Labs are over rated

Well, I am officially no longer a lab assitant. My last was apparently last Wednessday, though I thought it was Monday. So rather than going home last night at a decent hour, I still had to carpool a friend, so when she got off, we went to Taco Bell and hung out. But now I'll get to be home at a decent hour, which means I may have an opportunity to write some more.

Will was down this weekend. His family, my self, and one of our friends, were at Tampa Internation Airport on Thanksgiving morning, at 1:15 AM. When he got off the plane, he spoke of this weird stuff that falls out of the sky on cold days. He said it was white, and that the northerners had a word for it, snow. I told him he'd been reading way too many sci-fi novels. It was nice to have him back, though. On Friday, the day we were all suppose to hang out, his father drafts him for father and slave, err father and son, time. Even though he no longer lives at his parents home, he got to know the fun of putting up christmass decorations, random repairs, and a score of other things that took him till 5pm to finish. Considering that he can no longer stay up past ten, (not that he's not allowed to, it's that he can't... what with 4am waking up and stuff) we didn't get a lot of time together. Which sucked. I couldn't see him on Saturday, nor did I get the chance to see him off on Sunday, so for four days, I saw a total of 5 hours of my best friend. So ya, I'm not too happy about that.

We had a pretty good thanksgiving dinner.I don't get the opportunity to eat a home made meal too often, so I was happy. But I guess one doesn't get the chance to have home made food when they spend 15 hours away from home. Hopefully I'll be able to eat out less often now.

Anyway, I really don't have too much more to say, so I'll try to post Thursday morning before work.

Cars break

My car wasn't turning too well, had a little too much resistants in the seering wheel, so I took it to the shop and, after a quick diagnostic on the power steering, it will cost about 340 dollars to fix, or in relative terms, one of my paychecks... =(. Add to that gas, insurance, christmass presents, food, ect... so ya, it's not too pretty. Luckily though, the power steering isn't an essitanl thing on a car, and I can problaly survive a month or two with out it, so hopefully, after I pick up christmass presents for everyone, and after I pick up textbooks for my next semester, I'll be able to repair my car. At least, on the plus side, there will probally be a surplus of 360's by the time I do have money to buy one...

I can not wait till tomorrow night.... err Thursday morning. Will will be coming down. He'll definately be spending Thanksgiving with his family, Friday he set aside for his friends (yay!!! Friday!!!), I have no idea what's going to be happening on Saturday, except that my father has 'projects' for me on Saturday...=(. And he leaves at about 10:45 AM Sunday. I wish he had more time, but...

Sorry about no story today. I have 75% of it done, and it's sitting on my computer waiting for me to finish it, but I haven't touched it since last week. Largely because of lack of time, and this has nothing to do with Call of Cthulhu. Nothing at all. But anyway, the story is the next installment of the Feline Fellowship thingy I've been writing. The good thing is, in it you meet Dr. Catopolis. And I don't care what anyone says, Dr. Catopolis is a cool name.

My parents took a trip to Orlando for their anniversery this weekend, leaving myself and my sisters alone for the weekend. For once I didn't have to work on some strage project that, in the hands of some one who knows what their doing, would be called carpentry. Why he drafts me into such things, when I couldn't care less about the whole project, or the room it's in, or just carpentry in general, is beyond me. He doesn't draft my sisters for two reasons. The first is that one is always mysteriously working on the weekends. The other reason is that the other sister had torn her ACL recently, and is still not available to work. Which makes me the only one of the group who does work on it. And heaven forbid I want to do something on my weekends.

Monday will be my last day in the lab. Which means I have today, Wednessday, and Monday left. Then it's no more coming home at eleven, and leaving at six. I might be able to get some sleep, then, or maybe even get other things done (like writing!) Of course, knowing my family, I'll end up working on some stuff until eleven...

One of my favorite bands, Rhapsody, their lead guitarist, Luca Turilli, does some side stuff, and I decided to finally order one of his albumns. With the amount of time it takes the local music store to place in an order, and the fact that they recieve their orders on Thursdays, so they'll be closed when my order is suppose to come in, I won't be getting the albumn for a few weeks =(. But his guitar chords are worth the wait. I have found few guitarist as good as Luca Turilli, amongst them was the old Children of Bodom guitarist (maybe even better...) and this weird russian guitarist. And no, I have not yet found a good metal guitarist in America, yet. Gamma Ray, Iron Maiden, and Stratovarious (at least, I think those bands are American) have good guitarist, but not in the powerish metal wayish thingy.

Life in the tech world is going ok, I guess. Right now, I spend my time setting up computers, which is probably the most boring thing to do in the industry. Outside of that, I do some misc. trouble shooting, general fixes, and general installations. Nothing to exciting. One of my classmates, who's going to get his programing degree, is the lead IT guy at a Sarasota company, and has offered me a job at a 1.50 more an hour. Now, Sarasota is about 20 miles from my home (a fairly long drive! =( ), but that's not the reason why I wouldn't take this job offer. The first is loyalty. I just don't feel right about leaving a company with out working for them for a decent period of time, at least one year's worth, anyways. I would perfer five years worth of work, but that might be viewed more of a job in one's career, and not as job job, so I'll stay with at least one. The second reason why I won't take the job is that I'm happy where I am. Although I don't get paid nearly as much, at my IT job, I like my co-workers (notice IT job, and not Lab...) They're an intresting bunch, and I swear a few of them have too much sugar in the day. The third reason why I wouldn't take the job, and probally the closest to the truth, is that it would just feel akward. I mean, right now I go to class with this person, so we're peers. But if I were to work for him, then technically, he'd be my boss. I know that sounds crazy, but...

I've been slowly getting back into HP Lovecraft's stuff. He is, mayhaps, my favorite author. The more I play Call of Cthulhu, the more I want to reread his work, and read the works of his contempories, who also wrote about the Cthulhu Mythos. I just love the basis for the Mythos. It's man is one of the least improtant things in the universe, and the less we know about its workings, the better, for one day, science will discover something so horrible, that we will either go mad with the information, or we will usher in a new dark age to forget.

Anyway, I have to log...=( probably will post on thenaksgiving...... maybe....

Story Time? Soon...

I have been writing some stuff recently. It's nothing too important, just some more fan fiction for CoH, but the fact is, I've been writing. When I do get it finished, I'll make sure to post that story, and the rest of the Feline Fellowship stories that I haven't posted yet, on to my blog. That way, non-SG members can read what I write too, and hopefully I'll get lots of comments... =)

Besides CoH stuff, I do have a few ideas for other stories, and a paper. The paper would be determing the effects of H.P. Lovecraft's works on modern day culture (no, I don't have to write something like that, but I think it would be fun.) The stories would largely be horror, with one exception. I plan on writing one about some sort of future where mankind has created a human/machine neural interface thingy. I'd try to have it have a similar tone...

I have given my two weeks notice to the lab, leaving my schedule with the IT stuff I do, school work I do, homework, family, friends, and misc. projects. I'm hoping that the time away from the lab can be used writing, either stories or code. Maybe with the extra writing time I can become good enough to actually publish a book... hopefully. Maybe.... please?

One of my friends had her 20th birthday yesterday. Although she asked for no gifts, I did give her something. I had a lot of film that hadn't been developed, and most of it is from when we were still in high school, such things ass Prom, grad night, ect. So anyways, I got the pictures developed, and then I gave her a set of prints. She liked the gift, so... =).

I picked up a G router today. For those who can't read my mind, that's a wireless 802.11G access point, that's compared to the Wireless 802.11B access point we currently have at home. I'm hoping that the increase in speed with result on an increase in my internet download and upload time, but that's probally just crazy talk. If someone doesn't know the difference between B and G, their speeds are 11mbs and 54mbs, respectively. Soon, they'll be releasing 802.11n, which will have a 600mbs throughput!!! 600mbs!!!!! That's really really really fast! Of course, it's probally cost way too much for my paycheck, but it is out there.

Nvidia has done something terrible!! There newest video card is about as powerfull as my pc! =( (ok, maybe that's exagerating it a little...) it has 512 MB of RAM! 512! That's what my computer has! I use to have 1.5 gigs, but then gig card went bad, and I haven't had time to go to Computer's Buyer's Warehouse to replace it (or go to HP.com to figure out the specs on my mother board... hehe.)

Picked up a new game today, Heretic Kingdoms. It wasn't too expensive, for it seemed to be an older game. As in Baldur's Gate 2 graphics. But it seemed intresting, except for one tiny detail. They had a drawing of what the main character looked like, and I doubt they could have leagally had her show more skin... I mean, I understand that the major target of the industry is the hapless teenage male who, outside of internet photos, probally hasn't seen a girl in his life, but does the industry's marketing need to focus soley on that client? I mean, it just escapes me as to how a person in a medeval setting, relying on melee combat would dress in such a fashion, and hope to survive. It furthermore escapes me as to how a programmer expects to attract new people into buying industry products (new being people who normally don't buy from that industry), by doing such things. And before anyone says anything, I realize the hypocrocy of this paragraph. And before anything says something else, I realize that hypocrocy is problaly spelt wrong.

Anyway, I need to be logging, so night!

Reviewing an Author

Well, I had some time to read my two new books, and truthfully, I am some what disappointed. The Asimov book was an excellent book (yes, I finished reading Foundation's Edge) and was well worth my time. The other book, The Web of Arachnos is the disappointment. I'm only at page 40 of the book, but if it wasn't a City of Heroes book, I would have thrown the book away. It's not that it's a bad book, but that it is so much below what I normally read. I am use to Asimov, Dickens, Lovecraft, and other respected authors. But Weinberg falls short of these lofty figures. In fact, this book is probally the first book I've read that I would recommend a Koontz book over, based soley on writing style (no, the book isn't horror.) The author uses metaphors when a few well placed adjectives would have been better, or at least less of a cliche, and when he uses more than one adjective, he has this tendancy to buthcer the meter of his sentance, sending the reader into a labyrinth of choppy sentances (not fragmented, just choppy,) and hard to follow ideas. To be blunt, every fanfiction I have read on City of Heroes (and yes, I've read a few of them) was better written than this book. Ok, it might not be as bad as I say, but I am really disappointed in the book, so I need to complain about it.

That out of the way, I'm thinking about giving my two weeks notice to the computer lab. It's not that I dislike the job, it's just that I don't have the time for it, and that I am tired of always being tired. The way my job schedule is set up there, I close the lab on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and open the lab on Tuesdays Thursdays. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have morning classes (early morning classes, not like 10ish, but 7:40ish,) work, then more classes, and the last thing I want to do is sit in the lab after that, despite the fact that it's a do nothing job. I also live about an hour away from the lab, so not only do I have to close it one night and open it the next morning, but I also have to drive a long distance both ways, greatly cutting into anytime I have for such frivilous things as sleep. On top of that, there is a coworker at the lab that I have a personal dislike towards. It's just his personality that I dislike, but I mean, it just makes working in the lab uncomfortable. There's also no challenge to the job. None. I sit at a little desk, make sure people recieve the help they need, and when no one needs help, I stare at the ceiling. It is one of the most useless jobs I have ever heard of. I rarely learn anything, and I could be paid a lot more than what I make now (in the lab atleast) to do a number of other things. Its one perk, though, is that I could do homework on the job. Could is just one of numerous possibilites, though.

At my main job, I have been assigned the task of updating the company's internal website. Of coursem the problem is that it isn't based upon HTML, but upon sharppoint and frontpage, two things that use HTMLish code, but that the bulk of the things I do for my blog wouldn't work on (for example, the style color tag isn't accepted by microsoft.) Anyway, it should end up well... I hope... please?

Anway, I need to close down the lab, night...

The fourth Civilization

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It's not that I don't think about my blog, in fact, few things couldn't be farther from the truth. It's just that I sit down to a computer, all ready to start typing about my life, pull up my blog, then just.... lose it. What little energy my fingers had to begin typing leaves, and I end up staring at a blank screen. And then the next day comes, and I think about how I didn't post, sit down to a computer, and the whole evil cycle starts over again.

My grandmother isn't doing too well. She was on Chemo, until she got hit with pneumonia. That left her too weak for chemo, so they had to take her off of it. Now, she weighs a total of 95 pounds. My mom is afriad that we might have be going back up to Wisconsin earlier than we believed...

I don't want anything to happen to my grandmother. I want her to still be around to see me graduate from college, or at least long enough to see my sisters graduate from High School. Considering that they're seniors, is that too much to ask for? But like most people, I want her to live for selfish reasons. I want her to live because it would be too painfull on my family for her not to. I want her to live so I can see her and grandpa pull into our driveway again after 2 days of driving. I want her to live so life can be the same as it always was, and I could go to sleep knowing that I had grandparents who loved me. Same thing with my grandfather, except I know he still has a while to go. Although he's 84, he is the healthiest person I know. I, 19 years old, am in worse health than he is. Not a day goes by that a violent cough doesn't seize me, and that's probaly not healthy.

Picked up a few new books since I last wrote. One is Johnathen Strange and Mr. Norrel. So far that book hasn't disappointed me. It's about 18th centuary England, and magic in the country. I also picked up Web of Archanos.Haven't started reading it yet, but I believe NCSoft needed more money, so... Finally, I picked up Foundation's Edge. Written by Asimov, I know it will be an excellent book. If one hasn't read anything by Isac Asimov, and one enjoys Sci-Fi, I suggest one goes down to their local bookstore and purchases either his I-Robot book, or the first book in his Foundation novels. And no, I-Robot is nothing like the crappy movie.

Had to replace my stupid Wireless adapter. I came home one night, and there it was, lying on my fllor , shattered into a million (or two...) pieces. So I replaced it with a 802.11G adaptor (as opposed to the 802.11B one I had), and I plan on replacing our router with a G version as well. Why G? It's about 5 times faster. Hopefully that will help my internet conection.

I got Will's new, government E-Mail address!! =). We've kind of been sending emails back and forth. Haven't given him my blog address yet, and I know he doesn't have time to read it (he barely has time to send one email a week.)

Anyway, I have some math that needs to be finished, along with some new books that need to be read, so... night!