RyanHarne.com

So many things are happening at once. Totally disregarding all of the school work I have due this week and in the future here’s the lowdown of the rest:

On Sunday, 11/10/02, Dr. Murphy passed away. After a long struggle with cancer, he finally left us. He taught Physics I at JF; he was my teacher. His insight and influence into students’ and faculties’ lives was just incredible. I’m truly glad I was able to be under his instruction in science before he died just this past weekend. I can only wonder…

Today at the middle school, someone was killed when a car collided with a bus. I don’t know the logistics of the issue, but some sophomore girl will not be attending any more classes because of this absolute tragedy. I never knew the girl, never knew her name until this afternoon, but somehow I feel "touched" in a way. I’m trying to explain this feeling I’m having, so be patient with my lack of fluency. It’s so strange, I guess, because just today during school I was wondering about what it would be like if I was killed at school; would people remember me more because I was simply killed at the school, or would my influence in peoples’ lives go far beyond just the superficial feeling of solemnity? Tonight has been quite the revelation for me and I hope it continues. My life here on earth is not one of accident, I serve a purpose and I must be humble and selfless enough to accept it and follow it. I’ve never appreciated hypocrisy, but now I realize if I ever wanted to rid the world of evil I should have begun in my own life. I can only imagine…

Also, thanks to all the veterans in the United States Armed Forces. Happy *belated* Veteran’s Day. Your service is truly appreciated; thanks for your protection and sacrifice.

Please forgive me for not updating Friday as I had expected. After arriving home from school, I was quickly whisked away for the weekend; I was expecting some layover time to update, but that didn’t happen. Anyway, so about my weekend:

First, let it be known that school just totally is kicking my tail. Work is coming at me from every angle and I’m spending the largest portion of my weeknights ever with homework. College sounds so close.

Ok, the weekend. We left Friday heading for some place near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Warning: Pigeon Forge is the biggest tourist trap ever created to steal away your money and time. Stores such as these line the streets with lights blinking and cash registers cha-ching-ing: Hole-In-One Driving Range; Discount Drugs (I know what they mean, but some reason I just thought it was funny); Sexy Stuff (their sign was as bold as fonts get); Alf’s (advertising "Good Food, Cold Beer"); and finally, my favorite, The World Famous Chef Jock’s Tastebuds Cafe. The town is entirely made up of novelty and nostalgia, aka not-my-type-of-town. Avoid it at all costs.

So anyways, we make it to the cabins where we reunite with some of our relatives that we don’t see often because they are on the other side of my grandparents family (I believe it was like my grandmother’s family who live around the Tennessee area compared to my grandfather’s family who all live in Mary-Land). Anyways, so that was nice and more people kept arriving. The cabins in this area are all just beautiful (not to mention the view) and the location is nice. Each cabin is precariously (I don’t care if it’s spelled correctly, as long as you understand what I mean) positioned on this mountain and the trip to get to them is crazy-wild. The hills reach angles easily of 60+ degrees. Insane. Most vehicles don’t make it up, so many people got their 4×4’s out for the trip.

That night was quick because most people got there around 10:30ish. I spent the late night talking philosophy with some of my distant counsins. Very cool people.

The next morning started off with a great breakfast. The rest of the day, for me, was spent doing homework, playing pool, eating, and watching the Tech-Syracuse game. I never finished my homework, got horrible blisters from playing so much pool, ate too much junkfood, and didn’t respond well to Tech’s horrible defense (it’s not like I care about sports, but when it comes to college football and a team that I will probably be supporting in college, well, I can make an exception). Saturday was good. Saturday night was spent playing Catch Phrase with the same cousins, again, more goodtimes. Then we talked about stupid stuff and random things about our past. Someone noticed a creature on the floor and said it was a "scorpion." Well, she ended up being correct. We quickly disposed of the little intruder and continued out conversations.

Sunday morning was nice. Quick breakfast and good-byes and we were on our way. After an (in my opinion) unfortunate stop at one of the local tourist traps (The Incredible Christmas Store, or more likely to referred, by me, to as "the biggest ungodly waste of real estate") we headed on our way back to the L-Burg area.

And then I ran over to THP just in time and got back home only to be greeted with things to unpack, homework to finish, and a site to update because I didn’t have the time on Friday. And I’m really tired. Goodnight Stars.

I hope everyone of legal voting status got off their lazy tail and voted today. It’s definitely better for normal (even sometimes lazy) people to vote instead of allowing those radical extremists on both sides of the spectrum to run things.

With my recent Sony renouncement, I will take a twist on things and now celebrate. The NX70V Clie is released this week featuring Palm 5.0 OS! A pure (too expensive) ingenius design for the PDA culture; a nice buy for those who don’t mind the Everest-level price.

My day was totally thrown into major hilarity after I visited HomeStarRunner.com. Major thanks to Jeremiah for the link. This site combines some of the most confusing themes with just completely funny sayings and videos. I suggest the Email section with Strong Bad.

With an entire day of no-school, I spent much of it doing homework. In my College English journal (weekly) I wrote a section on preparations for college. Lately I’ve realized how much things will change after I’ve graduated and moved on from L-Burg. Statistics say I will only see 5% of my high school graduating class after graduation day. It’s going to be difficult having to leave behind so many great friendships. There’s going to be a huge list of people I will miss beyond incredibly.

November already?! I can remember mid-March when I couldn’t imagine already being in my senior year. Time flies. How do I know this? Because I had a great realization today that we have owned our new tv for over a year when it still seems like we were gawking over its new-ness. That was random. But still productive.

Sony Tech Support BITES!!! They provided NO help to my receiver problem and only gave me the option of buying the manual for it (which I already have) to read up on what this problem is (and the manual says nothing about this issue). I once again renounce Sony’s products and inferior computers.

Today was nice. Work, New Life, BestBuy. Got the Spiderman DVD at BestBuy; the extras look pretty cool, I’ll watch them soon.

A small group of JF and BRCC people had a quaint surprise birthday party for Daniel tonight. Beth put it all together and we had a good time. Afterwards we went to Movies 10 to see Men In Black II. It’s the quality I expected from seeing the first one. Although this one is definitely funnier. 5.6 out of 10 for the movie. 10 out of 10 for the party!! Happy *early* B-Day Dan!!!