Cleansing

It's raining today as I'm sitting at Keith's computer out in Washington. This is actually the first day that it has rained past early morning which is unexpected and quite refreshing. I've been slowly learning my way around the area and that has been bugging me. Now is one of those times that I wish I had some sort of navigation/gps toy to visually gather my surroundings. I usually pick up directions quickly, but the roads out here are at the mercy of mountains and water so I have a hard time picking out if we're going north or northeast once I'm in the 'burbs. However, I have accepted the challenge and I think Keith and I will go out on an exploration sometime during my trip so that I can get lost and find myself again, one of my favorite things to do.

We've had a pretty busy week so far. Our first day in we met up with my friend Michelle who also happened to be out here visiting her boyfriend's family. We spent the day in downtown Seattle and went on an interesting tour of Seattle's underground that was reccomended by Ryan, Julie, and Josh. It was a great way to get some history and we timed it perfectly to meet Michelle's boyfriend for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Before our tour we made an attempt to find the famous Pike's Place Fish Market on a whim, but we failed because apparently Seattle has a large market area on Pike Pl. Alas, it was still fun exploring and looking at all of the fresh produce. Plus we found Kasala, this awesome furniture store with funky modern pieces.

The rest of the time we've been bumming around Redmond and getting Keith's crap unpacked and placed. Today we're actually heading out to purchase a kitchen table so he can stop eating on boxes. We also have yet to decide what we're going to do to celebrate the new year. Right now we're toying with the idea of driving up north to explore some of the cities and lack of cities. We shall see! Until the next post, don't forget to take your camera OUT of your suitcase before you go to a touristy event.



I just thought I would add these two pictures of our IKEA adventure...

DONE!

If you don't like sap, skip to the next section...
I am finally done with everything college (undergraduate anyway), and the sky is even snowing to celebrate! I guess at points like this it's natural to reminisce a little, so I did a (very) brief look back and found it funny how the bad times tend to disappear and you start off only remembering the good ones. Maybe it's the adrenaline of being done and getting to rub it in everyone else's face, but either way I am happy to be graduating!

Next section
My roommate sent me this link from USA Today about how they can't find who the top 10 patent holders are in the US. It is quite entertaining not only why they can't find out, but also two potential top inventors in the US include a foreigner and a flower guy. It makes me proud to be in such a country...

Big Ad

My roommate showed me this commercial for Carlton Draught. It's pretty awesome if you think about how much coordination it would have taken to produce. So why can't we have such awesome commercials? I remember a few that make me laugh like the cow commercial from Hardee's (drag the cow one to the viewing window) and this Pop Tart commercial from many years ago, but the really good ones seem to be few and far between. It could be that I just don't watch enough TV or maybe the channels that I do watch just don't ever have good commercials. If this is true, let me know where to look! I'm always up for a good laugh even if someone's trying to get me to buy something through it.

m-bear-ass-ing

I guess this is my chance to clean out some of my old pictures that demonstrate moments in my college career. This gem on the left is me as a gangsta, aka let's see how many layers of clothing we can put on Samantha. You can't tell, but I actually had a pair of my jeans on, a pair of Keith's jeans on, some of Jon's sweatpants on, moccasins, my shirt and a pep band jersey and visor.





Down here we have me playing flag football freshman year. Our team, the Tangerine Speedos, never got a single point the entire season. That was our claim to fame I guess. I do have to say that although I'm not good at playing football, at one point I could actually throw the ball and make it spiral!


















This last picture is the only Halloween themed photo that I could find handy. I don't know what I was supposed to be other than a red head wearing black, but my roommate made a pretty mean archangel! Oh that's also her up above in the picture on the left if you want to know what she looked like normally.

Lead me, don't tease me

This past weekend was my last ballroom competition as a college student :( It was a pretty successful comp and I think that all of our new competitors had a great time. My highlights of the day included 3rd place in Tango and West Coast with Jill leading, 2nd in Waltz and Hustle with Bryan, and 1st in American Rumba with Bryan, Jack and Jill Waltz with #133, and Merengue with me leading Kathy!

I also got to drive one of the 15 passenger vans with Thomas as my co-pilot. We had the sweet setup shown below to pump our iPod music throughout the van. I love my Belkin TuneCast II FM transmitter and power adapter! There are a few cables to deal with, but once it's laid out in a good spot, there isn't a problem.

It's great for long rides because the power adapter takes care of the iPod and the transmitter, hence all of the cables. The transmitter does a great job with reception and you can choose from the whole spectrum of radio channels, so finding a free frequency is not a problem. Now I just need a new source for road trips.

Embrace your roots

I don't remember all of the fun things for my Apple back in the day, but who could forget Number Munchers and Oregon Trail? Here is an awesome site that supplies good entertainment for several hours. I'm sure I'll at least use it to keep up on my math skills :)

Cheap lovers make expensive wives....

I don't have any experience with this, so is it true, and if so, why? Does that make expensive lovers cheap wives, or is there no connection? Do they think because they were cheap before they can get more now that they are not just a lover?

This song came on today so I decided to post my internal question about this line so that I can get some input. But now for your visual enjoyment... a pretty:
Name the spot this photo was taken from and get 5 life points. I don't know what they accumulate for, but it could be fun.

Philosopher's World

Have you ever felt like you have too much energy and potential to do really good things for people, but you're stuck? I've been feeling this way for a while and I relate it to chemistry (dorky I know, but deal!): When you learn about heat and molecules and how when you heat the molecules up, they move faster and faster... This is me only in a tiny box so that I keep smacking the sides over and over wanting to get out and do something. I've decided that after I get settled into my new home I'm going to try to get a little sister or brother. No, not biological, but one through Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I think this could be a fun way to channel my energy since I love kids and can hopefully make a positive difference in someone's life. I have actually been thinking about doing it since last summer, but I tend to do everything on the long-term, so only being able to dedicate a summer was not good enough. The downside to this solution is that I still have to exert patience, but in the meantime I can sit and ponder fun activities to do with my future "little". Any suggestions?

Tadoodle!

I am now officially done with my half semester tech elective, w00t! My group gave our kickass presentation on Wednesday and I turned in my take home final today and now I just need the good ol' Dr. to give me my A and I'll be happy. This also means that I should theoretically have more time on my hands, but we should all know by now that when this rare event does happen, new activities manage to find their way into my path.

And now to throw a "you had to be there" moment in... My engineering meeting tonight was filled with fun jabs at random majors and my favorite run started with a ChemE stating that she could "do whatever she wanted" with her major, the counter attack from a CprE saying that he would hack her systems and make it backfire, so she then decided that she could blow him up. And it all ended with an Industrial Engineer saying that his major was great because it "isn't all guys" and an AgE saying that she loved her major because of all the guys. It was sad, but very entertaining.

I need a theme song...

Ok, I'll play too...

Does my character looked tired or just scared?

I'm a big kid now

I have made my big step toward the world after school; I accepted a job! I'll be working at Intermec with all of the cool people and living with my good friend Jordan again. Now that I have a job set up for myself, I wish I could transfer my other offers to people who are still waiting or at least help them more than by just listening to their worries. The Bobby Mcferin song doesn't seem to help much either...

In other news, everyone should go to the Frightmare Forest on October 15th and 22nd and pay for parking so Ballroom can earn some money! I will be doing the parking thing and NOT scaring because I'm such a chicken that I wouldn't be able to scare anyone else. So as long as you're not scaring me, happy haunting season!

Tom Sawyer for an evening

I finally got to go kayaking this past Friday with Seatasea and it was fantastic! I loved every second of it and I don't want to wait until April for the next opportunity. Ryan has already blogged about this same trip that he went on in August, so I'll just add highlights from my experience.

I ended up trying out a Dirigo by Old Town and it suited me pretty well. I have never kayaked before this trip, so it took a little bit to get used to the paddle stroke that we were shown. It was very different from the dig and pull method used in canoing, but once I got going, my kayak was easy to maneuver. The current wasn't very strong, so if you wanted to go anywhere you HAD to paddle; no speed floating like you can in a canoe.

The whole trip was quite nice and the new people I met added to the excitement. There were two other girls about my age, but they pretty much stayed together, so I had fun paddling between everyone else and talking to new people. The river was just the right size to socialize with everyone or paddle off to one of the sides and explore by yourself.

One other tidbit is that Seatasea will be selling the boats that they use for these trips at a discount starting November 1st. One of the owners will be fixing any that have lost screws or various other wear and tear items before they sell them, so it could be a great opportunity to invest in a kayak... and then let me borrow it until I get my own!

Props

Yay for ISU ballroom this year! I'm so proud :). We've now had 110 people in one beginner lesson and have been featured in the Des Moines Register, a Des Moines radio station, and in Visions, the ISU alumni magazine! It's like a fantastic epidemic of dancing, the only problem being that we're running out of space to hold everyone. Our Wednesday lessons have moved to one of the Forker gyms, and last week we had 4 rows of people on both the girls and guys side. It would be awesome if we could buy or build a building for us, but unfortunately we don't have that kind of money. Maybe the solution to that problem is to get a corporate sponsor! If only it were that easy... It would also be cool if we could create "virtual space" so we would always have enough room no matter how many people came. Maybe the people working with the C6 could give us a hand with this idea.

DINKs

I can breathe clearly now! I think I'm back to life and I'm glad because I have a busy week coming up. It's E-Week and that means I get to promote ISU, promote myself, and dance at the end of the week!

This weekend was also busy and fantastic! My best (girl) friend, Wendy, and I have known each other for about 21 years now and no matter how far away we live or how long it has been since we last saw each other, we somehow manage to pick up right where we left off and have a great time. She came down Friday night and indulged me in a late night college dinner at Perkins while we caught up on a few things. Saturday we perused Main Street and found the new chocolate shop. Then we met up with Liz for pizza at Old Chicago, yes Ames actually has a new restaurant! After stuffing ourselves, we headed to C.Y. Stephens for an awesome performance of Miss Saigon. It was a pretty heavy story, but at least I didn't pass out like at Rent; stupid hospital stuff. To round the evening off we watched Napoleon Dynamite and Strictly Ballroom at Liz's and apparently Napoleon is much funnier with alcohol... Then I discovered that Liz's boyfriend plays Warcrack too so we geeked out a bit while Wendy and Liz probably sat and made fun of us. To end the night we introduced Wendy to Mitch. Oh Mitch you make my abs strong from laughter! There's a new exercise idea: aerobic laughter. It would be similar to the pole dancing and striptease lessons on the west coast.

One of my favorite new "terms" I picked up this weekend was DINKs: Dual Income No Kids. Leave it up to Wendy to use some fancy word to describe her and Brad's married life. Now I need to get in gear so I'm still sane by the end of the week. I wouldn't want to scare the other kayakers on Friday. And speaking of this, anyone who is going to be in CR, or even IC, Friday afternoon should let me know so I can say hi and keep myself out of trouble before I float down the river.

Squawk squawk, tastes like chicken

Well it looks like the best bird won on Saturday! The Iowa/ISU game will probably be the only football game I make it to this year, but it definitely feels good to graduate after one more win against the dark side. And now that the game was so awesome, I have to say that the tailgating party was not as fun. I spent the majority of my time being a bouncer and a human body shield to prevent random people from snatching the food and drinks. Nothing too exciting happened besides being challenged to fight with some drunk guy from Iowa or UNI (he couldn't remember). I guess rushing the field was fun until we tried to leave the stadium, and yet again the goal posts stood strong against the people determined to topple them. It was worth the free ticket and $3 bottled water, but now it will be nothing more than a line on my resume of life... and something to brag about to all of the Iowa fans for the next year!

Warm Fuzzies

Yay! I ran into one of my mentees from years back and he made my day. He said that Keith and I were his favorite TAs of all time! What a nice little ego boost. I also ran into the learning community lab instructor from my first and second years, so it was a nice little walk down memory lane. Now I just need to get a Beat Iowa shirt to wear tomorrow and have my advisor officially tell me that I can graduate, and my day will be complete. I'm also debating on getting another plant from the Horticulture Club's plant sale, but I don't know if that would be breaking my "no more plants until I graduate" deal with Keith or not...

Long time, no blog

Ok, so in theory this will break the blog stalemate that has been going on, i.e. post something to entertain me! And as a warning, this is going to be a random blog to procrastinate going to bed. First of all, everyone needs to dig out their cardinal and gold this week to support the only game I half pay attention to. Yes, I am actually going to the ISU/Iowa match du football americain, but only because my brother is giving me his ticket. The best part about the football season is that I get to help out with the College of Engineering tailgate. Yay for schmoozing with awesome old people. Ok, so they aren't all old, but I haven't graduated yet, so I can still call them old.

Next... Jason, you were right. I do need you guys around to remind me when to drink water. I think random reminders throughout the day would be good so that I don't become dust, especially since I've been good and have kept to my goal of trying to bulk up and I have yet again that I do indeed need water :) So far the bulking is still not happening, but I think that McDonalds needs to play a bigger role in my routine for that to happen. I have, however, gotten back up to 450 crunchy stomach things and 30 push ups (yes army, not girlie) per week which is half way back to my old high school sports days. I don't think I'm quite to the ass kicking level, but I can safely say that I am more in shape than most of my major. I guess that's not saying much, but I can still smile about it.

Ok, last thing for the early morning. I finally saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith and while some of the fight scenes are cheesy, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but I think that Brad Pitt's last line is my favorite. Go watch it again if you don't remember!

Life is like a box of chocolates. Take little nibbles and if you don't like it, try something different. You're bound to find something you do like.

Yay for unique birth control!

I can't describe it in words, just watch this WoW ad!

Quality Virtual Crap

I definitely blame this idea on being up too late and watching QVC people try to sell tech stuff. Suddenly features that warrant dropping $1600 include a modem!, software: PeachTree, Nascar game, Acrobat Reader (wtf!?!?!), etc., and "lots of plug areas". Whoa buddy. The next item was some flat TV, I wasn't really paying attention because this idea popped into my head... I want TV "tiles". I want to be able to buy these tiles as I go so that I can start off with maybe 4 5x5 tiles and add to it as I get more money. They should be thin and be able to be hung on the wall. Connectors on all 4 sides similar to how waffle blocks used to mesh together could sense the edges because there would be no connection on one or two sides. Theoretically you could have an entire wall as your TV :). I would draw a picture now, but I'm going to make the last intelligent decision of the evening and go to bed!

Senti-Mental

As I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel getting closer now that it's my last semester, I've already started getting nostalgic. While I was on campus yesterday I took some pictures of interesting things and favorite places that I've decided to share with the rest of the world.


This first one is outside of the Design building and either pleases or annoys me depending on the day. I don't really know why, but it is still interesting to look at.

This one is from inside the Design building and it's awesome up close! It's a full scale representation of DaVinci's flight invention thing. Some architecture students made it for a project. I want to see it in motion!



Ok, this is the last picture from Design. I was in there because the view from the roof is THE best, but unfortunately the access was locked. Maybe they don't want people jumping off since it's the first week or something. So because of that you have to deal with this picture of Science Row from the top floor. Look at all of the green! Love it!





Water is the next best thing to green, so here is a small picture of one of the water features outside of Howe Hall, the big Titanic looking building for Aerospace Enginerding, I mean Engineering :). Anyone have a big thing of bubbles...?



Moo U and proud of it! Where else would you see a cute kitty on campus next to horses and new ponies? No animals were harmed during the photo session, but this cat is very clingy. It wouldn't leave us alone last year when we would visit the horses and kept jumping into Keith's lap when he would bend down to pet it. It again brings up the debate between getting a cat or a dog... which do I want?


And now time to reveal my favorite place on campus! Since I'm leaving soon, I decided that I need to pass it on to others that have not already experienced this gem. To the normal eye this may just look like the steps up to Catt Hall, but the cool part is when you stand on the stairs. Depending on your height relative to me, if you sit or stand around the INVENT step and face toward central campus everything you say will be echoed back to you. This comes in handy if you feel the need to talk to yourself or would like an invisible audience, and it has entertained me since my freshman year when I discovered it.

Of course these are only a few of the things that make ISU great, but maybe it will bring attention to the details that you haven't noticed or show you things that weren't there the last time you visited. If it's the latter, get back and pay homage! You know you want to.

"God don't make lonely girls..."

So the CD that the above song line belongs to made it into my player on the way to Ames and it reminded me how many of the songs I enjoy on there, even the radio played ones which tend to get on my nerves. But then again, I bought the CD back around middle school so the annoyances could be trumped by time. It also provided me the opportunity to post this picture of three of us in our apartment. I'll have to get an updated one with Katie sometime. Back the the music... I especially like Invisible City because his voice is hot on that track, and Josephine just because. Guess the CD and artist/group and you don't win anything but a time check of how old you are :). If you're The Cheat and look up the answer, it's ok, I won't tell.

On the school front: week one is done (oh yeah, no Friday class!). My most time intensive class looks like French and only one class presents the need and opportunity to multitask. This is good because then I will only feel like I could be doing something more productive twice a week instead of the usual twice each day. I am also proud to say that I have started on my workout attempt for the semester and so far it's going well. I'm going to make a formal plan on here so that I have to live up to my post and not just what is in my mind.

And now to make this post more interesting to you, here is the most awesome college apartment artwork ever! I know you're jealous...

Drool!

So I went down to Des Moines today and test drove the Lexus RX400h the luxury utility vehicle (luv) hybrid... and I love the luv! It would take some getting used to because it's so quiet when it's just running on electricity and you don't get the familiar "start up" sound when you turn the key. But with all of the techy gadgets, including Bluetooth, that come standard and especially the fact that I didn't feel dwarfed inside of it along with its awesome handling in town and on the interstate, I'd say that it is highly likely that I will get one... eventually. Until then, I will just have to savor my test drive and save up my money. Oh and I'm now taking donations. Your benefit in the deal will be the opportunity to be a passenger when I finally get one! So who's first?

Oh how I love Firefox

So even in general Firefox is awesome, but when connecting to the Iowa State University network, it's even better. If you happen to be an ISU student, listen up and I'll tell you how to by pass the crappy AIT (or whatever they're called now) software.

Background: When connecting the to ISU network and "NetReg-ing", AIT forces you to download their software to check if your system has virus protection on it. Good idea in theory when a couple of years ago naked computers were connected and spread viruses like wildfire during move in. But if you know that you have protection, it's a waste of time and if you run it for fun, it usually gives you the wrong information. Imagine that!

Solution:
1. Get Firefox. Get it before you come to ISU, install it from a CD, I don't care, just get it.
2. Open Firefox and type "about:config"
3. Right click and select New -> String
4. Name this string general.useragent.override click "Ok"
5. Type anything your heart desires for the string content, but be creative (AIT sucks, smacky the frog, etc.) and click "Ok"
6. Restart Firefox and NetReg! Voila, you can now bypass the crappiness that was.
7. Spread the news and enjoy.

Subliminal message: Play WoW

Just as a funny side note, the spell check suggested that NetReg should be neuters :)

Hook me up.

Have you ever felt that you just needed an extra zap in the morning to get you going? Or maybe you're the type that forgets to charge the cell phone before heading out the door. Or even worse, you leave your charger at home while on vacation like I do. Well soon the wonderful Iowa State University will solve these, and other, problems for you. Right now research is being done on wearable solar cell technology.

I don't think I'll buy any of these techy items until they come out in a color that matches my eyes, but I'm definitely interested to see if this idea goes anywhere and what items, if any

Fly me to the moon...

so I can mow the lawn! Check out this awesome video.

Talk about a reason to look forward to your grass growing, and you could even take care of your trees and bushes at the same time.

Don't try this anywhere but home

So I have found the PennySaver good for two things so far: finding events to go to if I'm really desperate and making me laugh. The latter especially when my roommate is trying to figure out the acronyms in the personal adds. But today my humor was found in an ad for Muddy Waters which included some cheesy pick-up lines at the bottom. So for your personal enjoyment I am including them under the suggestion that you never actually try them unless you're already dating or married to your victim.

"You be my Dairy Queen and I'll be your Burger King. You treat me right, I'll do it your way."
"You must be an adverb, because you sure do modify me."
"I'm no Fred Flinstone, but I can make your BedRock."

Wow, those are some winners. There was a fourth, but I had heard it before and it's not all that funny. Anyway, enjoy at your own risk!

Epiphany!

So I had a random theory occur to me as I was walking from work today... For some reason I was thinking about the fact that a lot of engineers and other science related people tend to act immaturely on occasion if not all of the time. I included myself in this statement, and then I began to ponder the reasons. I then reminded myself how I try not to forget what it's like to be a kid because kids are some of the most intelligent people I know. They haven't yet learned to think "realistically" and therefore are prone to more creative solutions and ideas. Then I put the two thoughts together and concluded that people who enjoy scientific fields are probably more in tune with their creative side which could be tied to still being a kid inside which leads to being immature at times. I have no proof, but I could be on to something here...

As an example provided by my roommate tonight, who happens to also be a computer engineer, he demonstrated how he can toss grapes in the air and catch them in his mouth and then we proceeded outside to see how high he could throw and catch them. Ahh, such fun.

I'm back!

Back from Utah and completely pooped. I just spent 5 days dancing from morning until way past night and about 31 hours total driving through some of the good ol' USA's most boring states. Because I devoted an entire week to the BYU dance camp, I decided that I should at least give some of the highlights. First off, I was quite impressed by all of the instructors: Pierre Allaire and Mireille Veilleux, Jean Marc Genereux and France Mousseau, Hunter and Maria Johnson, and Ron Montez. I think Maria was my favorite instructor especially since my awesome boyfriend succeeded in surprising me with a private lesson with her for our waltz! (For those of you who don't know, this is particularly impressive because I have been able to sniff out all of his previous surprises.)

While the dancing and socializing was fun, there were some non-dance related things that I found interesting. Since the camp was hosted by BYU, we had to follow the university's rules including not showing our knees, shoulders, or drinking caffeine. I tried to follow these as well as I could out of respect, but I found that because I was told I could not do certain things, I wanted them more. For example, I'm not a big caffeine drinker at all, but once I was at BYU I suddenly craved the option for pop. Kinda weird how that works.

So to sum this blog up I thought I would ask a question. To people who have done ballroom dancing, do you remember what you thought it was before you started? And for people who have not done ballroom dancing (yet) what do you think it is? I have found that many people don't really know all that it encompasses.

Matrix style

Here is one of my biggest problems that I would LOVE to have solved... shopping. I hate it. About every 6 months when I decided to give it a try again or get roped into an excursion, it always disappoints me. Now don't confuse shopping with buying. I'm all for the buying of new stuff anywhere from tech toys to clothes, but I absolutely hate the shopping part!

The process usually goes something like this... I decide that I need something, as a current example, a skirt to wear for the end performance at ballroom camp which has to work for both rumba AND waltz plus conform to BYU rules. So then I do some research and check out stores online to see if I can avoid searching by foot. This almost always fails me so I have to resort to the dreaded shopping. I get to drag my butt to stores, listen to high schoolers complain about their weight, and then I get frustrated because I know exactly what I want and nothing like it exists.

What I want is shopping like in the matrix. You know the scene where Neo and Trinity are going into the Matrix to save Morpheus and they need guns, lots of guns. All they have to do is say the word and wooooosh! rows and rows of guns fly past them. It could also be like that old car search commercial where the guy describes exactly what he wants and it whittles down the choices.

This might not satisfy the people who actually like going out and searching for hours to not find anything they want, but in my perfect world this would make my life even happier.

Big badda boom!

Like blowing things up or at least watching? Well head on down to Ames on July 19th for the Knapp-Storms Implosion. That's right, they are finally tearing down part of Towers residence halls and you can watch in person, on TV, or on via a web cam. I say this is definitely worth a field trip including lunch at Hickory Park that has the best ice cream!

Row, row, row your boat

So I was really excited about these Kayaking trips being sponsored by Indian Creek Nature Center and Seatasea, but apparently so was everyone else. As of Friday only 3 spots were left for the August 19th trip and I can't go then! Well my interest has been piqued enough that I'm going to look for other kayak or canoing opportunities, so if anyone knows about something like this going on in the Cedar Rapids area, please let me know.

On another note, my post office adventure ended in success and I got the chance to use one of their awesome stamp vending machines. One thing I didn't expect from the vending machine was that it would only take debit or credit cards. I suppose their cheapest stamp option was around $6, but the lack of a paper money option still surprised me. This could also be because I was tired at that point. A word to the wise next time you need stamps at 10pm, make sure you have plastic money with you, because only plastic makes it possible!

Bad compression idea

So I guess the real reason that I decided to post was more to vent some frustrations and save people from hearing me groan. Being in engineering and computer engineering specifically I have run into the gender issue more times than I would have thought starting off. Now I hate complaining about it because I know it's something that I will just have to live with to some degree until I secretly take over the world someday. But until then, I have periodically been trying to think of helpful solutions. Some of the more boring and most likely unproductive ideas have included "manuals" and training sessions (only if they are held in Beems Auditorium, though). Then, in one of my "I don't want to have to deal with you" moments that combined with work I thought, why can't Bluetooth help me? Why can't there be some way for people to "discover" basic information about each other so that they don't make fools of themselves? Now I don't mean quite the a/s/l of chat rooms, but simple things like "taken, so f*** off", "not pregnant, just fat", or "vegetarian, so I don't go to Famous Dave's" (no, that is not why I don't like Dave's); you know, things that people end up sticking their feet in their mouths over. Then after thinking of this, I read an article that Ryan sent me with a Bluetooth enabled cell phone that had something similar. Now I'm not saying that everyone should have a cell phone to handle this, but if I had gotten some small device at college orientation that could do this for me, I would have a lot fewer people in the "awkward acquaintances" column today.

In other news, never try compressing the dancing area for a dance that would use a minimum size floor of 36x60 feet. It creates collisions, cramps, and a dizzy blur of confusion when confined to itty bitty spaces.

Rock on patriotic people, I'm going to bed.

So hi...

Ryan convinced me to join in the fun so if you don't like my posts, blame him. Since I created this blog I have been trying to decide if I am going to introduce myself or not. I figure I will be nice and give you a little information to go off of, but it's up to you to find out more. To start of, I am a proud Iowa State student and I also happen to be a Computer Engineer. "Why?" you may ask. Well it all started with these little guys, Rug Warrior Pros, and then CELTS, my learning community. Besides computers I have a wide range of interests and unless it has anything to do with scary things or hospital related stuff I'll try almost anything once. Well this should be enough information for now. I will probably post again after I raid tonight.

Peace