RyanHarne.com

There is an iconic figure in our post-Y2K times and it is called the iPod. It is the epitome of simplicity and elegant technology. Yes, it is also the consumerist’s doll baby, but it has been the reference for such cultural clichés and roles like “individualism”, “conformitism”, “diva”, “reliance”, “ubiquity”, and “convenience”.

Leave it to Microsoft to want to take a bite out of Apple and come up with their own competitor, Zune. A rather nicely designed device that is compatible with neither any previously purchased music at MSN nor with Microsoft’s next operating system, Vista.

In corporations of Microsoft’s size, the interplay and communication amongst the various departments is key. The still-surfacing operating system flaws of Windows XP shows that miscommunication is happening even at the most interpersonal of levels. Transferring this horrendous corporate approach to hardware naturally results in a product that is riven with imperfections and inconsistencies. The fact that the thing looks good makes me sad; if this was another sickly-looking MP3 player, I would think nothing of it. But of the designers who are being put out due to this debacle - that thought is like a kick in the teeth.

Apart from those who specifically want to front their anti-iPod beliefs, who is going to buy a brown MP3 player?

While the Newman Hall Thanksgiving Dinner could trump out a presidential banquet (maybe…), I went to the Thanksgiving Feast at the sometimes fallible D2 this evening with a large group of friends/residents. The ads I saw plugged a fruit buffet, which ended up being little more than the typical selection magnified by a factor of 10. And they had kiwi, which is not a usual. Alas! How many more days will I put my trust in Student Programs.

Answer: one semester.

I had another talk with my brilliant acoustics professor today about spring research. He gave me some ideas of projects I could spearhead (do FAA noise regulation measurements actually realize legitimate intensities? what modeling can be done to find resonances of large structures using typical noise sources?). The aircraft noise idea was very interesting and, trust me, the idea being proposed brought an eager smile to my face. Nerd. (It’s a small part, but a part).

Afterwards, I went to an office nearby and super luckily ran into a certain professor. I attended a lecture of his recently going into detail about psychological acoustics (psychoacoustics) or the study of how humans perceive sound. Topics under this field frequently, as of late, involve 3D simulation of sound (like those Bose 3-2-1 systems that simulate surround using only front-placed speakers). I introduced myself and we talked about some random stuff and then he mentioned something I might be interested in.

I mentioned being in Industrial Design and he practically interupted me to give me some research direction. Phoebe’s Field is an attempt to spend NSF grant money to design a museum for children to teach concepts of physics in a psychologically-friendly manner. That’s a horrible summary of the project, but the effort was so successful in concept form that the university wants to continue it to full realization and construction. It is a mix of architects, ID students, programmers, and engineers, all working to design a museum.

This project concept was pinned up in the Cowgill lobby last spring where I read every single page of their documentation, nearly requiring a committed morning, afternoon, and evening. I had not realized this was actually a goal to be achieved; I presumed the project concept, so detailed as it was, was the final aim itself - maybe some entrepreneur would want to pursue it later.

In the spring of 2007, there will be a course offered to move this project to the next step: Phoebe’s Field design implementation. The professor highly recommended me to request the course once it was finalized. And I will. I am certainly keeping a research proposal on hand, but I am also willing to spend the same amount of time, if not more, to help move this project along.

Maybe I did not make it clear - I’m really excited about this. This potential.

The vegetarian butternut squash was good, too. Very good.

On the way over to the Smoky Mountains, my weekend away from campus revelries, my caravan stopped at a cafeteria restaurant in a shopping mall. My grandparents and great uncle/aunt had picked me up and knew the place from a previous round. The food was good, the selection process of cafeteria food confusing, the chairs on rolling casters, and a group nearby of near-retirement ladies who were taking Polaroids of each other at there appearing-reunion. It was, for me, an experience of quirks that I greatly enjoyed. I specifically enjoyed how you were expected to get your food - without any hint of the price of your choice, you just picked out what you wanted without reference to a certain spending barrier, let’s ignore that credit card issue. I thought it was neat.

The Smokies were chilled and just as smokey (foggy) as ever. I was able to find my cove in one of the cabins to get some work done, but only enjoy to satisfy that inner drive without removing myself from the relaxing reunion atmosphere.

Part of that relaxing was meeting a little one named Lily. Most of what came out of her mouth was “Wyan!” and “pitchures!” when I was nearby. She even demanded a kiss when I departed today. Melts your heart. Of stone. But it melted it.

I returned to campus today to take part in my hall’s annual Thanksgiving dinner, a kind-of-a-big-deal affair. It was delicious, delicious. People devoured the many cookies I had stolen away from the reunion as my share of baking for the dinner. I really loved the collarded greens, which may have been my first collarded experience ever.

One more week of slaving away in a slave environment before I can relax for a full week, slaving away in a remote and removed coffeeshop. Cheers to that.

Despite not having much of a morning appetite, I have steadily reintroduced a breakfast-like meal to my day. For quite some time, coffee has been my breakfast of champions, but the fulfillment of just that snappy buzz has become more unsatisfactory. Even though I consequentially lose most of my appetite for a lunch, the breakfast idea seems positive and helpful; I concentrate better with a small amount of food and coffee already digesting in comparison to only coffee.

I typically go to ABP in the mornings at the location right beside where I live and quickly chat with the people who are working. On a few certain days of the week, I will sit down and do some course reading before heading off to class. The morning people know me well by now and we keep up our daily morning contact.

Maybe a week ago, I was talking to the one lady at ABP about the oatmeal they serve. I had not tried it before, but was at least interested in taking a shot at it. The oatmeal itself is almost colorless which is why I have avoided it to this point. But today, she asked if I wanted to try a sample of it, me replying yes, and she gave me a full bowl of it. The oatmeal itself is ok, but with some brown sugar the dish was great.

I took a few spoonfuls of the oatmeal before I even touched my coffee and I realized that I already had the quick wake-up feeling that the first two sips of coffee provide. Perhaps it was the warmth? Regardless, I was not anticipating the effect, though it was welcome. The advantages of a breakfast are becoming clearer.

A warm breakfast, perhaps, has the same effect on me as does coffee. But, the absence of coffee is my breakfast is fruitless, since the coffee provides a sustained focus while food makes me tired.

Anyways. I am taking a long weekend in order to catch up on two large projects and one advertising campaign I was picked to commandeer by Res Life. Being in the mountains, and away from the internets, will be relaxing. And hopefully it will allow me to be less analytical. Hope ful ly.

Most everyone knows that while I don’t avoid political discussion, I still find it disturbingly divisive and thus I try to eschew joining such talks. In some instances, I am the one sitting silently in a group of friends that have suddenly decided to bring up foreign policy in our dinner conversation. I tend to take the Marxist economic view, even when political forces appear prominent - apart from militaristic situations. But that’s away from my point.

Thus, in my eyes, voting is a pain. I do not even view it entirely as a civic duty. It is a horrible frustration that somehow democracies put up with - entertaining incumbents with delusions of grandeur, as if we actually respect them, and then handing them exorbitant pots of money with which they decide many fates. So, I don’t like politics, I think I made that clear.

In the summer, I met up with my friend Erin while she was in town for a wedding. Best friends usually try to catch up with what’s going on, but Erin and I typically start an intense conversation and just carry it through until we’re tired and then say goodnight. I brought up how I hate politics, she retaliated on the importance of voting and the democratic process, I rebutted, and so on. In the end, I was only more upset at how incompetent and inefficient the American government is, but I had a potential glimmer for democracy.

Anyways, I happen to have decided to take the GREs today, voting day, and happen to have decided to take them in my hometown, where I am registered to vote, and the conveniences offered demanded I take the final step. And I voted. In part to appease my many super-political friends and also in part just because I had the extra time. And in part to get one of those “I Voted!” stickers. Which I never received. That doesn’t make a shake of sense - grant me a grandfather-clause-free opportunity to vote and then deny me the basic human right of a mass produced sticker.

But I voted. And I actually read each word of each resolution or amendment or whatever the extra non-candidate proposals were. One I needed to read twice because I thought it was poorly worded, or rather too verbose for the typical person to grasp with one quick fly-by. So I voted.

Really. I have a lot of super-political friends who will be shocked to hear this news. Might as well thrust it in their faces.

And the GREs weren’t that bad. But my standardized test-taking skills are not stellar. However, my free response essays could make a death row inmate weep in rapture. Though 730 of 800 was good for my math, I was expecting better, knowing my own potential as well as I think I do. Or so I thought.

Coming back to VT, I brought along some bananas and a hoodie that I have missed for months. It’s worth mentioning.

Partially as a favor and partially just because I was going to have only a few things to work on today, I agreed to open Bollo’s this morning for one of the other baristas. I understood the implications: waking up before the sunrise, enduring the last stretch of Parent’s Weekend pandemonium. But I could manage it, and with a helper coming in for part of the shift, I was not about to stress for a second.

At 9:05, I was curious where my helper was, a new guy I had trained several times recently whom I had become impressed with in terms of responsibility and ability. I called then only to get his voicemail. Then I called at 9:10 and 9:15 and… but by then the tide of customers had started to roll in.

My mechanics turned on to a maximum; the efficiency expert inside of me directed each movement, calculating the fastest ways of doing everything and correcting minor imperfections that were present so as to get rid of that line to the door. My customer relations never skipped a beat. Despite the difficulties, people didn’t mind waiting, and I believe, in part, that it was my pace that kept them from losing their own minds in queu.

It must have been Latte Day 2006 because an unusually high amount of people began ordering special drinks, rather than standby coffee. That greatly slowed my pace, but each latte was made with individiual care and I still saw hints of grins when customers saw my foam designs even though they could have waited 10 minutes for one. That alone helped me keep sanity for the time.

Miguel also helped. He is our technical guru, who had actually arrived later that morning to repair the Wi-Fi. He directed a lot of bake case sales when the line was truly unbearable for one person, which happened at two distinct times for a stretch of about 25 minutes each. Miguel used to be a barista, back in the day, but only comes in to work in cases of extreme need and his assistance was well-appreciated this morning. I could have worshipped him on my knees when he left later.

Were I not consumed with latte drinks, the sales total would have rocketed for this final Parent’s Weekend day. I typically do about $150 sales in a night shift, sometimes made as much as $300 in an afternoon which is a stretch and exhausting chore. This morning, the sales were just below $500. When a friend, Jodi, came in at the very end of my shift to grab some coffee with friends, I tried to talk to her, taking deep breaths, but I stuttered so badly that I eventually stopped, ashamed of how much of my mind was lost earlier in pots of coffee and muffin orders.

I won’t hurt this particular new guy the next time I see him, but I may swing some clenched fists in his general direction. When I left Bollo’s this afternoon, I launched into an enormous recovery phase that began with soup alone in a scarcely occupied campus building and continued with a lengthy nap before a visit to the gym.

My point is, in summary, finally, if you see my jittering this week, it’s not from my morning coffee, it’s probably not from a lack of sleep, and it’s not from a jazz beat I’m grooving to in my head - my jitter was caused by an impromptu assassination of my sanity at the hands of a slew of Blacksburg visitors and their student progeny. But I must begin a further stage of recovery by returning to that house of mine for a smooth latte and some elementary homework and studying.