You know how sometimes at the end of a semester, you’ll have a crush on somebody, but it’s like the worst timing ever. But, it’s the end of the semester, and you know that feelings’ll change if you don’t say something. But it’s still the worst timing. Well, think if you were like leaving forever, and wished that you could still try and start something… that sucks… hmm… woulda, coulda, shoulda + regrets…

I’m a little disenfranchised with Slashdot as of late. Since I’ve discovered Bloglines, Slashdot is just another aggregator. A slow, moderated aggregator of other sites. I see tons more stuff that I just plow through in bloglines. By no means do I say that I read everything that I see aggregated. I look at what I want to. So, I see stuff on slashdot that I saw a couple of days beforehand elsewhere. Plus, the comments of any random story aren’t usually going to be that informative; mostly just flames… So, why don’t I just throw in the towel on slashdot altogether? I dunno… Maybe I’m just bitter that I can’t get a submitted story accepted.
</rant>

I’m going to try and keep more up to date with stuff, even though the next couple of days are going to be extremely hectic. I do have a place to live, or at least I am in the process of signing the lease. Hopefully I’ll have both a place to live and utilities setup by the time that I move in. I will be taking a trailer and a bunch of furniture most likely. And maybe even a washer and dryer. So, I’ll be recruiting people to help me load the big stuff on Wednesday.

Got to watch “Clash of the Titans” yesterday afternoon. Well, I say got to. I had the remote, and I decided to watch it. I’m not sure who I made mad, but I don’t really care. Let’s just say that it was so bad that it was good. I’m pretty sure that the last time I watched it, it was during junior high. Like 7th or 8th grade English. We’ve been watching a lot of MoviePlex as well. It has both good and bad movies, but no commercials. Oh, and Bond movies, too, as of late. It’s fun to watch a movie where you have no idea of really what’s going on, but you’re enjoying it anyway.

Ok, enough for now. If a blog entry is too long, then I don’t read it. I’ll take any comments on the length of this one…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what would have happened if this or that was different. Like, as my last post mentioned, I got a job with Google in Atlanta. Now, I did have another offer in Plano. I don’t know what I would have done, say, in the situation that I would have had a serious girlfriend in College Station. Unless she was pretty close to graduation, I’m not really sure that I would have been able to go all the way to Georgia. Would I still be in College Station, looking very much to stay? Would I be so obligated to stay here or Houston or DFW? Would it have even been a consideration to go? I don’t think that I know now, nor do I even think that I could speculate that much. I guess that I just assume that it’s one of those things that you don’t know what exactly you would do unless you were presented with the situation for real. Too many things to weigh. Another person to consider. Other feelings to consider. Oh well, I probably won’t know how I’ll act until later in life…

Another thing to consider is whether or not I might have influenced the outcome of the TAMU Student Body Presidental election. Scott Smith’s campaign had (inadvertantly) asked me to run their my thing for them, or to at least give them a copy of it, so that they could run it. I refused, based on the fact that I didn’t want anybody else to have it, nor to run it for anyone else except as a personal favor to Pat. So, would he have won if he would have gotten a couple hundred more votes? Would he have made to the run-off? Would he now be the new SBP? I dunno…

Hmm… I wonder what I should write about… well, I suppose that I could say that…

I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!! I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!!I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!!I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!!I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!!I GOT A JOB WITH GOOGLE!!!

WHOOP!

So, if anybody knows anybody in Atlanta, I’m going to need a place to live. And, if anybody wants to go with me, then I’ll take audience with requests…

Update: Note that this is not an April Fool’s joke. I did, in fact, get a job with Google.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so here we go.

First, I wanted to say that the reason that I was up so late a while ago (this post) was because I was working on a little pet project. I call it Firewire Debian. It’s a little bootable cd that essentially boots Linux on an Intel machine off of an external firewire or usb hard drive. It’s not so big a deal about usb booting, but moreso for booting off of firewire. Apple has had it for a while, as I understand, but not so much for Intel-type products. You can check out my preliminary documentation here. It could use some polishing, and it may be quite wordy, but, hey, all the info is there. If you really wanted to try and replicate what I did, then I believe that you could. I haven’t posted the ISO, but if anybody wants it, then I can upload it and post a link to it.

I worked a little bit in Houston yesterday (Monday) doing some simple tech support stuff for MUD71. The best part of that was probably getting to eat lunch and hang out with Josh Masterson. I had to drive down to Sugarland to get there, but it was worth it. (It’s weird to realize halfway through a thought that the person that you are talking about is going to read this later on today…) Then I drove back to CS, which was quite an adventure. I usually don’t have issues driving in traffic, but between not having a good deal of quarters to pay for tolls and not really knowing the best way to get back, I had issues for a while. I don’t know how many times I had to turn around, but it was WAY TOO MANY! I usually knew where approximately where I needed to be going but was having a hard time figuring out how to get from point A to point B, even though I could see point B. Traffic was heavy and fast, but that just meant that I got to have some fun while driving fast.

Jobs.
Well, after what has seemed like forever, I finally have gotten a few leads on jobs. And they all have come at once… (When it rains it pours.) So, I had a phone interview with Perot Systems on Wednesday. Just before the interview was supposed to happen, I got an email from Google, saying that they wanted to setup a phone interview, too. So, I have that one a little later on today. After the interview with Perot, they wanted a face to face interview, to I have a team interview with them on Monday in Plano. Man, I guess it was a good thing that I wasn’t planning on going home for Easter. I also had a lead with a Java job, but I think that I’m going to pursue these systems admin positions, as that’s really where I want to be heading, job wise.

You know that you are up too late when you are racing home to beat the sunrise, Kolache Rolf’s is open, and Copy Corner is closed.

Drew wrote this for his Lunch Bible Study. I couldn’t pass up posting it here. And now, for your reading enjoyment, “So you want to ask her out”.

♥ So you want to ask her out ♥

Introduction
This document is a description of the Drew Gibson methodology for asking a female out on a date. This method has been rigorously researched and tested by Drew. Though it has had many successful implementations, your mileage may vary. This document does not describe how to make an initial pick-up of a woman (Are those moon pants? Because you’re butt is out of this world), but is instead for usage upon unsuspecting female friends or casual acquaintances.

The approach
When asking a girl out, I prefer to do it in person. Telephone is acceptable, however instant messenger or e-mail is just weak. Before the approach, make sure you are neatly groomed. For example, among other things, make sure your hair is not messed up and your fly is zipped up. Basically you don’t want to make it any harder for her than is has to be to say (possibly) yes. You don’t have to get all dressed up, just be your normal presentable self.
I prefer to do the actual asking out while you are both alone unless you want to make your humiliation or successful procurement of a date public. So get her alone and initiate conversation to butter her up. I prefer Country Crock. It shouldn’t be deep soul searching conversation, just chit-chat, perhaps about cool that Drew Gibson guy is.

Going in for the kill
After you have briefly chatted up your potential date, it is time to go in for the kill. There are a variety of ways to actually ask her out, but it is best to be direct about your intent. My preferred line is so “So anyway, I was wondering if you would like to go out on a date with me.” Saying things like, “Maybe we could catch a movie sometime,” or “Maybe we could get dinner some time,” may not get your point across. I feel it is best to say the word “date” somewhere in the supplication so she will know you intend it as one.
It is also best to avoid specifics when you ask her for a date. For instance:

Bad:
You: “I was wondering if you would like to be my date to go see Wrestlemania this Saturday.”
Her: “Aww, I can’t. I’m going to see NASCAR up in Fort Worth this weekend.”

This is a malformed appeal because if she says no, then one cannot be certain what she was saying “no” to; your pathetic self or Wrestlemania. But in my experience, no woman can resist the siren call of Wrestlemania. Sure, if the girl is interested, she could say that she is free next weekend, but it is best to avoid specifics.

The response
If she says no, don’t take it to hard. You’re just an unattractive person who no one could ever love. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Look on the bright side, instead of having to spend your Friday night paying for someone’s dinner and having awkward conversations with them, you can sit around in your underwear, eat chips, and play video games. Also, many people find sending a check to Drew in the amount they would have spent on a date very therapeutic.
If she says yes, then set down some specifics. You don’t necessarily have to nail down an itinerary, but try to set down a day. This is also a good time to get her phone number if you don’t know it already.

Since there is that stuff going on between Syria and Lebanon, I figured that I could read up on some of the background history of the countries in the region. So, thanks to Wikipedia, I read up on the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Iran-Contra Affair. The CIA World Factbook was also a cool resource, especially for the maps.

I didn’t get a chance to work on the video for Crunchtime on Sunday, but that’s ok. Jeremy talked to Marc and I today about maybe some of where he wants it to go. I also finally got the pdf of the newsletter working. Carol emailed it everyone, so everybody can check out the newsletter in color. Also, I picked up the business cards that I had Kinkos print up. They didn’t quite turn out as well as I would have liked, but they’ll do.