Laureen for five years. I wish Marc Gutman were in town. He'd know what to do...

Oh goddammit, I really wish he was in town... because I just came up with this cool-ass idea. Get a whole bunch of cardboard and build a people sized icosahedron that would be stable enough to like be inside. Heck even if you couldn't be inside it, it would be neat. I guess I'll just be waiting for Gutman.

Today I went to two graduation parties. One was Dan Fisher's the other was a friend of the family's. Tonight we went (without Dan and Amy) to Lake Harriet Bandshell with Dan Lavenda, Katie R, Jesse B and Molly. We rode in Dan's little SAAB. It was nice. We were only there for a small bit, because we got there late. Katie bought me Ice Cream, it was good.

Funny: Police officers were walking around and I guess there was some type of threat. People were told to move away from a certain area. The announcer said there was a yellow blanket with a bag with unknown contents. I guess some type of threat was called in. There was police tape and everything. But I guess some people claimed it was there bag. It was really funny. I mean they didn't want us to clear too far, but gee if that were a bomb... hmm... if I planted a bomb. I would never call in to any place and tell them. I'd keep it a secret. That way they won't look for the bomb. I'm so much smarter than criminals...

Well apparently Adam liked his gift. Perhaps one of the "geekiest" gifts you could recieve or give.

Marc Gutman is a cool person, just because he called me a few minutes ago and knew I needed a ride somewhere. I never told him anything about needing a ride. Unfortunately he called a few minutes too late, because Molly's going to pick me up, but she has to drive from "House." The thing is, riding with Gutman to Shoreview seems so much more nostalgic. That, and we can talk like guys and be rude. We're just fuckers who fuck around.

The Truman Show is one of the best movies I have seen in a very long time. It was very original. There are enough trailers on the site that will allow you to make your own opinion on whether it's worth your time to see the movie.

We (Molly and I) saw this with Tom and Becky. We then split up into two groups. Tom and Becky going elsewhere. Molly and I going to a better place, UNOs. UNOs makes great Pizza. I hope I find a good Pizzeria in Urbana.

Hmm... I'm tired. I will sleep, I have to go to some silly temple graduation thing at the Mandir. I better update the site sometime.

You know what's annoying? Domain names. Like things like this and this are being used for bad purposes. Read the second one, there isn't anything too offensive on the opening page, it's really funny though.

Yesterday: We went to Mychal Anderson's Grad Party. That was fun. Later we went to Arthur's Birthday Party. That was fun. Then the lights went out after a transformer was jolted by an almighty god. When I went home, our lights were out too... and as far as I can tell they are still out. I didn't care too much, becuase it was sunny. Now it's dark and I have retreated to the Borcherts (one of many homes that have electricity, but the only one that had a computer to spare... must work on assignment).

Went to Eve's today for Eve Xin and Lisa Alholm's Grad party. That was fun too. Well I don't want to say anything more yet, because I should be busy.

Hey, if any of you ever see me, could you give me pennies? I have this large jar that maybe has $5.00 worth of pennies, maybe more... probably like $7.00. I don't exactly know because the last time I counted was over 5 years ago. Anyway, I want to try to fill it in four years with pennies. That's about 20 cents a day (based on really rough estimates). So anyway, if you guys could just give me all your excess pennies that you'd rather not have to deal with, that would be great. Also, I don't want people stealing money from penny fountains, penny collections and those things they have at gas stations where you give your excess pennies and you take out pennies that you may need so you can have exact change.

The song from Simple Minds, Don't you (forget about me), do not help me from dropping the whole search-for-old-friends.

Anyway, I think it's neat. There have been fewer problems with my entries (either that or Yishan hasn't been visiting this page). It's neat, when I hit submit, a page opens up and I can look at errors if any.

I had something to complain about, but I'm tired.

Oh, June 5th, I am going to see Truman with Molly and possibly Adam(probably at Willow Creek around 4). If others are interested, just ICQ or email me. It looks like a good movie, if you don't know what it is, read about it, if you find it very interesting come with us, otherwise save your money until we tell you what we think of it.

It turns out Ryan noticed that you have to be incorporated to sell stock. Hopefully udnerstands that you have to be a public company.

I've decided to assume that I will not get any response from the two friends to whom I mailed letters. It would be nice to get a response, but I'm not counting on one. This way it will pleasantly surprise me if they attempt to communicate with me.

I am still "looking over" the linked list code for my C++ project. I guess it's easier than I thought.

Due to "things" I will not finish the web site until July 11th approximately. Although, I really would like to finish. I bet one night I'll finish all of it.

Here is something that you may find humorous, it was in my Inbox:

Hello denizens of the internet and friends of 
mine. I am the President of Argente Graphics, and 
I would like to offer you the deal of your life 
time! Argente Graphics needs start up money, so we
are selling shares of our business. A single share
is $1.00. However, we are offering package deals.
10 shares for $9 and 20 for $17. In the future, if
our company starts making money, I will start 
paying dividens, but for now you get the knowledge 
that your money will be wisely spent. Thank you 
for your time, I hope to be hearing from you soon.

 Ryan McGuire
 President of Argente Graphics

 PS For all of you that know me from the AFA SSS, 
hi! How have you guys been? Are any of you going 
to the AFA. I will be there June 30. Good luck in 
all you do!

I see this happening within my group of friends. What tends to happen, is they will do something. Some type of authority will tell them to stop and their best argument is that what they are doing is some type of alternative to 'typical' behavior, like drinking, etc. You can look at any action in this way and justify a lot of stuff. Let's say somebody annoys me. I could antagonize them and justify this by saying, well it's better than killing them. These types of arguments do not work. For example, Tag is not an alternative to drinking beer. Holding discussions in prohibitted areas is not an alternative to doing drugs. If you want people to give you any credibility, do not always think of your actions as an alternative to something. If someone says you shouldn't play tag, don't just complain how you are "at least not getting drunk." Try to come up with some type of rational argument and say that if anything. The truth is a park ranger would probably rather have you drinking beer somewhere just because his job is to keep the park safe for children (even if there are no children around) not to prevent underage drinking.

Some people died for something. Which means this weekend we catch up on stuff we haven't gotten around to doing.

I was accepted into Unit 1 today! Friday we went to see Godzilla (or Gozira). It was a very good movie if you expect an action movie. After that we went to Tanya's and played Boggle. That night or maybe the next morning I stumbled upon a good game web site.

Saturday Adam came over. I got my hair cut and I thought I looked a lot like my brother (it's all spiked), but no, today my brother cut his hair too and it's really short. Adam and I started moving stuff around my room. If you've ever been in here, I changed the desks around again. It's very spacious in here if you are working on office stuff.

We were midway moving stuff and Molly came over and we went to Hyland Park in Bloomington (based on my directions). We played Tag, it was fun. Yishan had some ailment that caused him to be lying on a picnic table while people poked him with ray guns.

After that Adam and I moved more stuff then went to Arby's with Marc, Mike and Molly. After that Adam and I moved the rest of the stuff and everyone else played Dr. Mario. At midnight everyone left. Adam Marc and I stayed up until 2 and then we slept woke up around 8. Adam and Marc picked up some pancake stuff and they made pancakes while I finished cleaning my room.

A lot of people went to Taylor Falls. I don't have rock climbing gear and wouldn't feel comfortable going rock climbing with all these people who are probably many times better than I.

I went to a Barbecue with my brother, sister-in-law, Mom2, Mandy and a few other people. The food was good.

Now I will learn how to do some stupid programming project.

It's silly that I didn't think of this before...

A person with whom I was friends a very long time ago (before preschool to first grade) has been "found."

I tried recalling her last name one day and I found it and where she lived - Eden Prairie. This is where she moved after first grade. It occurred to me today, that Adam may know of her... and sure enough he did. Now I have to creatively find this person and not scare her. I'm not good at the second bit. Oh well just the fact that I know where this person exists makes me happy. Now I have to find a non-threatening way of meeting her...

It's so sad that I am just finding out about all my friends from long ago.

I will be watching Godzilla at Willow Creek Friday at the 4PM showing. Jason, Molly, Yishan, Adam, Mike Jorgenson and others should be there as should you. So show up!

Email me if you need more details.

I finally worked up the courage to write a letter to one of my friends from Bloomington. I thought it would be very sad to not attempt to make contact with at least one of them before I left for Champaign-Urbana. Hopefully I'll get correspondence.

I remember people asking why we were not having the Hopkins High School graduations at Northrup Auditorium. They claimed that Northrup was under remodelling. Suzy said that they were painting the basement. Either way, it was irrelevant. The day we graduate, 11 June. Is when Adam Engelhart and the rest of Eden Prairie High School have their graduation ceremonies at the Northrup. Just another reason why I hate our school.

Wednesday we had our UMTYMP graduation. Present were Molly, Tom Borchert, Adam Engelhart, Suzy Reichel, Laureen Ojalvo, Eve Xin, and others. Doug Shaw gave an astounding speech. Suzy also gave a speech which was good. Raj (my brother) and I did not like the food at all. Other people said the food was alright, but I think maybe my brother and I have higher standards for food.

Anyway, I got a lot of help for my fourth CSci assignment in Recitation. Recitation was boring so I emailed Katie (ed: Romportl - 5/24/06) for the last two minutes. There’s a link, you can email her too (ed: there is no link, it was removed in a belated attempt to thwart spam - 5/24/06). I’m going to start using her as my personal wailing wall. Except I won’t cry. I’ll just babble about how I don’t want to be in my classroom at the moment.

When I got home, Molly and I started working on invitations for our graduation. Hopefully we’ll send them out today or on Monday.

Yesterday, Molly and I went to Minnehaha Falls and rain fell on us (which she enjoys more than I) and then hail fell on us (which neither of us enjoy at all). We ran back to a mini-shelter and then to the car and headed to someplace safe, Arby’s. Molly has sided with me and really likes the Roast Chicken and Pesto Panini Grill sandwich. We then left for the play at Hopkins (Pirates of Penzance). I got to talk to the crew and even where a shirt of a crew-member (because mine was sopping wet). Molly returned to the light, and I found Mike Jorgenson and we sat down and then were joined by Adam and a surprise appearance by Jason Waye. The play was very good.

We (Molly and I) went home, were tired, started printing labels for the invites. Then we realized they didn’t print what we wanted (well I realized that, Molly was asleep on the couch). Molly left home, and I went to sleep.

Today I worked on my C++ project a little. It’s not too bad at all. Tomorrow my dad comes back from India during Simpsons/X-files… I hope his plane gets delayed so I don’t miss any of the show.

Well, I surprised myself again. The Calendar algorithm was very very simple to figure out. It pretty much uses the same type of logic as anybody would if they were to make an HTML calendar by hand. So, I wrote this thing, now I have to do something else... yes, I need to write an interface that lets you add/modify/remove events (do you know how annoying it is to write something like that... oh well).

It'll be nice when the whole web site is finished. I take it nobody has been able to find it's location. It's fairly easy. Tom probably has the best chance of finding out where it is located.

I'll post a time line for the entire site's completion, so you people can have a good idea about what I am doing and when I'm doing it. I'd give it a good month or two... although I'd like it done at the end of the month.

Mike Jorgenson has been in town, Molly and I had lunch with him at UNOs. UNOs makes great Pizza. I tried eating a slice of the leftovers and I was full... I have another half slice to go. Then I remember, you can never eat more than two slices of UNO pizza.

Yishan should be back sometime tonight. I won't eat at UNOs with him, because I can't eat there more than once a month or once every two months.

Prom... well despite it costing a couple hundred dollars, it was worth it. It's just a nice occasion. Here's how mine and Molly's went.

At around 8-8:30 I woke up and took a shower and everything and Jesse had arrived. Jesse and I ate breakfast (Eggos) and then Katie arrived. Jesse and I didn't feel like waiting for Molly so we went to Gingiss to pick up our hideously expensive Tuxedos (which I can hopefully return tomorrow...) then we went to Glenrose Floral in Hopkins to pick up our hideously expensive floral "accoutrements."