October 07, 2005
Vegas blues
So, last year I went to see Nnenna Freelon with Shefali, and it was quite great. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and afterwards, when she talked about coming back the following year and doing a show called "Blueprint of a Woman", I said right there that Shef and I ought to go see it. The show is actually being held this weekend.
on a not really related note, some recruiting meeting for the Uni's DARPA Grand Challenge team the other day. I was kinda surprised by the turnout of people, and the amount of people who actually expressed interest in the project. It's questionable how many are actually going to stick around, but it's looking pretty good so far.
In any case, one of the discussions we had at the meeting was whether any of the people interested in joining the team were also interested in heading to Vegas/Barstow to check out the race. A bunch of the team members wanted to go and see the race, and maybe even talk to some of the teams, advisors, and the people from industry who are probably gonna go check it out.
Now, the problem here is is that those two events are the same weekend. It took me a bit to realize, but there was an obvious answer as to which I should go to, even considering that I'd be seeing the show gratis and would have to pay about a hundred to go to Vegas. As a graduating senior, I absolutely need to make as many contacts as I can, since I'm in dire need of a job at graduation. As much fun as it is sending out applications and doing voodoo magic to increase my chances of getting a reply, I'd much rather have someone who is interested in me personally, as opposed to my application/resume, and willing to give me a chance at their company.
So, once again, I'm denying my spirit and soul in favor of my pragmatic mind. I've kinda gotten used to it now, since I've been having to sacrifice spending more time in Chinese, Japanese, and other random classes that interested me to take all the damn EE classes that are required for graduation. I have of course debated whether EE is the right major for me several times within the last few years, and even now I wonder what could have been if I'd majored in say, physics, Chinese, Japanese, Neurobiology, Cognition, or whatever. Sometimes I really wish I'd spent more time learning literature, writing stories, and taking in culture. The funny thing is, a friend who did just that (he studied comparative literature instead of computer science) feels that he wishes he'd learned something more practical, something which related more to the world and to people than writing essays about novels and stories most people have never heard of.
Just when I thought my slew of computer problems was over, Murphy's law reared it's ugly fucking face and pissed all over me some more. So far, the story begins with replacing my brother's motherboard, which burned out, quite literally. That took a while, then we had to replace his power supply as well, and blah blah blah.
A while later, my mobo stops responding as well. The computer turns on, but doesn't beep or do much of anything. I end up replacing the motherboard and things are good. That was maybe a month ago? I dunno, my sense of the passage of time is very poor. Anyway, a week after that, I wake up to find my computer turned off. I usually leave it on overnight, and so this was sorta worrying. I turn it on again, and just as it hits the Win2k splash screen, it powers down. A bit of fiddling convinces me I have to fix the power supply, so I go and buy a new one. A nice 500watt Antec with modular cables; excessive, but I figured it'd last and I'd be needing to upgrade eventually. The extra wattage should come in handy at that point. So that brings us to a day or two ago, when I finally received and installed it, and got my computer working.
As of right now, the Master File Table on my secondary drive has been hosed or something along those lines. The computer doesn't recognize it as a formatted file system, and so I have no access to it. This is quite enough to make me hate computers even more than I already do. Moreso, this makes me hate Windows even more. In any case, I'm running EasyRecovery on it right now, and luckily I can probably salvage most of the drive.
Fucking computers.
I am going to see the doctor in approximately eight hours and twenty minutes. I have this lump in my crotch right now, maybe about the size of a pea, that has been there for a few days at the least. It hurt reasonably much when I first noticed it, and now it hurts much less so. I think it's an in-grown hair, but risking losing the boys does not seem like a reasonable alternative to going to the doctor.
The problem I have with going to the doctor is that I always feel kinda like an idiot for doing so. More likely than not this is going to be nothing important at all, and he'll send me off with a good word and I'll leave with the knowledge that he probably had better things to do with his time. Furthermore, I've had doctors examining my crotch area and the things in that area since the day of my birth. I would bet that I've had my package looked at by doctors more than most guys. Luckily, I haven't had to undergo that since junior high or so and it looks like I will be breaking that trend later today.
On a semi-related note, my recent rash of computer problems seems to run parallel to the fact that my building blocks of life have had a lot of problems in my lifetime. I'm just a lucky guy I guess.
Also semi-related, I've had this small lump on my upper back right up near my neck for a while now. A few people, non-doctors, have looked at it and most agree it's probably an in-grown hair. I think I may ask the doctor about that as well. I've been meaning to do so for quite some time, but the last time I went to see the doctor about it, it turns out my insurance ran out or something. There was some error in the database in reinstating my insurance that had expired at some point when it shouldn't have and so I had to miss my appointment and suffer just a little bit more. Hopefully this does not happen tomorrow.
Lastly, I leave later today. Probably around 4 or so, after my last class of the day. I am hoping very much that they have Virtua Cop 3 in one of the arcades. I somehow don't think this is going to come to fruition. Short of that, it'll be nice just to see the vehicles in action and talk to the people who designed them. And of course hopefully I might find some folks who happen to like me and want to give me a job when I graudate.
Here's hoping at least one of those happens anyway.
