last updated: Monday, 07-Jun-2004 00:58:41 EDT
12/30/01, 3:08am-
I just had a really cool night with my friend John. We started at Easy Street Pub, the local townie bar. Then we went to Palatine, to Durty Nellie's for drinks and live music by Underwater People. The band rocked I even got their CD. After many many wonderful songs, both cover and original, we left for Easy Street again. Why go back? We were hunting SHS alums, and that's a prime hangout for them these days. Of course, after all that driving we needed food, so it was off to Steak n Shake, for munchies. Of course, now it's after 3am and I'm going to bed.
12/29/01, 6:07pm-
Continuing in the line of bass-related news entries, I recently completed a mini headphone amp for my bass. It lets me practice (aka make really bad basslike noises) in places other than the one my amp is at. It clips to the strap and is quite handy. I'll share construction details at a later date.
12/26/01, 1:49am-
The low B on my bass is 30.87Hz. Damn that's low. Maybe I'll just practice with the other 4 strings for now. What brought this on? Someone was using a DBX 120XP on a 6 string bass. The 120xp is a box that produces subharmonics. IE, if I hit an open B it would pump out not 30Hz, but 15. That guy was nuts.
12/25/01, 8:26pm-
Well here it is, the big Christmas update. I got speakers for my car, an MP3 player and a bass guitar. WHo woulda thunk it, me, playing a 5 string. In deference to Adam, I do not currently play bass, but I'm learning.
In any case, there was a plethora of other things that were exchanged between myself and my family. It was a happy day, filled with gift giving and receiving and laughing and fun and all that good holiday cheer n stuff.
I hope you and yours found the same....Merry Christmas
12/23/01, 11:34pm-
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Yup, I just saw it. All three hours of it. it was just like I remember it. The words drew pictures for me when I first encountered the tale at that age of eight or so. Hollywood Al will have a review up shortly, I'm sure. Suffice it to say that you should see this film.
12/22/01, 12:47pm-
It won't go loud enough. Or rather I'm not willing to make it go loud enough. Breaking Dad's speakers and violating the Schaumburg noise ordinances isn't my idea of a good time. Maybe it's time to finally do in the speakers in my car. Stabbing Westward needs to be on at least 11. Right now I'm limited to about 8 in the house.
12/22/01, 2am-
Seen on a local white board: "You used to be my Romeo"
Indeed.
12/22/01, 1:24am-
I just got back form a night on the town with Greg, Al, Mike, Steve, Bryan and Ryan. I didn't want to go out, but the appeal of alcohol and someone else driving was just too good an offer to refuse. Long Island's are good when you need to forget. Then we went and played pool at Cue Can Do. Damn that place is scary. While we were there one guy was laid out cold in the parking lot (ambulance response) a fight broke out at the front door (lockdown, police response) and there were 3 accidents in the larking lot. Did I mention the $75k Mercedes parked next to the ghetto beaters? Or the guys in the lot carrying 9s under their coats? I don't think I'll ever go back there again. I prefer to worry about shooting pool, not worrying about looking at someone wrong.
I also got a chance to exchange presents with Tsui Yi. She got me one of those cool plasma globes. It looks nifty at the end of my bed. I go ther a couple of pairs of earrings (one birthstone, one ladybug) and a crystal puppy. She always thought we should have a puppy. She finally got it.
Reiterating a previous comment:
If you love soemthing, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, you never had it to begin with.
I guess I was wrong. Here's to the memories.
12/21/01, 2:00am-
Proof of Life. Meg Ryan and Russel Crowe. Damn that's a good movie. Karen and my mom were both asking me which one it was this week. Well, there's your answer. Thanks to HBO, for running it about 15,741 times in the last 10 days, just so that I could find out which movie it was. Boxes are under the tree, and the branches are no longer naked. It's starting to feel a little bit like Christmas. Not a lot tho. Hmmmm. I'll have to work on that. I only have 4 days to get into the holiday cheer. Maybe sleep will help.
12/20/01, 6:09pm-
So the network is up again. The new base station plays nicely with the new cable modem. Damn it's fast. Faster than before. Faster than the good days at school. It's as fast as it is in the commercials. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......bandwidth!
12/20/01, 12:04am-
Now playing: Gigi D'Agostino "I'll Fly With You"
I wrapped presents today. It was half an hour of holiday cheer. Something that seems to be in short supply this season.
12/19/01, 12:33pm-
SNOW! I got out of the shower, looked out the window, and the deck was covered in white stuff. This will definately help improve my mood :-)
12/19/01, 1:33am-
The tree smells so nice. The lights look so pretty. I hope they can work their magic soon.
12/18/01, 10:39pm-
Why can't I be who I so desperately need to be?
12/18/01, 6:21pm-
Despite everything else I want to write the maintaince of the network here at home is all that will make it into this entry. Apple's rev 2 Airport Base Station sucks ass. It's routing is slow as molasses. Fucking network bullshit. I hate this crap.
12/17/01, 5:28pm-
Replacing the anteanna on my car is a bitch. One word of advice to anyone with a 95 EX coupe 5-speed. Pull the cruise control box and hide it behind the clutch pedal. That lets you stick your fingers up into the hole where the antenna cable comes thru and fish it out without yanking it into oblivion. Next time, we'll install the audio console. Schaumburg Honda has 7 more available in black, $130 each. Get yours while you still can!
12/17/01, 12:16am-
This is the first entry of the rest of my life. I'm back in Schaumburg now, and home feels wierd. It's strange coming home after you've made a home somewhere else. Things feel familiar, but also a little bit off. I can't quite describe it properly. It's like I'm in the union of two sets of lives (ack! math geek!). I know it'll take some time to adjust to. It's just going ot be wierd, being around people I'm related to again. It's going to be interesting trying to redefine my life in terms of family and work, instead of school and the relationships I formed there. These are very different worlds. A stranger in my homeland? I don't know. Things are the same, yet different.
On a different note, the graduation ceramony was cool. There was a moment I'll remember forever, while I was standing in line waiting to head for the stage. I fixed my moarterboard and was straightening my gown and I looked back across the mass of parents and graduates and felt good. Not the kind of good you get from ice cream or a puppy or even a warm kiss on a cold night, but the kind of good that is fundamental, the kind of good that poets dream about and politicians like to promise. The kind of good that lets you believe just for one solitary second that everything is not only going to work out, but it will work out good. Not well, good. I don't mean good, I mean Good. You know the kind. It was amazing. I only wish it had lasted. A fleeting moment of goodness to be cherished forever. It will be my fondest memory of Purdue University.
I think I'm going to go to bed. I've been up for 16 hours, moved my worldly possessions twice (into the cars, and back out again) and driven a few hundred miles in the last couple of days. Preceeded by 2 weeks in which I had to ask people "what day is it?" at least 6 times, a near all nighter getting my Senior Design presentation in order, and no sleep last night (I don't know either), I'm done.
Now playing: DMB "Grace is Gone" *sigh*
12/06/01, 7:43am-
I'm sitting here waiting for my dad to come and take me to the armory in the rain. It's surreal. I'm graduating in 2 hours. I'm at the threshold. Of what I do not know. I hope that life manages to carry me in the right direction. I'm gonna feel pretty damn stupid if I screw it up after 11 semesters of college education. OK, time to fly. Wish me luck...
12/14/01, 2:05pm-
I'm speechless. My best friend Scott and his wife Tamar are bringing me to California. It's a combo birthday/Xmas/graduation present thingy. I have no words. Thank you isn't enough.
12/14/01, 1:25pm-
Holy shit. I won. There's an award for the Sr Project that's outstanding with respect to design, construction and testing in honor of a guy named Striker (Stryker?). It's a check for $1000 and a cool certificate. I won. That made my day. Just imagine how things would have turned out if my project had been finished to my standards. I still consider the beast an early beta rev. wow......
12/13/01, 1:44pm-
My preamp is painted and functional. I'm happy about that. Someday there will be a big bad writeup about it, with pictures and schematics and aource code and baord layouts. That will come later.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
P. J. O'Rourke
12/13/01, 3:44am-
I had a really nice chat with Tsui Yi this morning. There aren't many people I'll forgoe this much sleep to talk to. As a matter of fact I can count them on one hand. I'm so glad you're my friend
12/11/01, 1:03pm-
Thoguht for the day: There's an old song that says "if you can't be with the one you love then love the one you're with." Obviously the person who wrote that lyric wasn't in my position. Of course, right now I lack both the one I love and a different one to be with. I'm not bitter, honestly......just feeling alone today.
Now playing: Sarina Paris "Look at us now" Hope, meet reality. Here's your helmet.
12/10/01, 8:05pm-
I just got home from my last day of work ever at the Hall. I'm gonna miss some of the people I worked with, not because they were good workers, but because they were good people. Skip, Minta, John Taylor, John Batts, Ian Hunter, Dave Swenson, Glenn Griger, and even Robin Shanks and Tim Todd.....it was a pleasure working with you.
I also took yet another online test a minute ago, while I was writing this entry.:
| BROKEN IMAGE | I am an Alien Autopsy. My raging belligerant mustard synchronises with spherically verbose participles. I enlist lava by shrinking lenticular disturbances. Loose network steam requires my fortunate lips. What monkeys dispute rearranged plasma? The Utterly Surreal Test |
12/10/01, 4ish am-
I got home from work a while ago, relaxed and exhausted. Not sleepy tired, just out of energy. So I surfed the web for a bit and then I found pout the following:
| BROKEN IMAGE | If I were a work of art, I would be Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night. I am a tiny village at peace while overhead rages the tumult of the heavens. Objects whirl and flash around me in a fevered haze only partially reflected in reality while I remain grounded and secure in my isolation. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test |
I find that fascinating. Although I can honestly say that I've spent the last 5 and a half years in relative isolation, like most college students do, I don't think of myself as isolated. Go figure.
Now playing: Dave Matthews Band "Big Eyed Fish" (From the unreleased Lillywhite Sessions album)
12/08/01, 4:03am-
Holy crap. I just played 3 hours of 3 on 3 Halo. Bungie had better bring it out for Mac/PC damn soon, because it's bad that I'm considering the purchase of an XBox just so I can play it. It was escapism at it's best. I forgot about everything but the game for 4 hours. Now it's time for bed.
12/7/01, 4:22pm-
I just got back from Jakes, after my last "class" in the pursuit of my undergraduate degree. It's taken 11 semesters, one summer session, and too damn much work, but I'm literally days away from being free of this place.
12/7/01, 9:33am-
Happy b-day to my sister, who turns 16 today. I'm sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you.
12/7/01, 8:51am-
I just finished my "exit interview". It's in quotes because it wasn't an interview. It was a series of 40 canned scantron questions and a handful of ambiguous fill-in-the-blank questions. I'm disappointed with the department. There is supposed to be some sort of interaction with exit interviews. Some kind of human exchange. I'm so disappointed in Purdue.
12/7/01, 8:04am-
For easily guessable reasons I didn't sleep last night. It's strange that now, after only a few real hours of being out cold, I don't feel more tired. Maybe it has something to do with the nightmares I had. They truned out to be real when I opened my eyes. I hate it when that happens. Or maybe it's my general state of dispassion. I don't feel or care enuogh to be tired. I don't know.....
Now playing: Moby "Everything is wrong"
12/7/01, 3:05am-
shat·ter (shtr)
v. shat·tered, shat·ter·ing, shat·ters
v. tr.
1. To cause to break or burst suddenly into pieces, as with a violent blow.
2.
a.To damage seriously; disable: His health was shattered by the disease.
b.To cause the destruction or ruin of; destroy: The outcome of the conflict shattered our dreams of
peace and prosperity.
v. intr.
To break into pieces; smash or burst. See Synonyms at break.
12/7/01, 12:53am-
How does something you expect still manage to be so horribly suprising when it happens? One month to the day from when I noticed, it all comes crashing down. How fitting.
12/6/01, 3:30pm-
I just got home after my last SOC220 lecture and a walk to Einstein Brothers Bagels. Only two more class hours to go and I'm done. FWIW, I got my last exam back in 220. I finished the course with an A. Woohoo. The weather is gorgeous. Today is a truly good day.
12/05/01, 3:31pm-
I had my last EET360 lefture today. My last 360 lecture ever. Tomorrow will be my last SOC220 class. Ever. Friday morning I'll have my exit interview. Friday at 2:30 I'll start my last class......ever....at Jake's. Graduation is so close I can taste it.
12/05/01, 1:15am-
Ben Folds, live in concert. Yeah.
12/03/01, 9:36am-
My high for today was finishing the written report for my senior design project.
The associated low was that the final draft didn't hit the output tray of my printer until a little after 6. 6am. As in 3 and a half hours ago. As in I was up all friggin night trying to get it just right. I should go to bed, but 3.5 hours won't cut it. I'm gonna get some coffee (I know, I know) and a copy of the paper and try to stay awake for the presentation I have at 1:30. Wish me luck....
12/03/01, 5:31am-
a·lone (-ln)
adj.
1.Being apart from others; solitary.
2.Being without anyone or anything else; only.
3.Considered separately from all others of the same class.
adv.
1.Without others: sang alone while the choir listened.
2.Without help: carried the suitcases alone.
3.Exclusively; only: The burden of proof rests on the prosecution alone.
12/02/01, 4:37-
Last night was fun. I saw a movie (American Pie 2), saw a band (Jonathan and Aziz), and saw another movie (Shrek). Friends are a good distraction from real life. Of course, when I woke up this afternoon (1:22pm :-) real life came back with a vengence. I fixed a nasty bug in my preamp (inverted word addressing only works when the target has a symmetrical address, ie 01010) and am now crunching away on the final draft of the report. I wish I had another week....there are so many little things I'd love to do a little better (heatsinks, processor, buttons, case, rear panel, level meters) and redesign (surround address decoder, main PCB, software) and add (remote, EQ, quiet fan, RCA outs), but alas I don't have the time or, honestly, the motivation. Those mods will have to wait until I spin the hardware again. Time to work on the report some more...
12/01/01, 3:39pm-
Time to go buy a metal blade for the sabre saw so I can cut the front panel for my project. Byebye good parking place....
<updated> Wow. I left when the game was abotu to start, and when I got back 45 minutes later my spot was still there. Woohoo!
12/01/01, 3:02pm-
If I was an Autobot, I'd be:
Take the Transformers personality test at android5.com!
12/01/01, 3:05pm-
Weezer "Only In Dreams" Yep, it's a conspiracy. Call Dogget and Scully.
12/01/01, 2:53pm-
Milli fucking Vanilli. "Girl You Know It's True" I hate my computer with a passion right now.
12/01/01, 2:08pm-
ob·so·lete (bs-lt, bs-lt)
adj.
1.No longer in use: an obsolete word.
2.Outmoded in design, style, or construction: an obsolete locomotive.
3.Biology. Vestigial or imperfectly developed, especially in comparison with other individuals or related species; not clearly marked or seen; indistinct.
11/30/01, 3:05pm-
Stolen from Eric's away message:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
11/30/01, 2:03pm-
Some days are better than others. Some days are a lot better than others. This is one of the others.
11/29/01, 11:34pm-
I'm sitting here listening to my dorm stereo. CD player, preamp (sr project..it works...woohoo!) Crown D75, Digital Designs monitors. It sounds nicer somehow...when the music plays thru something I made with my own hands. I don't pretend to understand why...it just does :-)
In other news, my computer was at it again. Roxette's "Fading Like a Flower". I really need to teach this machine a lesson.
11/29/01, 1:56pm-
I just got home after finishing the last exam I'll ever take here at Purdue. 13 minutes and 9 seconds, 60 multiiple choice questions. That's what, about 13 seconds per question? All Joanne had to say was "you're fast". Well yeah, the test was easy, and I read quickly, and I'm smart.
<updated> In hindsight I think that time is wrong, I didnt' take more than 10 seconds to read even the wordiest question, and 3-4 for most of them, including circling the answer. I'm thinking it was more like 6-7 minutes.
11/28/01, 5:44pm-
In the beginning there was nothing. Then God said, let there be light. There was still nothing but at least now you could see it.
Of course that implies that there is a God, which I still doubt, but that's beside the point. It's a funny sentence. Laugh dammit.
Blame Ken and his quotes.
You may have noticed that I've started bolding the date and time. I didn't do it for you. I did it for me, so I can more easily find entries while I'm editing the HTML.
11/28/01, 11:26am-
Soldering makes me happy. Velleman makes good kits. Now I have a stereo VU meter. It's fun. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...............
11/28/01, 1:54am-
Parting thought for the evening: If you love something set it free. If it comes back it's yours, If it doesn't you never had it to begin with.
11/28/01, 1:20am-
My friend Tsui Yi is taking the GREs today. Send her good thoughts. I don't envy the people who take that exam...
11/27/01, 12:49pm-
I'd like to take a moment to admonish the asshole contractor who swiped things off of my desk over Thanksgiving break, and deliver a very public FUCK YOU. So far I'm missing a screwdriver set, a center punch, and a phillips drive bit for my drill. How do I know it was a contractor? I'm famous at Cary. Every employee knows me by name if not on sight. They're not stupid enough to take something from me. Contractors on the other hand are notorious. The telecom contractors were responsible for breaking a very nice Onkyo CD player ($350), destroying a Fluke bench DMM ($900), and stealing $200 in tools from WCCR a few years back. They're known as the guys who kinda work for Purdue but don't give a rat's ass. There's a reason there are cracks in the walls of my room. This building renovation isn't even a year old yet. Settling? I doubt it. the foundation has been here since 1926. There is a 1/4" gap at the bottom of my bathroom door. The window frames in my RA's room aren't even close to square. There are gaps so large that you can stick your finger right out past the screen. My HVAC only works some of the time, but I've stopped putting in fixit tickets because all they do is crank it up to full hot and full fan and pronounce it done. I hate this fucking pit. I can't wait to leave Lafayette. I plan to never ever look back. What a hole.
11/26/01, 11:16pm-
It's lets-play-a-song-and-make-Dave-sad time again, with your host Dave's Computer. Tonight our selection is "You're All I've Got Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins (covering The Cars). The pumpkins do a slightly harder version which just sounds better. My $0.02.
11/26/01, 8-9pm-
The Star Trek edition of The Weakest Link airs. Man that was funny.
11/25/01, 11:22pm-
Feeling empty sucks.
11/25/01, 8:44pm-
Back in the saddle again....with much unpacking of my car to be done. To quote someone who said something sometime "Less thinking, more lifting."
11/25/01, 3:20am-
I just got back from my second session of Harry Potter with the Karens, Craig, Kelly and a few others. Of course, after the movie there was a trip to Steak 'n Shake and an hour and a half of chatting in Karen's basement.
BTW, my project is done enough for me to get the checkoff. I think. Here's to graduating. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
11/23/01, 7:44pm-
Just got back form Blue Man Group. The show rocked. Lots of drums and humor and stuff. Unfotunately I also came back with a rockin headache. Ouch. Time to find someplace quiet for a while....
11/22/01, 10:05pm-
I hate not being able to be happy. I try to smile but it feels all wrong. Joy is forced. Things that cause a crowd to erupt in laughter only make me wince. The ache in my chest won't go away. I hate hurting, but happiness seems so fleeting right now. I supose I should stop before this gets really depressing. Time to work on my project or something.
11/22/01, 9:43pm-
I just got back from seeing Monsters Inc. with my kid sister. It was cute. Highly recommended...it's a great date flick if you haven't seen it already. <insert hope here>
I miss you...
11/22/01, 5:51pm-
Dinnertime. Turkey, stuffing, and mmmmmm....mashed potatoes. Such a feast...
11/22/01, 2:44pm-
Cinderella "Don't know what you've got 'till it's gone". Damn VH1. Damn them to hell.
11/22/01, 12:45pm-
It's Thanksgiving at the Paton household; cornbread, pumpkin pie, and a turkey big enough to feed.um.Turkey. OK, maybe not, but it's a big bird.
I like being at home. Things are simpler. Slower. It's not perfect, but it's damn close.
11/22/01, 2:59am-
Bedtime for me. I urge everyone to dream happy dreams, hold onto the ones you love and be thankful for every moment you have. Until net time, peace out.
11/22/01, 2:30am-
I went to bed a little while ago. As my head hit the pillow I looked across the expanse of empty mattress to my left. That's a space that more often than not has been occupied by a special someone, pretty much since I upgraded to a queen sized bed. For a moment images flashed before my closed eyes, pictures of love. My heart turned sad when I blinked them open again, knowing that I may never be able to gaze upon that girl sleeping beside me again, or hold her as I drift off. My heart and soul leap at hope, taking every opportunity to push me forward, but my mind won't let me forget reality.
I got back up to write these words, and to give thanks in the wee hours of Thanksgiving 2001. This year Iam thankful for many things. I am thankful I am finally leaving Purdue University with the degree I came to get in the fall of 1996. I am thankful that I have a job waiting for me, unlike so many of my friends. I am thankful that I have a family that loves me. I am thankful for the peace in my life in this time of global conflict. I am thankful that I have had the chance to know true joy this year. I am thankful for honesty, truth, beauty and love, and I am thankful that I've had the chance to live my life.
11:21:01, 8:44pm-
I wired up the rest of the back panel of my project. I'm fried again. It's happening too fast. This isn't good. As for the recurring topic of sappy music in my life, it happened again. Somehow whenever I turn on the radio or the TV it's something else. Today it was NFG's version of "Everything I Do". Every time I put in my freshly minted NFG comp CD it went to track 6, no matter what I did. I heard it on the radio. The original was the muzak at the doctor's office I went to for my flu shot this morning.
<excerpted>
there's no love
like your love
and no other
could give more love
there's no where
unless you're there
all the time
all the way, yeah
11/21/01, 1:31am-
I just got back from seeing Harry Potter with my good friend Beth. Yes, I know, she's my ex, but I really don't think of her like that. She's a friend. Yeah, we dated, and yeah, we had fun, but she's more than an ex could ever be. The movie was awesome. It was funny and cute and intellectual and everything I needed in an escapist flick tonight. We went to IHOP before the movie to seee Kim and Dale, the happily engaged couple. I haven't seen Kim in over a year, and it was nice to be able to get back in touch with her over a cup of coffee. The four of us chatted for a while, brough everyone up to speed on everyone else's lives, and had a good time. It was nice. Kim finally found herself a guy who was genuinely good. Not just better than the last one. In my not so humble opinion he's the best thing to ever happen to her. It makes me happy to see my friends happy.
11/19/01, 11:57pm-
I just finished playing 2 hours of HALO on an XBox. Now I hate M$ more than ever for buying Bungie and bringing the XBox title out before the Mac/PC version. It's awesome.
11/19/01, 1:02am-
Yep, it happening again. Aerosmith "Angel". It' s a plot. It's got to be. I've given up any hope of avoiding it. It's pervasive. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..............
<excerpted>
Don't know what I'm gonna do
About this feeling inside
Yes it's true, loneliness took me for a ride
Without your love I'm nothin' but a beggar
Without your love I'm a dog without a bone
What can I do, I'm sleepin' in this bed alone
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby, you're my angel
Come and save me toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
You're my aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangel
Come and make it alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
So I worked on my project from ~ 10am until about 7pm. I got it mostly wired, and things connectorized, and it's pretty much happy. To Do list:
- Serial header
- Rotary encoder connectors (256 and 32 pos)
- Rear panel
- I/O wiring
- Buttons
Things that were scrapped to make the deadline/proposal requirements:
- PIC 16F876 micro instead of a BS2
- Remote control
- EQ
- CNC machined and laser engraved panels
- XO
- Big ass volume control knob.
- Headphone amp
- Integrated amp version with LM3886s/LM12s
11/18/01, 12:51am-
I didn't even get to finish updatign th enews before soemthing worthwhile came along. Another piece of spam. I swear, if I ever meet a spammer in person I'm...well..I can really print that wilthout violating several federal statutes about adult content of a violent nature and the COPA and some other things I disagree with. That's right kids, even Dave Uncensored is censored now and then because THE MAN, as much as I hate him, is in control. I'm such a sellout sometimes.
11/18/01, 12:43am-
My computer is at it again. This time with Bif Naked "Spaceman":
<excerpted>
I wonder why you choose those others
And you never come to call on me
When I'm the one who's waiting for you
I really need you
Please pick me....
I had to go back to MP3s when I went thru the 7 CDs that I brought to school. I think I need to buy more music. This plot by my player to make me thinkof nothign buy Tsui Yi is really starting to make me paranoid. Of course, it's not paranoia when they're really out to get you.
This burnout/renewal/burnout/renewal cycle is really starting to get to me, as it's now affecting my moods. I can't wait to get onto a normal sleep schedule and lose this stress. I think another hair just turned grey.
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
There. I feel a little better now. This conclused your primal scream therapy for this evening, Please come back tomorrow.
11/17/01, 11:30pm-
I just got up from a nap. Have you ever missed someone so much it hurt? I'm continually amazed at the things I do for love. Now back to soldering. Yay.
11/17/01, 9:29pm-
I cleaned today. My room went from looking like a postwar crater to something resembling a domocile. It was theraputic to not work on my project for a while, but all the bending and dusting and sweeping and picking up and putting down didn't do my back any favors.Neither did all the soldering hunched over my project. I'm at just under a thousand joints right now and I'm not done yet. What I wouldn't give for a really good backrub right now. ow.
11/17/01, 8:15pm-
Now playing: Dido "Here With Me". If I believed in machine anthropomorphization I'd say that my computer is telling me something. But I don't. At least I think I don't. Wait. Now playing N'Sync "I Want You Back". Yep, now I believe. It's official. The random() function that picks the MP3s on my box is trying to tell me something. Either that or I've finally lost it. Either way I'm switching to CDs. Now.
11/17/01, 1:32pm-
Dave Gries is dishonorably discharged as WCCR station manager. This stinks of the same kind of bullshit that was around when Jim Goodall was booted, and Scott fired me. I hate this place more and more every day. Talk about a corrupt administration. I feel sorry for Dave, but I'm glad I'm getting out of here. It looks like Tom P will finally get what he wants...the death of WCCR. It won't happen right away, but it will happen. Why do the good things I touch seem to go bad so often? This has been your depressing thought for a downer day. Now back to your regularly scheduled mayhem.
11/17/01, 9:44am-
Why the hell am I up this early? After a 3 hour nap last night I wasn't tired until 3am. I'm up 6 hours later. WTF? From my fortune file "Some days are better than others. Let this be a better day." I hope I can do that....
11/17/01, 3:13am-
I've surpassed burnout.......again. I hate this cycle. It's not good for me or those around me. I suppose I can take heart in the fact that as of tuesday it'll be pretty much over. I hope things are ok until then. Updates to the site are happening slowly, as I'm not terribly motivated to do a lot tonight.
11/16/01, 7:29pm-
It' s only a matter of time before the project is completed.
11/16/01, 1:05pm-
The prject will work, life will be good. I have a badass job offer, I'm graduating in a month. My car is clean and has a full tank of gas. I'm selling things I don't want like mad. I'm doing well in school. My life is pretty successful right now, yet something seems lacking.
I miss you....
11/15/01, 7:29pm-
Something in my project smoked. FUCK. This is not good.
11/15/01, 1:02am-
Now playing: Tom Petty "I Won't Back Down"
As I drift off to sleep.....
11/15/01, 1:02am-
Now playing: The Cars "You're All I've Got Tonight"
I need to change my playlist again. Oh well. I'm currently making cables to test out the CS3310 PCB for my senior project. If it works, I'll test the DRV135 PCB and then if it works I'll assemble it all together and get my checkoff tomorrow. I'll kick ass. Yeah. Of course, if it doesn't go like that, then I'll be busy this weekend.
In other news, Tsui Yi and I had a nice chat on the phone tonight. Life ain't as bad as it seemed. Hell, I'm almost feeling optimistic :-)
Finally, if there's one thing that this week did for me that was truly positive, it brought me closer to a pair of people that I've been neglecting in my life recently, and who are important to me.
11/14/01, 5:45pm-
I'm not really sure what I'm feeling right now. I'm staring at a picture of Tsui Yi and I from Christmas '00 and I really dont't know what I feel other than empty. Our hiatus shouldn't be news to many people at this point...I've told just about everyone I know and I'm sure she's done the same. I still want her in my life. If I can't have her in the role she played, I'll take her as a friend. It's infinitely better than not having her at all, no matter what anyone tells me.
I have so many unanswered questions. Not just about me and her, but about life. I guess pain cause me to break out in philosophy. There are a lot of much worse ways I could react. I guess
11/14/01, 5:01pm-
So much for closure.
11/14/01, 4:44pm-
It's amazing how much can happen in 7 days. Now playing: my HVAC unit. Hiatus is an ambiguous word.
11/14/01, ~9am-
I need a hug. No, not from you Tom.
11/13/01, 11:13pm-
I hope I can be as strong as I need to be.
11/12/01, 9:08pm-
Now playing: Bon Jovi - Bed of Roses.
11/12/01, 2:02am-
now playing: GNR. god damn it's going to be a long night. I hope I have the strength of will to make it, because I definately lack the strength of body and soul.
If we could see tomorrow What of your plans No one can live in sorrow Ask all your friends Times that you took in stride They're back in demand I was the one who's washing Blood off your hands Don't you cry tonight I still love you baby Don't you cry tonight Don't you cry tonight There's a heaven above you baby And don't you cry tonight I know the things you wanted They're not what you have With all the people talkin' It's drivin' you mad If I was standin' by you How would you feel Knowing your love's decided And all love is real An don't you cry tonight Don't you cry tonight Don't you cry tonight There's a heaven above you baby And don't you cry tonight <gtr solo> I thought I could live in your world As years all went by With all the voices I've heard Something has died And when you're in need of someone My heart won't deny you So many seem so lonely With no one left to cry to baby An don't you cry tonight An don't you cry tonight An don't you cry tonight There's a heaven above you baby And don't you cry Don't you ever cry Don't you cry tonight Baby maybe someday Don't you cry Don't you ever cry Don't you cry Tonight
11/12/01, 1:46am-
Let's hear it for my impending nervous breakdown, complete with incoherant ranting, shaking hands, emotional incoherance and general wigging out.
11/11/01, 7:06pm-
I hate my life. It's been confirmed that my PCBs won't make it here in time for the demo on the 19th, so I've got to lay out new ones that I can etch. $%^&*(#^)%#. Looks like it won't be truly 'finished' until well after graduation. My burner is on the fritz. I've made more coasters in the last 3 hours than in the last 5 years. Something is seriously wrong. Have I mentioned that my senior project has given me grey hair? I swear I have more today than I did a week ago. I can see it. I know for a fact that I'm going to crash hard after this project is done. Hopefully that can wait until after finals. Damn I'll be a mess. This is an apology in advance: To my family, friends and girlfriend, I'm sorry....
11/10/01, 11:48pm-
I'm done. No, I haven't completed anything. I'm talking stick-a-fork-in-the-pork-roast here. Exceeding tired, beyond exhausted, well past burnout and approaching self destruction by implosion. I've been working so hard for the last couple of days that I have nothing left. I'm too tired to sleep, so I keep working. People come by and I'm not interactive. Friends call and I'm unresponsive. My girlfriend talk to me and my replies are disjointed and barely coherant. I surpassed senioritis months ago. I'm so ready for a vacation. Thanksgiving is 12 days away. I hope with everything I have that it will be a restful, relaxing weekend. I need it. So badly.
Notes to self: it'a not worth it. It really can wait until tomorrow. One day at a time. Worry about right now. Take care of the next moment when it's here, not before.
I need a backrub soon. I want a nap yesterday. I miss my girlfriend terribly. More than anything, right now, I want to be in a beanbag with her in front of a fire in a fireplace with some kind of soothing music playing, just being together. No words or actions required, just the mere presence of the other. Alas she's in another state leading her life right now, and it's not due to cross paths with mine for at least another week and a half or so. Our reunion can't come too soon.
11/9/01, 4:56pm-
My head hurts. I hd a headache when I went to COM, and when I left (probably because of that stupid chocolate....ugh.....Wealest Link was a bad idea for an activity), and when I got home. So I took some Tylenol. Good stuff. Unfortunately it hasn't kicked in yet, so my head still hurts. The guy down the hall with the GhettobassSubwooferAtEleven© isn't helping much either. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. < closes door > Better, but still less than faboo. Maybe I need sleep. Or food. Or both. Either way I know I'm not gonna get much work done like this. Computer screens are bad. They make my eyes hurt, which maks my head hurt. That's not so much with the goodness, you know?And to top it off my room is a mess. I need to clean, btu I lack the energy, resolve, and motivation to do it right now. Which means it'll stay messy until I trip over somethign and hurt my ankle (again), knee, wrist or some other important part of my body, and realize that if I don't clean soon the things on the floor will grow legs and move on their own. That too would fall into the category of Very Bad Things. I'd © that one but aparently some movie already did that. I dunno.
Anyway, I'm gonna go lay down and enjoy some woothing music and try to forget (for a little while at least) that my head hurts, I have lots of work to do, my project needs to be done in like 2 weeks, my girlfriend is several hundred miles away and I miss her, and that school will be out FOREVER in about 35 days.
11/9/01, 1:14pm-
People need to get over themselves. Honestly. I've had a few comments from people on the content of the "punk" test over an Fulai. No mom, I'm not talking about you, I promise. I'm talking about the people who are supposedly cool enough to know that "f*cking shit up" can mean partying your brains out, not beating little Jimmy with a tire iron. The people that don't realize that technicalities DO count. Yeah I punched a cop. We were in one of those inflatable castle things and we had these huge air suits on, gloves and shoes and everything. It was a fundraiser. Of course I hit him. He hit me first. It was fun. Finally to the dick who thought I actually checked 'yes' to questions #28 and 30, get a life. The last time I came close to anything like that was was when I was in diapers. Everyone does. Technicalities count people. Just because you know what they MEANT doesn't mean that's what they WROTE. How else do you think virgins get such "low" purtity test scores (500 point test of course)? And no, no one ever answers ALL of the questions. That'd require you to be a dead drug dealing necrophelliac with an alcohol problem and a thing for pets. That's just wrong.
Besides, if you actually form some kind of opinion of a person based on the results of an online quiz you really need to re-examine your priorities. Honestly. If you are one of those people who judges folks based on rumor, questionable data and thirdhand knowledge instead of getting to know them and making your own decision, then go away. I don't think I want to be your friend. I ahve no room in my life for people who are too stupid or closed minded to be judgemental like that.
11/8/01, 11:46pm-
I'm home again, after suprising my girlfriend almost out of her skin on her birthday. She said I made her day...I felt special. The drive back today (our 15 month anniversary :-) was longer than normal because I left at rush hour. ugh. That was a mistake. But I made it home safe and sound. Knowing you have the love of a beautiful woman in your life makes the bad things seem smaller. I highly recommend it.
11/6/01, 2:00pm-
So I ripped thru another SOC220 exam. 61 questions (including the bonus) in 15 minutes flat. The prof. makes the multiple guess questions too easy. I didn't even have to think on most of them.
In other news, Tales from Beth Corner is now up and awaiting material from the lovely writer of the same name. Riight now I'm tryign to judge how much it's going to bump up my traffic. Hopefully lots, and she'll get a book deal or something.
11/3/01, 2:34pm-
So I'm watching this Britney Spears thing on Mtv because the football games got boring for a minute and I never changed the channel back. While I admit that she's pretty and talented and all that, I can't seem to figure out what causes mere mortals to ascend to a position that commands other mere mortals (sometimes known as "fans") to do crazy things...really really wierd things....
I don't pretend to understand people's obsession with celebrities. I covered that earlier. Scroll down for a rambling account of something that resembles rational thought.
Regarding my entry about how punk and geek tests....yes, I am 62% punk. I listen to punk, and think that most is too corporate. I mix punk bands and think they need to spend less money and tune their guitars even worse than they already do. Of course, when I think those things I also usually think things like "shoot me now" and "dammit, why the **** can't this guy stop pointing the microphone at a speaker!", and possibly "Less ranting, more talent". Yes, I am 62% punk. I am also 38% not punk. I like melody and art and people who know the difference between flat, sharp and natural. If you think that last bit was kinky I don't want to hear you play guitar.
Regarding my geek-ness, yes I am a geek. I'm the biggest fucking geek around. I know more IP address than physical ones. I use AIM to the detriment of real social contact. I hack on embedded code for fun, speak 3 different kinds of assembly, and often mention things in normal convrsation that belong in 500 level engineering courses. I usually check my email before I have any pants on in the morning, at least at school. I live for bandwidth. I'm also other kinds of geek. I'm a sound geek. I have a load rated caribiner holding my keys. There's a 1/2 ton shackle on my bookbag. There are speakon gender benders on my dresser. I have a 7kW PA in my closet, next to my dirty clothes. There's a spool of 12/9 SO cable holding my TV up. I have XLRs on everything. I wish houses had twist-loks, cams or both. Yeah, that'd be cool.
But yeah, prople and celebs. I don't get it. Oh well. My girlfriend is online now so it's time for me to do something more important.
10/29/01, midnight-
MISSING IMAGE
Punk Fucking Cock! I am the sexy punk. Fuck Everything. Punk enough not too care, but horny enough to worry about image.
Take the PUNK/POSER Test at Fuali.com!
I AM 64% GEEK.MISSING IMAGE
Nerd, Freak, Geek, Dweeb. Sound familiar? That's okay, cause I will be the richest person at my 15th year high-school reunion. If a "con" isn't happening that weekend.
http://www.wilwheaton.net
10/26/01, 2:11pm-
My room looks like a bomb went off in it. Parts bags, test equipemtn, laptop parts, PC boards, components, wires, CDs, power tools, all spread aournd liberally. But it's for a vry good reason. My senior peoject is at the 100% checkoff state. I know, I need to get the 'final form' checkoff sooner than later, but that's immaterial. It works!
10/4/01, 1pm-
iMovie is one of the coolest things ever IMNSHO. ric just finished editing a presentation for a class of his with my G4 and Jeff's firewire Sony camcorder, using iMovie exclusively. It's easy, fun, and works damn well. Very Very Very well.
In other news, I picked up the MTD 500d for my sub today. The birth certificate says 415W into 4 (250W rated) and 683W into 2 (500W rated). I love MTX. The install will hopefully happen over the Thanksgiving holiday, but things are a little up in the air right now, so...
I'll be seeing my girlfriend in about...um....29 hours, give or take a few minutes. Life is good.
10/1/01, midnight-
The last week and change has been crazy. Kites for COM, a stereo for Adam, a case for my sr. project, check requests out the wazoo, and sleep in between. Midterms are looming. One on Thursday, one Wednesday, one after I get back. It'll be just TONS of fun. On a completely different note, I was sitting here typing earlier and realized (not for the first time, and definately not for the last) that I'm totally and completely nucking futs in love with my girlfriend. She is quite possibly the best thing that's happened ot me since I was born. A very good friend of mine told me once that "the right girl will change your life." Man was she right.
9/24/01, 5:49pm-
Dave kicks wireless ass and takes names as his laptop makes it onto the network without incident.
9/23/01, 8:46pm-
Online peanut butter! How cool is that?
9/19/01, too damn early in the am-
I don't know why people lust after movie starts and other famous types. I know people who are more beautiful than Nicole and more popular (with my group of friends) than Tom or Woody, and more talented than the guy who played Mini Me. The people I know are polite, sociable, friendly and loyal. They are compassionate, considerate, and intelligent to boot. My friends are the people I'd choose to be around. Working in the pro sound arena from tiem to time, I've had a chance to observe a number of notable persons, meet quite a few of them, enjoyed their presence while I worked my butt off for them, and even had my roll of duct tape stolen by the bassist for Alkaline Trio. Most of the famous and almost-famous people I've met are quite boring. They're relatively dull offstage (Bob Dylan, but it's ok, he's old) , are on drugs (too many to list) , are assholes (the sound guy for A3), or are just plain stupid (The guys in the second band I mixed for that one night in that hole of a basement under University Church). Granted, not all famous people suck. The guys in SR-71 were ultra cool, and very polite, as were the guys from Dexter Freebish. I wish all bands were like them, insead of being like Billy Corgan. Granted, my sphere of experience is limited primarially to htose int he musical and entertainment professions, but from what I hear it's pretty pervasive throughout the industry, Hollywood included.
Why does the public as a whole worship these people? The underdogs get no respect and the schmucks get top billing and loved by millions. People should pay more attention to the people around them. I went to high school with 2 amazing singers and a fabulous poet, who amaze me to this day. Neither has made profit from their talents. They're both working stiffs. One of my friends is a pilot for Uncle Sam, and underappreciated. Another does things I can't tell you about. A third designs buildings. You know, the places where you live and work. Two more are the behind-the-scenes TV people that you never hear about but are absolutely necessary. I know all of these people and call them my friends.
I don't need famous people to worship. I have my true friends. Do you have yours?
Hmmm...looks like my newspage turned blog is turning into a quasi-rant page. Oh well.
9/18/01, 4:41pm-
Props...mad props in fact, to Ben Folds for exposing the truth behind the proverbial "suck knob" in his video for "Rocking the Suburbs". H's cool. So is Wierd Al, because he amkes a cameo appearance in the video.
9/17/01, 10:45am-
The hard drive for my Sparc5 finally got here. All I need now is another NIC and my firewall/router will be ready to go. After playing Blue Man Group's Rods & Cones at high volumes yesterday I feel the need for subs. Alas, they won't be possible until at elast Thanksgiving, more likely Christmas, as it will take a couple of days and the table saw and router to make it happen.My senior peoject is pregoressing nicely, btu it would be doing a lot better if the parts I ordered last week weren't stuck in a warehouse. It's good that the professor has sympathy for those of us who's orders were affected by the incidents of Tuesday morning and their repercussions.
9/16/01, 8:17pm-
I went home this weekend for my dad's birthday. We got him Legos, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. He had the best time....it was cool. I just spent a couple of hours studying for a 360 exam. I'm not sure if it was worth it tho, since pretty much everythign we're covering in the class I learned in inductry while interning at Motorola in a manufacturting reasearch group. It's been a skate so far...I expect it to continue. I also need a spell checker for this site. ispell doesn't work too well with HTML, and it's a pain to upload it, change things, then mirror back to my local copy. Word is out too, but not just because it's a piece of ****** software from an evil ******* company. Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good today, so I'm gonna be social and not sit here and mung HTML any more.
9/14/01, 10:17am-
I'm bored. there's a 5 hour break between my morning class and the afternoon classes I have. I wish there was good TV in this hole known as West Lafayette. Even cable sucks. I miss SciFi.
9/13/01, 11:36pm-
I'm going to try and change the format of the news a little bit here, to something approxiamting an online journal of sorts. First order of business...lose the third person perspective for most entires. I'm not doing to to be trendy, just to try and connect with some people I haven't connected to in a long time. I wish I'd had time to update more often in the last few months...maybe if I had something like a blog script or something. Toys to work on. maybe those perl books will come in handy now.
Anyway, yeah. Lots of stuff has happened, and it makes me really truly appreciate the friends that I have. I wish I had kept some of them closer in the last few years. Distance has a way to tricking you into putting them off, and it's terrible. I'm out to rectify that soon. o'phelia told me the following in a recent IM "i was really touched by what you said...thank you". It's not much, just a few everyday words, but I couldn't quite tell her what that meant to me, to know that I'd touched someone's life in a good way with just a few of my own words. I guess it's analogous to the way I feel around my girlfriend. She makes life better just by existing. When she's around everything is right, intrinsically. I miss her so much. She's the piece I've been missing in my life.
9/11/01-
The country and the world react in the wake of an event being compared to the likes of Pearl Harbor. Good thoughts go out to everyone involved. Dave is glad everyone he knows is OK....he hopes that everyone else is as well. This on International Day of Peace (anniversary of the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords)
9/8/01, 7am-
Dave arrives at the Hall of Music to begin the day that is Slayter Slammer 2001. Fast forward to 9pm. After much work, dave is exhausted in more ways than one. Forward to midnight. Bedtime. dave knows it will be a restless sleep.
9/5/01, 12:06pm-
I have only one thing to say to the truly stupid people out there in the world. Fah Q.
9/5/01, 8am-
Dave gets up and goes to his morning 360 lab. He strops by the professor's office to grab the handout he missed when he was at the wedding last Friday. Much to his dismay, he finds that his classmates neglected to tell him that there was no physical lab to be had, and only an out of class assigmnent. Dave is disappointed.
9/4/01, 9pm or so-
Dave begins tinkering with his senior project for the first time in a week. he adds code to make things go, yet they do not. He then adds the hardware required to make said things go. Still they refuse. Dave is confused. He quits when Tsui Yi calls, and they have a nice happy phone conversation. Life is good.
9/3/01, 9am ish-
Dave and Bryan and Tim and Mike and Al and Greg and pretty much everyone else still in town after the wedding gather at the Hampton Inn to have breakfast. After food, photos, and returning 10 tux's, Dave says goodbye to Scott, Tamar, Ben, Bohdi, Earl, Debbie, Harry, Ellen, Shari, Greg, Mike, Al, Bryan, and a bunch of relatives on both sides of the two families and returns to Purdue to homework and a lonely room. Dave misses his girlfriend...
9/2/01, 6am-
Dave wakes up to fight with the rest of the roomates for showertime prior to the ceremony. They arrive at the Ritz Charles (not a hotel, a banquet hall) and get dressed. After some last minute arrangements and prep, the whole shebang goes off without a hitch. Dave manages to not lose the rings and even stands in the right place at the right time. Scott manages a kind of Zen calm, possibly because pretty much else was more than worried enough for him. Tamar was equally composed throughout most fo the day, with only a few instances requiring a KleenexTM. Dave's best man speech was sappy, but well received. Many happy moments followed. Life was good. Very good.
9/1/01, 8:30pm-
The prenup dinner. Much chatting and eating. plates are broken, contracts are signed, and tradition is honored. A video is shown cataloging the lives of Scott and Tamar. Dave is even in a few of the stills.
9/1/01, 9am-
Shabbat morning services. Altho Dave, Bryan, Mike and Tim were a little out of place (being the only non-Jews in the room) it was pretty interesting, especially when they were able to follow along with the english stanslations. Throwing stuff at Scott after he did his reading was cool too :-)
8/31/01, ~7pm-
Friday night dinner...hosted by Tamar's parents, it's a nice time. There is much talking and general happiness. After she sees that his nametag only lists him as a "friend of the groom" Tamar takes it upon herself to add " and THE best man" to the tag. Dave doesn't complain about the new found endorsement.
8/31/01, ~5:30pm-
Dave departs for Indy Int'l Airport to pick up Bob Morgan (UIUC student body prez and one of the groomsmen). The trip is uneventful. They make their way back to the mall to pick up his tux, then dash off to dinner....
8/31/01, ~4pm-
The rehersal starts late, but goes quickly. Life is good.
8/31/01, ~1pm-
Bridegroom's lunch with the boys. Scott gives dave an engraved pocketwatch. Scott kicks ass. Dave gets that warm fuzzy feeling you get around good friends.
8/30/01, ~6pm-
Dave departs Purdue after a power outage for points south, namely Indy, for his buddy Scott's bachelor party. Much drunken debauchery ensues and Scott has the time of his life. Except for the part where he was hanging out the window, but that's a different story.
8/18/01, 6am-
Dave wakes up easily with the sun. Amazingly enough his left ankle hurts a lot less than the previous evening. He heads to PUSH when they open and his ankle is deemed to be sprained, Rest, Ice Compression and Elevation (RICE) are prescribed, and he leaves to head to the store to pick up another Ace bandage and some better ice packs. His day consists of unpacking and....um....unpacking.
8/17/01, 8am-
Dave wakes up for his move to Purdue. The truck is loaded with the speakers he built (mostly...parts are still missing) as well as all of his toys. The drive and move in are easy. Whilst carrying a relatively light box however, Dave sprains his ankle. He won't realize how much it hurts until much later, when it swells and hurts and generally makes his life miserable.
8/16/01, 9am EST-
Dave departs for Chi-town. Neither he or Tsui Yi is happy about it, but both will deal with it just as they have before.
8/14/01, damn early-
DP and TYC depart for parts east, beginning their journey to Cleveland so that a certain someone can move into her dorm room. The drive is super long. due mostly to power line work and an overturned, burned, and mostly incinerated produce truck.
8/8/01, ~6:30 pm-
Dave and Tsui Yi depart in full evening dress to the Millrose Inn and Restaurant for a swanky meal and good atmosphere to celebrate their one year anniversary. Dinner is followed by a movie (they're the best dressed couple there) and a long walk around a local body of water. Life is good. very very good.
8/3/01, 5:15pm-
Dave departs his office for the last time, having finished his summer with Motorola Precision Agriculture. Soon after, he begins construction of subs for WCCR. Why he lets himself be roped into these things is a mystery to all involved.
7/11/01. 4ish pm-
Dave heads to Cingular (blech) to get a replacement StarTac for the one that was stolen off of his belt at ESC 2001 at Navy Pier. Damn that's a lot of links in one update....
7/8/01-
Dave and Tsui Yi celebrate 11 months together. Ready? 1.....2.....3....awwwwww.....
6/25/01, 12:14am-
Dave notes that kablooie is a really really funny word. He also notes that he misses Tsui Yi while she is away in Washignton DC. She will be back soon tho, and that brightens his night.
6/11/01, 8:42pm-
Dave makes an update to the news for the first time in a month. Short version:
- Joe and Megumi got married
- Dave and Tsui Yi celebrated their 10 month anniversary
- Dave worked hard
- Tsui Yi, Tsui Chern, their friend Heidi, and Dave went downtown and saw rocks and bones and stuff at the Field Museum and the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.
5/14/01, 7:56pm-
Dave updates the news for the first time in a while. Not as long as some lapses, but long enough. His first day at work sucked, as he was forcibly removed from the employee database at the end of last summer and is now a non-person in the eyes of the computers. This is compounded by the fact that he lacks a desk, a phone, a computer, and a comprehensive (or even sketchy) set of tasks for the duration of his internship. The fact that Tsui Yi was also in the orientation-morning-o-hell (and by his side the whole time) was the brightest point of the day.
5/4/01, 11:03am-
Dave exits WTHR160, 43 minutes after beginning his EET396 final. Victorious iver the 2000-2001 school year, he takes Carson out to lunch at Harry's for his 21st. Nothing worth reporting happens. Dave returns to chÈ Quad a little bit later, and plops down in front of his fan for a bit to update the news page.
4/27/01, 8:10am-
Dave exits his last DSP lab ever (he hopes) adter 40 minutes of cool demos. only One more class before the week is over...
4/9/01, 7:05pm-
6 hours and 50 minutes after he left Cleveland, Dave returns to greater Lafayette. Along the way he encounters local yokel type cops (damn right you're gonna give me a warning for 5 over in a 55, that's within the error of your radar gun), hail and thunderstorms (Dee is now battered, but successfully avoid the tornados) and a flaky tire (thanks a lot Pirelli).
All of this is offset however, by the fact that Dave got to spend an extended weekend with his girlfriend: dance a little, have dinner a couple of times, and overall have his month brightened by a special person in his life.
4/6/01-
6:41pm-
Dave departs for places east after watching his team's robot fail miserably in the 396 showing. Part if it was his fault, part was not. He resists the urge to kick the frigging thing across the room and bails for Cleveland, where he will meet up with his girlfriend for among other things, a night of dancing and stuff.
4/1/01, 11ish pm-
Purdue must be the only place in the world where a student can be in a dorm room, doing homework, with the window and door closed, and still be tear gassed by police. Unfortunately, [CENSORED} Purdue is also the only [CENSORED} place where the [CENSORED} students are so [CENSORED} stupid. Life is painful, but not for much longer.
4/1/01, 8:39pm-
Dave returns to Che Quad after spending a wonderful weekend with his friend Scott and his finacee Tamar, in who's wedding Dave will play the best man. There were stories told, and food eaten, jokes made and happiness abounded. Life is good.
3/30/01, 4:45pm-
Dave departs for scenic Champaign-Urbana (or is it Urbana-Champaign?) to visit an old friend.
3/24/01-
Daves works the SR-71 show at Wabash College. The bands are all cool. The crowd is alsmost nonexistant. The interesting parts of the day included a distro that arced and sparked and a Genie battery that caused the evacuation of the venue. Overall rating: 7, because Dave scored overitme hours.
3/19/01, 10:45am-
The alarm goes off, bringing with it the beginning of yet another day at school. Ugh.
3/18/01-
BIG SPRING BREAK REVIEW
- Friday 3/9, Saturday 3/10 -
The arrival in Chi-town was simple. The night at home with Tsui Yi was fabulous. The ticketing fiasco was uncool. The flight out was fine. Overall rating: 9.
- Sunday, 3/11-
After getting settled in at the hotel, a trip to Ralphs for provisions, then to Loves for dinner (by accident). 4 bottles of the special sauce were acquired. Overall rating, 9.
- Monday, 3/12 -
Balboa park was the destiinatino of choice, specifically the Reuben H Fleet space theater (MIssion to Mir in OmniMax kicked ass). The evening was spent at Seaport Village (Ben and Jerry's, Crazy Shirts, Magnet Max, etc). Life was good. Overall rating, 9.
- Tuesday, 3/13 -
The World Famous San Diego Zoo. Nuff said. Overall rating, 9.
- Wednesday, 3/14 -
Legoland. It was cool, but cold. Hard Rock for dinner. Parking near Horton Plaza sucks of you miss the big friggin neon letters that say "PARKING". Overall rating: 8, due to weather and stupidity.
- Thursday, 3/15 thurs -
Today's adventures included a trip to San Diego's beautiful Old Town, Loves for dinner (again), Borders for magazines, music and a book (Dale Brown..woohoo!), and the 10:15p (2:15a est) showing of Chocolat. Life is excellent. Overall rating: 10.
- Friday, 3/16 -
Back to Balboa for the auto museum and air museum. The air museum scores points for having a real live SR71 on a stick outside, but loses big time for the $8 cover and 'no backpack' policy. We didn't go in. The Auto museum is cool...complete with a real live DeTomoso Pantera. Lotsa stuff for a gearhead :-) The Fish Market is the venue for diinner, and the view of the harbor is great. Overall rating, 10.
- Saturday, 3/17, Sunday, 3/18-
The flight back was good. The evening alone was fair, but the next day was plenty nice. Vicky got an oil change, new wipers, decals removed, and some gossip time with Dee. Overall rating, 8.
- Wrapup:
The best 8 days Dave can remember. Overall rating: 11.
Dave exits STEW G050 after his THTR557 exam, in the hopes that he mas most triumphant. Hopefully he can be equally confident about his DSP homework when it is completed. Life remains busy, but is looking up, as spring break begins in just over 30 hours.
3/7/01, 5:18pm-
Dave returns from 368 lab triumphent. He and Andrew managed to rock the world of the lab, making a buck-boost combination that had to be seen to be believed. Life is good.
3/3/01-
Dave seems to be having a run of bad luck. Between dying amps, skipping CD players, no sleep and several instances of the wrong thing at the wrong time, he has managed to make the last 72 hours rather unenjoyable for himself. He takes joy in the fact that spring break is only 6 days away.
2/22/01, 8:42pm-
Dave decides that his work on the first EET357 exam is good enough and preps the test to be turned in first thing in the morning. He is quite relieved, and may actually get to bed at a reasonable hour. Life is good.
2/21/01, 2pm,-
Dave's mom is kind enough to make an addemdum to the news from yesterday:
Note for Dave's news page: It has been duly noted that Dave is sad....due to test schedules beyond his control and really, really mean, inconsiderate profs who refuse to take Dave's love life into account.
Dave notes that his mom rocks. Life is beginning to look up.
2/20/01, 6ish pm-
Dave disappoints when he is forced to cancel his weekend trip to visit his girlfriend due to an exam on monday morning. To say he is unthrilled is the biggest understatement of the year. Life is sad.
2/18/01, 2:21am-
Dave returns home from a long ass day at work, only to miss his girlfriend online by 7 minutes. Even tho he put in a bunch of hours, it was rewarding and somehow relaxing. Th eroad crew was cool, the actors were professional, and overall Showboat was a good time. No swag, and the 6am call time was a bitch, but they were relatively minor things in the grand scheme. Life is good, but just a bit lonely.
2/16/01, 1:40am-
Wintermute II, Dave's supercomputer, decides that her disks are unhappy, Dave spends the next < insert big number here > hours fixing it. Life is tiring.
2/14/01-
Dave , for the second time in his entire life, celebrates valentine's day instead of his customary Singles Awareness day. He is quite happy. Due to the fact that his girlfriend is close to 500 miles away, he is forced to keep the celebration mild, limiting it to a phone call after he got home from work. Life is excellent.
2/13/01, 12:05am-
Big weekend update:
Dave returns to greater Lafayette after stopping by Walmart and the gas station. Travel was excellent, and made better but the truck drivers (qty 2) who were kind enough to give Dave the flash-to-pass signal as he was passing them. Dave concludes that polite people rule. He also concludes that his business with Segelin's Flowers in Cleveland is pending review. The longstems died on the evening of the first day. Not a good sign for $8 flowers. Dave looks back fondly on the excellent weekend he spent visiting his girlfriend. After updating the news, Dave falls alseep, the victim of fatigue.
2/8/01-
Dave and Tsui Yi's 6 month anniversary. Unfortunately, they spend it apart due to acedemic requirements. Classes suck like that. They look forward to the weekend however, when they will be together for 3 whole days.
2/6/01, 9:51pm- Dave returns from a rather unproductive group meeting and realizes he is cold, wet, exhausted, hungry, and sick of busywork and other misc. bulls#!t from profs. He will be extremely glad on Friday when the work week comes to a close and he departs for points east.
2/1/01, 12:40pm-
Dave begins the job search after getting final confirmation that there's not going to be a place for him at MATC this summer. Monster.com, here I come....
1/31/01, afternoon-
After returning from class, Dave finds the tickets for his spring break vacation with his girlfriend. Woohoo! In addition, his new host, pair Networks, is serving his page wonderfully.
1/30/01, 9am-
Dave moves his page to pair Networks. All that is left to do is notify Network Solutions and Reprahduce, in that order.
1/29/01-
Mark takes delivery of his Unitys. Dave drools.
1/28/01, 9:39pm-
Dave signs up for hosting with Pair Networks, clicking the box saying that he would be a refugee from another hosting company, and beginning the process that will put dpaton.net into a proper hosting environment.
1/21/01, 6:09pm-
Dave returns to Home Sweet Quad after yet another siccessful weekend doing sound in another state (Scenic Illinois). Layla and her brother were grateful and there was fun had at the end of the night. Casualties incluse one driver's dust cap and some skin on Dave's knuckles. Life is good.
01/18/01, 12:11pm-
Dave orders the tickets for spring break. He's understandably excited.....life is good. He also begins preping for the gig this weekend in Chicago, as well as investigating the power supply problems for the Peavey SRC2400 that WCCR got. It's a charitable act on his part, and kinda fun.
01/15/01-
Dave's 22nd B-Day Update.
- Friday: Dave can't find the words. Tsui and his parents conspired to give him a faboo present...his girlfriend for 3 whole days! Dave is...ecstatic isn't sufficient. He's a grinning idiot for the whole weekend.
- Saturrday: Lazy day..lunch with Tsui Yi's dad and sister. Plans with Beth are unexpectedly cancelled, but life continues to be good.
- Sunday: Woke up late, watched movie. Relaxed tons.
- Monday: Woke up earlier than sunday. Had small B-Day celebration. Dave scores movies and kisses. Life is good. Then Dave and Tsui Yi depart. Life is not quite as good, but the weekend was so amazingly good it's all still ducky.
01/08/01, 12:31pm-
Dave exits KNOY B019 after going to his first class. Prof. Jacob was cool as always, and 368 sounds like fun, but it's gonna be lots of work. Dave wonders about the zipper effect and MDACs.
01/08/01, early am-
Dave and Tsui exchange emails on their 5 month anniversary, as AT&T's college calling plan didn't want to cooperate with the request to connect Dave to Singapore. He misses her.
01/06/00-
After stopping by Mike Lee's graduation party for an hour, Dave returns to Purdue and unpacks. It is, as expected, anticlimactic.
01/05/01-
Dave gets the PA speakers back from Line-X in Bartlett. Steve was ultra cool. He gets one of the PA speakers mostly assembled, and it looks damn cool. Line-X is good. So is life.
01/04/01, midnight-
Dave finishes assembling the queen size bed frame in his bedroom. Ikea rocks. Packing will continue for many days.
01/01/01-
Happy New Year. May it bring peace on earth and goodwill towards more people that last year.
12/25/00, 4:11pm-
Xmas 2000. Dave scores a table saw, a router, Legos, music, movies, and a telephone, among other things. Life rocks.
12/21/00, 1:21pm-
Dave departs gate C16 at O'Hare, heading for home, after a wonderful morning with his girlfriend. It was filled with both delays and happiness, and worked out quite nicely.
12/21/00, 6:12am-
Dave launches his alarm as it buzzes, waking him in preperation for visiting Tsui Yi one last time before she departs for Singapore.
12/20/00, 11:42am-
Dave departs gate E14 of terminal 3 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after seeing Tsui Yi off. The 5 days were absolutely wonderful. Life is gooooooooood.
12/15/00, 2:02pm-
Dave finished his EET304 final and leaves SC239, ending the fall semester of 2000. nine down, two to go...
12/14/00, 11pm-
Dave updates the rants page. Words of warning: Ce NÈst pas Pour Vous (translation: THIS IS NOT FOR YOU).
12/13/00, 1am-
The US Supreme court makes the single most collossal mistake in it's history by effectively making a certain person from Texas the next president. Dave is...."severely disappointed" doesn't even begin to cover it.
12/11/00, 6:09pm-
Dave drips all over the place after walking home thru a rainstorm. On a scale of 0 to wet, he's friggin soaked. He put in 5ish hours at the hall and was able to relieve a fair amount of stress. Life is good.
12/8/00-5:24pm
Dave and Tsui Yi's 4 month anniversary. :-)
12/8/00, 3:19pm-
Dave exits EET307 lab having completed all of his classwork for the fall semester of 2000.
12/7/00, 11:59pm-
Dave finds Greg (nee Gus) on line. They chat. Life is good.
12/7/00-
Dave kid sister turn 15. She'll be getting her lerner's permit soon. Scary thought....
Happy birthday Katie.
12/7/00, 1:50pm-
Dave exits his last EET309 lecture after finding out that as of this date, he's got an A. The final and the project may or may not change that.
12/6/00, 10:49pm-
Dave finishes watching his copy of "Gone in 60 Seconds" . He concludes once again, that despite Jerry Bruckheimer's best efforts, it was a damn good flick. Dave wishes he had a GT500....
12/5/00, 9pm-
Dave is Disappointed. The folks writing Buffy dealt with with the whole Dracula thing in exactly one episode. Couldn't they give my boy Vlad more than that? Sheesh....
12/5/00, 9:51am-
Dave exits his final 307 lecture after filling out the course eval sheet. Being a merciful person, he called for the resignation of the instructor instead of his public execution.
12/4/00, 9:28am-
Dave finds that yet another 304 lecture has been cancelled, making the total 9 or 10 depending on who you ask. Dave has serious doubts as to whether he will ever see exam 2.
12/3/00, 9:01pm-
Dave congratulates the new president of the CWRU chapter of AZD, effective Jan 28. Does this make him the first guy? Dave is unsure, but also unconcerned.
11/30/00, 2:51am-
Sheep #6...woohoo!
11/28/00, 12:36pm- Dave exits his last EET304 lab ever.
11/26/00, 7:35:04-
Dave's evening takes a certian downturn when Katherine Harris announces that the Shrub wins Florida's election. Let the litigation begin....
11/26/00, 7:12:06pm-
Tsui Yi's plane takes to the sky, ending a fabulously wonderful turkey day vacation.
11/25/00, midnight-
Charlies Angels, despiite the majority of the company, rocks. Dave and Tsui Yi have fun.
11/24/00. 7:18pm-
Pay it Forward. It was cool. Sad, but cool. Mad props n stuff to Kevin and Helen and the kid from Sixth Sense.
11/24/00, 4ish pm-
The Paton Thanksgiving begins, with many many wonderful guests and lots and lots of food and stories and....um.....it was cool.
11/23/00, midnight until 3ish am-
After delayed flights, missed connections and lost luggage, Dave and Tsui make it back home and go out for food. After finding Steak n Shake closed (!), they head to Denny's. After absorbing about 7lbs of cigarette smoke, they had home and to sleep.
11/21/00, 2:32pm-
Dave exits KNOY B030 aftr a ROKing speech in 309. Dave is happy because his vacation has started, and eagerly await's his girlfriend's flight the next evening, then it's off to home (Dave's) for both of them.
11/18/00, midnight:30am-
After a long day at work and a victorious foodball game that he missed, Dave returns home to tylenol and bed.
11/17/00, 8:23pm-
After returning from a short evening of work and debating what to do about the week's worth of news that has yet to be posted, Dave's belief system once again shatters as he finds out that Gavin Patrick Landwer was born to Erin and Andy on 11/6/00 at about 1am. Well wishes are copius for the newborn and his parents.
11/13/00, 11:51pm-
Yet another network outage leaves Dave without bandwidth. You'd think that for $170, of which $112 is pure proifit, not to mention an absolutely obscene amount of his families money for out of state tuition and housing, that Purdue could manage to keep even the most rudimentary of IP links working for it's 'customers' (we're not students any more....)
11/12/00, 5:30pm-
Exactly 72 hours after leaving, Dave returns to scenic West Lafayette aft6er an absolutely wonderful weekend with his girlfriend, and slogs thru that nasty 304 paper due on Monday.
11/10/00, 9:24am-
Dave turns and walks away from yet another cabcelled 304 lecture. This makes 8 lectures in what, 4 weeks or so? Dave wonders how this will affect the class, with so much information being lost and such.
11/9/00-
Dave is repetedly disgusted with the Electoral College, the candidates, the Florida voting authorities, the press, and many others involved in this royal fsck-up of an election we had here this week. Countries the world over are laughing at us, literally. Thanks oh-so-very much Mr. Nader.
11/8/00, 12:52pm-
The recount continues....Gore looks like he won the popular vote, but unfortunately (as anyone who's ever taken a history class in this country should know) the people don't actually elect the president. I love my country dearly, and I hate to think what will happen if we elect a republican like the Shrub. It's nto his direct actions that scare me, it's his influence. Supreme court judges, cabinet members, theh list goes on. Some comments from my friends:
Y'know, I voted for Gore. Don't blame me when the elderly are gnawing at their shag carpeting for food, the children dont have any public schools to go to, the rich run amok with their extra cash buying human organs on the black market from the parents who are now supporting the elderly and sending their kids to private schools.
Kurt Weiand
it all comes down to florida...if Bush gets florida, he wins. florida kept us up all night. Florida said Gore was their pick until they realized they didnt have some ballot boxes that have over a million votes. florida is the key with 25 electoral votes. it all comes down to the confusing desicion of Florida, WHERE GEORGE W. BUSH's BROTHER IS GOVERNOR. Does this not scream conspiracy?
-Another paranoid theory brought to you by Jer and the letter B
11/8/00, early morning-
Dave and Tsui Yi celebrate their 3 month anniversary. Life is good.
11/7/00, 11pm-
Daily Wrapup:
Tsui's birthday..she's 20...woohoo!
Dave rocks thr world of his 309 exam...99%...woohoo!
Bush wins Indiana, in spite of Dave's vote for Gore. Dammit....
11/5/00, 6:37pm-
Dave arrives back in west lafayette with his newly repaired car, hooks up the new TV, connectes the DVD, and enjoys it. Life is oh so very good....
11/2/00, 11:24pm-
After exactly 84 minutes of work, all 3 of the semi trailers are loaded out from the evening's Bob Dylan concert. Dave arrived in time to see the last 3 songs, and Bob rocked. His band seemed a little out of it, but that was perfectly ok. It was Bob. Dave gets a stick-on lammie and a shirt, btu no local crew swag, just extras from the promo booth. All in all it was a damn good night.
11/2/00, 3:45pm-
Dave recieves his first PC-to-landline phone call. Hi Tsui Yi :-)...
11/2/00, 11:19am-
Dave recieves word that 2 of his 3 classes are cancelled for friday. This opens up options like mad...
10/29/00, 2am-
Dave rolls in to his room after an exactly 18 1/4 hour day. Waking up at 7:45 sucked. As did getting home at 2am. Working with Ian and Steve was good. Listening to Ty Herndon twice was forgettable. Console games with a Souncraft Series Five monitor board was...envigorating. About 450lbs of envigoration to be exact. Playing "lighting guy" sucked, mostly because of a distinct lack of cues. Oh well. Loadout was fast and furious and well executed. The drive home was shorter than expected. Overall the day ends well. Life is good :-)
10/27/00, 4:52pm-
Dave returns home and plays really loud power-chord driven songs for about an hour to celebrate the end of a truly horrendous day.
10/27/00, 2:16pm-
Dave is severely disappointed. After 3 hours spent debugging errors in several hundred lines of C and assembly written the night before for his 309 lab (~6 hours worth of work), it is revealed that his compiler is at fault, not his code. All of the fatal errors, bad object files and misbehaving code were caused by sh*tty software, not poor programming on his part. Of course, this wasn't diagnosed until mere minutes remained in the lab period. Unthrilled is a collossal understatement. Dave fumes.
10/27/00, 1:42am-
An extremely....disappointed Dave gets the lab 9 data from his lab partner just in time to aboud the application of a collosal and hugely gigantic tongue lashing to said lab partner, who is now 0 for 2 in the "getting the data to Dave on time to write the report" department. Remedys will be discussed after Dave gets some rest.
10/25/00, 4:02pm-
Dave's response page nets it's first big submission, from Dave's old schoolmate Shannon Hogue, who he hasn't seen in nearly a decade.
10/25/00, 10:31am-
Dave takes delivery of a goodie box from his mom. Life is good.
10/21/00, 12:55pm-
Dave arrives at the Hall for his first call. The trucks however, arrive 20 minutes late, causing much confusion and consternation among the folks who cared. Brad, Dave, Kerry and a few other guys unloaded the trucks without incident. Then the loaders became stagehands, moving the newly unloaded boxes, pushing other things, and helping out the stage crew. Aroudn 4:30, after 3 hsolid hours of good, honest manual labor, most of the stagehands, including Dave and Brad, are sent home until 10:30 when loadout begins. Dave is a little tired, but happy with the job. Life is good.
10/20/00, 9:55pm-
The end of the week was crappy for Dave. Lots of work, little sleep, etc. Today at about 4something pm, he and Brad walked over to the Hall of Music and got jobs (working for mr. Robin Shanks, sound guru or Purdue) as apprentice box-pushers, with dreams of driving the big 56 channel Gamble that does FOH duty at all the big HLMC events. Saturday at 1pm is when it begins. Woohoo!
10/17/00, 10:21am-
Dave leaves EET307 after a quiz. A pointless quiz. Why is it that the department puts this same prof. in Dave's important classes? He's not capable of explaining the material adequately to the majority of the students, is widely disliked, and has definite issues with time management. How many instructors do you know that pull all-nighters before the final to grade an entire semesters worth of homework, quizzes, and labs?
10/16/00, 10:45am-
Dave naps after Monday beings. He gets his fur (yay!) but realizes that the 304 board that was supposed to be turned in on friday morning spent the weekend in his notebook (DOH!). Hopefully sleep will take care of it.
10/16/00, midnight:54am-
Carson intimates to Dave just how damn cool Penguins are. Dave is bewildered, but lets it pass.
10/15/00, 2something am-
After a quasi-crappy Saturday, Dave stays up late and chats with Tsui Yi. Quality, not quantity, is the word of the day. Life is once again good.
10/14/00, 2:09am-
Dave gazes at the picture of he and Tsui Yi that adorns his desk, wondering again what he did to deserve such a wonderful girl.
10/14/00, shortly after midnight am-
The concert was faboo, except for Burn It Down, who were more than a bit too hard core for Dave's tastes. The fact that he and Brad and Jeremy hauled his PA stuff over, only to have it go unused, was more than made up for by the fact that the Meanies rocked. Of course, this is again balanced out by the fact that some tool stole Jer's brand-spanking-new-not-even-3-hours-old hat during the post-show tear down. Overall it was a good day.
Notes to Rob and Co about the sound:
- A board would be good
- so would a snake with returns
- Inserts are your friend
- the venue (University Church Basement) sucks sound wise
10/13/00, 3:27pm-
Yep. it's friday the 13th. The Blue Meanies are playing, Linda's having a party and the prof. played hookie so Dave didn't have 307 lab today. 309 would have been better if the hardware had been fast enough to do 16 bit math. Oh well, tonight is looking good!
10/12/00, 11:30am-
Dave gets bad news....the repairs on Dee will be much more extensive than first assessed. New driver's side door, new rear quater panel, and maybe some time on a frame jig to keep everything true while the panel is coming off/back on. Everyone cross your fingers that State Farm won't total Dee. <worried look>
10/12/00. 10:15am-
After yet another useless 307 lecture, Dave treks over to Printing Services to pick up the neg. for his 304 MMIC board. After the even longer trek back he stops by Becky's office to chat. She's so nice. Waaaay too good to be at ChÈ Quad. Why are we so lucky?
10/11/00, 2 something pm-
Dave exits STEW G50 after the theater exam. Not bad, but not good. Those guys are great at live sound, but could use a little bit of practice writing exams.
10/10/00, 8:30ish-
Dave returns to Home sweet Quad.
10/10/00, 8am-
Dave wakes up too early to go get a flu shot. After that, he goes home, bums around, chat's with Tsui Yi on AIM, eats lunch, builds a casterboard, takes his car to the body shop, goes back home, and drives back to Purdue with his mom.
10/9/00, 6pm-
Dave arrives back in Schaumburg after a most fabulous weekend with Tsui Yi. He does little of consequence as 7 hours in the car have fried both his brain and his butt.
10/6/00, 6pm - 10/9/00, 10ish am-
Loads and loads of girlfriend goodness. Life is oh so very good.
10/5/00, around 1:45pm-
Dave's quasi-glorious Thursday comes to a screeching halt as Prof. Barnett hands back the 309 exam from Tuesday. As Dave's stomach sinks well below his feet, the realization comes to mind that he hasn't bombed a test that badly in almost a decade. On top of that, it wasn't for a particularly good reason.
In addition to the extreme grade/exam/esteem suckage from 309, optimism about the design process, or rather the layout (PCB) process of the MMIC amp for 304 comes falling as well. Jeff spent hours on the desin and only had a small portion laid out. PSpice needs a cut and paste function in PCBoards BADLY.
And to top it off, the weather sucks. Have I mentioned that this has been a truly s*itty day?
10/3/00, afternoon-
Dave's 309 exam is completed in an amazingly short amount of time. It has yet to be determined if this is good or bad.
On a world-view note, Germany celebrates the 10th anniversary of it's reunification. I know where I was when the wall fell. Do you?
10/3/00, morning-
Dave sleeps in because his 307 lecture is cancelled. Being out cold is about as productive as listening to prof talk at the class for an hour, but sleeping in his own bed is better than those uncomfortable desks, so the net gain is positive.
Dave's 304 lab goes amazingly well once he remembers to turn on the function generator. When is a CLK not a CLK? When it's off.
10/2/00, 9:19am-
Dave arrivs at KNOY to be greetd by Jeff, leaving. Aparently Prof. Honchell is dead or got kidnapped or something, as class is cancelled. Naptime!
10/1/00, afternoon-
Dave installs and plays with OS X public beta. Overall impression: Very cool. A little sluggish in places, and definately a beta, but still very cool. Too bad there isn't a reliable AIM client for it yet.
9/30/00,11:01pm-
Dave is recognized by the girl at Mad Mushroom Pizza as a "regular". Unfortunately, the turnover rate of employees is so high that she's the only one that's been there for long enough to remember. Their loss....
9/29/00-
Dave rocks the world of his 309 and 307 labs. On bus peripherials? cake. Watchdog timers? pft. Realtime programming? hehehe.....
On a more down note, this week's 307 lab was acomplished without the attendence of Dro, who sliced a tendon is his right hand, and was in surgery at the time. Condolances go out to his right index finger, and the mirror that did the damage.
The KG5230 arrives and the hole for it is laid out on the back of Shiva box #1. Active sub here I come....
of course, the project is for someone else and a small profit for me. Hpopefully the other one can go as well...mmm...cash....
9/24/00-
Dave returns from his weekend at home. Quick recap:
- suckage of the previous week overflows into the weekend
- the Crown K2 is good for everything below 3KHz. doh.
- Dad's belated birthday party
- girlfriends rock, especially mine :-)
- OS X Beta arrives
- Suit is chosen, tailored and it fits
- drive back is painless
- OS X refuses to play nice with existing HD drivers
- Prelabs suck. A bunch.
- 12 hours of sleep is not conducive to early bedtimes the next evening
9/19/00-
Dave didn't apply quite the beatdown he thought to his 309 exam, but altogether he's still doing OK. The car will be in attendence for Homecoming @ Case, allbeit dented, and Dave needs sleep. Life is a snooze.
9/16/00-
The week in review:
Extereme car suckage, girlfriend suckage, social suckage, Motorola suckage, pain suckage, and more car suckage. I'm damn glad that it's over.
9/14/00, 2:41pm-
Dave exits KNOY B033, having sucessfully layed the smack down upon the first EET309 exam. Life is good.
9/12/00, 4pm-
The DaveCam makes it's debut.
9/12/00-
Dave takes delivery of his QuickcCam. It's cool 'n stuff. Also on the UPS truck was his order from Nitro Records, a most cool little joint set up and owned by Offspring lead singer Dexter Holland. To balance out all this goodness, Dave receives word that his car can't be worked on until the 2nd of October, possibly putting a kink in the works of his plans to visit Tsui Yi for her Homecoming. FSCK!
9/10/00, 11ish am-
Dave gets involved in an...incident on I-65N. he is fine, but his car...well...she'll need some work. Life SUCKS.
9/8/00, 12:01am-
In the midst of Spreadsheets and Word docs and lab reports, Dave and Tsui Yi celebrate their 1st moth together. Life is very very good.
9/7/00, 8:25am-
The alarm comes waaay too early for EET307. Whats' the point of that class anyway?
9/4/00, 2ish pm-
Dave leaves the lovely confines of the parking lot and ventured out into the wilds of Cleveland, determined to make it back to school before he turns into a pumpkin. After developing a raw, seething hatred for the civil engineers that laid out the streets in the quaint burg, he finds his way to 480, then to I-80, then to I-69, US24, IN25, IN52, Cherry lane and finally back to Home Sweet Quad. After 3 days with Tsui Yi, the homecoming is good, yet lonely. Life is pretty good.
8/31/00, 6pm-
Dave departs West lafayette bound for the Mistake by the Lake, known to the locals as Cleveland, OH, to visit the (now oficial) girlfriend Tsui Yi at Case-Western. Roughly 6 1/2 hours later he arrives. Life is faboo.
8/29/00
After a long hiatus from updating the news Dave does his thing. It's damn hot in Lafayete, school is hard but good, and lke is sweaty.
8/19/00, 8:19am
After a 25 hour day, Dave finishes up waking the Cary residents for Windsor WakeupTM and the trip to Windsor and Meridith. He passes out, and wakes up in the not so near future.Exhausting, yes, but so damn fun.
8/18/00, 7:30am
Dave wakes up in order to move in to home sweet Quad at Pudue. Thew move in is terrrible due to the fact thatparking blows, the staff is les than courtious and instead of Spitzer Court, there is Spitzer Crater, a 100' x 30' x 25' deep hole in the middle of what used to be a walkway. It sucks.
8/16/00-
Crunch time begins. Packing and packing and packing....
8/15/00, 1:52pm-
Wintermute II, Dave's G4, gains a 20GB ATA/66 'Cuda. Packing and cleaning and prep for moving back to Purdue continues.
8/12/00, 8ish pm-
Dave and Tsui Yi's 4th date. Lasting into the wee hours of the morning, they both enjoy themselves tremendously. Life is good.
8/8/00-
Dave and Tsui Yi's 1st date. Awww....
8/6/00, ~5pm-
Rain pounds the Greater Chicagoland Area when 2 storms collide, creating a pretty good storm. One more and it would have been Perfect (tm).....
8/6/00, 9:30am-
Dave wakes up in preparation for a day of schlepping equipment. It's Kristen's little sister's sweet 16 party, and guess who is providing sound? yep, it's Dave. Many miles will be put on the ride, and it's hot. Ugh.
8/4/00, 5:05pm-
Dave leaves Motorola for the last time of the summer, his internship completed. Life is more relaxed.
7/30/00- 7:30pm
Dave and Tsui Yi go and see the Patriot. Mel, true to form, gets the crap kicked out of him.
7/30/00-3:56pm
Dave scores a DVD player. It rocks.
7/21/00-
Intern day at Great America. Dave gets paid for an 8 hour work day while he plays in the sun with the other Motorola interns.
7/19/00, 11:05pm-
Dave's entire belief system crumbles when he recieves confirmation that Andy Landwer really is married. AHHH! Life will never be the same.
4/19/00, ~6pm
Dave and his family hve a portrait taken for the first time since the Regan era.
7/16/00, 5:10pm-
Dave sees X-Men with his dad and little sister. It rocks in a manner which defies words, at least on this page.
7/10/00, 10:34pm-
Scott calls to tell Dave that he proposed, Tamar accepted, and to ask Dave to be the best man. Dave accepts, and puts Sept 2, 2001 down on his calender as 'taken'. Life will be a little bit nuts.
7/8/00, 8ish pm-
Dave returns to the scene of the impending party and stays for a little while. Life is good.
7/8/00-3pm
Dave arrives at Pete's place, to help Dro, Mark and a few others set up the PA system for an impending party. Initial tests prove that the stuff will rock a bunch. It' hot as hell, and Dave sweats a bunch. Life smells.
7/4/00, something pm-
Dave finishes his PA speakers. All that remains is a good coat of paint of some sort. Music rocks, especially when played REALLY loud.
7/3/00-
Dave gives Beth her birthday present on the way to taking his kid sister to see the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. Moose and Squirrel were faboo. Beth was happy. Life is good.
7/2/00-
Dave returns from 9 days in San Diego, CA to find an EQ and a mixer, asd well as a good book and a feeling of home.
6/17/00-
Dave sees "Gone in 60 Seconds" with Scott in Champaign. It rocks. He also sees "Titan A.E." with John in Schaumburg. It also rocks. Life is good.
6/9/00, 8pm-
www.dpaton.net goes live with content. Life rocks.
6/6/00, 10:47pm-
Dave makes the first updates in a month to the news page. Things at Motorola and at home are taking precedence over the trivial item that is this news page. Beth, this update's for you.
6/6/00, 10:38pm-
Dave returns from seeing MI:2 with Beth. The movie was only OK. The trip to Steak 'n Shake was fun. Dave comes home more sure than ever that he needs a GF. Now.
6/6/00, 1:29pm-
Dave buys the rights to dpaton.net. This page will be moving there as soon as logistics will allow.
5/6/00, 1:07am-
Dave officialy ends his 3 year tenure as WCCR chief engineer when his resignation is requested by the station manager, citing 'irreconcilable differences'. Dave is sad.
5/5/00, 8:37am-
Dave exits Lily G126, having successfully completed his 4th year at Purdue.
5/3/00, 6pm-
Dave updates the news, adding the items you see below.
5/3/00, 12:45pm-
Dave scores the best ever deal from salvage, surpassing Carson's $20 Sparc 5. Dave takes home a pair of near mint Tektronix 336 DSOs, and sells one at a small profit. Life is good.
5/3/00, 11:03am-
Dave finishes his EET257 final and exits WTHR172. The exam put up a valiant fight, but it was no match for Dave's wit and sarcasm...I mean his knowledge and expertiece.
4/20/00, 11:24am-
Dave and the rest of the people on campus head to the basements as a tornado touched down just outside Greater Lafayette. Sirens, stairs, and cramped quarters. Wahoo!
4/8/00, noonish-
Dave gives up on Netscape 6, after it becomes so unstable that it is unusable. Strange..it started out just fine...
In other news, Dave's supercomputer pulls a gigaflop with the Distributed.net client madly crunching RC5 packets in the background.
4/5/00, 9:54am-
Dave downloads and installs Netscape 6 (nee Mozilla). It rocks.
4/4/00-
Once again, Dave is too busy to update the news in a proper fashion. His time has been taken up by midterms, homework, WCCR projects, and sleep. In roughly that order. He struck out badly on a date recently, and can't seem to shake his cold. He will recover soon, we hope.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet.
3/24/00, 12:30am-
Windows are frantically closed as a cloud of tear gas desceneds around Cary Quad once again. Did I mention the men's bsketball team won a slot in the Elite 8? Only the Purdue Police would gas a happy crowd. I think they need their vision checked. This looked nothing like the unruly mob from last year. < Note to self: tear gas sucks with an upper respiratory infection. >. Dave had a great view from his window while typing a report. He wasn't part of the celebration.
3/21/00-
THE BIG POST-SPRING BREAK UPDATE
OK, so I've been a little lax about updating the news. I've been sick with this resistent non-strep something for a while, and I've been extra busy, and frankly I haven't really been all that motivated. Deal.
3/6/00, 7:50am-
The sun breaks thru Dave's window, ending a long streak of dark, dreary mornings. Spring is coming!
3/6/00, around 1am-
After watching the end of The Long Kiss Goodnight (damn good flick) Dave heard from mister Ekpehs Nivek. A ghost from the past? hell yeah. Life is good.
2/29/00, 7:52pm-
After enduring the pain that was the second EET231 test, Dave returns to Home Sweet Quad to update his news page and catch up on the work he neglected whilst studying for said exam.
2/27/00, midnight-
As good as the weekend was for Dave, it still sucked. He smashed his finger loading boxes for a gig on Saturday night, got to bed waaay too late on Friday night, and slept wrong and aggrivated his bad back. His front licence plate was stolen, and Dee needs a new B-pipe. Life keeps going and going and going...
While updating the news page, Dave notices bunch of typos and tries to fix them all, but refuses to change the point of view to be entirely first or third person.
2/25/00, 2:03pm-
It's 74 degrees and sunny with NO WIND. It feels hot. What the hell am I doing updating my news page? I should be outside. As a matter of fact, that's where I'm going right now.
2/23/00-
Damn it's beautiful outside. 62 degrees, and the middle of February. This can't last....
2/23/00, 12:09am-
While at Walmart, Dave relizes that Linux has gone mainstream in a major way. There are two diferent distributions on the shelves at Wallyworld.
2/21/00, 6:12pm-
Dave finishes up a great weekend of audio, partying and fun by updating his web page in major way.
2/15/00, 5:22pm-
Dave realizes that WCCR really needs new lights and a better set of speakers. More than usual that is. He begin shopping.
2/14/00, 10:21am-
Dave finds out that not only was his 257 exam good, it was great! Dave high-fives his lab partner, and they continue working. Life merely is.
2/13/00-
13 is definately not Dave's lucky number. As matter of fact, it's official; on the 13th of each month, Dave will now stay in bed, all day, cowering under the covers.
2/10/00, 8:15am-
Dave finishes up his first EET257 exam. It wasn't good. <note to self...don't sit for at least 6 hours> Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
2/9/00-
Somewhere along the line Dave gets strep. This, as they say in the movies, is not good. Especially with his recent bout with <insert unnamed malady here>. Dave gets drugs and goes home with a sore throat. Life is merely passable.
2/4/00, 9:36pm-
Dave has trouble with gravity.
2/2/00, noonish-
After his MRI, it it proven without a shadow of a doubt (and contrary to popular belief) that Dave really does posess a brain. This was a test of existance only. A functional evaluation has yet to be perfrmed.
02/01/00, noon or so-
Dave departs for home due to illness. Life is defintely not good.
1/31/00, midnight:30am-
After a short drive, Dave returns from a wonderful weekend in Champaign-Urbana at about 5pm Purdue-time, then takes a nap. Although the heater gremlins were conspiring to deprive him of sleep over the weekend, he eventually got some and then woke up. That's my story. Life is...wonderful? faboo? Defintely better than just 'good'.
1/24/00, 3:57pm-
Dave is informed he is great. He fights his ego, and after a valiant effort, manages to keep it from eating Nebraska.
1/20/00- midnight:30am
Dave and Beth quit talking long enough for him to realze that she is really special. He also realizes that he spends waaay too much time immortalizing her on his news page. Life is good.
1/19/00- 10:32am-
Dave realizes that some professors suck more than can be explained with words. He managed to get two this semester.
1/18/00-
After a long drive, Dave returns to Home Sweet Quad, and proceeds to hook up his now completely kickass stereo. Life is marginal, as he must get up the next morning at 7am.
1/15/99-
Dave's 21st birthday. He scores Legos, an 8-ball, fur, a sword, flooby dust, a CD changer, and hugs. Life is most excellent.
1/8/00 3am-
Dave is up late. Beth is not to blame. Dave is pissed off at Purdue because their servers are uncooperative making updating the news difficult.
12/29/99- bout 4:15 am-
Once again, Beth keeps Dave up late. Dave complains a little, as he later wakes up at 9:30am. Dave also notes, while updating his web page, that the USB keyboard that Apple ships now SUCKS. He wishes he had a USB-ADB converter so he could use his old Extended ADB KB II.
12/27/99, around 2:30am-
Beth keeps Dave out late...again. Dave doesn't complain. Life is good.
12/25/99-
Christms morning: Dave scores Legos, kickass books, and his own personal supercomputer, along with various and sundry other items.
12/22/99 very early morning-
Dave gets a good night kiss for the first time in a long time. Life is good.
12/16/99 7:14pm-
After only 7 minutes of writing, Dave finishes his COM