Ecce Sigum

Category: Life

  • The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills

    Happy Birthday to me.
    Happy Birthday to me!
    Happy Birthday, dear…uh…me!
    Happy Birthday to me!

    Thankew, thankew, you’re too kind.

  • Patterns of Holding

    Thursday of a short week and the annual Project From Hell is practically done. Every day for the past week the PFH has been done at 8:30am, undone by 10:00am, and re-done by 6:00pm. Every day for the past week. Every NeoCon since the day I started working here. I get the work done, but I am so fried that I don’t feel safe driving home, and I certainly can’t face the Infernal Machine once I get there.

    Heh. NeoCon.

    Going to be interesting seeing the Google fights between the annual interior designers’ convention and the right-wing chickenhawk lickspittles who have sprung up in the past couple of years.

    All I really want to do is stay home and read.

  • Stiiiiilll Rising!

    Today the river rose up past the edge of its east bank in front of the WaterWorks Pub on North Monroe Street. According to weather reports, if we have no more significant rainfall, the river will rise another two feet before cresting on Thursday afternoon. That means all of Monroe Street could be under water. I work on Monroe Street. I may have to borrow my neighbor’s kayak.

  • You Know What’s Funny?

    Americans fighting over what it means to be patriotic.
    Millionaires talking about sacrifice.
    Fat people blaming food.
    Alcoholics blaming beer.
    Dumb people blaming television.
    People who vote blaming people who don’t vote.
    People who don’t vote blaming people who vote.
    People who mistake the Administration for the country.
    People who back their beliefs with violence.
    People who are willing to kill but not to die.
    Christians who blame God.
    Buddhists who blame God.
    Atheists who blame religion.
    Politicians who take credit for anything.
    Politicians who consider themselves to be leaders.
    Politicians who call other politicians dishonest.
    People who believe that The Right exists.
    People who believe that The Left exists.
    People who put themselves in categories.
    People who believe in precedents.
    People who believe in presidents.
    People who believe presidents.

  • Re-BOOT!!!1!

    Weeellll I thought es.o was looking a little dusty. Originally I planned to get the new look up on May 1 to coincide with the ReBoot , but for various reasons that just didn’t happen.

    The background photo is from a few months ago , and the colors used in the design are taken from the photo. Mr. Bock offered much design advice after seeing my original concept, which would have hurt your eyes and killed your computer. If you are looking at this page on a PC, and you are using any flavor of Internet Explorer, Shame On You! Go download Mozilla or FireFox and you will see the beauty which is translucent backgrounds.

    So where have I been? A brief recap: The Kendall class ended at the end of April. All of my students passed, there were more As than Ds. Several of the projects completely blew me away. For the next few months my time is my own, then in September I go back to teaching. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Class.

    Much time and emotional energy went to assisting Cliff and those around him, through what was absolutely a trying, scary few weeks.

    Any free time in addition to all of this was taken up by work, or recovering from work. This past Friday a major project launched; one in which I had to wield mojo as I have never before wielded mojo: Discovering Design . Normally I don’t post Day Job projects here, but this is one I of which I am quite proud. The posts I made about The Brain a few weeks back? What I learned there went in here.

    Last and MOST IMPORTANT, I have been training hard in Master Lee’s class . We have a tournament in a couple of weeks, and the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts show a week after that. This year the show will take place on my birthday. My 35th birthday. I can think of no better gift.

    As miscellaneous addendum, the news of the world around us has kept me rather depressed. I made the grievous tactical error of watching The Video last week. The non-Hollywood-ized violence, the everyday banality of the decapitation, as if it were no more important to the participants than the butchering of a pig, gave me nightmares. I grew up near a slaughterhouse, and what was on The Video could have happened, with a slight cast change, therein.

    What next? Sleep. Sleep and maybe playing around a little with game development. Bock is working on one, and it kind of whetted my appetite for that kind of thing.

    More as time and energy allow.

  • njil9uects

    Sick. Ear infection. Will post more later. Argh.

  • Blast From the Past

    Today while researching The Brain I stumbled across the first website I ever visited on a regular basis: Justin’s Links from the Underground . It was through his site that I discovered all of the weirdness the web had to offer, circa 1996. I am quite happy that his site (which by now must be one of the oldest in the world) is still up and running. W00T for Justin!

  • Profiting from Spam II

    People who have recently sent me spam:

    Cohesion Q. Stepped
    Mathematician H. Melva
    Pastimes E. Yea
    Northeastern M. Temporizes
    Armaments B. Bodyguards
    Disposable O. Craftsmanship
    Despairingly L. Hooky

    Way I see it, putting these names in my blog will bring search engines to me, particularly those seekers of Mathematician Bodyguards and Northeastern Hooky. A win-win situation, if ever there was one!

  • Signs of Life

    A few weeks ago I was browsing Portnoy’s blog , and therein found a link to an interesting site about signs. So I submitted a photo. A few days ago I received notice that my photo was accepted. Hooray for me!

    But don’t just look at my submission; all of the signs at Signs of Life are entertaining.

  • The Rules

    I have an unwritten (and unfortunately generally unenforced) rule in all of the classes I teach: don’t be late. For every minute you are late, you owe me a push-up. Five minutes late equals 5 pushups. Half an hour late, 30 pushups. An easy one-to-one relationship.

    But lately I have been thinking that this is not quite right. Somehow it makes me out to be the bad guy. Well, that and the fact that 30 pushups for being half an hour late is not nearly enough pushups. It isn’t MY fault that YOU are late. So I have come up with a plan which will pit my students against one another and thus leave them too disorganized for any sort of uprising:

    The first student who is late to class will immediately start doing pushups. He/she will continue to do pushups until another student walks into class. Then student 2 will take over for student one, doing pushups. When another student (3) walks in, 3 will take over for two, who will then join the rest of the class.

    The last late student will do pushups for the rest of the class period. Good ones. All the way down, touch the chest, all the way up. No fewer than 30 in any one minute.