The Humdrum Life of the Egotistical

The Residents of PG2103 Disperse

2006-11-03T18:26:00.000-05:00

Some of us are in Italy, another in Cambridge, MA and another in South Bend, IN. Here are our personal blogs. I suspect there won't be much more posted here, unless we have a reunion and cause some particularly bloggable mayhem.

http://timandmike.blogspot.com
http://vaingloriousescapades.blogspot.com
http://neverbetthedevil.blogspot.com
http://themadengineer.blogspot.com

Yet another Catamaran Post

2006-01-23T23:06:00.000-05:00

Don't imagine I have a one track mind, but I have spent a lot of time working on the boat over the break. Plus, I'm sure everyone is eager for news... "When will The Holy Sea launch?" "Can I have a ride?" "Are you planning to sail to the Carribbean and become full-time pirates?" All these questions are premature my friends... Right now the more important question is "Do we have enough epoxy to finish this project or are we going to have to spend another $150 on this money pit?" The plan now is to stain the wood cherry color and paint the papal seal on the side of one of the hulls. Suggestions for other tasteful decorations are welcome.

Sailboat Construction Update

2006-01-10T22:01:00.000-05:00

Mike came up for a couple days last week to work on the boat, and Joey stopped by too. The side panels of the catamaran are almost half done. We had a little trouble bending the plywood to the curve we wanted without getting too many creases into it, but a steam gun helped and now it looks pretty good.

Only about another hundred hours of work, yeah, that's probably a conservative estimate.

Nice clamping action...

The Human Juice Popsicle

2005-12-11T23:29:00.000-05:00

No, sadly enough, this isn't some strange food item you can get at Trader Joe's. Mike was remarking how strange it is to reflect on the fact that all solids are the frozen state of their liquid form. Hence, Tim's observation that people are just frozen human juice - popsicles you might say. Just something to think about...

So why am I posting on this and not Tim or Mike? Because I have nothing to do. Yeah, it's the last week of class and I have nothing. Go ahead; envy me. Anyways, Tim has promised a post about the nature of laziness. And expect updates on the sailboat construction over winter break. Plus Joey will be back in town and who knows what will happen then.

Good luck on finals y'all, and Merry Christmas!

I Like my Xylophone

2005-11-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, at the Catholic Student Center's annual Fall Ball, the new version of the now famous song "I Like my Xylophone", by Notorious Fr. B. had its debut. Pretty much everyone left the dance floor as soon as it started, and the DJ was looking a little befuddled, but I say it was a huge success!. Have a listen here.

Here's the backstory:
On every Catholic Student Center retreat, after mass on Saturday, we typically have a bonfire and sing songs. Often we play a game wherein two teams alternate turns, each singing part of a song that begins with a word starting with the same letter as the last word sung by the other team. The two teams were the guys led by Fr. Bill and the girls led by Michelle. Thinking strategically, Fr. Bill appointed a subcommittee to think ahead to song which includes words beginning with the letter "x". We knew the girls wouldn't be able to come up with a song starting with an "x" so we would be guaranteed a point. We came up with "I Like my Xylophone" which may or may not be an actual song. In any case, the melody was pretty catchy, and all the guys sang so it was somewhat convincing. We claimed our point and moved on. However, the girls kept complaining that we had "cheated." This was completely baseless, as they had no way of proving that there wasn't a song that went "I like my xylophone, I like my xylophone..." Basically they were sore losers. So to rub it in a little more and make sure our glorious victory was never forgotten, the guys of 2103 Prince Georges Hall decided to record a cover. We put about 12 hours of work into it, so you better like it. At one point, we had planned to add a guitar track, but we also had to get clothes, eat, and change before the dance, and time was running out. Maybe next time...

I Like my Xylophone
Notorious Fr. B.
Silent Retreat Greatest Hits
Copyright 2005. Pretty Good 2103 Records.

Lyrics: Notorious Fr. B, Tim Daniel, and Alan O'Connor
Xylophone: Alex Checkai and Noteworthy Composer
Keyboard: Alan O'Connor and Noteworthy Composer
Drums: Tim Daniel
Vocals: Tim Daniel, Mike Carroll, and Alan O'Connor

Catamaran Pictures

2005-08-08T07:34:00.000-04:00

Well, to say "we are almost finished" would be exaggerating a little, but here is what we have so far. The framing is almost done, and the rudders are completely done, and I must say they look fine.

Boat Status Update

2005-07-25T22:47:00.000-04:00

So Mike and I worked some more on the boat today. I'm sure the lack of posting activity about our progress had you worried, but have no fear, all is well. I finished the rudders over the weekend, and I must say they look mighty fine! We started assembling the wood frame over which plywood will be wrapped today. If the weather cooperates, we should be able to finish that tomorrow. I'll put some pictures up just as soon as I can find the cord to my camera.
Still within the (adjusted) budget, but I haven't found a source for 1/8" Luaun sheet. If we have to use 1/4", which is available at Home Depot, we may be in for some trouble when we get to bending the plywood, and our weight limit may be hard to abide by.

Catamaran!!!

2005-06-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a while since anyone posted on our blog. And that means, it is now time for yet another amazing exploit by the guys (formerly) of 2103 PG Hall.

Since it's summertime and the weather has been nice pretty often, we got to thinking it would be really nice to have our own sailboat. Rather than going the easy route of just dishing out a couple grand for a nice, run of the mill sailboat, we decided to build our own.
It wasn't easy balancing the requirements:

* 15 feet long
* Less than 160 lbs
* Less than $300
* Bouyancy more than 700 lbs. (Alan + Joey + Mike + the boat)
* Made from only 5 sheets of plywood

The design needs to be simple and able to be dismantled to be carried on a roof-rack on my Elantra, thus the requirement that it weigh less than 160 lbs. The requirements led us to choose a catamaran plan for its light weight, good speed, and relative ease of construction.

To save costs, we are going to fit the boat to use a windsurfer mast and two windsurfer sails that my parents haven't used since I was born. Here is Joey modelling the sails...I mean lying next to them for size comparison purposes...

We've already cut out the bulkheads which will form the basis of the frames of the two hulls, and cut and glued the stringers which will run the length of each hull.

I plan to keep this updated as we make more progress.

New frame

2005-05-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

Okay, I gave into my materialistic and selfish desires and purchased a new bike frame. A decent description can be found at http://www.paketa.com/Road.aspx. Mine is all read, no labels. Note the msrp is 1999, however I payed approximately 10% of that, as I did with my bike box. The purchase price also included a fork, which I intend to sell, increasing the effective discount. I'm hoping to build up a super light bike, something that's totally sweet and super light. This one doesn't have the aero looking tubes, so maybe I'll build my current bike into a time trial bike.

The special feature of this bike is that it's made of magnesium. This bike should be relatively light weight, but more durable than most due to it's thicker tube walls. However I hope to never test that hypothesis.

I fully intend to end up with a cyclocross bike, a road bike and a time trial bike. I'd also like to have a track bike, but who knows. In addition, I have this older bike which has a lot of sentimental value, and I don't really want to convert it into one of the above, though it might happen.

I've wasted a shameful amount of time looking for light weight stuff for my new frame for a shameful amount of time now. The realistic dream follows: purchase campagnolo shifters, a fsa mega exo carbon crankset, lighter handlebars, stem, and seat post from the ritchey order, if it ever happens again. To round out the set, I intend on building up some super light weight tubular wheels. Most of this may never happen though. If it does, it could be a pretty cool bike.

Why don't I post more?

2005-05-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

I've heard some complaints lately that I haven't been posting enough on this blog. The reason I haven't is because on the rare occasions I get blog post ideas I usually put them on my other blog, The Easy Distraction. The Easy Distraction is a pretty good blog. The Easy Distraction has a lot of religious posts, along with other topics that interest me. I try to post on The Easy Distraction at least once per day, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes, though, I post on The Easy Distraction several times per day. For example, today I have posted on The Easy Distraction twice already. Some people might wonder why I chose the name The Easy Distraction for my blog. I don't really know the answer. The Easy Distraction just seemed like a good name at the time, and changing it from The Easy Distraction to something else is more trouble than it's worth. Besides, the 3 people who read The Easy Distraction might get confused if I change the name to something other than The Easy Distraction. So, I keep the name The Easy Distraction.

So there you have it. The Easy Distraction is the reason that I don't post more on this blog. If you want, you could visit The Easy Distraction from time to time to see if I am posting on The Easy Distraction, but I can't promise anything. After all, I'm not perfect, and neither is The Easy Distraction. In the future, I'll try to post more on The Easy Distraction and on this, its brother blog.

Impostor comments

2005-05-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

So, we got a comment from a fellow claiming to be "god." however, an examination of the site records revealed that "god" logs in from Dayton Ohio, from the university of Dayton, which is a catholic school, lending some credibility to the reader's identity claim. However, I also have a cousin named David Johnson at the University of Dayton, and he maybe the prankster. This seems the better explanation. Equally good though is the possibility that a professor made the comment, for we all have experienced the ego of certain professors.

Now if you're not used to checking comments and don't know what I"m talking about, here's a link. Click it to see the comments from a fellow claiming to be God. http://humdrumlifeoftheegotistical.blogspot.com/2005/05/simpsons-are-awesome.html.

Comments can be left on each entry, just click below where it says "comments(x)," for those of you who don't do the blog scene often. The best stuff is always in the comments.

Nationals over

2005-05-17T22:47:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I got back from Kansas with all kinds of goodies, largely because my parents live there. Here's a list:

1 awesome frame pump: I bought this on sale last summer, left it at home, rather missed it, but am glad to have it back

2 hats and water bottles given away by gatorade and specialized

3 tyvek general mills jacket my mother gave me, having sent in enough cereal box tops

4 2 new t shirts, one says collegiate championships on it.

5 socks, underwear, and nice high tech fabric shirts my mom had found on sale and saved for me. She also offered a nice wind breaker, but I let her know I had enough of such things

6 cheerio treats, chicken breasts, oatmeal cookies, and a few turkey sandwiches, all made by my mom.

7 two magazines from my swimming days which had some rather good smoothie recipe's which fueled me on the go in my formative years as an athlete.

Most of all I've come back with a new set of training priorities. I have a new list of books to read, including Dr. Bompa's books on periodization, which I already have from the library, sports psychology and a few chapters of a massage book which I also have from the library. I sat next to a really cool guy on the air plane who looked a lot like Chris Carmichael and gave me all sorts of good references and tips. He was sort of a Christian, but a bit shy about it. He nonetheless was quite insightful about matters of training and other things. He had done some training with a east german important fellow of some sort. After this nationals experience I think I might try triathalons. I even went on a short run today. Mind you this is all cross training for a big road cycling comeback.

The trip was awesome, I saw teams with mechanics, coaches, masseurs, and different riders for different events. I was rather jealous of all the supierior equipment. as a result I've begun planing my financial future as well such that I might enjoy some such luxuries, with any luck.

results, photos, and who knows what else can be found at http://www.kuroadnationals.com/ and http://www.marylandcycling.com/

Coffee

2005-05-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

So I went to the coffee bar at the student union today and had a big latte. It tasted like horse. I mean it tasted exactly the way a certain horse I know smells. (His name is Corcolen by the way) This however, did not prevent me from drinking the whole thing. The reason, you see, is that I am completely dependent on caffeine at the moment.
This happened last semester too, but after reading an article in National Geographic about caffeine that included some functional-MRI images of caffeine addicts and normal brains, I was motivated to go decaf over winter break. (Basically the pictures proved what I already knew, that when an addict hasn't had their fix, their brain function is quite a bit below normal levels.)
It didn't last long - just a couple of weeks into the spring semester, I was back on the stuff. I'm up to about 4 cups a day. I need that just to function normally. I can have two cups in a row and go right to sleep, no problem, so it's not really useful for staying up late the way it was earlier in the semester. So what are my long term plans? I guess I should try to cut down the intake. The real problem is I don't want to. And it would be hard. Oh man, I want a cup real bad, except I sort of have a headache. Oh, man, I going to go get some. I really shouldn't. I'll really stop after the semester ends. Or at least after the 1st of June. Yeah, that's reasonable. Okay. I'm okay.

The Simpsons are Awesome

2005-05-15T21:12:00.000-04:00

The Simpsons never cease to amaze me. Until tonight I was starting to fall away from them I'll admit. I didn't really like many of their new episodes, but that has all changed. The season finale of the Simpsons was all about Catholics and oh man was it ever hilarious, in the good way. As a Catholic myself I found so much humor in everything, it was great. The plot goes that Bart gets expelled and must attend a Catholic school (ya an old plot but this was better). Once there he befriends a Priest and then wants to become Catholic. Homer goes to get him back, but soon wants to convert himself. Marge of course is outraged and does everything she can to win them back. In the end Homer and Bart don't convert, but its clear Homer and Bart still want to, and Bart ends with a message of tolerance (kinda a let down but whatever, the rest was great. They were even respectful to the whole sex abuse scandal. Anyways if you missed it and your Catholic you missed the best Simpsons ever!

Going to nationals

2005-05-11T16:38:00.000-04:00

So I've gotten a bike box, plane tickets, a ride to the airport, and most of the legistics of traveling to nationals out of the way. I replace a wheel after a big crash last week and got myself a new chain. I even machined a special little frame protector in case something should go wrong. It basically keeps something from squashing the dropouts together while the wheel is out. Now I only need to finish my school work and pack up.

Sadly due to some unfortunate happenings on our team I was left off our rudy project order. No malice was involved, though I'm still quite disappointed.

Boy do I hate papers. I bet I'll be the only one there with a cool frame protector though.

Evolution Revolution?

2005-05-08T17:27:00.000-04:00

I was reading this news article and the only thing I could think of was people really don't know the difference between evolution and natural selection.

In the article the reporter refers to evolution as the scientific theory that changes in animals led to new species. Now this is correct, if he was defining evolution, but he wasn't. The problem is evolution is the overarching theory on the origins of life on our planet. Its pretty much been proven to, as well as a theory can be, life on this planet has evolved. Now what this article was actually talking about was Natural selection Theory versus Intelligent Design Theory.

Natural Selection states basically that random mutations in organisms have led to new species, the good mutations allowing those organisms to survive longer and reproduce more, thus changing the species as a whole.

Intelligent Design Theory looks at the huge odds required for even the smallest change to take hold on a species and says their must be some higher being at work here.

As you can see both theories "agree" with evolution, they just differ on how it happens. My beef is that people mistake evolution theory for natural selection theory all the time and just go around branding people Creationist if they disagree with them (I'm using the term Creationist as one who disbelieves in evolution and believes God created all species they way they are and they don't change, that may not be the exact definition but its what most people think). The more you look at it science and God go together pretty well.

Think you have what it takes?

2005-05-08T16:46:00.000-04:00

Have you ever dreamed of joining the 2103 Prince George's Team? Well now you have a chance. One of the spots in the apartment has opened up and we are soliciting applications from those who would be interested in living here. No kidding, if you're interested or know someone who is looking for on campus housing, let me know because otherwise Res Life is going to give me some random roommate. Not that I afraid to meet new people or try new things, but you know, it could be real ugly.

36 Hours

2005-05-05T19:25:00.000-04:00

36 hours, this is the approximate amount of time that I have gone without sleep. Let me tell you it has been quite in interesting experience. Now you may be asking yourself, "but Joey, why would you do something like that?" (in an exceptionally whinny voice) Well my friends I shall start from the beginning.

9:45 May 4, I wake, its a Wednesday, so I don't have class till 11am, and I can sleep in. Looking back I'm pretty thankful that I did. So I got up and went to class.
12:30 May 4, Back from class and doing some homework. I knew I had a long night of paper writing ahead of me so I wanted to get my other stuff done early.
4:00pm May 4, I again return my classes and have a little something to eat, then the fun begins. At 9:30 on May 5, Mike and I had to turn in our Final Business Writing Report and present it to the class. This means in in about 17 hours my biggest paper of the semester was due. Do get me wrong Mike and I had written some of the report already, but it really wasn't enough.
6:00pm May 4, Dinner at the CSC, I had to eat quick then run back to my apartment to change. Why? Because I had a Knights of Columbus first degree ceremony to perform at 8 and I needed to get ready. The First Degree went from 8 to 10, so no work got done.
10:30pm May 4, Back to the apartment to work on the paper.
12:30am May 5, I run out to kinkos to print some photos for our oral presentation, that was fun.
3:30am May 5, We finish the report, now we get to edit, revise and put our presentation together, we'll be in bed in know time!
6:30am May 5, Final Report is finished, My roommates alarm begins to go off and I eat some breakfast.
7:00am May 5, I make Mike go out and bind our report, to make it look all pretty.
8:30am May 5, We finish the oral presentation
9:30am May 5, Report turned in and presentation and A, success!!!
11:00am May 5, I go to class.
Currently, I am still wide awake, although I must keep myself busy, least I fall asleep, I know I go to bed soon, but its the 5th of May and I am Mexican, add that up. (No I won't be getting drunk, but alcohol will be involved, A holiday celebrating Mexicans kicking the crap out of the French, awesome)

UPDATE: I fianlly went to bed at 1 am, 40 hours later

I wish you were there to see it...

2005-05-03T02:12:00.000-04:00

Man you should have been here at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday morning. I was in the living room with our neighbor Jessica and Joey came in and threw a book of my drawings on the coffee table. Here is out conversation, as best I can remember it:

Mike: "Be careful, those will be priceless someday."
Joey: attempts to kick the book but hits the table, presumably hurting is toes
Joey: kicks again, this time hitting the book, which flips over and spills three cups of water on the coffee table and floor
Mike and Jessica: laughing "Ha ha ha ha"
Joey: "I'm going back to bed."

Funny, right? It was even funnier in person.

The Baltimore Orioles

2005-05-02T01:55:00.000-04:00

If your an Orioles fan then you too must be as happy as I am right now. Currently the Orioles are 17 and 7, that 10 games ABOVE .500 for those oh you who can't count, with an 8 game winning streak, which includes a sweep of the Yankees. I have been waiting for this for about what is it 8 years since we've seen a post season (Ever since that *#@$*% *#**@#$ kid right!)? Who cares, this is awesome!! And to add to my ecstasy the Evil Yanks are at the bottom of the division.

If you're not a baseball fan, you suck, but more importantly, you may not be able to comprehend what this means to the rest of us normal people. Again I don't care, this is so great!!!

I do have one major beef, all you pessimistic fans, not the fair weather fans. The fair weather fans have not yet returned to Oriole land, they will, once they realize this isn't a fluke and I'll have a big ol' bat in the face for them when they do return (I really hate fair weather fans). But no, now my beef is with the pessimists. These are the people who are indeed Orioles fans, but they are sitting at home pouting, just waiting for the Orioles to screw up so they can say "See its the same old losers, man why do they have to suck so much, gees Orioles!! (imagine a really whining voice)" They are the people who never watch the games anymore, but will walk in on one and be surprised that the Orioles are actually winning and be like "Wow, blah blah blah, this is new, blah, blah, blah, ha ha ha, blah, they'll screw it up."

Look if you can't support a team you claim to like then find another favorite. Now I don't mean you have to be all unrealistic, and like "Ya, World Series Baby!!" (although I do think that) and "Best team ever whoo!!" Its ok to be cautiously optimistic or just hope we can grab a wild card or finish above .500 or something like that. Just please don't rain on my parade, I want to enjoy the success I've been missing so much!

Less then pleasing...

2005-04-29T20:16:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd try a little something different for dinner tonight. I thought I'd try dandilions. After reading about which parts to eat and how to cook them, I gathered a bunch of dandilion leaves and flowers and brought them to the Catholic Student Center to cook. It didn't turn out too well. The leaves tasted like spinach but with a stronger aftertaste, and the flowers (fried in a batter) were nothing special. Oh well, maybe my next wild food experience will be better.

Nationals and finally getting sponsored

2005-04-28T20:56:00.000-04:00

So I"m off to Colliegate bike racing nationals, held in my hometown of Kansas City http://www.glue.umd.edu/~neilg/kansascity.mp3 So it's actually a few hours away from kc, but whatever, not letting that slow me down. So in preparation, I've gotten myself a bike travel box, retail 200 dollars, for 20 dollars, thanks to the good friend of it's deceased previous owner.

In addition I've also been sponsored by Rudy Project, which means free sunglasses and helmet this year. In addition, I must not wear my ray ban's on the bike. I don't really wear glasses anyway. So yeah, me and Jan have something else in common now.

Pig Roast Pictures

2005-04-26T16:42:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from the pig roast that Mary sent me. Thanks! Wow the fire was bigger than I remembered.

	This is right after we flipped it the second time. Looking good so far - we probably had another half-hour of cooking to go at this point.
	Oops. I think we added a little too much charcoal.
	Apparently grease fires burn at 2200 degrees F. Maybe that's why the welds on my grate failed. I think this picture is just after my dad poured his beer on the fire.
	The Knights carving the slightly charred pig. Tasted fine as long as you didn't get the part that fell in the mud. Sorry, Deacon Woods!

I have bigger copies of these pictures and more. Eventually they will be posted on my computer . That means this link is broken whenever my computer is turned off, or not online, sorry.

Why I love Futurama and Matt Groening

2005-04-25T23:03:00.000-04:00

I was just watching an episode of Futurama, episode 71, Bender Should not be Allowed on TV, to be exact. One scene involves The professors clone asking him if he has a birthday. Here are the exact lines:

Cubert: Dad, do I have a birthday?
Farnsworth: Hmmm...you didn't have a birth, so technically, no. Aw, don't feel bad. We can celebrate the day I extracted you from the cloning tank. Or the day I scraped your DNA from that growth on my back.
Cubert: Ooh! That one!

I got them from TV tome

Did anyone else just giggle with delight? This is just one more example of the Simpsons, Futurama, and Matt Groening being Pro-Life!!!! Sweet!

P.S. If you really don't get it comment about it and I'll explain

Pig Roast! A Case Study in Fire-Protection Engineering

2005-04-24T10:54:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the Knights of Columbus Pig Roast was yesterday, and like so many spectacularly over-ambitious projects we take on, it was very nearly a disaster. This time we came especially close. With only about 20 minutes of cooking to go, the pig ignited entirely, the wood cover of the barbeque nearly did so, and without much imagination, one could see all of the CSC forest going up in flames. After a day of welding, cooking, barbequeing, and fire fighting, I am minus quite a bit of hair on my right arm, my eyebrows and eyelashes are singed and I have first-degree and some areas of second-degree burns on my arms and hands.

But it was worth it.

In the hopes that the pig roast can continue as a tradition of Sedes Sapientiae Council and that the mistakes of this year are not repeated, I will eventually post here an analysis of the day.

Rome

2005-04-22T15:28:00.000-04:00

Going through my pictures of Rome I found this one. I actually painted this while touring the city, its ok, not my best but hey I think its pretty good. I like to paint watercolor, and I'm really glad as to how the light came out in this one.

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2005-04-22T00:44:00.000-04:00

I was playing around online today when work was boring and came across this. Obviously, it reminded me of Joey. I'm not sure why the Pope Signal is coming from Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence, but it's a cool picture anyway.

An awesome turn of events

2005-04-19T14:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I was going to go off on a rant about my beef with airport secruity, somethings been bugging me for a while, BUT something else entirely has come up!!!

We have a new POPE!!!!! Today in the afternoon vote of the conclave has elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as our new Pope Benedict XVI!!!!!

I think you should all join me in a collective "SWWEEEET!!!!"

Remember our new Pope has aked for our prayers so lets get cracking

Pope John Paul the Great, pray for us

gross

2005-04-11T13:22:00.001-04:00

okay, I went racing this weekend, and i even bought a special set of lower gears for this mountain climb we were doing saturday. The race was going well, and in the 45 miles before the final 5 of climbing I was really riding smart, keeping in the front but out of the wind, following breaks, and generally keeping with smart tactics. After 40 miles of riding though, I'm going through this turn in second position, tucked in very close to the fellow in front of me, when the fellow in front of me stops turning an rides off the road. I maintained my turning radius and as a result found that there was a huge patch of gravel on the road where he had stopped turning. I lost control of the front wheel and slid out right through the gravel. As a result of popular demand (a request/taunt from reader hlfblkcalicojack= Sierra Correa), I have posted some pics of the wounds below for your amusement.

gross pic1
gross pic2
gross pic3
gross pic4
gross pic5
gross pic6
gross pic7
gross pic8

The photos were taken after multiple amature cleanings, including soaks with hydrogen peroxide, 15 minutes of irrigation, iodine wiping, etc. As you can see it was little avail. No worries though I got a professional cleaning from the tender hands at the help center.

Lest you think my weekend was ruined, I should point out that sunday I rode another race and placed second, so I did have some decent results despite the crash.

Shantytown

2005-04-07T16:21:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I walked out of class yesterday and onto the Mall. The first thought that crossed my mind as I surveyed the scene was shantytown. Honestly thats what the Mall looked like. I realize that its the first day of warm weather but man it was just weird. There was an impromptu drum band playing, free food, tons of people running around barefoot, and groups of people sitting on blankets and towels. Really, the only thing this place was missing was some tents and cardboard houses and shantytown ho!I'm not saying this is bad or all those people are stupid, but it was like wow this is the place I pay thousands of dollars to attend, nothing more then a big hippie funfest. I don't know kinda disturbing

Update on previous post

2005-04-05T19:13:00.000-04:00

The Pope's funeral is this Friday the 8th, so remember to were your Catholic Terps T-Shirts

Novemdiales

2005-04-03T13:19:00.000-04:00

Novemdiales, the nine days of mourning for the Holy Father begin today, April 3rd. Remember to wear your Catholic Terps t-shirt on the day of the Pope's funeral. The birthday party we had been planning for April babies is probably going to be postponed, I'll let you know when we decide on a new date.

The Pope

2005-04-02T00:22:00.000-05:00

As Pope John Paul II nears death, I'd like to ask everyone to please say a prayer for him. If your like me he is the only Pope we every known so I just ask God to watch over him as his time on earth comes to an end and to give us strength to carry on the many good things that Pope John Paul II began. I ask that this prayer be carried to Our Lord by the woman John Paul held so close to him, Mary Mother of God, through her intercession.

Hail Mary, full of grace

the Lord is with you
blessed are you among women and
blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners now and
at the hour of our death

Free Personal Checks, down with service fees

2005-03-31T22:48:00.000-05:00

So in general you have to preregister for all bike races, otherwise they'll fill up and if you show up on race day you won't be able to race. Of course if you're a woman, or you're old, your race won't fill up. Nonetheless, it's good to preregister. There are two ways to do this. The first is the old fashioned way, send in a check. The second way is to use a site called bikereg.com which accepts a credit card and charges you a couple extra dollars for the service fee.

I hate paying the service fee, so I always do it the old fashioned way. However, I recently wrote my last check, so I checked the prices for new ones on my bank, bankofamerica's website. 10 dollars for 50 checks-20 cents per check. At that price it almost becomes worth it to go pay the service fee as you get instantaneous confirmation. However, I figured I could go to the bank and get some starter checks for free, which the bike race organisers would accept since they have no choice as they didn't put no starter checks on their flyers. However, this morning I was informed no such checks are available, but one can use the free online bill pay feature to have the bank print a check and send it through the mail to whatever race you're interested in doing. I still need to spend postage on the rider release form, but I consider it a victory for the old fashioned way and a defeat to bikereg's exorbitant service fees, which I hate.

Coincidentially, I happened to read Frank Abignail's book, The Art of Stealing, (he is also the protagonist of Catch me if you Can), and check fraud is quite easy to commit. Anyone can order checks from many different vendors with your account info on them and have them shipped to their address, not the address written on the checks. They need only a good look at one of your checks. They can then cash these checks at will on your dime. I suppose not having any checks at all thwarts this tactic.

Hustle

2005-03-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

I've discovered a very interesting fact about sports. You can be moderately good at most sports with some good hustle. Now I have long been an advocate of hustle. I mean look at any team in any sport that loses and you can just feel the lack of hustle, its sad really. Even the Maryland Basketball team has suffered from a lack of hustle at times.

I discovered this while playing on the Catholic Student Center intramural volleyball team. I only ever played volleyball as a recreation with friends, maybe once or twice a year. Tonight I had not played fro about 2 years easy. But after a quick warm up game, I was actually scoring points and making plays. Now I'm not saying I am anywhere near good, but I was very ok. Why? Because I gave 110% I had a whole lot of hustle. I know my hustle has improved my basketball skills as well as soccer skills. Its all about the hustle. I'd say its easily 50/50 on hustle and skill as to how good you are at a sport, so get out there and shoe me some hustle!!!

Maryland Update part III

2005-03-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Continuing in my updates of Maryland's post season basketball run ... WE HAVE REACH THE FINAL FOUR BABY!!!

Ok so its the NIT final four, but still, thats impressive. I mean only four teams do this a year, and I haven't seen Duke in the NIT Final Four like ever.

Well, Maryland beat Texas Christian University (or TCU for short) 85 to 73 on Saturday March 26. It was a close game but Maryland pulled ahead in the final minutes to seal the final four ticket.

We will play South Carolina on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, and WE WILL WIN!!

Maryland Update II

2005-03-24T10:40:00.000-05:00

Maryland 78, Davidson 63

Yes folks, Maryland has scored another Post Season victory and actually made it further in the NIT (quaterfinals) for the first time since 1972 (when they won, by the way). Maryland came back after a dismal first half to win the game. With about 3:30 left in the first half Maryland went on a 16 to 0 run to close the half at 34 - 34, tying the game. The run continued into the second half and went 20 - 0 4 minutes into the second before Davidson could score again (on a free throw too). Leading 38 -36 Maryland never looked back and led the rest of the game. Maybe Maryland Basketball really has risen from the dead.

My latest creation...

2005-03-22T01:24:00.000-05:00

This is the cake I made Sierra for her birthday Sunday. Yes, the cake. While it may look like mild-mannered orange chicken and rice, do not be fooled. In reality, it is an orange cake, with orange glaze (on the "chicken") and coconut (on the "rice"). I know I'm weird, but the expression on Sierra's face when I explained that it wasn't orange chicken was priceless. Also, unless you've made something like this before, you can't imagine how good it feels to have someone look at it, up close, and not realize that it isn't orange chicken. Hands down, this is the biggest success I've had this year at anything. And it only took 4 or 5 hours. This definitely goes into the Mike Carroll Cooking Hall of Fame (until now, the only thing there was the Cicada Fried Rice Joey and I won a free trip with last year).

Everyone owes me a "Happy Feast Day"

2005-03-19T23:51:00.000-05:00

In case you live under a rock at the bottom of the ocean you ought to know that today was St. Joseph's feast day. Now I know St. Joseph is, right now, praying for all of us in heaven (Especailly for all those who happen to share his name *cough cough*). So lets celebrate and make sure you let every Joe, Joey, and Joseph know how awesome they are for having such an awesome name.

Socialism and Catholicism

2005-03-18T02:09:00.000-05:00

For my Russian lit class I've had to read quite a few interesting books. One that struck me as particularly interesting was Mother by Maxim Gorky. Gorky was a pre-revolution Bolshevik. He was a member of the socialist party in Russia around the early 20th century. Gorky was a well accomplished revolutionary author, although he opposed the 1917 revolution.

Mother is basically a propaganda piece, but (and he is the interesting part) Gorky uses a lot of Christian symbolism and examples to further his novel's message. Mother is set in the 1900's and follows the life of a mother of a revolutionary leader, Pavel. Gorky makes the connection of Pavel and his mother to Jesus and the Virgin Mary. As he draws the connection closer he slowly twists it to his own socialist propaganda. The biggest example of this little twist is how Gorky uses the Jesus/Pavel connection. During an illegal May Day celebration Pavel is arrested. The mother, distrot, watching the people who had moments ago supported her son leave starts to speak. The group had been talking about how great a man Pavel is for standing up for them, the mother chides them by explaining how Pavel is nothing without his followers (disciples, you may see where this is going). Instantly, Gorky has taken Jesus, the man, and shown how great he was and how he should be imitated, but using the Pavel connection attempts to show how Jesus would not even be remembered if people had not followed him and that is what is important. Gorky is trying to say how the revolutionary movement as a whole is important, that its leaders should be looked up to but they are nothing without everyone else, that it is the whole working class that will win the fight for the cause.

That is only one example, throughout the whole novel you see Gorky separating Christ from the Church and taken the example of Christ and comparing it to the ideal revolutionary, who is Pavel. Pavel is willing to and does sacrifice his whole life to the cause. He is exiled to Siberia and refuse to be distracted and marry the girl he loves.

This separation of Christ is seen in another way with one seen where Pavel brings home an ikon of Jesus after the resurrection, his mother wonders why since he never goes to church. Once again Gorky separates Christ as a lone example and goes further to say that Christ is not important but the future he died for is.

Through the story we follow the mothers slow transformation from abused worker to righteous revolutionary. Although its socialist propaganda, if you ever wanted to see why Christianity and religion in general is not compatible with Socialism read this book.

Minimoose!

2005-03-17T01:58:00.000-05:00

I know some of you a while back were wondering just who exactly is Minimoose. Well wonder no longer. Behold Minimoose in all his glory! I look at Minimoose everyday when I IM, but none of you can see him because AOL IM is stupid and won't show any of my awesome pictures. I mean I'm sitting here at 2 am trying to make it accept some pictures, but nothing works, waste of my time oh man.

Maryland Update

2005-03-17T01:49:00.000-05:00

Hurrahs are in order as Maryland raises itself from post season death! (Kinda)

Well, the Maryland Basketball team has won its first game in a long while. It may have been against a no name team, it may be a stupid NIT game, but we all needed this and all you fans out there know it. So lets hear it for our Terps, Fianlly!

All the way to NIT Champs WOOH!

Little Known Fact

2005-03-15T16:52:00.000-05:00

So did anyone know that if you make it past 4am its pretty easy to stay up the rest of the night. Pretty interesting, take a look at my schedule last night...

8:30pm: Begin writing paper due in the morning
1:30am: Finish rough draft of said paper
2:00am: Finish other homework due in the morning
3:30am: Finish proofreading paper due in 5 hours
4:00am: Decide to do reading assignments do in the morning
6:00am: Get hungry and decide to make breakfast
6:30am: Finish a great breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast
8:00am: Turn in paper finished last morning/night
8:30am: Decided to sleep instead of finishing readings
10:00am: Wake up, shower, and go to classes, also wonder why apartment smells like bacon then remember it was you who cooked it.

Yup, good times, I hope I can do this everyday!

Blog fever

2005-03-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

Blog mania is sweeping the CSC. Everyone has one now. If Lucas has one he's not telling us about, then there might be more blogs than people in 2103 PG Hall. Whose blog will survive beyond when the novelty wears off? Whose blog will gain a large readership? Follow the drama and see.

Dreams of Googling Crushed...

2005-03-14T01:21:00.000-05:00

So my Gemstone mentor sent my name along to Google as a potential candidate for their summer internship program. About two weeks later, I got an email from them asking me to schedule a phone interview. I was really excited, and psyched, until one night, very late, while cruising the Wolframm website to use the Integrator to do some electromagnetics problems, I happened across a copy of the Google Aptitude Test, along with solutions in Mathematica on that site. Suffice it to say, I went into the interview pretty freaking scared. It turns out, the researcher who had been interested in me had misinterpreted something I had in my resume. She is working on GooglePrint, which will have a massive database of searchable documents. I had had a job two summers ago reading and classifying astronomy journal articles, and she mistakenly thought that I had designed some system to do this automatically. Nope, it was actually pretty low-tech.

A week later, I get a rejection email. Oh well, I guess it was never meant to be. I am and will remain, an amateur googler.

Racing begins

2005-03-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

Biking season has started, and I'm sad to say I am not really in the best shape of my life. I intend to get there though by summer. Nonetheless I've had some really good results. I've really improved my bike handling skills and I'm substantially more assertive in the pack. If this sounds like gobbly gook to you, imagine 80 riders on a one lane road all vying for position at the front of the pack, but not at the very front (the ideal position is about 5 riders back). Why all this nonsense you say? Well aerodynamic drag forces are the major retarding force in road cycling, and getting right behind another rider saves a tremendous amount of energy. So the plan is get someone else to do all the work until the end when you sprint for the win. Of course strategies get more complex, and riders take turns going into the wind and end up going way faster than they could alone. Ultimately you need to be smart, lucky, skillful, and strong to do well on a consistent basis. As you can imagine there's lots of bumping in such a pack, especially as we go round corners and such. I've really improved my ability since last year to take and give out bumps at high speeds through corners, and I'm pretty excited for the rest of our season. Also, the amount of g forces I can handle while cornering has increased, meaning that I can go a bit faster through corners, though it helps to have seen and tried them first.

So while my legs are not as strong as they could be, I'm working on the tactical side of cycling, which has some hidden benefits. If my legs were a bit better I'd be forced to race A's and the leader of the A team is like a spoiled child. He really doesn't know how to have fun racing the bike and is always yelling and throwing little fits. I could tell a countless number of astounding stories regarding his amazing lack of character, but suffice to say it's more fun not to race with him than to race with him. I suppose if I didn't have to leave my bike in college park over winter break I could have come back strong enough to be the leader of the A team, but that's not how it went, plus I'd have to be way stronger since I have way less experience and skills. I'm just going to work on skills and tactics, and my fitness should be good by summer. Then I can pick and choose my team mates, and hopefully race really hard with some deserving team mates.

In addition racing b's is quite a bit of fun, everyone is more laid back and easy going, though I'd rather be doing the A's kicking but there. Nonetheless, when you consider that biking is my recreation, I think the B category is the best one for me for that purpose. While I probably have the fitness and skill to get away with racing A right now, I think that would create more stress than the added prestige and pride would be worth. I'm already a bit close to a mandatory upgrade though and next weekend may be my last B weekend.

I've included some some links pictures to somewhat express what bicycle racing is like, though it really can't express the white knuckled frustration of being in a huge 80 man deep pack on a narrow one lane country road zipping for corners and vying for position.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jonesmd/PresidentsCriterium2005/
Mike Jones, renaissance man.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~neilg/cyclingearlyseason2005/index.html
all taken by me, so none of me, also some pretty bad ones.

http://www.wvu.edu/~bike/navy_pics.html
has a sweet video of me off the front coming out of a 180 degree downhill turn(b race).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niels_olson/
not too much good stuff

http://community.webshots.com/user/rando31337
plenty of good stuff

random others worth looking at:
http://www.woofdesigns.com/WDsomething.htm

C men only(not me):
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=6wi23q.7imrbamb&x=0&y=-b6zriy

all pics of my race:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=6wi23q.2msq25oj&x=0&y=-u7dqft

Note, our three girls are doing an amazing job and took first second and thrid in their first race. I'm looking forward to the point where they start racing women's A and really challenge themselves. I think they're still a bit hesitant to move up, but a few more sweeps and hopefully they'll look for the challenge of the A feild. No chance they'll sweep that this year though, not as long as a certain UVA girl shows up. She was competeing in the men's B feild in a hard road race with plenty of hard climbing which ended up dropping all but 17 men and her. Though to be fair, she did cheat by using the oncoming traffic lane to advance, and should have been disqualified right then and there as the oncoming traffic lane is not blocked off. I think they'll still see plenty of good finishes in the a's though.

Also of note, we have two c riders who look like they will be quite good as well. One won the road race, another got third in the criterium this weekend. Looks to be a good season.

Maryland

2005-03-10T15:50:00.000-05:00

Lets all have a moment of silentance for the death of the Maryland Basketball season, shot down in its prime ...

Ok, now seriously Clemson? I mean come one, anyone else, anyone else but Clemson. They are so bad, yet the play so good against us! WHY! Arggghhh, this isn't fair, we could have beaten UNC, we would have beaten Duke, Wake Forest maybe, Virgina well duh, FSU oh come on no question, VTech we've done it before, GTech no problem, NC State most likely, Miami oh please, but Clemson? Oh no we can't beat them, even when we shutdown Ford, they still beat us! I can't believe it! Clemson will be creamed tomorrow by UNC, they have no chance at a tourny bid, but they can sure crush our hopes. Oh gees, these makes me so angry, arrrggggghhhhh!

Marylands new slogan: We beat the best and lose to the rest

Cookies

2005-03-09T02:04:00.000-05:00

I made some cookies today at 1 am. They're pretty good cookies, sugar cookies of course. Yet despite this, I feel that making cookies at 1 in the morning is slightly insane, I don't know, I was hungry.

2005-03-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of a deer. We'll call her Selma. This is also a picture of my dinner tonight. We'll call it steak. The marked areas are guestimates of where the venison I put in the fridge to thaw today came from. I chose this picture because the deer stood out so well against the snow. I chose red to mark off the meat both because it stands out and, well, it's the color of meat. Common sense and practicality. That's the way I roll. If you think this picture is exciting, just wait until I decide to eat the tenderloin.

Update on frozen yogurt

2005-03-08T00:17:00.000-05:00

Just for the record, Joey made Mandarin Orange frozen yogurt today. Yum. Soon to come flavors: oatmeal raisin, cinnamon, apple, chocolate raspberry.

Emboque

2005-03-07T01:39:00.000-05:00

On Alan's note about the Chilean Balero I googled emboque and found some interesting stuff. Mainly, I was referred back to the Balero players associations website and looked at their international page. Apparently balero's date far back in France and with Eskimos. They also have several different names and style depending on where you get them. The one we have is a bell shape, which is the main style of emboques. Baleros are more cylinder or cuboval shaped.

P.S. The first site that came up with my search is a band called Emboque. There actually not bad, although I don't know what they are saying. (I like the lead singer, reminds me of heavy metal, although they sound kinda alternative/punk)

UPDATE (3/8/05)
found a new technique, starting on the peg and flipping the bell in the air and landing back on the peg, very hard, but a big 10 pointer!

Updated Baleros Records

2005-03-07T01:11:00.000-05:00

Standard method:
3/7/05 - Alan - 47 in a row.
J-method:
3/7/05 - Joey - 12 in a row.

By the way, this game is called "emboque" in Chile, where I bought it a craft fair in the town where my grandmother lives.

Pasta Dinner

2005-03-06T21:52:00.000-05:00

So last week I agreed to host a Pasta Dinner Friday evening to prepare ourselves for the first race. I made all kinds of plans to get my carless self to the grocery store and to put together a terrific menu, as certain cyclists can be extremely hard to please-some even get the label "pre-Madonna." At this point I'm thinking I need to make something great everyone will enjoy to foster a good time and prove myself as some of the other members really look down their noses at me, for I tend to eat a lot, and I'm not very picky. To a pre-Madonna, someone who is not picky is someone with really bad taste so I think this is why not very many people had RSVPed. This also may have had to do with a statement in the invitation about habaneros.

Then, Thursday evening the best looking girl on the cycling team reminds me that she is planning on making tons of baked ziti, and can bring some Cesar salad too, and that I don't need to do anything. She puts this on our cycling forum and our listserv and bam, all of a sudden lots of people are free to come. We filled my little apartment and had a great time shooting each other with the various nerf guns our apartment keeps a stalk of. The only down note was that not having checked my email all day I didn't clear enough room for all the guests to sit, but I think everyone made do and had a good time. I think she really made the party a success.

Moral of the story:Beautiful women who can cook are great. Especially for parties.

2005-03-06T08:10:00.000-05:00

This is our most recent batch of home-made frozen yogurt. Not only is it homemade, the yogurt we used was made right in our fridge. Amazing. The lighter color is Strawberry-Apricot; the darker one is Cherry-Banana. They're both excellent. To date, we've made the following flavors:

1. Pineapple-Banana
2. Peanut Butter Fudge
3. Blueberry
4. Cherry-Banana
5. Strawberry-Apricot
6. At least one other that I can't remember

I think next I'm going to make cinnamon. If anyone has a flavor suggestion, please leave a comment to let me know.

Baleros

2005-03-05T18:10:00.000-05:00

Alan brought one of these things to the apartment when he came back from winter break. Its call a balero, check the picture if you don't know what it is. Basically, its a wooden peg on a stick and it has a ball with a hole in it attached with a string, the object being to check the ball on the peg. Well, recently we've had a running contest on to how many times we can do it in a row. There are two ways to do this, one (mine and the traditional way) is to swing the ball around. The second is to hold it the ball still and try to pull it straight up and onto the peg. My way is of course more difficult and therefore better. Regradless, we now have a tally board to record the top players in each field, the traditional method, Alan's, and left handed. As of right now the records stand at:

Alan's method: Alan 25 in a row
Joey's method: Joey 5 in a row
Left-handed: Mike 5 in a row/Alan 5 in a row

The link is to the Balero's Players Association, which I looked around and my style, columpiando is marked as 5 points, the straight up(Recto) is only 1 point. records standing at 96 and 309 respectively.

2005-03-05T12:54:00.000-05:00

That's an ice cream maker. In our freezer. Running. See, the problem was, if we wanted to make more than one batch of ice cream, we'd have to put the ice cream maker back in the freezer to get cold again in between batches. Being the bunch of geniuses we are, it didn't take long to find a solution to this problem. And since this worked so well, why not put other appliances in the freezer? It'll save counter space, and keep it cold at the same time! Amazing! I don't know what we'll put in there next, but rest assured you'll hear about it...

You WISH you had this

2005-03-05T02:17:00.000-05:00

So we were pretty happy with the television we've had in the living room of the apartment all year. Unfortunately it suddenly developed the annoying property of showing VH1 on every single channel. Needless to say, we were force to replace it. But there's no need to get rid of the old one!
Instead, I rigged up a cable splitter with some paper clips and electrical tape (fancy, huh?) and stacked the two. Best of all, since they are both Magnavoxes, they can be controlled with one remote. The mute button toggles between sound on one and the other. I think it's pretty sweet, except for the fact that no one in their right mind would actually want to watch VH1.

Yogurt

2005-03-04T09:47:00.000-05:00

Last night Neil put together yet another batch of yogurt. I know this because it is my job to make sure it gets into the refrigerator at the correct time. I think we have just about every odd food appliance you can think of. So far we have collected a yogurt maker, ice cream maker, two George Foreman grills, a juicer, a sandwich maker, a waffle iron, and a dehydrator. I think the only thing we don't have is a breadmaker and chalk all this up with our homemade sauces, we're almost self-sufficient.

Disc wheel covers Update

2005-03-03T15:07:00.000-05:00

So the university of maryland sign and graphics shop was so kind as to donate 4 18"x 36" blank corrugated plastic pieces to my disk wheel project. All I had to do was ask. I'm going to ride by home depot tomorrow and pick up some velco, and hopefully the project will be under way. more pictures later.

3am

2005-03-03T03:06:00.000-05:00

Hmmm, you know its time to go to bed when everyone on your IM list is away, its a very odd sight indeed. (Actually I blame the coffee for convincing me to drink it at 12:30am, seemed like a good idea at the time, why can't I be this awake when I wake up!)

English 394

2005-03-02T02:32:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to say that taking a business writing course when your major is Russian Language can sometimes cause complications. For example, taking several hours to fill out some stupid library resources sheet because you had to search for a million little things about a major that are so unnecessary!!!

Also, man the more you eat of that Habanero sauce the hotter it gets.

University of Maryland Reservations Office seeks to deny student groups first amendment rights

2005-03-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

Last semester officers of the Students for Life club were denied use of Mckeldin mall for a little cemetary of the innocent demonstration.
I have been able to reserve Mckeldin Mall on behalf of Students for Life, but not without the reservations office, in particluar Steve Adams, telling me I had no right to do so. However, each time I show him the Guidelines on Demonstrations and Leafleting he suddenly remembers one can reserve McKeldin Mall for such things. I am therefore publishing this link for posterity. Look for the following text:

Special Guidelines for Scheduled Demonstrations
Recognized University organizations, full or part-time students and current employees of the University who wish to schedule a demonstration, rally or equivalent activity, may request the space through the regular reservation procedure. Any such request must be made no less than one business day in advance of the activity. The Office of Campus Reservations will respond promptly to any reservation request. In the event a request is denied, an appeal may be made to the Vice President for Student Affairs who shall respond promptly to any such appeal. Demonstrations will be permitted at the following locations, unless another University department or organization has previously reserved the space: McKeldin MallEngineering FieldSouth Chapel FieldHornbake PlazaStamp Student Union (South East Plaza)Nyumburu Amphitheatre
Demonstrations may be held at other locations on campus with the approval of the Vice President for Student Affairs on a first-come, first-serve basis after an assessment that such demonstrations will not otherwise interfere with scheduled University use or fail to comply with the guidelines applicable to all demonstrations.

It's really irritating that he denies our first amendment right while letting other groups reserve it no problem, for the day after we requested the mall some group protesting something in the middle east got the mall without hassle. Someday maybe someone will report this to the vice president for student affairs as perscribed in the guidelines, but as long as Mr. Adams is cooperating why let some other bureaucrat's bias mess up our club's plans.

For the record such statements as "Mckeldin is public domain therefore no one is supposed to really do things on it at all" or "they just changed the policy and now events will only be held on Hornbake Mall" are total BS.

The Habanero Taste Test

2005-03-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

Here are the results of my impromptu taste test of Neil's Habanero Sauces.

The Yellow Sauce: This one I really like. The taste was slightly bland, I mean its mostly Habaneros, but it was still a pleasing taste. Now I should say that my tasting consisted oh a small spoonful of the sauce, so this is based off of a straight shot. I would describe the yellow as a rocket sauce, very hot, but quick to cool down. The second it hit my tongue my whole mouth started to heat up. After a second or two I made a quick dash for the cupboard, pleading with myself to get some water in my mouth. Unfortunately, before I could get to the water, my mouth cool a bit. So in conclusion, a good quick shot of fire, but its over way to quick.

Grade: B, nice taste, very hot, but no stamina

The Brown Sauce: I felt this was the best tasting of the two sauces. I could see myself putting it on a lot of foods. But what it excelled in with flavor it lost with its mildness. Now its possible that my mouth was slightly numb after the yellow sauce, but the brown was much milder then the yellow. This is its biggest failure.

Grade: C+, very good taste, but too mild (possibly due to mouth numbness)

Habanero sauce

2005-02-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

So today I made 2 types of habanero sauce, and I'd like to make a third soon, but Alan used up all the cream for his indian chicken stuff.

recipe 1
This one ended up being an interesting yellow color.

recipe 2

I'll tell you how they taste later.

Beginning

2005-02-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

The snow is falling and the work is going untouched, welcome to snow day number two. Another day filled with procrastination and a desire to do nothing. Yet this desire has already fallen to the my awesome power to complete at least one of my assignments due sometime in the near future. Huzzahs are in order!

Disc wheel covers

2005-02-28T13:48:00.000-05:00

So last semester I constructed a set of disk Bush Cheney wheel disc covers, for the purpose of both advertising my political inclination and give myself an aerodynamic advantage, though I'm not sure if I got the latter. I basically cut the covers out of coroplast campaign signs and used lots of tape. One side of the Bush wheel got destroyed when the bike was transported atop a car, and I'm looking to get a new cover.

I have no more campaign signs, and the election is over anyway, but I would like to obtain a set which provides an aerodynamic advantage. I have identified two possibilities-one is find 1/32" thick sheets of plastic, cut to shape, use some furniture foam or some such to minimize air flow through the wheel, and the second is molding covers out of spray foam. The first is the better design, but has the draw back that sheets of plastic thick enough to be stiff but thin enough to be cut are not readily availble. While the spray foam is available, it is stiff and if the wheel is slightly out of true the covers will only fit on nicely in a certain way.

I suppose I'll be checking around, any suggestions for materials will be appreciated.

2005-02-28T01:06:00.000-05:00

I'm in.

Blog started

2005-02-28T00:47:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm starting this blog because I have a lab report due tomorrow but I'm hoping for a snow day. Also I could be looking for a job, but maybe I'll just end up living with my parents for the rest of my life.