Dichotomy...

Nothing beats having 2 Take 5s, some Jelly Bellys, and a Diet Dr. Pepper for lunch. Everyone else went to Red Robin. Not me though. I have too much work to do today. Also, my car's in the shop, again, for the same reason. The manager there seems really gruff and obstinate. I can't wait until we get in a fight over how I'm not going to be paying them to fix the same problem twice when they didn't fix it the first time, not to mention the inconvenience of not having my car for (so far) 3 days of the last 11. At least Emily doesn't take her car to work, so I've been able to borrow it, which I really appreciate, but hate having to do because it's just such an inconvenience to her. My car had better in as good shape as teh day it rolled off the assmebly line when I get it back. If not, I'm going straight to the corporate office (by bus) and demanding not only a full refund of what I've paid so far, but also for them to pay someone else more competent to fix it, and for a loaner car. Sigh. Okay, my 10 minutes lunch break is over, time to get back to working my ass off. I think I might just take tomorrow off the way things have been going for me this week.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

Because Haloscan won't let me use standard HTML tags in comments for this post, I'm posting my comments here. Tommy posited that Friendship cannot be quantified, but according to R. Stevens' assertions, it can, in fact, be defined as follows:

Friends = [log_Lonely(Boring * Time)]^-1

More interestingly, because everyone knows time is money, Money can be defined as follows:

Money = {-Drama ± [Drama² + 4*(Lonely)^1/Friends]^1/2}/2

Also, in an unrelated mathematical equation:

Adam = Nerd

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments

Also last night, we had Vocelli pizza. I keep seeing their drivers around and I've gotten a couple fliers, so I figured we'd give them a try. Their sicilian pizza was made with chibatta crust and their sausage was nice and spicy. Emily and I almost ate the entire pizza it was so good. Maybe the couple remaining pieces will be my dinner tonight before poker. Mmmm...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments

Math according to Diesel Sweeties:

Lonely = (Boring * Time)^Friends, where Boring = Drama + Time.

Lonely = ((Drama * Time) + Time²)^Friends

This made a lot more sense in the comic before I tried to actually write out the formula... It's just like most of the other math I learned in college. I can do it, but I'll be damned if I understand what finding the density of a 5th dimensional object actually means.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments

Naturally, it got worse. I almost got in another accident on the way home. And I got two letters from the IRS saying that I did my taxes wrong and I owe them money rather than the other way around. It's possible, but I usually double check my math pretty carefully. And then to top it all off, my check engine light came on again, with the exact same DTC as last time. My car was in the shop 2 days last week to get it fixed, and they didn't fix crap. I was all ready to throw a fit, but the way the rest of the day went, by that point I really just didn't care anymore. Tomorrow I'll try to work up the energy to make an irate phone call to the store manager. Should be fun... On the plus side, I got a nice postcard from my dad from Brussels, and my working out is actually progressing. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoother or I might just come home and crawl back into bed until next week.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

Can I get a redo? Sometimes life needs a reset button like my NES... I couldn't get to sleep last night, and then when I did, I kept waking up from bad dreams. At 6:30, one of them left me staring at the ceiling for an hour trying to figure out what the hell it meant. Then I dozed off again only to be awakened by another bad dream and then the subsequent annoyance of my alarm clock. This morning I sent someone 5 emails in 15 minutes because I kept forgetting little details. I almost got in a wreck leaving my apartment complex because of the repaving and there's only one lane in and out now and you can't see what's coming down the road. *sigh* Maybe the rest of the day will get better. At least it can't get too much worse. *cue ominous music to foreshadow impending doom* I should have just called in sick today. I'm not, but I probably could have used a personal day.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

There was some damned good basketball on last night. Sure, Memphis crushed Bradley, but I didn't get to see the game, so who cares. Duke lost. *does a victory dance* Yeah yeah yeah, so I had them picked to win it all. See, if I pick the team I hate the most to win it all, they I win either way. They lose, I'm happy. They win it all, I'm happy I was right. Plus, I really thought Duke was going to bounce back from their month-long slump at some point. Their victory over GW last week seemed to be teh beginning, but as it turned out if was just teh beginning of teh end. JJ has been obliterating his potential draft status with each shoddy performance, while Sheldon has just been getting better and better. Also, who's the inside man next year? Josh McRoberts is a beast. Even when Duke loses 2 All-Americans, they're still going to be a strong team... Bastards. In other important news, the two late games were well worth staying up for. WVU vs. Texas. Down 3 with second remaining, WVU ball. Pittsnoggle for 3! It's good! Tie game! Everyone in the crowd is on their feet cheering. We're going to overtime! But wait!! 5 seconds still on the clock... Texas inbounds immediately, catches WVU offguard, drives the floor, dishes it to the wing. 0.8 seconds. Paulino fires a 3. *bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt* *swish* Time expires, Texas hits a 3 at the buzzer, Longhorns win!! Holy crap... And then, after all that, there's still the Zags and Bruins. UCLA had been down something like 17, and pulled back to within 7 points with a couple minutes go. Gonzaga just collapses. UCLA comes up with a few huge defensive stops, a couple forced turnovers from full-court pressure, a steal off an in-bound, and some lucky shots. Adam Morrison looks like he is about to burst into tears. Suddenly, UCLA is up 1 with fractions of a second on the clock. Zags, who haven't scored in 3:30 minutes are forced to foul. Afflalo misses the first but makes the second, giving Gonzaga a chance to win with a desperation 3 that doesn't go. Bruins win, Zags remain most overrated tournament team ever. Morrison crumples into crying heap at center court. Not since the last GT game have I watched such a complete and utter end-game collapse. UCLA deserved that game the way they finished it. Here's hoping tonight's games are even half as exciting.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments

On the way back from lunch there was a rather nice accident right outside the office. Several police cars made seeing what happened rather difficult. But it appeared that an unmarked squad car had collided with another vehicle. Now, I don't watch Cops hardly at all any more, and I avoid World's Wildest Police Chases like the plague, but this had the definite look of a PIT maneuver. Kind of makes me wonder what was going on. It looked like it got cleaned up pretty quickly though, so no news cameras arrived in time, and likely it won't be on the news at all. Too bad, I was hoping my license plate might be on TV and become famous. Oh well.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

The last couple days have been pretty lousy. I discovered on Saturday that my car was leaking oil like a sieve. I had a couple other things I wanted to fix, so I finalyl broke down and took it to my mechanic. It's all fixed up now, but the cost has precluded any remaining shred of hope that I would be getting myself a new computer for my birthday. The most annoying thing is that I know I could do 95% of the work that they did by myself if I had a garage to work in instead of the frigid outdoors, and for probably a 1/4 of the cost. Obviously, my time is worth something, but certainly not $60/hour in labor. *sigh* I had a crappy day at work on Monday and I knew yesterday wasn't going to be any better. Nothing went right on Monday at all, so that was awesome. Yesterday, I spent the whole day at Lockheed an dI went out knowing that, even though it was supposed to be, nothing would have gotten set up yet. So my poor Navy witnesses were grumpy because I'm wasting their time trying to get my stuff set up. Oh well. I got my testing done eventually. I got my car back. Emily made a good dinner, and I got a good night's sleep last night. Today I have a big long meeting about signal processing, that I only vaguely understand. My DSP days were few in number, but since most of our signal processing is digital, I'm trying to understand it. Funcamentally, I understand what's going on, but when we get into the nitty gritty of what parameters are doing what, I get kind of lost. *shrug* I still have a ton of other stuff I need to get done this week. so hopefully, I'll have time to do it this afternoon and over the next couple days. Ben's been here the last couple days on spring break looking for a job. He was off to an interview this morning and I believe he's got one tomorrow as well, so things are at least progrerssing for him. Anyway, speaking of having lots to do, I'd better get back to it.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments

I learned something interesting today. Apparently, the Rock Hyrax's closest living relative is not something that you might expect. You know, somehting small and fuzzy, like a groundhog perhaps. Nope, instead it's something big and relatively hairless, like an elephant. I dunno, I don't see the similarity, but it's hard to argue with genetics. In related news, I think I read this correctly, but somewhere recently, I read that humans and chimps actually have more genes in common than chimps and other primates. This is likely an indication that at some point when we split away from the rest of the great apes, we then split again into what would become modern day chimps and what would eventually become humans. I think this is fascinating personally, strange since I hated biology... Linko!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

In vaguely-sports-related news, Jeremy and his wife came back from their vacation to Vegas last week. He was telling me the other day about a palce out there where you can rent a Ferrari for something like $300 a day. I would pay $300 for 24 hours in the Nevada desert with a Ferrari. Easy. Curiosity got the best of me eventually, so I checked into that kind of thing in this area. I don't have that kind of money just laying around for even a half-weekday. *sigh* Also, you only get the first 100 miles for free, then each mile is extra. Plus there's a hefty security deposit, and you have to be 25 and have a clean driving record and uber-coverage on your insurance. Still... I don't know what kind of nonsense Jeremy was talking about in Vegas, but if I ever get out there, rest assured, I will be going in search of a $300 Ferarri. In my searching however, I did turn up something more in my affordability range. I'm giving serious thought (okay, not really) about next time we visit Emily's parents, I'll be flying and getting met at the airport in my very own (for the day) Lotus. Mmmm... This whole conversation was spurred by the fact that I have a Porsche Carerra GT as my desktop wallpaper in my office. It's fun to dream at least... There are a couple other places in other cities I found that rent Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Vipers, Porsches, 'Vettes, Ford GTs, etc. Maybe if I win the lottery that I don't play.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

I think it's interesting that 10 out of the 12 ACC teams were/will be engaged in post-season tournaments (Virginia already lost their NIT-opener to Stanford). Duke, UNC, BC, and NC State are in the NCAA Tourney. Maryland, FSU, Miami, Clemson, UVA, and Wake are NIT-bound. Who's left out? GT and VT. Damned "East Coast Liberal (Arts) Media" bias strikes again - the two Tech schools don't get to play post-season games. Meanwhile, last place Wake gets an NIT-bid? Where's the justice in that? Sure they got hot in March, beating NC State twice, and FSU after their big Duke upset, and even giving Duke a solid half before falling apart. And at least Wake has a .500+ overall record now. But I still say it's madness (no pun intended)! There's isn't a better mid-major team you could have invited instead? Oh well. Anyway, it's that time of year when I leave ESPN.com open all day with a constant refresh and agonize over trying to choose a 12-5 upset and not picking more than 2 1-seeds into the Final Four. I might have to take some time off the next 2 weeks when the action really heats up...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

Mmmm, free circular brownies... I love how often I get free treats at work. I'd rather get free money (bonuses), but brownies are almost as good. Especially since the brownies are leftovers from Tom Davis's visit which I didn't even attend, and bonuses require me to actually do something above and beyond. Which reminds me, it's getting to be yearly performance evaluation time, I should probably see if my manager wants to set something up soon.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments

Tom Davis came by the office today. Apparently, half the office thought this was some huge deal. I've met the guy before, he's very nice, but I have work to do and don't need to be spending 45 minutes in some hand-shaking event with a Congressman. Also, if you're going to invite someone "important" to come by the office, shouldn't you choose a day when it's not in complete disarray from construction and powerwashing the entrance? Seems like a no-brainer to me, but then again, there's got to be a reason I'm not in charge of public relations things like this (apart from being extremely introverted). I'm not really sure what he was here for, just sort of a meet-and-greet deal, and I think he wanted to see some of what we're working on. We don't have an operational lab at the moment because of moving lab space around, so I dunno what he actually got a tour of. *shrug* At least half of our software didn't get deleted by a McAfee update, like another company I know... Suckers. We don't let other software destroy our work, we just do it ourselves. "cd /; rm -rf *" Whoops. Silly Dave...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

Not too much going on I suppose. Emily's job is going well. Her parents arrive tonight with a truckload of furniture for her apartment, so no doubt it will be a busy weekend. The weather has gotten amazingly nice for a couple days. I believe it's pushing 80 outside right now, but it's so windy that it doesn't wuite feel that way. No doubt it will be in the 40s again next week, so we'll just enjoy the nice weather while it lasts. There's been some good basketball on recently. Lots of close games and near-upsets to go along with the usual miracle upsets. It's going to be a good NCAA tournament this year. Tech lost to Maryland yesterday (while I was at Lockheed), obliterating any hope of a NCAA bid (we would have to have won the ACC tournament to get an auto-bid). But I see a promising young team,a nd I think we'll be a tough team to beat next year. For now, I'm going to enjoy the upcoming March Madness. This time of year I always get itchy to go play ball myself. I wish I had a basketball still, and a hoop to shoot at. Oh well. It's been probably 10 years since I've even dribbled a ball, so who knows what kind of ugly shot I might still have left. Maybe Emily's got a hoop at her apartment...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

Emily's first day or work with RAND starts today! She got up at 6 am to head out to the Metro. Yikes. There's a 6 in the morning now? Since when? I am so lucky to be able to roll into work at 9:30 and to have a 5 minute commute. If I ever change jobs or move, it's going to take a lot of getting used to... In any case, I just wanted to with Emily good luck on her big first day! I'm sure it will go fine and be full of meeting people, filling out paperwork, and getting her phone and computer setup. Ah, the first day of work... Congrats baby!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

Free strawberries dipped in dark chocolate is a pretty good way to start your morning. Mmmmm...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments

Oh it just gets better and better... Now there are 3 people involved and it's turned to the next NBA draft and which college players are going to get drafted where. The problem with this conversation is I'm struggling very hard to stay out of it because I want to throw in my two cents, mostly because I disagree with ther other people having this conversation. *sigh* Time to go shut my office door and turn up winamp.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

The two people in the office next to mine have been talking about dunks for the last 30+ minutes. "it was so sick!!" "i was all hoooooly sh....." "dude is crazy ill" what? NBA all-star weekend is long gone, and so is the dunk contest. I know ESPN has been running some highlight show of the best dunks ever, but good lord, do you really need to talk about it at work as loud as possible for half an hour? Don't you have actual work to do? I know I do. Sure, I might waste 5-10 minutes here and there talking with Todd or Manish or Dave abotu video games or computer stuff that isn't work related, but 30 straight minutes? Grrr...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments