Random Drivel

We started decorating the room for Christmas yesterday. We went to Wal-Mart and got the wrapping paper and lights and garland, and a few hooks and various things. We are wrapping the door with blue paper (its got little snowflakes on it) and then we put blue garland around the door with white lights. My mom gave me a couple wreaths, so we put one above the door and the other is on the wall in the kitchen right now. We put a stocking on the message board outside the door, too. It looks great. For the inside of the room, we have blue icicle lights on the ceiling behind the TV, and we are going to be putting up the regular blue lights around the rest of the walls this afternoon, as soon as we get more hooks. The best part is our mini-Christmas tree on top of the entertainment center, complete with lights and an American Flag on top. I’ll take some pictures as soon as we get it all done. We also rearranged the chairs in the living room, we put the chairs in the corners tilted at an angle and put the endtables on the other sides of them. Makes the room look a little bigger.

Classes this quarter aren’t looking too bad right now, but its just the second day. I’ve heard some things through the grapevine about these classes, so I’ll just have to buckle down and actually study.

I got back to The Haute this morning around 10:30, and after showing my parents my apartment we went to lunch and then to Sams club to buy some tasty edibles.

Break was great, seeing my family and all my cousins (and all of their kids) was great. My oldest cousin is 29, and my youngest cousin was born this August. Everyone’s wondering who it is thats going to be next to get married and have the great-grandkids, and no one is really sure. I doubt it will be me, since I suspect it will be a few years before I get to that point of my life.

My uncle got me those Colts tickets for the 5th, which is going to be outstanding. I doubt Peyton will be breaking any records that weekend, but it’ll still be nice to see how many touchdowns he throws against Tennessee (who got beat by Houston this afternoon).

Ready for a whole new quarter of classes, although I’ll probably get sick of it about 3 weeks in. But, I’m in luck! Because three weeks in is going to be Christams break! Haven’t decided where I’m going yet, Being pulled in so many directions. Its good to know I have a couch to stay on in any of a bajillion places, I have some of the best friends ever. There’s always that bed at home in Tulsa, but hey. Its Tulsa.

I passed all my classes. Got B’s in all 4 of them. Don’t know how I got a B in one class, and wondering why I only got a B in another one. But, new quarter coming.

So, watching all this news about The Pacers/Pistons game and then hearing the bigwigs talk about it, it really kinda yanks my chain how some people just ignore the idiot who threw the drink in the first place. Yes, Ronny Artest was a dumbass and shouldn’t have jumped into the stands. But Christ, he was already clinging to the edge after everything else that’s happened to him, what did you expect? The refreshing blast of chilled, great tasting, low-carb beer would cool him down, and make him realize the errors of his ways? Of course he’s just gonna get riled up.

Anyhoo, I’m just surpirsed that Sean Hannity even has taken against Artest. The idiot filling in for O’Reilly tonight wouldn’t even let this journalist who has spoken to fans about it talk… she was cut off when explaining how its bad to let fans like that run amok. She was making a great point (until she got cut off) about this setting a precident, because now any fans who want to spoil another team’s chances of getting into the playoffs just has to incite a riot, and then a couple of their rivals will get thrown out of the league. Don’t like Kobe and the Lakers? Throw some beer and yell rape. That’s how its gonna be, if these fans aren’t punished.

Well, finals are over and break has begun. I’m up in South Bend visiting my Grandma and family for break, so I wont be spending much time on the computer (mostly because dial-up is painful).

Finals were tough; I think I might be alright in 200, but 250 probably dropped my grade. We’ll see when I get grades back, which I’m not looking forward to. More than ever, I just want to graduate and I care less and less about my GPA. I was talking to my cousin, and she said, “You know what they call a med school grad with a C average? A doctor.” Well, I know I got at least one B and one B+, so I’m not doin terrible. Plus, with Spanish II (yes, Spanish II, as in 2, as in two, as in, easy A+++) next quarter, I think I’ll be ok.

I dropped my cell phone in the washing machine the other day. It still works. Takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. Of course I had to let it dry out for a few days, but it works. Phew… Oh, and my uncle said that I could have his Colt’s tickets for 5 Dec, against the Titans. That’s great, I’ll get to see Peyton throw a bagillion touchdowns. NFL games rock.

Engravings for your ipod:

http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/articles/iPodEngraving/index.shtml

All of them infinitely better than the engraving on mine, “FreeiPods.com”, which, if you think about it, isn’t all that bad.

My favorites:

• Lick My Shiny Metal Ass
• iMasturbate five times a day
• 10,000 Stolen Tunes Inside

Although I’m sure they could have gotten a little more creative.

I had a job interview with Cinergy today. They are looking for a summer/Co-op employee, and hopefully I have what it takes. The interview went well, it lasted an hour and we talked about what the job required and what I would hope to get out of it. They are interviewing six people for three positions, so hopefully I get hired.

I suppose that deep within the recesses of my mind, I always knew this week would come. Ten solid weeks of class must be concluded with a final, eleventh, hell. Luckily, my hell only consists of two finals (yay for passing ADES and opting out of the final, and for Tech Comm not having a final). But the two finals that remain will be a true test of my scholastic aptitude over the past few lunar cycles.

Anyway, I’ve got Circuits Tuesday evening and Device Modeling Wednesday afternoon. Then its off to South Bend for a fun-filled Thanksgiving adventure with the family, and my parents and sister should be joining me sometime next week for the festivities. I am fairly positive that I simply need to get a B-ish on Circuits and just pass the Device Modeling final in order to secure a B (or hopefully, B+? ).

Saturday afternoon was our final football game of the season. Phil and I went to watch. We were losing pretty badly after the first quarter. We left at half-time to go to Taco Bell, and when we came back we were on a scoring drive towards the endzone, with the score 16-21. A simple touchdown would have sealed the game for us, but time ran out. Better luck next year…

That night Travis and Josh and I went to the Sig Nu party, and came back around 2:30 to watch some of the SNL skits from that night (we fast-forwarded through most of it… pretty disappointing). This afternoon I got up around noon and watched some football games, and then the Simpsons season premiere. Our goal is to record all the episodes this season.

Well, I better get back to that ECE200. This test is going to be very very fun.

Fuck the south? I’d rather not. (In case some of you might not know, I’ve lived half my life in the south). Well, these liberal douche’s at www.fuckthesouth.com think that the south is to blame for the poor situation this country is in. I’d like to believe otherwise. Particularly funny from this site is this quote:

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about?…Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

Well guys, I hate to burst your bubble. This little graphic I just made in photoshop seems to prove your point otherwise:

Thats an awful lot of red counties voting for Bush in those colonies… Gee. Someone has some animosity towards the south. They say “get the fuck out” and claim that the Union should never have fought to get them back in the civil war. Well, maybe we were right to leave! Apparantly, 51% of this country wants Bush in office. I say, the rest of you losers should get the fuck out! If you wont be tolerant of other’s beliefs, then leave. So many liberal in the news, such as the Baldwins, Rob Reiner, Ben Whofleck… maybe you should leave. You said you’d leave last time and never did. You’re getting a second chance. If you think you can make a better country, I’d like to see you try. I kind of like this country. Its been good to me. If you want to try your hand at a liberal haven, then get you and your votes the hell out of the UNITED STATES. There’s a reason the south left the first time… we were trying to get away from you.

The new version of firefox was released today… if you haven’t downloaded and installed firefox (and tabbed browser extensions and adblock and any of the other extensions) then you don’t know what you’re missing!

According to this article on infoworld and the United States Department of Homeland Security, continuing to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is hazardous to your computing health.

Mozilla Firefox is an open-source browser that is continually updated to fix bugs and add new features, and each new version builds upon the versions before it. New internet browsing techniques such as tabbed browsing, which allows you to open several tabbed windows within one instance of the application, allow you to manage your internet viewing in a much more efficient way. Other features are a download manager that allows you to keep track of downloaded files, internally built popup blocking (and the option to allow popups from certain sites or to allow popups that are not automatically generated, which typically include advertisements) and the ability to modify the program through the use of “extensions”, which are plugins for the browswer.

Two of these extensions are must haves for Firefox users. The first, adblock, will prevent advertisements detected in webpages from being downloaded. This is accomplished through a filtering system that can be edited (in fact, you must provide your own filters to block, but lists are available from others who have done the work already). A second extension is tabbed browser extensions, which enhances the already native ability of tabs with new features. Some of my favorites are the ability to close tabs with a double click, open new tabs by double-clicking or middle clicking on the tab bar, and keeping all windows in one instance of Firefox. Other extensions are the google pagerank, bugmenot implementation, blog management (the “about this site” extension adds a link to the right-click menu that will tell you who are kinja readers of the site you are viewing) and many more.

Perhaps the best reason to use Firefox instead of Internet explorer is the fact that it does not include active-x, which is the malicious ability of MSIE to execute code on your machine and install software without your knowledge, resulting in SPYWARE. Spyware is not a family favorite among computer users. Viruses and other malicious code cannot be run without your permission in firefox. Also, due to its size and backbone, the mozilla software runs much faster than the IE software, especially considering the fact that it is not built into the Windows XP filesystem.

When a program such as this adds so many new features by release 1.0, its amazing that Internet Explorer has remained at version 6.0 for the past 4 years. Its time to end the tyranny of MSIE and migrate to a better, safer browsing experience.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why?
21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why?
21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1

3. Why are his gloves wet?
His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time and if not, why not?
He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

5. How often are the guards changed?
Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to?
For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 2″ tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30.” Other requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror.

The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis (the boxer) and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, (the most decorated soldier of WWII) of Hollywood fame.

Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty.

ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD,
AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington, DC, our US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer, “No way, Sir!” Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a serviceperson. The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

I don’t usually suggest that many emails be forwarded, but I’d be very proud if this one reached as many as possible. We can be very proud of our young men and women in the service no matter where they serve.

God Bless and keep them.