Another righteously cold day

Today is another cold day in the short string of freezing weather we've had up here in Seattle. For some of us, that's not such a bad thing, but for others it can be a real drag. For instance, I love this weather. I live near downtown Seattle, so anything I need is within a relatively short distance from my house, including my school. I actually enjoy the snow, probably because I don't have to drive in it, for I take the bus damn near everywhere I go.

However, I have two friends in particular that it's pretty much the opposite for. One is Sabrina. As I have mentioned in a previous post, she lives pretty far up north. This led to a pretty nasty situation a couple of nights ago. When she was on her way home, she discovered that every road that leads to her house was closed off. The poor girl actually had to drive all the way back to Seattle and find a place to stay with one of her friends. She even left from school early today because there's supposed to be another storm rolling in this evening, just to make sure she made it home before she got snowed "out," as it were. I feel really bad for the gal. I ended up offering her my couch as a definite place she could stay if that happened to her again.

The second person is my friend Jill. She lives down south, but she doesn't have to go to school. She's actually a massage therapist. She is suffering from the exact opposite. She's somewhat snowed in. Not in the traditional sense, but she just bought herself a snazzy new car and she doesn't want to take it out on the icy roads and risk ending up in a ditch somewhere. See, she lives way out in the middle of BFE, where the plows don't go, nothing. So if she wants to go somewhere, she has to brave horrible roads. I called her up about an hour ago to see how she was doing and she is hating the fact that she is pretty much stuck in her house. She can't go to the store, can't go to work, etc. She's just going stir crazy in her own home. Poor Jilly.

For some reason a little friendship thing just popped into my head. A while ago I watched a special on the Real World where one of the guys was talking about another guy, explaining why they cannot be friends. It's something that hit home with me and something that I keep in mind when I'm meeting new friends. In order to be a close friend of mine, you have to satisfy three different trusts. First, I have to trust you with my property. I have to be comfortable enough with you that I could leave you the key to my house without worrying about you. Second, I have to trust you with my words. I have to be comfortable knowing that what I say to you will be kept with you, that you won't rumor me out to someone else. That's actually a pretty big one to me. I tend to truly open up only to really close friends. And, lastly, I have to trust you with my love. That one is kind of twofold, though. The first meaning, and probably the obvious one, is that I have to be able to actually love you. Not in the physical sense or anything like that, but the pure love sense. I have to know that my caring for you won't be taken advantage of and that the love will be accepted unconditionally, as it will be given unconditionally. The second part of that, the not-so-obvious part, is I have to trust you with others that I love. I have to be comfortable in the fact that I can leave you alone with any other person I care for and know that you would be respectful and kind. Maybe those are a little too much to ask of some people. And, sadly, if they are, then that person and I probably won't be anything more than an acquaintance. Yes, those things mean that much to me.

I'm going to get going now. Dinner is calling. Hope you all have a great evening!

Another day down

Well, once again I have this late night thing going on. I've been pretty bad about taking a nap in the early evening and not being tired when the time comes to really go to bed. That's something I really need to fix sometime soon.

Today I did something that kind of made me feel like a jackass. You see, I have my computer programming assignments that I have to turn in online, and every single one of them has been due at 9 p.m.. This last assignment was due earlier, but I had actually finished it a couple of days ago. But, me being me, I waited until the last second to turn it in. I got to the website, went through the motions of submitting everything, then got the "One day late" message. What the hell? I backtracked through everything, and sure enough, this assignment was due at 5 instead of 9. So instead of being an hour early I was three hours late. It really doesn't hurt me any though. Everyone in the class is given five late days (a late day being anywhere from 1 second late, to 1 second shy of 24 hours late) free. I have used one of them up but I still had four before tonight. So now I only have three late days left, but I also only have only one more homework assignment to do in that class. So, it's not that big of a deal, really. Just funny because I had the thing done a while ago but I was just too damn lazy to hand it in.

It has been COLD up here. I just looked at the temperature and it's 19 degrees!!! That temperature has led to some pretty icy roads and sidewalks. Earlier today when I was on my way to my class, I damn near bit it on a slope down from a pedestrian overpass I have to cross. I knew it was going to be slippery, and I even thought about sliding down it on purpose. The only reason I decided not to slide down it on purpose was that I didn't want to fall in front of everybody. Go figure. Anyways, I managed to catch myself before my ass hit the cement, so it really wasn't that bad. It was more embarrassing than anything else really. As I was walking back from my class, I heard the lady walking behind me (who was walking in high heels from the sound of the clicking) talking about how she had fallen on her ass earlier. I guess it was a mild epidemic. Oh yeah, after I fell on the overpass, a gal behind me said something like, "You must not be around here." Well, I'm really not, but I don't know, that just made it worse to me for some reason, as far as the embarrassment thing went.

I've heard the perfect break-up song. Not perfect as in matching emotions or anything like that. More as in it really made me smile in a sinister sort of way. The name of the song is "Ready, Aim, Misfire" by New Years Day. I know I shouldn't laugh at the lyrics but I just can't help myself. Here is the part that I laugh at:

If I had just one bullet and a trigger I'd pull it
Shoot my Cupid out of the sky
Break off his wings and gouge out his eyes
Thank him for nothing, 'cause that's all that he gave to me.
Your love is my heart disease.

Every time I hear that I giggle a little. Part of the sinister Lee I try to hide I guess. But man, damn Cupid. Sometimes I wonder what the hell he's thinking. I fall for everyone I shouldn't (FACT). You want to know a secret? Of all of the gals that I have truly, unconditionally fallen in love with, not too many of them actually have found out. Not that I fall in love that easily, but when I do, I tend to keep it a secret. Crazy, huh?

Let's wrap it all up

So yesterday evening, I talked to Jess and laid everything down for her. And, we're not "dating" (for a lack of a better word) any more. I'm pretty sure that a lot of my friends that knew the story about Jess are pretty happy about that. I just can't be happy with the gal. I can't trust her to follow through on anything we have plans to do, even the really important things (such as Thanksgiving dinner). Oh well, I don't think I need to justify this to anyone, just thinking "out loud." So, once more, Lee is a single man. Joy.

I got to see some snow last night!!! I was so happy about it. Even though it's quite chilly around here today, I was really happy to see it. I know that there are going to be some people who aren't really quite as happy to see snow. For instance, Sabrina lives up north, where they got hit pretty hard. So I'm not entirely sure that I'll even be seeing her today. I'm sure that the teacher in our writing class would understand Sabrina not being there, and also understand if the outline that's due today doesn't get turned in. The professor is pretty cool and understanding.

This morning I don't have my EE class. Yay! That works out rather well, because I still have to do some laundry this morning. I was pretty lazy about doing it this weekend, and put it off more and more. So, here I am, Monday morning and I still haven't done my laundry for the week. *blush* You know I need to stop this being lazy thing. It worked for last week since everything was pushed back due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but the quarter is wrapping up, so everything is going to be flying fast here soon. Take this week, for example. I have a draft of my description assignment due Friday, a lab write-up due Thursday, EE homework due Friday, and a computer program due Tuesday. Yep, it's going to be a sprint to the end of the quarter. BUT the end of the quarter is only a few weeks away. Three more weeks of hard work and I get to be lazy all I want (at least for two weeks until it starts all over again).

I'm gonna get going. I'm going to get a shower before I start my laundry. Then I get to decide how many layers of clothes I want to wear today! Have a great day

It gets even better

So in my last post, I was talking about how I got stood up by Jess on Thanksgiving. Well, she called me yesterday morning because she felt really bad about it and wanted to make it up to me last night. I had already decided that I was going to go to the Westlake tree lighting ceremony, and I had read at the Seattle city website that it all was going to start at 4:30 in the afternoon. I told her all of this, and she said that she would love to, and afterwards she would take me out to a movie and get something to eat afterwards, all on her dime because of the previous day. We made plans, she would come over and we leave my house to walk downtown at 4.

At about 3:40, I get a text from her. She's still at her house in Bellevue because she heard from one of her friends that the thing started at 5 and not 4:30. So, since it didn't start until 5, she figured she didn't have to leave her house until 4 or something. Well, you may think I'm a jerk for what I did next. I told her that I was leaving my house at 4 just like we had made plans for, and I did. She did say that she was on her way, but the fact is that she didn't get here before 4, so I didn't go the the tree lighting ceremony with her and ended up going all by myself. I haven't talked to her after that, so I don't know how it all played with her. But you know what? In a way, I really don't care. It was kind of odd; I wasn't upset about what she did or anything. True I was a bit frustrated, but I came to the conclusion that I had been as clear as I possibly could have been, and she changed the plans without even talking to me about it. Oh, and by the way, it did start at 4:30.

The ceremony itself was loads of fun. They had the Seahawks' drum band, as well as a gospel choir and a girls' choir. The tree and star lighting was well beyond cool, and they had a nice fireworks show off of the roof of Macy's. It was a wonderful way to start the Christmas season.

Well, anyways, I'm gonna jet. Have a great day, yo.

Poor choice

So, today is Thanksgiving and here I am at home, typing up this blog. I could have, and should have, done something special for Thanksgiving but no. I was stupid.

There is this girl I have been seeing for a while, but she is very irresponsible and hardly ever follows through on plans that we make. I have planned so many cool things for us, including going to the Bowling For Soup concert that she just threw out the window. Well, last week she invited me to her parent's house for Thanksgiving and I agreed.

Okay I need to take a quick step back first. Earlier than that, Lisa has been calling me and has told me about her Thanksgiving dinner, something that I really enjoy doing with her and her husband. But, I decided that I would wait and go to Jess' family thing instead. Which, she later invited me to, and I accepted. Caught back up now.

So today I wait and wait for her to call me to let me know she's ready, and she never does. Finally, I try calling her. No answer. I text her. I get an immediate response saying she's playing video games with her brother. And knowing that her brother lives at her parents' house, it's quite obvious that she just went to her parents' Thanksgiving dinner without me. Great. I get stood up AGAIN. And for the second time in less than a month, Lisa and her plans are a victim of my getting stood up.

If you're reading this, Emily, I know I should have broken up with her long ago. But I think that day is coming quite soon. I really don't need this any more. I can understand getting stood up when you try to make last-minute plans, but when you get asked more than a week in advance? Come on. That's pressing the envelope. I just can't trust the gal to follow through on anything.

EDIT: And I know I told people I would keep this blog a happy place, but frustration got the better of me on this one. Sorry.

A little tale

I keep on forgetting to come on here and write this story. The night I took my belaying class, I got the ride to the gym from my roommate. Since he's even less familiar with the IMA area than I am (see the previous posts). This was also compounded with the fact that there was a basketball game that night so there were a lot of added traffic redirections. When we first got there, we completely missed the turn-in for the IMA and had to go way past it and do a U-turn. On the way back, due to the traffic restrictions, we couldn't turn in coming from the other direction either. So, my roommate said screw it and turned anyway. He made it halfway through the other side of the street when he stopped for a bicyclist riding along the sidewalk. It turns out that my roommate totally freaked out the bicyclist. When I got dropped off (in the opposite direction the bicyclist was headed, I saw the guy coming towards me. (This started at the stadium, by the way) Before he could say anything, I looked straight at him and said, simply, "Let it go." But the guy kept following me. Every time he'd start to say something, I'd interrupt him with a "Let it go". Finally, he got tired of me saying that or something and said, himself, "You let it go." Brilliant. Anyways, he followed me all the way from the stadium to the IMA parking lot. I never understood the reason behind the guy following me. I mean, I wasn't driving, and even if I was, the car stopped about fifteen feet from the guy. Oh well. It's just an interesting story I thought I would share.

What a weekend

Wow, what a crazy weekend. There were some friends who came up from Oregon and there was also a lot of work to do for school. I don't even really know where to begin, but I'll keep typing anyways.

My group and I finished our instructions manual today. I felt a little bad at the library when we were working on it because I just felt really out of it all day long. Not to mention that I had only a little slice of coffee cake for breakfast this morning. Yeah, it was bad. I didn't even want to finish up my EE homework when I got home tonight. I had to literally drag myself to my desk and do it. It's all done, however. And there are only three more homework assignments left in the quarter.

Oh, speaking of quarter... Last night, I checked the classes that were offered in the time I have free during the day for an elective I could take. There was only one class offered, but it looked pretty interesting, Greek and Roman Mythology, so I signed up for it. When I got to the library today, I told Scott and Sabrina about it, and I was a little floored to discover that Sabrina had signed up for the same class last night. It got me wondering which one of us signed up for it first and which one of us was the "copy cat". I ended up teasing Sabrina about it a little, telling her that I knew for a fact that I was the first to sign up for it and that she copied me. I'm probably wrong, though, but I'll never admit it. No matter who signed up when, though, I think it's really cool that I'll be in the same class with her again.

I'll be honest. My mind is a buzz right now, even more so than usual, so I think I'll just go and see if I can calm down enough to get some sleep.

A few free moments

Okay, so I didn't post last night. I had some unexpected business I needed to take care of, "business" that wasn't supposed to happen until today. I know I am being vague. It's just a story I really don't want to dive into right now.

What I really would like to chat about for a few minutes is my roommate's new toy. As of yesterday morning, he is a proud new owner of an X-Box 360. I think it's interesting that he bought the console for the sole purpose of one game, Gears of War. I have to admit that the game really does kick some serious ass. The game itself plays as well as the cinematic sequences in the game, something that I haven't ever seen before. Usually, when you play a game, it looks a lot less "pretty" than the little cinematics in it. So, needless to say, I was wholly impressed with it. Last night, I went to Blockbuster and got us another couple of games to play, Lego Star Wars and a motorcycle racing game, the name of which is avoiding me right now. What's odd is that one of my friends is a big motorcycle guru yet he was more excited to play the Lego game. I even got the motorcycle game JUST for him!!! Oh well. It was fun to play the Lego game, though. Two people could play at the same time, and if you hit the wrong button (or the right button if you're doing it on purpose) you can completely bitch slap the other person. The first time it happened, we laughed so hard, because it was Leia bitch slapping one of the soldiers. Reminded me of the Patton days.

Well, anyway, I have to run. Sorry for the short blog, but I have company to worry about. They're out doing something right now (I really have no clue what they're doing) but afterwards, we're going to go to the Spaghetti Factory to get some grub. I'll probably write some tomorrow once things have settled down (aka the company goes to the football game they came up for). See, there I go, getting into the story even though I said I wouldn't.

Okay, I'm seriously leaving now. I mean it. Right now.

Curse of the insomniac

So even after telling Emily I wouldn't, here I am, eating shrimp stir fry at a little past midnight. A little while ago (actually a bit still but not quite as much once I started eating) I was a bit tipsy off of eggnog and spiced rum. I'm not talking about only your ordinary spiced rum here, either. For every drink I made, I mixed a shot of Morgans with a half shot of Stroh's. For those of you who don't know, Stroh's is a very strong spiced rum, but it has more of a butterscotch flavor to it. And, by strong, I mean 160 proof, or 80%. After having a few of those, I was quite a bit talkative tonight. Well, I'm here writing my blog now, so I guess there is no "was" about it. I'm still pretty talkative.

Today was a pretty bouncy day. I didn't wake up until about noon, which was a wonderful relief, but is also a big reason why I'm chit-chatty at about 1 in the morning. Anyways, in my CSE section today I got my midterm back, with my score of 80. I don't remember if I wrote this already, because I actually knew the score last night, since they post the scores on the myUW page. I was a little upset about what I lost half of those points on. On one of the problems, I had to reverse the order of a stack of numbers, but after going through the exam, I came back to the problem with only a couple of minutes left and wrote the code for reversing the stack rather quickly. The only problem was, I had already done it. I guess my first time through I did it but completely forgot about it. So, since the stack was reversed twice, I lost 10 out of 25 points on that problem. I thought that was a rather harsh mark, but at the same time, I understand that a good portion of your score depends on getting the right output from your program. The other ten points in the exam were things that I figured I would miss, mostly in the analyzing inheritance part (for those of you who are going to take 143, you'll find out what I'm talking about). All in all, I got almost the score I expected, an 85. And I could have gotten it, too, if I had ran out of time. Funny how that works.

My EE lab was pretty interesting, too. It took Nick and I about an hour to set up the first circuit and to get it going. It was really weird how everything happened. Nick and I had both made the same circuit just for the hell of it, and neither one did the correct thing. The strange things is, both of our circuits did the same "wrong" thing. As Nick was trying to get his to work, he wired up his amplifier power supplies wrong and fried it. So, we pulled my amplifier out of my circuit and stuck it his to make sure it was the amplifier and nothing else in the circuit. And the damn thing worked. Neither one of us could explain any of it. It was just the damnedest thing. After that, the lab went along rather smoothly. We were able to assemble our other circuits and they all worked just as we expected them to. It was just that one hour of one "what the hell" after another. Strange. I think we just needed to sacrifice an amplifier to appease the EE gods or something.

I've also been getting a bit more into the Facebook thing (actually Emily is gradually prodding me along to get more into it). Emily got me to go through my classes and add the people that I know (which totals about 8 people so far that I know the last name of) tonight, and I already have one response. Yay... I don't know, the whole Facebook thing really isn't that big to me, but it may get there if I actually make some friends and get them on there. We shall see.

Well crap, it's 1 now. I still don't have a title for this post, either. Heh. I'll just throw a lame title up there and call it good. Goodnight all, even those who have already gone to bed. Dream well.

Absurd craziness

I got my first midterm back today from my EE class. I got a 51/100 on it. I know it sounds really bad, but all things considered it really isn't. First off, I was very sick that morning, with congestion, runny nose, the whole sickly feeling, everything. It was the worst day of the sickness I had. So that played a very key role, so much that I can look at the test today and I feel really stupid for some of the things I missed on it. That 51 could have easily been in the 60's or even higher. Even that doesn't sound very good (60?) except for the fact that the average for my section was a whopping 50. So, put those two together, and I actually feel kind of good about my 51, and I know I will come back with a vengeance on the final.

Other than that, today has been pretty laid back. I got home from school and started cooking a roast, and I've been finishing up a lab report for my EE lab, but other than that, it's been really light. Oh, one thing I found this morning kind of peeved me a little. Yesterday, my umbrella had broken on my way to my first class of the day. During the class I left it a little open, as well as the whole hour after the first class. At the beginning of the second class, I closed it up and put it in my backpack. This morning, I pulled it out along with the books I didn't need for today and discovered that the umbrella was still a little wet yesterday when I put it in my backpack. One of my books, my EE book to be exact, had a nice wet spot on the bottom of it, and it stretched about an inch from the spine of the book to the edge, and it soaked up about half an inch onto the pages. I know that it will dry, but I expected to have that book for quite a while, as it is the beginning EE book with the basics in it.

After the initial frustration at the whole "wet book" deal, I actually started to think it was funny. Saturday, when this horrendous rain actually started, I was talking to Sabrina about umbrellas and how it was (stupidly, but I didn't include that word in the conversation) "mannish" to face a rain storm without one. Then on Monday, I started thinking about how it was a really smart idea after all, and pulled my umbrella out to use it. However, the bad karma had already been laid. Since a "man never uses an umbrella" my umbrella made sure it would not be used. Funny how much life an inanimate object can have sometimes.

Welcome to my life

Okay, just to let you know, this is my third shot at starting a blog. The first just got outright deleted because it was pretty harsh. The second one first got saved as a word document, then deleted. I saved this one because I had revisited some parts of my life that I had blocked and I didn't want to lose the realizations that came out of them. But, I realized one important thing; I am living my life RIGHT NOW, so that is what you're going to get from my blog. My RIGHT NOW.

Let's start today, shall we?

I took my CSE midterm today. It was actually a bit painful, and a bit rushed, but I think that I did okay on it. Doing a little bit of math and looking at where I had my major problems, I think that I probably got somewhere around an 85 on it. I really think I can accept that score.

Today, I decided to sign up for the rock climbing beginner's class. It's only $10 and since it's been a little while since I've done any climbing, I thought it would be a really good idea. So I got all of the info I thought I needed from Sabrina earlier today and I wandered in that general direction after my CSE midterm. When I got to where I thought the IMA was, I realized that I was wrong and that I was completely lost. I started looking around to see if I could find it when I happened upon a very friendly face. It just so happened that Sabrina was walking from the IMA. She was kind enough to help me find my way back to the IMA, and she even gave me really good instructions on how to get in and where to go after I got in.

Needless to say, after running into Sabrina, it all went rather smoothly. I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing. I was able to go even easily find the climbing center. The only problem was, I found everything a little too easily. I had gotten there around 3:30, and the climbing center didn't open until 4, so I had to find a place to wait for a while. I would have stayed by the door to the climbing center, but I felt a little out of place. The climbing center itself is right off of a major exercise area, and I felt like a little perv hanging out behind all of the fit, attractive girls exercising. So I wandered off and found myself a nice comfortable chair to sit in until 4. When the place opened, I wandered in and I registered for the class. So, a week from tonight, I'll be back on the wall.

Oh, I almost forgot. This morning, I rode the bus to school like I do every day. Only this morning there was a really rude lady on the bus. She was very impatient and actually started to complain that the bus was stopping to pick up more people. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she was just having a bad day, with all of the rain and whatnot, but this lady was getting a bit obnoxious. Well, anyway, I wasn't really going anywhere with that. I just thought it was a little odd, so there it is. And you've read it.

Sucker.