I woke up, once again, in a freezing cold room, pressed up against her in a sleepy attempt to maintain 98.6. The culprit (again): an anonymous housemate's idiocy in setting the thermostat to 50.

There is a popular misconception regarding the workings of the typical house thermostat. Suppose your house is currently at 65 degrees, and you'd like to warm it to 75. Which do you think will heat the house faster, setting the thermostat to 75, or to 90?

They will both take exactly the same amount of time. Many people think that if you'd like to heat your house quickly, you should turn the thermostat all the way up for "maximum heating". This thinking is based on an incorrect mental model of the thermostat. The thermostat does not control quantity of heat; it is a simple on-off switch. It turns the heater on, at "full power", whenever the room temperature falls below the target temperature. When the target is reached, it shuts the heater off.

Along the same lines, then, my housemates (thinking the house is too hot) set the thermostat to its minimum (50F), presumably thinking that this will cool the house down faster than simply setting it to their real target. (I assume they don't actually want the house at 50, but rather would prefer (say) 65 over the prevailing 75.) This is incorrect, for the reasons above. The house will only cool as fast as the insulation and weather will allow; having the thermostat set below the actual desired target does nothing but waste heating oil (and thus money) when eventually the house must be brought back to a livable temperature.

I sat back and thought a lot today. I realized my life sucks. Here’s a list of current events that lead to this conclusion:
  • I was placed as sixth chair instead of first. What a wonderful way to begin the weekend.
  • I received my French grade from Hope College in the mail. B-. Disgusting.
  • Also in the mail, I got a letter from the University of Michigan saying it will be another twelve weeks before I know whether or not they want me there. Great.
  • Got my A.P. Stats test back – another B-. Fantastic.
  • My grandma is going to be hospitalized for anxiety attacks and uncontrollable depression. She calls my house three times a day, in tears, asking for my mother.
  • One of my best friends is pissed at me and refuses to talk about it.
  • I’ll be able to think of more in a minute.

There’s not as much stuff to look forward to: Christmas, and I get to see Aaron this weekend for the first time in over a month. Somehow those two things seem to cancel out most of the things listed above. Of course I’m still worried about my grandma. And I’m not pleased about my grades, or my acceptance status for college. But I did get accepted to Ferris with a full ride, and to Michigan State with almost everything paid for. So at least I’ve got that to fall back on.

I need to get an oil change for my car, and I owe BMG some money. I have an anatomy test tomorrow, and I have to challenge my way up to first chair starting this week. My room needs to be cleaned, I’ve gotta do community service, have to go to work and school and some extra classes on top of that. Need to keep up with homework, have to finish reading that French novel, have to work things out with Nick. Have to apologize to a few people, need to call Aaron. Have to convince Adam to stop smoking before my parents find out where he gets his cigarettes. Christmas shopping season. I think I’m gaining weight. Maybe it’s just all the thoughts in my head.

Stress sucks.

Do I look fat? Lie to me and make it go away.

Tell me everything is going to be okay.

Someone please save me from the madness I created for myself.

i closed my eyes and saw rain droplets, i'd forgotten the way they would cling to the screen in my window that never quite fit properly but still allowed for the most beautiful arrangement of fallen liquid. i've seen something like it, in a painting or, a photograph, which exactly i'm not completely sure but my memory is drifting hopelessly to the light that made its way through the scattered rain and into my bedroom, into tired, weak eyes.

today there were trees. there are always trees but today they seemed helpless. i would have hugged them were it not for misplaced misused energy (do i need sleep? did you count the smiles.. i lost track.)

inserting a questioning glance after each and every idea that slipped from thought to words.. today i thought of you, and closeness, your breath or, mine escaping moist lips as they are wont to wander along a neck, an earlobe, yours, of course. i do not control the emotion that hides in my eyes and so, it is there for you.. always.

tomorrow there will be sun, and the trees will breathe and live again, despite a loss of green. and still i miss you. always miss you..

Slept through my first class, but woke up in time for my midterm. I therefore won half the battle against myself and my alarm clock.

Went shopping to pick up items that I will need to celebrate Samhain. Couple wooden dishes and a wooden bowl. Candles, oils, parchment paper, ribbon, fabric, a new book since I think I should start writing things down (my memory is starting to slip), and a calendar for the next year.

Went to work. Pretty boring, but very busy.

Recovered the new book that I bought today while chatting with an old friend that I hadn't seen in some time. Ran around the house in someone else's favorite sweater that I keep conviently forgetting to bring back to him.

Wrote a couple nodes, read more than I intended to, which is pretty normal.

Burned down a new candle that I bought. Very cool idea. It's a white dripping candle that drips all different colors. Neat to watch.

Something woke me up this morning, even though the house was empty. Odd. I get up, check the ole XP, make some breakfast and clean the pool. There is a tasty snake-egg in the hind skimmer, I toss it against the fence and look at the remains - pure liquid, nothing of substance is inside. When I return from working out, I see a gigantic ant-hill by the driveway. Often having ants in my car, I get out a can of raid and hose those suckers down, putting a gloomy end to their sandy empire. But then I can see them, individual ants struggling to climb up the fence but falling midway. A pool of dead ants has accumulated by the base of the fence. I feel like a murderer; I try to justify it, to no avail. This is genocide.

Morning!

11:35

The day started oddly... I had weird hAx0r dreams and I just needed to pen them down.

Dammit, it seems I need to start thinking of this day rhythm thing. I woke up at around 10, it's soon 12 and nothing has happened yet...

Well, time to meet the challenges of the day.

12:35

Since GIMP has a feature freeze and all that, and Script-FU API is frozen, I updated two of my 1.1 scripts to work with the newest releases:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~wwwwolf/things/graphics/scriptfu.html

Man, does the fire script run FAST in this new machine =)

(...Why, why why I always think of fox tail when I see the ~ character? =)

21:30

Spent 5 hours updating the "Schedulist" program of mine. Now the design is more modular - it can be extended more easily.

Blood. Sweat. Tears. (I kid you not. Well, "blood" was kind of excessive.) I really should learn to master the Perl references - today I learned a lot of the Perl objects, but now I should focus on stuff that Matters.


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Dream Log: October 24, 2000
Updated:

back | days | forth

They watching us, I can feel it

I think the managers are getting worried about us lowly engineers. The last 9 months has seen over a third of the department leave to higher paid and more interesting jobs. So far, the management have done really nothing to rectify this, apart from hiring some silly recruitment consultant - basically a girl who phones up employment agencies and arranges interviews. Even this concerted effort has failed to bring our headcount up to new year levels.

But this steady loss of staff has changed the remaining engineers' attitudes subtlely; Everyone blames management for the lack of direction. So, everyone has simply started to ignore management. People are doing things the way they want to and when they get challenged over it, they simply shrug and say something like "Well, it will take more effort to put it to the way you want it, so let's just move on"

I think we are learning to circumvent management

3 days until... things happen or don't. Sometimes I try to visualise my life as a landscape crossed by ley lines. Where I stand right now, there is a nexus, a crossroads where different strands of time and causality meet and then branch out again in radically different directions. (or maybe I took too many aspirin this morning... :-P) There are so many tiny things that I am doing now that are affecting the future in ways I can't fathom. Saying things now can either make you happy, or make you resent me. Each ley line stretches ahead into the horizon, perspective warped to show me the other lines joining and parting from it. The one road I want to travel stretches away from this impending crossroads; I want to stay on this road so much, I know that I can despite the many potholes and twists and turns it has.

I suppose I am trying to say sorry for being so tired last night...

13:30 BST

Hah, please stop annoying me guy has moved desks, and has handed in his resignation! Whee! No longer do I have to listen to off key singing!

Started the day with an anti-editor screed, I think I upset the editor who let me have it (in the nicest way) for a really crappy node I posted way back when.

Oh well nothing lost but a joke nodeshell. Sorry if I ruffled your feathers D.


On to better news, I can't believe I'm going to buy Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 on its release date. I haven't been this giddy since standing in line for the debut of Batman and Robin ("not just the worst movie ever... the worst thing ever" --Mike Nelson). I've been playing the THPS2 demo for about a month now. It's even cut into my Diablo II time.

Paging mcSey. mcSey to the white courtesy phone. Your life is calling. Please pick up.

Things to do way work today

  • Install 2000 Server on Jenny
  • Finish up ASP analysis
  • Get the damn DNS delegated to us
  • Requisition new switches. This 10-Base crap has to go.
That ought to be about a days worth. These 6:30 mornings really got me dragging. My little brother has got to get his work schedule better lined up with mine.

Then again an hour of noding a day keeps the mental health professionals away.

Oh my head... For the novice geek (oxymoron?), setting up cgi scripts on WinNT servers is not pleasant, and at six dollars an hour is sure to violate some kind of workers' rights. I often ask myself how I got here. Why do people think setting up an ordering form is so easy? that its integrated into the capabilities of the windows hegemony? Hell I don't even know how to use Unix, and yet I wound up in a proverbial nine to five (okay eight to four), setting up an Intranet Website.

I've never professed to be a techie. I enjoy 3D design, polar calculus, and philosophy. These are the things that drive me.

So here I am trying to get the perl interpreter to work, and translating UNIX scripts to work under WinNT, all to no avail. Eight hours and nothing accomplished, 'cept instead of "error 403" its now "CGI error".

The Future will be controlled by geeks-Paraphrasing My Dad

The words just aren't enough. I try and I try but it just doesn't cut it right now. They don't quite reach, not quite. But I need someone or something right now or I think I might not be able to come up for air.

It makes me so angry that I spend my life being dramatic and when it really does count I can't find the words for it because they're all used up on wasted nothings that mean nothing compared to this. I feel all my selves coming back, all the selves I locked deep inside and all the selves from long ago and all the selves I thought would never return. They're back here and they're filling me up so much that I can't hardly bear it.

This little spot in a daylog doesn't even deserve to be filled with him. I wanted to speak his name today but I just can't. Not here. Not where it will be mingled with so many other names that would make his fade almost out of existence. He needs to fade out but I'm not ready to let go of him. Not yet. Not him.

I won't speak his name. But I'll tell you why this hurts so bad. After a while we stopped saying it, but it was always there, an unspoken promise we both knew. We'd end up together some day, sometime in the future that we'd never give a date, but we knew we'd always end up. We just knew it and it was okay to love other people and mix ourselves with other personalities, because eventually, it'd just be him and I.

Tonight he spoke it instead, and it was no longer left silent. He's broken the promise. And now... now I have nothing. I never realized that he was always there, kind of holding me up and moving me forward. Always there in the back of my mind, sometimes there in front, his picture in my drawer so I could see him every time I needed a pen. Which is every hour. I knew we'd end up together, I always knew this. But now I'm wrong.

She completes him. He couldn't tell me for two and a half years, not about this girl who completes him, and I'm only beginning to feel a little anger that he's kept me believing in the unspoken promise this long. He's not mine anymore. And he hasn't been, and I've always kind of felt something was amiss but it's never been like this. It's never been so raw and I feel like I'm dying. I really feel like I'm dying. I've never felt like this. I have never felt this many emotions within me all at the same time and I haven't been able to stop crying for the past 3 hours.

I hate him and I love him. I hate to love him so much. I love to hate him so much. It's tearing me up that I'm feeling like this, after all this time of thinking I'm wasted and old and I've never even felt this. I try to tell myself I'm so happy for him, because I should be glad he's found someone. I'm glad he's happy because he deserves it so much. But my insides are torn out and I feel like they're missing, I'm totally empty and dead and nothing fits.
No matter what I know I must do today, I will no doubt remain awake until 2am. I have to be at work in 5 hours, and yet, I refuse to sleep. Oh, I'm tired, I can assure you of that, but I would much rather sit here in front of my monitor and try to hammer out another node.

Well, maybe I will sleep for a while....

<sleep> ZzzZZzzZZ </sleep>

Wow. Not much sleep, yet I feel refreshed.

<work> wow </work>

I'm not exactly looking forward to class today. Several quizzes to be taken never puts me in a good mood. Spending money is also a good mood killer, so therefore, it reasonably stands that since it's not fun, I'll wind up doing it today.

FINALLY!!

My computer is once again in working condition. I have been unable to write much over the past three or four days, due to the fact that I chose to screw with my computer.

It all started last week, when I had managaed to completely fill both of my hard drives. (It really didn't take that much -- between my two old hard drives, I only had about 1.2 gigs. Scary, hey?) Netscape began the annoying habit of copying over my preference files when I did anything.

So, Friday night, I said FUCK IT. I finally broke down and put the money out for a brand spanking new, adequately sized, 20 gig hard drive. Which, I am proud to say, I installed myself, with only minimal help from my SO (there was one screw I just couldn't seem to get off).

Then we decided that now that I had room, we should just get me the new version of Slackware and new Gnome stuff. I can actually put a spreadsheet program on my computer! Finally! And a graphing program! Woohoo!

Actually, the SO did most of that. I really don't know as much about Linux yet as I like to pretend I do.

It's so good to have everything back in order again. I can check my email compulsively once more!

Exercise log:
  • Pushups: 35
  • Situps: 75
  • Side-kicks: 35

Insomnia: None, although I stayed up too late playing the Counterlife mod for Half-life and overslept. It was worth it.
Tongue log: Still have a divot in the top where the top ball rests, which means it's still a little bit swollen. I sound less drunk now, though it still twinges now and then when I talk for a while.

Going to a costume party this weekend with that girl I like. I hafta come up with a costume, which is the main reason I hate halloween. I'm dark and I dress wierd all year round, so when halloween comes up, I find it silly to come up with a costume. I'm thinking of going either as a raver or as Bug-Eyed Earl from Red Meat.

In other news, I've hardlinked to the girl you want to be your girlfriend far too often in this past week. Someone please kill me.

I started today with a bang literally. The alarm clock somehow made me involuntarily slam my head into the ridiculous milk crate table contraption by the side of the bed. I decided to get up if only to spite this wannabe omen of ill tiding.

The philosophy exam that had me sweating turned out to be so basic and superficial that I wonder why I even bothered to study. It's one of those situations where you finish your exam in a matter of minutes and then just sit there with it completed. I didn't want to the first to hand mine in. There is some bad voodoo involved in that like it curses you for being so arrogant. So, being the superstitious fool that I am, I waited for a few other people to do it first. Hokey fears aside, I still managed to escape my first class within the first fifteen minutes. This gives me an extra hour to seek out coffee and try to wake all the way up.

I've been having this horrible moments of clarity in the very early morning. I don't mind being clear headed but the fact that I have eaten, boarded at least one bus, and interacted in some way with a person or two before I have these flashes of clarity scares me. A long time ago one of my roommates in Texas woke me up because she was late for work. I got up and drove her there in another roommate's car. The really frightening part is that the only real memory that I have of that morning at all is having one of those intense moments of clarity while parking the car. I actually had to call my roommate at her work to ask her what actually happened. She laughed.

Looks like my days of free DSL at home are over. My neighbors are leaving. I don't think that I've ever been so sad to see one of the adjacent apartments empty out. Argh. Back to noding at school, in a computer lab filled with people grunting over spreadsheets.

Trying to think of something to do for Halloween and getting no answers. I should probably just let my girlfriend figure it out since I am a total clod when it comes to social events. Maybe I should just stay home and hand out cherry tomatoes like I did last year.

Note to Self: Ignore the Troll.

You little wonder, little wonder you.

Hrm, what's new today? Marple Newtown High School can be the pits sometime. Someone mentioned that your marriage should be the best day of your life, and I realized that with every day so monotonous, I couldn't think of my life having a "best day", that sucks. I've realized that avoiding people who you're uncomfortable around is stupid, why should I waste my time walking to avoid looking at them just because they have a problem with me, no more of that. So today I found a way of saving about 2 seconds of my precious life, and I have no clue what to do with them.

Back at home, things are pretty good, talked to my mom on the phone from her work, she assigned me jobs, but I reassigned them to my siblings. I'm supposed to be doing an english project now, but that won't get done, like the rest of my homework.


My parents took the lock mechanism out of my door for no good reason. While my dad was working on that I had Meat Beat Manifesto's Mars Needs Women playing, he was none too thrilled with the "take that mother fucker!" voice sample, he called my mom in and they were sitting behind my chair, they wanted me to remove all my mp3s. Yeah, right.

On June 19 I went to my first ever kung fu class. The next day my life was rudely interrupted and it's taken a long time to get back on track, but today I went to my second ever kung fu class. I am unfit and starting this all probably fifteen or twenty years too late, so it was tough, but I made it and I will go again. Small victories.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

My job is draining the life out of me.

Or, at least, something is. I don't know why, but autumn is hitting me really hard this year. I don't know if it's SAD or just depression, but the thought of winter really scares me. I'm going to be making an appointment to see my shrink again. I hope she can help.

I really don't want to go on the Zoloft again. I know it helps, and that's what it's made for, but I don't want to have to depend on chemicals just for the energy to get through my day.

I'm tired of being strong.

My course, Product Design Engineering is part of the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Glasgow. Every first year student in the MechEng department gets to go on a teamwork course in somewhere in the North of Scotland. Except PDE students. But the lecturers have to cancel all their classes because not everyone will be able to be there. These "cohort days" start tomorrow.

In short? FIVE DAY WEEKEND! =)


this morning's lectures were a little dull, but for a change we didn't have running from one end of the campus to the other - they changed our first lecture. However, the lecturer forgot, and turned up late.. In the afternoon, I bought a couple of heavy textbooks, and then went into town to see if I could find any others in Waterstone's or Borders - but to no avail. Popped into the place I worked over the summer, and they say they'll have some work for me over the next couple of days. Money is good *g*

Oh, and I managed to bump into someone from my course while walking back to the subway. She waved, but I didn't notice till I'd passed her that it was me she was waving at.. Clever, that....

Woke up this morning, at a sensible hour. I guess the jet lag has gone.

Logged on, grabbed e-mail, instant messages start. Exactly how am I supposed to fix a network problem when I am out of the country? Especially as it's a wiring problem? I know I'm good, but not that good.

Start to read email, and lo, out of the blue is an email from New Riders asking if they could buy me lunch and talk about books. Woah! I have no idea what to make of this at all. But, hey, it's a free lunch. Email also contained one KAK.Worm infected email. Lovely.

Phone goes after lunch, and it's factgirl, so I have someone to visit tomorrow, instead of fliting in and out of the tutorial sessions. Factgirl junior spills Cherrios on floor. factgirl puts mommy voice on. Hehehe.

Microsoft friends turn up at hotel. Much consumption of coffee. Much in jokes. Much geekiness. Happiness reigns.


*sigh* More nodes stolen from web sites getting cooled. Thats annoying. Not even a credit. I am systematically down voting each of these stolen nodes. I've tried /msging the user to no avail.

Today I awoke in a freezing room, to an alarm clock in the shape of a chicken, screaming, "Yeah! Hey! C'mon baby wake up, and come and dance with me!" over and over and over again...I then realized that I had 20 minutes in which to get up, get dressed, eat breakfest, get to school, and get to the practice football field for marching band practice. All throughout the day i lurched from class to class just waiting for the final period.

Then, in 10th period my teacher informed the class that he had just recieved a protoype robotic lawnmower that would mow your lawn for you. I, of course asked to use the remote control and was soon piloting the "robomower" through the halls for the next 10 minutes.

I promptly scurried to my bus after the final bell rang, and slept on the bus ride home. Upon returning home I went to sleep, and then woke up to check my email and check out http://joedean.com/abc.htm, which i will cheer you all up if you're ever feeling low.

Good morning.

10:45 AM

Today was an early morning. Tuesday is my chemistry lab and problem session. I always forget which it is, we have them on alternate weeks. The problem session starts at 8:30 and the lab at 8:00, so inevitably I'm either early for the problem session or late for the lab. Last week, I just plain slept through the lab completely. Woke up at 9:45, looked at the clock, fuck, and went back to sleep. I try not to do that too often.

I think maybe I should get a bed that is less comfortable. It seems my problem is not my alarm, but me. I wake up and realize how comfortable my bed is and then consequently roll over and go back to sleep, I have my own inertia of sorts. A kaniff at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by another force. That force usually tends to be the "realization that it's 9 and I'm still in bed" smacking me upside the head.

11:15 AM

I hate the banking industry. Not for any particular reason. I'm just a little frustrated with my bank this morning. I've been trying to find a good plane fare to go to Ohio and visit my girlfriend. I finally find a excellent deal at US Air, roundtrip between Akron/Canton and Raleigh-Durham for $189. Not bad. So I go to book it, and it won't accept my blasted address. I'm still in school, so my address is a dorm room. I've manage to mangle it to the point that it's not construed as a PO Box, since no one wants to take a PO Box. Instead of using the box number @ NCSU, like I am supposed to use. I use my room number and my hall name, which works well. So I enter in the address and the usair.com page refuses to make my reservation since the address doesn't verify. So I call my bank to try and work something out with them and they tell me that not only does that address not verify, but it's also returned an insufficient funds error.

No. I have $218.03 in my checking account. Technically, I do. But, for some bizarre reason.. my available balance is only $163 and some cents. Why? So the bank is going to tell me how to spend my money now? I think not! I have no balance minimum on my account and have always been able to spend any amount that's listed as my current balance. Grrr.

Now it's lunch time. I shall go console myself with a meal at our school's not bad to mediocre dining hall. Hmph.

12:56 PM
Nap time for yours truly! Need to catch some Z's before chemistry lecture, it always puts me to sleep. Tuesday is a bitch, I have chemistry problem session and then lecture. Enough chemistry to kill a guy. In other news, I decided to nix on the dining hall and hit Chik-Fil-A for lunch, we have one on campus. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Pickles on a chicken sandwich, what genius. I think someone should get a Nobel Prize for that.

2:15 PM
Once again, I had to fight the uphill battle to get out of bed and now I'm late for chemistry! *mad dash to dabney hall*

6:08 PM
Well, that's all my classes for the day. My PSY 200 teacher has an amazing talent, he can take an interesting subject like Psychology and make it boring enough to put you right to sleep. Don't get me wrong, he's a good teacher and I like the class. I just can not stay awake for the life of me. I really like the class, psychology is totally my bag, but it's like a shiny swinging watch on a 20 foot high projector. Ahhh, Simpsons Halloween episodes. Toodles.

7:50 PM
This concludes our broadcast day. Hope you all have a night night. Take it easy.

Today is a day for my brothers.

it is the youngest's 9th birthday. we've never been close, considering i'm over twice his age, and because of my teenage resentment of the attention he got from the parents during those years. he has down's syndrome, which also makes things difficult. we have a hard time communicating, although we both are getting better at it. he can still consistently beat me at bushido blade, though.

happy birthday, matt. you're still my brother, and i still love you.

i spoke to my dad today, and he told me that brian, my other brother (aged 17), is stressing out about college. he never was a very good student, and is getting discouraged by the rejection letters from the 'better' universities. he is considering joining the military instead of going to school. i don't think that he should; if he wants to be in the military, there's ROTC. however, i feel guilty, to an extent. i set a hard path to follow, always being the good student, going to the good school. he's feeling like he needs to live up to me, and failing. i wish that i could do something to change that.

deep thought started a good node, stories about strangers. contribute to it, it will make you feel good.

...Before...After...

1:00 PM -- Homework, and how!

Just got out of Economics. (Well, technically I just got out of economics, just ate lunch, and just got done with a round of old-school Pac-Man) It has taken Chemistry's place as what I consider the most Godawfully boring class in existance. (But at least I understand this) But, no time to lament about it now, I've gotta get home. Time to study for math modelling so I have a chance of passing.

2:48 PM -- FedEx delivers Groundhog Day-in-a-game

There go MY chances of studying... Just got the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Time to see how cracked Nintendo's development crew is THIS time around...

QUOTE OF THE DAY! "Pokemon is just another example of people blindly rushing out to buy things from Japan simply by virtue of the fact that it's from Japan. Now, excuse me, I've gotta run out and pick up Ocarina of Time." -Captain Spam

1:00 PM -- Homework, and how!

Just got out of Economics. Realized I spent the entire night playing Majora's Mask. Today seems vaguely familiar to me, but I can't seem to put my finger on it.

I feel bad for not updating my daylog in a while... i'm not too sure why. Anyhow, I just got back from my boyfriend's house... we had lots of fun. (Tons of making out... whee!) I'm back working on my DVD ripping program. It's coming along nicely. Oh! I got a job offer today... so I'll go to an interview Thursday... i've got a therapy appointment tomorrow... *sigh*... so much to do...

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.