I bought one of these today

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/

It runs Linux, support dragndrop file upload, plays most every audio/video file format ever, very good battery life, can record from a TV, can output to a TV, FM tuner.
What more could you ask for? Besides the price...

Bob Dylan concert tonight!

OpenBSD...success!

Now I'm just fine tuning to my liking and install some app's from the tree.

I finally heard back from the job I applied for, the UNIX system administrator job. It took a week to get an email back, and I immediately replied saying I was still interested in the position, and that I could meet anyday after 2pm. 3 days later and no response. This guy takes forever to send out an email. I really want this job, since it would only be during the school year, and on campus too. Plus it would be damn fun.

I'm going home this weekend to visit my mother and spend some time at home. I need to bring some winter clothes back to school, and I really want to visit this farm stand near my house. It's almost tradition that my mother and I visit this farm, buying corn, pumpkins, squash, and other typical autumn, northeast goods.

I tried to install OpenBSD, and it was a miserable failure. It's extremely difficult to install, since they get you to a command prompt and that's it. No GUI, no steps. On your own you need to format and patition the disks. We'll, here is where I screwed up. The command prompt was in qwerty, since the install CD doesn't come with a dvorak keyboard. I dove right in, setting up the 6 partitions to the disk, and went to hit "p" to print out the current setup. We'll, I accidentely hit "p" in dvorak, which in "r" in qwerty. What this did was rewrite the entire disk and make one gigantic OpenBSD partition. Fuck me... I knew I had to confirm this before it made any changes, so no big deal, I'll just exit and start over. I type "quit" and get back to the initial install screen. Get back to fdisk, and I see one big OpenBSD partition. Ahh! I guess OpenBSD's fdisk is different than every other one, since "quit" means save and exit, where I should have typed "exit" which means just quit. So I entirely screwed up my MBR, very bad. I couldn't just relable it as a Linux system since I had multiple partitions, one being Linux and one being Freebsd. I fixed it by mounting my laptop HDD as a slave on my workstation, and using a GNU program called "gpart" which looks at all the previous MBR states and displays them to you, and then you can select an old setup and fix it. It found my Linux and freebsd old configuration, I had it set back to that, and it's all back to normal. All I have left to do is reinstall GRUB.

I'm here at the library, since I need to do my math and statics homework

Peace

Finally Halloween weekend came, and damn was it fun. Everyone in my village people group had great outfits.
Starting on Thursday, we began making jello shots, and didn't stop until Friday afternoon. We went through 30 packets of Jell-O, so it made for a good time.

Friday night was a pretty amusing night. A friend on mine walked into the girls bathroom to find several men's clothing on the ground. She heard voices inside the shower, so she took a peak into the open stall. There was standing our friend in only his underwear, in the shower, straddling and humping a gigantic futon cushion while screaming "the world is upon us." Hrm...
My roommate was hooking up with this girl when she fell out of the bed and onto my coffe table. You should know that his bed in bunked, about 6 feet up. My coffee table got messed up.
My friend also punched through a window with reinforced steel mesh. Needless to say, he went to the hospital.
What else happened...oh yea, after she hooked up with him she crawls into my bed. She was a big girl, I won't lie to you. My bed is very unstable as is, so not only am I worried that she is coming near me, but I am worried about my bed and all the stuff I have under it. I suddently hear clash crash crash. All my stacked Guinness bottles fall over, and then a whoosh bang. All my records fell over. Fuck me... I finally kicked her out and went to bed.

I decided to ditch Freebsd, and am now installing OpenBSD. The problem I had was that my OS would freeze unless I moved the mouse, which is quite the strange issue. So I would be typing, and it would get laggier and laggier. Once I moved the mouse it snapped right back. If I left it on overnight, it would be completely frozen by the night time.

This weekend was fun. Not really crazy, just fun. Most of the time it was just me and a few buddies watching TV though... Friday night I went over a friends house, which was the first time I've seen it all semester. It was a really nice place, when he starting renting it it came fully furnished, which is very cool. I can't wait to get my own place 1st semester of Jr year. I'm still unsure of who I will live with however.
This morning I woke up and really didn't feel like eating at the DC, so I went into town and got a bagle and some coffee. The bagel place was out of egg, so I couldn't get my beloved egg n' cheese, so I had to settle for something else. I also stopped at CVS to get an air freshener, since I guess my room smells bad. My roomate thinks he located it to the fridge, but I'm not sure. It could also be the empty bottle and cans everywhere... My roommate and I always display our cans all over the room, so I think it's that. I have Guinness cans lined up all over, and my roommate Fanta cans. It actually looks pretty cool, considering we have so many of them and they are lined up nice.
This weekend is our Halloween weekend, so I'm wicked pumped for it. (It's not really, but we are just partying in our costumes that weekend). All of my friends are all dressing up as the Village Ppl, boy/girl. I'm the guy construction worker...and Lauren is the girl version.

This pumpkin spice latte is a symphany of flavor; a cornucopia overflowing with a perfect blend of coffee, spice, and pumpkin.

I'm trying to get my self organized now. For the past week I've just been throwing papers into my backpack instead of organizing them away properly, so I just went through everything. Finally, a clean back pack. I'm ready to study again, for the next painful series of exams....ugh....

I'm here at the library, and some girl just asked me if she could use my headphones.

But I'm wearing them, and they are connected to my ipod sitting on the desk

???? Some people are fucking weird.

We started off the night heading over to Southwest to a friends dorm. We had a good time there, playing some card games and just socializing. There was one person there who was pissing off most everyone...you know that guy with two large (fake) diamond earings, gelled hair, huge rips in his jeans, and a major attitude. We got pretty sick of him, and decided to head back.
Most everyone else went to bed, so it was my roomate, myself, and two friends from down the hall. We smoked some hookah, and played Mario Party. Fast forward to 20 minutes in, and we start the butterfly mini game. Like 2 seconds into the game my roommate starts puking like crazy into the trash can. All three of us start laughing our heads off, while all 4 of us continue to play. The game lasted for about 45 seconds, the entire time my roomate puking (and still playing) and us laughing. The sad part was my roommate still came in 2nd place, with 30 butterflies. I got like 28, the winner got 42, and Mike got 1. Hahahaha
My two friends left around 3:00am, so I started to clean up while my roommate got ready for bed. In a spurr of the moment thing, we decided to watch Fantasia. Now, I haven't seen this movie in about 10 years, so I was really looking forward to it.
My roommate passes out about 45 seconds into the movie, so it's just me.
It was real crazy watching the movie, because I really remembered every seen of the movie (only after I saw it.) I'm not sure if that makes sense, but what I mean is before last night my memories of Fantasia were just one seen (Mikey Mouse scooping buckets of water) but after watching it I remembered every part of the movie. I must have watched that movie 20 times as a kid, way back in Elementary school.
It was a pretty crazy movie, now that I am old enough to think about it, and not just enjoy the pretty colors (Although I really did enjoy the pretty colors).
Like the seen with the dancing mushrooms. I would truely like to meet and shake the hand of the person who thought of that scene. I mean, who the hell imagines dancing asians mushrooms when they listen to classical music? He must have been on drugs or something.

So tomorrow is my first thermo exam, the day I have been dreading since I signed up for the class last semester. The practice exam was fairly easy, but I know somehow, someway, the exam will be extremely tough. I've had my professor before, he will pull something sneaky and get me good.
Study study study!!!

This lagginess with my FreeBSD setup is driving me nuts. I really have no clue what's wrong. Even when I use by onboard wireless card instead of my PCI one, it's still wicked slow at the library. Like my entire computer slow, not just the internet. Once I get back to my dorm, it works perfect. Super quick

I'm almost done with the application process for India. I got all my paper work in today, including one recommendation. All that is left is to submit the classes I want to take, and wait for my 2nd, and last recommendation to come in.

I have a Philosophy exam this Thursday, and my professor setup a time (from 7-10 tonight, so now) where we can email any questions we have and he'll get back to us in like 5 minutes. I already sent out one email with 5 questions, so we'll see how long it takes for him to respond. I feel pretty confident for this exam, it shouldn't be too bad.

I went to my first SAE meeting today as the new Secretary, and got a whole list of shit I need to get done before the next meeting. The VP is wicked wicked cute, but I found out she's also my TA for thermo. Does that make her off limits? Not that I'd have a chance anyway, since she's a Junior. I guess I shouldn't even try, considering we are both officers for SAE and she's my TA.

Back to studying...

So I figured out why my computer is so slow. We'll not really why, but it's always whenever I am on the library wireless network. Once I get back to my own network in my dorm it's fine.

I got so frustrated I booted back into Linux.

Anyways, I think I am going to give WoW a try. I know all my friends told me not too, and I've seen what it does to people, but it's only a 14 day trial. I am going to stay strong, and not give in after the 14 days. I just really want to see what the hype is all about

Will these be my famous last words? If I don't update my journal for 14 days, and then only a quick update, it may be so.

A few weeks ago my good friend Mike let me ride his back in the back roads, while he joined along on his roommates bike. I had a blast, I'm not going to lie. That half an hour of my life was awesome. So after that, I decided I was going to get my own. I wasn't quite ready yet, however after realizing I might be going to India next semester, I was planning to buy a bike this week and storing it until I return, since they are cheaper in the winter months than during the summer.
Well this morning I get a call from my mother that Mike got in an accident today, and is now in the hospital. She said the police said he went unconscience, and is lucky to be alive. This was terribe news, since Mike is a very good friend. No one wants to see another person, let alone a good friend, get hurt.
He will recover just fine, I am sure of that. But this raises the question, will he continue riding even after a near death experiance? And will I still buy a bike? My mother told me this morning, before she hung up, that she no longer want to hear about my buying a bike. Before this morning, she never really wanted me to buy a bike, but if I got one it wouldn't be the end of the world. Basically if I get one now she'll murder me.
I still really want to get a bike, but I know it will hurt my mother so much, and I don't know how I feel after hearing about what happened to Mike. Is his accident enough to convince me not to buy one now? I really don't know... It's scary, no doubt about it. I am just soooooooooooooooo thankful that he didn't kill himself. I don't know what I'd do if I lost him. I've been his friend for as long I can remember. He's always been there for me.




It looks like I will be resigning as VP of SAE, and taking on the position of secretary. It is only fair, since the VP is expected to become Pres the following semester. So my plan is to be secretary this semester to get my feet wet, and then the semester of Fall 07 I will run for VP again.
My laptop has been running extremely slow for some reason. I tried rebooting (it's FreeBSD, I shouldn't have to reboot) but that didn't solve the problem at all. I still have 700mb of memory free (totally free, not inactive, cached, or buffered) so it's not a memory problem. As for programs, I only have Firefox, Thunderbird, GAIM, XMMS, and a terminal open. This is nothing, I've have 5 fold more programs running before and it was never an issue.

Wow this slowiness is getting to me. I just had to send out 4 emails, and it was hell. I am scared to open up OpenOffice to start typing my essays. I think I will write them in VI and them import them to OO later.

Last night was a fairly relaxing night. Since most everyone went home for the weekend, a few of my friends just chilled and listened to some quality vinyl records. Dark Side, the Wall, Strange Days and other records were played throughout the course of the evening. The hookah was warm all night long too.

I really need to speak with some students who have studied at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) I have no clue as to the dress attired, party seen, or what they even do in their free time (besides play cricket of course.) To be most honest, I wouldn't mind at all if there was no party seen. As hippie as this sounds, I would love to get away from it all for a few months, and really find myself. I'd love to hike the base of Mt. Everest, obstain myself from the typical american party seen, and really relax for 4 months. I am still unsure as to how I will react to the class shock, with so many poor citizens. My mother said it was hard when she was there. Maybe it will open my eyes. No, I'm sure it will. I don't think I'll be coming back the same person.

I'm here at the library, even though I didn't bring my books. I find that here I can really sit down and collect my thoughts. No screaming roomate or people knocking at my door every 5 minutes. Plus the seats here are wicked comfortable. Like wicked comfortable. They are some super modern ones, with mesh backing and seats, and a crazy array of springs underneath.

I am almost halfway done with my top 500 countdown, and I am continuely pleasantly surprised.

these socks i am wearing are extremely stylish. the quality of the material is unreal too

Today was quite the day, so much happened.

So let me start with waking up and remembering my dream. There I was with my family in a canoe, but we weren't on a lake or a river. We were cruising through a mental institution, and looking inside each person's cell as we paddled on by. It was quite distrubing, I won't lie to you.
As my alarm continues to ring, I look over at my roomate and see him starting to get out of bed. Oh ya, today we are running. At the time, I wasn't too thrilled. Anyway, I hope out of bed and put on my shoes. We do some stretches, and get right to it. We didn't run for too long, just around campus. Maybe 20 minutes, but considering I haven't run for some many months, it wasn't too fun. I'll get back into it though, I figure in a few weeks I'll be back to where I was at the end of semester two, after several months of ROTC.

A quick shower and I was off to meet with the study abroad office. Since I am appyling so close to the deadline, I wasn't going to wait like the rest of the people for an appointment. I managed to catch the right person at the right time. We talked for a good 15 minutes, (she loved me), gave me the okay, and told me to get my shit together. So I have 2 business days to get my offical transcript, two letters of recommendation, write 3 essays ,fill out an application, get photos of myself, and get a copy of my passport.
Oh, during the interview she asked me a few questions. One of which was "Will I be able to handle homeless, legless, beggars hanging onto my clothing asking for money"

Ummmm....

Anyways, my first stop was the Whitmore to get my offical transcript. Normally it takes 3-5 business days, but since I am such a ladies man, and the girl at the counter was really cute, I was out of there in 4 minutes flat with what I needed.

Take a break from gathering my shit, and I went to class. I got to sit through another boring hippie lecture talking about if "color is real." (Philosophy) I just sat there and muted out the debate between my prof and that one guy with long hair who always has to ask a million questions and argue with the prof.

After that class was over, I stopped by for some lunch real quick, gave a friend a copy of the new David Gray album, and headed to class. Not that I like David Gray, but I have so much music, I just happened to have a copy of his CD. Seriously.

Thermo was fun, we talked about control mass nozzles and control volume systems. I took some damn good notes, and talked to the Prof after class about a letter of recommendation. He gave me the thumbs up, so I went to the next person who I wanted a letter from.

Chief advisor of undergraduate engineering. He was "a big deal" if you know what I mean. And I never met him in my life, and I was suppose to get a letter from him. This won't be too easy.
We'll, I stopped by his office (after asking his secratary on how to pronounce his last name) and had a nice chat with him. I told him about my experiance with cars, my general love for engineering, why I want to go to India, etc etc. We'll, he must have liked me because he told me to email him my resume and the recommendation form. I said goodbye and thank you (shook his hand of course) and off I was.

I went to the library and began to write my first essay; my statement of purpose for my study abroad. I wrote a damn good essay, I'm not going to lie. In 45 minutes I whipped out one of my best essays.
I sent a copy of that, my resume, and the form to my prof and the chief advisor, (in seperate emails of course), and was done with that bit. Hopefully...

I then had to run from the library back to my dorm to meet with the RD about me getting "written up" a few weeks ago for drinking a beer with my door open (rememeber that??) We'll, I couldn't weasle myself out of that one. I now need to attend a class on drinking...ugh. 95% of college students drink, and I was part of the 1% that got caught. I tried the honest technique, I said I was just chillin' enjoying a beer (which is the truth, I wasn't partying or anything.) We'll she took that the wrong way, and now thinks I drink alone all the time to get drunk, so she thinks I have a major alchohol problem. Unbelievable...

I'm back at the library now studying for my 5 exams in the next two weeks. Can you believe that?! 5 exams! Ugh, oh well...

I'm on number 190 of my top 500 countdown. This is quite fun, I will not lie.

Back track to last winter break, at my dentist appointment. I was handed my x-rays, and told I was suppose to get my wisdom teeth out. We'll, that didn't happen. To be honest, I was too lazy that month.

Back track again to this summer, at my dentist appointment. I was handed my x-rays, and told I was suppose to get my wisdom teeth out. We'll, that didn't happen. I honestly didn't have the time. I worked 12 hours some days, and the others I was just too tired.

Back track to 5 hours ago, when I woke up from my nap. My gums we're killing me, so I put my finger's in my throat, feel my back gums, and can feel a tooth almost ready to poke out. Fuck this hurts...
This sucks, because in the next 2 weeks I have 5 exams, so I can't get them out anytime soon. I am going to have to deal with this pain for atleast 2 weeks. I guess I will be loading up on the Advil...

For my India trip, I am sort of applying real late. Like I only have a few days to get all my shit together. I need to wake up early tomorrow and head to the office to set up a meeting. There is a chance I won't be able to make it in time...but I'm going to do all I can to make it. I need to write like 3 essays, get 2 letters of recommondation, and pick all my classes.

Bryce just joined me to smoke some hookah...

Peace!

haha

(15:42:54) Darek: i'm going, it doesn't matter
(15:42:59) Darek: you can't convince me otherwise
(15:43:09) JMC: hah
(15:43:11) JMC: have fun
(15:43:54) Darek: oh, i will
(15:44:05) JMC: bring ur own water
(15:44:19) Darek: hahaha

I'm making good progress on my homework, so that means I can take a break, right?
I'm wicked happy about my new USB thumb drive. It's a tiny mother fucker...it slips inside the USB port, instead of around it, as most thumb drives do. It's an inch long, .75 inch wide, and like a mm thick. It's nuts...I hope I don't break it. Oh, it's 2 gigs too.

I can't stop thinking about India. How crazy is that going to be? It's not like London or Paris where most kids go.

FUCKING INDIA!!

Number 167 on the countdown. I skipped and delete quite a bit of them. Like Public Enemy...I don't want to listen to that rap shit. We'll, I take that back. I'm sure it is quality music, but I just don't care for rap...

So just today I decided I am going to try and go to India next semeter, instead of a year from now. I stopped by the office, and filled out a few pre-forms, however it is still unsure if I will be able to go so soon, since I am so close to the deadline.

The Air Force ROTC called me yesterday to help the new System Administrator, since he doesn't know what he is doing. They called me since that was my job last semester when I was enrolled in the program.
So I show up at 1800 hours sharp, (as per the phone call, email, voice mail, and AIM messages) and the guy is already late. We both stand there in the computer lab, waiting for people to clear the area so we can both sit down and I can show him what he needs to know.
Like 10 seconds after us waiting he tells me "I think you need to hit Crtl-Alt-Delete to login."
Are you serious? I'm the one teaching you everything here pal, of course I know how to login into the server. I look at him...and don't say anything.
10 more seconds pass of us standing their waiting for everyone to leave the area (it's a small area, at least by the server computer) and he says he needs to leave in 15 minutes, so if I could hurry it up.
15 minutes to teach an idiot everything he needs to know about maintaining a server? I don't think so. I told him to give me him email so we could reschedual.
I still need to email him...I will do that soon.

So I ran for VP for SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), and won the postition. We'll, no one else ran, so I guess I won by default. I look forward to helping out. I really have no idea what to expect...

I am on number 137 of my top 500 count down, and it's getting better (isn't that weird?) Maybe because the top 50 or so are songs I've heard so many times I have gotten sick of them.

I got a coffee and water from the stand downstairs, and am ready to start my math homework. I'm going to really try and do it this time, not simple copy the answers like I (usually) do. There is also an SI session from 5-6 upstairs in the library which I hope to attend.
Ok, I need to get to work.

Up of the roof by the Drifters is number 113 on the countdown, and I must say I really love this song. I always have.

Back in semester one I switched over to the Dvorak keyboard layout, and I have enjoyed every bit of it so far. I also managed to switch over a few of my friends. So you see, the standard QWERTY setup was developed to satisfy the mechanical needs of type writers back in the 19th century. However, once the electronic keyboard was invented a new setup could be made, and was. Dvorak was scientificly engineered for maximum comfort and typing speed.
I must say, the first few weeks of switching over were hell. I couldn't type for shit those two weeks, and it was extremely frustrating. However, once I got every that hump it was great. I shortly surpassed my old typing speed, and my fingers feel great.

This weekend is my good friend Bryce's birthday. It should be a good weekend of crazyiness, with more crazyiness to follow next weekend when we go down to NJ to party a second time.

I stumbled upon a really neat water about the effects of microwaving water. It shows that if you first microwave water and then feed it to a plant (after cooling of course) it provides little to no nurishment versus boiling the water then feeding it. http://www.rense.com/general70/microwaved.htm
I agrued this all last semester to my friends...finally...I can show them proof

I just realized I had a purple backround for my live journal...
Hopefully this one is better