:: So It Is Written... ::

:: Monday, November 29, 2004 ::

 

So apparently I have Bell's Palsy. Developed quite suddenly saturday night. I have a mild case, but it is very annoying. What is more annoying is that fact that I would have had an extremely mild case if the stupid nurse practitioner would have done her job. She told me when I was there, "normally we prescribe steroids for this, but you have such a mild case that I don't think I'll do that this time." She then explained that my case was mild because it wasn't as bad as what she had a couple of years ago... That nice little bit of whatever you want to call it cost me. I found out that steriods stop symptoms from getting worse. I didn't get sterioids. My symptoms got worse. Instead of just not being able to play french horn effectively, now, I can't play at all, can't blink my left eye, can't open my mouth wide enough to eat a sammich, can't spit after I brush my teeth... get the point? I went back to the doctor this morning, who immediately prescribed steroids and had some not nice things to say about that nurse... I think I'll file a complaint. Can anyone else say malpractice? Oh yeah... this is the other thing that nice nurse gave me... extended recovery time. Instead of getting better in a few weeks (which I still might), it could take 3 months to a year for me to get my face back now.

In other news, I heard two great quotes today. The second one came from my business class, and takes a minute to fully appreciate. For those of you who weren't in the class, the context is that a performance appraisal takes how well you do your job and rates your pay and compensation appropriately.

Quotes of the Day:

"A respectable fighter pilot should never want to get into a dogfight. He wants to get as high as he can, as fast as he can, shoot first, bravely run away, fly home, and get medals." --British Fighter Pilot

"If you think about it, Performance Appraisals are the second oldest profession on Earth." --MBA Student

:: posted by Tmber :: 10:42 PM ::
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I don't care if, in whatever country you're from, it is considered a wonderful way to say hello by leaning over someone, brushing their hands off of their keyboard and mouse, using their computer, and then putting a bunch of juicy, greasy fingerprints all over their monitor, here, in MY country, in MY cubical, by God, do NOT touch my #@*&%@# monitor!

And if that's not enough, he touched the thing once, and I politely picked up a napkin and cleaned his grease smear off of my monitor as a polite way to say, "bad grease ball, no touchy!" and he doesn't get it... he keeps touching my monitor. he touches it to point out painfully obvious stuff, he touches it to make a point, and he runs his fingers back and forth on the screen when he reads text! that one kills me. What kind of person working on their PhD has to use their finger to keep their place when they're reading??? especially on MY monitor? aahhhhh!!!

To top it all of, he's one of those guys who must know everything, and whatever problem you're having automatically is your fault. Nevermind any other circumstances.... it's your fault. He sat here and told me, in a barely distinguishable accent,
Him: "you obviously have the wrong boundary condition... _I_ use the direct on mine, and I notice you're using mirrored... that means you are obviously wrong"
Me: "why?"
Him: "Because I use direct, and you didn't. Therefore, you're wrong."
Me: "Why? What's the difference between direct and mirrored?"
Him: "I don't know, but I use direct, so you need to change your input file and do all this over again."

Excuse me, but I'm not wasting 48 hours of work just because I use a different set of inputs than you did. I really think this guy operates under the assumption that all Americans must be stupid. Meanwhile, he's just made the list of people who are no longer allowed in my cubical...

I need a sign... one that says, "Stupid people enter at your own risk!"

:: posted by Tmber :: 2:58 PM ::
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Heaven help us all... Breathing is now considered a hostile act. This disturbs me greatly. It also shows why most of the people who volunteer to be in the Marines should never be allowed to get near a gun. Amazing how we can justify cold blooded murder by calling it "war", huh? What would we call it if we were on the receiving end of American "justice?"

:: posted by Tmber :: 1:32 AM ::
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hey... what happened... I was just surfing, and now I'm writing on my blog. oh well.. since I'm here.....

so I have a couple of friends that are not sure what they're doing, but they like each other and they've been on a date blah blah blah... but one of them may or may not have a girlfriend, and this just came up today. So I'm talking to the girl and trying to give advice objectively and everything... and I'm trying to be helpful, but it's not working. What I really want to say is, "I'm sorry, but I think you're probably too immature to be dating right now. Please try again in a few years." It's like junior high love... You've been on one date, so now your world revolves around this guy, and you'll never find another soul on this plant that could ever be as beautiful as his. ::gag:: grow up. You're only 18, and only by a few months... You should reread your own online journal... you have two or three times in there where you say the same thing. maybe you should identify the trend and reconsider what you set your emotional max to be. possibly redefine "love" as "infatuation" and then set out on a decade long quest to redefine love. Also, please spend some time alone, not attached to a guy. You have very little sense of self. It is not good to define oneself in terms of the man attached to your arm. Can I get an Amen!?

I'm officially putting this girl up as a candidate for the "first time around" award. We all know and love... err... know the first winner of this award. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it's basically a reincarnation thing. Some people just have an inherent wisdom about them. I equate this wisdom and insight into how many times they've been around the block, so to speak. People who have no sense of wisdom and very little sense-of-self are nominated for "new soul" status. It'll take a while and at least two other people to confer this status upon her.

I may be being a bit harsh here... I've found I've been very easily irritated lately. Not sure why. It's an internal thing, I'm sure. I think some of it may be I have a "you can't get there from here" problem. There are a lot of things I'd like to be doing now or in a few years, but there's no way I can do it now given my currently situation. It's left me in a sort of search for some semi-lofty goal (sorry, ran out of S words). Like, I want to jump on ideas and run with them. A friend of mine suggested we start an independent theater here in town, and there just happens to be one for sale. The owner is selling it complete with seats, concessions, screens, and projectors. All for about half a million. Well, ok... seats are normally $100K and a single projector can easily run $100K, and this one has four. As much as we both love movies, this seems like it would be soooo much fun. We just need $250K. $100K downpayment on the theater, and another $150K to renovate it to what we want.

Now see what I mean about lofty ideas?

I'm also working with a friend to solve a math problem that is worth about $100K. Granted, no one has ever solved it before, but no one has tried his method... I don't want to talk about it to much here, but it really has potential. The main problem would just be pure processor time. I may post something later asking for people to donate processor time to this. We'll see. In related news, my research has now officially given me access to this computer. It's the 126th most powerful computer in the world, and has 1038 processors. Now I really can say that my other computer is a 1000 node supercluster. Anyway, this has opened the possibility of using this computer for purposes other than its intended use. This is very tempting, especially when trying to solve a math problem worth so much money, and only being limited by processor power. Consider this: my computer is a dual 2Ghz machine, and it takes this computer 1 day, 11 hours, 2 minutes, and 24 seconds to do what it would take my computer ONE YEAR to do. I get my time in 48 hour blocks... that means if I ran a single batch through this machine of our number crunching algorithm, I would effectively save us almost 18 months of time.

Anyway... I really need to sleep... first, a quote... this one is more funny because of who it came from... my boss... people around here are normally so stuck up... but this is why I work for this guy instead of anyone else...

Quote of the Day:

"They'd be training you to do job before they ever hired you. That's, like, every manager's wet dream right there."

:: posted by Tmber :: 1:21 AM ::
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Important bit of knowledge of the day: Exactitude is actually a word. It is not any different from exactness, except that you can make fun of someone who says exactitude easier than someone who says exactness.

Anyway... sorry I haven't been writing much. That whole school thing is taking up a good bit of my time. After school comes work, occasionally food, and once in a great while, friends. That whole marriage thing also requires a little bit of time, as well :)

See... even now that I have time, I don't have much to say... that whole election thing is going on today, but I refuse to add any more noise to that debate, other than to say, please do not forward your political beliefs to me under the flag of friendship. A long time friend of mine sent out an email to her friends that said "hey, I hate to do this, but"... ok, first... if you hate to do it, then don't. simple enough. the message went on to say how important it was to vote, but what it meant was how important it was to vote for Kerry. How do I know this? Well, the message was about her experiences with the democratic party, and at the bottom it had attached a letter from "John Kerry" that she had received. No one accidentally forwards a letter like that to a group of friends that have nothing to do with the first person.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not condemning democrats... or republicans... but I am saying there is no call to send me all your ill-gotten socialist propaganda. Especially under the guise of a friendly email. If you want to send me propoganda of any kind, please label it as such. That way, I can delete it and go about my business.

I'm not against anything political, either... I mean, Brian convinced me to sign up for a congressional email thing so that I can see how people from this state vote. But he did not just go and sign me up for it, either.

You know what else pisses me off? Teachers who are too proud to admit they're wrong. Got an assignment back today, and the instructor took off 1/2 point (out of 10) for something that I knew was right. So I asked her about it. I explained my point of view, and supporting evidence (handout she had given us)... know what she said? "Well, you have a point, but..." I hate to admit it, but at that point I knew everything else she was going to say and I cut her off and said, "but it doesn't matter." and that was exactly right. My point of view, while different than hers could be equally as correct, but in the end, she's the prof, and so I get counted off for it. I really dislike that kind of blind egotism. While I would like to believe that I am not being hypocritical about this, I know there are some people who would argue that I am... To them I say, here's the difference: I normally will admit when I'm wrong.... I'm just always right :)

Ok... prof is beginning to get suspicious of the fact that I'm typing more than she's talking... gotta run...

:: posted by Tmber :: 11:08 AM ::
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