Move in day is tomorrow!
People are arriving in droves. The anticipation is building. Sweat is forming on everyone's brow.
September 1, 2001...and right then I lost the connection to my webspace. I've only just now been able to get back on. I know, I know. It's horrible. Well live with it, I'm starting school again.
Two more days.
For lunch I had McDonald's. It was fun. I hadn't been in awhile. I ordered the Double Cheeseburger Meal, confusing it for the Two Cheeseburger Meal. I guess I'm just that unobservant, at least at McDonald's. I've been using ketchup on my fries again lately. I went many years with no ketchup. It was somewhat nice to taste the potatoes more. Now ketchup is exciting again, however. I enjoy it. I guess that's the secret to enjoying life. Artificially prevent yourself from doing something, then do it after a long enough delay. It makes life more interesting.
Today I was all over the place. From the (old) ECE Lab to the (fake) IT room on the (real) campus, I ran around with the Linux Posse. The Linux Posse is Gill, Brian, Ben, and I. We stormed on into IT and told them how to partition the machines. We were quite the vigilantes, I must say. I also met Aaron, the new Linux/Unix admin. Well anyway we had trouble figuring out how to do it, so I gave up and left.
While I was up there, I helped Adam and Rod move Jesus and Adam's big table to its final resting place. The table is filled with memorabilia from last year. Jesus joking said he could make anything (including a coffeetable) for his art project last year. Well, it morphed quickly from a joke to actuality, and it's a beauty. The History and Mystery of Mars - Episode 4 is on there, as is the tiny vase Adina gave me before she had to return to Transylvania.
I saw the first new students arriving today, Ben Bloom and Mikell Taylor. There will be a large flood of people coming in tomorrow. Joy! Both the emotion, and the Olin student.
I'm going camping! The Olin Outing Club is going to stay the night up on the border between New Hampshire and Maine. Afterwards will be a hike up some mountain, which I may or may not do, considering my strange shallow breath syndrome.
Cough, cough.
I packed a ton of stuff today. Tomorrow I'll finish up the little things, and the next day I'm out of temporary housing once and for all!
Tired. So very tired.
Today was quite a long day. It all started simply enough, with yet another day of toying around with op-amps and such. Then Sara barged in and abducted me from Ben.
We went to get the Olin Honor Code back from the framing company. The framing company on the way to Framingham, that is. We got there and had to pick out a blue for the matte. The workers very visibly wanted to slack off, so we ran off to Wendy's and both had Spicy Chicken Sandwiches.
As we were leaving, there was a guy who drove by with the letters WOW who held up a card that said "WOW" to Sara. It stands for "Whip Out Wednesdays". It's from the Opie and Anthony radio show, which seems to be drivel. Essentially when a girl sees this on a Wednesday, she's supposed to flash the guy back. Yeah, that'll be really successful.
After Wendy's, we picked up the Honor Code, along with the wrong frame for the [secret Orientation 2002 activity deleted]. I got to deliver the Honor Code to the new campus and see the Campus Center again.
Bret, Alex, and Julie are now here. Along with Susan, they've moved to the real residence hall. They are this year's R2's. I never thought I'd see the day when Olin students would live in real buildings.
After work, I was instantly pulled along to go eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Only, it didn't work out. The wait for our unannounced group of fourteen would have been a couple hours, so we instead went to Papa Razzi across the street. Yes, two words. Anyway I highly suggest it. The food was great and they worked very hard to seat us within about 20 minutes. Plus I got to have garlic!
Mmm, garlic. It's healthy for you, you know.
After that I packed a lot of stuff. It's going to take a lot of boxes, as my room is filled with tons of crap. The hardest part is pretty much out of the way, though.
Have you heard the song from the new artist Mario? Yes, " Just a Friend 2002". Well I don't like it! They took a wonderful Biz Markie song and did a cover. Well, it's not so much of a cover as taking the chorus from a humorous sarcastic song and making it into a sappy R&B tune. I must say I am appalled. The original is one of those few videos I remember watching and loving from MTV back around 1989 when I first discovered music videos. It's right up there with Deee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart" (which I have on vinyl, no less). DJ Towa Tei is the coolest! The lead singer, Lady Miss Kier, is now a DJ as well. So that, along with Supa DJ Dmitry, makes every member of the band an active DJ right now.
Astronomical!
Sometimes you just gotta let the nerd out of yourself.
I generally try to adopt a nerd-free attitude on life, but today was an unusual situtation. I started by wearing my RAM necklace that Gary made for me back in Mr. Gowen's class.
Later in the day, while I was marking up the C tutorial into validating HTML, just as a nerd might do, Sean pulled me aside with a few people to take a picture for the new Olin Library website. Like the nerd I am, I picked up 2600 and started reading it for the picture.
The plot really thickened when yesterday's plan worked out. Olin made Slashdot!!! It really killed our website. Traffic halted to a stand-still. I was pretty happy with the hundreds of comments that came pouring in after the article got posted. Sean and I frantically worked to dispel rumors and generally share our experiences with the Slashdot community.
Anyway, Grant Page Central was the recipient of direct attacks! I must say I find it highly entertaining. Maybe I shouldn't have glorified this flame with a response, but I had a lot to say. Hopefully I was fairly professional about it.
Also, some MIT students want to throw a party with us now that they discovered us on Slashdot. I know it's scary to imagine making social connections with MIT through Slashdot, but I still think it has a good chance of working out! (NERD ALERT!)
In other news, Sara and I ate at Pacini's today. We both had the lasagna. Very cool.
I saw Tucker for the last time today. He's off to New York and Columbia University on Sunday; until then he's back in Oklahoma City. How ironic, he's in OKC and I'm in Boston. We talked about Einstein's Theories of Relativity for a while and he took off. We've been getting in long discussions lately. It's healthy. You should try it.
I'm starting to really think television is dumb. From defending my blog today to engaging in long conversations, I must say the human factor is much more important than watching the boob tube. I know I watch it a lot, but I at least try to do more productive things. If you ask someone what the best thing they did while watching TV was, I bet it's a ton worse than the best thing they've done without TV.
I've starting ripping down my posters and packing some stuff up. With only three packing days left, time is of the essence for sure.
Sheesh! I'm pooped! I'm going to bed!
Welcome to the future.
Have you ever noticed that we live in the future? I know we literally don't, but at least we are starting to live in what I call the "classical future". For instance, we now have cloning. We talk about sending people to Mars as an afterthought. I can play poker against Gerard Depardieu online and not even know it. The Segway Human Transporter runs off your subtle subconscious movements.
What if going to Mars was an economic question rather than a technical one?
Reading Slashdot clues me in on several technological innovations and generally cool things. Sean and I are plotting to get Olin on Slashdot. That would be good, even if it would kill our servers. The hype alone would generate new applicants almost certainly. Keep your eyes peeled.
I babysat for four hours today. Mark Somerville's two daughters and I ran around Needham Center in the park there. We would have played with the children statues running in a circle, but they had new concrete poured underneath them. After that we watched the Blue's Clues DVD, guest starring, of all people, Ray Charles. Luckily they don't have a TV to watch at home (which probably is a boon to their development), so they watched very intently, making my job all the easier.
That last sentence was rife with dependent clauses.
Other than that, today Dan packed up most of his things. The room is now very bare. The move is upon us! We're all so ready. Just five days to go, which reminds me, I need to make sure the sign is getting updated in the MAC that shows how many days are left. As the MAC is actually called the Modular Academic Center, I've heard the use of RAC for Real Academic Center pick up. I don't really like this new name, but perhaps it will stick. It wouldn't make sense too many years from now, in the real future.
Some WTC survivors/families are adding insult to incredible injury by suing the terrorist funders for trillions of dollars. To demonstrate the size of their suggested amount (US$116 trillion), the Gross World Product is around $US46 trillion. That means all economic output of all countries would have to go toward paying these people for three years. That's the equivalent of a Bill Gates per each person killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. It's also 20 of our national debts. I hate to have to be the one to break it to you, but I don't think these Saudis have as much money as you're wanting.
Tort reform may save the world someday. It certainly could have saved my mother from sitting through a frivolous lawsuit involving a guy spilling a coffeepot on himself. Accidents happen. We've got to learn to live with them. I refuse to suffer for your unrelated random misfortune.
Tuesday, August 20, 2002I forgot to mention my mom was on the jury. I don't want people to start inserting her in random roles such as judge or bailiff, or even lawyer.
I'm not trying to come off as so ranty. I'm really in a good mood. I promise!
Yet another day in Needham.
There has been a preponderance of food here at Olin. We feasted today yet again, trying to get rid of all this excess food. My parents pointed out I talk about food a lot on here. Yes, my parents do read this on a regular basis. Blogging is a great way to both record what you've done and communicate it to friends and family.
I'm looking for a nice lampshade. Last year I had an extra lightbulb lying around so I bought the most minimalist lamp I could find for it. It is literally a metal pole with a lightbulb on top, nothing more. I even left it out without a lampshade to be really minimalist. Now my goal is to find (or create?) a clear yet polarized (think sunglasses) lampshade that only lets light come through at certain angles. Unfortunately, a Google search for " minimalist clear polarized lampshade" returns zero results. I guess I just really want to be passé. I saw this great lampshade in Wired magazine for 26 dollars, which I found reasonable, but the website says you have to order in sets of two. That's pretty dumb. They lost my sale.
Today Tucker came over and played Warcraft III with the Olinites. He writes a lot of webpages for Quik Internet. We both use the same HTML editor, HTML-Kit. That surprised us both. He's leaving for Oklahoma City on Wednesday, then getting back Saturday night and going straight to NYC on Saturday to move in. I hope to visit him soon.
I've busted my Handspring Visor Prism. Luckily my dad got these "bonus points" from his employer (or should I say, they gave him points in lieu of actual money) that can go towards a new Palm m515. I hope it's good; it looks like it is. Sometimes I can't help feeling like the spoiled kid getting a new toy when his old one broke. There was a guy at my high school who totalled his Corvette convertible (or whatever) and so his parents bought him a Hummer the next day. Oh well, at least in my case I use the thing constantly. Anyone here can vouch for that. I use my PDA on a very daily basis, mostly for actual useful things. Plus, it's hard to say no when there's no actual money involved. These silly points won't spend themselves, and hardly hold their value.
Companies losing my sale, points that don't hold their value... Today's update has been very economically depressing. Hope there is an upturn soon. Doesn't look like anyone else does.
Today was spent in Hudson, NH.
Susan invited us all to her house for a pool party. It was grand. We had lots of food and horsed around in the water for many hours on end. Afterwards we went to the Old Homes Days carnival thing. Other than the power going out, there wasn't too much going on, so we went back to Susan's house and vented some frustration over construction issues and the process of moving in next week.
Good times.
I've been getting a lot more exercise recently. Last thursday I played Olin Pick Up Basketball (O'Pub). I wore my Japanese headband so I could look cool like Ryu. I know he's a street fighter, not a basketball player, but then again this isn't the NBA. After basketball and also after swimming today I'm starting to notice I'm short of breath. I hope this is more because of just being out of shape lately and less because of something asthmatic.
On a complete sidenote, performing the Heimlich maneuver can be good for asthma relief. I've become a bit of a fan of Henry Heimlich, after seeing some TV specials on him. He advocates replacing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with the Heimlich manuever, which actually makes sense once you see the statistics.
My other hero is Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and other things we take for granted. His was the second computer on what would become the Internet! Think about how useful a one-machine Internet is for a bit. I can't really vouch for that last fact, though, I just remember hearing about it once. Here I am propogating a silly rumor.
Now I shall propogate myself to bed.
It's 3 AM and I'm writing this from in my bed.
Today was yet another fulfilling day at Olin College. I finished up the ANSI C Tutorial HTML job. Now all I have to do is add all 17 appendices.
For lunch I had the best chicken pot pie ever. The top half was mashed potatoes. It was a microwave version of course but it was quite tasty to say the least. I washed it down with some Moxie, the classic New England soda and oldest marketed carbonated beverage in the United States. It leaves such a bitter taste in your mouth, but it's so many differing flavors you can't resist taking another sip.
For dinner we all went to Rachel Weinstock's house. She's our Director of Financial Services. We had some burgers and hot dogs. We had the inevitable discussion on how New England hot dog buns are top-loading, while everywhere else they are side-loading.
Yes, it's true.
We got back to the dorm and found that Ann Marie is back. Nicole had arrived just prior to the barbecue. Thus begins the mass exodus of students back to Olin, culminating in the first meeting of all 75 students (since Candidate Weekend) this Saturday.
Saturday, August 18, 2002Dan just reminded me that 11 of the Virtual Partners weren't at the Candidate Weekend, so this will actually be the first meeting of all 75 students ever.
Tuesday, August 20, 2002Kate just pointed out to me that it's hard to have an exodus back somewhere. Very true.
I once watched a video from this site trying to convince me to join in on some strange IT venture pyramid scheme thing. See if it frightens you away too.
The world is filled with cruft. Sometimes I just sit back and notice how many things around us are a product of ideas that were never really taken to full fruition. The cheap silverware I eat with isn't designed that well. The spoon is very flat. They could have made the spoons much better, but they didn't. They got lazy and put out a quick product. There is no good reason the spoons couldn't have had a better curve to them. Millions of Wal Mart shoppers are stuck eating off these a set of this detritus of the Earth.
And here I am up at 3:41 AM writing a webpage about nothing. The irony.
Insert first sentence here.
I saw the new campus today!!! I went to the Campus Center to help Sara move some boxes for the Office of Student Life. I got to look around quite a lot. We didn't get to go to West Roxbury to pick up the Honor Code, however. That would have been fun, although if we overshot and went to Roxbury we would have been shot or something, at least according to advice we were given.
Dan is playing Warcraft III. I was watching for a while. They play this map called Save the WTC Beta! that is very sad. It's so bad, so terrible. It's definitely something awful.
I started packing my room up for the Big Move. Ten days from now the updates will be coming from the Residence Hall on Olin Way. Our buildings have the address "Olin Way" without any numbers. I've also seen versions that say "1000 Olin Way", so I'm confused. I like the name though. It's like, we do things the Olin Way. As long as it's not some sort of cult we're doing OK.
I'm "webifying" the Olin College C Tutorial on the job now. Maybe it will be public, and people can learn C from the comforts of their own homes. Of course there are a billion others out there, but I'm sure people would come to ours because of the wonderful design.
Not that you're interested or anything.
Dan showed me this webpage that hosts Photoshop competitions. Essentially some guy makes a Photoshop pic, then the other guy fights back by editing the pic, then it goes back and forth until there have been ten versions. There is running commentary and score is awarded. All this in a time limit.
Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link Link
I don't know if I'll ever live that last paragraph down.
Steve just called my webpage bad. Go look at his and compare! OK, his does have more penguins; I guess I did lose this battle. But how about a match of Photoshop Tennis?
It's alive!
Or more accurately, it's not. While Joles, Kate, Will, and I were returning from Borders, we joked about roadkill. Our joking was a little premature, as two minutes later we hit an opossum. Dead. At least it wasn't a deer.
Everyone at Olin has been enjoying their newfound Borders coupons. I bought Stereolab's latest album (to my knowledge), Sound-Dust, for half price. Any Stereolab album is worth buying. I own three now. Stereolab is a little strange. I saw them with Dan and Jesus earlier this year at Avalon. They use Moog synthesizers and trombones and normal instruments. Very well, I might add. Also, whenever they release vinyl singles, they only make a limited number. Sure, they've released dozens, but every time you see one, it's like you just gotta buy one, since you'll never see that one again. I have several I found in Europe, and one I found in Oklahoma City.
Today I helped Sara make a wonderful kickin' Word template. It was freaking awesome.
The last CD I bought before today was Deadsy's Commencement. Deadsy is a weird hybrid between 80s new wave and late 90s-present quasi-goth nu-metal. They also prominently feature synthesizers. The lead singer is P. Exeter Blue, who just happens to be the son of Cher and Robert Altman. They do a cover of Rush's "Tom Sawyer" that has confused many people into believing they were listening to the original. Each band member has a color and theme. P. Exeter Blue's theme is academia (how's that for a metal band?) and his color is International Klein Blue. Yes, IKB! No wonder I like it.
August 16, 2002It turns out that it was really Greg Allman, of the Allman Brothers. To repay you, here is a bonus Deadsy link.
Today work was slow. Tomorrow the stuff is moving to the real campus! My job is quickly going to change. The Campus Center has been given a temporary unofficial occupancy permit, to hold us over until it gets the real one in a few days. This is a great thing, since we need to move in and only have 14 days left before classes start. The Classroom Building and Residence Hall are still lagging. Let's home I have somewhere to live a week from Saturday!
Erin emailed me yesterday. She said she heard from TC. I need to get in contact with him. She said he might want to visit before school starts, but at this rate it won't happen. Right now I'm completely out of touch with him.
While at Borders, I looked through all the books. For some reason, only science books interest me. I don't care for fiction. I only like reading fact, especially about math, physics, or computers. Music too, I guess. We really need a library. We have a pretend library over in the MAC that carries 2600. I think that's so cool.
My motherboard's stupid built-in sound card won't work. In Linux, at least. It autodetects it fine, but then nothing happens and the sound server fails. Great. I'll just go buy a cheapo Sound Blaster 16. Dan got this program from Linux that emulates two 303s, an 808, and a 909. It's very nice. And free.
A change of pace would be nice.
I'm writing today's update from outside. I'm sitting on the deck behind the Mod. The air is moist and clean, and it is still quite warm out, for 12:45 AM at least. I'm looking at the new campus, where I'll be living in two weeks. I took some pictures of it, which I'll try to post later, although it's very dark and they didn't come out so well. Susan said some buildings were inspected the last few days, but none have probably passed yet. Soon we will be moving equipment over.
I wrote my learning plan today. Actually I only started it. I have to have it done by Thursday to show to my advisor, Prof. Mike Moody. It was more of just a draft. Probably I should be more serious. Or not. I still have lots of time, relatively speaking.
I have a theory. There are two types of people: car people and computer people. I know this is an overgeneralization, but for most cases there is something similar you can replace "car" or "computer" with. Car people are more inclined to involve themselves with corporeal physical objects, while computer people are more abstract and work with ideas. The distinction arose when I realized that while many people hotrod their cars, there is a growing class of people who hotrod their computers. This may seem silly to traditionalists, but then again, hotrodding cars seems silly to us computerites. For car people, where you are is very important. Having a nice car can get you to your friends' houses and into the city, or on long vacations. Likewise, for computer people, the Internet can fulfill many of these desires. Sure, no person wants to stick in front of the screen all day, but computer people are more likely to look something up in a book before they ask someone else's opinion. Sometimes this book just happens to be the Internet. Anyway, if you have any comments, please shoot them my way, and I might post them in an update here or work them into a more permanent page. Adam and I applied this theory further, deciding the difference holds equally true for EEs and MEs.
My other theory is that there is a nerd-jock spectrum, and if you watch Conan you're more towards the nerd side. Jocks tend to watch Craig Kilborn. That's just the way it is.
I just heard a train go by. These are the things you miss when pent up inside all day.
Dan has this demo of a program from NVidia that lets you type in an address anywhere on Earth and then zooms in on it really close using satellite data. What sets this apart from those satellite websites is the fact that the Earth is rendered in full 3D and the zooming is entirely to scale. Dan can see the playset thing in the backyard of his old house in Lake Forest, IL. You can also see people waiting in line in front of the I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre. I have almost the same picture of Adam and Dan walking towards the Louvre pyramid from the side. Oklahoma City is at a much lower resolution on the Earth viewer, so you can't make out a lot of stuff. Coincidentally, there is an I.M. Pei structure in Oklahoma City.
Today I spent over $1000 of Olin's money. Well actually I ordered electrical supplies for Gill. He told me what to buy, but still it is nice placing a four-digit cost order online over a wireless ethernet connection. Yes, I guess that makes me a computer person now, doesn't it?
It has that certain I don't know what.
Today I slaved away in the ECE lab. Will and I spent several hours clearing off all the benches so they can be shipped up to the real campus tomorrow morning. This was quite a laborious task. We found all sorts of things from as early as Mod I.
Jeff and I went to Bagels' Best for lunch. I had the roast beef bagel sandwich and boy that mustard sure cleared my sinuses. The office sure is empty lately, now that Sean and Adam are gone. Adam left his door unlocked. Dan put the Eazee Squeeze jalapeño cheese food spread thing onto Adam's bed, creating a fun surprise for him when he gets back.
I'll be getting my huge Chemical Brothers poster in the mail soon. It's full subway ad size. Jesse brought it back for me from USC last year.
I have been finding that very random people read this page. For instance, my mom reads this. I find that very interesting considering I didn't tell anyone about my page. Perhaps she saw it in my AIM profile. More likely, Kyle showed it to her. I wouldn't put anything past her, however, because she is one of the more tech-savvy mothers out there.
We threw a surprise birthday party for Kate today. Afterwards Joles showed us her big whip. She has a big buggy whip for some reason. We used it to break the sound barrier.
I'm going to take off my socks. Socks make me feet incredibly hot. That is frustrating. So I'll take them off.
I've been trying to avoid making these posts tedious and boring.
Today, Steve, Dan and I went to the Firebirds Grill. We all love Firebirds because they love us Olin kids. The manager came over and chatted with us when she saw my Olin shirt. It turns out that Olin's mascot is the most famous firebird, the Phoenix. They have "Phoenix Wings" at Firebirds. Also, we are both located in Needham. To add insult to injury, Firebirds offers Frank's Hot Sauce on every table. Olin's first name is Frank. Go figure.
Sheeva is cool. Go visit her livejournal sometime. She's going to the Le Tigre concert. GRRRRR!
OK, that's enough for today. Maybe later I'll tell you a fun story from my past. I'm sorry that you guys have to put up with the fact that I write these all late at night right before I go to bed. It causes me to favor things that happen later in the day and are fresher in my memory. Also, my mindset is generally the same this late at night. Oh well, I have a day job.
One day or another, I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna gitcha gitcha gitcha gitcha.
Linux weekend is drawing to a close as I completely gut my machine and put Red Hat on it instead. Tomorrow is work again so maybe I can put my head back into reality.
Today was generally slow. Lately the nerd in me has been winning out somehow. Today was also Star Trek watching night with Kate and Joles on The New TNN. Lore used the Borg to capture Data. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, all the better for you.
I'm up quite late and I have to work tomorrow so I should get to sleep soon. I'm going to move the ECE lab in two days, so tomorrow will be spent boxing up a great many electronic "dealies".
I went to the supermarket today and bought me some Quaker Crunchy Corn Bran, continuing my adult no-fun cereal theme. Last time it was Post Grape Nuts. Looks like I'll be getting my folic acid. Funny how I trust corn cereal products from a company calling itself Quaker Oats.
I also bought some beverage called Moxie. It's very strange looking, probably a cola of some sort. I'll get back to you.
Austin went around Oklahoma City looking for open 802.11b wireless networks. He found several, including one near his house that was fairly easy to get into. He even found pictures. Scary. They really aren't secure by default. Be sure to use WEP at the very least, even though it is weak.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002Just thought you would like to know, the term for what we we're doing is war driving. Had we been on foot it would have been war walking.
(email from Austin)
Today's update is lacking; nothing much went on today.
Five for a floppy?
Today I went to the PC Show and bought a bunch of stuff. I got a new case, motherboard, power supply, processor, and floppy drive. And I didn't buy a single one at the listed price. Let's hear it for haggling! I feel like quite the barterer. For those of you who haven't tried haggling, the rush that comes afterwards is infectious. Of course I used this opportunity to live up to my nerd status and not only build it myself, but also install SuSE Linux. And not from some sissy CDs or DVD; I used three floppies to get enough on there to install by FTP. So there!
Other than that I cleaned up one of our dryers. It turns out that Ajay, our RA, or more accurately the guy who lives here and hasn't interacted with a single soul all year, put his boots in the dryer, leaving it quite marked. This was before I got here. The other students gave him an ultimatum. He never did clean it up, however, so Will and I found ourselves doing it instead. He just got back today from Oregon, his home.
Adam is leaving tomorrow. Back to Vermont! He put together our recycling program. Leighton is leaving too. I think he said he's going to Canada. His parents are in the area for awhile, so he'll be pretty busy for the next week or so.
Right now I'm installing lots of Free Software using Ximian Red Carpet. It's pretty easy. I like free things.
We watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory today. Yes, we watched Willy Wonka. To be more accurate, I slept through most of it.
A lot of people are gone this weekend. Sara, Susan (for a while), Adam and Leighton (soon), Jeff (who lives at home 5 miles away, not here at Olin), Steve and Susan (again) (just for the day tomorrow) (New Jersey), and Nicole. Will better make up for them, being the only new arrival.
The school year is creeping up on us. Everyone is so excited to see fresh new faces. We're actually going to have enough people to have some semblence of parties and clubs and social activities. We also don't have to keep calling ourselves prefreshmen. That got old fast. Now we can pretend to be new freshmen unadjusted to college life.
It seems you know me both inside and out.
Today I ate at Cafe Sol Azteca, a pretty nice Mexican restaurant. I must say it's not really a lot like the Tex-Mex I'm used to, so I assume it's more like actual Mexico food. The name at least implies a more centrally located Mexican cuisine. Mmm, Tenochtitlan. The salsa was milder and sweeter than my On The Border fare from a couple days ago, and comes highly recommended. I was pretty happy when Dan asked me how to say "beans" in Spanish and I subconsciously thought "frijoles". I don't know very much Spanish, and I thought I was wrong, but Chris confirmed that I was right.
Today we watched three episodes of Star Trek. I must admit straightforwardly that I used to be very into Star Trek. I know, I know. Well it was fun because everyone currently here had seen pretty much every episode before so we had plenty of opportunity to heckle it. Being a proto-engineer causes me to see through the tech mumbo-jumbo, but it's fun to watch nonetheless.
Work was pretty basic today. I spent 6.5 hours working on a document. That can get old.
Now my mom is a finalist for Millionaire also. She drove up to Tulsa to take the test, so now both of my parents have a relatively small chance of making it on to the now daily syndicated show. I hope it comes near Boston soon!
Tomorrow I'm going to the PC Show. I'm going to check prices on New Egg first. New Egg is a great place to get components. I've only heard good reviews, and the prices are reasonable if not superior. If I find cheaper stuff at the show, however, I'm going for it.
The ECE lab is moving from the MAC to campus on Tuesday. This means I will quickly move from a desk job to a hard labor job. I get to lug boxes!
CNN has a ton of user-submitted designs for a WTC memorial. Most of them are quite pitiful. Dan is constantly emailing me ones that outbad the previous entries as they are released each day. In our Art IS class during the Partner Year, several students and I designed WTC and Pentagon memorial ideas. Mine was more of an idea than an actual physical design, taking only a piece of paper in the stead of a real model.
I also built a theremin for the class. The theremin is the first electronic instrument, which you play by waving your hands toward and away from a pitch antenna and a volume antenna. It is very difficult indeed. You can play every tiny microtone between notes, although that is difficult as there is a four-octave range over about a foot and a half of space. This makes for crazy glissandos. Theremins were popularized (and trivialized) by their use in 50s-era cheesy B horror and space movies.
Drink from the punchbowl of knowledge.
Today my job required unusual things of me. I spent hours helping to form some grading policy for our grading proposal. I also listened to one of the candidates for the position of our new librarian. She gave us all postcards with stamps on them so we could write back to her in Oregon. Great idea.
Jesse has some cool pictures on his site. You should check them out sometime. He once did a photo shoot for the up-and-coming R&B star Sharissa. Right now he goes to USC and is a film major.
Earlier today I promised myself that I wouldn't spend so much time on mundane details of my life and devote more time to abstract thoughts. Dan and I have long abstract discussions into the wee hours pretty much every night. Right now I'm spending the wee hours writing this, however. Of course I don't know what abstract is supposed to mean in this context. Maybe I'll just tell old stories instead.
I'm listening to Beck's Odelay right now. My fifth album ever. Dan is talking to me about some Flash museum installation they have in New York City. It reminds me of the Praystation exhibit at London's Design Museum. Joshua Davis is a Flash master. He pretty much rules the world while everyone else catches up. He once sold the entire contents of his hard drive, including personal files and unreleased Flash code, in a limited-edition box set.
While at the museum, I bought a book about fontography. I hope to write a font someday. I might be able to convince the college to give me credit for it. (or perhaps just recognition on my transcript)
Every student currently at Olin went to Rod's house today. Rod Crafts is our Dean of Student Life. He has a wonderful backyard that is on a small cliff and has many levels of ground with chairs set up so you can look down over the gardens below. We had burgers.
The new students (and all the old ones too) arrive in a couple weeks. We all can't wait.
Look for some of my music over the next few days on this site. I've been meaning to make a new section dedicated to my music and some MP3s. The RIAA can just cry, because they have no power over my music. I used to go by the moniker Citron, but now I'm just simply Grant Hutchins. Keep that in mind when referring to my music. I've been meaning to tell Jon about this for some time now.
Speaking of, Jon asked me for the original Photoshop file for one of the little logos on his page. He's making stationery I heard. Watch out for some new stuff soon.
While I'm in the mood for plugging old friends, check out Tucker's new DJ mix, "Trance 8.8.02". He's amazing at mixing. My favorite transition is the one in "Electronic 5.28.02" from Crystal Method's "Busy Child" to Orbital's "An Fhomhair". Simply amazing stuff.
Yet another day at the school called Olin.
I worked again today, as usual. Part of the day was spent watching a video of crazily efficient wooden wall-mounted kinetic sculptures with some classmates and Woodie Flowers. One of the cohorts at Olin will be working on kinetic sculptures similar to these but most undoubtedly less ambitious. The sculptures from the video could run for ten hours on a tiny wind of a wheel.
Nicole was going to fly to Oregon today, but when her plane took off, one of the engines started emitting flames so it landed and she has to fly out tomorrow very early in the morning. She talked very nonchalantly about it.
This summer I didn't do much of consequence. One thing I am proud of, however, was working with Jon on an anti-drug PSA television commercial he made. He's going to try to sell it to companies or churches to put their logo on in the final scene. I went to see him at OCCC and we went to lunch at Taco Bell. Afterwards, I created a sound file for them to use in the video. It was the sound of a coffin closing, followed by an echo. I made the sound from a bass drum dropped a couple octaves. It was a fun task; hopefully I can work like this in the future, possibly for pay. I did get a 2-channel Gemini mixer out of the whole deal.
I broke out the first large jar of On The Border salsa today. It has a very meaty, rich flavor to it. I highly suggest it if it's sold in your area. Sean sure seemed to like it. I think he's addicted like me.
Only 18 days until the new freshmen come! I just realized the school will more than double (from 30 to 75) this year, and it will also more than double (75 to ~175) next year. What school does that?
On Saturday I'm going to the PC Show to look for parts for my Linux desktop server I plan on purchasing. Dan and I spent hours trying to set up his NVidia card some more, with no luck.
Today Sara and I went out onto the back deck and did something odd. She took a measuring bowl full of 2 cups of water and poured some on the bottoms of my feet. I think walked around and she looked at the footprints to note how flat my feet are. We then both stepped in a puddle thus formed and did a side-by-side comparison.
For lunch I made mashed potatoes, but put too much water in it (continuing the wasteful water use theme). Luckily I had some potato chips to crumble and put into it. It may sound odd but I enjoyed it.
Work is already becoming routine.
Today I fleshed out the papers I've been writing for explanation of thermocouples, op-amps, and duty cycles. I also talked to my mom about how she and my dad tried out for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? They took a 30 question multiple choice test. After that the people who did well enough passed to the next round. My dad made it! They interviewed him (he said it went well), and if he is accepted he'll receive a postcard. One of the ladies there was disqualified for having been on The Weakest Link.
I lost my wallet and spent all day looking for it. It was next to my alarm clock.
We ate at Bertucci's in Wellesley today. I couldn't pay because I had lost my wallet.
My Handspring Visor Prism is hosed. I dropped it and now the backlight doesn't work at all. Everything else works fine. I'm going to see if it's cheap to fix it. If not, I'll try myself or get Prof. Gill Pratt to help me perhaps. I sure miss the poor sucker. (the Visor, not Gill. I see Gill daily; he employs me.)
Leighton finished the Partner Year DVD. It looks very nice. Dan made a wonderful 3D intro in 3D Studio Max based on the Universal Pictures logo. Leighton managed to fit all six episodes of The History and Mystery of Mars on there. I made the menus for it, so I'm happy, although maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stay up until 3:30 am last night to do it.
Today was the first day I've ever worked.
I now have a job at Olin. I spent today working with Sean to write up a lab exercise for next year and order materials for it on the budget.
I worked for a good deal of the day, then Elizabeth, Prof. Joanne Pratt's daughter, came and I attempted to help babysit her. She's only a year old and cries at the sight of me, so I gave up for now.
Dan and I used Adobe Photoshop 7 to brainstorm some layouts for our new dorm room once the school year starts. The Residence Hall is essentially complete, and we should be moving in less than three weeks.
Tomorrow my parents are going to the Oklahoma City Zoo to try out for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. My mom has been a finalist to appear on the show before, but missed only one question over the phone in the final qualifying round. This time around I think she has a good chance. It's the new syndicated Millionaire, sans Regis.
Happy birthday, Mom!
Today started out with Dan and I attempting to configure his new install of SuSE Linux to support 3D rendering with his NVidia GeForce4. Soon after that, Dan left to go to the Foundation of Teaching Economics dinner over at Babson College Needham/Wellesley Room. His aunt helped found it or something like that, so he got a free dinner.
Nicole asked me if I wanted to go to the wildlife refuge with her, so I did. The strange Brazilian driving instructor wasn't there, so Nicole was happy. Anyway, we discovered that you're supposed to pay to enter and that the refuge actually has nine miles of trails, not just the quarter- to half-mile or so we expected. We saw some turtles and various other wildlife, including menacing flies that drove us out.
Shortly thereafter, the Dan and I got another free dinner across the parking lot at the MAC. Leslie organized a dinner from Vinny Testa's so that we could discuss how to get ready for internship opportunities next year. After that, Leighton, Dan, Steve, Chris and I joined Jeff and Katie to see Austin Powers 3, which wasn't sold out this time. Austin Powers movies are becoming methodical and unfunny in some parts, although we had a fun time.
The Area 2 Festival was great! Let me run down what it was like.
First I came in and barely missed Dieselboy's set in the Playstation 2 DJ tent, which was disappointing since I generally prefer jungle to trance, but then DJ Tiësto came in and was pretty good, but I decided to leave to see the entire Blue Man Group show on the main stage. Their show was pretty good, full of crazy percussion madness, although the audience participation doesn't work with that size of an audience. It was a little awkward at times. Hungry, I ate an expensive and misnomered "Chicken Sandwich Deluxe", which consisted of a slab of tough chicken on a bun. Hits the spot every time. After we learned that Busta Rhymes wasn't going to show, Tucker, Dan, and I returned to the tent to see John Digweed, the number-one-rated DJ in the world by most accounts. He was really good, and I found myself able to enjoy his style of music, even though I'm usually not up for it. I was dancing pretty heavily, so my glasses flew off my face twice. After I was sufficiently tired Dan and I caught the end of David Bowie's set. A lot of people there completely loved it, but I just sorta liked it. I'm not the Bowie type but it was good. After that I caught some Carl Cox in the tent which was also quite fun, but only stayed for a few minutes because of the important matter at hand:
Moby.
Moby was great, as usual. I've seen him before, with Bush in the Campus Invasion tour in Norman, OK. This time around he was a lot funnier. He had a Krusty sticker from the Simpsons on his guitar. He also put on a wig and acted like a metal guy for a while. He was a lot more interesting this time around, even if he didn't play "All I Need Is To Be Loved" or "Oil 1", two of my favorite songs. He didn't jump on top of his keyboard or play a very long guitar solo, but otherwise it was Moby at his best. The first encore he played was a quick cover of the "Hey ho! Let's go!" punk song. The whole night you could tell he really wanted to cover something (other than just the "James Bond Theme" as usual) He ended with "Feeling So Real" just like last time, so I was happy to say the least.
Right now after the show Dan, Leighton, Chris and I are drinking virgin margaritas and listening to mellow jazz on 'GBH. All and all a very good day, although expensive for sure.
August 5, 2002The song Moby covered was "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones.
I'm back at Olin and I'll probably be starting work on Monday. I had the hardest time trying to change this webpage from Oklahoma.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Area 2 festival. It will last from 3:30 pm on to probably the wee hours, and features Moby, David Bowie, Busta Rhymes, and Blue Man Group. I've already seen Moby and Blue Man Group before. When I went to the Moby show I bought a Moby t-shirt. When I went to the Blue Man Group show I wore that shirt, because I figured they would like Moby. Later that year, after both of them got much more famous, they performed together at the Grammy Awards. I think they saw my shirt and put two and two together. Anyway, now Moby has selected Blue Man Group to be in his second Area Festival, and it's all thanks to my shirt.
Dan, Steve, Chris and I went to the Framingham 15 theater to see Austin Powers 3. It was still sold out, so we left. Dan just told me something interesting about the Framingham 15, which has one of the less than 20 all-digital screens in the country. It turns out the AMC Framingham 15 was once the General Cinemas 16. It turns out this theater also has one of the two "luxury" theaters that serve alcohol. When AMC bought the facility out, says Dan, who is only moderately sure of this, they were only given 15 of the theaters, the "luxury" theater staying with General Cinemas. You learn something new everyday.
Dan also showed me Half Bakery, a place where you can brainstorm ideas and then people vote on them. I then showed him everything2, a strange mish-mash of writeups on any topic imaginable. In fact, if you imagine something that isn't there, you get to write it up yourself.
August 4, 2002It turns out that AMC bought out General Cinemas; we were wrong. They are all owned by the same company now. It's the AMC Framingham 16.
My old web page from a year ago is now available at http://students.olin.edu/ghutchins/old/. It's really exciting stuff, I tell you.
Time to head home for a few weeks. My flight is later today, around 5. This space may not change for a while, depending on whether or not I find a way to access the Olin network from outside Olin. I'll keep you posted.
It's really late. I need to pack "tomorrow" (today) so I should probably go to bed, eh?
Today was the last day of Olin as we know it. The VOPs are here and with the newbies next year it's going to be one different situation. I also got to visit the campus for the first time. Our buildings are simply wonderful. I'm ready to move in as soon as possible.
