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EaglesWings42
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read my profile
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Gender: Male
Interests: Jesus, Lindsy, Computers, EVE, programming, web design
Expertise: Listening to people, computers, chocolate, food, sleep.
Occupation: Consulting
Industry: Computers (Software)
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/10/2004
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WHITES are motivated by PEACE, seek independence
and require kindness. They resist
confrontation at all costs. (Feeling good is
more important than being good.) They are
typically quiet by nature, they process
things very deeply and objectively, and they
are by far the best listeners of all the
colors. They respect people who are kind, but
recoil from perceived hostility or verbal
battle.WHITES need their quiet independence and refuse to
be controlled by others. WHITES want to do
things their own way, in their own time. They
ask little of others, and resent others
demanding much of them. WHITES are much
stronger than people think because they dont
reveal their feelings. WHITES are kind,
non-discriminate, patient and can be
indecisive, timid, and silently stubborn.
When you deal with a WHITE, be kind, accept
(and support) their individuality, and look
for nonverbal clues to their feelings.
What Color Are You?
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| Wow!
Wow!
Wow!
That's all I can say about the last month and a half. It's been incredible in so many ways. A quick run-through, you'll have to talk to me to learn more:
1. Grades turned out good, another 4.0 fall semester, despite some serious fear on my part that it wouldn't happen.
2. I was elected KKY treasurer for 2006.
3. I went to Christmas Conference, and it was AWESOME! I learned so much!
4. Lindsy and I got to spend some of break together, which rocked. Our relationship changed, but it's for the better.
5. I got my new monitor for Christmas, and thus reclaimed lots of space on my desk!
6. I was able to find things for my family for Christmas, despite their initial "I dunno's."
7. My mom sent fudge to school with me :D
8. I have a new flash drive that will actually allow me to transport real files (read: TV episodes).
9. If you talk to me, I'm sure you'll find out more about all those things and more!
Toodles
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| Time for the monthly (seems like it, anyway) update:
The biggest thing outta the last few weeks was definitely Fall Retreat! To get away from campus, and be surrounded by people who love Jesus is awesome! The break from the grind of campus life was a welcome oasis in the desert of fall semester. I've decided I have my gifts and connections in music and worship. That's where I can best be used, I think. Of course...I can't do that without prayer. More than anything else, the last two months have shown me just how valuable prayer is, and how disruptive to prayer some actions can be. Disrupted prayers aren't answered...there is no power in them. James said it best, "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" Amen, brother!
I finally feel like I'm connecting with some of the Tark guys. Before this year, I went to cell group. I enjoyed cell group. I contributed to cell group. Now, I'm getting a lot out of cell group. I'm convinced it's a result of recent growth and focus toward Jesus. This change has been so effective that last night, up until 5 minutes til 8, I wasn't going to cell group. I thought I had too much hw and such. Well, checked the old email, and guess what...prayer was the topic. You can guess where I was in 5 minutes! Yep, walking in the door of a room over at Tark to go to cell group. Math could wait. I did the hw after 11 that night, but it was all good.
In other big news, Purdue won a football game!!!! Yeah, we did. We beat Michigan State. \o\ /o/ \o\ /o/ \o/ One of the editors commented on a possible reason....about 7 weeks ago, a huge 18-foot boilermaker statue was erected between Mollenkopf and Ross-Ade. After that...we didn't win a game for 6 weeks. Guess what they did last Friday? They dedicated the statue. Guess what happened Saturday? We won. Yeah. Co-winky-dink? I think not! :P
Other news...hmm, Compilers is getting intense. Lots of late project nights. MAth, meh, whatever...it's going. Algorithms, well, it's actually quite a lot of fun. We're discussing some new concepts (At least to me!) and I'm getting ideas.... *evil grin here* LOL, MWAHAHAHA...anyways, I'm enjoying it. Exam 2 is returned tomorrow, and I'll get to see how well I actually did on it. Psych...well, let's just say I go about twice a week out of three. So long as I pay attention to hw schedule, I'm usually ok. It just isn't quite what I was lookin' for.
Now, scheduling for next semester....coming up after Thanksgiving...that's the first time I could make an appointment! I'll have Operating Systems, Numerical Methods, Sensory and Perceptual Processes (I think that's the name), and probably Real Analysis with some fellow bandos. Should be interesting...and once again, only 14 creedits :D
Speaking of band, we are on a different field for the rest of the year, which consists of tomorrow and Friday. The old field is a mudpit (supposedly) so we're using the Black IM fields. It's really nice to be off the grid and having to guide to people!
Tonight was nice, too....no hw to do, just laundry and helping Lindsy with her computer. It's acting up again, so I get to play doctor for a change! :P This time I have all the medicine, unlike usually when she has it all! We've had a chance to spend some more time with each other lately, and I like that. | | |
| Hmmm, long time no update. Let's fix that!
I'm just gonna start talking (typing) and we'll see what comes out....oh boy!
So, big thing on the mind now is band, mostly because it's taking the most time compared to normal. We had a lame-o pep rally to play at tonight, which, while somewhat boring and smaller than the ones I had in high school, didn't last for eternity. We sure need some kind of pep rally for our poor defense. I hope they wake up soon, because Northwestern isn't a push-over this year. They beat Wisconsin last week, and that takes some talent and execution. We're struggling on the execution side of things, especially in the secondary. On a more positive note, Kirsch has learned how to throw, and N'western doesn't appear to have a very tight defense, allowing some 37 points per game. Now if only our defense can hold them a few times and get us the ball...
Stepping back, October Break. Much needed, and quite productive, in my opinion. Several hours of work put into the chapter website, and the infrastructure is completely redone and upgraded. w00t. Now to see what we actually need on the website vs. what's currently there. I'm thinking perhaps forums would help on the communication side of things, but we'll see. The calendar has yet to be re-done, but I have ideas and such floating in the old noggin' just waitin' to be implemented. And then the last bit...the listserver. Redoing that with MySQL, PHP, and classes. Should be a fun project, and not terribly difficult, really. I'll get to use some things that I've recently learned about (the past couple semesters) in CS classes, so yay for that!
Lindsy went home on break... :(, but then she came back Monday :D. As a result, Tuesday wasn't quite so productive, but it's all good. Sunday and Monday were used quite well. Monday night was the Butler chapter's 1st degree, and I went to that. It was fun and different than ours, but I think every chapter does things different, at least regarding aesthetics.
Before break...hmm, well there were a few football games that didn't go so well, so boo to that. We had a couple recruiting trips for band, and they were generally fun. Not necessarily cool that I lost the weekend to them, but I took work with me and got plenty done. Seeing the show in Concord made me want to march high school style again. HS and Purdue are so different, stylistically, primarily because they have two difference audiences and as such, two different purposes. They are both loads of fun, although it is hard work, and I don't think people want to give that work, especially in college. I sense a rant approaching.....
When we get to the practice field, it's easy to see those that really care and want a good show, and it's just as easy to see those that don't really care....they're still there for whatever reason, I have no idea. In HS I could understand, parents said so...blah, blah, blah. But in college, come on people, you don't gotta do band if ya don't wanna. I'll admit, there are days when I'm not all there. There are days I don't want to be there. I wish I could say that on those days I sucked it up, and focused on the task at hand. I didn't. The show this week is a prime example of the lack of focus. Had the whole band focused yesterday and today, we could easily have this show learned, even with class conflicts and such. Yes, it's a complex show, even though it's only one song we march to, but by no means is it beyond our ability for a 3-day week. People grumbled about glide step...it isn't the style of Purdue Bands, but I kinda liked it. It was something different, sort of a throwback to high school for most people. Anyways, one more day to learn it. I say we can do it!
In schoolwork...hmm, CS projects for compilers have gone reasonably well. The second one was difficult, simply because we didn't have a set standard to match. We had a grammar, but we had to be true to Java syntax. We also had to match the sample, which was yet another variation...argh! So..won't have a 100 on that one, but Lailah and I got 100 on the first one! Got the algorithms exam back today....the test wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and especially after he went over answers today (considering the test was last week Tuesday) I started thinking...."uh oh, this ain't pretty". Someone asked about stats, he said 50 average, 95 high. Some people almost left then, but he passed them back, and I was expecting 70ish....and wound up with a 93. Turns out some of my algorithms worked better and more accurately than I thought. As he said: "Better to be inefficient and accurate, than efficient and wrong". I agree with that.
My math professor is still the dry humor type, and I love that! I wish I could accurately re-tell the princess and dragons story he told as an analogy to the puzzle where you have three doors, and a chance to pick the one with the prize. After choosing, the host tells you one of teh wrong doors, and then gives you the opportunity to switch your guess. The question is should you switch? He told something about a knight in the forest trying to save a princess and met a troll who allowed him to choose once because he had Air Jordan shoes....???? Anyways, it was hilarious.
I'm currently reading the book of Matthew...trying to get a chapter each morning, and then some quality prayer time. So many people hurting and directionless in this world, just floating around with no purpose in life. So much drama, too, people dating people, people breaking up with people, it makes my head hurt, and my heart. I hate seeing friends go through things like that. I want to help my friends, if only to listen to them. I may not have the advice to give, but I know Jesus does! :D After any long or wearying day, I can always, always, always go to Him for comfort.
If I have advice, either from personal experience or watching other relationships, I'm more than happy to give it, because it doesn't have to hurt that much. I sometimes feel inadequate in that area, mostly due to my less than average social relationship building skills. It's all a matter of priorities, I think, is the reason why I am the way I am. I'm not a partier, I'm not a drinker, and I prefer smaller, quieter groups of people to large, raucous partying.
So those last two paragraphs were somewhat scatter-brained, but hey, it's my journal :P.
More brain spilling at a later date....stay tuned. | | |
| So...long time since I last posted. Here's the short version of everything (I think....it might become the long version!):
1. Northrop Grumman - This was a completely awesome experience! I really got an idea of how a large software project is developed. I suppose that could happen no matter where I worked, but the benefit of this experience was that I was given real work to do. The work I was doing would have easily been given to someone who works there full time. A lot of what I did was requirements tracing...sounds boring, but I enjoyed it. I was writing scripts to trace through the dozens of requirements documents we have and comparing them to test procedures to verify that all the requirements are being tested and exist in the software. I was essentially porting a script from PERL to Visual Basic Application code. All the pople that complain about VB/VBA are more than welcome to do this in C/C++/C#, but let me tell you...reading from a Word Document is infinitely easier with VBA. It's quite fast, too...it was processing as fast as the PERL script we used to have would parse plain text. Suffice to say, I much enjoyed the experience, even if I made very little in the way of green stuff. I'd like to go back, perhaps a different project, who knows, and they've said they'd like to have me back. Only this time, I'll have an idea what's required for housing and such.....that was the single negative factor from this summer.
2. Band Camp - Camp was great this year! We look really, really good as of the end of camp, including the complete pregame show. I'm the Assistant (maybe Associate, not really sure) Head this year, so I have some responsibility compared to previous years. This also means I'll be promoted (hopefully) to Head next year. We have about 19-20 in the office this year, which hopefully means people will get to march once or twice a week this year, including me. We've set truck crews for this year, and I think I'm on three of them. Hopefully Todd will send them via email.
3. Kappa Kappa Psi - This semester I'm the Alumni Secretary. Unfortunately, I have a unique position in that regard, since the Alumni Arrow from last semester didn't quite make it out last spring or this summer. I need to meet with Cait to get everything transferred, although I suspect much of it isn't really relevant. We're also approaching 50th Anniversary rapidly, and I think things are going well with that. Sarah is doing an excellent job as the Special Projects committee head.
4. Classes - So far, so good. I have Compilers, Algorithms, Discrete Math, and Intro to Learning, in addition to marching. Compilers I have enjoyed so far, and our first project is assigned tomorrow. Perhaps I'm crazy, but I'm really looking forward to it. We're writing a basic interpreter for a subset of the Java 1.5 language. Algorithms is well, math and such. It's humorous simply due to the professor, and I'm getting a crash course in induction, to say the least. Discrete Math is enjoyable, again due to the professor and his dry humor. Check the away messages for math prof quotes. Intro to Learning is a psychology course about how we learn, not how to learn. It's a little dry right now, but I think it's picking up.
5. Lindsy - simply awesome! I just can't explain it, but I really love her an awful lot. We've started taking time to go for walks, and it's really improved our relationship compared to last spring. She got to visit this summer, and some serious questions were asked, and it took some time to discuss, think, and then decide the answers. I believe the right answers came out of the visit, though.
6. Me - I've learned a lot about me this summer, too. It's been a good thing, definitely. I can cook, so I won't be hopeless after college. Living alone isn't horrible, but it gets lonely at times. I definitely need to find things to get me out of the house in those situations though. As school has started, I find myself much more confident. I can feel it when I'm walking around campus, or talking to someone. I've also begun reading my Bible again this semester. Given the conversations Linds and I had this summer, I decided to start with Song of Solomon, since it portrays the Biblical relationship I want Lindsy and I to have. We aren't perfect, but things have gotten better. We've also had some excellent conversations about prayer and it's power. Lindsy has a book that I'd like to read very much, about the power of prayer. My thoughts will most likely show up here, and I'm excited about what's gonna happen this semester in the spiritual realm.
7. Work - I'm still working at the Center for Career Opportunities as the student programmer, which has actually led to a side project that should garner me a couple hundred bucks in addition. I also got a raise, my first ever at any job! I have also started teaching a freshmen lab for the CS department. I have noticed through the years that I enjoy helping people learn things, and this seemed a natural extension of that, which will also make a little extra for me.
So that's the latest from me, for the last month. I'm gonna attempt to have more consistent updates, but no promises, given the workload. | | |
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