RyanHarne.com

Continuing my momentary lapses of control, this week I have misfired in putting toothpaste onto my toothbrush. Rather than the literal misfire and subsequent cleaning up, in one instance I put Palmolive antibacterial dish soap on my toothbrush. The second instance was when I soaked the toothbrush in my contact solution. High fives all around.

A friend of mine recently purchased a MacBook Pro with my Apple-Campus-Rep assistance and advice. Unfortunately, however, she received one of the infrequent defect models (grabbed it from the store that day, not an online order), noticed by a full line of dead pixels. After consulting each other in how to handle the situation, a decision was made to be firm with the bookstore people and request a DOA swap. After being firm with the bookstore computer people and after several calls made to their superiors, we were able to secure that swap. The only wait now is for the new computer which is flying in from Taiwan. I think it is Taiwan, at least.

During my first industrial circuits lab today, running the infallible Windows 95, my lab partner and I received blue screens of death in both instances of trying to save our graphical images of oscilloscope readings. After a complete printing failure, we went about the experiment again, but at Mach 3. Both of our image captures were granted blue screens of death once more; however, the printing computer was able to somewhat pick up the results after the file transfer. The only drawback to our printed images was that they had garbled color and characters all over them. It’s kind of like turning in a video to your film production class when every other frame is snow-static. It doesn’t look good and has unbelievably obvious flaws, but it can work.

I guess that is the best description of Windows as a whole, actually. Jeremiah had it right - “Everything Just Works™” with Mac. I apologize for being shameless. Rainy Thursdays may make me a bit more feisty.

The summer is gone and I cannot help but again reminesce. But the summer brought some changes that I cannot yet shrug off or even pretend do not exist. There was so much stress, so much tension, so great a liveliness - there could be no ignoring the effects.

Two of the effects, the most prominent still lingering on, relate to my memory and concentration. For my concentration, it is increasingly difficult to pay attention and focus in certain surroundings or discussions; however, in some areas, I can focus at levels far beyond what I would normal pay attention to. This is baffling for me, particularly when the inability to concentrate takes hold.

With my memory, again, some of my memory capacity has increased while some of it has gone away entirely. In stressful circumstances, usually, I have noticed that I now need to have something repeated to me (or me repeat it to myself) many, many times before my brain can retain it; in the past week, I spoke to someone, turned around and then forgot entirely about the conversation. But again, the short-term memory loss seems only exaggerated in stressful situations.

I do not think I would frequently bring something like this to the table, but it happened and I mention it. Tonight, in a class, I read a portion of text from a document; after having done so and the instructor spoke about it, I realized I had no idea, at all, what I had just read aloud. The reminder that my memory is vanishing, in some respects, was shocking, actually.

There is a possibility that I am only noticing more extremes in my behavoir and analyzing them with greater scrutiny, thereby feeling a growth in some negative direction has occurred, when, in actuality, I am rather pointing out features of myself that were present before but never defined.

Either way, I would not trade the summer of 2006 for anything in the world. It is something to lean on.

Today is and has been a race of sorts. The quad-area-wide program, Unleash the PUP [President’s and Upper Quad], was nice and I succeeded in climbing trees for a significant portion of the event. Following that, I discovered many answers to random Virginia Tech trivia and also got my clean jeans considerably covered in tree bark.

Furthermore, I smelled (and still do smell) like maple syrup all day, after having handled several pounds of Jamaican Me Crazy coffee, thanks to the Honduras Coffee Company. Also, a native German-speaking resident on my floor smiled appreciably as I struggled to get through the conjugation of “gehen“. My schedule has not been favorable to the audio lectures, as of late, but I will return to them bald.

My outlook for this semester is hopeful, even though the first week of Super Fall Semester 2006! has left me stunned. I would use the term “depleted” but I still have enough mental capacity right now to put this down to bits and bytes. Perhaps, even, I am mis-diagnosing this state while I could actually be over-reflective of the summer that I miss so much.

With the flocks of people back here and also the new kids, Blacksburg becomes little more than a resort for 20some thousand “students”. Facilities, apartments, residence halls, landscaping, even those robins I admired this summer - everything that was at peace over the summer is abused or ignored entirely. Squirrels are chased, where they previously were left brunching on fresh acorns. Grass is trampled and slaughtered, where it previously flourished and allowed the occasional passerby rest upon its tufts. Power plants reach and maintain peak output capacities, where they previously burned less coal and had previously emitted far fewer harmful smog particulates into the air.

This may sound like a treatise against urbanization, but that would be a false conclusion. Large, concentrated cities compact and centralize; here there is a massive spread outwards of the effects. I am positive you may find a Coca-Cola machine in the Dairy Center, far removed from campus the bustle, and they could possibly be plans to plant one on the Duck Pond route. The separated and diverse use of the land - irregular and careful use during the summer, critical mass overloads during semesters - is partially what depresses me.

So, my outlook may still be hopeful but I won’t blame the depleted feeling on courses or RA stuff or Bollo’s shifts. I blame it on the perception that the Earth is humankind’s playground, best exemplified by the hoards of people who come to Blacksburg that have been cultured and socialized to constantly take for granted anything that comes their way.

Frankly, I’m not sure where I am going with this. I always thought Ishmael is one of the best books, ever.

I am this close to just buying a new camera. There are some items that we all can get by without while it is being repaired. Take a computer, for instance - they are ubiquitous and emailing and internet browsing can just as easily take place anywhere else for a few days until you get back your personal laptop etc.

But a camera. A camera for me. Without a camera I am literally reeling. I know I have not updated the Photos in some time, but I am learning more and more about photography. It pains me to not have something to use as often as I please (though I’ve had several offers to use other people’s snaps, I really need my own to get by)

It is already in my cart. Very, very soon, I may close my eyes and just submit the order. Many curses at BestBuy for this atrocity. Never again will I grant them my dollar.

I have a few weaknesses, some even that I shamefully hide. One that is painfully overt is my ardor for Apple, even though they are just another mass-producer of ubiquitous consumer goods (which is the paradox and source of my shame). But one weakness of mine not often mentioned, perhaps not at all, is Threadless’ $10 sale.

Yes, Threadless is another one of my ultimate loves. Why? Because their business is done exactly the way a group of architecture, industrial design, interior design, fashion design, and art & art history students would put together a business - done with careful attention to human factors and interaction, with near-flawless aesthetics, and also with efficiency.

Threadless capitalizes on internet social networks. Few people would compare Threadless to MySpace, but the similarities are there. By becoming a Threadless member you open myriad social doors and, though you may never meet anyone face-to-face, the interaction is just as relevant since everyone votes on design submissions - and that 12 year-old social studies guru’s opinion counts as much as the 24 year-old fashion design student’s. A company that sells t-shirts they design is one thing (Urban Outfitters), but a company that sells t-shirts that you design is the new, refreshing, other thing.

I mention near-flawless aesthetics because their website, though it has become more complex in recent months, still retains a friendly user-interface. Accessing individual pages and even browsing stock availability is a cinch. But, I also mention near-flawless aesthetics because the system of user voting for designs makes sure there exists no product that won’t be cleared out of the warehouse. Imagine designing a car that you are certain will sell every model that leaves production, without even the need of a sales[wo]man. This is usually one of the biggest faults to typical design companies trying to create something innovative - what if Pontiac had polled the general populus of the looks of the Pontiac Aztec prior to having put it to market?

Finally, I point out their efficiency somewhat redundantly following the previous paragraph. However, their sale-to-delivery efficiency rivals NewEgg. If anyone has ever received a shirt other than that which they ordered, please let me know; but I will personally comment that 5 day delivery actually means 2 in Threadless terms. This is in part due to increasing “bandwidth” of shipping companies today (UPS, FedEx, DHL), but the automation of Threadless can also be praised.

I say this of course because I mentioned my weakness to $10 sales. Tomorrow, I am likely to be sporting my Hypotamoose tee. I have always wanted a geekie non-VT-related math shirt. My life is approximately one half-pound of cotton closer to complete.