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Your Location
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
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I considered several hipper or wittier titles for this post, but all are clichés and thus unacceptably trite.
Now that I have a vehicle I can visit people, but only if I can find them. If you wish to be seen, tell me where you will be for the next several months. |
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Peace Be With You
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Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 12:37 am
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Recently, this has again become my preferred greeting and parting. To some people I say it to, it is a statement of fact. To others, it is an expression of hope. For both those who live in peace and those who strive for it, the words often ring sweetly and elicit a response in kind.
For many and perhaps most of us, such peace is not to be had or not to endure, as violence and disaster prevent it with inevitable regularity. Thus, as I say, “Peace be with you,” I whisper or inwardly continue, “And when it not be, strength preserve you, perseverance drive you, and triumph reward you.” |
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(Soon to) Have Ride, Will Travel
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Mar. 26th, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
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I will return to Blacksburg on April 4th.
Prepare yourselves. |
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The Key to my Heart
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Mar. 23rd, 2008 @ 09:18 pm
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I may have met The One. |
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A Time Well Chosen, A Plan Well Executed: The Game
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Mar. 15th, 2008 @ 01:19 am
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Josh Crockett enjoys hockey, and likes to share it. He invited me to join him for the Carolina Hurricanes / Washington Capitals game at the RBC center in Raleigh on Feb. 23. To date, this is the only hockey game and the only professional sporting event I have attended. We ended up sitting about ten rows back at one of the corners of the lowest deck, some of the best seats Josh has ever gotten.
The RBC Center is apparently very fond of Cinema clichés, as the pre-game show on the jumbotron included cartoons of giant robots and spacemen playing hockey as Carolina Hurricanes. The screens also showed clips of villains laughing and protagonists crying when the Capitals scored, and various movie character triumphs when the Hurricanes scored.
The game action was constant and entertaining. I knew none of the non-obvious rules, but Josh kept up an explanatory commentary. Only the objectives and events of power plays elude me.
Josh told me that the Hurricanes were ahead in standing, but there was no indication of it on the ice at first. Whenever any single Capital took the puck for a run at the Hurricanes, the Hurricanes would panic, scramble about their blocking positions, and fail to defend effectively. A single Capital on offense was more dangerous than the Hurricanes’ entire team.
After the first period, Josh commented on how quickly some of the attendees had become drunk and obnoxious. I responded, “they didn’t even make it until halftime.” Hockey is played in three periods. Fortunately, everyone within earshot was too polite to point and laugh.
The play was effectively reversed from the second period on, as the Hurricanes began to play solidly and the Capitals lost their assured and powerful method. Without effective shooting, the Capitals stopped scoring altogether, while the Hurricanes repeatedly pressed them to the goal. The Hurricanes won 6 to 2.
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| » Auto Insurance |
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I need to buy auto insurance to cover my impending purchase and my impending use of it. Who among you is insured independently of your family and has relevant knowledge and experience?
Mar. 14th, 2008 @ 05:04 pm
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| » Setting an Example |
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Priest sent off in unholy row
A footballing priest from Burkina Faso has been sent off in a church tournament for throwing his shirt at the referee in Italy. The incident happened in the Clericus Cup over the weekend with the actions of the priest leading to Paul the Apostle's College being eliminated. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/7287154.stm
Mar. 11th, 2008 @ 12:10 am
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| » Oh, By the Way |
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I wondered why I couldn't see the lake that appears in the satellite photos from my back porch. As it turns out, I just wasn't looking in the right direction.
Mar. 1st, 2008 @ 09:29 am
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| » More to See |
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This is my dining room. I own no tables.
This is my bedroom. I own no beds.
Feb. 28th, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
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| » Room with a View |
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These are pictures of and from my porch.
Feb. 25th, 2008 @ 08:50 pm
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| » A Taste of Things to Come |
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The sunrise, as seen from my bedroom window:
Feb. 24th, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
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| » Moving On Up |
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Having gone from being a homeless pedestrian to being a well-housed cyclist, I am well pleased.
Details to come.
Feb. 18th, 2008 @ 07:49 am
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| » Birthday Request |
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This year, I decided to celebrate my birthday instead of ignoring it. However, the necessities of establishing my new career and the life it will enable took precedence, and I am currently deployed to a client site. Though I usually do not solicit gifts, I am using this occasion to make a substantial request.
For my birthday, I ask you for a time and a plan.
The time I ask you for is a period that we might spend together in mutual enjoyment and enrichment. The plan I ask you for is a workable arrangement by which you and I might secure transportation and other necessities in order to spend that time together.
Because I am expanding my transportation ability and my deployment schedule is under development, I will probably be more able to travel in the coming months. If you wish to fulfil my request but are currently unable to do so, please submit a response anyway so that we might be prepared for when it becomes viable.
Feb. 13th, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
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| » Retread |
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On Sunday, my employer and I went to the Town Center at Cobb, a shopping mall in Kennesaw, GA. As soon as we entered, I realized that I had been there before. Four years ago, I walked this mall with my sisters Sarah and Fiata. We browsed the bookstore together, and Fiata and I mused about the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Manga we wished that we had money to buy and time to read. While buying chocolate bunnies, they joked about how the bunnies might respond to having certain body parts bitten off.
At that time, I could never have dreamed of the life I'm building for myself now, the adventures I've lived since, or the person I have made myself. Though I cannot describe with certainty how much I and the world around me have changed since then, seeing this place reminded me of both these sisters, the times we spent together closely and the times we spent apart purposefully, and how I miss them both.
Feb. 11th, 2008 @ 01:02 am
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| » Work It |
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I've done a poor job of keeping people who care up to date on where I am and what I'm doing. I've been writing an epic post on the entirety of my job search and its results, but I don't know when I'll finish that.
I accepted a position as Associate Software Developer and the first employee of Open Software Integrators, LLC, an open-source consulting startup. I will spend half of my working time at IsisIT, a small IT firm in Chapel Hill, NC. I have found an apartment complex in Carrboro, NC, and will move there soon.
I will spend the other half of my working time consulting at various client sites in the United States. I am currently on-site in Kenessaw GA, a northwestern suburb of Atlanta. I expect to return to Blacksburg on or about February 17th.
Feb. 8th, 2008 @ 12:15 am
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| » Cranked That |
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Being uncool, I stopped listening to the radio and watching most television years ago, and am out of touch with most recent music. In casual conversation, I mentioned Soljah Boy's song and dance to my employer, and he looked up the video on youtube.
Having only heard Crank That while watching drunken college students dance to it or enjoying the remix with Clive Barker's percussion, I had never seen the video. I was mislead by Souljah Boy's voice, which is much older than his face. I assumed he was a grown man.
My employer and I instantly recognized many of the costume and dance elements from All That, In Living Color, and the videos Kriss Kross, Pubic Enemy, and Master P. Maybe the retro trend will shift around to the last ten to fifteen years, and I'll become cool again.
Feb. 4th, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
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| » Conversation Killer |
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Note to the general public: Bringing up April 16th upon meeting a recent Virginia Tech graduate usually leads to an awkward moment.
Feb. 1st, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
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| » Dropping Eaves |
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Being in a place filled with interesting conversation is a singular pleasure. In any restaurant I enter and on any busy street I walk, the people around me fill my ears with profound academic discussion. I hear people talking about features of the local economy and how they were produced by historical events, the comparative merits of video game consoles, and how presidential candidates' successes and failures depend on their visual appearances. Perhaps after I settle in, I'll join the conversation.
Jan. 31st, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
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| » It's Real Out Here |
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Mail-order pot scheme may have led to armed robbery
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-919446.cfm DURHAM -- A scheme involving mail-order marijuana may have led to an armed robbery Saturday at the Extended Stay America hotel on Tower Boulevard.
According to a five-page search warrant filed Saturday afternoon at the Durham County Magistrate's Office, several people including employees of the hotel were robbed at gunpoint after a package containing approximately 10 pounds of marijuana went missing from the hotel.
As officers on patrol were told to be on the lookout for the vehicle, police searched the hotel for gunshot victims and, although they didn't find any, they did find several bullet holes in the hotel's walls.
According to Smith's affidavit, two other male victims of the robbery gave the same account. One of the men said the armed men took $50 from him, while the other told the investigator he was made to lie down before the two shots were fired. The third man, the employee who called the woman to come handle the package situation, told police that the whole incident related to "a missing package containing approximately 10 pounds of marijuana" that was delivered to the hotel and then was lost.
The woman, the male employee told investigators, was supposed to receive $500 for accepting the package and holding it for pick up by a man named "Perry." The male employee was also supposed to benefit from holding the package, he said, but his reward had not been set in stone.
________________________________________ ___________________________________ I stayed at this hotel from Tuesday through last night. Immediately after reading this article, my employer used all of his frequent lodger points to move me to the Residence Inn in Chapel Hill. Noting that I "managed to find the seediest place in town, even this whole area," he declared Open Software Integrators' new policy that candidates/new employees would no longer choose their hotels.
Jan. 28th, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
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