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It’s Been Awhile….

Cire — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:34:47 +0000

I haven’t written in my blog in over eight months, much has happened since then. I decided to take a break from school back in August. This week I registered for summer classes, returning to UCF after being away for two semesters. After struggling with Calculus I am probably going to have to switch my major to Information Technology. Honestly that degree matches my current career path better than Computer Science did.

Right now most of my time has been spent at work, biking or with friends and family. I started rock climbing at Aiguille. I went three times with my friend Daina and once with Melissa. I met Melissa last Sunday at Brandon and Lili’s wedding. It was her first time and she did awesome. This Friday is a shoe demo so I might go by and try out the different climbing shoes. So far I’ve only used the rentals…some of which have holes in them.

So hopefully I shall be posting on my blog more frequently and organizing my new pictures on flickr. Expect more awesome stuff like mountain bike crashes and geeky computer stuff.

Oh! I almost forgot! I got a new bike! Her name is Brownie and she is amazing!!!

July Challenge: Unclutter Everything

Cire — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:42:31 +0000

Goal: Unclutter before moving out of my apartment at the end of the month and continue moving towards a more minimalist lifestyle once the month is over. Basically I want get rid of stuff by selling, giving away and throwing out before the whole moving process.

Motivation:Less stress from just having too many things. Having more free time. Making more money by selling things on eBay and Craigslist. Making myself accountable by posting updates in my blog and on the challenge forums.

Accountability: To keep myself accountable I will try to post updates daily about my progress and any planning.

Progress Today:
I eliminated over a third of my books. The remainder is packed into boxes already.

I LOVE Biking!

Cire — Tue, 22 May 2007 07:10:54 +0000

First Day of Training
I just got back from the first day of my training for the mountain bike races in fall. I still don’t have a solid schedule together but today I made some progress riding on road and sand (Blanchard Park, Gemini and the Arboretum Trails):
Distance 12.25 Miles
Time: 1 hours 3 minutes 11 seconds
Avg. Speed: 11.5 MPH
Max. Speed: 28 MPH

I’ve never gone 28MPH on the road on my mountain bike before….it was amazing. I almost thought my bike was going to fall apart with how fast I was going. I was passing some people and I think I screamed at them. Oh…did I mention that my bike was out of tune and I couldn’t take advantage of my biggest chairing?

Done with Finals

Cire — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:55:33 +0000

I’m finally done with all my finals. Right now I’m spending the night listening Blink 182 - The Mark Tom And Travis Show:
“Satan loves Unicorns…..pictures and poetry and long walks on the beach” Love Blink

Now back to awesome cleaning adventures!

Update:
Maria and I scored 100% on our MiniSPIM project….we are so awesome. Gonna totally kick ass and take names during the networking class.

Almost Done

Cire — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:06:07 +0000

Yesterday I worked on my MiniSPIM (MIPS Simulator) project from 9:30am to 9:30pm….almost done! When we started out on this project both Miftik and I really thought it was going to take forever to get anywhere. Right now we just have one of the bigger functions to complete. The only real pain during the coding process on this one was that I wasn’t sure how to test the functions one by one as we went. I made sure I was able to compile without any errors from -Wall at least. I’m just hoping that when we finally run it we don’t run into a brick wall of run-time errors.

Party like a Grandma

Cire — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:07:12 +0000

~9am - 1pm - MiniSPIM project on campus, pickup 36 empty beer bottles from Maria

1:30pm to 3pm - awesomeness with Keith, gave him bottles for later brewing

3pm - 7:30pm GRANDMA PARTY at stardust!
It was this really great Bazaar of all things crafty. I ended up meeting lots of new cool friends and….
$50 GIFT Certificate to Mellow Mushroom Pizza!!!!! YAY!
I also managed to buy a cool shirt downing hummers (the cars you pervs!), a beta tank, a grab bag, big Dork button and a 32oz can of Fosters.
Also many of my existing friendbase was already there like Brittany, Jorge, Jenipher and some random people I know from retail encounters.

8pm - 3am Beer, Physics, Pasta and Movies with Daina

P.S. I just realized how horrible a pun “downing hummers” is….maybe its redundant too.

Security through Stupidity

Cire — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:15:07 +0000

Me: So what do you want your password to be? Bananas?
Miftik: Didn’t you learn anything from last semester!?!?!?!?!?!(in reference to our computer security class)
Miftik’s new password: 84N4N42

Fun Weekend

Cire — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 03:08:28 +0000

Saturday - Physics HW Chapter 10
Monday - Physics Exam on 9 & 10
Tuesday - Computer Organization HW

All of the Computer Org. stuff looks really scary. In two weeks I have to write a thing called MiniSPIM in C, it’s a MIPS Assembly simulator (Scary).

I think I need to go mountain biking for a whole week after this month is over. Maybe do some introspective thinking while I’m at it. I’m not sure I need to do computer science to be happy with my career/life.

Right now I’m going to grab some Rockstar and food then head on campus.

I could have lost a finger…but I saved a turtle!

Cire — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:40:56 +0000

I was walking to the shuttle just now to get back home and there was this big freshwater turtle in the middle of the concrete walkway…it looked half dead and kind dry. The bus driver was outside and was like “If no one puts him back in the water he’s probably going to die”. I kinda stared at him for a couple seconds then got up the courage to pick him up. I waited to see if he was going to really freak out but he just moved his flappy legs then went inside his shell. Then I brought him to the pond, started to walk away and he jetted for water and jumped in with a big PLUNK. Later I talked to a girl who witnessed it and from what she said it was probably a snapping turtle.
For future reference on how to handle a snapping turtle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapping_turtles#Handling_.26_care

My last turtle encounter was about a year ago while I was biking to school. When I was on the road I noticed the little guy stuck on the curb and unable to get to the grass…so he was just stuck between the curb and the passing cars. I stopped and put him back on the grass.

TMNT
I wonder what affect all of this turtle shuffling done by me has on nature?
Maybe I keep helping them because of my love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I should have known not to mess with snapping turtles because of Tokka.(Wikipedia.org)

http://xkcd.com/c197.html - The funny and sad thing is I think I knew more about TMNT than about the artists until I came to college and took Humanistic Tradition. -1 for public schooling.

Updated: Forgot about Tokka and the handling instructions I found =D.

Disconnected for a Month

Cire — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 07:37:19 +0000

I have one month until I have to take the foundation exam on May 4th, I have to manage to pass and ace two finals all in that time. For the next month I’m going to do my best to remove distractions and to be as productive as possible with studying. I’m going to have to make sacrifices across the board and that includes my social life. So if I seem kind of distant or if I can’t hangout it’s because of my insane month of studying I’m about to embark on. Throughout the month I will try to post any updates of how things are going.