It's the end of the month already?

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well...

I can't believe it's the end of the month already. I'm usually pretty good about keeping up on that kind of stuff - cause all of my bills are due at the beginning of the month. I'm glad I caught it now or else I'd get beat with penalties.

I was telling Brizzai that school is still getting to me. I don't know if I can take this for 2 years. I am still not able to strike that delicate balance. I always feel like I have to do something. Read, research, group work, study, blah. I joked that I was probably going to be grouchy for the next two years.

One thing though, is that I have to give the nod to those that are working full time, going to school and raising a family. That is freakin' amazing. I bow down to to you. I should quit my bitching, I know.

But I haven't played my PS2 what seems like an eternity. I'm dying here.

At work today we had a definite Friday moment. But it was only Thursday :) It's been that kind of week, trust me.

You know what I mean. The kind of behaviour that only happens on Fridays. Everyone's a little loosened up, ready for the weekend, in their jeans day gear. We're a little bit goofier, a little bit more slap happy.

Towards the end of the day we were really losing it.

I wonder what tomorrow will hold...

-Kirk

P.S. Today I was jamming to some Marvin Gaye and Al Green. Such good music. Love those guys. You should too.

Golfball sized truffles.

Hi all,

Hope all's well.

Just one quick thing of note today - I have a truckload of reading to do before tomorrow. And I have about 2.5 hours to do it. Blah.

Anyway, a vendor sent us a basket of goodies however long ago (I'm guessing during the holidays) and there was this nifty long box that was pretty heavy and had truffles in it. I figure they'd be layered in the box or something, so I thought I'd try one. When I took it out, it was seriously golf ball sized. It wasn't just a truffle - It was a meal. (Calories and fat wise). It was pretty good though :)

-Kirk

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

I've been spoiled.

Today I regressed quite a few years to the time when I was in grade school. From the threatening weather reports I heard and by how the weather looked outside, I was secretly crossing my fingers that we would have a snow day. Brizzai was laughing at my wishing.

Ever since we had that one snow day 2 weeks ago, I've been secretly wishing for one whenever it gets bad outside. Just snow heavily on Mondays and Wednesdays please.

I remember our school district would rarely cancel school. I was always sad when I'd turn on the TV, and the newspeople would list off what seemed like all of the school districts but mine. Nowadays kids have it so easy. Heh.

I was kind of dreading class today because I had a presentation all prepared and ready to go, but I didn't feel like I was totally prepared to give it. But I wanted to get it out of the way so I wouldn't have to worry about the thing.

I ended up giving my presentation and I think it went ok. The professor was trying to let us out early so he just let 3 people go today. I had rehearsed the speech in my mind a few times - Besides feeling my heart beat a billion times a minute, I would have exploded if I had to wait a week to give my presentation. It would have been another thing hanging over my head that I really didn't want.

Luckily I didn't explode and now I'm ok :)

-Kirk

Hi all,

Why do some restaurants feel that it's necessary to turn the lights down so low? Is it really for ambiance? Are they trying to cut down on the electric bill? I'm sure there's some sort of functional reason or something that only restauranteurs would know. I just don't get it.

Anyway, I took my mom to dinner at Papa Vino's. The food was great. I don't know how they make their shrimp so tasty. Alas, cool points are taken away because of the darkness factor. I like to see what I'm eating. I like to see the people around me too.

My stomach still belongs to Bravo!

After dinner, we did some light shopping. I was able to pick up a new shirt and jeans. The Gap was good to me today.

Still haven't done any homework. Tomorrow's not going to be fun.

-Kirk

Hi all,

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Yesterday I had a lunch that was probably one of the worst in a long time. I don't mean it wa bad tasting. It was far from that. But it was bad for me. and I mean bad. I don't mean the Michael Jackson bad either.

Here's what it consisted of:
2 fried "fish" pieces
Clam strips
Potato wedges
an estimated 16 oz. cola product

I was bummin at my 1:00 meeting.

I haven't eaten like that in a while. Why am I sharing, you might ask? Sometimes you forget how good clam strips are. Mmmm mmm!

Those little fried pieces of "clam" are so tasty.

Actually, if it were fake clam wouldn't it be Klam?

So, in my ongoing love for school, this is what I have to get done by this weekend:

- Technical briefing (5 to 7 min presentation) on the topic of my choice.
- Literature review of the group project (data mining and how it affect security and privacy
- Reading for class

I was thinking about just doing the technical briefing on data mining :)

That would probably be the most efficient use of my time. Even though I took a nap for 2 hours today. Hopefully the reserach powers that be will be smiling upon me today (and tomorrow).

One thing that I've found out that's bad about burning your own audio CDs - I start to have multiple copies of stuff. I went through the stack of CDs next to the radio at the country home and I found that I've got at least 3 copies of a CD that I keep on thinking that I've lost. I know that one is bad, but I haven't had the chance to listen to all of them. Oh well, I guess I can have one copy for the car, and each of the homes?

-Kirk

A friend of mine was talking about how she read and really liked a poem by Langston Hughes. It's called My People.

I had heard the name before, but hadn't read any of his work

After doing a quick search on him, I found this poem that I liked:

-----------------

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

------------------------

Hope you liked it too.

-Kirk

Happy Chinese New Year!

Hi everyone,

Hope you're doing well.

The slacking continues...

This shortened week has been brutal. I feel like I'm just getting my ass kicked with stuff to do at work. The scary thing is that stuff just keeps piling up. Plus its going to be review time soon, so that's also kind of gnawing a little as well.

Let's see - I'm pretty excited that tomorrow's Friday already. I've been busting my arse with schoolwork during the beginning of the week, so this is the first day that I haven't done schoolwork. I was tempted to do some research, but I didn't...

So Monday's class was fine. No big thang. Tuesday night, I worked on a presentation for my Wednesday night class. Last week was a snow day, so I just figured that the whole syllabus would be pushed back a week. I just guessed that would be a safe assumption, right?

Nope.

The snow day last week was supposed to be mostly lecture and was an opportunity for people that wanted to go early and give a presentation (to get it out of the way).

I did my due diligence and tried to crank out my presentation on Tuesday night, but around nidnight thirty, I threw in the towel, shut off the laptop and went to bed. I was too tired to continue. I figured I could just go with everyone else the week after, right?

I ended up having a sweaty moment when the professor started the class by saying that we had to cover some administrative shite (not his exact words, but you get the idea) and then we'd start on the presentations.

Uhhh. Presentations?

Sheeeat.

I'm nerdy so I always bring my laptop to class - I figure it's easier for me to take notes (that I usually never go back to read). It saved me.

During the initial presentations, I furiously worked on my own presentation.

And you know what? I gave it. Without notes. I was nervous and my heart was racing about a hundred miles an hour (at first), but about half way through, I was fine. Kinda weird.

I figured the presentation was 5% of my grade, so I didn't have too much to lose. Plus, I had never hooked up my laptop to a projector before. I was a lucky man.

So yesterday was a milestone because I gave a presentation without fully writing it out. I just talked through it using my slides and no speaking notes.

I've never really done that before. So that was kind of nifty. Im not saying that I had mad skillz and cranked out a flawless presentation. It was far from it. But it wasn't terrible either :)

I do see the value of preparation though. Heh. Hopefully I will not have to do that again.

It turned out that I could have waited until next week to give my presentation. We ran out of enough time for everyone to go. But now I don't have to :) I just have a shiteload of reading to do now.

Plus my presentation for the Monday class. Ugh. Will it ever end?

Ahh well, enough griping...

-Kirk

3 words.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm a big fan of sporty cars with manual transmissions. Unless sometime in the future I'm rolling with some crizzazy luxo cruiser sedan, I'll probably try to go with a manual transmission every time.

But, 3 magic words in a Michigan winter would make me change my mind in an instant:

Remote car starter.

As I sat in my car, shivering as I waited for the supafly ride to kind of warm up, I was green with envy at the car two down from me. It had been running, with nobody inside.

I bet you it was really toasty in there.

I'm sure the experience in the other car was complete with a Frank Sinatra CD playing in the background too.

Grrrrr.

In my car, I had the Sinatra CD playing, but it was freakin' cold.

I had remote car starter envy today. I had it bad. I'm not proud of it.

-Kirk

P.S. I know, I know, I can probably get a remote car starter on the supaflyride too, but it's much harder to install on a manual transmission - In fact, it's usually discouraged.

Hi all,

Hope everyone had a great Martin Luther King Jr. day.

Just got back from class a bit ago. It was fairly painless. I am going to have to give a few presentations here and there though. Not looking forward to that. Well hopefully after these classes I'll be better at it. Today I was getting nervous just watching the first few people present.

We had to come up with some ideas for a group project for today's class. And I'd spent the greater part of the day looking through IT type online journals to get some ideas. I decided on one and oddly enough, it was picked as a group topic. Imagine that.

First day back at work tomorrow. Hopefully the shorter week should go quickly :)

-Kirk

It's freakin cold.

Hi all,

How's it going?

the long weekend is coming to an end in a few hours. It'll end at precisely 6:00 p.m. when my class starts up again. (sigh). It's ok though, it's been a pretty good weekend. Geneman was visting this weekend from NY so we hung out late every night. I can no longer stay up past 1:00 a.m. or so anymore, so anytime after that I am just about ready to fall over.

So let's see, what did we do? Of course I had to take Geneman to Costco ;)

Despite the snow that was falling most of Saturday, we were able to do some light shopping, visit with people, and get some good food.

Of course all of my visits with people somehow always involve Starbucks.

We did some visiting on Sunday night as well.

Both nights we were out until at least 2 a.m. I feel ok now, but I know I'll be paying for it the rest of the week :)

Today we went to this quaint little restaurant kind of by the city home. I had gotten an advertisement in the mail so we thought we'd check it out. Very tasty. I love good places to eat that aren't big corporate chains :) It just adds a special specialness I guess.

I gotta go - I'll write more later.

=Kirk

Waiting for Geneman.

Hi all,

Hope you're all doing well.

Just chillin, doing a little surfing, waiting for the Geneman to show up. He should be landing any minute now. Probbaly be another hour before he shows up at the house.

The snow finally stopped on Wed but the subdivision didn't get cleared until this morning. Of course, I was plowed in, so I had to clear out a path so the supaflyride could get out. I was lazy though, and I didn't clear out the whole width of the driveway. Just enough to get a car though. How's that for lazy ;) If I had a sport ute, I'd have just driven over the mounds of snow.

It's time to do the annual review at the not so new anymore gig. Kind of a weird feeling I guess. You have to do all this pre-work self evaluation stuff that I think is just weird. You have to go back and list all the shite that you've done in the past year, and make sure you word it correctly, blah blah blah. All administrative stuff. Which I love. Not.

At the dot com job, I had one review. That was it. That wasn't that great, but since we were always in flux after the stuff started going downhill, I guess I should be glad that I at least got one :) So, having more regular ones would be nicer, I think. I'll let you know if I ever get the self eval done and all of that crap.

For the first time in ages, I cleaned / filed away some of the deskop icons on the laptop. I've had these icons on m y deskop for at least 6 months. I was embarassed of booting up my maching and having the deskop icons take up 3/4 of my desktop.

Now I can see that crazy XP landscape scene again. Ahhh... (It's called "bliss" for all of you techies) :)

Today my mom bought her tickets for the trip to the homeland. I kinda feel like I should go sometime too.

-Kirk

Son of a...

The snow is still coming down like crazy. And it looks like we haven't shoveled at all...

-Kirk

Replicate and go home...

Hey all,

Hope you're doing well.

The 4 beautiful and wonderful words that every Lotus Notes user wants to hear. Replicate and go home. It almost brings a tear to my eye to type it again.

Replicate and go home. :)

Hehehe.

Brizzai's boss came by and gave us the good news around 2:30 and we couldn't stop smiling afterwards.

As an added bonus, evening classes have been cancelled. Not sure when I'm going to have to make it up, but hey, it's all good.

It has been snowing like a mofo all day. It took me a good while to fully clear off my car. When I was done with the front window, it would get all snowed on when I would clear off the back window. And vice versa.

As some of you may know, I got new tires last year. The supaflyride is now riding on Dunlop SP Sport A2s. The mix of the new tires and the supposedly good snow traction is not too bad. It's a definite improvement from when I didn't have the new tires, that's for sure. I didn't get tire slippage unless I wanted it to :) Of course, the dry tracion is excellent, as to be expected, just like my old D60 A2s that I used to ride on.

I was going to come home a little early today anyway, cause I wanted to shovel while it was still light outside. My mom and I were shoveling/snowthrowing snow at the house in the country - as fast as we could clear the snow, more snow fell. Nuttiness. I'll have to go out again later :(

But hey, I don't have school tonite so it's all good...

I've got my sporty spice fleece pants on and I've got Frank Sinatra playing in the background. Love it.

-Kirk

Woo hoo! The follow-up album release by Norah Jones is coming! It's called Feels Like Home. February 10th is the day - it's on my calendar :)

It's going to be hard to follow up the first album, but I have faith in Norah's skillz.

-Kirk

What is it about this lady's milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard?

-Kirk

Some things just never change...

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

At least my car was clean for 2 days :) It rained / snowed today.

Last night I was having mega 2nd thoughts about the whole going back to school thing. Last night, around 8 ish, I'm doing the reading assignment for tonight's class, right? I look on the syllabus and find out that I had an assignment due. Today. So, I had to read about 10 chapters, along with write this proposal thing. I was kind of freaking out.

For a few reasons - One:
I could have sworn the professor never uttered a word about this proposal thing that was due. I know that I have a tendency to doze off in class once in a while, but I'm trying to be good so I've been working very hard to stay awake. I may have started daydreaming about the lady that sits in the back, but that's it. Honest. Otherwise, I stay attentive the entire time.

Two:
I was hoping to turn over a new leaf in my academic career and get my shit together this time. At least for this degree ;)

I ended up finishing up my proposal by midnight and shipping it off. I kinda sorta finished my reading assignment during lunch and dinner :) Thanks to Markola for help on the topic and Brizzai for letting me out of the cage early today so I could go home. Brizzai could tell that I was feeling troubled today, so he felt sorry for me :)

It turns out that I was right - The proposal wasn't due. Blah. But I guess it's one less thing that I have to do for next week :)

So I'm going to work on getting my stuff done earlier now. I have to do my stuff for next class session early this week, cause Geneman is coming to visit this weekend :) Not quite sure what we'll be doing quite yet, but I'm sure we'll have a good time... We usually find something to do. I'm sure some NFS Underground will be involved.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

How's it going? Hope all is well.

I got the supaflyride washed today - and it looks good :) I get totally jealous of people that are driving around with a clean car, in a sea of salt covered vehicles. No more salty film for me (at least for now). Only bummer is that stuff gets frozen together.

Speaking of frozen together, it's nutty cold outside. I'm outside for a few minutes without my gloves and my hands just start to become numb. I long for spring :) Only thing is that it's going to be a while before it comes... I guess I will have to enjoy the winter while it's here...

So today my mom and I went to a (what I'd call) a "traditional" chinese restaurant. It's been a while since I've been to one. You know what I'm talking about - burgundy/red carpeting, brown booths, all dark and very dimly lit. It was so dark inside I felt like I was there during a power outage or something. I wanted to ask our server to turn up the lights :)

Anyway, nothing special on the eats. I wasn't impressed, nor was I turned off by the food. Will I go back? Probably not.

This evening though, we had sushi. Now that was excellent. Always good, never disappointing.

-Kirk

Size does matter.

Hi all,

Hope all's well.

I can't believe it's Thursday already. During the past few years, I've just taken for granted the crazy huge vacations I've had around Christmas and New Year's. The holidays just seem to have sped by this year at light speed. Next year if I have vacation left, I think I'll probably take it during the major holidays like everyone else :)

I had the first class of my 2nd course yesterday. This time, I was prepared for the class. I did my reading on Tuesday night, and tried to participate in some of the discussions. The instructor grades on participation, so I can't just skate along as much ;) The instructor seems to be a little bit more laid back, so we'll see how things go. As an added bonus, he let us out early so I was able to do some fun stuff last night.

Of course I played NFS Undergroud online- I know, I know, I'm becoming a commercial for the game - but it's so fun though :)

I think the best part of the game is not the gameplay but the fact that my brother now listens to that Lil Jon & East Side Boys track, Get Low. Heh.

So at work, we've gotten new paper towel dispensers. I guess facilities thinks we must be going through / wasting too much paper towelage, so they put in these new units that only give you one square of paper towel per pull. Which is fine - if you have kid sized hands. I don't have gorilla sized hands either - And you know what they say about dudes who have gorilla hands - they're really hairy.

Seriously though - if I use one square, my hands are still damp when I leave the restroom. If I use two, then I feel like I waste the 2nd sheet because I don't use it all the way. So I guess I feel kind of guilty?

I know most people are saying "Who cares?" but the closeted environmentalist in me says that I ahouls only use one sheet.

Take note, paper towel dispenser designer people. ;)

It has been colder than a mofo outside. Let me tell you. The people on the local news tells me that being outside for less than 20 mins without gloves on will give me frost bite. Is that like freezer burn but with people? :)

It's been so cold that the wind chill cuts through the fleece gloves. Brrr.

I can't believe it's jeans Friday tomorrow. Sweet.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

Just a few quick notes - I'm really really tired today.

I did get my burrito. The place that I originally went to was closed (dissed), but my backup joint was there. So good. I loved every minute of it. Baja Fresh rocks. They just need to hook you up with bigger take out containers for the pico de gallo. I had half of a Burrito Ultimo and half of a Burrito Mexicano. Salsa verde rocks too.

It makes me hungry just thinking about it again ;)

What else...

Monday was the first day of school. I was a tad late to class, but my last name (being at the end of the alphabet) saved my arse.

I've been to a big school, now I'm doing the small school thing. It's kind of a neat compare and contrast exercise for me. I loved my experience at Michigan, but I kind of like the small college feel as well. We'll see - I kind of liked blending into the background though :)

Wednesday is my next class. I had to do some reading for it, so I should be ready. It's kind of cool to read a book and be able to relate to it from personal experiences instead of just imagining what it would be like.

I also think I'm getting old and crusty too. The thing that I feared the most...

I haven't played NFS Underground since Sunday. On Monday during class, I was picturing in my head the drift course and how I'd navigate through it... I'm glad I only have class 2 days a week :)

The past couple of days at work have been kind of weird. I feel like I've been busy (with minimal slacking off), but I don't feel like I've really accomplished much.

-Kirk

I feel like I could use a burrito.

Hi all,

It's Sunday Sunday Sunday!

I'm off to the city home, just just a few notes before I go...

I think NFS Underground has subliminal messaging - You know, like a one frame flash of a certain product. I was playing online with my brother, and all of a sudden, I felt hungry and was craving a burrito. Nuttiness. I'm rarely hungry at night now.

You know what I'm going to have for dinner tonite though ;)

I exercised for the first time in over a month last night. It was difficult. I was getting tired from walking on my normal "wind down" speed. Part of the new year goal was to get on the exercise regimen again. It'll probably be a little bit more difficult this time though, with school and whatnot.

-Kirk

Hi all,

Hope you're doing groovily this weekend.

I am addicted to the Need for Speed Underground madness. My brother and I were up till 3 in the morning playing online. I have flashbacks of when I used to play the original Gran Turismo on the Playstation (now PSOne) in grad school. When I slept, I used to dream that I was driving in the game. Yes, it was that bad. Plus, my thumb hurts in the exact same way...

Ahh, memories.

I went through the same thing with Gran Turismo 3. I can't wait until the 4th one comes out. One day...

So I waited until this weekend to send a package off that I was supposed to send off a little bit ago. I figured I wouldn't be able to get out during my lunch time to do it, so I waited until (what I thought) the holiday traffic would slow down to go.

Not so much.

I know that there's normal weekend post office traffic, but today was crizzazy.

I think there's something about the post office that gives off bad vibes or something. Maybe it's just all the negative energy that people have when they have to wait in line so long. Not sure.

I subconsciously felt the pinch a little when I held the door for someone on my way out and she didn't acknowledge me by saying thanks or anything. I hold the door out of habit, but she had lots of stuff in her hands too. Needless to say, I had some choice words for her (with my internal monologue). Even though that is one of my top pet peeves, I think being in the post office magnified the effect a little. Grrr.

Come on now, I'm sure you have your own pet peeves - Saying "thank you" doesn't really cost anything. Just uses a little internal energy and some muscle action, but come on, isn't it worth it? ;)

Oh well.

I start school on Monday. Should be interesting. Haven't been in academia for a about 3.5 years years. I hope I can stay awake :)

-Kirk

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone!

Don't be alarmed. You are in the right place :)

I figured I'd have a new look for the new year.

-Kirk