Mind Garten

Caffeine Hallucinations and Evil Spirits (Disclaimer: No evil spirits were harmed in the making of this journal entry.) My days have been 16 hour blurs. Some might say that I'm very productive in this span of time. Others would argue that the sleep deprivation and the high caffeine blood levels induce a frantic feedback loop that spirals one down into madness and depravity. Looking up from the depths, the view isn't that bad from down here. Sure, you lose touch with reality. You forget that there's a world out there beyond the next assignment, the next project, and the next cup of coffee. But interesting things happen in this state. You can accomplish things that you couldn't otherwise. Forget about a being "balanced" and leading a healthy lifestyle. Several times, I've caught myself only drinking coffee from morning to the afternoon. I simply neglect to feed myself. Additionally, I only eat about 1.5 meals a day. My biggest meal is ...

The Burden of Fame I picked up my Nobel prize this morning. It was kind of a hassle really, but the press would have been hounding me all day if I didn't do it. I had to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual, so I could make it class on time. The Oscar, I told them to send by mail. It just wasn't worth showing up in person and to then be lavished with expensive dining, drinking, and beautiful women. I mean, who wants all that? The Emmy I got last year, I gave to my cousin. He was having more fun with it in his mouth then I was having it over my fireplace along with all the other honors and trivialties. Maybe some day he'll grow up enough to realize that sucking on a statue isn't very fun and will have the decency to pass it along to some other toddling, pewking crap-factory. I'd like to think my Emmy is out there doing good. Now, don't ask me about Pulitzers. Okay, you asked me. I have 7 or 8. I kind of lost count. I stopped paying attenti...

Real-time Food Court Drama I sat there staring at the cup of water on the table. Why was she drinking only water? Why didn't she order some food or soda? I told her about the heavy drinking last night with Jeffrey and how I was really hung over this morning. I also mentioned my midterm 2 hours ago in which I most likely failed. The physics teacher is a fucking asshole, so it wasn't my fault if my grades are low. He hates me. That's all there is to it. Running out of things to complain about, I asked her how her day was. She began blabbering on about something. She mentioned Saturday and my mind began drifting off to this weekend when I was going to drive to Salem with Jeffrey to catch a party. Most likely there would be lots of beer and lots of sleezy women. Of course, I'd have to be as tactful as possible, so Michelle wouldn't find out. Which brought me back to the present with her finishing something about her stupid dog's skin condition. ...

Fake Relationships I'm not feeling very inspirational today. I'm mostly a little tired from all the homework I've had to do. Add to it that none of my project team members showed up to our scheduled meeting today but me, only 6 hours of sleep last night, and one less cup of coffee today, and you have a college student who is very tired and unenthusiastic right now. One of the things that I am enjoying right now is my club involvement. The only 2 clubs that really involve any activity are the robotics club and the drama club. For the robotics club, I've taken on the role of facilitator for project planning. Basically, I'm planning tasks that help organize the design ideas and put them in a deliverable form. This contrasts sharply with the workshop tinkering that was going on before. This has been going on for several months as far as I know. Regardless, we have some very smart people on our team I also have the drama club which, as you know, I...

Holy Noses and Happy Russians It's been an interesting couple days for me. Actually, it's been an interesting couple weeks. I am now a member of 4 clubs. This includes the OSU's American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), OSU's IEEE the electrical engineering society, the Masque and Dagger Theater Guild , and the Society for Robotic Visions at Oregon State (SRVOS), or better known as the Robot Club. In fact, I just got done with a SRVOS meeting. We were discussing and organizing our project goals. Apparently they've been working on this robot for several months last year, but it's been slow going. I decided to take the opportunity to apply the skills I'm learning in my design class and help these guys organize their goals and objectives. So far it's been really productive, but there's still a lot of work to do. We haven't even got around to design ideas yet. This morning was rough for me since I stayed up to 11pm doing h...

Dances with Chickens A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar. I see them, stand up and ask, "Is this some kind of joke?" They look at me, disappointed, and leave. Some day soon, we will rid the world of all bad punch lines. The weekend was fun. I went to the beach to see one of my old friends' wedding. She got married and the 3-month old kid was in the ceremony too. It's been a while since I've been in a church. I'm wearing a tie right now. Last night I searched the internet to find tie-tying instuctions. It took me about 20 minutes to practice it enough to finally be able to do it properly. Now my tie looks nice and sharp. It's going to be an interesting day. Now I have to go cut some paper. More later.

Extreme Crocodile Frisbee Scavenger Hunt Yesterday was a very extreme day. I was so busy, I couldn't even think. I had extreme coffee from 7-11 at a steal of 69 cents! Then I rode the bus to school at an extreme speed of 25mph. Those buses are so crazy that they have to cap the top speed to 25 so one of the bus drivers doesn't take some hapless pedestrian's head off. Then I got to the campus, finished my coffee earlier than usual and ordered another one. Usually when I drink that much coffee I start getting sick, and sure enough I was in a terrible state that I began to walk around like a maniac, screaming maniacal nonsense, and feeling like my head was going to explode. I went to my one and only class and planned to spend of the rest of the day reading and doing homework. However, the pounding in my head and the sensory-enhanced crowd in the cafe room made it very difficult for me to complete much. After about 4 hours, I completed 2 homework problems and h...

Tragedy at the Pier Something terrible happened yesterday. I completely forgot to do my mechanics homework, and it was due yesterday. Of course, this isn't surprising since I'm dead. Yes, that's right. I'm dead. You see, last night I was also involved in a botched drug deal. I was supposed to meet Escobar down by the docks to pick up the new shipment. I came there offering him $50 million for the lot, but he wanted $60 million. I thought I could dicker him down to my level, but he didn't want to budge. Getting a little annoyed, I started getting verbally abusive just to show him that I meant what I said. A word to the wise: never talk back to a Colombian drug lord. Before I knew it, the guns were out, and they were pointed at my head. Just realizing that I left my gun on the kitchen table, I silently cursed my selective memory. I tried to be all righteous and play against his morality. I dared him to shoot me. I told him he'd be accomplishe...

Wake Up! I woke up this morning with someone yelling at me, "Come feed me!". It was 4:30am. I tried to ignore it and go back to the sleep, but the voice was persistent. "I need service!" I turned in my bed and squinted at the clock. Yes, it was indeed 4:30am. I then began scanning my room for the source of the voice. There was no one there. Only my cat, Bean , was sitting there looking at me intently. I asked him what he wanted. He meowed at me. He always avoids the question. I decided to roll over and go back to sleep. I'll just ignore the voice. Soon, I was about to fight a dragon with my wand and assortment of magical spells. I told the apprentice to take my horse and retreat to safety, but he retorted, "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Realizing that I was still in bed, there was no doubt that the voice came from within my room. I sat up this time and looked around, but only saw my cat. It was now 4:45am. I sat silent for...

More Korea Pictures Since I finally have broadband access, and I have time, I thought I'd show some more Korea pictures from where I left off. This is a huge spider I saw munching on a praying mantis sized insect. I saw a lot of these spiders, but it was a while before I found a live one of those green insects it's chewing on. A very unique insect. This is one of the first things you see at the Buddhist museum I visited near Icheon. The entire courtyard is stocked full of statues and sculptures. These are supposed to be fish. Fish have special meaning in Buddhism in that their eyes are always open, which symbolize constant studying. That's something I can definitely relate to. I guess you could call this postmodern buddhist art. I have no idea what it symbolizes, but it's a fairly modern sculpture. I have a feeling this was made by the museum's owner's wife's brother's second cousin who is an aspiring artist. The museum ...

The Making of a Hole Puncher I completed my shop project today. Well, it's almost complete. The punch shaft to my hole puncher has a well-rounded and smooth edge, so as a result, my punching is kind of impotent. I need to take it back to the sandbelt and sharpen the end. The process was laborious and time-consuming, specked with moments of incredible frustration. Having a computer and electrical background, working in the machine shop is a very new experience. For one, every single piece of equipment and part is measured in English units. Spending my years working in the la-la land of metric and ideal quantities left me ill-prepared to work with 16ths, 32nds, and tolerances of +- .005 inches. The shop instructor kept getting exasperated with me because I could never remember the things he tried to show me. He would show me something on a machine I'd never seen before, working with a material I have no experience with, describing in terminology that is completel...

The Divine Sneeze Since the end of last term, I've been planning with a friend to be a little more "active" on campus this year. Specifically, I mean to stage on-campus altercations, such as protests or street preaching. But it's not quite what it seems. In a meeting I just concluded, next week we plan to preach on campus about the Almighty Joe and the Divine Sneeze, a completely made-up religion with its own absurd rhetoric. This is an attempt at something that can best be called guerilla theater. If you look on the internet, you'll find that some people use this term to describe "underground theater" or plays with large political overtones. My meaning is nothing of the sort. In fact, it is a complete attempt to bring as much nonsense into a public place as possible. We're going to start out small. This business with the Divine Sneeze is only our pilot project to see how well it works. After that, we'll attempt much larger proj...

Hey Buddy, Why Don't You Wear Your Coat? The weather in the early morning is below freezing, with ice on my car windshields, and fog in the air. In a makeshift attempt to scrape the ice off my rear window, I use the sharp edge a pop can, but I only succeed in putting scratches in the window. Great way to start the day. Then on my way to school, listening to the radio and driving through the fog, I get lost and think I miss my turn. The fog makes my surroundings seem strange. I was on the right street, but I just didn't go far enough. I end up turning and getting even more lost. It takes me about 15 minutes to figure out where the hell I am and drive me to where I want to be. That's about 10 minutes longer than it needed to be. Even though the weather is very chilly, I take my black trenchcoat off and carry it on my arm. The very act of walking overheats my body. So having no coat provides an excellent equilibrium with the cold air when performing any kind...

Horror Stories in Shop Class Last night I had my first shop class which will continue for three more days until I get certified to use the workshop on my own for class projects. It's an evening class from 5-9pm, which makes you a little eager for the whole thing to be over. Most of the large power tools are designed for working with sheet metal and other materials. Walking around the shop is a bit frightening since it seems that some or all of these devices could rip your head off if you touched a wrong button. So the shop manager gave us a tour of all the equipment with simple demonstrations of their use if possible. Of course, with each power tool, he felt obligated to tell a horror story about each one when someone got injured by it. For instance, there was the guy trying to drill a hole through a piece of sheet metal and was holding the piece steady with his stomach. When that drill got halfway through, the sheet metal began spinning with the drill like a top and...