RyanHarne.com

I learn something new every day. Earlier this week I accidentally discovered something (well actually, it manifested itself to me) while working at Torgerson for an EF project. Both of our laptops were on and we were typing and doing research about civil engineering when something popped up on both of our screens. It said that the computer next to me was in range and vise versa for the other laptop. After some time we realized it was our infrared that was triggering this file sharing feature. I had no clue infrared could be used for this purpose, I assumed it was solely for peripherals and such. So for the past few days I have used infrared to share files with several people. Isn’t it great when stupid random things happen? No, I’m just a dork.

The trailer for The Return Of The King is now out. Looking snazzy; enthralling to be sure. I will definitely be checking that out either opening weekend or immediately following. Hopefully this will finish off the trilogy as well as Return Of The Jedi finished off the Star Wars initial trilogy, in my most humble opinion.

My hall has been crazy lately. That’s a good thing. It’s nice to have a lively atmosphere to live in, especially one full of carefully placed stupidity to produce maximum humor. Yeah already this engineering thing is getting to me.

Site design by Thurs.

Much to update on, but little energy to do so with. My sickness has further invaded my body leaving me one degree more tired and worn out. And my nose runs. Eww.

First! Let the world know the magnificence of Charlie who emailed me saying that he had surpassed my great and majestic score of 1629 at Trogdor. He made it to level 20 and hoarded up 1775 well-deserved points, and he also correctly relayed what happens after level 15 (or more correctly, level 16). And as I had blogged earlier, I promised to praise whoever can beat my score. Only one made it past my greatness to achieve the immortal status of ‘better than me.’ His name is…Charlie.

So yeah, I had my EF seminar Friday afternoon. I payed attention. The guy was speaking on various power sources instead of simply coal and fossil fuels. I agree with his attitudes toward that realm, but he was so incredibly staunch about his beliefs and he shot down every question of curiosity about the total acceptance and implementation of solar and wind power. That was cruel. And he was very much anti-American government, and heavily criticized the current administrative tactics against our depleting resources. Arg. Oh well. At least it ended.

Then Friday night was APEX. I think the band did well. My guitar-playing was average, still must remember how to play electric. But I had fun, was fun. Next month will be better.

Adam, roommate, disappeared Friday night and came back Saturday morning-ish for the game. He brought back the yearbook from our high school. So awesome! Memory lane was around my flat for the afternoon. And I’m in the yearbook more than once! Even a pic with my Clie. And apparently Cate took a picture of me when we were sailing our AP Calc geo-kites; but I wasn’t flying the kite, I was tripping because I hit a hole in the ground. How sweet of her Anyways, I enjoyed the book, and all weekend I was brought back to senior good times.

Saturday night, Abigail, Maggie, and I went to the gym for some working outs. We all basically did abdominal and running exercises. In the present, my abs hurt; good thing. Back to the past. So then we got back to PY and made cookies and watched The Princess Bride while Abigail and Maggie took care of their laundry. ::side note, I had no clue the movie was made in ‘87 ! shocking to me, looks more like ‘92 or ‘93:: So that was good times. Especially regaining the calories we just burnt at the gym. Yeah, depressing.

So I’ve been doing homework all weekend. I mean today. Hmm. I am done though. Took fooorever. Especially since graphing2 had to be redone after I found out that I made my coordinates incorrectly. Hmm. Now I think I got chocolate stuck on my keyboard. Merita is too good.

The new design will be up this week, and hopefully replaced even faster.

Wednesday was the last day of the Expo. I talked to some people from the CIA for a while regarding internships and co-ops. Sounds very fascinating but I’d way more so enjoy something in acoustics wherever I can get it, if that’s even a remote possibility. Plus, when we were leaving, there was a guy demonstrating the amazing abilities of the Segway to a crowd of peoples. ::Love:: It was my first sighting of the most incredible machine. Anyways, it was a good Expo.

Then of course I got sick, and I still don’t feel too hot. I delayed my workout at McComas this morning until I felt strong enough to lift myself out of my chair. But the hour of rest was well-needed before an extended workout of various exercises that I now understand the use of (thanks to the intelligence of Keith). Thanks Keith.

Naturally, with the horizoning EF test the campus became somewhat silent this afternoon and early evening. I definitely have been reviewing for this for some time, so all I basically was looking over was numbers we had to know and formulas I hadn’t fully memorized. Then the test. It was evil. I bet the profs just enjoy failing, the average, 66.667% of the students. Even if I didn’t do very well, I’ll still keep it up. I’m moreso positive that I want to pursue a career in engineering rather than most other things. Of course, afterwards was a time of sympathy ice cream at Deets with Abigail, who also took the exam and had the same bad taste following, not from the ice cream but from the test. The ice cream was ooook.

Tomorrow night is APEX at Room 217. And I get to play! Woot! Looking forward to this. I suppose I should practice more, and I guess since the test is out of the way that I do have some free time to spend (not waste).

Last night certainly was thrilling. I left my room when I heard mass amounts of voices in the hall and was welcomed with a laser pointer being directed to me. So I grabbed mine and we started a Star Wars of sorts, only with harmless 4.9mW lasers. And then some other crazy, risque things occurred, but I won’t mention those.

But before that I went to my APEX band practice thing time. Fabulooos. I’m learning to play my electric again, I even threw in some minor solo in one of the songs because #1) there was this moment where nothing else was happening and #2) because I wanted to see if I remembered how to play stuff like that. Overall I thinking that this is a fairly good band. Although, I still would prefers the days of JAVA (check my old old blogs for this one kids) over this new band. Regardless, I’ll have fun.

Now, apparently it’s the first day of fall. Interesting.

I went to the first day of the Engineering Expo today with Abigail. Was great. I talked to several people from random companies and got a few free things, but I was hoping for more Anyways, I talked to my current employer’s booth, Framatome ANP, and the guy knows my dad so that was kind of neatO. Yeah, then I had to leave because of a class pending. I’ll check it out again tomorrow.

Hit another snag in the new design work. I’m going to officially set a launch date for it now because, otherwise it will be perpetually pushed back. 10/2/03.

I want to get some frisbee going. Frisbee going sounds good right about now. Plus it’s one amazing autumnal day.

This has most definitely been a long weekend. I finish it off with an update and some computer issues ::sigh…waiting until I get my PowerBook:: Also I should possibly think about some sleep tonight; so far my weekend total has not hit double digits, not good for me.

While over at Abigail’s at some point this weekend I was playing the Trogdor Burnination game. And due to some strange alignment of the planets and galaxies I got to Level 17 with 1629 points before my Trogdor got sworded to death. If anyone ever happens to beat that and they email me with their score and tell me what happens after Level 15 then I will mention them in a blog. Here’s your chance to prove you have a knack for wasting time.

Also another random game I came across tonight. Curveball. It’s Pong on steroids, and I love it. Just like every other web-based game it is addictice and a waste of life, but this one is very…well…no…this one still basically just sucks the soul out of you.

Perhaps I’m in an awkward mood where I blog about totally unrelated topics and the like, but I discovered something incredible this weekend. I was doing some EF work in Abigail’s room, because we both have the same class and because her suite has A/C, and I heard this familiar popping sound. At first I thought my computer hiccuped and naturally produced a reprocusion but then I heard it again. This time I recognized it as the sound that Apple computers make when you turn the volume up or down. But I couldn’t locate it. So it happened again and I realized it was Abigail. Apparently she was opening and shutting the cap to a highlighter and it created the exact nuance of audio that Apple throws in whenever you increase or decrease volume. I thought this was very cool and strange. Oh well. It was so important to me that I decided to blog about it.

Adam already linked this, but I thought I’d just spread the word as well because I find this hysterical. And to make it up to Adam for sneaky linking from something (well even he didn’t find it) he found, I will link him twice.

So the Scrabble fury continued. Saturday night Abigail and I contorted out minds to produce the wildest and best game of Scrabble ever. I learned several words thanks to that game. My best Scrabble experience of my life. And I won 208 to 182. ::gloats!:: But yeah, that was some great times.

Tomorrow is a sociology test and then work after the other work. And I just realized that this blog has no correct chronological order. Amazing.

If I were to be fully correct in my dating of this blog I was mention that it is 3am Saturday morning, but, to me, it is still Friday night. And I’m typing a blog after a long day of events.

First, let me recap Thursday. I went to the VT/A&M game. So awesome. I probably wouldn’t have gone if the weather had been clear skies; the hurricane-esque storm really appealed to me, so I went. Had a great time too. Great game, good times. I stayed from a half hour before kickoff to the very last second of the last quarter, I was impressed with myself. Anyways, so yeah, I went back to my room completely soaked and freezing with a couple worth-while shots of the stadium and such that I will some day post. Yeah.

Today, um…yesterday, I woke up once again for my 8AM Chem class. My prof said he was giving a quiz to make people show up. He didn’t give a quiz. I wish I hadn’t shown up. The material we covered…yesterday..morning was so basic that the notes explained it better than he did. Oh well.

Then I walked downtown with Abigail, once again, and we Wachovia-ed and Bollo-ed. Money and coffee. Then we dinnered at Soulvaki’s, a most amazing Greek submarine restaurant…sooo good. On the way to dinner, I noticed a jumbo-jet (737 or 747) in the air. And you could see the contrails coming off of it perfectly. The sky was so incredibly clear that you, well I, could see every minute detail of that jet and watch as the water vapor formed in mass quantities following it. A first in my lifetime to watch that from the ground. Amazing. So yeah. Good times.

Then we watched Fight Club and O Brother, Where Art Thou? I had heard so many compliments about Fight Club and was truly anticipating getting to watch it for my first time. Getting to the point, I was really not impressed. It is solely just a combination of A Beautiful Mind and Memento. Seriously, it has no steam and no momentum and just kind of dies. Of course it has Brad Pitt and plenty of fighting action but that’s more/less it. I’d have a hard time giving this one thumb up. But O Brother really made up for the dissatisfaction I received from Fight Club. Anyways, that was an interesting movie combo.

Then we had good conversation and a challenging game of Scrabble. My best word was ‘celtiq’ meaning ‘of or related to Celtic traditions or origins.’ Yeah and so basically, now I’m really tired and have plenty to do tomorrow. Plus my new layout has suddenly reached its first couple of final stages (give me three weeks) so that has some newfound priority. Yeah, I’m really tired. Tired. Just the regular type.