Theses are due for good in 12 hours.

Seen on the license plate of an older Caddie in Santa Paula today:

WYRUFAT

The thesis is due this coming up Sunday, and of course there has been lots of excitement surrounding that...and other things.

I had a dream that I was a journalist attached to a Marine squad in 1989, I think maybe in Iraq, and after a firefight which wiped out everyone who was with us except me and one other fellow, I had to talk him out of suicide.

We made it safely down the coast and back to school last night. We were in bed by two am.

Back to the grind again, but not for too much longer. We're almost done.

So I emailed my advisor - a still admittedly rough - draft last night at 1:29 am.

I've got some reworking, some references to look up, and then whatever changes the advisor recommends, but I'm done for now, until I discuss it with him...

This is exciting...

We spent all day at the Fairfax outpost of Marin Coffee Roasters, working on our theses. TSG just emailed her "next-to-last" draft to her advisor, I am a few hours of proof-reading/editing behind her... So I'm still going to work hard here and try to finish before (the rest of) the dinner guests arrive. It seems that most of Marin County now knows I'm here, so I've gotta rush and finish the thesis before the party party party starts...

This post snuck in when I should be doing my thesis...

Know what I've started doing? I've started cleaning not only the outside of my car's windows with the squeegee at the gas station, but also the INSIDE as well. Yeah...

We already have the national Do Not Call List. How about a national "Do Not Email" List?

Today, we finish our theses.

It's another belabored thesis day in Fairfax, which means that we don't really get out of the house... But we've been more productive today than yesterday, which was kind of a slump, after two really good days...

We are on strict socialization prohibition until our papers are done...

Anyone have any Land Trust contacts in central coastal California? 'Cause I'm think of getting the TSG and I some new pairs of bib overalls and going a-Land-Trust-a-hunting...

So remember that thing I was selling on Amazon? Well, I sold it to a guy in Nigeria! Now I have to go figure out how to ship it to him...

I saw these guys's RAW MILK! in the local Good Earth Store in Fairfax, as TSG and I walked down to get coffees before starting our Tuesday work-on-our-theses day this morning.

I wonder if writing and typing use different parts of the brain... I'll bet they do...

...should visit this guy more often!...

Made it to the '30 from the '3060 in six flat. Gunna settle in and finish up the theses while we're here. And we're gunna be here for 11 days. Which is sweet. Cause I was about to crack down there at school.

Why selling things on Amazon is better than selling them on eBay:

-No fees until you sell the blessed thing
-Shipping credit!
-No Paypal taking a chunk out of your money, they put it right into your checking account

See what I'm selling on Amazon...

Put new strings on TSG's guitar and played and played...

I now have a puncture wound on my left thumb, a huge blister on my right thumb, and hamburger hands in general...

The hills around school are covered in snow, and it has been cold, cold for the last few days...

I am so glad to have finished that week of school.

Now I've got a few things to do, a thesis draft to crunch out, and a road trip to go on.

46 days of class left in my undergraduate college career.

15 of which I can skip and still graduate.

It's not that I'd do that, it's just a comforting thought.

I am now making 4.5% on my online money market account.

The bank that I chose to open a savings money market account (after long hours of painstaking research) I have barely had contact with. I think I may have mailed or faxed them an initial authorization page or something, and maybe talked to them on the phone once... But other than that, all of my interaction with them has been through the internet, either their website or email, for the last two years.

That's pretty remarkable.

(There is a "Refer-a-Friend-and-get-$20-each" link...)

When you get off the beaten track of the internet, it's amazing how many poorly designed sites there are... The market is still there for professional and semi-professional website design, although the monetary cost of design has fallen. With tons of people now designing their own websites, there are now tons of crappy websites in existence.

Two more school days in this week.

President's Day on Monday.

Don Rags the week after.

Time to crunch out the last few revisions of the ol' thesis.

HAPPY SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY!

TSG found an article about this guy in one of the trashy magazines that lie about the house she house-sits.

I happen to be reading A Walk Across America, which chronicles a slightly different trek.

For one thing, Peter ran 11 miles every day BEFORE setting out, and The Fat Man couldn't even walk to the eatery. Peter Jenkins AND Cooper together weighed about HALF of what he weighed.

I feel like I'm getting sick again. Too little sleep for too many days. And the weather is hot, though it's supposed to cool off for the next couple days and then rain on the weekend, which will ruin weekend climbing plans.

Ah well...

TSG and I are planning on extending the President's Day holiday and merging it with TAC's Don Rags next week in order to get enough time for a San Fran-Thesis-Getaway. We'll see what happens.

I want to learn it and Japanese.

Does my blog reflect that it's the weekend? Can you tell??!

I think, maybe yes...

For under $30!

You guys have probably seen this, but in the off chance you haven't:

I played this over here yesterday.

And, man, were they sweet! And they barely even sounded at all without the headphones on! They'd be much nicer to pack around then a regular acoustic set, and you could always mike the occasional real drum... I'm open to a mix of electronic and acoustic ones, myself...
Percussion is percussion... It doesn't matter so much WHAT you hit, as long as YOUR HIT produces a cool noise...

...found this in my notebook this afternoon...

You can smell the ocean from campus. The air has drifted in from the coast, and it calls us, lingering here, drawing us to the ocean...

According to our beloved CoffeeBoy, a twelve-ounce cup of drip coffee has twice as much caffeine as a double-shot of espresso.

Well, The Random Englishman came down last weekend and we drank enormous amounts of coffee and exhibited the most ADD behavior I have ever heard of.

Somewhere between heading down to the classroom to pound out some drum n' bass and watching Peter D sweat and labor over removing a rock wall, we ended up in Santa Paula loading chairs into the back of a little green pickup for Joe T.

There were about 18 other things in there, too. Hey, wanna go ride bikes?

We are all gathered at the Santa Paula Coffee Shop working on laptops and theses (<-- the plural of thesis)...

This is the first post from the new server... It's taken me a long time to get it over here, and, most likely, things will be a little strange as I convert Intel/MS specific php to Redhat... But bear with me. And update your links: some of you have me as yourcomputergenius.com/ec or computergenius.net/ec, but the correct url is http://equivocalcatharsis.com.

This is the first post from the new server... It's taken me a long time to get it over here, and, most likely, things will be a little strange as I convert Intel/MS specific php to Redhat... But bear with me. And update your links: some of you have me as yourcomputergenius.com/ec or computergenius.net/ec, but the correct url is http://equivocalcatharsis.com.

This is the first post from the new server... It's taken me a long time to get it over here, and, most likely, things will be a little strange as I convert Intel/MS specific php to Redhat... But bear with me. And update your links: some of you have me as yourcomputergenius.com/ec or computergenius.net/ec, but the correct url is

http://equivocalcatharsis.com.

This is the first post from the new server... It's taken me a long time to get it over here, and, most likely, things will be a little strange as I convert Intel/MS specific php to Redhat... But bear with me. And update your links: some of you have me as yourcomputergenius.com/ec or computergenius.net/ec, but the correct url is

http://equivocalcatharsis.com.

This is the first post from the new server... It's taken me a long time to get it over here, and, most likely, things will be a little strange as I convert Intel/MS specific php to Redhat... But bear with me. And update your links: some of you have me as yourcomputergenius.com/ec or computergenius.net/ec, but the correct url is

http://equivocalcatharsis.com.

Those crazy nothern neighbors of ours...

I have four books on my pillow... None of them are in the TAC curriculum. Perhaps all of them should be.

A Walk Across America - Peter Jenkins
You Can Farm - Joel Salatin
Touching the Void - Joe Simpson
The Pacific Crest Hiker's Handbook - Ray Jardine

I wrote a bunch of posts over the weekend, but didn't write them due to lack of a consistent internet connection.

But here's one irate remark:

When did the American public approve of "1-year agreements" and "early termination fees"?

Are we just used to getting trampled on by large, extortive companies? Are we completely reliant on buying things on credit? Have we lost faith that Americans determine what values are represented by companies in our country?

Time is over-ripe for a change of public values.

SCHOOL IRRITATION LEVEL: HIGH

The Random Englishman's in town!

TSG and I woke up at five to four this morning to take her dad to the airport. Now it's two-thirty and I'm sipping Chai tea, solving computer problems that are hundreds of miles away.

As soon as I'm done with that, I'm going switch modes and hats and go to work on my thesis again.

Because we just read Husserl, I am writing a "Train of thought in this Thesis" as a glorified outline of my thesis and its thoughts, arguments, and conclusions. This I will then give to my wonderful thesis advisor: target time 7pm tonight. Go go!

A PDA is a palm pilot.


If YOU think it is a problem that my girlfriend and I are holding hands, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.


Deal with it.

At The Underground with TSG's dad... Working on our theses...

Cingular must have put in a new tower. Because I get five bars (full signal) all over campus now. Even down at the gate.

I need to play guitar/banjo/mandolin/bass/drums/harmonica more.

I haven't been playing very much lately.

And I would like to obtain an autoharp. Google it if you don't know what it is.

From last night:

Why is it that I am only really creative during some weird change of state? Like drinking a ton of coffee, or listening to music loudly (sensory overload), or staying up late?

I dunno... but that's when the muse strikes...

Well, we are plunging into another week at That Academic College.

I am up late - for a change - and working on my thesis (also a change, kinda...).

The winds are blowing somethin' fierce, tree limbs down, various plants of all size being carried to and fro through the air - that sort of thing.

I'm behind on the computer work, work that I/we were supposed to get done by the beginning of this year... Having encountered various setbacks...

TSG and I must be getting in better shape, because we hiked straight up the hill, and then later went running, jogging up another one, and we weren't even winded.

I really need to exercise, maybe because it helps get stress out, the stress that always builds up here...

Anyways, back to the thesis. More later.

Have you seen the Thames? I wouldn't swim in that thing!

When is the media going to STOP acceding to the terrorists wishes? When will they STOP publishing every snide comment to come out of that terrorist fellow?

You know what I want to see? On the fourteenth page of the paper? An obituary.

I received one of these from TSG's wonderful Grandmother for Christmas... So now I have joined that coffee-drinking elite: those who brew their own in a French press. I used it for the first time tonight, however with mate and not coffee... It is necessary that I obtain a small, hand-operater coffee grinder should I wish to use said apparatus for making coffee...

The noisy neighbors who keep me awake to all hours with their giggling, screaming, thudding, and shouting had the gall to come by and ask me to turn down my music. When it was barely even audible in MY room.

Sigh.

I turned it down...

We drove up to Tehachapi to drop off a now (lucky!) ex-student at her folks...

Then we drove her much-dejected boyfriend back to prison hell school here...

The dorm room's depressing, much as I've tried to spruce it up. Maybe I should get some plants in here and put more things on the walls.

I don't like this school, being here, very much.

There are just 71 class days left. And I can skip 21 of them.

You can always tell the quality of the student by whether he lists "classes missed" or "skips to go" on the back of his or her door.

I'm not really going to skip 21 of them, but it is a reassuring thought that I could. And still get my diploma. Which is all I want from here.

I have one class that it is simply amazing to go to, on account of the prof being incredible and the material being quite good, most of the time, and I have two other classes for which I also have amazing tutors (but the curriculum sucks).

This is what I am paying 23,000 hard-earned (some of that earning still in the future, #$@^^$!) dollars, I am going into debt for. I don't believe in going into debt. In fact I don't believe in a lot about the school, but for some reason, somehow, I am still here...

Three brake discs down, one to go. The car's up on jackstands for hopefully the last time for a while... I have discovered that the key is to jack it up, dis-assemble it, spray it real good with WD40 and walk away. Come back hours (or days later) and the rotors come off real easy like.

Took a nap on TSG's lap while she wrote more of her thesis here at the underground...

A bizarre, spiritual, drank too much mate, half-prayer half-nap.

Onwards and upwards.

Can you EVEN IMAGINE what these must sound like!!?

Omigosh...

Whew, this week really did me in. I'm tired.

Thanks (in part) to TSG's wonderful parents and their wonderful Christmas presents, Colby is my new favorite cheese.

I've been eating a lot of cheese before bed, so I've been have wild and more lucid dreaming...

I have these creative thoughts during the day, but they are stifled by other things, like class... sigh...

We are "working on our thesises" now, and going out for an Australian's birthday party at 9:00pm, if we can stay awake that long.

I've been working on my thesis! So has TSG! On hers, that is!

Should I respect people who "do what they think is right"?

To a certain extent yes, following one's convictions is respectable.

But if those convictions greatly differ from what is objectively true, then it is not commendable to follow them. It is, rather, one's duty to ensure that one's convictions conform as nearly as possible to what is really true.

Everything on the internet has a quiet, unassuming existence... An existence which could silently pass away, without any outcry.

If it were a book, at least there would be ripping and tearing of pages, or burning, or burying, or impact, or a splash. But with the intenet, nothing, silence. A computer turns off, and out winks all of the electronic information superhighway. Pathetic.

National Do Not Call Registry.

Favorite quotation from changing the clutch on Thursday:

"Hey, when I wipe my face on the car, I get the car dirty!"

Favorite quotation from the post-Mass analysis today:

The music was "musically very good, liturgical appropriateness not so much."

Still working at the office...

The Genius Tech Blog (of much fame) is up and running with a new WordPress backend on my Unzilla server. Sweet.

Working at The Office, TSG's here reading The Brothers Karamazov. We are meeting the rest of the fam (that's in town) and BP at Chevy's for drinks for din-din in a few. Saw TheRandomEnglishman briefly last night in San Fran and he handed me a stack of bills for my older bro.

CrasusDives sent me a link to this movie. Sounds like it rocks, don't it?

Did I mention that I went ice-skating (for my first time ever - but I'm a roller blader) while we where in Minnesota? And I LOVED it...

And, technically, this is a good idea. Except why not skip all the pretense and just set it up as a solar-powered (at least primary until it fails) wireless-g from the get go? That'd be REALLY sweet.

Got the Jetta's clutch all done, tip to toe, foreplay to afterglow, in just under twelve hours.

We both were completely black at the end of it; in fact all three of us were (Myself, CrashBox, & the car).

I took a few pictures, will post later.

The only reason I'm still up is because of those energy drinks and the fact that I can sleep in (a little) tomorrow. Before I head to San Francisco for the part of the weekend that I don't spend driving. 'Night.

Working on a friend's Jetta's clutch all day today. Briefly went up to ol' Silver and CrashBox knocked off the last of the two front brake discs with a mallet while I was doing tech support on da phone... So that's good. Worked out and ran yesterday, for the first time in a long time, my neck, of all places, is sore from the crunches, but mostly I feel pretty good. It looks like I will prob have to go home to San Fran this weekend to do emergency tech support server repair to fix the collateral damage from the Quickbooks 2006 install. More later.

This guy is right on. I'm STILL trying to clean up the mess on my Windows 2003 Terminal Server due to Quickbooks 2006's mess. This software is not potty-trained, and it's shameful. And it's also false advertising.

Still alive. We are surviving the Minnesota winter (mild right now) and the whirlwind of relatives, family, friends, and meals. More later!

You guys are going to hate me.

I broke down and purchased *gasp* horror of horrors, an Apple product! I know!



(I know image leeching is evil, but it's basically an advert for them, so go figure...)

En route to Minnesota... Mostly due to human error caused by extreme sleep deprivation we missed our early flight, and now we are sitting in sweltering Phoenix waiting for our flight out to the Midwest.

God Bless the Phoenix airport people: we walked right in, plugged in power, opened up the computer and was on the internet. However, it is restricted to port 80 traffic, so I will have to create a workaround for accessing ssh servers.

Perhaps THIS is the reason that my car has so many indentations in the roof! There are FOUR people dancing on top of The Silver Bullet in this picture alone! [July 2004, photo credit prob due to P.B.]

What if all the spam, badware, and phishing websites had to register ".con" addresses?

I starting working on the car yesterday, with the goal being to replace all four brake discs with new ones, and to install brand-spanking-new pads as well.

However, when I lifted the car with my trusty floor jack, this happened:



But it still lifted fine, so I threw jackstands under the car, and went to work. It took me a while to figure out how exactly to take the caliper apart and support it so that I did not have to take the brake hoses off. Then I discovered that the durn rotor was stuck on, so it took me a lot of WD40, pounding, hammering, malleting, pushing, and cursing to get the blasted thing off.



Here's how I supported the caliper:



And when I finally got it off, I compared the old and the new discs side-by-side:



And here's a shot of the whole operation. I started on tire number 2 today, but I still haven't got the rotor off. I think it's stuck worse than the one on the other side.

I'm working on the computer late at night, deep in the depths of the registry on Windows 2003 Server... My music files are interspered with music videos, so on the screen comes a live video recording of The Kingston Trio playing Tom Dooley; I see them standing there on the stage, and I think "Gee, I always thought that there were more of them."

Busy, busy again.

Spent a number of hours today working on the ol' Silver Bullet, replacing the front brake discs. I only got one done, and there was a while where despite all the grunting and pulling and pounding with a rubber mallet I really didn't think that the disc would ever come off. I kept double-checking to make sure there weren't any extra bolts I missed. I took off the wheel hub cover by mistake - when I was getting desperate - and looked inside.

My pneumatic floor jack leaked a significant amount of fluid after I used it to raise the car, so I quickly put jackstands under it and pondered the worrying puddle. But so far the jack still works, so I dunno...

Doing computer work from Ojai. TSG is house-sitting again and Crashbox said I could stay at his place while he's gone... TSG and I leave for Minnesota the day after tomorrow...

PAX...

I had a dream last night that there were little people - combination stick people - who could and would live ON you, around your waist, and whisper advice up to you from underneath your shirt.

So basically, the goal is to get every single person's net impact on the Earth to be zero each day. Or helpful to it. Then it will sustain human life forever. Or something. I think the goal is just to be good stewards of our home because God gave it to us.

In something between a standard fiasco and and DEVCON 3 national disaster, I just made a spinach salad in the kitchen. I haven't been in a kitchen, really, since the summer. And it shows.

Eddyways, I'm sure it will end up being fine.

Merry Christmas!

I'm going to grab (at least) two of the brothers and go biking or hiking (or maybe frisbee) with this guy in the city tomorrow. In the AM.

I hadn't linked here yet, because it's a project that AG and I are still working on. But Google discovered it anyhow, so I might as well "spill the beans."

We are working on have started a company that provides low-cost websites for small companies. However, for now we are working on a personal-contact-only system, though we are happy to have any and all new customers. So email us or leave a comment or whatever if you are interested or know anyone who is. Yes, we do blogs too, through WordPress (right now) which works very well. Our prices are reasonable, too. We will have an official launch of the company when we get all the paperwork and marketing and so forth put together.

I came home Sunday night. Monday I worked, came home went to bed at 8pm. Tuesday I worked, saw G&G&UD afterwork. Wednesday I worked, and went out to dinner (at Insalata's) with two of my brothers and FK. Thursday I worked, and went over to C&D's for tead and such after work. Friday I worked, and went out to lunch with BP and his fam and one brother, and then worked some more.

I'm going to see another friend tomorrow, and then one two on Sunday on my way down. Well, one on my way down, and One who is my Destination.

I think I've worked more than forty hours this week and seen a different social party every day. Wow. And even daily mass. In fact, maybe that's what made it possible.

You know where I WISH I went to school?

here

here

here

It's such a cool town, too. I bought a Spanish classical guitar when I was there last...

Sending text messages all day - despite the requisite barbarism of the disgraced language which they contain - still makes you feel like the two intellects involved have been touching...

I moved the espresso machine across the counter, and it left a trail of little half-espresso beans behind it, like deer droppings...

Google chronicles my life (via my blog). Wanna know what snowboard I used to ride? Google "Donal Turrentine snowboard." I don't know if that is good or scary.

It's about time. Except it doesn't seem to work for my phone... Maybe former At&t customers as jacked once again...

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