6/8/08

I don’t think I’ve ever studied that long or hard for a class before. My grade probably wasn’t great but just judging by the glances I took at the other student’s papers around me I did better than average. At least I can say for sure that I couldn’t have prepared any better with the time I had prior to the final. All this has kinda taught me to keep up with my homework as it is assigned in the class, even if it is optional. That’s the only way the material can really sink in. I still can’t believe how hard I busted my ass to get all the assignments done and reviewing done prior to the exam. I didn’t really do anything else at all today or yesterday. Now I’m too burnt out to do anything.

All day Wednesday will be spent on studying for the EE exam. Now that is one that I cannot afford to fail. So I’m calling it a night an hour earlier tonight to make sure I’m well rested.

6/9/08

Well, MATH241 didn’t go all that bad. I came in with a small cheat sheet (as usual) and that helped a bit, but I honestly only glanced at it twice the entire test to double-check what I had already written down. I think it’s become more of a comfort thing for me. After managing to finish ALL of the MATH241 Chapter 17 homework assigned over the course of a month in a few days I felt pretty much ready to tackle all the problems on the exam. In retrospect, I wish I had already done all the homework over the course of the quarter and had something to review. Maybe I would be able to retain the material a little better. Maybe next quarter?

While I don’t think I aced the test, I didn’t do bad, either. I wrote down a lot more than the majority of the class from what I could tell and I fully answered at least half the questions on the exam, which is a good sign.

After the test I just relaxed and finished my last set of laundry while I live in these apartments. It’s good to take a break after such a long period of studying. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

6/10/08

I simply can’t study anymore. I’ve stayed up all day since 10AM until now (about two hours before the test) studying, going over the entire circuit theory book. I’ve covered all the material and did every example problem in the book up to the point we’ve reached for the final. I’m going to pop another caffeine pill and finish up this exam. I just can’t wait for it to be over. This may potentially be my last circuit class I have to take if I transfer out of the major.

6/11/08

Well, the EE exam didn’t go so well but I honestly don’t think I could have prepared any more for it, so no regrets. As soon as I finished the exam I crashed hard. Now that I’m up again I started reading my Geography book for the first time this quarter. I’ve only got three chapters to review for the next 12 or 14 hours, so this should be cake. I’m so glad to almost be done.

6/12/08

I spent most of today moving stuff in my new house for storage; can’t wait to move in over Summer. I also managed to complete my Geography studying though. Not much else to write, I’m tired and am going to wake up early to review lecture notes prior to the exam. I haven’t really had time to update the website.

6/13/08

Man, that exam was easy. Normally for that class I spend 25% of the time making guesses or bullshitting the essays, but this time around I felt confident in everything I put on the paper. I think maybe all the hardcore studying for the other two classes trained my brain for retention for this exam. I should definitely keep up with my homework/reading next time around.

6/14/08

Took off at 4AM for home and all my stuff barely fit in the car despite putting most of my things in storage. I was so cramped the drive home: my backpack rested on my legs, cutting off the circulation, while I couldn’t move at all. That four hour drive was fine as soon as I fell asleep though. When I got home I crashed for a good amount of time. The rest of the time was spent catching up with the family. Tomorrow I’ve got to call Tommy to figure out when he leaves for Nebraska.

6/15/08

I spent the entire day with Tommy because he leaves for Nebraska tomorrow. It’s weird with him moving back out to Nebraska for good again. Before it mattered a lot to me because I lived in Antioch. Now I barely get to see him as it is, but with him even farther away I’ll be lucky if I get any time in with him at all after he moves. We played some Rock Band, went bowling, and even played wall ball back at Sutter Elementary where we met when we were kids. A nice, well-rounded day with a close friend. It’s such a bummer he’s moving but I’m thankful for the time I got with him.

6/5/08

Tonight I spent probably 10 - 14 hours straight getting MythBuntu up and running properly on the “TiVo” computer. It’s not much of a TiVo computer anymore though: the tuner card doesn’t work so it can’t record or stream television. It did work when it was on Windows but honestly, the computer is too slow to record and transcode cable. It’s a year old eMachine piece of crap. So now it’s more of a media center now. Looking back at the project today I can’t help but be filled with an immense sense of satisfaction: it was a lot of work but it really paid off.

The MythBuntu installation fought me every step of the way. I spent a day and a half trying to get the built-in LIRC to work with my Evation IrMan remote I bought years ago (which I’ve had working on Windows) but it never worked. I enlisted the help of my roommate, Alex, and he couldn’t get it working either. Frustrated, we took off to BestBuy to buy a MCE remote. They didn’t carry any and were pointed to RadioShack (who also didn’t carry them). We ended up having to find Circuit City and spend about a half hour in the store searching for it. We finally came home with a Microsoft certified Gyration remote which doubled as a wireless mouse and universal remote. It was a really nice piece of equipment and not too expensive too.

However, I hadn’t realized that the Gyration remote was actually a wireless keyboard and not a traditional remote in the sense that it wouldn’t work with LIRC. Out of the box it worked pretty well with MythTV, many of the buttons worked like they should and there was enough basic functionality to work it. We got the universal remote aspect working on my TV, but we never managed to get it to work on the wide-screen Insignia TV despite trying every code we could and spending another half hour trying to get the media center remote to learn from the TV’s remote.

I wasn’t satisfied with the button-mapping on the remote under MythTV: the back button didn’t work and you had to hit the clear button at the bottom of the remote to exit out of menus. Pausing didn’t work either as well as the menu function. So I went into LIRC and started remapping buttons, nothing worked. I deleted a bunch of lines in the LIRC configuration and it didn’t do anything. I turned LIRC off and the remote still worked. I restarted after each of these steps and it still didn’t stop working or change the button mappings. I finally turned LIRC off after two or three hours of tinkering with it and checked google for the remote. That’s when I figured it out: the Gyration remote worked like a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.

Wonderful. How do I remap a keyboard? So I kept searching around and ended up with a simple solution: use ‘xev’ to get the keycode for each of the keys, and then use xModmap to remap the keymaps to different keystrokes. It was a lot of work but I finally fine-tuned the remote like I wanted.

Then came the external hard-drives (all three of them) that contained the media (which, I am proud to say, is quite an extensive collection of Movies, TV Shows, and Anime now: about 900GB of compressed movie files with 820MB a movie and 120MB an episode on average). I plugged them in and added them to the MythTV database and everything was working pretty good. Then the hard-drives spooled down for some reason and the files all disappeared. I had to restart the computer, at which point the drives RENAMED themselves to new auto-mount points. I had to make permanent entries in the fstab file to keep this from happening again. Then I struggled with whether or not I needed to ‘\’ escape the spaces in directory names in MythTV’s setup. The bright side is all the research I did at this point led me to a script that automatically ran through the movie collection I had and retrieved information and posters for each from iMDB. This led to a fantastic looking movie collection.

Using the monitor connector to the high-def TV definitely boosted our quality: all of our stuff finally looked DVD quality. The S-Video->Composite solution we were using before led to a fair picture quality but still noticeably less than that of regular TV, let alone a DVD. That alone made this whole thing a worthwhile endeavor. I was also able to FTP things to the server, Kyle was able to also, and I was apt-get installing something through a putty client from my laptop on the server while watching a movie/TV show and it DIDN’T LAG AT ALL. This is quite an improvement over the previous solution with XP which lagged if anything happened at all behind the scenes.

I finally spent the last three hours of the project on getting emulation working properly again. This was the biggest pain in the ass to take on at the very end of the project when I was so tired. First I installed FCEU (for NES games) and the Gamepad wouldn’t work at all. Then I installed a couple joystick configuring programs to make sure it was working. It worked and helped in the long run but FCEU still didn’t accept the keys properly. I looked up a few things and tinkered with the arguments at the end of the FCEU command to no avail. So I started to consider moving to “NESticle” until I realized it was a CVS project and not in the repository for Ubuntu. Then, suddenly, FCEU started working perfectly for no reason at all. Next was zSNES (for SNES games, naturally) which I had a lot of experience with. I got it up and working in no time! Except… The sound didn’t work at all. So I had to install libsdl1.2debian-oss and try that. Then libsdl1.2debian-esd. Then libsdl1.2debian-alsa. Then I gave up and started considering SNES9x which didn’t have any interface under linux, which was again frustrating. I finally went back to zSNES and tooled with the arguments (-ad in particular) for the executable while cycling through libsdl1.2debian-alsa, libsdl1.2debian-oss and libsdl1.2debian-oss and FINALLY it all worked with libsdl1.2debian-alsa and -ad esl. Finally was XMAME, which pretty much worked flawlessly out of the box. All the emulators were pretty laggy though, until I realized it was because I left VNC up and running on my laptop. As soon as I closed the remote desktop connection the emulators sped right up to an acceptable framerate.

So, it was a fun and educating project. I’m glad it’s pretty much over now. It should provide high-quality entertainment for everyone and, eventually, a good solution for storage for everyone. I have to be honest, I’m not looking forward to doing it all over again when I finally replace the piece of crap eMachine or when I have to move back from the monitor cable to the S-Video solution again over Summer. At least now I’ll know how to do it all and maybe there won’t be so many roadblocks.

6/6/08

Well, I’ve resolved myself to Buddhist-like practices to help center myself and stay productive. I plan to make some sort of meditation part of my daily routine. I don’t really like the whole chanting thing too much, it’s kinda lost its meaning over time with me repeating it to myself. And it’s still kind of creepy to me. Along with this I’ve streamlined my morning and afternoon routines. Each morning will consist of killing my alarm(s), taking 100mg caffeine, opening the blinds and turning on the light, running, doing my abdominal exercises, taking my multi-vitamin, eating breakfast, catching up with the internet, taking my shower, and meditating to prepare myself for the rest of the day. It’s a lot to do but it should effectively wake me up and fully prepare me for the day. Nights simply consist of the 20min workout on TuThSa, brushing my teeth and washing my face, setting the alarms and charging various electronic devices, writing a nightly journal for the night (which is what this is), and reading a book/article until I get tired.

I’ve also started the first step to actually tackling my trip journal: I transcribed it all into an OpenOffice document and split some of it into chapters. I had planned to do this back when I first took the LSD for the first time but I got a little too busy (and lazy, if that makes sense) during that period. Maybe some day I will actually finish this thing that’s supposed to document my trips in all their glory. I feel less inclined to write it because after some time sober the subject loses a lot of its appeal.
Today I didn’t accomplish much because I slept most of the middle of it away. I stayed up the whole night prior all the way through to the morning finishing up the media center. Now I’m all out of whack with my sleeping schedule so I’m putting a strict 7 hour restriction on my sleep tonight to make sure I wake up during acceptable hours for the finals week. The only downside is I have to call it a night early tonight while I’m still wide awake, which also means I accomplished a lot less today than I wanted to. Oh well, that vast to-do list will be waiting for me in the morning.

6/7/08

Tonight I finally took photos of stuff I tripped on during acid: System of a Down poster, GoodFellas poster, the carpet’s design, the imperfections in the wall, the hallway immediately outside my apartment, the stars (or at least I attempted to, oh well), the rows of cars in the parking lot, the wilderness/hill on the way to the parking lot, the ladder we climbed, the platform we looked at the stars from, and the drop from the platform. I’m sure I looked like an idiot taking pictures of random stuff like that but I hope to apply photoshop to each image to give an idea of what I saw on the LSD. Example: the rows of cars went on for eternity, the platform seemed gigantic, the poster came to life and leaned out of the wall, etc.

Also planned out the rest of the weeks studying. I’m going to be busy all damn day tomorrow and the day after up until the MATH241 final. Then I might get a little break before the next solid day and a half study session on EE211. GEOG150 should prove to be a good wind-down from the quarter as there isn’t such a dense, cumulative set of coursework to study.

6/8/08

Not much to write tonight: I’ve been busting my ass doing all of my MATH241 homework for the last month or so in order to prepare myself for the final tomorrow. I’ve been working on it all since 8 this morning, and I’ve still got 3 or 4 more assignments left to do at midnight. After this one I’m working on I’m probably going to crash, wake up at 7, and finish up the rest before the test. I don’t think I’ve honestly EVER done this much homework (legitimately) in such a short amount of time. It’s a nice taste of productivity that I haven’t sampled in some time when it comes to schoolwork. Anyway, back to homework. Hope I do well on this final. Oh, and the rest of the finals this week. I’m still in shock that it’s the end of this school year.

So the compilation of updates is almost complete for me, so I should get them up any day now. I’m really looking forward to getting the site caught up. The only problem is the Links portion: I have a LOT left to sort through and I think I’m just gonna have to save that for last. Hopefully I get that done before the end of this week and am still able to keep up with this week’s updates.

Last week was entirely uneventful. It was really odd to have a Monday schedule and Tuesday and have a Wednesday schedule on Wednesday, those days usually contain the same classes so having them back to back was very disorienting. I can’t believe the week is already over, actually.

I’m currently planning out my study schedule for this week (dead week). Only two more weeks of school left! I’ve got a lot of studying to do but lucky for me my finals are arranged in the most optimum way: almost all are in the middle of the day and separated by a day of rest. Hope that helps!

I’ve been talking to my mom about my recent unhappiness with my major and it’s looking like I may actually switch out of Electrical Engineering. The only problem is I have no idea what I want to switch into. Computer Engineering puts me in the same classes I hate and have no interest in and the pool of teachers here is just as terrible. Computer Science would be ideal but I never wanted to go to college for computers exclusively. I also worry about being burned out on working with computers after a few years in that major. I’m hoping I’ll get the chance to see a career counselor or something soon to give me a better idea of the best, most enjoyable direction for me to go with my life.

Last week I was talking about my experience with Buddhism and all that, and I must say, I really do prefer it’s type of belief. It doesn’t seem to actively seek out a higher power to worship but rather learn from the teachings of others and improve yourself in your work ethics, life philosophy, interactions with others, and spirituality. I like that. However, they do this thing where they recite a pretty large “Lotus Sutra” manuscript and regularly chant “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo”, which is kind of weird and creepy to me, I must admit. However, I find that it’s not much different than the act of studying the bible and prayer. I also like the meaning (or at least the meaning they fed me at the meeting) of “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo”. The translation I was given was “Devotion to”-”Mystic Law (which I assume is the standard xenophobic unknown)”-”Law of Cause and Effect (karma, every action has a reaction whether or not you realize it, etc.)”-”Through Sounder Teaching”. I translate it like: May I devote my actions in order to have greater fortune and receive more positive karma by learning from my own experiences and the experiences of others. I like that, but it seems like it quickly loses its meaning after awhile and I worry it will just become a mindless chore to chant it. In conclusion, I think I like what I’ve seen so far but I still approach the meetings with caution. I’m sure, like every religion, there’s some mystical aspect that will eventually turn me off of the whole thing.

I seriously can’t believe it’s dead week already. I’ve got my IME142 exam Tuesday but it’s only worth 25% of my grade and the other 75% has already been achieved in full. That means I only need something like 60% to get an A and it’s statistically impossible for me to get a C in the course. I’ll do some studying but the material covers such a vast spectrum of welding applications, regulations, and methods. But all is not hopeless, so I will be studying tonight and tomorrow.

I still haven’t gotten back into the poker game really but I figure with my resolution to get a job I should make it more of a recreational activity rather than something I force myself to do every day for hours at a time.

Oh, and my workout routine has been dead since the weekend I went home. It’s hard to keep it up while I’m at home and then when I get back to SLO it’s even more difficult to get myself back into the routine. Anyway, today and Wednesday we hiked up to the P but took a detour into this wooded area. We found a free-rope swing (which we had seen before) and just spent most of our time there swinging around. George hit a tree today with it by accident, it was pretty funny. He’s alright; when he landed he fell over and just started laughing.

So yeah, back to my delicious dinner of hamburger+salsa. We’ve really got to hit the grocery store soon.

Things by the end of this week have been looking up. I stuck to my calendar pretty well and maintained a very productive week. My mom agreed to pay for my trip home this weekend to catch up with friends and family too.

I spent a lot of time studying for MATH241’s exam and EE211’s quiz but it was all in vain: I’m pretty sure I didn’t do too well on either. However, my MATH241 grade should be fine as he drops the lowest midterm grade and my previous midterm was actually pretty high. EE211 will still be tough but I have a flawless homework record which is a majority of the grade coupled with the final. All is not hopeless.

I’ve started compiling all the music, images and videos I’ve been saving up for the posts I’ve been behind in on this website. By the end of next week I should be all caught up and all the blanks should be filled. It’s a daunting task but I’m determined to get caught up.

Something different this week: I went to some Buddhism Club meeting that was mentioned in the paper. It supposedly only has something like three or four members and is the smallest club on campus. It was mentioned in the paper and Kyle said he wanted to go, so I figured why not. Walking in I knew nothing about Buddhism. Alex and Pat came along. Pat was stoned out of his poor mind, so all the philosophical stuff they laid on us really tripped him out. He sat there for a good amount of the end of the meeting just staring at the paper listing out the ten spiritual worlds in Buddhism. I can’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking. Anyway, the experience was different and it’s nice to get an eastern perspective on religion. I’m a little hesitant to get involved with that particular group as they are part of the sect of Buddhism called Nichiren Buddhism. Because they are one of the few sects that branch strongly out of Asia and actively try to spread their beliefs to others I’m cautious: they seem kind of like what Jehovah’s Witnesses are to Christianity. The people there seemed nice enough though.

I managed to apply to a bunch of jobs and grab a bus schedule for the future. After some thought, though, I’ve come to realize that I cannot get a job right now. I’m unemployable: I’ll be moving in three weeks, and then moving again in two. Regardless, I’m still applying everywhere I can.

This weekend I spent time with old friends at home. I got to hang out with Jessica again, which was pretty fun even though we really didn’t have anything to do. At the end we drove to Jake’s house, someone who I haven’t seen since around Junior year of high school. It was good to see he’s still doing alright. I also got the chance to catch up with Chris Hoffman, another friend I haven’t seen since graduation. We played Rock Band and I felt like a douche for doing so well. I probably chilled with Adam the most this weekend despite the fact he’s a newer friend of mine in Antioch. I can’t help it though, the guy loves to play video games and has the same movie/music/TV taste as I do. It’s a bummer I never met the guy before I moved away.

Friday I got to eat dinner with Jon (aka Tom BrokeOff) and my brother while they talked about WoW. We spent some time catching up and discussing the future of the DHT clan website and times past when I used to play FPSs regularly with the clan. I was also supposed to watch Indy 4 this weekend but all the people I was supposed to see it with (Spenser, Cassie, Adam, Chris, and Justin) hadn’t seen Iron Man, which I knew was a better movie, so I took them all to see that instead. I definitely didn’t mind seeing it in all it’s theatrical excellence again.

On another note, it was soooo hard not to smoke weed this weekend. I was surrounding by it constantly everywhere I went in Antioch. I’m actually really proud of myself.

Finally, the brightest note is that I’ve talked to my mom about the job/money situation and she’s agreed to give me $50 a week for food so I don’t need to ration out my ramen anymore. And I was so looking forward to eating ramen for two weeks!

This blog is getting posted a little late (OK, really late) because I was busy for the weekend catching up with friends and whatnot.

I feel like I’ve hit a rock bottom in my life. I can’t get myself to wake up early (7AM) or at any sort of reasonable time. The balance in my bank account is actually lower than the balance on my credit card currently (although I have a month and a half to pay the bill) and I have no real steady income. I’ve had to ration out my ramen noodles to see how long they’ll last me because I couldn’t help with the grocery bill this week. My parents really can’t help. I need a way to pay the rent for Summer for the first week. I have two exams this week that I’m not really prepared for, one of which is tomorrow, not to mention an EE quiz that I’m almost certainly going to do poorly on. I’ve spent this entire week trying to play catchup but I just can’t get into a routine of productivity and break the usual routine of procrastination.

As a result I’ve come to a realization that it’s now or never. It’s time to get my life back together. I’ve sworn off several things until my poker account hits $200 or $0. I’ve set up strict morning and evening routines. I’ve been applying to all the local jobs I can find. I’m planning out this week with a rigid schedule to ensure all my time is efficiently spent. I have no time (or cash) for any sort of fun left. I won’t be able to attend “The Big Lebowski” or “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” showings in the next few weeks at the Palm Theatre because I can’t afford them.

Maybe this is the kind of wake up call I needed. If I get a job maybe it will force me to break my usual procrastination habits and keep up my time management. I’ve got to learn the bus routes for SLO now so that I can get to my job on time.

No real results for working out or poker this week. I’ve kept up my morning abdominal workouts but only got a few Week 2 workouts in like I was supposed to. I think I’m going to switch my workouts to the old 25-18-15s because Week 3 workouts call for some (cheap) exercise equipment that I just can’t afford right now. I’m also going to try to throw in some morning jogs to keep myself awake in the mornings.

Looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time in the library this evening.

Last week was a total waste of time. I basically slept the whole week away. I attended a record total of only two classes: My IME Lab and one of my MATH241 Lectures. And I don’t know why. I just can’t seem to wake up on time. When I was conscious I was too busy trying to play catchup in my classes to play poker or update this site.

When I did get to update the site I only made it to Tuesday. I have a huge payload of links backed up from a few weeks ago that I need to look through to find out what to post. That provided a hell of a roadblock for me and I never managed to get through them all.

I only got four games of poker in, and I only placed (1st) in one of them. Nothing special.

So, to remedy this, I’m just going to take a few sleeping pills to force myself back to the correct sleeping schedule. I’ll be waking up on 7AM every day this week, which should make sure I attend my classes and give me ample time to catch up on everything I need. Not to mention the MATH241 exam Friday, the GEOG150 map quiz Wednesday, and the EE211 quiz on Friday as well.

Can’t wait for Pulp Fiction night at the Fremont theater on Tuesday though. Gotta make sure I get my studying for the map quiz done before then. :)

So my MATH241 grade is fine. The EE211 exam was, by far, the worst score I’ve ever received on an exam in all my years of education. I went to talk to the teacher about it Friday but she couldn’t stay for her office hours because of some trip she had scheduled where she had to leave early. She gave me my exam and said I could still pass the class, despite it being mathematically impossible… I’ll have to come to her office hours later this week I guess. The GEOG150 exam didn’t go so bad, I think I managed a B on it. GTA IV has been a blast, I beat it in 26 hours and now I’m working on 100%. I’ll probably get it by the end of the week at the rate I’m going.

Last week I just took a break from everything. I played a lot of GTA IV, had my weekly hikes and that’s it really. I didn’t play poker and I didn’t exercise. I barely even got on the internet at all. I’m going to get back on schedule this week by staying on the exercise schedule and playing 100 games of poker before the end of the week. At least, those are my goals. Oh, and keep up with this site.