February 2005 Archives

First off, thanks to everyone who commented and congratulated me on my job announcement. You all rock.

I think it's wonderful how crazy and fun-loving the first big snow of the semester makes everyone. Just a few examples from around campus and Blacksburg:

• As I was walking over to tonight's water polo game, I stumbled across a horde of college students out on the Drillfield, yelling and screaming. At first, I thought it might have been a protest, but then I noticed the various snow forts and realized that it was the annual Corps of Cadets vs. Civilians snowball fight. However, except for a few inventive guys that were trying to use a slingshot to fire artillery at the cadets, not much was going on; it was mostly the two sides yelling at each other. I'm sure things picked up later on, but I didn't get to see it. This is a Virginia Tech legend, though, that materializes on the night of the first big snow of the year. Does anybody know who won this year?
• Snowmen of various shapes and sizes are all over the place! The snow from this storm was absolutely perfect for packing, which means lots of random snowballs and snowmen. I kept my eye out for any Calvin-esque ones, but I didn't spot any. I heard a couple of rumors of some people trying to build a snow penis, though. No comment there.
• Some of the Wesley folks got into the snowball fight act, too, as the cryptic e-mail on the listserv from Joe this evening might suggest: "There is a snowball fight in the works. Drillfield, 9:34 sharp. Be there." If I didn't have a dumb Finance test to study for, I certainly would have followed the e-mail's advice. Gina and I already had a superfun snowball extravaganza this morning, though, while I was trying to clean off my car. She started it... but I finished it!
• A two-hour delay this morning certainly helped to set the mood, as well. I got a class cancelled and extra sleep time, a combo that can't be beat!

So, let's hear it for everyone loosening up and letting the snow lighten their moods on this potentially stressful week!

I have a job!

A lot of you probably already heard me talk about leaning one way or the other between my two major offers, and depending on when you talked to me, you thought I would take one or the other. I just wanted to make it official now, however, in case you haven't heard. I've finally made my decision, after struggling week after week with it.

So, late this summer, I will be packing my bags and heading to Northern Virginia to work with the Navy, doing some ... things. Cost-analysis type things. I can't tell you more, because then I'd have to kill you. Mainly because this job requires a top-security clearance, which is also why I don't know too many more details about it yet. So, naturally, I won't be posting very often about work, but you can dig it, right?

Anyway, this is such a HUGE issue resolved, and it's certainly improved my mood over the last couple of weeks as it has all come together. I want to thank Steve and Gerritt for their insights into working for the government; you guys really helped fill in a lot of the gaps. On top of that, all signs point to Otey as my roommate up in the greater DC area, which will be fun on top of everything else.

There's still some paperwork and a potential trip to Albequerque left before this is completed, but that's a small price to pay compared to the worry I've gone through so far. Yessir, everything's coming up roses.

Cheers to you all!

Well, from the some-kind-of-a-silver-lining department, the trip for my senior design project had to be cancelled, so there will be little travel this weekend. This will make it a bit harder for us in the long run, but now I'm hoping I won't be so worn out by the end of this weekend. As much as I loved visiting everyone the last couple of weekends, it ended up taking a lot out of me towards the end of this month. I'll get to catch up on many things, which is nice.

Today, I had lunch with Zack and had a chance to catch up with him. It's been almost a year or so since we've actually been able to do that, so I was grateful for the chance. It was a highlight of the day. We started off as roommates and engineering majors freshman year, handling the toils of Pritchard Hall with ease. We both played bass, and we both got involved in campus ministry.

He went the mechanical engineering route, but now he's exploring some options that lean more toward the ministry / youth leader side of things, and I'm excited for him. He's also involved in a band with his brother Andy and another friend, Mike, both of whom I've met and are great guys. They've been playing at churches and youth events seriously for a couple of years now, and I hope they continue to take off and continue to do what they're doing. Remember the Blue Water Band; you'll probably be hearing their name a lot someday.

A few days ago, I got an e-mail, supposedly from PayPal, stating that there had been some unauthorized activity on my account. This struck me as odd, since I really only used PayPal for serious transactions once or twice, back in the summer. Upon first glance, it looked perfectly authentic in its formatting and wording. All the graphics were in the right place, and there were no obvious misspellings or grammar errors. There was, however, a misplaced comma and a spacing snafu toward the bottom of the body:

Ignoring our request, for an extended period of time, may result in account limitations or may result in eventual account closure.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure meant to help protectyou and your account.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

That was my first tipoff. The second clue was the jumble of random letters located in the fine print at the very bottom of the e-mail:

JSTNWHTPTRXCJJUCCODFSLRGVOMNBNRBFNCNGL

I still harbored some curiosity, so I clicked the link provided in the e-mail, which took me to the PayPal login page... except that the URL provided actually showed up as a random IP address. As a final precaution, I brought up PayPal's actual login screen and Alt + Tabbed between the two. The mock-up from the scam e-mail was virtually flawless, except for a few missing contact links at the bottom of the page and a couple of line spacing issues.

So, case closed, and I saved myself from a potentially very big headache. I guess it just reinforces all the lessons you've heard about unsolicited e-mail: always double-check the source before you click on or enter anything.

If you go to the link provided now, the page is no longer there, so hopefully the scammers have been shut down. In case they're not, be careful!

So many things to talk about! I'm going to fire them off quickly before Gina and I head off for our second weekend of travel in as many weeks.

... It's another proud and exciting day in the Hokie Nation! The Hokies toppled Duke last night, in an incredible game here at Cassell Coliseum. I wish I had gotten a ticket, but as it was, I proudly watched the Hokies go toe-to-toe with one of the biggest dogs in the NCAA and come out with a win. Yes!

... Bon voyage to the brothers Lang (Daryl and Gerritt), as they head off for a European vacation to London and Paris. I'm jealous.

... And last but certainly by no means least, congratulations to Tom and Amy on their engagement Wednesday night! I'm tickled pink for you guys!

See you all in the funny papers. Have a great weekend. I'll probably have a big announcement of my own soon.

I was really on a roll with posting this week, even with the large amount of work I had to do. However, we had a fluke "routing problem" here between our ISP and the hosting service Tom and I both use, so both Project BS and TSPN were unreachable to us for a day or so. I apologize for the mishap.

To make up for it, here is a picture of alfalfa sprouts.

Meet the Barenaked Ladies. Meet BNL on their second album, Maybe You Should Drive. I am a completist when it comes to bands I love; I usually don't stop until I have every album they've released that's still in print. For some odd reason, this entry into BNL's catalogue escaped my clutches until late last week. The circumstances leading up to the purchase were two-fold: I have been listening to a lot of live BNL lately, and I needed something else to go with my Amazon purchase to score the free Super Saver Shipping. That leads us to today, when I popped Drive into my CD changer and gave it a listen. So this is where all those other songs on Rock Spectacle came from! It was cool to hear the original versions, and I was duly impressed. BNL is a band of guys that don't care to be goofy when the mood strikes them, but they can also craft some really intricate and clever songs.

In short, pick yourself up some Barenaked Ladies at once.

... In other news, you gotta love guys in funny hats. Wesley Innertube Water Polo is kicking butt, with two more wins tonight. Simply outstanding!

It's prettier in the spring and summer time, but it's still home.

Happy Valentine's Day, and get home when you can. It works wonders. It also helps to have a great Valentine to spend it with.

I've had a lot on my mind this week, so I apologize for not posting very much. At Wesley, we're getting things ready for Tour. I've also been making great overtures toward figuring out just where I'm going to be working when I graduate. More on that soon, hopefully.

It's Friday now, though, and I'm heading back to the Fort. Gina's coming with me, and I'm looking forward to it being a relaxing and good Valentine's Day weekend.

A few days ago, I stumbled across a write-up of Fireball Island at X-E. I was just talking about this game earlier this week with some people at dinner, so in case you never played it as a kid, check it out! At the time, it was quite possibly the pinnacle of modern board game entertainment. Even if you didn't bother to learn the rules, it was crazy fun knocking over the bridges and game pieces with the marble fireballs. Those were the days!

Have a great weekend, everyone, in case I don't feel the inspiration to write anything over the next couple of days.

For this weekend to have been the date of the Midwinters dance, it sure was unusually warm, with temperatures clocking in at a balmy 55 degrees or so. I'm not complaining, mind you, it just made for a nicer time of it. As for a quick reflection on the evening, I enjoyed myself. The Burruss Square Tavern is a really nice place - it's amazing to think that there's someplace like that right here in downtown Blacksburg. It's definitely modeled after a bigger-city nightclub, but it still maintains a kind of local feel. I was delighted to hear and see the live jazz band play while we were eating dinner, though it made things quite a bit louder. Gina and I even tried out some dance moves on the large hardwood floor while we were waiting for our food, which was delicious in my case. I give the whole shindig an A.

The dance was a little less exciting, since the music wasn't exactly danceable. Fighting Gravity is a great band, to be sure, but a lot of people had a hard time dancing to their stuff. Plus, they were also really loud. Beyond all that, the decorations around the Commonwealth Ballroom were all really top-notch, and we had a fun group, so there are plenty of funny pictures I'll be posting soon.

... Here's something that may reveal my inherent dorkiness, but that I thought was interesting. Eben M. Byers was a socialite who died due to radium poisoning in the 1930's, but it was due to his habitual drinking of "radium water." I heard about this bit of historical trivia in a problem statement for an in-class example in Environmental Engineering (count the number of times can you say the meme "in" in the same sentence, kids). What crazy elixirs and potions they had back in the day! Just think: this guy could have exposed film with his jawbone. Be careful out there, and be wary of the radon gas!

Actually, despite this post's title, it's an unseasonable 55 or so in the greater Blacksburg area today, which is lifting everyone's spirits. This is also very good news for all the girls, like Gina, who are going to be walking a few blocks here and there tonight in semi-formal dresses for the annual Midwinters Dance.

In college, unless you join a Greek or ROTC organization, you really don't have that many opportunities or reasons to dress up and go dancing. There are clubs downtown, but that's more of the bump-and-grind variety. There are fancy restaurants, but it's hard to find the time and money to set aside a grand evening. So, that's why I enjoy the dance - it gives you a reason to do all these things, and we've all progressed passed the point of being nervous about it like we were in high school. It's a good way to spend a Saturday evening. This is also the first time Gina and I will be going together to the dance, which is great! For an additional one-two punch, our Wesley group is also going to try the new Burruss Square Tavern downtown tonight, which has gotten good reviews. I'll let you know about the dance and the food tomorrow!

EDIT: I just realized that the band providing tonight's music at the dance is none other than Fighting Gravity, a very good Virginia-based outfit. Now I'm even more excited, since this means the likelihood of the music being cheesy is even lower!

... I've also spent part of yesterday and today refurbishing the other main parts of Project BS: the photo galleries, links, and "about me" pages. I'm trying to keep them more current, and I definitely needed to clean up the code a lot. For those of you looking out for more pictures, this is a step in the right direction. Until then, give those pages a look-see.

Have you ever had this happen to you before? Imagine a certain topic - perhaps a name from your childhood, a song, a celebrity, a saying - that you haven't thought about in years, when all of a sudden it resurfaces into your life in rapid succession. What's even more odd is that it's usually sparked by other people.

I guess the most recent example from my own life is the word "ruckus." I might have read it somewhere being used in a phrase like "let's cause a ruckus" or something. I'm not sure, but over the last couple of weeks, it's just come naturally to me as a slang word to use, three or four times. Before then, I can't imagine ever really having used the word more than sporadically.

In past years, it's been things like video games, like Street Fighter II for example, that two or three people I know end up talking about, in separate conversations, over the course of two or three days. Most of the time, the items fade back into obscurity and dusty memory, but other times they can make a serious comeback, for better or for worse - like my role in our eighth grade production of Grease or various mistakes I've made over the last few years.

Funny how life keeps these things in a shuffle playlist for you, waiting for a random time to bring them up, isn't it? I wonder if there's a term for this that matches the idea I'm talking about? It might be worth the research.

...I just wanted to point everyone's attention to my new favorite magazine, mental_floss. Gina bought me a 1-year subscription for Christmas, and my first issue arrived this week. It's chock full of basically random trivia from all over the culture - from sports to history to music to new gadgets and everything in between. In short, it's perfect for me, since I like random trivia. They also have an online version of the publication, with daily facts and quizzes and the like. Increase your trivial knowledge!

...Check out the latest game from the Wesley Basement: 7-Can Stud. Some background: a couple of weeks ago, we used marshmallow gun target shooting as one of our events for a game program here at Wesley. Tim constructed the guns, and one of the perks of being an officer was that we each got to keep one. Today, Tom and Ben constructed an intricate game of accuracy, stamina, and skill. TSPN's article about it lays down the rules. I've got to keep up my training so I'll be able to compete with the boys that live right next to the target range. Let it be known, however, that this shall be the most fun game invented in ... that room ... down the hall.