Hello, 2010...just yesterday you seemed infinitely far away

Hey 2010...you see your buddy 2009 over there? Yeah....he doesn't look so hot, does it? Nope. That's uh...that's gonna be you in a year if you don't watch your step. I'm not one to be trifled with. Do you know what the motto for last year was? No? It was "2009 - The Year of Vengeance." Yeah. Let that sink in. Haven't come up with a motto for you yet, though...

Oh, hello readers...didn't see you there....if you don't put a new year in its place right away it can become headstrong and disrespectful.

So I know I took a few weeks off from this thing. Seems like I took a couple weeks off of everything. And that's probably a good thing. I'm supposed to be working on a project for a professor before the new semester begins (in about 5 days), but ever since Christmas I've plateaued and not much has been accomplished. I figured I would make a lot of headway this week...however, I keep getting caught up running errands and wallowing in the mire of unmotivation. And, of course, there is the condition many of us know all too well - Procrastination. Why do we do it? I suppose it has to do with what one infamous professor always asks us - "are you a carrot or a stick person?" And unless I'm truly interested in something, I need a giant stick swinging down to crush my bones.

What hasn't helped this week is that I went online and looked at the course webpages for some of this semester's classes. (Cue ominous 1950s horror movie music) Looks like there's going to be lots of horrific computer programming.....I absolutely HATE that stuff....why on earth do they insist on making things harder than they need to be -- more complicated and confusing? Why not try to simplify things? OH NO! Let's make computers so that you need to know a dozen asinine, complex, and unnecessarily obtuse computer languages so that you can physically type in outrageously long, complicated, and tedious commands for each tiny little thing you want the computer to do! Here's a shocking idea -- how about making it so that you just tell the computer in plain English what you want it to do? Or maybe have voice-recognition software so that you simply TELL the computer what you want? "Hey, stupid computer -- I want you to use the Bernoulli equation to solve for stupid velocity with the following stupid variables! Can you stupid handle that??!?!?!"

What makes it worse is that the other fellows at school LOVE this stuff. They eat it up like Oreo cookies first thing in the morning (I could eat a box of those things upon waking). "Oh boy, FORTRAN and Visual Basic! Integrating codes between Excel and POLYMATH! This is fun and easy and helpful! C'mon Rick, you know how to do this! What's that? Telling the computer what you want? HAHAHA - that's just silly! Typing in inhumanly long and ridiculous codes is way better!"

Soooo.....in other news....we might be getting our first touch of snow for the season tonight and tomorrow. Only a couple of inches at best....but better than the nothing we've gotten thus far along with watching such places as New Mexico and Dallas get hit with winter weather while we alternate between 45 and torrential downpours for days on end OR 20 degrees and windy with blue skies. Of course, there's always the local weather station's Anti-Snow Machine to contend with. The Anti-Snow Machine (as you all know) creates a magical bubble of clear air, above-freezing temps, or otherwise removes the presence of snow from an area as large as the viewing area or as small as my personal location. So while all the area outside the magical bubble ceases the misery of their daily grind and runs out to frolic in a harmonious Utopia of snow and Christmas songs and talking snowmen and animated rabbits and smiles and hot chocolate and sledding (and not to mention everyone suddenly lives in a forest preserve like in Calvin and Hobbes...in fact, most of my idyllic visions of life are somehow related to that comic strip...) and peace on Earth and blah blah blah blah blah --- meanwhile, I'm standing at the window watching rain come down as the tv turns itself on and the weatherman or weatherwoman or weathermonster or weatherbear or weathercoffeemaker or weatherwoodchuck appears on the screen taunting me by name and using foul language to demean me as he/she/it has the camera follow them outside to roll around in the snow and then write "Eat it, Rick" in the snow itself. Of course, later on follows the pretentious pandering to the audience during the regular broadcast,"oh, gee, it was just so strange, we got lucky and the snow just dissipated over our area! We never could have predicted that! Who knew?"

Hmm....perhaps I should go eat something....like many people, I have a medical tendency to have low blood sugar if I don't eat regularly...many other people completely dismiss this and do not take it seriously when I say "I can't skip a meal." They think it's just me being dramatic or something. But no - you don't understand...I....can't....skip...a meal. From a health standpoint, I HAVE to keep myself fed regularly. No food = no glucose getting to the brain = inability to function like a normal human being. So when my class schedule comes out and two days a week we have a 6 hour block of nonstop classes from 11-5 with no lunch break and people laugh when I say that this is a serious problem - I can get a little annoyed. "Oh, just go eat some computer programming - that'll make you feel better - who needs food when you can stare at idiotic computer languages?"

Alright, well....looks like I started off the new year of blogging with a low-blood-sugar induced diatribe about various annoyances. I'm sure you all totally enjoyed that and don't want your money back. Oh...I mean...no....your credit cards are so NOT being charged automatically each time you view my page....that's just a ridiculous idea...like low blood sugar...or computer programming...or an Anti-Snow Machine...

Just Nodding My Head to Prove I'm Alive

Yes, I've been neglecting this blog for a while now. The reasons? First -- school. There just hasn't been time for much else outside of engineering related stuff. Second -- I think I fell into that natural tendency of mine to over-think what I was writing about and got to a point where I was hearing the criticisms of others before even writing anything. So, here's a nice, easy step back into entertaining all 3 of you who read these things....

Thanksgiving is fast approaching...my favorite holiday. Some folks prefer ham over turkey, which to me is simply outrageous. Even outside of a holiday meal - a full-sized turkey vs a full baked ham -- the turkey always wins in my book. And there's no such thing as too much turkey. It's meant to be consumed for a week after the actual holiday in sandwiches, reheated plates of leftovers, and even turkey-a-la-king. In fact, in this spirit of complete government control of all aspects of our lives and mandating every minute detail -- why don't they just make it a rule that sufficient turkey must be prepared such that all immediate family members and hangers-on can indulge in turkey eating until at least the end of the weekend? Turkey Czars? Why not! We have czars for everything else....

College football is nearing the end of its regular season and the NFL only has a couple more months. Meanwhile the dreadful NBA is already back in action. Just like John Mayer (though, admittedly not as awful and detrimental to society) the NBA should be abolished....or at least forced to only last for the few paltry months that the football season is limited to. This 9 months out of the year stuff is a crime against humanity!

Swine flue, swine flu, swine flu....did you get your shot? Not me. I got a regular flu shot as I've had them in recent years with no side effects. But I do not trust the hysteria or the rushed production of the swine flu vaccination. Rule of thumb -- never trust anything that has been politicized or overly hyped by the media. It's also a rule of thumb in chemical engineering to have the velocity of water through a pipe somewhere between 4 and 10 feet/second. (or is it 4 and 7......crap....)

I haven't been to the movies since August, so I have no reviews. in fact, other than a trip to Garden of the Gods with the family a few weeks ago and the school-trip to Nashville for our national conference, I haven't left the house at all on the weekends!

The Office....in the last few months it has become my official favorite show on tv. The wedding episode was fantastic, but all of the new episodes since (with the exception of this past week's) have been quite disappointing. And other Office fans that i know seem to feel the same way. Hopefully this most recent episode is a sign that they are getting their groove back. Dwight being Dwight, Jim playing pranks, Michael doing awkward and ridiculously stupid things...that's the magical formula that made the show so great. Michael at the shareholder's meeting was superb! "45 day plan....45 points....45 points in 45 days..."

Okay, I'm hitting the wall and there's much engineering stuff to be done today. If I don't write again before Thanksgiving - have a good one and send me your leftovers.

Lunch With the Chem E's

April is going to be a big month. By the end, my life could be heading in a very different direction. And if a month from now certain issues have not been resolved...well...then that would not be good.

On a lighter note, yesterday at lunch I was trying to explain a scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life to my friends Ryan and Jacob (who don't read this blog and who have never seen Monty Python). It went something like this:

Me: ...how did that song go? 'Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 10 million miles a day'
Ryan: (to Jacob) I wonder what that is in revolutions per minute?
Me: Oh - no - it actually started when the two guys showed up at the door and asked for another guy's liver.
Ryan: (laughs and shares brief glance with Jacob)
Me: They're like (adopts British Monty Python accent) 'Hello, can we have your liver?' And the guy is all 'No, you can't have my liver!' 'Why not?' 'Because I'm using it!' And then they point out that he's signed an organ donor card and that they need his liver so he has no choice but to give it to them. So, they take him into the next room and start hacking out his liver while he's screaming and blood is flying everywhere. Then his wife comes in and (in female Monty Python voice) asks 'Can I get you boys any tea?'
Ryan and Jacob: (laughter and shaking of heads)
Me: So while one of the guys is still ruthlessly hacking out the liver while the poor guy screams and carries on, the other takes the wife into the kitchen and starts hitting on her.
Ryan: (rolls his eyes a little, mocking Rick's long-winded story-telling)
Me: Hey! Don't give me that look - I'll cut your face!
Ryan: I love it when you tell me you're gonna cut my face. There's just something about your tone when you say it.
Me: Yeah, well every day in Physics you randomly look over at me and tell me you're going to kill me. At least all I'm doing is cutting your face.
Ryan: (laughs)
Jacob: And I'm just going to murder both of you when you least expect it.
Ryan: This is true.
Me: ANYWAY! The one guy has the wife in the kitchen and is hitting on her. He keeps trying to convince her to go out with him and she's non-committal, so he then asks 'well...can we have your liver?' She's unsure so he says 'well, maybe this will convince you,' and the refrigerator door opens up and a guy steps out and sings a song -- the one about the planet that's evolving and revolving at 10 million miles a day. After the song she's convinced and says they can have her liver.
Ryan: So what was the meaning of life? Wasn't it 42?
Me: No that was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At the end of the the movie (Meaning of Life) there's a guy sitting there who says 'Oh, I suppose you want to know the meaning of life,' and he rattles off a short spiel about being nice to children, not eating too much fat, try to have fun, etc, etc.
Ryan: I need more breadsticks.

Ah...those are the moments that make engineering school (almost) bearable.