that I have a blog and it’s been quite a while since I posted.

I blame this mostly on me being lazy, and the fact that in the last two months I have worked more Saturdays than I have been home. It’s really hard to post from work too, otherwise I may have done that this past week when I was thinking a lot and actually had something I wanted to say. So ummm… little updates on how things are going I guess.

First, NMSU *finally* got back to me about my application, I guess they finished laughing at my high school GPA, and have accepted my application. Great! They took so long that I think I’m going to wait until the spring or maybe next fall when some things settle down more before I actually start. Really should call them or go down there this week and talk to them about it. That and see if there is any way at all they will transfer some of the credits I have from ITT Tech; it really would be a shame to see 90 something credits not be worth anything at all.

What’s really cool is I seem to be in another one of my “lets get this website done and start a business, YEA!” moods again, which means I may actually get it all done this time. I really, really, really should get it done; this will be wickedly awesome when it is done and I can adapt it to so many different things that I could possibly actually make a living from the income it generates after a few years. The major problem is… great ideas in my head, getting them onto the computer, onto paper, or my dry erase board, just never seems to happen quite the way I want it to. Over the last two (three?) years that I’ve been wanting to do this I think I’ve restarted at least one hundred times. Someone tell me to get my lazy ass off of EVE Online (which is the most awesome game ever; it has pretty much taught me everything about economics) and code this thing.

I think that’s about it. Though, there’s this pretty girl at work I kinda like. Should I say anything to her? yes/no?

I know there’s probably a half dozen things that I’ve said I’m going to blog about by now; however, I’ve been occupied. Amazon and credit cards have this weird way of always talking to each other and I keep finding myself with boxes on my front porch. Not the handcuffs that they keep trying to sell me for some reason, but instead lots of books and CDs. One day here soon I really need to get a nice stereo with a set of decent speakers and a pair of really nice headphones. That way I don’t have to play my CDs one at a time on the television or rip them to the computer first; which, my computer speakers aren’t really that great … I think they’re dying.

My list of books to read is nearly as tall as my stack of CDs I still have to rip (probably 50-60 CDs of classical music still along with the ones that should arrive early this week.). Right now I’m reading “Nausea” by “Jean-Paul Sartre”. It’s rather interesting and not nearly as dry as the last book I read. The writing style is a bit different; with the first copyright of the book being in 1938. Is it weird that in reading this book, which is written in as if it were a journal, I feel like I’m violating the main character’s privacy? *shrug* It probably is weird, oh well.

After this book I have five more, assuming I don’t buy more; my wishlist on amazon has probably a dozen or two. Two Ayn Rand novels: Virtue of Selfishness and We the Living, We Die Alone by David Howarth, Great Tales from English History by Robert Lacey, and The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander. The last three of these being rather lengthy it should be near my birthday or Christmas by the time I finish.

On another note, I finally called ITT Technical Institute and inquired as to why they had not sent my transcripts to New Mexico State University yet. Apparently I had a $100 graduation fee that I never paid … and they never told me about. In the year or so since I graduated I never received one email, phone call or letter reminding me that I still owed them the money; and if I had not called to ask why my transcripts were not being sent, since I wanted to go back to school, I probably could have lived out the rest of my life without paying it. Tomorrow I get to call Germanna Community College and see why they haven’t sent my transcripts yet either. Lazy school only has the Admissions and Records office open Mondays and Thursdays from something strange like 8 am until 3 pm. I probably owe them money too; if I could skip those transcripts I would, my GPA was a 1.9, nothing is going to transfer haha.

With that, I’m going to queue up my collection of Beethoven and go absorb myself into a book.

The tour of NMSU went really well; I really like the way the school is laid out and all the buildings look well maintained. While I was there I picked up all the required forums for admissions and now I actually have most of them filled out. Here’s where the bad part comes; they want copies of all my university transcripts (high school can be omitted if I am transferring 30+ credits). But I have a degree from ITT Tech, this shouldn’t be a problem should it? Well, actually … yes. I need to have an average of a 2.0 between all of my university transcripts. At ITT Tech I had a 3.3 ish … Germanna Community College … 1.7. Well crap. 3.3+1.7=5 5/2=2.5. I just barely make it. If they wanted my high school ones too I’d be pretty much doomed. Hopefully they will look at ITT Tech more than Germanna; otherwise I may not get the classes / degree I want. Oh! Actually retrieving the transcripts from the two schools is a pain too; especially when they work from like 9 to 4 every day.

Just in case you were wondering (if anyone actually ever reads this); I put down two majors of study: Philosophy and Physics. All of my elective / free choice / extra classes will be in computer science. From the looks of it Harris will pay for all of the physics and computer science classes which leaves just a few for me to pay for; I can live with that I guess. Some free money > no free money.

That’s all I suppose, the pizza delivery guy is here so I should probably go let him in.

o/

Against all common sense and better judgement; I’ve decided that this fall I’m going to go back to school. Instead of going back to ITT Tech (which is a 4 hour drive each way) or the University of Phoenix Online, I’m actually going to go to a real college; New Mexico State University (NMSU). A couple weeks ago I filled out some form on their website and had them send me the basic information and then last Sunday I filled out a form for a campus tour. Great lot of good that did. I called today since I never got a confirmation that a campus tour was set up … they never got it, AWESOME! During lunch I ditched work for 15 minutes or so and set up a tour for this coming Monday.

At this point in time I’m really considering a double major in physics and philosophy with a minor in computer science. After talking with admissions and taking the tour etc. on Monday I may change my mind and chose a different major but I’d really rather keep the ones I have.

The least intelligent (more stupid, stupider, stupidest, less smart?) part of this whole thing is that I plan on working full time while going to school full time. Since NMSU generally only offers weekday daytime classes, this means working nights and weekends for the next two to four years.

From talking to the administrative assistants and managers at work it looks like my company will probably pay for the physics and computer science classes but not the rest. Hopefully they will but if not, some money is better than nothing. If the company doesn’t pay for anything it will take me around six months to save up for a year of school.

Here’s a probably crazy idea; but I think I’m going to go to Colorado for Thanksgiving this year. Yea, I know it’s still a few months off but if I don’t start planning now then I’ll be sitting on my couch, eating chicken and watching movies for Thanksgiving. Not that I have actually talked to anyone who lives in Colorado about this yet, so no place to stay and I may end up in a hotel or something lol. But! I’m really hoping my Aunt and Uncle in Louisville will be around and I can stay with them. Maybe I can get down to Highlands Ranch / Littleton at some point and harass some of the people I used to know and now miss.

So, if anyone in / around that area wants to hook up around Thanksgiving let me know; not sure exactly how long I’ll be up there or where exactly I’ll be but if you want to get together I’ll do what I can.

Also, I’ve been in class for these last two weeks, and for the rest of this week I’ll be in class. Just when I thought i was done with school and learning and all that after graduating ITT in March; I’m already back in school. You can never get away; it always comes back to haunt you … though these classes are really bloody awesome and I’m glad that I got the chance to take them.

For anyone who didn’t know, I actually managed to graduate from ITT Technical Institute. Last Saturday, the 14th of March was the ceremony. Somehow I managed to graduate with a 3.35 GPA; guess it’s official now…I’m smart AND I have a piece of paper (diploma) saying that I can doom the world! muahahahaha.

I ordered myself a couple of books with some money I received for graduating. Not that I don’t have enough books to read already … think there’s three or four on my bookshelf I haven’t read all the way through yet and probably one or two I haven’t even opened. These two books looked really interesting and if they are what I hope; will help me with everything else.

The first The Book of Tea was a book recommended by a blog post that was about perfectionism. This book led the author to another book; Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. After going through the 200th or so rendition of my website without ever actually getting a UI started; this seemed like a good book to read.

Hopefully I’ll actually get both of these read and can start putting up reviews like I promised ages ago. No I didn’t forget, it’s written in Outlook, my palm Z22, at least one sticky note and off and on it’s written on my white board. Maybe after I move I’ll have some time to get them done … we’ll see.

IT302 Linux System Administration – Thusday 6:00 PM to 10:20 PM
IT331 Network Development Capstone Project – Saturday 2:00 PM to 6:20 PM
TB332 Professional Procedures & Portfolio Development – Saturday 9:00 AM to 12:24 PM
GE347 Group Dynamics – Friday 9:00 AM to 12:24 PM

Aside from those last two classes…I think I should do really well. xD I don’t do so well in “group project” classes, and Portfolio sounds boring. Hopefully this will be my last quarter at ITT Tech for my AA in Computer Network Systems; assuming I pass everything

I’ve been a little slack in posting this, partly because I’m not quite sure what to write and partly because I feel what I do write won’t be adequate. One of my favorite teachers, Mr. De La Rosa passed away on last Monday morning, the 13th. He was my instructor for nearly every class involving Microsoft Windows and I really learned a lot from him. A great teacher who always took the time to make sure you understood what he was talking about and enjoyed learning in his classrooms; I will never forget to be wary of the hackers, crackers and cyber-punks. You will be greatly missed Mr. D. and I hope that you find comfort in the afterlife knowing that you had a huge impact on my life and many many others.

Database development is a class that I was hoping would be really cool and actually helpful for things that I’m doing…it’s not. I’m still not quite sure what the teacher is teaching, he doesn’t seem to know either. After four weeks our quiz was mostly about things you need to consider when designing a database; which is important, don’t get me wrong, but I really don’t think it should take four weeks to teach. One of the questions was even “how many rows are in the table in the picture”, I can remember doing questions like that in…what was it..3rd grade? Couting rows is fun. ^.^

It took almost three hours of work, and a very large headache, but finally I have a schedule for my second to last quarter at ITT Tech. The schedule could look better, a lot better really, I’m in two night classes and the morning classes really are working better for me; however, this is the only time either class is offered and if I want to graduate in March then I have to take both of them this quarter. All of the classes this quarter actually look interesting and for once I don’t have any classes that involve a lot of writing or out of class work which will give me more time to spend with Ana and to work on the FooGam site. The classes for this quarter are:

IT203 – Database Development (Thursday AM)
IT260 – Network Security (Monday PM)
IT302 – Linux Administration (DIS)
IT320 – WAN Technology and Application (Friday PM)

Leaving these classes for the last quarter:

GE347 – Group Dynamics
TB332 – Professional Procedures and Portfolio Development
IT321 – Network Technology and Service Integraion
IT331 – Network Dev Capstone Project