Seize. Freeze. Senility.

Going back to college at 38 years old (at the time) was a difficult decision to make. I had several concerns with the decision; I feared attending mandatory physical education classes with students that lifted weights for a living, I worried that my age difference from my classmates would be measured in decades and I was concerned that I could no longer get high from ditto paper.

I never considered that the brain turns to swiss cheese around the 30s.

Today I have two big exams. The first is already under my belt and was in the class that is turning out to be my favorite class of the semester: Statics. It’s this class that will set the foundation for my ability to design a bridge, road or sign that doesn’t move. I’m finding the class to be common sense. We’ve learned a small handful of equations and we crunch a lot of numbers. I am usually able to complete my homework easily. I’ve received glowing comments from the professor.

Now I didn’t get panic stricken like that Surveying test last semester, but I found myself struggling to remember the equations that I usually can rattle off without an issue. This seems to be the case with my ability to take a test. Going into the test I’m golden, during the test I’m bronze at best. It’s like everything I’ve studied falls out of my brain the moment I sit down to take the test.

I don’t remember this feeling during tests back in my high school days. (I can’t remember taking tests during my first run of college back when I was 18 and 19 but I must have at one point or another.) I guess I’m attributing the phenomena to growing older.

I feel confident with my performance on the exam. I would even go so far as to say that I did very well, despite the struggle I had remembering what I needed to remember.

I guess I’ll just have to double up on the studying or something.

25 February 2008 by College Kid. 1

Waking Up.

Mother Nature graced us with bright sunshine today. I can feel spring approaching the front door. Soon it will be knocking and we will enthusiastically welcome it.

The bright sun and relatively moderate temperatures did much to bring me out of hibernation. To celebrate, I’ve decided to wear my sandals whenever I don’t have to trudge through snow.

More pictures available on my web gallery. Look in the folder entitled “February Sunshine.”

24 February 2008 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Blink.

I found one of my favorite scenes from the “I Dream of Jeannie” series. Enjoy Jeannie’s sister singing “Electric Nights”.

Larry Hagman’s comedic timing in this clip is fabulous.

23 February 2008 by Quirky. 0

Click.

A couple of years ago CBS cancelled the show “Judging Amy”. I was bitter about it, wrote several letters and blog entries on the subject, raised some hell with the CBS e-mail servers and then let it lie. By the way, the show is not out on DVD yet because Fox and CBS are arguing over compensation.

This past week NBC announced the cancellation of “Las Vegas”. The series finale is a cliffhanger that wasn’t suppose to be a cliffhanger but the writer’s strike messed all that up and now there’s no scheduled resolution to the dangling storylines.

I don’t watch a lot of network television. With my recent dismissal of “American Idol” (the unbelievable praise of the vocalists singing key changes [what the hell], out of tune performances and “runs” was giving me gas) and the aforementioned cancellation of “Las Vegas”, my consumption of network television viewing has been weeded down to one show: “Private Practice”. I probably should do some research to see if that’s been cancelled as well as I haven’t seen it pop up on the TiVo lately.

Now that I think of it, we can save $10 a month by getting the networks removed from the satellite service. Perhaps I should look into that.

23 February 2008 by Why. 0

No Choices.

I’ve been trying to be a good citizen by keeping tabs on the Presidential nominees and getting together as much information as possible so that I can make an educated, valuable choice at the polls in November. I’ve scanned blogs, read speeches and watched news reports on the candidates from both sides of the coin.

The truth is, I’m finding this all very depressing. A while back I mentioned that if I were to vote at that moment I would vote for Hillary as our next president. I still find her to be a very strong candidate but I’m not sure she has the backing necessary to win the presidency. There are too many irrational people in our country that don’t like Hillary and refuse to vote for her. When asked why they wouldn’t vote for her, they have no response. They just don’t like her. I think some of it has to do with Hillary tolerating Bill’s fling with Monica and to me that’s beyond ludicrous. First of all, it’s none of our business and secondly the American society has instilled such ridiculous societal norms upon ourselves it’s a wonder we can function at all (but my feelings about all that are being saved for an upcoming blog entry).

I keep hearing all these claims about how progressive United States is but in truth that’s all a bunch of hot air. If anything, Americans in general are gleefully running backwards and against the grain of the world as a whole. Healthcare for everyone? Of course not, it would hurt the insurance companies! Equal rights for same sex unions? How crazy, it will end civilisation! Live in fear of a handful of people? Absolutely. “Be afraid, be very afraid”, that’s the new American mantra.

Whoever is elected as our next President has a very challenging path ahead and that’s putting it mildly. I believe that ANYONE is better than what we currently have, but when you set the bar in the basement you only have to climb the stairs to get over it. (Bush Lite has done a bang up job of doing some mighty fine damage in eight years.) The problem is, when I go to make cast my vote in November, I don’t think I’ll find anyone listed that is going to do what is necessary to turn our country around. Hillary is a little too old school for my tastes these days. I think Obama talks a good talk but I’m not sure he can walk the walk. And don’t get me started on the other side of the fence. I’m trying to learn but I just find them entirely too creepy. We have a war out of control, an economy that is rapidly deteriorating, ridiculous “security” controls in place at our borders (which wastes BILLIONS of dollars) and a populous that pretty much comes up 50/50 on any poll on just about any topic. Were we this divided before the Civil War?

So I’ll continue to read, learn and digest the information available on all the candidates for the presidency. I hope to find a light in the tunnel.

As it stands right now, the power is still out.

22 February 2008 by Politics. 0

Love.

No Technicolor.

Sometimes it’s good to flip through old photos in Flickr.

21 February 2008 by Flickr 1

Who’s The Fool.

Earl and I are watching the Top 24 “ladies night” on American Idol. So far the first two performers have done their thing, the crowd is going wild for lackluster, mundane, uninspired performances.

I feel like I’m wasting my time.

And this trend of the audience booing anything that’s a remotely negative comment from the judges is absolutely ridiculous. American Idol needs to get back to their roots and let these folks sing with little in the way of accompaniment and no audience for this stage of the game.

And while I’m cranking on this show, they made a mistake keeping the “plus-sized model” (who keeps reminding us that she is a “plus-sized model”, what’s that got to do with her singing voice? She’s no Martha Wash!) and getting rid of the other girl that could really sing.

I really am wasting my time and your time with this blog entry.

Time to click through the TiVo. Maybe the chipmunk version will be more entertaining.

20 February 2008 by Why. 1

Random.

Sometimes you just get lucky, even with the little things. As I’ve mentioned several times I’m taking Calculus this semester. I can’t really wrap my head around the subject yet, even though Professor Frightful and his voices in the blackboard urge me to do so. I never took the subject in high school; my experience with “Course III” (trigonometry) was harrowing enough that it made me lose interest in “Course IV” (calculus). Looking back I find that surprising because the Course IV teacher was Mr. Kotschevar who was a little bundle of über woofy. He probably still is.

I digress.

We had our first full-blown exam in Calculus on Friday and yesterday we found out the results. I didn’t do as badly as I thought. It wasn’t an A by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a B when curved the right way and that I could deal with. When I took the test on Friday there was one question that completely confounded me. I had no idea how to approach the problem: “find all the roots of the number (cube root of 8i).” Or something like that; I don’t pay attention to the petty details when the numbers get imaginary. I know that it has something to do with adding 360 degrees three times and some sines and cosines but other than that I was lost. So I grabbed a number out of the sky and wrote down “-2”.

I was right! Well, at least for one of the roots. There were two more that I completely missed but I got me some partial credit on a problem I had no idea how to do. 1

Sometimes it’s the little things.

1I’ve since restudied the problem and I know how to do it now.

19 February 2008 by College Kid. 0

Betamax.

Back in the early and mid 1980s I used to trade music videos on videotape with my friend Scott. I’d record them off of “Friday Night Videos” while he recorded them off of MTV (the cable TV didn’t come up the road until 1988, Scott lived closer to town). The big chore was the actual trading; my father had bought us a VHS recorder when they first came out, Scott had a Betamax machine. Of course the two tapes would never mingle so you had to jimmy up wiring to record between the two. We’d have an occasional discussion about VHS vs Betamax. VHS eventually won. It’s still winning up in my Dad’s neck of the woods.

In this round of another Betamax versus VHS fight, Sony won out today with their Blu-ray format of high definition DVDs. So Earl and I are on the Betamax side of the line this time with the HD-DVD player sitting in our living room. Anyone want to buy an HD-DVD drive for cheap? Hell, you can buy the whole tricked out Xbox 360, just drop me a line for details. We want a Wii.

Toshiba Drops HD DVD Format, Ending Sony Fight

19 February 2008 by Geek 1

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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